THE MISSOURI TAPES ~ #4

We had a home. We had a car.
We kept the camera rolling.
The Missouri Tapes.

Part 4

Midway between raw footage and tightly edited episodes of Daddy Issues (a film), lies loosely edited mini films like this.

~

Time to talk about THE WORD. The decision to NOT edit it out of THE MISSOURI TAPES was deliberate. This is how i talk when Victoria and i are alone. Not because we’re racist, but because we’re part of a black family. This “parent” persona i adopted to help Audrey raise her de facto fatherless children is based on who i feel i need to be to properly raise them.

Basically i’ve melded my fatherhood on being the bastard child of Dave Chapelle and Spike Lee.

I can’t WAIT to have time to watch Melvin Van Peebles and Mario Van Peebles films with Alex, and later his kids. It’s my JOB as his father…

The hard part is making peace with the worst word in the world.

The weeks i got to spend with Alex and his daughters in 2022 are sacred. Gil Scott Heron & A Tribe Called Quest were blaring from my phone CONSTANTLY. It BOTHERS me that Alex was raised by white women. He’s learned plenty about Black culture from his friends, but i feel a duty to be the blackest father i can be.

I call deserving white people “n*gger”.
It’s what i do.
Not to do so, i believe, would be racist.

I’ve dedicated my life to changing that word. To making sure our future lexicon recognizes it literally CANNOT be a word to define my brilliant, beautiful granddaughters, but it’s a perfect word to describe my lazy, cheating, gluttonous, white father.

Alex and i bonded, quite deeply, when he helped me draft the “Four Pillars of N*ggerdom”, and help me write the comedy bit i performed at the Improv, and Back to the Grind in Riverside, shocking audiences…

This is my plan: https://youtu.be/gVPWZsZjvlU?si=aCfINrQ0M0EI4qc4