Beat-Boxing with Jesus

Here's a look back in the day: I wrote and performed this for a presentation in Dana Roeser's Visiting Writer's class.  Hard to believe that now--four years later--Rick's attending Columbia where Victor LaValle teaches!  Enjoy.

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Allie Leach

12 April 2005

EN 393

Beat boxing with Jesus

(To the tune of “Where’s The Party At,” by Jagged Edge featuring Nelly)

Lyric change by: me

(short dance intro)

Come on, V-I-C-T-OR-L-A-V-A-DOUBLE-L-L-AND-E, 

He’s the last in the Visiting Writers Series, (repeat).

I’ll jump right to the question, it’s number six: 

“Do you think of LaValle as an ‘African-American’ 

Or ‘urban’ author, let me know, can he be pigeonholed into such a narrow category?

I say yes and no, and a little bit of both,

Because like you suggest, much of what he writes is universal.

And what he weaves, through each piece, are pieces of the city and his black heritage.

Hey, what’s the page number?

Gotta steal your thunder; what’s the page number?

You be, you be makin’ up a big blunder.

You know you cannot forget to citate.

What’s the page number?

It’s on page eight.

How do I locate?

It’s halfway down.

Oh, I see it now.

If page eight is where you’re at,

Then let me know it, babe!

(Repeat V-I-C-T…etc, part).

Half way down, on page eight, you hear black dialect

In clipped phrases I will give ya in just a bit:

Like “When you ever known”

“Shit is just hot”

“Niggas are out”

Stuff that sounds like that.

Then on page nine of that “raw daddy,”

There’s “just listen to the brothers and you’ll believe.”

Some city, and some black lingo,

But that’s just for flavor, don’t you know, Gringo?

Hey, what’s the next point?

If you keep talkin’ like this, they’ll think you’ve smoked a joint.

Or bottles and bottles of the Coignac.

You know you can’t forget the book’s universal.

How’s that so?

He talks of love.

What else he’s say?

He talks of war.
Well show me more.

Come on, and we’ll head over to da page.

Now let me show ya where the page’s at for ya.

The one about love is right around page forty,

The title’s “getting ugly.”

The speaker and Deidre

Hit it off okay,

But then she makes him say,

All he wants is bootay!

He is ugly, but when, the lights go out

He changes his pout

He thinks he looks so good, when he’s put under the hood,

And she likes him too with his ugly face,

And he likes her back, food in her mouth shows her grace.

The story gives hope, it shows we’re human.

We can be loved with flaws,
That’s what I’m presumin’,

We’re quick to judgments,

That we later resent,

All we need’s to present

Our true-selves and represent.

Be like hey—this is who I is.

I don’t care what your friends’ say when they laugh at my biz.

And in the end they share

An interest it’s no lie:

They both like to stare at the people walking by.

Hey, I got some more to say,

But I do not want this song to go on all the day.

Let me just sum this up and reiterate,

The stories touch on many themes that you can relate,

To everday,

Themes of: love, war, sex, mental illness.

I also sucked my thumb til I was ten.

O O O O

Uh Oh O O O O

Uh Oh O O O O

But I don’t line up bottles of pee like H-squared and Sammy.

O O O O

Uh Oh O O O O

Uh Oh O O O O

It’s your turn to join in, now let me see:

Come on, left side just raise your hands up

Throw em up

Right side just raise your hands up

Throw em up

When the question come back around

Everybody do it again.

Do my East Side like this author do ya, hell yeah.

Do my South Side like this author do ya, hell yeah.

And them haterz can argue yo

If they back it up yo

But I wanna know,

If Lavalle is where it’s at

Let me hear you say:

Come on, V-I-C-T-OR-L-A-V-A-DOUBLE-L-L-AND-E

He’s the last in the Visiting Writers Series.

Come on, V-I-C-T-O-R-L-A-V-A-DOUBLE-L-L-AND E

He’s the best of the Visiting Writers Series.

(short dance conclusion)