Erica Bender
Berkeley, CA
Don't wait for Wendy Williams, Ricki Lake or VIBE magazine to
come along and try to understand us. Read this and understand
yourself. If you're gay, black and love hip-hop this could be your
story. If you're white and gay, this may be your chance for some
insight into a struggle within the struggle, a key to the cipher at
the back of the bus and what it means for you. If you're straight
and claim hip-hop as your own, then you owe it to yourself to check
the context for the content behind your construct of the Pomo Afro Homo
and listen to the baaadaaassss song of this latter-day Sweetie Sweetback.
This is the source material behind the homohop sample loop,
the real behind the reel. Read it before it reads you.
Judge Muscat
Brooklyn, NY
"Self discovery, learning to accept that you are sexually attractive to others
that look like you, enjoying sex not only in the moment but also after the
heightened sensitivities have waned, searching for love and daring to love
another brother, having the conviction to demand acceptance, finding
acceptance among friends and family, loving oneself enough to know that
being black and gay is not a contradiction of terms... these are among the
things that resonated with me in the 6 Breaths of Tim'm T. West's "Red Dirt Revival."
Through a series of poems and essays one gets a glimpse of one man's
journey to living his life with courage, candor and conviction in search
of defining what it means to be black and gay without accepting common
paradigms of gender, sexuality, and race. Moreover, one is challenged to
think critically about one's own life as the author does so masterfully
with each breath. Among the things one can accept is the legacy one leaves
behind when one lives life with integrity. This book is a must read for those
capable of self analysis or those looking to discover another brotha with such
lofty hopes, dreams, and aspirations."
Carl Alexander
Pleasanton, CA
*******************
This collection of words, pieced together by heavy breaths, is an
exploration of self and resolve in a world hell bent on rejection and
exclusion. This work is a testament that a heavy hand cannot stop a
clever mind. West battles the world with vulnerability as strength, and
conquers the physical by slipping beneath the mental. He narrates his
life in vicious poetic lyrics, stressing the beauty in all the pain that
lies within. Love lives and West entertains this by shedding his own skin
for all of us to see clearly..
Tim'm West, a product of the unpaved side of the tracks, achieves personal
successes despite the obstacles any black boy can expect when attempting
to cross over to the other side. He discusses his pursuits as potential.
Growing up, evolving, becoming, transforming, and learning to see himself.
This is all potential. As he learns, we learn. As he transforms, we
evolve. It’s the clearest encounter with the exploration of potential
through lyrics that I have had. Somewhere in Red Dirt are answers for an
existence we have never let be.
A black man who loves black men, West takes on an exercise to understand
the flesh. And in this exercise, questions of sexuality overflow to the
wonders of manhood, masculinity, fatherhood, strength and power. What
does it all mean? Can it all coexist for the sexual minority? The great
thing about Red Dirt Revival is an expression of the potential that it can
coexist. Ask the right questions, you get some pretty good answers. Tim'm
West achieves breakthroughs for himself, now in print...in breaths...so
that we all have a glimpse at our own potential in a world hell bent on
rejection and exclusion.
As I see it,
BJ Samuels
Los Angeles, CA
*********************
Impressions of a Red Dirter
By Robert Goins
dirt or clay down south. Reading "Red Dirt Revival" takes this fascination
to a whole new level. This "poetic memoir in 6 Breaths" by Tim'm T. West
gives me a glimpse at the possibility of playin' in the red dirt. He
sets his "dirty" book in Arkansas, Brooklyn, New York, Cincinnati and
in the imagination; his own. The poetry is "dirty' fresh insofar as his
coming to terms with sexuality, his maleness, gender and just being. I
actually should say that he may have not come to terms with those
particular issues but at least he has some introspection about them. I
remember meeting him the first in Brooklyn circa 1997. We planned to
meet after meeting online on glbpoc that year. He told me the following
about himself and where to meet him: "Robert you know me before I was
at Bay when I was New Yorkin' Bklyn; some blend-in banjee bohemian
looking for his new friend at the Nostrand station (medium, height,
brownskin, twenty-somethin, original) LOL!".
We made a connection when I walked into his Bedstuy Brownstone. We
started to measure each other with our educational and life
experiences. All the time that we were going through these exercises,
he was packing up personal items to move his intellectual life and self to
Stanford University. I think he was glad to meet someone who at least
lived in the vicinity. We kicked around Brooklyn for a few and then we
hit the road for Black Pride in D.C.. It was one of those trips that
anyone could or would remember. He had everything packed to the roof of
one or two cars and he still had enough room to go the Washington for
Pride. Real bohemian. It must be the gypsy in our souls. I could not
tell you much about the road or the weather because we were engaged in
some deep conversation. This man of the red dirt was telling me about
his theories on gender and sexuality while "Massive Attack" or
"Portished" played in the background. I knew I could like him if for
nothing more than his choices in music. He really peeked
my interest when we started speaking about his proposed dissertation
"Gaze On Mandingo, an Introduction." That title skipped along in my
imagination because we were headed to one of the largest concentrations
of black gay men in the country; again this dissertation is his theory
about black gay male sexuality and gender; or at least his own.
We lost each other at the D.C. pride but we knew we would see each
other in California because he had my number. I think he wanted just a
little certainty, moving to California. He later told me that he gave
his mother my telephone number; which I didn't mind. A few months went
by and I received a call from "down on the farm" (that is what the
locals call Stanford) and it was Tim'm. I was glad he landed safely
down in Palo Alto. He was itchin' to come to the city. I think academia
had wore on his last nerve. I was interested in his studies so it was an
excuse for us to see each other. We had a strange black gay male relationship.
I felt like his older brother more so than anything thing else. I felt
like I was partially responsible for keeping him safe.
He explored his subject matter a bit deeper and once in a while he
would come to San Francisco from the academy and test me with his
theories. He would ask me to read his work and to give an opinion .
I really like my ideas being challenged; and his work challenged my ideas
on gender and sexuality even though I was fresh from some of the same postmodern
thought on the theme. I am sure we exchanged a few ideas along with
side long glances. Soon he really took to Stanford and his visits
became less and less frequent. I also know he discovered Oakland which can
keep one preoccupied for a good while.
It is the third month of year two-thousand and three. He sent me his
published work as we attempt as he says "(re)conection". His essays are
strong. They again challenge me to rethink gender and sexuality. I know
that sexual and gender constructs are improperly set down upon us but
Tim'm explains them in terms far greater than I ever thought one could
explain them. Beyond this, I am sucker for a personal story and in "Red
Dirt Revival" he opens with "Jacks Crossing" in Taylor, Arkansas: the
real red dirt town in which he grew up. I absolutely and unequivocally
love and respect his letter(s) and poems to his mother and father. He
includes a poem about Oakland, the Bay Area and what is goin' down here.
It is prophetic.