The Fog

I met the original Baadasssss tonight. He showed up at a fundraiser for BlackWaxx Recordings (http://www.blackwaxx.com/) at their Jersey City studios. Other luminaries were in attendance, including Bob Law of "Night Talk" fame, who proved his finely honed wallet-squeezing skills.

Melvyn Van Peebles is 75 now, a diminutive-looking man with a white-gray beard. He wore black parachute and an orange/black bandana. His cinematographer, whose name I regret I did not catch, drove/accompanied him. We chatted about the fire in the Deutsche Bank building, south side of Ground Zero, that burned today. Weird.

Here's what I took away from him.

He said that when he was starting out -- he's been writing for film since the 1950's! -- it was like he was rowing around in the fog. He called out, "Hellooooo," but all he heard was his own voice. It was lonely but he kept rowing. Periodically, he would call out again, "Hellooooo."

Finally, once, he called, "Hellooooo," and listened hard till he heard a couple of small voices, far away, calling back -- "Helloooo." He rowed in what seemed like their direction, and they did the same. Eventually, they met up and made contact. Together, they rowed on, called out, made contact with still other, like-minded artists of vision and together, they made their way and backed each other up.

Van Peebles's 1971 Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song exploded into black America, first, and then hurled itself at the rest of us, lauching more than a genre, not a movement, but the ship called Equal Opportunity, the chance to create work, control its creation and profit from its sale. As author, producer, star and director, Van Peebles owned "Song" in every way.

The thing is, he made it because he KEPT ROWING HIS OWN BOAT and worked with people whose sense of integrity was compatible with his.