Black Snake Moan · Oct 23, 03:37 PM

I spent the weekend fasting, praying, and thinking about where I am and where I want to be. I finished reading Naomi Wolf’s “The Beauty Myth,” and began, at my mom’s request, “The Glass Castle,” by Jeannette Walls. My mom told me that the parents in the story will remind me of her and my dad. She smiled as she said this. So far, she’s right, except my dad is a law abiding citizen, unlike Jeannette’s.

Such a weekend of introspection, for many, might exclude television, films, and magazines, but for me they were a huge part of it. I consumed all that was near—The New Yorker, Time Out New York, New York Magazine, Chicago Magazine, Lake (about Lake Michigan-centric towns), AARP (with a great Morgan Freeman interview) and my dad’s favorite, The Catholic Worker. I watched Charlie Rose interview Jude Law and Tommy Lee Jones (separately), watched the VH-1 investigative report on Joe Francis (the Girls Gone Wild founder). I watched a rerun of the 2007 BET hip hop awards and I can’t wait for the new Scarface record because everyone on the BET awards is a loser except for KRS-ONE and Bun B. And, I like Big Boi (Did you see that interview with him when the interviewer asks what he thinks about rappers taking so many movie roles away from actors and Big Boi says something like, I don’t know about all that, but I’m a music producer, not a rapper (pause) I’m a motherfuckin’ mogul). The best show I saw though was “American Gangster” on Melvin Williams. Mark Rowland, Nelson George, can I get a job working on these shows with you? I was so hyped on Melvin that I turned off the television, did a bunch of push ups and went to sleep.

The next day my dad and I went to the theatre to see “We Own the Night.” It’s great but when we were walking out of the theatre my dad says, “Marky Mark and Jaoquin Phoenix look as much like brothers and Cuba Gooding, Jr. and me.” He’s right but I didn’t mind. Maybe Joe S. should have played Bobby Green. After a walk and talk with my dad and talking with Joe S. during the intermission of his play, I watched “Black Snake Moan.” There are a few different relationships that the film focuses on—Sam Jackson and his wife, Christiana Ricci and Justin Timberlake, and the Platonic relationship of Sam Jackson and Christiana Ricci. Ricci’s got that black snake moan, she always needs a dick between her legs. Something takes over her body and she has to have it. I guess Justin Timberlake’s black snake moan is that he is as big a wimp as is imaginable. Sam Jackson’s might be his anger and his inability to forgive himself. What’s your black snake moan? What impedes you from having the most positive, fulfilling relationships you could have?

When I was 20 I got really close to a woman who one day told me that I need to be with someone who is smarter and who would challenge me more than she did. I disagreed because isn’t she smarter than me for realizing this (if it were true) in the first place. She must have seen something though because as I was laying in bed the other night I thought that if Ricci’s black snake moan was being powerless to being penetrated, then mine was being powerless to the effect which everything affects me. I have no poker face. Rappers aren’t “taking” jobs from actors, David Banner is great as Tehronne in the film.

— Young Philosopher

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