melvin and me in april 2008
You bled my momma!
You bled my poppa!
(But you won’t bleed ME!)
– as echoed over Earth Wind, and Fire’s music in the 1971 film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song
In April 2008 I went to Los Angeles to film an episode for “Mario’s Green House,” an eco-reality series that follows Mario Van Peebles, his wife, their five children, and his father (Melvin Van Peebles) as they renovate their home in an environmentally friendly manner and embrace a more sustainable lifestyle. I was thrilled to help Mario prepare a meal, but I was most excited to be in the presence of Melvin.
For the show, I created the “Sweet Sweetback’s Salad” not so much in honor of Melvin’s cult classic Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, or the moving biopic directed by Mario, but more in honor of Melvin’s influence on me as a creative person. In addition to being a screenwriter, director, actor, and film editor, Melvin’s creative pursuits include being a painter, sculptor, children’s book author, dancer, novelist, journalist, translator, composer, recording artist, playwright, playboy, Broadway producer and stockbroker. He is the first African American to hold a seat on the American Stock Exchange. And at 75 years old he’s still going strong. In fact, he had a new film, Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-Itchy-Footed Mutha, premier at the Tribeca Film Festival last April. Black genius indeed.