fecundmellow presents: summer m.'s favorite white men
last weekend, i was talking to saf and josiah about some random shit, and the topic of white dudes came up. i have no idea why, but i started thinking about my favorite white men (read: white men i can semi-tolerate). coming up with this list was tough, but for you, my reading public, i'll endure (faulkner swipe). i'm sure there's a white guy or two you might be able to stand. ok, maybe not.


mark twain: oh yeah, my main man mark twizzle. mark twain is my nigga, i can't front. not only did he write like the greatest american novel ever (huck finn), he was also a funny muthafucka. not only that, but here's some knowledge for you: mark twain is (in)directly connected to the civil rights movement. see, walter t. mcguinn was the first black graduate of yale law school. before setting up legal practice in baltimore, md., however, it seems walt was having some problems. mark twain wrote yale a letter, and proceeded to pay the tuition for the financially struggling mcguinn. mcguinn would later mentor a young thurgood marshall, who as we all know, went on to serve as legal counsel for the brown v. board trial, and subsequently became the first black supreme court justice (later replaced by clarence thomas. ugh!). how 'bout them apples?

perhaps in a sense this might be some white patriarchy shit, but to simply deem it as such would be some bullshit.

william faulkner: for those of you who don't know, the very title of this blog (fecundmellow) comes from wild billy f. i guess when he couldn't find a sufficient term he made up one. anyway, i have a love/hate relationship with this southern boy. i mean, shit. sometimes i'm on some, 'william faulkner is a literary genius shit.' other days i'm on some, 'william faulkner was a crazy drunk.' iono. i go back and forth. i love him; i hate him. i still don't understand every aspect of "the bear" or absalom, absalom!. but i do know this: whenever i think about quitting my bullshit-ass ph.d. program, i think about billy, and how he's one of the few writers that remind me of why i put myself through this. people often say freud cast a helluva shadow on the 20th century. i'm convinced that faulkner cast a pretty big one, too. all the writers that mean anything to me are in dialogue with him, imho. oh, i love my billy f., the drunk genius.

'...no battle is ever won...they are not even fought. the field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.' --jason compson to quentin compson

hall and oates: i wasn't sure if i was gonna go with them or steely dan. but since i sorta grew up on hall and oates' music, and discovered steely dan much later, i thought i'd put them up. i loooove these dudes. 'sarah smile' and 'she's gone' good lawd these boys got soul! as a kid, i remember watching their videos on mtv, i would dance my ass off to them, jamming with my michael jackson microphone. hall and oates= the shit. 'cept i wish john oates would grow back his mustache. he looks funny without it.





phil jackson: as a young child, one of my biggest worries was whether or not michael jordan would win an n.b.a. championship. you have no idea how stressful it is to watch your favorite player get his ass kicked every single year by the bad boy detroit pistons. (to this day, i despise isiah thomas, et. al.) then uncle phil showed up and took mj to the promised land--6 times. mostly, i love how he'll just sit down on the bench and cross his legs like he doesn't give a fuck. it makes everybody so damn mad. we need you back in the league, uncle phil.


"g.q." pat riley: the cleanest white man on the planet, i tell you. to continue on my basketball track, riles brought me showtime in the '80s. watching majic and worthy was great and all, but i really dug riles' style. nigga was always clean. hair all slicked back, perfectly tailored suit. impressive. coola than a polar bear's toenails.




robert deniro: what white (ethnic) man more blatantly exhibits his festishization of the black female body more than the young vito corleone? i mean, on one level, i could be upset and problematize such things. on the other, i gotta chuckle when he shows up at the naacp awards (is he a member? if not, he should be). he also starred in my all-time fave mob movie, a bronx tale.

he was sooo fly in the godfather ii.




i'm done.

fecundmellow essentializes regardless of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, et. al.