W.P. Greene

The other afternoon, for lack of air conditioning and a better thing to do, a female companion and myself, snuck into a movie! Aren't we badasses? The primary attribute required of the movie was that it be starting as near to our arrival as possible. What we ended up seeing was well worth the metaphorical firebombing of the film industry by seeing a 10 dollar movie for free. It was Don Cheadle's new vehicle, Talk To Me. Now neither of us had any idea what this movie was, let alone cared, let alone that it was based on real people, and events, and even a real place: Washington DC, in a real time: the 1970's. Wow! I was just happy it wasn't a romantic comedy (as I had assumed based on the title). But anyway, it's a fairly decent film, with some fairly decent points touched upon.

More interestingly is the fact that this man, Petey Greene, played by Cheadle was a genuine human being. Prominent DJ for DC's WOL 1450AM. Ex-con, activist, loudmouth, and all around bad-ass mother-SHUT YO MOUTH! Anyway, Greene articulated a lot of the rage felt in the black communities of DC in the 70's. He also spun some most excellent funk and soul records. He eventually branched out into stand up comedy, and settled in on his own tv show, Petey Greene's Washington on WDCA-TV20.

Greene died of cancer in 1984 and an estimated 20,000 mourners turned out to show their last respect. I'll do my best to dig up some of this cat's more radical moments and shoot em back at you. Sounds like a righteous dude. Hat's off to ya Petey Greene.