As Old As

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Killing time before class starts, my students and I are shooting the breeze about music. One mentions she will be attending Metallica’s upcoming concert in NJ, which I will attending as well. It segues into first album purchased (Micheal Jackson’s “Off the Wall”) and first concert attended, which for me was The Spinners with an appearance by Dionne Warwick. Only one student, not much older than I, knew of the group. Way to feel ancient Rai – geesh, but I guess it was better than none of them knowing, right? Right.

The student who knew of the Spinners sings out  “I’m sitting all alone by the telephone, waiting for your call..”

Not missing a beat I join in singing “…when you don’t call at all. It’s a shame, sha-ame.”

We trade lyrics and singers from the late 60s, early 70s for a bit. Clearly, I was familiar enough with the music of that time to have not just heard it from my parents collection. I am accused of that often enough that I just shrug it off for the compliment it accidentally gives. Meanwhile I can see the numbers crunching in his head as he looked hard at my face, which is never a good way to judge my vintage, by the way.

“How the hell old are you?” He baldly asks the burning question at last.

“Damn dude!” Exclaimed another student “You don’t do that!”

Without batting an eye, me – being me, answered in true me fashion.

“Let’s just say I was a cougar to Methuselah.”

There was a most awkward pause before some of them got it and laughed. While Methuselah had to be explained to the rest. It amused me immensely that I, the self-proclaimed resident heathen, made a biblical reference that went over nearly everyone’s head.

“And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died.”
–Genesis 5:27 King James Version (KJV)

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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 10

A Life After Death

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Legendary rapper the Notorious B.I.G., born Christopher Wallace, was also known as Biggie Smalls professionally and Big Poppa by his fans, was gunned down in 20 years ago today at the age of 25. While the artist only recorded two solo albums during his brief life, his music has left a lasting influence to the point that many have called, and still call, him the greatest of all time, or the GOAT. Many young rap artists out today cite him as an influence. Fellow Brooklynite rapper Jay-Z gives a shout out to Biggie at nearly every concert to this day. For those who do not follow rap, or don’t even know his name, many at least recognize the most iconic image of him…

The Notorious B.I.G. – shot by Barron Claiborne for Rolling Stone magazine

The Notorious B.I.G. – photo by Barron Claiborne for Rolling Stone magazine

Biggie’s influence remains such that NBA’s Brooklyn Nets will celebrate the life of Brooklyn-born rapper when they host the New York Knicks at Barclays Center on Sunday. The evening will commemorate Biggie’s iconic legacy.

Wallace’s original stage name Biggie Smalls came from a character in the 70s blaxploitation movie “Let’s Do It Again” starring Bill Cosby & Sidney Poitier. At 300+ pounds and standing over six feet tall, the former drug dealer live up to the assumed pseudonym. When he was sued for using the name he became The Notorious B.I.G. Honestly, the law suit was a waste of time. Even for many of us with the vintage to remember the the character from the classic movie, the name Biggie Smalls will henceforth be associated with Big Poppa first.

Biggie, Biggie, Biggie can’t you see?
Sometimes your words just hypnotize me.

While not a devoted fan of the exaltation of sex and drugs that permeated rap at time, Biggie hit a balance that was not has hard hitting as some others like N.W.A., but was not anywhere near the easy-listening sounds of  say Heavy D.  So yes, I am a fan of The Notorious B.I.G.’s music and his smoother than silk delivery as he told his truths his way.

So today, on the anniversary of his leaving this world, my iPod plays all things Biggie, to celebrate a life that had such an impact while he walked this world.

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Sequitur / Non-sequitur:
I started this post on my cell phone – it amused to see each time I typed “The Notorious” it immediately suggested “B.I.G.”
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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 9

!! HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY !!

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Maya Angelou’s classic poem Phenomenal Woman as set to music by Amy Sky.

A loving reminder to all women that we are indeed phenomenal!

It’s International Women’s Day and I’m I woman. W-O-M-A-N! I’ll say it again!

Today is going to be ridicu-busy for me. If I don’t post something now – it won’t happen.  And who better than Maya and the lovely Amy Sky to say and sing it better?
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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 8

Home

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It’s a small place, but it is our own
Its mandatory comforts aren’t much fuss
Fuss doesn’t hold credence with folks like us
Be it ever so humble, it is our home

The front faces north and east
Its perimeter acres from anyone
The southwest view catches the setting sun
Between sunrise and sunset a visual feast

An aquamarine lake past woods beyond compare
I choose the rooms I live in with care

I’m a simple person with simple needs
“It shows” tease my friends with a smile
Yet they all seem to stay for more than a while
It’s richness they say is my heart and deeds

Our décor to some leaves much to be desired
Erratic colors from when we bought the place
And only a minimum of furnishing fill the space
I confess myself it’s not very inspired

Some say simple, some say austere
The windows are small and the walls almost bare

For us the beauty of this place is past the four walls
Enjoying each dawn of nature’s reception
And dusky colors beyond conception
As nature paints new pictures winter, spring, summer, fall

At home, it seems the stars shine as never before
Full moons deflect the dark echoes of silence of country nights
A most different view to our former noisy city lights
Haley’s comet is nothing to how it makes my heart soar

And at night there’s only one with whom to share
There’s only one bed and there’s only one prayer

Some say I am obsessed and such
It seems this house and you are all I know
The increment of time makes it more so
But I know you love this place just as much

As each day passes, it grows even more warm
Our humble home with its vista so grand
Such good fortune in life, more than I can stand
Each night I sleep soundly, holding your sweet form

And on the rare working night, when I’m holding air
I listen all night for your step on the stair

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(Italicized lines from Leonard Cohen’s “Tonight Will Be Fine”)

Today at dVerse Purple Pen In Portland (Sara McNulty) is tending bar and asks us to imagine that you have been given free rein to design any type of building you wish. As I already have poems of my abode out there, I decided to take this from the view of someone a whose style is little – read very – different from mine.

dVerse | Poetics: Poetics:DIY Building 

Real Toads: The Tuesday Platform

One World-Divisible 

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On Star Trek: TNG there was an episode about a planet wanting to join the Federation, but could not because a small part of its population was against it. It had to be a united planet to be a member.

A united planet.

We who call ourselves citizens of the United States would be noted as liars to say we are united merely as a country these days. We have not been truly united since a few years or so after 9/11. Perhaps there was a momentary resurgence of patriotism when Osama Bin Laden was finally taken down, but bloom fell off that rose pretty quickly.

Locations of ongoing conflicts worldwide; updated March 2017. - Wikipedia

Locations of ongoing conflicts worldwide; updated March 2017. – Wikipedia

Since Cain first had his jealous streak and took out Able it has been man’s penchant to divide and hold his cause in favor.

It is one the oldest strategies in the book of power. And it works, because it plays directly in to human nature.  We classify ourselves as along political, social, religious, economic lines and so on. We used to agree to disagree and be, if not fine, at least tolerant of opposing views. These matters are central to human social existence and tend resist any attempts at resolution. As a result, each side views the position of the other as a threat to its very existence.  The more we lose sight of our commonalities; drifting away from each other and becoming less human. When we group ourselves away from and regard those outside of our group with fear, with hostility, even if, especially when they’ve done nothing – we forget that they are humans too and that makes us part of the problem.

These intractable conflicts are ones that have continued unresolved and seem stuck in their levels of intensity and destructiveness. People tend to strike out at what is different, what they fear, which is bad when what we fear is each other.
It’s worse when we give in to that fear, give in to that desire to inflict as much harm, physical and psychological, on each other as possible. For so many this constant sense of threat and hostility pervades everyday life and overrides our ability to recognize any shared concerns.

For a nation renowned on embracing the different, some in the US seem to have lost sight of this within our own walls. Where will her huddled masses go if Liberty’s torch grows dim?

Will it ever come to a point it blows out?

And the U.S. is but one nation of many nations trying to get its act together, as a people we seem to be doing more and more separating of ourselves from each other. Earth would never be admitted as a member of the UFP as we stand now.

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Writing Our Lives #52essays2017 challenge – Week 10

52essays2017

A year-long weekly personal essay/memoir/creative nonfiction writing challenge. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out Vanessa Martir’s website and learn about it.

 

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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 7

Wake Up And Listen

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Note: This was the slice that should have been typed and posted Saturday morning. By the time I finally pulled myself out of bed, I hit the ground running and did not stop until very late evening. Those who read my ‘placeholder’ for Saturday night and my slice for yesterday know why it was preempted to today.

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I woke up to birdsong.

I have a small playground surrounded by trees outside my windows. So in spite of my being a born and mostly bred city gal, I do hear birds on a regular basis. However, it is usually on weekday mornings of spring and autumn when their rising coincides with my walk to the train station for work. Again, depending on timing, some evenings I will catch their riotous calls as they circle and settle in for the night. Still, I almost never hear them weekend mornings.

As an early riser Monday thru Friday, unless my bladder calls, I steadfastly refuse acknowledgement of the world before 9am, 10am if I am particularly knackered from the previous night’s shenanigans. This is what made Saturday morning different. Daylight was just breaking over the jagged horizon of homes and tenements that mark my neighborhood I woke up to the trills and coos of birds. It’s not even 7am so my first instinct is to turn over and go back to sleep when I realize what I’m hearing. While I knew the playground and trees were there, it was one of the selling points to choosing the apartment, I had not really factored in birds. I amused myself trying to imagine their “morning routine” on a brisk winter day. Who’s the early riser among them, driving every other avian crazy with a.m. perkiness? Which is the one still burrowing under the twigs and twining of their nest wanting a few more moments of shut-eye.

It was the first time I’ve noticed them while ensconced in the quilting of my bed. It was a wonderful reminder of how close we are to spring.  They were at decibels boisterous enough to seep through windows tightly sealed against the chill of winter. Loud enough to reach through my still sleep drugged mind to make me hear; so now I listened. Until they lulled me back to sleep.

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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 6

One Monkey Part Deux

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The following is the post I wanted to submit for Day 4, but it was well after 11pm when I started typing. I knew and knew it would not be done by midnight – so here we are..

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My sons and I enter a diner on the Upper West Side after seeing “Logan”. Usually having a both available it was surprisingly crowded so relented to being seated at a table in a tight corner adjacent to a table with a solo diner. As I squeezed into the corner, the back of  my coat brushed against a coat laying across the back of a chair at that table. The owner of said coat, an older caucasian male apparently not liking that my down coat made contact with his , shoved the chair in a way that caused the chair to strike me in my left cheek. 

I was in a good mood, I was with my boys and some people are just assholes. I said a pointed “Excuse me!” at his rudeness and started removing my coat. I  heard him speaking to the busboy, but was not really paying heed until I saw the busboy bring him a damp paper towel to which he proceeded to wipe down his coat.

Wait, what…? 

My eldest was standing next to me with his back to the man and did not see it, but by the way my youngest’s entire demeanor changed as we sat down, I could tell he had and that I was not imagining things.  It’s not as though the coat somehow slipped to the floor when I passed and was now dirty, the man was wiping it down because my down coat covered ass accidentally brushed up against his down coat.

I glared at the man about to say “You know even if I touched it directly, my Black won’t rub off on it, right?” when several thoughts rapidly crossed my mind…

.0001 seconds: Fucker, I should take your coat and drop it on the floor. Then it will need the wiping. 
.001 seconds: We’re on the only people of color in this place who aren’t workers here. Let’s not get ethnic and become dinner gossip fodder.
.01 seconds: I don’t have bail money.

Determined not to live up to the stereotype, instead I turned my face to the window the fingers of my right striking the table with a rapid steady staccato that put both sons on notice, my youngest grabbed my other hand to keep me, or perhaps himself, from getting up.  It became a bigger issue when the man spoke to the busboy and got up from the table to stand-off to the side. The diner’s greeter/host came to inquire and while the man’s voice was too low for me to hear, he waved his hand between our table and his with obvious disdain. Whatever the man said to him, the host clearly was not getting it.

“He can’t sit at that table anymore because we’re sitting at this one.” I spoke up indicating both tables. At the host’s continued lack of comprehension I expanded further “He was fine until you sat us here, now he has a problem and cannot sit there.” I can see understanding cross the latino busboy’s face as he looked from the man to us,then locked eyes with me and gave a sad little knowing smile “You get it don’t you?” He nodded once before clearing away an adjacent table.

The man stood there for quite a while, glaring at us, before going to stand in another section of the restaurant. I suspect he was hoping either he or we would be reseated elsewhere. The place was packed with people waiting by the door for a table – it wasn’t going to happen. The host, finally getting the gist of the situation, came over to us. I distinctly heard him call the man “scum” under his breath before asking if we were ready to order. All in all, glaring beside, it’s as though the man somehow knew not to say anything to us directly. I could all but guarantee you that had he said anything to us we did not like, all bets were off. Alas, God protects fools and children, and he was not a child.

Normally, after a movie, I’m famished and looking forward to a good nosh.  Not surprising the three of us suddenly had little appetite. We had not even picked up the menus to peruse the options. Yet, the three of us knew –  to get up and leave means he wins, and we were not having that. We eventually each ordered something. Still, something of a pall -perhaps because we were appalled?-  loomed over the remainder of dinner that we could not fully ease even with his eventual departure.

In the interim,  my thoughts and our conversation filtered through how our reactions may have been different were we three train stations north in Harlem, versus the posh Upper West Side. Would we have been more boisterous in expressing our anger if we were, say, in a McDonald’s as opposed to a nice diner? Would I have policed myself had it be I alone confronted with him? For that is what is was, self-policing. Or perhaps by silencing the stream of viciousness going through my head in that moment clamouring to get out God was protecting the three of us.  Either way it sticks in my craw a little even now hours later.

To top it all off, in the Insult to Injury Files – upon receiving the check, the host, this same one who called the man “scum” earlier came to our table to explain to us that the man was actually a germophobe and that was excuse for behaving the way he did.  And with a page right out of Get Smart the host had the nerve to end it with “And would you believe he’s a doctor?” He must have seen the triple sets of deep eyerolls calling him out on the bullshit of his, well, bullshit as he apologized and walked away. Even the busboy, who again happened to be near our table and heard it, just kind of looked at his boss as if to say oh please! 

Last month there was a mini documentary of sorts circling the web where African-American celebrities told of The First Time I Realized I Was Black. Ging through the various stories, it was poignant, it raised some ire, some sadness and memories. Were I asked, I may not recall the very first time, but thanks to this one man, I can tell you the most recent.
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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 5

Place Holder

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I had a slice on my mind all morning, but then my morning ran away from me and I never got to write, let alone post it. It was just as well as this evening provided me with a regrettable, but larger slice to choke on and work with.

Unfortunately, I know I will not have it typed in time for today’s deadline.  So here I am near the witching hour asking you to stay tuned….

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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 4

 

 

MLMM – Finish off Friday #9: The Wait

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Clementine anxiously waited for the 5:40 out of the city, wondering if he would be on board. Why she could scarcely believe the amount of time that had passed since they last saw each other! She paced while twisting her handkerchief so tightly in anxious anticipation, it was not until the pain felt in her fingers from circulation’s lack stopped her.

Oh Clem, you’re being silly, stop it this instant!! 

She chastised herself harshly as she unwrapped the material, flexing her fingers until blood flowed again. Finally, the train was here! She kept rising on her toes looking for a sign of him. As the amount of those disembarking thinned, she felt her first sense of dread. When she finally saw the face of her love as he disembarked, she knew.

He came with the porter, who was begging her forgiveness for his folly – he had only wanted to hold the pretty bird just for a moment, he didn’t expect it to take flight.  Clem only had eyes for the empty cage that once held, Rosie, her beloved parakeet.  The woe in her fiance’s eyes told her before his words could.

“She is lost and gone forever. Dreadful sorry, Clementine.”

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Come now, you knew someone was going to go there, right?

Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie : Finish off Friday #9: The Wait 03.03.17

Battle Lines

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On Wednesday it reached a whopping 70+ degrees. I told myself, it is still winter bring your coat. Naturally, I fully regretted that decision by mid afternoon when I was sweltering under my wool coat as I walked about. Or as I nicely posted on Wednesday…

weather

The temps have since dropped steadily since Wednesday afternoon. It’s now Friday, with an expected high of 41 degrees which has already come and gone. This morning I happily pulled on my wool coat, grabbing a hat, scarf and gloves not seen since last week . Even so the temperatures continue to drop more as the day progresses.

So Ol’ Man Winter has remembered we’re still in his purlieu and has remembered with a vengeance, as tomorrow’s expected high is a brutal 19 degrees.

Tomorrow, I will be hanging out with my offspring. While I am looking forward to seeing them, I am not looking forward to Jack Frost’s rendition of Shakespeare’s Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!

We’re smack in the lion’s jaw right now in his annual battle with the lamb for seasonal supremacy. Three days into March and it’s already looking to be a doozey. Forget what that stupid groundhog said, you can do this Lamb!

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10th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! – DAY 3