This is the bigger one.
Debord says that the spectacle corresponds
to the historical moment at which the commodity completes
its colonization of social life.
It is not just that the relationship to commodities
is now plain to see, commodities are
now all that there is to see.
The world we see is the world of the commodity.
So I started thinking about women as commodities.
We think about branding for writers sometimes,
which I find is gross.
But historically, you were to serve a purpose
breeding and marriage.
And it was a trade.
You had dowries and all that other jazz.
So I don't think that has really gone away.
And when I was writing I'm So Fine, A List of Famous Men
and What I Had On, I was thinking about my young life
growing up in Los Angeles and being
seen by these men as someone to collect or someone to possess
and not necessarily to know.
It was more they see something, they want the thing
like they're going shopping, especially the famous ones.
So I think that's partly what gender
has to do with spectacle in public spaces.
And then how do you play into that your own self?
I know growing up, it was a big deal in Los Angeles
to look good, to have branding stuff,
and have your hair right, and all that stuff.
And my younger sister, who is 22, she is a master of makeup,
and yet she's pansexual and doesn't
appreciate the attention that she gets from men.
She wants to be as beautiful as possible in these mainstream
ways, but she doesn't want to deal necessarily
with the negativity of it.
And so she's navigating that and I'm watching her do that.
And it depresses her sometimes, frankly.
For me, because I didn't grow up with a lot--
she's grown up a lot.
Being good looking in the downtrodden space
is even more of a spectacle, because if you're
a 13-year-old girl walking down the street
and you have men stopping in the street
to try to say hello to you and ask you if you want to ride,
it's a spectacle to you as a teenager.
It's not a spectacle necessarily in the environment.
But I don't know if I'm just oversensitive or what,
but it was creepy to me and I never forgot it.
And it made me feel like I had to, as a poet, talk
about how complicated it is to walk around
in a gendered body in a culture that assigns
specific roles unconsciously to each gender and the violence
associated with that.
Because really it is a violation of your space and--
your mental space and your physical space sometimes.
So this picture is from the movie Panther.
It's like in the '90s.
That is Marcus Chong as Huey P. Newton.
I met Marcus Chong on the 105 bus method acting.
I was going home in a flowered dress after work.
I worked at Fatburger.
I was 18 and I think he was twice that.
I had my uniform in my backpack with my statistics homework
and Woman Warrior.
I recognized him and said, I like Panther--
this was way before the Matrix.
He asked for my number.
We talked on the phone.
He came to visit me on his bike since he
didn't live far from my job and ordered a veggie burger.
I had a lemonade on my 15-minute break
in my black Fatburger outfit and ugly food service shoes.
He asked me on a date and I said yes.
He called with the plan.
I said, I thought we were going somewhere.
But he wanted to make me dinner at his house.
I said, no, I don't know you well enough
to go to your house.
He got angry.
The end.
Oh, that's me with my best friends on prom
and my waist will never be that small again.
I met Cuba Gooding Jr. at the Beverly Center Food Court.
I was 16.
Boyz n the Hood had just came out.
My best friend Tiffany dared me to ask if I could hug him.
He said I was beautiful and seemed
really happy to get that hug.
But I brown blushed nervously.
And he sat a few booths away with his friend and veggie
slices from Sbarro and smiled a lot.
And I wore Tiff's Kente cloth bomber jacket and red lipstick.
I had perfect skin and didn't drink carbonated beverages.
Beverly Center Food Court is also
where I met Devante's brother from Jodeci.
I forgot his name.
But we really didn't meet he was just looking at my eyes
and looking at my ass.
I kept walking.
I really liked red lipstick back then.
We both had on white jeans.
It was summer.
Dave Chappelle also looked at my ass and he also said, damn!
We were in the frozen food section
at Ralph's in North Hollywood and I half-smiled.
I was wearing my favorite old Levi's
with the hole in the left side belt loop
and had just moved back to LA with my two-year-old.
That's the Beverly Center.
Chris Rock did the same thing.
Same jeans at the movie theater across from the Beverly Center,
he thought he wouldn't be recognized
with that newsboy cap on, but I saw him.
He looked twice.
My mom was waiting at the bus stop in 1960
when she saw Chuck Connors.
He flirted with her, did a double
take as she waited to ride the Western line down
Hollywood Boulevard to her job at Max Factor.
She was only 21 and had just moved to LA
and still wore crinoline under her dresses.
He drove by the next day too in a long white Cadillac
convertible with cowgirl horns Texas-ing the hood,
and his face all sideburns and grin.
She said it was fun watching him try,
but she didn't give him no play.
My mom has never been very starstruck,
but she loved her some Billy Dee.
My sister and I loved Star Wars.
And when she saw Billy Dee Williams' picture
on some trading cards we had, she went a little nuts,
hollering and snatching at who we
thought of as Lando Calrissian.
She shouted, whoa!
Oh!
And snatched it and smiled and said,
may I have that one to put in my wallet please?
My mother has a gorgeous, Libran smile.
I liked Lando too but not that much.
So I said, sure.
I giggled, and I must have been four or five when
Star Wars came out and probably had on a Kmart short set when
she ran into him.
And when she ran into him at the Whole Foods
in Studio City in 2004, she said to herself, Oh my God, my hair
is not right.
My clothes are not right, my shoes are not right.
And hid behind a pyramid of assorted vitamins.
So maybe she was a little starstruck, especially
in the early Motown era.
She and her sister Valerie made their way from Inkster
to the front row at the 20 Grand in Detroit to see David Ruffin.
And they made the biggest noise in the place,
so of course he noticed them and asked their names
and sang to them as he took their hands
and a bunch of other women in the audience fell on the floor
in a faint.
My mother thought he was so cool.
It was 1955 and she was in her last year of high school
and had on a gold lame dress her Aunt [? Middy ?] had given her.
A few weeks later, she saw Harry Belafonte walking down
the street.
She and her cousin Flavis Davis and sister Evelyn
strolled to a show at the Fisher Theater, walking down Woodward.
All of them wore kitten heels and pillbox
hats and white gloves and chiffon and organdy
dresses and full makeup.
They used torn paper bag strips the night
before to twist their hair into tight curls they called
croquignoles and Flavis noticed the man
in an avocado-colored suit jacket and whispered,
is that Harry Belafonte?
So they split up and got close enough to him
that he said, hello, and smiled before he turned the corner
and then they saw Eartha Kitt with a little white dog
on a leash.
She was sprinting across the street
to the fisher wearing a white capelet and my mother said,
I've got to have one of those myself.
The cape, not the dog.
When I met LL Cool J, I had just quit Fatburger.
It was a Saturday morning and without knowing
how I would afford to pay for it,
I drove my new used powder blue 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme
with my sister to the Sam Goody's off Washington
Boulevard.
And we met our friend ex-coworker Squeak, a.k.a.
Slim.
She wore rimless glasses and was six feet tall
and nicknamed by the same ex-coworker who
nicknamed me 21 and my sister 22 because she
couldn't pronounce our names.
But our boss Lena could.
She called our names all the damn day.
She had a slight goatee and cricket glasses and a limp
and she was mean.
And because she said we thought we were cute.
She loved making us do the dirtiest
work like cleaning toilets and underneath the grill,
especially when the general manager changed
our title to customer service rep
and we were supposed to engage the guests, not deal with food
and cleaning so much.
And one day she spilled something on the floor
and told me to mop it up right now.
This was after she accused me of stealing two $20
from the register.
So I was already mad and Mike, the grill guy,
said she found it under the counter the next morning.
So I looked her right in the sweaty face
and said, you mop it up, and dropped the mop
like a microphone and walked out to applause.
Anyway, fast forward.
The three of us stood in line together
to buy LL's new CD, talking shit about Lena's missing side
teeth.
I had on black slacks and black Aerosoles sandals
and a cheap silky polyester Rampage button-down with cap
sleeves and graphic with sunflowers
and carried my lipstick and wallet and a tiny pleather
backpack.
I'm sure I looked a hot, poor mess.
But oh well.
We got to see LL lick them lips and smile
and sign our posters and CDs.
I sent the poster to my niece in Michigan
and the CD wasn't all that good, but I did like that new song
with Boyz II Men.
We bumped that in the Oldsmo.
And I still miss that car's hellified bass.
Montell Jordan came to the drive-through
as I was clocking up the day before I quit.
So I went outside to get his autograph for one of my nieces
who thought he was so fine.
He was in a black suburban with 50-11 dudes
and was really cool about it and didn't try to hit on me.
I probably smelled like fat fries,
even though I changed out of my uniform and into khaki shorts.
He turned the music way down to hear me better
and seemed really tired.
I knew that feeling.
I still had to take two buses home and get up at 5:30
the next morning to make it to 8:00 AM statistics
classes in Santa Monica and try not
to get flashed like earlier that day by a barefoot homeless man
in a filthy cloth diaper thing.
I was too tired to be anything but mad
that I had to stop studying and leave my seat on the bus bench
as he swung his pale penis around like a stripper tassel.
I screamed, get the hell out of my face!
And he sagged like an empty burlap sack
and walked away, revealing the thong quality of the diaper
which made me throw up in my mouth a little bit.
And a cop strolled out of the nearby windshield,
sipping a large cup of coffee and asked if I was all right.
He said, do you want me to arrest him?
I said, no.
I just want to keep reading The Salt Eaters.
When we met Tupac, we had just left the arena on Sunset
because it was gay night and we couldn't get in.
We were five of us crammed into Kelly's red hatchback
about to get some Taco Bell and go home when we saw him
in a black Mercedes, equally crammed,
and we screamed and yelled, "We love you!"
And he and his friends invited us
to a hotel party which seemed sketchy to me,
but it was Tupac.
And it was Kelly's car and she wanted to go, so we went.
It was not far away also on Sunset.
By the time we got a parking space, a bunch of girls
were already there talking to him.
He was surrounded and shorter than all of them.
His head looked like it was bigger than his body,
but he had really white perfect teeth and a leather vest
with no shirt and all those hot tattoos.
We asked one of the bodyguard guys
where the bathroom was so we could freshen up.
And of course we all had to go together.
And Kelly started talking about how much she
wanted to get at Tupac.
She was from Louisiana and lived in a house in the Hollywood
Hills, the richest of us, which was easy, actually,
because we were mostly poor and lived in apartments.
But she said she wanted to get to his room
and have sex with him and say he raped her.
Can you believe that shit?
She wanted the money.
And we all laughed at first, but this chick was serious.
We told her we weren't going for it.
And she said, whatever.
I'm cuter than all y'all.
[INAUDIBLE] I can do whatever the fuck I want.
She unbuttoned her top down to the white base of her bra
and walked out of the bathroom.
I had on one of my least favorite outfits
because it was time to do the laundry.
I might be blocking it from memory,
but I think it was brown or olive green or something yuck.
And the four of us debated what to do about Kelly.
So I decided to call my dad for a ride home.
Came out of the bathroom and asked where the payphone was.
Back then, we all had pagers but no cells.
And one of the bodyguards was blocking another girl
from entering the lobby.
She was at least 6 feet tall and barely dressed but super young
in the face.
He asked for ID.
It was a middle school ID.
She was only 13.
He told her go right home right now, little girl.
Where are your parents?
We were in shock but glad he seemed decent.
We felt like we had to tell him what Kelly was doing.
And she saw us coming up to him and got pissed.
She walked away from where she was waiting to talk to Tupac.
Yes, there were that many chicks up in there all lined up.
And she said, let's just go.
And in the car, she called us a bunch of lame virgins,
but we didn't care.
I said she was a skank for trying to do that.
And she wanted me out of her car.
But nobody would let her do that either.
We never really hung out again after that.
Oh well.
I didn't really like her that much anyway.
When we met, it was because she said I tried to steal her
boyfriend, but I didn't.
He came on to me.
He was the captain of the basketball team.
And I didn't even know he was a basketball player and all.
I was just trying to study for my SATs
and that is a whole other story.
I am from Los Angeles, obviously.
And the first famous man I saw was Eddie Murphy.
We were on Slauson.
It was dark early because of winter
and we got off the bus with my mother.
We had just seen Beverly Hills Cop a few weeks before
and I looked into the junky brown car at the stoplight
and said, mama, that is Eddie Murphy.
And I pointed and my sister said, that is him!
And she pointed We had on matching purple and pink coats
from Montgomery Ward.
I could tell he mouthed to the passenger,
I think they recognized me.
And he laughed a real Eddie Murphy laugh.
We could see all his teeth.
And he beeped the horn and we all waved as we drove off.
And I wondered why the hell he was
in that junky car with the guy in the striped tracksuit.
I think I was eight.
What am I doing?
I'll read a couple more and that'll be it.
Comedians can be the best.
20 years ago, I sat in the front row
of this comedy spot on Fairfax with my sister
when Chris Tucker first came to LA.
He was skinny and young and I wanted to stop laughing during
his set because I had done, like, 100 Crunches that day,
but I couldn't.
It hurt, but I just couldn't.
We had dinner there too, my sister
had three hot wings left.
And he said, I'm hungry, dammit!
And looked at her food and looked at her and said,
gimme that chicken.
You ain't gonna eat that chicken.
She passed him the plate.
He ate it right there at the microphone.
This is some good ass chicken, he said.
And this other comedian stopped us on the way out.
He wasn't anywhere near as funny as Chris Tucker but whatever.
He was sort of charming, gave me his card
and said there was a party.
The next day, he wrote down the address.
I went with a friend.
When we got there, there was no party, just him and a huge guy
who seemed sheisty.
And my friend was like, nope.
But I had to use the bathroom and we had driven all the way
to the Valley in my Sentra.
And he was a comedian.
What the fuck was he going to do?
So we had to go in.
He tried to give us drinks, but I didn't drink back then.
And when I came out the bathroom,
he pressed me to the wall and tried to kiss me and feel me
up, but I was a head taller than he
was in my white platform shoes.
Yes, white platform sandals and drawstring linen pants.
And he played with the string.
I said, oh, I have something in the car that I brought for you.
And my friend was already outside smoking a beedi.
And we got the F out and back on the 101.
And wouldn't you know it?
A few months later, Chris Tucker and Faizon Love
came to Music Land where I worked and pretended
to buy a polka tape.
He made me ring it up and everything,
which got on my nerves because I had to void the ticket.
He said, what the hell would I look like bumping polka?
And the way he was looking at me like I was a plate of chicken.
And got too close.
And asked if I had a boyfriend, which actually I did.
That boyfriend would rape me later that week
right behind my apartment in an old Toyota Corona,
wearing his Crenshaw High School leather jacket.
He was the quarterback, neighborhood famous.
Oh well.
It's the end of 1993 anyway.
And Chris Tucker made me nervous at the same time
I was trying not to laugh.
Hm.
I better not be thinking of these.
This is the last one.
Who do I see at the bookstore in the Minneapolis
airport but Samuel L. Jackson in a gray sweat suit?
And I had on my gained 10 pounds muffin top jeans.
It was mostly empty in there.
I was buying books for my son and baby nephew.
And I almost didn't say anything,
but he walked right by me.
I couldn't not whisper "Sam Jackson" with my eyes narrowed.
And he is kind of tall.
He said, and you are?
And I just gave him my first name.
He said, oh, Khadijah, with a wide, genuine smile
and an exclamation point.
So of course I got nervous.
I didn't want him to think I was a groupie.
I'm paranoid like that.
That's stupid.
I had on old jeans, my hair was a mess and, hello, muffin top,
but I managed to say, big fan.
Nice to meet you.
Shake his hand and walk to my gate.
When I called my mother, she said,
you should've given him a Black peculiar.
Thank you, guys.
[APPLAUSE]
So if you want to do Q&A, that's why I'm still standing here.
Thanks, Khadijah.
That's great.
Questions?
We have time for questions.
And I'll come around to you with the microphone.
That's the only picture I have with a celebrity.