My Introduction to Ass Power

Excerpt from book I'm working on about the creative process

MY INTRODUCTION TO ASS POWER

In 1983 I was an ambitious young writer anxious to make a name for myself in the now fading, once alluring world of rock criticism. I’d landed a plum position as Billboard magazine’s black music editor after serving as an intern there while in college and working for over a year at its now defunct rival Record World. I had energy to burn and lots of dreams, but no organizing theory for my career, much less my life. Then I interviewed Quincy Delight Jones at Los Angeles’ Westlake Studio in the spring of that year.

Q was already a legend for his work in jazz (arranging for Count Basie, Frank Sinatra), film (the scores for ‘The Pawnbroker,’ ‘In the Heat of the Night’), television (theme songs for ‘Ironside,’ ‘The Cosby Show’) and pop (producing multi-platinum albums like his ‘The Dude,’ Michael Jackson’s ‘Off the Wall’). When I sat down to interview Q, ‘Thriller,’ the album that would cement his place in global cultural history, was being prepped for production.

I was asking him about working with Jackson when he dropped this gem: “(Jackson) has the presence of mind to feel something, conceive it and then bring it to life. It’s a long way from idea to execution. Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die. It’s ass power man! You have to be emotionally ready to put as much energy into it as it takes to get it right… if you want to make something beautiful, you have to have the spiritual and physical knowledge to pace yourself to make it through. Got to be ready to deal with infinite detail. Only the very best are.”

Though his “ass power” comment might have made folks laugh when they read it (as I did when he said it), Q didn’t say it flippantly and, ultimately, I didn’t take it that way. To me it confirmed a feeling I had already had about what was necessary to sustain an artistic career. At twenty-five I already knew I wasn’t the greatest prose stylist since F. Scott Fitzgerald, that I wouldn’t re-invent literature like Ernest Hemingway, or be a racial pioneer on the order of Richard Wright.

But what I could do was work. What I could do is get my ass in a chair in front of my electric typewriter and knock out my weekly Billboard column for $300, record reviews at the Village Voice for $150 and singer interviews of Rock & Soul for $100, and eat happy meals at McDonald’s to have money saved for rent and the daily 50 cent commute from my apartment in Queens to moneymaking Manhattan.

In my 20s and 30s I was one driven motherfucker. More than listening to music, watching movies and chasing women – all of which I loved – my real passion was putting my ass in a chair writing. I didn’t learn how to drive. I didn’t learn how to write a bike. I almost drowned twice, so I decided swimming was a waste of time. Laying on the beach was not a priority. I did drink then but didn’t derive much pleasure from it. Marijuana? Not really. Coke? You crazy? I had to, as the old musicians said, go woodshed. You got to focus whether the sun is up or down. I became notorious for leaving hot parties before 1:30am or never later than 2a.m.

Ass power became my mantra and I invoke it to this day.