Jun 25, 2009

1989 the Number

I can't quite believe it's been 20 years since Do the Right Thing came out. I must have seen it in the theater, like, 10 times. I used to own the VHS tape, the two soundtracks, the T-shirt. It led me to what was my slightly-embarrassing-to-recall white-college-boy black nationalist phase: I read Malcolm's biography, got deep into It Takes a Nation of Millions, grew a reddish goatee (I wish I were kidding). I also followed Spike's career sympathetically for a while--I think I'm the only person I know who liked Mo Better Blues, and I half-heartedly defended the rather lame Jungle Fever. Of course, by the time Spike made his own mediocre movie about Malcolm, I had moved on, though I still listen to Bill Lee's lovely, mournful jazz-orchestral score for DTRT pretty frequently.

All of which is to say that while this interview with Henry Louis Gates Jr. may barely skim the surface, it comes as a welcome bit of nostalgia for me.

3 comments:

Bobby said...
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Bobby said...

I can't believe I am admitting this in public but I cried when I first saw Mo' Better Blues. When Denzel's character gets his lip busted and he finds playing near impossible...the thought of having my art torn away from me broke me up.

You are not alone in your love of everything Spike.

R.I.P. Radio Raheem '89

Diane Snyder said...

Did you happen to get dreadlocks when you were going through that phase? They would have gone well with the goatee, I think.