Howard Dully

I've been meaning to get to this; about a week ago I saw one of the most riveting films in a long time, courtesy of PBS's American Experience - The Lobotomist, based upon Jack El-Hai's bio of Walter Freeman, the P.T. Barnum of medicine.

One small part of the flick stood out for me, and that was when they spoke to Howard Dully. A big man, he reminded me of an older Hulk Hogan. His short piece had me mesmerized; at the age of 12, he was lobotomized by Freeman, the youngest ever.

Here he is at the time, in a pic from his file that he tracked down:



Post lobotomy.


I won't say more story-wise, but I immediately got his book and would have a full review but have only gotten about 60 pages in - Renee's picked it up and is raving about it, saying that it's "super interesting."

I couldn't agree more.

If you're looking for creative writing, forget it. Dully's book is great at least in part because it is straightforward and direct. In this way, it's like Anne Moody's bio. One dipshit on Amazon downgraded the book because of its "poor writing." People are such imbeciles, they will recognize a urinal as art if someone famous signs it and enters it into a show, concentrating on the object because it can be seen. But it's the person who has no sight and learns of this act that laughs. Wasn't it Picabia who made fun of (presumably, sighted) people by saying, "you need to be told how to feel"?

You can watch The Lobotomist online here. NPR did a piece featuring Dully about four years ago; it's here.

Dully in 2004, holding one of Freeman's ice picks.



And here's the great cover to Dully's book, designed by Kyle Kolker.



Howard, you seem like a cool guy, and man, your story is something else. Stay up.

A Long Overdue Toast: Glen Ford & BAR

This is too long overdue, but brotha Glen Ford and his Black Agenda Report hold it down on the real.

If you don't know then don't ask somebody, just check it out.

Coming up in East Los, we were subject to the usual stigma of intellectual thought as anathema. You were either a thug, an athlete, a dopehead, whatever. But an intellectual? No way. Chris Rock talks about the anti-intellectual stance in the ghetto in his famous "books are Kryptonite to Niggas" riff.

I was lucky. Moms had a big library and I could pick and choose. Whenever I wanted to go to the bookstore, she'd drop every thing and we'd go, usually to the Alhambra Bookstore. Like me, she'd be content to just browse for hours.

My survival in the jungle is marked by what I can only conclude was a decent ability at athletics, I had a mouth on me, and wasn't a complete jerkoff.

This is what makes the four great stories of the American urban landscape - Piri Thomas' Down These Mean Streets, Claude Brown's Manchild in the Promised Land, Malcolm's Autobiography..., and Luis Rodriguez's Always Running - so fascinating; each were street urchins, and each found the keys to their freedom when they discovered the wonders of intellectual thought through reading, and just as importantly if not more, writing. I still remember Malcolm saying, so poetically: "Never was I so free as in prison [while reading]." (To these I would also add Dr. Huey P. Newton, Jimmy Santiago Baca, David Hilliard, Elaine Brown, and much underrated and little known, Anne Moody, her story not strictly urban and in fact rural in the early stages. But what a story, what a great writer.)

Their stories are more than an escape from poverty, crime, etc. They are great stories of human triumph against tremendous odds, of spirits meeting their time. Transcendence.

And as such they are truly inspiring, in the best sense of that word.

My world has been tremendously influenced by them all, and I owe them a debt of gratitude.

Glen Ford (and BAR) are carrying the torch today, but in a different mode than autobiography. His gig is journalism, and this brotha is fiercely independent. This is the kind of journalism that is sorely needed, and how I long for an Asian-American counterpart.

BAR brings the fire, people. As the late great Tony Williams said back in the day; "Believe it."