Showing posts with label change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label change. Show all posts
Thursday, October 01, 2015
Sunday, January 04, 2009
and now...
i would like to take a moment to say thanks to the dominican thug on my block who, whenever he sees me, proclaims at the top of his lungs that anyone that effs with me effs with him, too. it was (and still is) momentarily embarassing, listening to his voice boom out over the street and then watching everyone readjust under the sheer volume of his seemingly spontaneous tirade, and then look at me sideways as i walk past them. but there is much love in it that i don't care anymore. i'm just loving the love.
when i first moved to the neighborhood, everyone assumed that i was dominican, too. and when they realized how bad my spanish was, they thought i was haitian. at this point, they're convinced that i'm some kind of foreign but they aren't sure exactly what. i wasn't necessarily one of them, but one of them looked out for me.
it was like that with will, the crackhead who lived on the first floor of my old building on west 150th street. when the con ed man would show up to shut off my electricity because i hadn't paid it in like forever, will would sic his twin dobermans on him. he tried very hard to convince me that if i didn't stop being so nice to everyone, something bad would happen to me. i would see him in the street all the time. my brothers had known him since forever and he would come over sometimes. he was like my crazy uncle or something. there were moments when we could not separate until we were nearly screaming because we were laughing so much. when his heart finally exploded in his chest and they dragged him to harlem hospital and worked on him and then he overdosed for real and died, i cried for days.
for some time after that -- and still to this day, really -- i find myself surrounded by junkies. most of them are hiding in plain sight, with day jobs and children and such. reformed, clean, sober. walking the narrow and playing it straight. invariably, i'll meet someone and eventually they'll tell me that they still shoot up sometimes. or that all that skag they used to do is something they don't ever really talk about. junk is usually in there somewhere. there was one someone who used to sing the chorus of that gun club song to me all the time. indeed, there have been so many junkies that have followed the sound of my voice and fallen for me that i'm starting to think of it as the will residue in my life.
and then there was the little old jew in my old building on west 86th street -- a retired moil, no less! -- who would bring me hamentashen on my special day and correct my relatively okay yiddish, and teach me more. actually, harry the moil was one of many. there was norman. and marty. and adele. and sam, who sat at the front desk and decided who could live there and who couldn't. all of them, fluent in several languages. all of them, holocaust survivors. sam filled the building with brazilians, artists and students, and harry would sit in front of the building and talk about "the old days" with his friends who also lived in the building. i have a 92 year old father who made it through the great migration north in 1928 -- from st. george, south carolina all the way to brighton beach, coney island to be exact -- so i've been hearing about the old days my whole life. you know. when a loaf of bread was a nickel and you didn't have to lock your doors at night and ladies were ladies and you only ate pickles out of barrels, not wrapped in plastic like nowadays and how you could go to dance halls for a dime and coney island was really fun, not like it is today and all this stuff. to this day, my father probably knows as much yiddish as they do.
at first they treated me like i was a walking freakshow but then eventually all of them totally loved me. they would sit in a half circle all day under the trees on that broad sidewalk and kibbitz. whenever i would come in or out of the building, they would teach me a new word. after awhile, i could greet each of them in at least six languages. including croatian. and oh, yes. my yiddish improved.
all of them looked out for me, all of the time.
and then there are the africans -- all of the africans from the entire diaspora that i've ever met, stateside and and across the pond, anywhere, ever -- who would assume that i was african and talk to me in their native language until i stopped them, who were repeatedly dumbstruck time and time again by how african i look, who would call me sister and mean it, who reached out to understand and embrace me as an individual and not some "american" stereotype, who would help me find my way and let me help them find theirs. the brothers who would teach me french, dance with me, eat my cooking, hold my hand, show me pictures of their little sisters who look like me.
everytime we pass each other, there is love. it happens so easily when we let everything go. all of our differences, all of the things that separate us. whatever tribe we belong to, whatever country we come from, whatever language we speak. there is that moment when all of it falls away in an instant. we "speak" in that time-honored tradition that still means everything to us and we say nothing at all, and in so doing, we say everything. we look at each other with this knowing and its so full of feeling that we can't look at each other any more. we look at each other and all of these things happen in an instant and all of a sudden, we have to look away.
and yes, there are so many more.
all of you -- i can't stop writing songs about you. you all changed me and helped me grow into a better person and a stronger blackgrrl. thank you for all the love.
when i first moved to the neighborhood, everyone assumed that i was dominican, too. and when they realized how bad my spanish was, they thought i was haitian. at this point, they're convinced that i'm some kind of foreign but they aren't sure exactly what. i wasn't necessarily one of them, but one of them looked out for me.
it was like that with will, the crackhead who lived on the first floor of my old building on west 150th street. when the con ed man would show up to shut off my electricity because i hadn't paid it in like forever, will would sic his twin dobermans on him. he tried very hard to convince me that if i didn't stop being so nice to everyone, something bad would happen to me. i would see him in the street all the time. my brothers had known him since forever and he would come over sometimes. he was like my crazy uncle or something. there were moments when we could not separate until we were nearly screaming because we were laughing so much. when his heart finally exploded in his chest and they dragged him to harlem hospital and worked on him and then he overdosed for real and died, i cried for days.
for some time after that -- and still to this day, really -- i find myself surrounded by junkies. most of them are hiding in plain sight, with day jobs and children and such. reformed, clean, sober. walking the narrow and playing it straight. invariably, i'll meet someone and eventually they'll tell me that they still shoot up sometimes. or that all that skag they used to do is something they don't ever really talk about. junk is usually in there somewhere. there was one someone who used to sing the chorus of that gun club song to me all the time. indeed, there have been so many junkies that have followed the sound of my voice and fallen for me that i'm starting to think of it as the will residue in my life.
and then there was the little old jew in my old building on west 86th street -- a retired moil, no less! -- who would bring me hamentashen on my special day and correct my relatively okay yiddish, and teach me more. actually, harry the moil was one of many. there was norman. and marty. and adele. and sam, who sat at the front desk and decided who could live there and who couldn't. all of them, fluent in several languages. all of them, holocaust survivors. sam filled the building with brazilians, artists and students, and harry would sit in front of the building and talk about "the old days" with his friends who also lived in the building. i have a 92 year old father who made it through the great migration north in 1928 -- from st. george, south carolina all the way to brighton beach, coney island to be exact -- so i've been hearing about the old days my whole life. you know. when a loaf of bread was a nickel and you didn't have to lock your doors at night and ladies were ladies and you only ate pickles out of barrels, not wrapped in plastic like nowadays and how you could go to dance halls for a dime and coney island was really fun, not like it is today and all this stuff. to this day, my father probably knows as much yiddish as they do.
at first they treated me like i was a walking freakshow but then eventually all of them totally loved me. they would sit in a half circle all day under the trees on that broad sidewalk and kibbitz. whenever i would come in or out of the building, they would teach me a new word. after awhile, i could greet each of them in at least six languages. including croatian. and oh, yes. my yiddish improved.
all of them looked out for me, all of the time.
and then there are the africans -- all of the africans from the entire diaspora that i've ever met, stateside and and across the pond, anywhere, ever -- who would assume that i was african and talk to me in their native language until i stopped them, who were repeatedly dumbstruck time and time again by how african i look, who would call me sister and mean it, who reached out to understand and embrace me as an individual and not some "american" stereotype, who would help me find my way and let me help them find theirs. the brothers who would teach me french, dance with me, eat my cooking, hold my hand, show me pictures of their little sisters who look like me.
everytime we pass each other, there is love. it happens so easily when we let everything go. all of our differences, all of the things that separate us. whatever tribe we belong to, whatever country we come from, whatever language we speak. there is that moment when all of it falls away in an instant. we "speak" in that time-honored tradition that still means everything to us and we say nothing at all, and in so doing, we say everything. we look at each other with this knowing and its so full of feeling that we can't look at each other any more. we look at each other and all of these things happen in an instant and all of a sudden, we have to look away.
and yes, there are so many more.
all of you -- i can't stop writing songs about you. you all changed me and helped me grow into a better person and a stronger blackgrrl. thank you for all the love.
Friday, January 02, 2009
changed
when i was a child, tremaine hawkins' voice was absolutely everywhere. she was married to one of the hawkins' brothers, sang with the LOVE Alive choir and was (and still is, some years later) a powerhouse of a performer. i remember wishing that i could sing like her. many an afternoon found me sitting and listening and imitating what i heard but that wasn't really what i wanted. i was drawn to the overwhelming passion in her delivery, but i knew that there was more than feelings involved. i knew how to sing, and i knew how to sing with feeling and i knew that i didn't have what she had. so the differentiation between feeling and that something else was understood.
if all of that weren't enough, it was the 70s. the radio was filled with people singing with feeling. the television was filled with variety shows that would have entire segments devoted to these "singing with feeling" people, strumming their guitars and their lutes and whatever else they could caress sincerely, staring glassy-eyed beyond the camera, to something that was beyond any of us. there was even a hit song at the time, called (appropriately enough) feelings. nothing could get more touchy-feely than that. and yet as time went on, that's exactly what happened. but i digress.
sitting in the living room, playing tremaine's songs over and over and over again, singing them to myself, watching the mac davis (a texan, by the way -- remember that huuuuge elvis presley song in the ghetto? yeah, well, mac wrote it...) show on tv, hearing david soul (another actor who was really a singer) on the mike douglas show singing don't give up on us -- nobody had to tell me. i knew. this woman's voice was something that was touched by the divine. mrs. hawkins was anointed. in retrospect, what i wanted was to sing with that anointing. i was raised COGIC and so i understood very well that i couldn't will my voice into such a state. it was simply the presence of God resting upon her soul.
of the hawkins brothers, walter had his brilliant moments with the LOVE Alive choir and many great songs but it was edwin who revolutionized gospel music with his rearrangement of the 17/18th century hymn oh happy day -- with full choir and a conga back beat, no less. (you don't even want to know what the original sounds like.) these were the same hawkins brothers who hung out with andrae crouch and his twin sister sandra as kids. much like the stewarts, who also lived in the bay area, sang gospel with their mother as the stewart four and whose son sylvester would break away from his gospel-soaked upbringing, delve into secular music and change the world, too.
and you know who recorded with them, sang with them, and attended bishop walter hawkins' church up until he died? that's right. sylvester.
interestingly, they were all COGIC.
in the same way that i tilt my head and look at people differently when they tell me that of course they're musically sophisitcated, of course they love jazz but they don't like ornette, i have to wonder about musicians who love sly stone (a texan, by the way) and who don't "get" his gospel roots, or know who andrae crouch is.
this song still resonates, still transcends, after all this time. she's an old lady and her voice is as clear as a bell and she's still on fire.
...and yes. this song is just the tip of the iceberg.
if all of that weren't enough, it was the 70s. the radio was filled with people singing with feeling. the television was filled with variety shows that would have entire segments devoted to these "singing with feeling" people, strumming their guitars and their lutes and whatever else they could caress sincerely, staring glassy-eyed beyond the camera, to something that was beyond any of us. there was even a hit song at the time, called (appropriately enough) feelings. nothing could get more touchy-feely than that. and yet as time went on, that's exactly what happened. but i digress.
sitting in the living room, playing tremaine's songs over and over and over again, singing them to myself, watching the mac davis (a texan, by the way -- remember that huuuuge elvis presley song in the ghetto? yeah, well, mac wrote it...) show on tv, hearing david soul (another actor who was really a singer) on the mike douglas show singing don't give up on us -- nobody had to tell me. i knew. this woman's voice was something that was touched by the divine. mrs. hawkins was anointed. in retrospect, what i wanted was to sing with that anointing. i was raised COGIC and so i understood very well that i couldn't will my voice into such a state. it was simply the presence of God resting upon her soul.
of the hawkins brothers, walter had his brilliant moments with the LOVE Alive choir and many great songs but it was edwin who revolutionized gospel music with his rearrangement of the 17/18th century hymn oh happy day -- with full choir and a conga back beat, no less. (you don't even want to know what the original sounds like.) these were the same hawkins brothers who hung out with andrae crouch and his twin sister sandra as kids. much like the stewarts, who also lived in the bay area, sang gospel with their mother as the stewart four and whose son sylvester would break away from his gospel-soaked upbringing, delve into secular music and change the world, too.
and you know who recorded with them, sang with them, and attended bishop walter hawkins' church up until he died? that's right. sylvester.
interestingly, they were all COGIC.
in the same way that i tilt my head and look at people differently when they tell me that of course they're musically sophisitcated, of course they love jazz but they don't like ornette, i have to wonder about musicians who love sly stone (a texan, by the way) and who don't "get" his gospel roots, or know who andrae crouch is.
this song still resonates, still transcends, after all this time. she's an old lady and her voice is as clear as a bell and she's still on fire.
...and yes. this song is just the tip of the iceberg.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
every. single. day.
i've decided to jump start things this year creatively by doing the NaBloPoMo challenge this month. i figure the discipline of writing every day will bleed over into all of the other things that i have to do every day as well. like practicing the piano. and making my bed. and going to the gym.
interestingly enough, the theme for january is CHANGE.
there's a lot that's changing in my world, in spite of me. right now, it feels as though i'm being carried along by the undertow -- strong creative currents and good ideas.
more details as things develop.
in the meantime, here's a photo to keep you warm: me and Grandma the Clown, partying the night away on New Year's Eve at the Big Apple Circus.
and here's what my friend and i overheard at least a dozen times as we sat two rows from ringside.
Bratty Little Rude Ritalin Kid: (loud, obnoxious) are you a man or a woman?
Grandma the Clown: (smiling, flat response) yes, i am a man or a woman.
priceless.
interestingly enough, the theme for january is CHANGE.
there's a lot that's changing in my world, in spite of me. right now, it feels as though i'm being carried along by the undertow -- strong creative currents and good ideas.
more details as things develop.
in the meantime, here's a photo to keep you warm: me and Grandma the Clown, partying the night away on New Year's Eve at the Big Apple Circus.
and here's what my friend and i overheard at least a dozen times as we sat two rows from ringside.
Bratty Little Rude Ritalin Kid: (loud, obnoxious) are you a man or a woman?
Grandma the Clown: (smiling, flat response) yes, i am a man or a woman.
priceless.
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