Sign 'O' the Times 25 Year Anniversary

by C. Liegh McInnis

Hey Y’all,

            Today began early this morning at 8:00 a.m. with me attending the Hinds County Democratic Caucus as a drafted/forced delegate from my precinct.  I only agreed to do it because my father informed me that this would be his last act as Chair of the Hinds County Democratic Executive Committee, and he would like me to represent my precinct because Clinton does not have as many active democrats as other districts.  After those morning duties I graded midterm papers and read submissions for Black Magnolias.  While I usually get a lot of work done when Monica is gone, she emailed from the Gulf Coast with the grandnieces and grandson to tell me that while checking her emails, she read that today is the twenty-five year anniversary release of Sign “O” the Times with the added note, “Twenty-five years!  Good Lawd!  You old playa!!!”

            As I smiled at her email, I began to calculate.  Purple Rain (1984) is twenty-eight years old.  Dirty Mind (1980), the record that made me a Prince fan, is thirty-two years old.  Dirty Mind has special memory for me because it was the awakening of what music could be as it is an intersection or a seamless amalgamation of soul, funk, and rock and the socio-political mantra of the individual:  Eff the arbitrary indoctrination of this world filled with mindless cowards, revolution of the individual, now let’s funk and roll!  It is also much of the material Prince was performing when he opened for Rick James as someone in their infinite wisdom thought it would be a good idea for me, a ten-year old, to attend that show.  Whether it was a good idea or not, I’ve been an individual funkateer since that night.  “Reproduction of the New Breed…”  And in 1987, Sign “O” the Times presented my favorite Prince, angry Prince, proving to the world that he could still funk, rock, and soul better than anyone.  Sign “O” the Times followed two very metaphysical and eclectic albums, Around the World in a Day (1985) and Parade (1986), which, of course, heightened Prince’s mad genius, pop/rock icon status, but also worked to lessen his popularity in the ‘hood.  I, for one, didn’t care about his lessened popularity in the ‘hood, especially when I heard all the bull that was supposed to be more streetwise than Prince now was.  I was enjoying the lyrical metaphysical ride with a kaleidoscope of sounds.  Yet, at seventeen it did become a bit annoying to hear, “Man, Prince done sold out; he ain’t bringin’ it like he used to..”  So when he dropped Sign “O” the Times, and it crushed the competition, I walked around with a silly smirk on my face at all the fake b-boys who thought they were funky.  (Okay, in truth, some of those dudes were on the school bus, amazed that Prince had come that “hard” and that “real” talking about gangs and drug use.  Of course, my response to them was, “Prince has always been that hard and real, but some people are just not analytical enough to get it.  Yeah, teachers have been writing ‘does not play well with others’ on my report card my entire life.)  But more importantly, Sign “O” the Times reminded me of the vastness of Black music.  It was all that had come before with more possibility of what could be.  It is James Brown as the sweat and funk of “Housequake,” especially the live version.  It is Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield in the message of “Sign ‘O’ the Times”.  It is the funky horns and grooves of Brown and Parliament/Funkadelic in “It’s Gonna Be a Beautiful Night.”  It is Al Green and Luther Vandross showing that soul music is rooted in gospel as “Adore.”  It is Jimi Hendrix’s physical questioning and metaphysical answers in “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man” and “The Cross.”  It is the nasty cafés and juke joints of “It.”  It is the great poetry of Smokey Robinson in “Forever in my Life” and even more well-crafted poetry in “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker” with a groove that would inspire a new generation of neo-soul folk like D’Angelo and Angie Stone.  It is the Saturday night slow grind groove of “Slow Love.”  It is the experimental form of digitized soul with jazz sensibility in “Hot Thang” and even more experimental sounds laced with poetry that celebrates the beauty and power of positive self-esteem in “Star Fish and Coffee.”  It is Prince’s Stevie Wonder, Gaye, and Mayfield ability to craft poetry and sound that reflect the dichotomy of being flesh and spirit in “Strange Relationship.”  And, it is the funky simmer of “If I Was Your Girlfriend” with the unapologetic metaphysical thinker/poet who didn’t really care if most radio listeners aren’t analytical enough to follow subtly or irony.  Plainly put, while many critics assert that it is Around the World in a Day with its psychedelic funk and roll and daringness to be released after Purple Rain that elevates Prince to icon status, it is Sign “O” the Times that made him a legend.  And for my mind and ears, it fulfills two needs.  It provides a plethora of sound while boldly asserting, as most of his albums, that physical problems are merely symptoms of or results of metaphysical problems, and as long as we try to solve metaphysical problems with physical solutions—drugs, sex, money, and status—we will continue to travel the road of chaos and destruction.  Thus, it was only appropriate that the album following Sign “O” the Times is the third greatest concept record of all time (after Stevie Wonder’s Secret Life of Plants and Marvin Gaye’s Here My Dear) Lovesexy, which is the apex of the metaphysical journey until the much later Rainbow Children (2001).

            Prince cancelled the US leg of the Sign “O” the Times tour, opting to use the concert movie as an alternative.  The cancelling of the US tour and the releasing of “If I Was Your Girlfriend” all but killed the momentum that the album had been building.  As former road manger Allen Leeds stated, “Sometimes, Prince could be too smart or daring for his own good.”  Radio wants an uncomplicated jam, not a lyrical puzzle that questions how gender perceptions affect the relationships between men and women, with an easily misunderstood title that causes most males to think they now have affirmation of Prince’s sexuality.   While few Americans saw the film, Ricky Graham (my closest non-family friend) and I saw Sign “O” the Times sixty times in thirty days at the old dollar movie just off J. R. Lynch Street.  There was a 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. showing, and we would pay a dollar and stay for both showings.  But, in truth, the theatre manager stopped charging us after the first week, and even gave us a bag of the stale dollar movie popcorn and flat sodas for free.  The first night he offered this, the look on my face prompted him to say, “Purple people gotta stick together.  We are surrounded by fools that either don’t kno’ the funk or be tryin’ to fake da funk.”  With that, we took our stale popcorn and flat sodas and enjoyed a month-long run of one of the greatest concert films made.  And twenty-five years later, the album and film still crush most of what can be put beside them.  Peace and be funky, no matter how old you are.

C. Liegh McInnis

Mississippi Innocence Project, Joe York, Radley Balko

I went to a screening of Joe York's Mississippi Innocence Project film last night, and I was moved nearly to tears, even though I have been following Radley Balko's coverage of the cases covered in this film, as well as other cases in Mississippi and Louisiana involving  former Mississippi medical examiner Steve Haynes and proported "bite-mark expert" Michael West.

As a former medical secretary who worked in two different hospital pathology departments, even having been in this admittedly peripheral position, I could recognize some areas of suspension of normal protocols (at least they would have been in the Memphis hospitals in which I worked). And more astonishing, I have not worked in that field since 1973, when one would expect things to have been in a more rudimentary and less professional phase than now.  Apparently not in the state of Mississippi.

I had kept up on these cases and hadn't yet gone to see the film, but I'm glad that I finally did (drawn by the chance to hear Balko in person).  A few things had slipped by my mind without sticking, and this was a chance to have it graphically glued to my admittedly "holey" memory; plus there were a few tidbits served up that I don't remember hearing before. For those of you who are not familiar with these cases or the Mississippi Innocence Project, I highly recommend that you view this film.  You will be touched, outraged, and frightened by what you will see - although true, it is a horror story to beat anything presented by Stephen King or John Carpenter.

That old thing about a picture being worth a thousand words is as true now as it was centuries ago.  Seeing these two innocent men, Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer and what they went thru because of our fractured  criminal justice system, and having it brought home that these miscarriages of justice do not simply affect the wrongly accused and their families, but also allow the real criminals to continue to roam free and carry out further crimes at will, was powerful, frightening and disturbing. Hats off to Tucker Carrington and the other folks at the Mississippi Innocence project for getting out there and doing the hard work of holding our criminal justice system accountable, from law enforcement to pathologists to judiciary, and to Joe York and his team for the marvelous presentation and the incisive presentation of the facts in his documentaries.

Pondering the fact that one little girl is no longer with us, because the criminal justice system broke down and allowed her rapist and murderer to stay free and do the same thing to her that he had done to the first little girl is deeply sad and disheartening.

Thank God for those like Mr. Balko (journalist), Joe York (filmmaker) and Tucker Carrington (of the Mississippi Innocence Project) and all those others who helped make this documentary and these groundbreaking investigations possible (folks like John Grisham, Barry Schenck and Peter Neufeld, et al).

Unschoolers Learn What They Want, When They Want: A Response

[By guest blogger, C. Leigh McInnis. McInnis has published poetry, fiction, and essays in several journals, magazines, and newspapers, is the author of seven books, the editor and publisher of Black Magnolias Literary Journal, and he teaches creative writing and world literature at Jackson State University.  He can be contacted at Psychedelic Literature or C. Leigh McInnis .]

Hey Y’all,

The following comments are my response to the article, “Unschoolers Learn What They Want, When They Want,” which was sent to me a couple of days ago. 

Mostly, I am not against alternative types of schooling, whether it is homeschooling or any other program that a parent thinks will induce the best from their child.  And I also realize that many children do learn many different ways, so I am not quick to minimize any form of learning.  However, what often bothers me when alternative forms of schooling, such as homeschooling or charter schools, are presented or celebrated is how very basic facts are omitted for the sake of showing the alternative form in a better light.  For instance, “Approximately 90% of Sudbury Valley’s graduates go on to college (compared with 69% of graduates from the public education system).”  The problem with this statistic is that it does not consider two variables.  One, parents who tend to opt for alternative schooling, such as homeschooling, charter, and private schools, tend to be more affluent with a higher level of education, which translates to their children being exposed to a more constructive or positive atmosphere regarding education as well as having a solid academic foundation developed in the home.  (And this is true of most of my friends whose children attend African centered schools also.)  Two, the top ten percent of public school graduates tend to perform at or equal to the same level as the top ten percent of alternative schooling graduates, and the common link is that these two groups have parents who invest the proper amount of time and effort.  In contrast, then, what lowers the percentage of college enrollment for public school graduates is not the curriculum or the teaching but two very simple facts/variables.  One, public schools must admit students with all types of learning and behavioral disorders whereas private and charter schools tend to have a very low number of students with learning and behavioral disorders unless they specialize in this area, and, two, public schools have a higher percentage of parents who, for whatever reason, do not invest the same time and effort with their children as the parents whose children perform in that aforementioned top ten percent.  So, if we consider all factors/variables, it seems that the success of alternative schooling is not based on the curriculum or the teachers but on the types of parents who are able to enroll their children in various types of alternative schooling.

A second fallacy presented is that public school “…keeps trying to do what it can’t do, which is make every child learn everything in the whole wide world. It’s like heading toward a cliff.”  Maybe I have not attended the same type of public school, but I have never experienced this.  If by saying “learn everything in the whole wide world,” one means public school is designed, ideally and for the most part, to make a child a well-rounded being, then, yes, an effective education exposes a child to various aspects of life, working to show the common links in those various aspects, teaching the child how to find “hidden likenesses,” to use a Jacob Bronowski term, in seemingly unlike things, which enhances the child’s critical thinking ability.  So, world history should coalesce with world literature or algebraic reading problems should coalesce with basic grammar, syntax, and semantic development.  Again, my issue is not to minimize alternative schooling but to show the flaw in the premise that public schooling tends to expose children to needless information that they will never apply.  The problem or hurdle for public school is that the focus on “high stakes” testing limits if not impairs the development of critical thinking because the emphasis is often on the answer and not how one arrives at the answer.  So, many students graduate high school with some facts but limited knowledge, and knowledge is understanding how to use facts to improve one’s condition or situation.  Yet, this emphasis on “high stakes” testing is not something that grew organically from public education but moreso is a reactionary, political element that serves mostly to widen the gap between rich and poor students.

Third, I return to the notion that education must be seen as a joint effort between parents and teachers.  “They have, and I think this is true of [Sudbury] alumni in general, an incredible sense of who they are and how they work, and confidence in their abilities,” Sadofsky said. “Not that they know everything, but they know how to find what they need.”  It seems that Sadofsky does not realize that this “sense” of knowing oneself and having “confidence” in one’s “abilities” is a trait that is planted and nurtured at home first and then affirmed through organized activities in the school.  Therefore, I would argue that the reason the Sudbury alumni “in general” have “an incredible sense of who they are and how they work, and confidence in their abilities” is because, in general, they are the children in that top performing ten percent who would have had these traits developed initially by their parents regardless of attending public school or an alternative school.  Accordingly, the second part of Sadofsky’s statement, “they know how to find what they need” is a trait/skill mostly developed by schooling, but teachers can only be effective in developing this trait or skill if the student has a constructive attitude, focus, and understanding of the academic process, which must be developed by the parent.  So, again, this “incredible sense of who they are and how they work, and confidence in their abilities” is not unique to alternative schooling but is a trait that most students develop if they have parents who make the proper time and effort investment, which allows the teachers to develop and teach the child how to use those personal characteristics in developing academic and professional characteristics.

Let me be clear.  Parents have a role, and teachers have a role in the effective development of a child’s academic being.  However, the academic institution is being asked to fulfill the role of parent and teacher, which puts more responsibility and weight on the academic institution than it was designed to carry.  Or, let me put it another way.  In many inner city, high poverty areas, dilapidated housing exists for three reasons.  One, the houses are old.  Two, the people living in those houses are unable to afford proper maintenance.  Three, which relates to this discussion, often there are more people living in the houses than the houses were designed to accommodate.  A three bedroom house is not designed to accommodate seven to ten people.  Those extra bodies are asking that house to do something it was not designed to do.  This is the primary issue with our public schools.  Yes, they are severely underfunded.  I would argue that they are purposefully underfunded, but the main problem is that society is asking underpaid and overworked teachers to be parents as well.  No matter how much of a great role model our favorite teacher was, that teacher was mostly affirming the values and sensibilities that the student was bringing to the classroom.  If the student is not bringing certain values and sensibilities to the classroom, then the teacher is forced to spend valuable time teaching these values and sensibilities, which limits the amount of time spent exposing the student to the academics.

Finally, the four major issues for public schools are low teacher wages (which keep the schools from attracting highly qualified and invested teachers), not enough funding to decrease the classroom size as well as to add an assistant teacher to each classroom, poor funding and management of special education services for both special needs and gifted children, and an increasing number of uninvolved and uninvested parents that have negative attitudes (for various reasons) toward education, which is passed to the children, creating an adversarial relationship between parent and teacher as well as parent and child and is made worse by the employment of underpaid, overworked teachers.  Even in a situation where a charter or private school states, “Give us your worst performing students from your worst areas,” often three of the four variables or hurdles facing public schools are removed.  Again, because private and charter schools only admit a small percentage of the students that public schools must admit, there is a smaller classroom size, which provides more effective services to identify and service gifted and special needs students.  Secondly, the teachers are less stressed, which creates improved morale in the classroom and between parent and teacher.  Yet, where charter schools are concerned, this is done with public funds.  Oh yeah, they don’t just want your children; they want the your tax dollars also.  However, if one checks the statistics, one will realize that most charter schools do not achieve greater success than public schools, especially as it relates to the top ten percent of the public school students.  So rather than creating these voucher systems for private and charter schools that only serve a select few students, how about cutting funding to prisons, defense, law enforcement, and the expense accounts of our elected officials and invest that money in education because every study proves that proper education not prisons decreases the crime rate.  I don’t want every child properly educated because I love young people.  I want every child properly educated because each child properly educated is one less person likely to rob me.

C. Liegh McInnis

2nd Annual Oxford Blues Festival

 

Kudus to Darryl Parker for a marvelous, wonderful 2nd edition of the Oxford Blues Festival.  I sadly regret that I did not have my camera on the first day and missed the opportunity to get photos of Magic Slim and the Teardrops (and they were incredible!)  I did get a few photos Saturday (limited by my camera and the ambient lighting), but they'll give you an idea of what you missed, if you didn't make it.

This was my first time to hear Magic Slim in person, and another I had never heard before was Eddie Campbell, and I loved him so much.  Effie Burt is another notable - she can really belt them out, and I love her style!

One of the great things about this festival is that it's all inside, other than tonight's festivities at Foxfire Ranch, which I will sadly miss.  Foxfire has blues every Sunday night, but this is a special associated with the blues festival.  Any Sunday night during the surmmer, though, roll on down to Foxfire and enjoy the music, the food, and the inimitable hospitality of the Hollowell family, or book your family reunion or other gathering there! They have a schedule, but aside from that, frequent drop-ins are members of the extended Burnside and Kimbrough families (of the late, great Mississippi hill country bluesmen, R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough)

Another magical thing is never knowing who is likely to drop in on a set - Mark "Muleman" Massey  in particular at Soulshine Pizza - we got not only the marvelous Effie Burt, but also an electric performance from Garry Burnside, mixed in with some gritty Mississippi magic from Muleman and band. 

Grassroots Blues Festival in Duck Hill, MS 2011

Here are some photos (although I'm gonna gripe because there wasn't adequate stage lighting and the after dark photos pretty well suck - and these are the best of many I took and discarded).  I did a little video of Little Willie Farmer and some of the women dancing during his set (even though they're dark, you still get a sense of the talent).  One of these women danced most of the music all day like a play set to dance, with all the emotions and she sang along with most of the songs (even though you couldn't hear her, if you read lips, you could  read hers).  Her sister joined her for part of the time and another lady, none of whose names I was smart enough to get.  If anyone wants to supply names, please let me know.

As usual I missed some folks I really wanted to see, but I'm getting too old to sit out in that noonday sun too long.