MF GALAXY

Reginald Hudlin is one of the most successful creators of film and television of the last twenty-five years. He leapt to prominence by writing and directing 1990’s House Party, an intelligent and hilarious film about African American teenage life, following that with, among other films, Boomerang, widely regarded as Eddy Murphy’s finest performance, and the acerbic satire The Great Whyte Hype.

In television, Hudlin created Cosmic Slop, and wrote for and produced Bebe’s Kids, one of the few animated series ever to focus on African characters in the US. He also helped launch Everybody Hates Chris, The Boondocks, and The Bernie Mac Show. He’s directed for many series, including The Office and Modern Family.

During three years as President of Entertainment for the American network Black Entertainment Television or BET, Hudlin, according to his website, “created 17 of the top 20 rated shows in the history of the network including the award-winning KEYSHIA COLE: THE WAY IT IS; AMERICAN GANGSTER; and SUNDAY BEST.”

The recipient of awards and widespread critical acclaim, Hudlin also co-authored the satirical and highly lauded graphic novel Birth of a Nation about East St. Louis seceding from the United States.

It’s Hudlin’s love of and work in comics that are the focus of this episode of MF GALAXY. Hudlin reputedly owns more than 50,000 comics, and while he was heading entertainment for all of BET, Hudlin somehow managed to write Black Panther for Marvel Comics.

Black Panther is the story of T’Challa, the king of the fictional African nation Wakanda, a country that throughout history was never conquered and achieved an unparalleled height of technology. Shockingly enough, Black Panther was created back in the early 1960s not by Richard Wright, George Schuyler, Charles Saunders or Octavia Butler, but by two of the giants of modern superhero comics, the Jewish-American creative geniuses Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, ironically just a few years before the birth of the Black Panther Party.

Under Hudlin’s creative control, Black Panther continued to combine martial arts, spy thrills, science fiction and mysticism, but more than ever a critique of American politics, an Africentric perspective, and a magnificent re-imagining of some of Marvel’s few African characters such as Luke Cage and Brother Voodoo.

Reginald Hudlin spoke with me by telephone from his home in Los Angeles on December 30, 2010. We discussed:

• Why comic characters such as Blade could sustain three movies and hundreds of millions of box office dollars, but never be successful as comic books
• Which has created better African characters: Hollywood, or American comic books?
• The pioneering breakthrough of Milestone Comics and its dramatic conclusion
• Hudlin’s approach to creating the Black Panther animated series and to rebooting Black Panther as a comic book
• What the Black Panther has in common with George W. Bush
• The danger of writing comics about comics, and
• Hudlin’s reaction to attacks from rabid comic fans accusing him of racism for his work on Black Panther.

This episode’s conversation is from the archives of the Grand Lodge of Imhotep. Reginald Hudlin spoke with me by telephone from his home in Los Angeles on December 30, 2010. Along the way, Hudlin uses the acronym “IP,” meaning “intellectual property,” such as characters, settings, and stories. At one point in our conversation, I misidentified the Juggernaut as the Rhino, but Hudlin didn’t call me out.

We began by talking about the Black Panther.

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Today’s episode is 100% non-stop spoilers. If you haven’t watched The Force Awakens yet, you obviously don’t care enough about Star Wars to care about these spoilers, or you’re in a coma. Either way, on we go.

Stephen Notley and I have been talking with each other about science fiction and fantasy for more than 25 years. He’s the cartoonist who for more the last two decades has written and drawn the genre-hopping, politically satirical, gonzo fanboy comic strip Bob the Angry Flower about an evil, brilliant, and super-enthusiastic flower named Bob, and the panels of Bob frequently geek over everything S F & F. Notley’s put out numerous Bob the Angry Flower compilation books and appeared at many major conventions including San Diego Comic Con. He has a vast following and counts among his fans no less than Joss Whedon, who also blurbed one of his collections.

Of course I’m the author of the Philip K. Dick-shortlisted The Coyote Kings whose pages are bursting with genre references and even include a criminal gang called the FanBoys.

To talk The Force Awakens, this last Boxing Day, Notley and I sat down at Ninja Sushi on Whyte Avenue in Edmonton. They have not paid me to endorse them, but I will say they had great tuna. I also apologise to the couple sitting next to us who had to listen to us talk about Star Wars for 90 minutes. Which isn’t exactly true, because they left after 45.

If you’re listening on radio, strap in for this half-hour edition. If you’re listening via podcast, this is a special 90 minute version. Radio listeners can go to iTunes or mfgalaxy.org to get the Starkiller-size.

Notley and I will debate the following questions:

Along the way, Notley refers to local journalist and our mutual friend Fish Griwkowsky. I began by responding to Notley’s question, How many times have I seen the film?

AngryFlower.com

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On his website, Milton Davis describes himself professionally as being a “full time chemist and a part time writer.” But I’d say he’s full-time both. Like any chemist, Davis is focused on creation, synthesis, reaction, and results. Theory’s not enough. Experimentation and production are the whole point.

Milton Davis writes Africentric science fiction, and also sword & soul, the Africentric answer to the Eurocentric fantasy subgenre sword & sorcery. He’s best known for his novel Meji, and he’s also a pioneer in the genre called steamfunk, the Africentric response to the unquestioned Eurocentric imperialism of steampunk.

Davis is also an independent publisher and the founder of MVMedia, an Atlanta-based company that publishes his work, novels by Balogun Ojetade, and anthologies that he and legendary novelist Charles R. Saunders edit. Davis went indie because he knew that he couldn’t wait for Euro-American Big Publishing to appreciate his work or even bother to try to sell to his audience.

As many of us have learned through bitter experience, too many editors in Eurocentric Big Publishing believe that Africans in the US, Canada, and elsewhere don’t read. MVMedia is just one example of how very wrong they are.

In today’s episode of MF GALAXY, Davis discusses:

Davis spoke with me from his home in Atlanta by Skype on December 11, 2015. At the beginning of our conversation you’ll hear someone coughing; that’s not me or Davis, but his son who was nearby.

I began by asking him what made him pursue indie publishing in the first place.

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In 2014, Ted Bishop did the surprising: he wrote a book about ink, and it became a success. The book fits into a genre sometimes called commodity biographies which investigate how human needs produced a product to solve problems, and the problems and opportunities that product eventually created for its creators and humanity.

That story is the story of writing itself, of course, so it’s no wonder that Bishop, an English professor at the University of Alberta, would take it on. If there’s a stereotype of what an English professor is, Bishop isn’t it. With his facial features, beard, and slight stature, he looks very much like young George Lucas, although his hair is grey.

Bishop’s previous book, Riding with Rilke, was a Best Book choice of the Globe & Mail, CBC, and Playboy about the amazing people he met during his own motorcycle odysseys across North America that ended with a 160 km/h wipe-out and a back broken in two places. He lived, walked again, and wrote The Social Life of Ink.

I sat down with Ted Bishop on February 02, 2015 at the University of Alberta’s Humanities Centre to ask him about the craft of long-form nonfiction. Along the way, we discussed:

tedbishop.com

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Last fall I was one of the guests of honour at Pure Spec, one of E-Town’s most important conventions, and because I was giving a talk, I missed a session that people were raving about. They said that an indie author who’d had major sales was handing out her success secrets for free!

Being an indie author myself and also very, very cheap, I immediately cursed myself for having missed such an excellent chance, and then remembered, Dude, you’ve got a podcast! You can ask anybody for anything!

So I asked Krista D. Ball to tell me and thus you how she went from a low-selling epic fantasy series to being able to pay her mortgage from book sales.

Krista Ball is not only a charming and delightful interviewee, she’s also the author of 13 novels and novellas including the Spirit Caller series, the Historical Writing Guides Series, First (wrong) Impressions, and Limelight.

In today’s episode of MF GALAXY, she tells us:

Krista Ball spoke with me by Skype on November 25, 2015. During our conversation she cites E-Town author Eileen Bell, author of Seeing the Light and The First Circle, and I cite E-Town author Wayne Arthurson, author of the Leo Desroches mystery novels.

I began by asking Krista to reveal her strategies for how an indie author can sell more books.

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If you’re looking for awesome audiobook enjoyment, visit my Minister Faust is Creating Audiobooks page on Patreon. Tomorrow, December 23, 2015, episode 2 of The Coyote Kings, Book One: Space-Age Bachelor Pad goes live with one solid hour of entertainment, plus bonus features!

Political Scientist Michael Parenti is a tireless activist-academic who has taught at many colleges and universities inside and outside the United States. He is a celebrated lecturer whose humour and anecdotes have delighted audiences across the world, in person and via broadcast.

Hundreds of his articles have appeared in scholarly journals, political periodicals, and popular magazines and newspapers. Michael Parenti is author of more than 20 books on the power of media, political elites, the wealthy, and US imperialism. His writings have been translated into 17 languages and include:

His 2003 history The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Ancient Rome received a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize. Kirkus Reviews calls it “savagely entertaining ... history at its most provocative.”

Way back in 2003, the Parkland Institute in cooperation with the University of Alberta Students’ Union Revolutionary Speakers Series hosted Dr. Michael Parenti at the Myer Horowitz Theatre. He joined me at CJSR studios for conversation about:

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Janine Jackson is the program director of FAIR, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, which produces the nationally-syndicated weekly radio show CounterSpin that uncovers bias in US corporate journalism.

Her articles have appeared in sources such as In These Times, and she frequently contributes articles on media, racist coverage, and labour struggle to FAIR’s magazine Extra! She’s also testified before a US Senate subcommittee that funds the American network PBS.

In today’s episode of MF GALAXY, Jackson discusses:

We spoke at the offices of FAIR in Manhattan in the summer of 2002, for an episode of my old radio show The Terrordome that ran on CJSR FM88 the following October.

A few notes: in the second half of the episode I refer to peace-keeping forces, but while asking about Canadian soldiers during Canada’s war against Afghanistan. They and the occupation troops that followed were definitely not peace-keepers on a mission, but soldiers at war.

Also, I refer to TV host Bill Maher as having lost his career. Back in 2001, Maher lost his show for disputing George W. Bush’s characterisation of the 9-11 hijackers as “cowardly,” because in Maher’s estimation, no matter how evil the attack was, a suicide bombing, unlike launching cruise missiles from more than 3000 km away, was not cowardly. Maher, of course, got another TV show, moved further right, and has enjoyed an endless stream of money ever since.

Finally, our discussion of torture took place two years before the revelations of systematic American torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

To hear the extensive archive of CounterSpin episodes, visit FAIR.org and click on the CounterSpin links, or search for the podcast on iTunes.

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To hear bonus content from my conversation with Janine Jackson, visit mfgalaxy.org to click on the Patreon link to become a sponsor for a dollar or more per week.

By funding MF GALAXY, you get access to all extended editions of the show, plus video excerpts from selected interviews as they become available. Today’s bonus content includes Janine Jackson discussing:

Tariq Ali is an internationally renowned radical activist, author, and atheist. Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Ali lived in exile since the 1960s in opposition to Pakistan’s then-military dictatorship. A novelist, Ali has published four books of his “Islamic Quintet" which portray Islamic civilisation counter to Western orthodoxy, and the first two volumes in his "Fall of Communism" trilogy. He’s also written for the stage and the screen.

A longtime editor at the New Left Review, Tariq Ali has written and edited numerous books on history and politics including the classic The New Revolutionaries, The Clash of Fundamentalisms which investigates US power and its role in the creation of global terrorism, Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope, and his recent book, The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad, available from Verso.

In our conversation, he discusses, among many topics:

Many thanks to the International Centre at the University of Alberta for arranging the interview. Ali spoke with me in the lobby of the Hotel MacDonald on January 29, 2012. Note that Ali spoke with me a full year before the death of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

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To hear the patrons-only extended edition of my conversation with Tariq Ali, visit Patreon to become a sponsor for a dollar or more per week.

By funding MF GALAXY, you get access to all extended editions of the show, plus video excerpts from selected interviews as they become available. This extended edition includes Tariq Ali discussing:

Amy Goodman has hosted Democracy Now! since 1995. It’s heard and now watched across the world on the web, and broadcast from over 1200 stations. Harvard graduate Goodman first received widespread attention for her work while she was covering the Indonesian army’s mass-killing of Timorese demonstrators.

Increasingly since 1995 she and Democracy Now! have been at the forefront of American progressive reporting on war, peace, and social justice issues that corporate news cannot or will not cover. Amy Goodman is the author of four books including Breaking the Sound Barrier, an anthology of her columns. She’s won numerous awards, including the Right Livelihood Award, often called the Alternative Nobel Prize.

This episode’s conversation is from the archives of the Grand Lodge of Imhotep in Edmonton. Amy Goodman spoke with me by telephone on February 17, 2011, a mere 15 days after the Canadian magazine Adbusters called on pro-democracy activists to occupy Wall Street, more than a year before the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement, and two years before the seemingly unstoppable rise of DAESH or ISIL.

We discussed:

Democracy Now’s pioneering use of then-new file-sharing hacks back in 2003 to smuggle footage out of US-occupied Iraq, and their workarounds to get news out of Egypt during the kill-switch blackout of the anti-Mubarak uprising

The relationship between the Egypt Revolt and the occupation of Palestine

The scam of so-called “foreign aid” that instead of helping poor people overseas is actually corporate welfare feeding the super-rich at home

How and why Democracy Now! is available to more people than is MSNBC

Her commentary during the Egyptian Revolt as to its nature, aims, and likely results, and why she chose to call the ouster a revolution, and

Whether major change to the United States will come from progressives, or from fascists

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Even today, Hollywood’s Pink-Washing produces Whitesupremacist revisionism of African civilisations through work such as The Gods of Egypt, Exodus: Gods and Kings, and the HBO series Rome whose second season visits Greek-occupied Egypt.

Fortunately, numerous scholars and activists have dedicated their lives to erasing such lies and restoring the truth about the Africanity of world-shaping ancient civilisations such as Ancient Egypt.

One such scholar-activist is Runoko Rashidi, an historian and world traveler who for decades has investigated the ancient migrations of Africans out of the mother continent and across the world. His work highlights the civilisations they founded and the titans they produced, especially in early Asia and Europe. He’s lectured in over 50 countries, and his articles have appeared in more than 75 publications.

Rashidi is the author of the books Introduction to the Study of African Classical Civilizations, The Global African Community: The African Presence in Asia, Australia and the South Pacific, and A Thousand Year History of the African Presence in Asia. With Ivan Van Sertima he co-edited The African Presence in Early Asia. For years he hosted educational tours of archeological sites.

In today’s episode, Rashidi discusses:

• The influence on him of the great scholar Ivan Van Sertima, author of They Came Before Columbus
• The Dalit nation, or so-called “Untouchables” of India
• His appraisal of the how the weakest links in the Afrocentric academic movement are mirroring the mistakes of Eurocentric scholarship
• The contemporary scholars whose work he admires
• Continent-shaking Africans in European and Asian history, and
• The astonishing ancient Indian civilisations of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro

This episode’s conversation is one of the last interviews I recorded for my CJSR show Africentric Radio. Until now, it’s been entombed in the archives of the Grand Lodge of Imhotep—so I’m delighted to bring it forth by day for you. Runoko Rashidi spoke with me by telephone from his home in Los Angeles on February 26, 2012.

I began as I often do by asking him to talk about his favourite teacher. His response is powerfully introspective, revealing, and refreshingly honest.

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