Melvin Van Peebles

What time is it now?

It’s 10 o’clock now?

My goodness. I was going to have great fun cussing you out and telling you, “What’d you call me early for? I told you 10 am.” I’m going to get my seat. The man takes off his coat. I just assured one of my girlfriends that I was here alone. So now I’m all ready. One second. Okay. I’m your SuicideBoy.

Yes.

Not much. A couple of guys were sitting in a bar and they said “Oh, you’re a SuicideGirl.” I overheard them laughing and saying they liked it. That was the actual extent of it.

I’m working on a new movie.

I’m just putting it together right now. It’s called Memories of an Ex-Dufus Mother.

An Ex-Dufus Mother [laughs].

No, this guy travels through life picking up various adventures, like The Iliad, Oliver Twist or Don Quixote.

I’m actually shooting the first part of it right now. The first part has narration so that’s what I’m doing at the moment.

Nobody. I will be the narrator. I love doing these indie films under the radar. That’s how I did my Broadway shows. My ideas are a little avant garde at the time and no one seems to get it. But then after I do it, everybody’s like “Oh yeah. Wow. Why didn’t you let us in?” You sit in a meeting in Hollywood and everybody says, “I want something new, different, something like Mickey Mouse.” So I could never get anybody to come in with me even with the financial success that I’ve had unless I agree to do something that I’ve done in the past.

People come to me to whine and bitch, “Why don’t you do Sweetback Part Two?” They don’t want to let it go forward. Everybody booed when Picasso changed his period from pink to blue with Cubism. They screamed bloody murder. I get a lot of offers to repeat history as it’s seen through the eyes of the Philistines but not to do it in its original sense of taking it forward.

I’d love to do a Sweetback sequel. In fact I’ve got the other two parts written. But it’s like old blues songs. People listen to this music now and go “That’s terrible. Why would you do blues like that?” But they don’t want to talk about the contemporary. Let’s keep it in a realm or in a format that is safe. They don’t want it to be altered to go forward. I could do a Sweetback sequel but the ante would have to be upped.

I loved it. I had a good time. It tickled me. I think they did a great job. It was about eight years when [director] Joe [Angio] approached me. At the time I was doing a movie and making a new album. But I never interfered one iota. It’s not my vision of me. I wanted to see it because it was their vision of an outsider.

I guess it’s schizophrenia or something like that because I can detach myself completely from myself when I’m watching a movie. When I’m editing a sequence of where I’m playing somebody, I don’t refer to myself as me. I say “he this, he that.” I remember after I saw Baadasssss! and people said “Did you have anything to do with it?” No, I didn’t have anything to do with it except I sold him the rights to the book.

Business is business. The initial payment was $2500. Just enough to keep him honest and break his chops. But on the other hand if I had sold the rights to someone else I wouldn’t have been around telling him what to do so I gave him the same thing. I remember when I first saw it in Toronto after 600 people were standing up and applauding he asked me, “What’d you think, dad?” I said, “It’s Seabiscuit on two feet.”

My legend is growing if that’s what you mean. People are realizing my deep, inherent genius. I’m the Rosa Parks of black cinema, which ain’t bad.

Yo, dawg. Yo [laughs].

As long as we’re speaking in Ebonics, I will reply in Ebonics. Is a pig’s ass pork? Is the Pope Catholic? Does a bear shit in the woods? Sure I was conscious of it. But it wasn’t new. It was just underground. People were stealing it and not giving credit. But nobody would say, “Why fucking let them steal?” Why don’t you just do it yourself?

They’re different forms people steal. They keep the artist, especially the black artists, economically strapped in a way that they can dictate what it is. They can’t steal the record but they can order what you do and don’t do, which is a form of oppression. It’s not called stealing right now. If you use even a larger term than stealing, it’s the oppression of having to do the vision that somebody else wants you to do.

With some of my Broadway shows I invented the form that is now rap. They didn’t even know how to categorize it. But I just saw a forum sitting there and now as I get the accolades for the cinema and for opening up Broadway.

That has nothing to do with young black and young white people. The point is you should move on anyhow, black, white, anything. As specific to his comment, I don’t comment on comments. All I say is, “It’s nice he said it. I don’t know if he’s talking about black, white, just do it.”

That guy’s so great. I came down. We had fun. He said, “Hey, do this. Do that.” And I did it.

Yep. It was supposed to come out this spring. I’ve done a lot of albums and the early ones have become major collector’s items.

I don’t call it anything. It’s just another album. I don’t bother with the labels.

I’m sure. As a matter of fact a week ago I was up in Providence doing a cameo Mario’s new movie with Wesley Snipes called Hard Luck.

I’ll be down there the opening night to do a Q & A. I’m really psyched out about this whole Film Forum thing and it’s such a clever idea that they’re showing my stuff with the same time with the documentary. Each time that puts it in a new light. So I’m pretty psyched out.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck