Conjuring Black Funk, my review

I hate during reviews because I feel as if I read on a different level than most people. I feel as a writer, I know how difficult it is to put a book together and then release your baby to the world and hope it survives. That being said, not every baby is cute or special. Not every book is brilliant. Personally, if I spend my liqour and weed money, I feel as if I got a right to my review.

That being said, Conjuring Black Funk at first I decided was a release spell. Old voodoo magic, speak its name and remove the power. I felt it would challenge my stale gay existence, tell me about sex I hadn’t considered. That didn’t happen.

I know there is so much in the black gay community that goes unspoken. The silence gives it power. It’s why the “down low” and its after effects were so damaging. It just didn’t terrorize black gay men, think of all the gay bashings, the fem queens who couldn’t get laid, the gay murderers, the violence, that black gay men went further into the church closet, and we didn’t even speak its name, not even to ourselves.

The first fifty pages of Conjuring Black Funk got me excited, because I felt like finally somebody was putting in print what I’ve been saying for years. It’s what we’ve all been thinking at the black gay prides, the black gay clubs, when gay life becomes more than just the next fuck. But of course, on many levels, I felt as if it attacked me personally, my obsession with my body, my obsession with youth, and the porn I watch and some suspicious black gay men I support. I wrote a blog a long time ago, “Porn isn’t sexy” so it didn’t say anything I didn’t know, but it didn’t go farther.

I remember when I wrote the article “I hate Frank Leon Roberts” and the response I immediately got back from people who didn’t even read the article. I had attacked a representative I didn’t chose. And the article wasn’t about me hating Frank Leon Roberts, it was about how a name and its association, how Clikque magazine used a name and its association to attack basically it’s demographic. That’s how I feel about Conjuring Black Funk, it forces the average black gay man to go beneath the surface of mediocrity even if it’s seemly confrontational. That being said, it didn’t go far enough for me. I was pissed when I wrote that article. I wanted the book to be more pissed.

In the end, I wanted more from Black gay Funk. I just didn’t want it to state the obvious: the coldness of free clinics, that Keith Boykin is soft porn, that HIV is a pimp and a ho situation, I wanted it to be angrier. I didn’t get the fire I craved from Conjuring Black Funk. I didn’t get any new insight into sex I hadn’t considered. Even the BDSM snippet, because that’s what each chapter was, a snippet. I was like why didn’t he go into the history, why didn’t he talk about how BDSM can be therapeutic, why didn’t he talk about the abuse of black gay men. It was like a tease and I found out 240 pages later we weren’t fucking. It was telling me all the right things to get my dick hard but it never got me off. It was too damn polite.

Yet, I would recommend reading the book because it's provactive. I still think it's a release spell. I decided that i like my six pack and like my man having one. I will never find round bellies attractive unless he's paying me. I plan one day to get botox around 35 years old. That doesn't make me dumb or unaware. I probably keep watching those stupid porns even if i personally have been kicked out of a porn shoot.
Personally, I got nothing new from it. I didn’t get it.

But I would recommend it to someone coming into the life. It’s like an introduction book. Must admit is a very difficult book to review. I liked it and was some what confused by it. I would first have to ask myself would I recommend it, hmmmm.