Where are all my black friends?

Fact is I don't have any, not any close black friends. Why? Well it's actually easy to explain I guess. I don't hang out in black neighborhoods or establishments and for that matter not many black people hang out in the places you can normally find me. Civil Rights may have come (and gone) but that didn't really bring us people together. Still I have been influenced strongly by several black individuals and of course Black American Culture has had a big influence on me musically.

Why am I bringing this up? Because we're six months away from Black History Month and if I'm gonna have anything to say about Black Culture, I'm doing it now away from all the hullabaloo. And why might I have anything to say about black culture? Because I keep this stupid site going and it's supposed to be about cultural affairs that inspire me, particularly in the city where I live.

This city happens to be a pivot point of Black American Culture. It's where Blacks came to better themselves from the rural South. It's where Blues was electrified and thrust upon the world. Chicago was Martin Luther King Jr's last home, Malcom X and Fred Hampton's as well. It is home to Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition, Barrack Obama, Buddy Guy, R Kelly, Ebony and Jet magazines, the Nation of Islam and Oprah - to name a few.

So I'm going to spend a few posts talking about Black Culture from the perspective of a white boy who got his musical start funking up some f*cked up family memories in a band influenced by the urban black-meets-whitey college boy Texas Funk scene. If that doesn't tempt you to stay tuned, how's this? -> My great grandfather designed the first church built specifically for a black congregation in Houston; as a young boy my big black nanny drove a huge 70's Ford LTD's and used snuff; I worked summers under the wing of my own Injun Joe; I once kept Albert Collins' guitar chord from coming unplugged as he waltzed through the crowd in a Texas night club; and a couple of years ago I went on the road as the photographer for the Sears Associate Gospel Choir to the NAACP convention in Milwaukee.