BlackMan Time

Archive for March, 2007

I have reached the conclusion that, in some ways, stand up comedy share a lot in common with journalism! How, do I hear you ask? Well, they both involve communicating with an audience, albeit in different media. But whereas the stand up comedian’s job is to make that audience laugh, the journalist’s chief task is usually to inform.

Now, wouldn’t it be good if the stand up comedian could also inform while simultaneously entertain his audience? Effectively, combine the best of the stand up comedy traditions with the best journalism techniques. Now that would be neat trick!

These thoughts came to me with laser beam clarity following my debut as a stand up comedian the other night. The general consensus was that the evening was a success! In the aftermath of this everything I look at seem to suggest humour or can be made funny with some treatment.

To say the least, this is all too weird for me because I’m a serious journalist with some pithy topics to deal with, dammit!

I’m gonna have to chew over these things in private…

Something totally amazing happened last night: I experienced the power (and glory!) of being able to captivate an audience with the power of sheer talent!

This is not a bragging trip, but a revealation and discovery of yet another talent I felt I had but had never before explored. I’m talking about, of course, the ability to stand up in front of a live audience and tell them jokes and actually make them laugh!

I did just that at the BBC Club Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane, London W12 last night and the most amazing thing was the number of people stopping me afterwards to tell me “I was great!”

My five minute set consisted of jokes about the BBC and Jamaica and considering that the audience was predominantly white and middle upper class the material went down very well indeed!

I’m probably going to have to explore this comedy thing in some more detail…

Tonight is a special night in BlackMan’s life: I make my debut as a stand up comedian! I’ll be performing at the BBC Club Woodlands in London and to be honest, I am nervous and apprehensive as can be.

I won’t be doing any culture specific jokes (it’s not the right audience) but it should be interesting. Still I’m nervous…

Being this nervous is good because it sharpens my expectations and guard against me being complacent. But right now it feels totally like I’m going to die!

I spent some of last night going over my script and honing my delivery but regardless of how many times I do so it still feels like I really don’t know it! Aw, well, I hope it’ll be alright on the night because I’m going to do what I can for now.

Then stop.

I have to say hats off to journalist Toyin Agbetu of the African rights organisation Ligali for making a protest against the so-called anti-slavery abolition commemoration attended by the Queen, the UK Prime Minister and members of his government, on Saturday.

As a piece of protest it was so inspiring in its execution that it surprised everybody, including the Queen’s bodyguards and security people.

You would have thought that in these times of alleged awaked terrorist times, these security people would have been more alert, but thank goodness they weren’t because then we might have been denied the opportunity of seeing a lone voice making such big protest with such a beautifully small act.

You can read the rest here.

It has become really fashionable for Black people to deny their cultural ancestry for fear of being seen as having a chip on their shoulders. Fortunately, quite a lot of others don’t subscribe to this school of thought and I’m one of these.

When people of other races say stuff like: “Slavery was 200 years ago, why on earth would I want to remember anything like that today?” the African conscious person should quickly retort that we forget this despicable part of history at our peril. Other races remember their history in glorious ways so why should people of African descent not do so too?

I rather suspect that the (usually) European people who say stuff like the above do so mainly to assuage their own guilt feelings and to deflect that guilt back onto African people. For to acknowledge that their ancestors did commit some pretty awful atrocities on African people, all in the name of business and nation building, is to pinpoint them as the beneficiaries of blood money.

It is understandable then why Caucasians and Europeans should find this unsavoury but history does record these things having happened and being well supported by the white establishment in most countries.

Evidence of this support is the fact that slavery should have flourised for hundreds of years, putting the “Great” into Great Britain and building America. So why should Black people today care about the feelings of the descendants of colonialists, murderers and genocidal maniacs?

We’d really like to think times have changed so much and we’d really love to report that the world’s races now live in perfect harmony. But, alas, we cannot. And at this point, today, on the 200th anniversary since the end of slavery in the so-called British Empire, I do not see even such harmony will be possible in my lifetime. The elements which made slavery possible backthem is still very much alive today:-

• A great disparity between rich and poor
• A hatred of anything foreign or indienous
• A lust for money and power at any cost and
• The willingness of people to allow themselves to be demeaned in the name of earning a living.

I hope those African apologists and European guilt dodging pro-slavery beneficiaries bear this in mind as they respectively continue to deny their ancestral roots and the role their forefathers play in destabilising the African race. And even if they do, rest assured there are many conscious African people who will ensure that our history is never forgotten.

Selah.

On Saturday night/Sunday morning, people in the UK (and most of Europe) marked the beginning of spring by putting their clocks one hour forward. It’s a kind of “playing with time” ritual going back to World War 2, I believe. They sometimes call it “daylight saving.”

The basic idea is to fool people into thinking there’s more daylight than there actually is. It was said to help farmers who could rise earlier. But, in all reality, it was probably to give soldiers more time to fight during the WW2 campaign. Whicever the reason I hate this time of the year because for some reason I always used to get sick or have some kind of “funny turn”.

Maybe it was because my mind couldn’t take the time shift. Or perhaps my body had gotten used to the dark winter nights then suddenly that one our shift seem to bring up more light than I could deal with. I’ve never been able to get to the bottom of it but I feel it’s high time they stop messing about with the clocks.

Don’t you?

A few years ago the singer Prince was so unhappy with the exploitative relationship with his record company that he called himself “Symbol” or “AFKAP” (Artist Formerly Known As Prince) and refused to be called or recognised as Prince. We all applauded and thought “how weird” or “how inventive”, depending on our perspective.

When he started to equate his treatment to that of being a slave, many thought he was a little too far up his own a**e and he lost sympathy.

Today, the 200th anniversary since the abolition of slavery in Britain, we have some joker on the BBC’s sports forum equating the youth development policy of English Premier league club a**enal to slavery was not even funny. “It (slavery) is still sadly present at a**enal football club, where young African boys are ripped from their homeland.”

My response pulled no punches. “It is an insult and a trivialisation of history’s most despicable act of inhumanity to Africans, to even compare the plight of many millions of black people with the professional practice of liberated high earning footballers,” is how I began.

Halfway through came a revealation that the poster was “only joking” that he was simply “having a laugh.” He (along with others) apparently thought I was taking things too seriously and that I should lighten up. I refusd to “lighten up” because I felt the subject matter was too sensitive to allow anyone to minimalise it with senseless comments.

I wish some people would just grow up or keep silent if they have nothing worthwile to say…

The problem with the England football team is not the amount of money international players get or make. It is mainly tactical and administrative: Steven McLaren has so far not delivered in this department.

People have been quick to laugh at Sven’s achievement as manager, but at least under Sven England won games and scored goals. McLaren’s England team doesn’t seem to know a goal mouth even if it comes up and kisses them on both cheeks!

This has to be said: current English managers don’t have what it takes and the FA was probably right to consider Scolari, but bottled it and caved in to public (and media) pressure to appoint a local man, even an underachieving one!

The present Premiership league table shows the highest place English manager is 5th place (Bolton’s Sam Allardyce) and only 4 out of the top ten teams are led by Englishmen. So 60% of the top achieving clubs are foreigners.

English football is reaping the awards for appointing a manager just because he is English and not because he was actually the best man for the job. Because of this English fans will continue to suffer and England are and will remain a bunch of idea-less misfits without a manager who can get the best out of the talent pool of players in the England squad.

Hope you’re sitting comfortably!

Out of the clear blue sky retired Metropolitan police chief Sir John Stevens has made a sensational revelation.

Interviewed in today’s News Of The World (NOTW) he has come out and ‘revealed’ that there are as many as 200 Osama bin Laden trained terrorists in the UK and that the government should do whatever it can to speed up the introduction of its proposed Prevention of Terrorism Act.

If he knows this much and has the evidence why doesn't he hand it over to the regular police and let them handle it? He has not done so yet in his NOTW article Sir John stresses the importance of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, a Bill which narrowly scraped through the Commons by just 14 votes, and which faces further opposition when it comes to the committee stage in the House of Lords next week.

This Bill is intended to introduce control orders for terrorist suspects enabling the authorities to impose curfews, tagging, bans on telephone and internet use, as well as house arrest in the most serious cases.

And guess which kind of people will more than likely be the usual suspects and most likely to be affected by such measures? That’s right: give yourself full marks if you say people of Black/African ancestry, especially those in the Muslim community!

One Word

Now, there is only one word for this: racism, scaremongering and political expediency! Actually, that’s more than just one word so please excuse the simply deliberate miscalculation and the maths!

Maybe by making such absurd claims in obvious support of the government’s desire to rush through the Terrorism… Bill, Sir John is proving to be a much more calculating person than I. But, his maths does not add up!

It is just too convenient on the eve of such a Bill for him to just come up with such claims. Call me sceptical but I think he is playing around with the truth and it’s a good job he’s retired because policemen who messes with reality is a menace to any society.

Or maybe, just maybe, he is absolutely right and we are on the brink of a terrorist attack here in Britain, something that has never happened before, apart from IRA activities, yet no one has ever called for anything like what is being called for now.

Should Sir John be proved right then I would take everything back. But, until then I firmly believe that pigs dressed in blue (and black) can actually fly and are now this moment hovering over Downing Street and within the ranks (and minds) of retired scaremongering policemen, all over the UK.

Oink, oink!