C. Liegh McInnis

THE OA TEN with C. Liegh McInnis

1. What superstitions do you have? None really. I pray every morning before I get on the treadmill. (Of course I do pray while I'm on the treadmill; that's when I'm closest to God, "Please, Jehovah, let it be over! Haven't I competed a mile yet!!!)

2. What would you like to change about yourself? I am a control freak and obsessive about order. My wife likes to tell people that I won't go to the bathroom if it is not printed in my daily schedule.

3. What are you still trying to accomplish in your professional career? Becoming the best writer that I can. So far, I have worked very hard to improve to the level of being average. Understand that for me, the high-water mark includes Richard Wright, Margaret Walker, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Amiri Baraka, Jerry Ward, Kalamu ya Salaam, Reginald Martin, and Ahmos Zu-Bolton.

4. What is your hidden talent? Comedy! Of course, if no one knows that I'm funny, then it may not be hidden; it may just be that I'm not funny.

5. What subject causes you to rant? Racial injustice, African people who do not take advantage of the hard work of our ancestors, and people who drive while they are talking on a cell phone—and that includes the BlueTooth losers.

6. What is the biggest mistake you ever made in your professional life? I missed an opportunity to make a record with Prince. In defense of myself, I misunderstood his question. While we were working on chapters for a book that he was considering writing, he asked me what I thought about making a recording of my poetry with music. My response was, "I don't want to be one of those poets who uses music as a crutch or a veil to cover my poor literary skills." Prince just shrugged, said "okay," and we continued discussing aspects of the book. Later that day, I realized that one of his sound engineers was at Paisley Park, and it was his day off. When the then-publicist asked him why he was there, he responded that Prince called him to come for a special recording that he wanted to do, but now it's been cancelled. It was a couple of days later when I finally put one and one together.

7. What is one thing that you used to dislike but that you now like? Rap music. I'm still not a hip-hop head, but I went from loathing it to respecting it.

8. What profoundly underrated book, album, or movie would you like to champion for us? First, I'm glad to see that the novel PUSH by Sapphire is being made into a movie, but a book that I think is well done and addresses an important topic is SATISFIED WITH NOTHING by Ernest Hill. SATISFIED WITH NOTHING, like PUSH, is a NATIVE SON for a new generation, but unlike PUSH there is no happy ending because for far too may black boys snagged in the web of the salvation of sports there is rarely a happy ending. One album to which people should give a second or first listen is Don NewKirk's FUNK CITY (1989). Finally, rent a copy of CADILLAC RECORDS. What it lacks in historical truth, it recovers in giving you the essence and aesthetic of why there is the blues, and then there is everything else. That's right. I said it. Clarksdale, Mississippi, is in the house!!!

9. What is your favorite line from a song? "The soldiers are a marching; they're writing brand new laws. We will all fight together for the most important cause. Will we all fight for the right to be free?" "Free" by Prince.

10. What was your favorite childhood toy? My NFL Electronic Football Game with twenty-eight teams in their home and road colors. A close second is the fact that my parents had so many books that I used books for building blocks until I was six. Then one day I opened one, and the rest is....