by by Sandra Beckmeier and Gretta Maxfield

ADA: What would you like to talk about? I had a list of questions, but I'm interested in knowing about the keynote speech.

Giovanni: You know if I can answer you in all respect -- I've always resented journalists doing things. I'm a sports fan, and ever since yesterday we've been doing this thing with Wayne: "Wayne Gretsky is going to announce his retirement." Let him announce it! They have all of this pre-announcing and then of course Sports Center comes on at 5pm here, 6pm in the real world. They say Wayne Gretsky may announce his retirement. No, he made his announcement at three o'clock this after-fucking-noon! And if everybody, [laughter] excuse me -- would quit anticipating, we would deal with news. But we never deal with news. Ever notice that?

Things happen and either we're getting reports on what will happen, right? Or we're getting reports on what has happened that they're late in doing. And so in terms of what I want to do in the keynote, I'm going to re-support your talk, but I don't like to do that because it sounds like I'm repeating myself. I hate grown-ups who read a speech to grown-ups because nobody enjoys hearing that. And you're standing up there and saying, "Today we are here to honor Heman Sweatt." I mean it's terrible. And everybody does because they have to pass it out. Do you know what I'm saying?

ADA: Yeah.

Giovanni: And what the press does -- and I'm not picking on the press -- but what they turn around and do is say they deviated from the written speech; but the written speech has never been given, so they had a right to deviate. So it drives you crazy.

ADA: Define revolution and how it differs and where you see it now, the difference between then and now.

Giovanni: Well, I think we sadly are seeing things that have to be put down just as the government is totally willing, and I'm not having a problem with trying to stop the so-called ethnic cleansing in Kosovo -- you know we're trying to stop that. I think that the government has to move, and I think that Clinton is right to vacate crimes. It's a separate sort of category and I know people have been laughing about that and I've been reading editorials that have been saying, "Oh what does that mean we'll give them double laughs ha, ha, ha, very funny." But you need to tell people you're not allowed to do that! You're not allowed to go and seduce a young man into your car and tie him up to a fence post and beat his brains out! You're not allowed -- in Alabama we had that same situation with a gay young man, you're not allowed to beat people to death. And then your reason for doing that is, "Oh, they were gay," as if everybody was supposed to say, "Oh, okay, I understand why you did that."

You're also not allowed, as we know in Jasper, Texas, to tie people up behind your pick-up truck. And so, clearly, whatever revolution means, it means a vigilance that we cannot allow one scapegoat to be indispersed for another because one thing that is extremely clear is that black, gay, or any other kind of difference, you just can't interchange it. So the same people that beat gays to death also beat their wives and fucked their daughters and that's a huge no-no. It's just not allowed! I hope that Clinton's bill is passed. I hope that it passes because people need to know. It's not just against the law because common sense says you shouldn't beat people. You don't have to be smart to know that, but it sends a message that says we take this seriously. Because there was a time if you beat your wife everybody thought, "Oh yeah, well, she probably annoyed him and the eggs were cold." And we laughed about that. And then finally the women got enough out of it and said, "Well no, this is not a good idea!" It has to stop and we need to send a message about the gay community too because I don't know what makes the gays so powerful. All the gays? I don't know, I've never seen gays tie up a straight guy and beat his brains out because he said no. It's certainly something that the black community needs to be in front of, and so I've been very disappointed with the response of the black community. I think that the black community is afraid of being identified with the "out" group, and yet the black community is the "out" group. If it wasn't the gays that they are beating to death now, it used to be us.

ADA: I've heard it called "crimes of ignorance."

Giovanni: I don't think it's crimes of ignorance, I think it's crimes of evil. I think they thought they could get away with it. Somebody else said if ignorance can't be the question then education can't be the answer. It's not ignorance. It's not stupidity that makes two sort of half-drunk college boys decide to beat to death another. It's something fun about beating people. I don't beat people so I don't know what fun it is. I don't want to beat people because I don't want to take a chance that it might be the thrill of my life. But clearly it's fun to kill people and clearly it's fun to dominate people. You know that because too many people do it. Clearly it's a kick, and it's probably the same kind of kick that you shouldn't do because once you do it, it's very difficult to stop. We can't ignore that, so what we're going to do is we're going to stop it before it gets an opportunity. The same way we don't want you to do drugs, you know. It's not because drugs stop you from working -- you're not working any damn way. We don't want you to do drugs because clearly you would slit my throat to get money to do drugs. So the way that I protect my throat is that I suggest that you not do it. I guess the other way would be that I find a way to make drugs cheap. Because as long as we keep it illegal we know that we're going to have a problem. We don't want people on drugs because it is an ectasy. I don't do drugs because I wouldn't trust myself to do drugs. I never did and I never will. I'm a control freak, but clearly it's an ecstasy, and that's what people say and everybody can't be lying. The Menendez brothers shooting their parents because they could have killed them -- alot easier than what they did. It was fun!

And that's why we have war. That's one of the reasons why I support women for example, women in the military. It's one of the reasons men don't because men have a good time. They go off and they don't have to bathe, they don't have to shave, they don't have to brush their teeth. Whatever they find that they want to fuck, they can, and they can kill it. And everybody has a good time, and I think we need to send some women in, because when the women come in it's no longer fun. And that's what they're complaining about women in the military. It's not fun. All these blood sports, something's wrong with it!

Slam is an outgrowth of hip-hop culture which says that poetry has a voice, and a meaningful voice.

ADA: How do you go about teaching poetry?

Giovanni: I'm a very traditional poet. I'm basically a lyric poet and my kids do rap -- and that's fine. I don't have a problem with that. I just want to make sure they know poetic tongues, that they know what they're doing. My job is to make sure they have all of the tools available.