Tuesday, September 13, 2011


I have had a miraculous life.  I have taught thousands of people to write and love literature over 30 odd years teaching English in L.A.'s inner city schools.' But, I have lost hundreds to hopelessness and decades if not a lifetime of functional illiteracy.  Fighting this tradition with all the means necessary has become my jihad.
The subliminal reading message in my movie "South Central" (Warner Bros. - 1992) has touched millions; and, some  who got by me the first time, now, search for my novel CRIPS like a treasure.
My book N*GG*S - The Black Curse attacked illiteracy with a satirical fervor:  "You know you are a N*GG* if your momma teaches you to dance but not to read, to curse but not to pray, gives you beer and wonders why you grew up to be an alcoholic, etc."  No kid gloves.  I will even shame youth into literacy. My motto is results not excuses.My mission is to reach them with the healing hand of literacy; my goal is 100%.
My latest weapon in this cultural war,  I, TOO, CAN CREATE LIGHT, is my memoir.  It is about Love: specifically, love for parents; and, love for a slew of children and grandchildren; but, most of all romantic love.  After 38 years of marriage to two dynamic, voluptuous women, witnessing most of 9 children's births and enduring cancer's deadly ritual with both wives, my poetry, love letters, and essays dispel darkness hovering over contemporary "love" defined by lack of commitment and illicit sex.  
Where are the African American writers who write about LOVE from generations, at least decades of experience? Not the illicit pejorative,"making love", which has nothing at all to do with commitment and much to do with socially acceptable venereal disease. But, that committed until death do us part even when you irk me, sometimes, unbelievably stressful, and it ain't never been seen on TV,
LOVE!
Well, I do write about it because I lived it and still bask in it, so I can teach it. And, if you don't want to cry, you better not read my book because I know how to touch humans deeply..  You will laugh, too, but most of all everybody that reads my book will learn something very profound about our raison d'etre.  And, you will agree with me that, I, TOO, CAN CREATE LIGHT!