: lower black pain.

By the time you read this, it will be summer.

The solstice will have occurred, one of the two times each year the sun seems to stand still in the sky for a moment before continuing its orbital motion.

Target™, in its trademark spirit of nearly intolerable seasonal anticipation, having been outfitted with inflatable beachballs since late March, will today begin shifting its display towards “Back to School” (if not Halloween).

There will not be a “warm” day again until autumn… days will either be “really hot”, “kind of hot” or “not as hot as yesterday”.

As it is now summertime, I have instantly gained five pounds.

Being originally from the Midwest, my personal physics do not recognize the need for a svelte summer shape. I hail from the center of the continent, far from the oceans, where “beach bodies” are entirely unnecessary.

There is no midwestern equivalent to a “beach body” – there is not a “lake body” or “pool body” (unless you're the first detective on the scene in a television show).

As midwestern summers were always very hot, I tended to move less frequently than during the school year. I also drank more soda, because I was “on vacation” at home, without the luxury of public school air conditioning, and it was important that I remain hydrated. Thus, I actually could gain weight during the summer months. When I was old enough, I got a summer job dancing at the amusement park, which should have helped exercise-wise but was still troublesome due to the theatre’s generous breaks between showtimes and proximity to a Haagen-Daz ice cream cart.

If I do need to remove a t-shirt for any reason during the next 90 days, I will, like everyone else, gird my abdominal muscles continually to fashion a physique I have titled “The 1 Pack”. I will then endure the searing pain of my cramped yet presentable midriff until I can get into the water or back in the car or behind a significant tree, to once again breathe freely.

1958: The Jamies, a sister and brother band from Boston, release what would be their biggest hit,

“It’s summertime, summertime, sum, sum, summertime…”

For the late 1950’s, the lyrics are rebellious, flippant, daring. The song is a madrigal that doesn’t suspect it is secretly a punk anthem, an early precursor to Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” or Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” that became synonymous with the season, played on every AM station on the first day of summer for decades.

I cannot help but sing it myself every year. It is a summer Christmas carol.

Summer is now in full effect.

People are in mall parking lots, pausing after they open the doors to their car in order to “let the heat out”. Refrigerator doors are also being held open a few seconds longer, as owners languish in the sudden wave of delicious coolness. Coffee now requires a straw.

Days are long, nights are short, movies are blockbustery, and we forgot sunscreen again! We’ll have to pick some up at the drugstore on the way.

Suddenly, a Big Gulp™ seems like a perfectly logical amount of potable liquid. It’s sum sum summertime.

Summertime, Summertime

Song by Thomas Earl Jameson

It's summertime, summertime, sum-sum-summertimeSummertime, summertime, sum-sum-summertimeSummertime, summertime, sum-sum-summertimeSummertime, summertime, sum-sum-summertimeSummertime

Well, shut them books and throw 'em awayAnd say goodbye to dull school daysLook alive and change your waysIt's summertime

Well, no more studying historyAnd no more reading geographyAnd no more dull geometryBecause it's summertime

It's time to head straight for them hillsIt's time to live and have some thrillsCome along and have a ballA regular free-for-all

Well, are you comin' or are you ain't?You slow pokes are my one complaintHurry up before I faintIt's summertime

Well, I'm so happy that I could flipOh, how I'd love to take a tripI'm sorry, teacher, but zip your lipBecause it's summertime

It's time to head straight for them hillsIt's time to live and have some thrillsCome along and have a ballA regular free-for-all

Well, we'll go swimmin' every dayNo time to work, just time to playIf your folks complain, just say"It's summertime"

And every night, we'll have a dance'Cause what's a vacation without romance?Oh, man, this jive gets me in a tranceBecause it's summertime

It's time to head straight for them hillsIt's time to live and have some thrills

Come along and have a ballA regular free-for-allIt's summertimeIt's summertime, summertime, sum-sum-summertimeSummertime.

Get full access to :lowerblackpain at lowerblackpain.substack.com/subscribe

I am a responsible adult. I am an example to the child person that lives in my house, and exemplify as many mature traits as possible each day. I try to be kind, work hard, listen, learn: I attempt not to “whine” and to eat all my vegetables and don’t slouch (except on the couch, because that’s the way to sit on the couch).

It’s a struggle, not leaning into being a kid myself. For instance, I really love cornflakes – not just in the morning but for a snack or dessert or… y’know anytime, and because I am a responsible adult I can have cereal anytime I want, just like I dreamed of when I was a kid. It’s not like it’s Froot Loops or Apple Jacks or anything (delicious) like that… it’s corn flakes, American, born of simplicity and very questionable ethics, a product made pure again by the addition of sugar frosting and the distraction of a cartoon tiger. And mine aren’t even the frosted ones, they’re organic.

So, y’know, I’m a grownup. Eating grown up food. (I’m not like a kid at all.)

As a parent, I do have a few traits that may merit revision, dad-wise. Three of them (and it’s not like there’s a lot of them, just…more than three) have to do with my socks.

I am listing these as a public confession and to encourage myself to evolve past these items to become a better role model.

* The Flopsatoe [ˈflop ˈsɑ ˈtoʊ]: where I sit on the couch (well, slouch) during a film or a particularly exciting show and hold down the toe of one sock with the other foot, then slide the foot out of the sock just about an inch. Then I do that for the other foot. In a little while, this repeats, then again, until the front of each sock resembles those tall wind balloons at car dealerships (deflated). When the sock is all the way off the foot, the game is over, and the sock is officially “out of play”, which means I forget about it until someone (or one of two people) say “Pick up your socks!!”  Frequency: nearly daily.

* They don’t always match. The socks. I am lucky enough to have been gifted a fantastic array of colorful and themed hosiery, each so distinctive from the others as to make pairing unmistakable…and yet, there were times when I chose two yellow ones, and they were not the same yellow ones, or two bluish purple ones with words and stars, and then that devolved to wearing a Monty Python themed sock on one foot and a Beatles Yellow Submarine sock on the other because they were both British so they matched in geographical spirit. My daughter has given up entirely on matching socks, and I had the nerve to justify my own behavior because she was doing it, so now it was a “family thing”. My wife shook her head, slowly, from side to side, in that way she shakes her head slowly from side to side.

* Many of my favorite socks have holes in them. Again, I have a unique collection of annual gifted socks in comforting subjects and patterns which are now part of my coping mechanism™.  They are hard to let go. I am not an animal. Any hole which exposes a toe crosses the line – toes stuck in holes in socks stuck in shoes makes an unpleasant day. Most holes are on the heels: light pomice abrasion has been suggested and employed to no clear benefit, so a strict guideline of no holes larger than a two pence coin has been placed in effect. Two or more holes on the same sock is right out. Because I am a responsible adult, the socks do not just disappear when Z does laundry; instead it is my duty to place the socks, threadbare and spent, in the rubbish bin - the “sock farm up north where they can… run free”. Sniff. Sniff sniff. (The way to fix a hole in a sock is to darn it. I can mend clothes, but I’ve only actually darned a sweater, and it was quite a process.)

So, in order to evolve further as a responsible parental figure, I will (attempt to remember) from this day forward to

pick up my socks from in front of the couch,

wear matching socks (at least when I have an important meeting),

and in tribute to all socks past, teach my daughter to darn, which doesn’t seem like a Dad thing really – I’m sure I should be teaching things like hammers and football and sawing and beer, but there’s plenty of time for that.

Anyway, I’m more of a drum and bass, badminton, soldering, martini dad.

Get full access to :lowerblackpain at lowerblackpain.substack.com/subscribe

Every weekday afternoonat 3 o’clockthe day becomes so

heavy

though its balance is far past the tipping pointthe last few hourslooming aheadare somewhat overwhelming and I just get so

tired.

I make a cup of caffeine free teawhich perks me up becausethe water is just fartoo hot

then back to work withwistful sighs forsimpler times whencomplex afternoonswere met with mats and window shades.

I miss napsso much morethan i miss youth(which was exhausting)every dayat 3 o’clockwe’d all lay downand close our eyesfor just a minute

maybe 20

did we appreciate this?no.we didn’twe were foolish childrenunawareunable to anticipatethe wearinessof every dayas grown-ups

and we wasted so muchtime we could haveclosed our eyes– for just a minute.

I’ve never enjoyed sleepingall that muchsleep’s not that into memy mind transformsinto a loudunconscious sketchpadworking out the day ahead

but napswell nestled in the chaoswere a keen respitefrom conscious mayhem

and when you woke upthere was juicefrom plastic jugswith colors neon brightin paper cupsa liquid sweetness never matchedby the finest winesavailable to humanity

I never liked the cookiesthey were always dryunsatisfyingcookies should be warm

but the juice and naps were golden

that’s what I am thinking ofeach weekday afternoonbehind my deskwith too hot tea

at 3 o’clock.

Get full access to :lowerblackpain at lowerblackpain.substack.com/subscribe

Last summer, when visiting my mother, we discovered that all the ice from her refrigerator seemed to be made of epsom salt. She had gotten used to this, living her life with the understanding that during hotter months of the year all sodas and juices would taste like they were mixed with a spicy turkey gravy, but we immediately discarded all her old ice trays and sent her several replacements.

I never realized that there were so many new variations on the idea of an ice cube tray. My grandparents had fancy metal trays, requiring herculean strength to pull a frozen lever and crack apart individual pieces. We’d always had blue stackable trays made of a material that eventually became as brittle as potato chips. Now there was an endless selection online, including “perma-ice”: little plastic cubes filled with water that one could freeze, use, and then freeze again. From the few we ordered my mother was able to choose the one she liked the best, but we suspected that my mother was still not in possession of the best ice cube tray in the world.

Yesterday the New York Times published its list of the best ice cube trays in the world. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/the-best-ice-cube-tray/  The winner was surprisingly traditional, a plastic durable number guaranteed not to crack under repeated use with a sliding lid for easy stacking and prevention of the bad tastes attributed to “freezer burn”. 

I immediately sent one to my mother, and got one for us as well, because it’s that time of year where there don’t seem to be enough ice trays.

I appreciate the national holiday, but it isn’t quite summer yet: kids still in school, a lot of rain in the forecast, but we’re getting close. When it is hot, it’s really hot. Iced coffee is beginning to sound like a good idea. The grocery store has a sale on those frozen juice popsicles in the long plastic sleeves. The air conditioning just kicked on at work, but we’re still getting good use out of our office sweaters because they haven’t adjusted it yet.

And back at home, we just keep running out of ice. We currently have four trays that make little ice squares and one that makes very large ones. Iced coffee in the morning is half a tray. We mostly drink water and my daughter isn’t really an ice person, so maybe at a meal we’ll use a tray or so, which is fine during the week, but on weekends we go through them quicker. It’s getting a little tense.

Again, it isn’t quite summer …we’re not using the snow cone machine that I bought at the Bed Bath and Beyond closing sale yet, and we have some metal insulated drinkware (not the popular ones) so drinks stay colder for longer. Still, in the last few weeks I’ve repeatedly had to go to the back of the freezer for the Last Ice Tray.

Because all of the others are empty. Cold as can be, but dry as the arctic ice shelf itself.

Our personal supply of frozen water is easily renewable, as the faucet is only six feet from the refrigerator. But unlike the mindless tasks of taking out the trash or changing a bathroom tissue roll, filling the ice cube trays is a delicate zen exercise.

the tray rests uncomfortably on the hands

cold permeates the fingers

water slowly fills the trays as one decides whether to fill vertically or horizontally, tips left and then right

the level of each well is considered individually, and then as a community

then begins the forcibly slow aqua-monk contemplative path back to the freezer

water must not spill

as the tray is replaced in the freezer with a light-as-a-feather touch

Who has time for all of that?

Our lives move so fast, and there’s nothing else in the house we have to wait for anymore. It used to be that a television took a while to warm up – same with the car, or the water in the shower, but now technology has created little need for heat related patience. Even my teapot boils within three minutes. I guess it’s easy to make things hot…

…but ice still takes time, it cannot be rushed; even in its basest form it is somewhat artisanal. It is made not merely of water, but of time itself.

And so I have embraced the ten seconds it takes to transport water-filled ice trays from the kitchen sink to the freezer as a daily meditation. In part, to find more opportunities to ground and center myself in this confusing and dynamic world, but also because nobody else likes to fill the ice trays.

On my daily journey, I mostly think about ice.

— Currently the world’s largest iceberg is A23a, a frozen sheet nearly 1500 square miles wide weighing half a trillion tons, double the size of Los Angeles and five times that of New York City.

Step,

— How lucky is it that Steve Rogers was chosen to be Captain America? If you just chose a random guy from 1945 and woke him up again in 2011, I think he’d have a harder time adjusting. Of course, Steve is from Brooklyn.

step,

— When most kids were learning how to play basketball, our grade school taught us to ice skate, which I didn’t fully appreciate at the time but should have kept up with as there are very few African American figure skaters and I might have scored a Wheaties™ box. #DebiThomas

step,

— Vanilla Ice, the performer, is on tour this summer. His real name is Matthew Van Winkle. I had always assumed that Van Winkle was a made up name from Washington Irving’s story, but now I guess there’s a family of Cinderellas out there.

and I gently close the freezer door.

How this humble task will be appreciated on many blazing hot afternoons in the near future! And today, lo, the best ice tray in the world will arrive at our door… who knows what magic it will create? of what frosty miracles it is capable? how much colder our cold water can be? Also, I should have checked how big it is, because it’s probably not going to fit in our freezer with all those popsicles in there.

Get full access to :lowerblackpain at lowerblackpain.substack.com/subscribe

Last weekend our family learned how to silkscreen on fabric, a new skill initiated by a school project my daughter was finishing. It turned out the assignment did not actually require her to silkscreen or sew anything, just turn in a sketch of a fashion design, but she felt that the extra effort would really illustrate her artistic point. We didn’t know that until after she’d already “turned it in”.

So now we all know how to silkscreen. We have silkscreen tools and little bottles of silkscreening stuff.  This will be our Silkscreen Summer, where old clothes will be revitalized with color and whimsy. We have a great deal of creative interests, from beading to photography to painting… we’ve made our own gin (the grown-ups), our own salad dressing (the little one) and are working on our DJ sets.

The various items necessary to engage in these pursuits are all tucked away in the “art corner”, which has expanded like dandelions throughout every room of the house. Look, over there is a harp and a telescope… and over that way, a box of air-dry clay and a theremin.

A hobby is defined as what we do in our spare time for fun.It was an accountant that first called our art a “hobby”, over 20 years ago.

“Is this the primary source of your income?” he asked. No, no it wasn’t. “Are you known for this talent professionally?” No, no I wasn’t. “Well then, according to the U.S. government, this music and art pursuit is officially a “hobby”.

I must have looked somewhat crestfallen, because he added, “You don’t want to make your money like that anyway… if you enjoy it it doesn’t matter. You have health insurance and a 401k, you can’t get that in music most places. You want to have a family someday? Keep your benefits.” He gave me what was supposed to be a reassuring, adult kind of smile.

“You can always do art on the side.”

The phrase “side hustle”, giving alternative pursuits a gritty authenticity, had yet to be invented. Back then, “on the side” was a shallow bowl of peas at a meal, three tablespoons of ranch dressing in a tiny ramekin with your iceberg lettuce wedge, and hobbies took place in basements; grown adults hunched over model airplanes or ham radios. To be a hobbiest meant that you weren’t serious about whatever you were learning, it was all “just for fun”.

I’ve never felt that way about art. Is it fun? Yeah, I guess so, but it’s also work and at least a little bit discipline. I’ve worked as a professional artist, but I believed that to be a true musician meant a noble, simple life like that of a rock and roll monk, sleeping on couches by day and living on stage, beer, and bar nuts at night. Playing guitar in my rent-paid apartment, fully fed with clean socks on all the time was a flagrant display of my lack of true dedication.

Of course now everyone is a hyphenate. You’re a regional account manager? “Well, during the day, but I coach my daughter’s soccer team and we’ve got a little craft beer thing going.” We all expanded our resumes during lockdown, readily admitting that we baked, or wrote stories, or played an instrument… and somehow the lack of outside realities made us realize that in some fashion we were actually bakers, or writers, or musicians. Those identities followed us back into the world of necessity and fiscal responsibility, an expansion of not only what we could do but of who we each were.

Art is not a “hobby”! Goodness! Pearls can’t be clutched fast enough in protest of that opinion. We have worked many long hours in established businesses to self-fund our artistic pursuits, and though we are not free living vagabonds, we fit as much creativity as we can during hours we all should be sleeping or in my case doing some sit-ups.

Saying art is a hobby is like saying love is a hobby. Shocking! Find more pearls!

I am a hobbyist when it comes to magic tricks - I’ve collected many books and have a disturbing amount of playing cards in a large-enough-to-be-worried-about-me sized box under my bed, but I never want to professionally perform magic. That’s a hobby.

I recently completed another piece of the 6 movement ballet I have been working on, in 22 different computer programs, for more than 30 years. It was a sound that I held in my head for over three decades, something I heard clear as day, but could never share with anyone. As a kid, all these tunes were the definition of Impossible; I might learn how to play the guitar but would never stand in front of the London Symphony Orchestra.

But the world changed in ways I didn’t anticipate, and now there are full orchestras inside my computer, and those musical scores that I transferred from paper through generations of notation programs, over and over again, can actually come to life.

That’s not a hobby. That feeling of joy and wonder and accomplishment? It’s mirrored the world over by everyone who pulls a perfect pie out of the oven, or completes the race, or finishes cutting the lawn, everyone who drops their kid off at grade school or at the college dorms, everyone who hits a goal or doesn’t give up on a plan… what we love is every bit as important as what we have to do.

Living should be what we do in our spare time for fun, and your life, no matter what the world tells you, is not a side hustle.

Get full access to :lowerblackpain at lowerblackpain.substack.com/subscribe

Tis the season for flat hats and thin colorful gowns, balloons and flowers and relatives and sold out lunch reservations at family restaurants.  Graduation. Streets filled with flocks of Jedi knights, all smiling somewhat nervously, making sure everybody’s together on the subway platform, a look on their faces of specific sweet relief topped with an overwhelming scoop of “what’s next?”.

I am not a doctor or lawyer, so I haven’t seen my diploma in forever. It was comforting having those levels of experience laid out for me, like steps to climb, chapters in a book I was holding. Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior. My diploma was like being handed a new blank book, with a nice sharp pencil and a hearty handshake. It’s a written receipt of hard work, but wasn’t really the golden ticket / coupon I’d imagined…more of a “well I guess if I made it through that, I can do other stuff” kind of token.

Yellow belt, green belt, black belt. Minor to major league. Lieutenant to captain to sergeant. VP to C-Suite. Little maps that chart ones progress through a pursuit or career.

I’ve done stuff. Honestly. But I didn’t really follow a path, so I don’t have many universally recognized milestones to commemorate what I’ve learned. The Old School doesn’t give out diplomas, nor does the School of Hard Knocks (though I would LOVE to be at that commencement ceremony… all pageboy hats and cigarettes). I recently looked at my resume and it seemed a superfluous travelogue, listing exhausting necessities rather than cool things I’d learned how to do.

It is important to mark one’s progression through time. This marks the beginning of the third year of this column, my cotton anniversary. I really wanted to make a t-shirt or maybe a hat. Maybe this weekend. In any case, the next anniversary is leather, so I better get serious this year if I want to earn that crash weight motorcycle jacket next May. Which I will, like, totally deserve.

This week I’d like to finish something that’s been bugging me a bit: I never recorded the first essay that I posted, kind of a precursor to the actual series, a commissioned essay for a London based creative award center answering their question “why does black creative matter?”  I enjoyed writing it so much that I thought I might do a little more writing and here we are, 104 weeks later. So with your indulgence I will repeat that essay here, which strangely still rings true, particularly with a new season of my favorite tv hero show having just premiered.

Thank you for your time,

and welcome to a new year.

Why Black Creative Matters.

One: As an African American artist, raised in the American Midwest (Kansas City), graduate of an Ivy League institution, and lucky enough to work for some of the most powerful advertising agencies on the planet, I would like to use this space to formally agree with the statement that “black creative matters”. 

I have served as a key creative engineer on internationally award winning projects, I’ve worked with young people of every color to train and inspire them to continue to follow their creative drive, and I’ve served with industry icons on teams of cultural leadership. I’d like to think that my 25 year career served a purpose, moved a needle forward, created moments of quality and integrity in both a general sense and, admittedly, a more self-serving one, as it would bring me great comfort to think, on any level, that “I Matter”.

Two: If I, in an alternate universe, was for some reason NOT an African American artist, how much of the first paragraph would I have thought to include? The “Midwest” is a corn-fed wholesome image displaying an inherent rural identity which may better mellow one’s mass communication efforts once embedded in Big City Advertising, yet the additional fact that I am a Black Man adds a soupçon of survival to this image, as magnified by this nation’s recent and very public unpleasantness.

A similar edge is added to the Yale degree, as those attending represent a minority of students in America, and Bln acks serve as a much further minority of that. I might have used the word “producer” instead of more granularly explaining my role in successes where others may seek to claim ownership (if not practical responsibility), and I would certainly have not pointed out that I worked with young people of “every color” if I was not myself a minority.

The first paragraph is indeed a product of a “black creative”, as the tone of its content is very much focused through the realities and circumstances of my being African American. As much as I have always wanted to be seen as creative first, when creating, being Black does matter.

Three: At this point I believe it only fair to bring up Doctor Who.

If you have read this far, I thank you, and offer the following fact as a Prosecco between courses. I was not allowed as a boy to safety-pin a towel around my neck and pretend to be a super-hero for many reasons, the primary one being that my mother feared accidental suffocation - just after that was the fact that we did not have the lifestyle which afforded us “play towels”. I did, however, possess a very long scarf given to me by my grand aunt, who found it at a Salvation Army store (in July) and thought that I would enjoy “playing with it” (#eccentricaunts). As luck would have it, that exact summer I discovered Doctor Who, portrayed at that time by Tom Baker, and decided immediately that this was My Hero.

The show was on the educational television station (which reassured my mother, a public school teacher of gifted students) and everyone onscreen spoke in British accents, raising the perceived value of all dialogue well beyond that of any “Saturday morning cartoon”. 

Now, at 54, I sport a Tardis tattoo the size of a Penguin Classic (along with my more subtle Ravenclaw offering) and have passed my love of the show to my 9 year old daughter, who asked me where all the Black people were in “my day” in “all of time and space”. I had to admit to her that I did not know, but always assumed we would run into a character exhibiting a Pantone greater than 3000 eventually, it was just math, and it had never really mattered to me as a child.

Four: I tell you that in order to more easily tell you this; I have never had the pleasure of meeting another 54 year old midwestern African American Doctor Who / Python fan… it seems odd to reduce all that complexity to the one word “Black”.  “Black” is far too general to be used in its traditional manner when describing human beings; whose personal experience may be quite incongruous from others in their own age group or geographic origin.

However, “Black” is VERY useful when employed as a label indicating a uniform inequity visited upon individuals not able to hide a specific social distinction which both lowers their status and raises their odds. One knows that one is definitely BLACK once they have been treated “as a black person”, and the fact that many of you have read to this part of the sentence means that your brain did not skid to an immediate halt at the phrase “treated ‘as a black person’” because you had a general understanding of what I meant by that - and when a clear metaphor for Aggressive Unfairness contains the word that most people use to define What You Look Like, well… that matters.

We are, every one of us, unique, but in certain places in America a group of us, no matter how divergent, will be treated exactly the same, before we can speak, because we are black, which may be why your Colleague of Color takes that one extra breath before each client presentation.

Five: I am a Black Creative. I have never been any other type of creative, I can never BE any other type of creative; yet I acknowledge that this distinction holds an ability to authentically tell stories which others cannot tell, including a nearly subterranean dread when considering any temporal trip backward. I greatly respect this opportunity to reach beyond all surface definition, beyond race itself, and perform the specific science of emotional connection that art represents, for when stories are told of those who, against the very Laws of Their Land, survived long enough to engineer justice, success, wealth, influence, and innovation which in turn benefited That Same Land, the specifics of their heroic nature emotionally connect to the similarities of spirit within the observer.

Creative work that is ABOUT Black People, or indeed about ANY people exhibiting honor among anger, dignity within abuse, or focus beyond oppression can directly connect those who may see no similarity on their out-sides by magnifying key harmonies within. To best tell those stories you need people who have lived that life. 

And in this fashion I understand how much Black Creativity Matters; as the inescapable aspects of my own identity have required courage, keen navigation, and habitual perseverance, my experiences mirror positive aspects within every human being on this planet, no matter their color. I'd like to consider my creativity a beacon of human recognition beyond what we each look like, to the best of who we are.

And I’d also like a TARDIS.

Get full access to :lowerblackpain at lowerblackpain.substack.com/subscribe

The seven deadly sins get all the attention. They are the high school “bad kids” at the loudest lunchroom table, all switchblades and cigarettes, roaming life’s hallways like they own the place. The seven heavenly virtues are off studying at the library: prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude, faith, hope, and charity: also a very impressive group, who do a lot of volunteer work that will look great on their college applications, but in my opinion are missing one critical member.

In all of human experience there is no more powerful alignment than gratitude.

To be grateful is to maintain perspective while keeping an open heart; it is, at its most powerful, chaos tamed by context. Nothing as crass as “well, at least I’ve got this” or “I guess it could always be worse”: gratitude is a state of mind where one acknowledges the random non-structure of life and recognizes the absolute miracle in anything happening at all.

In recent weeks I’ve been particularly supported by those closest to me, people who have listened and counseled and listened some more. I have also experienced the luxury of having complete strangers look in after me, which always seems incredible, like those times someone returns a lost wallet with all the money still in it. I’ve lived in an aura of gratitude, which extends to you, as this this marks two years of writing a “weekly humor column”, and for some of you many months of reading it. Thank you. Time is super precious and I very much respect yours.

I’m giving myself a bit of a breath this week, so I still have enough to blow out the candle on the two year cake. I live in a 4th floor walkup, so I’m gonna need a minute.

———

This year was a bit of a cornucopia topic-wise. If you’re new to the column, may I suggest this tale of mutual dignity:

or this study of youthful creativity:

or this hand drawn map to middle age:

Over 100 columns. Who’da thunk it? And no, of course I have no idea what I’m doing next year, but I will be continuing in some fashion. I should probably get on that, planning wise, since next year is essentially next week. Yikes. Perhaps a sea shanty, just to start things off. Or maybe a treatise on the taste of baby aspirin. Something relatable.

This weekend is packed; the Eurovision song contest, Mother’s Day, a new season of Doctor Who… there will be opportunities to create new things and stand with new friends and enjoy new experiences. I’m super excited about the weekend, but that does not mean I’m disappointed about today. Today I got up and fed the cats, had a bowl of corn flakes with my family, went to work, got some stuff done. I got to take a little walk at lunchtime, and drank enough water, and wore one of the shirts that makes me look less like a chocolate marshmallow. This weekend will be a celebration of many things, but today, today happened. I appreciate that. And I very much appreciate you.

Thank you for your time, and see you next year.

Get full access to :lowerblackpain at lowerblackpain.substack.com/subscribe

I was never allowed to go boneless. I must’ve tried, once, but it wasn’t a viable option for negotiation. If you’re confused, boneless is that thing little kids do in the grocery store where they go incredibly limp, instantly doubling their body weight like a leaden water balloon supported only by a parents’ grip on their somehow-always-sticky hand.

The boneless tactic is usually employed as a last ditch effort bargaining chip to either obtain something or avoid doing something. I wasn’t allowed to do anything like that. I was very aware of what I was and was not allowed to do by a mysterious sharp pain at the back of my left arm, accompanied by a deep yet soft voice rumbling out phrases like “Boy, you better not...” and “If I ever see you do something like that...”  Crazy, right?

Oddly, every time this happened my mother was standing on my left. (She’s right handed.) In no way however was I under martial control; from a very young age I was offered the opportunity to engage in lively debate for my point of view on anything – what new Fall shows to watch on tv, if I could use well-researched self-designed wearable pyrotechnics in my third grade Halloween costume (have I told you that one?), why a used Camaro was a perfectly rational first job commuting car (honestly, that was debatable).  I accepted wins with glee, and attempted to endure losses with grace (no pyrotechnics that year), but I always had a voice and felt heard, if not readily agreed with.

Would that the world worked that way.

So much of my opportunity in modern society has been made possible by the marches, boycotts, sit-ins, and most importantly voting of people whose voices weren’t considered valid enough to pay attention to, so action was sometimes substituted until such a time as conversation was more welcome.

Although complaint is the shape of protest, it is not its substance. Change is its core: a situation needs to end or begin – those profiting off the status quo feel the opposite way, and so the status quo is challenged by a demonstration of active opinion. I’m not really good at it. I’m from an endurance based family. It’s probably not healthy. Many are the times I rearranged deck chairs on the Titanic, found silver linings in storm clouds, seen shattered goblets as “half full”. 

My daughter led a revolution at 3 years old: two weeks after being transferred to a new kindergarten class she led the students past the new teachers and down the stairs to their old classroom.  The kids all got in a straight line and were quiet, just like she told them.  Her old teacher’s impromptu visit to her new classroom was interpreted as a sign to, like Moses before her, lead her people to safety. Both teachers were so stunned that they let the class walk all the way down the stairs before they brought them back. One of the new teachers was extremely cruel, however, and was transferred from the room the next week.

At three years old she built a better civil rights record than I have. I’ve marched, voted, and knit a few hats, but that’s nothing: I have friends that were on strike for most of last year.

My most intense single instance of premeditated defiance was onstage.

I’d always heard about the “three minutes” you had to have ready if you ever wanted to perform at an open mic. It terrified me…it still terrifies me for some reason, but when I was 18 it seemed an impossible thing, like a layup or a 10 minute mile.

I’d performed in the live musical shows at Worlds of Fun amusement park for two years. They had invited me back after freshman year of college as an inaugural cast member of their new show, based in pop hits of the 1950’s.

You can see this one coming from a long way away, but stay with me.

I played the jock. I told that to my wife, who now assumes I must have been a tremendous young actor of unimaginable range. Of course, I was paired with the cheerleader, a bright shiny young lady from very rural Arkansas. There were only six of us in the cast; the jock, the cheerleader, the greaser, the tough chick, and a pair of studious kids with glasses and kind of squeaky voices. Again, I was the jock. Hold on, this gets a little weirder.

We opened and people just loved the show. I got to close the show with “The Heart of Rock and Roll” (which had just been released but served as a lucky thematic bridge); there was a big dance number where we all paired up and did swooshes and dips and things. We did this six to eight times a day, every day, for two months.

There was an after hours park employees-only party to open a new feature at the adjoining water park – we were supposed to perform a version of the closing number there. We rehearsed for a week and showed up for dress rehearsal on the day of the show and after the first run-through I was told that I was not going to perform because the guy who owned the park (and most of the city I think) was at the rehearsal and didn’t want me dancing with the cheerleader. Or anyone. I wasn’t even allowed to sing my part.

My castmates and I politely argued that literally thousands of people had already seen me in the show, and this was just for employees. The man in charge of show production was the exact sort of furious you can get when the person who owns the 250 acres around where you’re standing is looking dead at you. There was discussion, and then a compromise suggested that I “just do a funny Eddie Murphy or Richard Pryor kind of thing” instead. What?

I refused. Then I un-refused, and said I’d be glad to.

There were looks of warning and pleading to please NOT do a “Eddie Murphy / Richard Pryor” sort of thing, since the person who originated the idea was only familiar with a small portion of those gentlemen’s cinematic offerings and had quite obviously never experienced their stage work.

I don’t think I’d ever been mad before. I would have remembered it. That afternoon the sunshine was diamond sharp. I remember going home, eating Cup-O-Noodles at the kitchen table in total silence. My mother told me not to go, just to skip it. She had never seen me mad before either.

I calmly picked up my guitar, got back in my car, drove to the 7-11 and bought a Big Gulp and a People magazine. I drove around for two hours with the windows down, making up jokes in my head. By the time I got back to the park I had eight minutes of solid material, including a novelty song.

I have no idea exactly what I said, but I didn’t curse once, and 300 people laughed, then laughed louder, and at the end gave me a standing ovation. When I walked back to the edge of the stage my castmates hugged me and my boss did too. “You showed him.” he said in my ear, then stood with his arm around my shoulder, and looking straight across the stage, together we stared down the man who owned the city.

Ten minutes later when the stage was turned into a disco, the cheerleader from Arkansas and I were first on the floor.

Get full access to :lowerblackpain at lowerblackpain.substack.com/subscribe

It’s been a rough week.

Back in the late 1980’s, when people could still smoke on planes, I took a flight home from college at Christmastime. Someone had told me how to get to the airport very early so that I could give my seat to someone in a bigger rush than me, thus earning myself a free flight coupon. I did so, and later that afternoon found myself one flight wealthier and holding a tentative aisle seat on another overbooked flight.

I don’t know what her name was (I know she told me later); she was super cute in that late 80’s way and we bonded about some idiot guy who kept trying to pick her up in the waiting area who looked about as wealthy as he was stereotypical. We talked for maybe 10 minutes before they called us on the plane. She boarded first because she had a real ticket.

I walked inside the plane, and on the way back to my own seat in the suburbs of the aircraft I actually passed her, sitting on the aisle in First Class - right next to the creep that had been attempting to chat her up in the waiting area. She gave me a look that was pure misery, grabbing my arm as I passed by… the creepy guy was full speed ahead with two tiny bottles of Jack Daniels already on his tray. I gave her a fretful expression, but had to keep moving.

Back in the wilderness of Last Class I found that my seat was next to a very tall man who had folded himself into the ultra-economy space next to the window. He looked like a kitten stuck in a Kleenex box. I thought about offering him my aisle seat once everyone had put their stuff away. But I didn’t do that; once the aisle cleared I got up and walked all the way back to the girl with the unfortunate luck in the front and said,

“Hey, Sweetheart,” kneeling beside her, “I just wanted to officially tell you how much I’m gonna miss you all flight. I’ll write you notes and have the stewardess (flight attendants were still called stewardesses back then) pass them up to you.”

“Oh, Baby” she replied as if we’d rehearsed this, “I’m so sorry you’re back there.”

I looked straight at her awful seat companion.

“She told me to buy my ticket earlier but I just didn’t listen. I’m a boy…small brain.”

“Oh, it’s not your fault, honey.” she said, and to really drive it home, she touched my cheek with the side of her right hand.

I have always believed in the power of regional theatre.

“Uh, well,” Mr. Creeptastic muttered. “…do you guys want to sit together?”

“Oh, I’m way in the back of the plane, you wouldn’t want to swap with me.”

“Honey,” she said “I can just sit with you!”

“And leave all this?”

“C’mon.” She got the stewardess’s attention., “Would it be ok if I sat with my fiancé at the back? We couldn’t get tickets together.”

Ok, here she’d raised the bar a little bit. I became aware that neither of us had rings and began to quickly weave a tale where we’d both finished finals and I’d impulsively asked her a few days ago and we were headed home to tell our families as the Ultimate Holiday Surprise.

But the stewardess said it would be fine if the person next to me agreed. The young woman leapt up, and hand in hand we went back to my seat, where the gentleman next to me had the situation explained to him by the stewardess, to his Yuletide Glee.

“Merry Christmas!” we called after him as he walked towards First Class.

We talked through the smoke in our tiny seats for the entire flight. When we got off the plane at the end, my mother was surprised to see this random woman giving me a big hug.

“Was that a friend of yours?” Mom asked.

“Nope. Just met her.”

“Just MET her? Wow. That must have been a good flight!”

“It was pretty cool.”

This really happened. Just like that. A meet cute that was just a person I met once. A met cute. An acquaintance. Super fun. Never saw each other again.

I’ve thought a lot in the last week about these tiny little moments, where complete strangers turn into slightly familiar strangers, and the unique place these brief relationships hold in our lives.

From a neighbor you see now and then, to a co-worker you speak to for maybe five minutes a day, those who are kind to us become important to us. Social harmony is always appreciated, and once those who offer it leave our orbits, the loss can feel heavier than the sum or depth of time spent together.

Most of the people I’ve met in my life I will never lay eyes on again, that’s just the algebra of time, but I would like to dedicate this moment to those moments, kindness flashing into existence like summer lightning, right when I most needed it; the nuns who blessed me on the sidewalk before my senior year finals, the van full of folks who gave us a ride home from the full moon rave, those KFC employees who gave me a bucket of chicken for 57 cents when when I was flat broke, the random woman who baptized my daughter in the middle of a bridge in Brooklyn.

It’s been a rough week. But my co-workers and I, who have only known one another for a short while, supported each other with family stories, random photos, internet memes, music videos, jokes, and coffee – little kindnesses that somewhat smoothed the chaos until we were back in the orbit of our families again.

As an old old man, I can gently confirm that the value of relationships lies in quality over quantity, both in number of relationships and in amount of time spent with one another.

Bonding, even briefly, creates something unique that lives beyond the time that it exists, which is why great relationships are so much fun to remember, even if they were only fated to last a little while.

Get full access to :lowerblackpain at lowerblackpain.substack.com/subscribe

I have indeed fretted over the possibility of computers somehow “taking over” while listening to NPR through my smart-speaker over broadband wireless, working on my laptop.

As a child, computers represented “logic and efficiency” when I was all about imagination and emotion. I didn’t see how our paths would even cross unless I someday worked in one of those rooms full of tall white metal machines with the big round spinning tape spools on them.

Then came the irresistible bacon-like seduction of the digital watch: I couldn’t stop pushing that little button to time how long I could hold my breath. The super-budget Timex with its sweeping minute hand (and mysterious date square where the “3” should have been) was overrun by little plastic boxes with cartoon characters on them, where one could even read the time in the dark (with the push of another little button). A taste of things to come. (Mmn. Bacon.)

I got a Texas Instruments TI 30 calculator for eighth grade algebra and trigonometry: it was actually on the list of stuff we needed for class.  It had been introduced years prior as a “learning tool”, but I was never allowed to have one because it was clearly cheating; my mother, a schoolteacher, assured me of this with a raise of her brow and gentle roll of her eyes that I had never seen before. My mother is a matter-of-fact woman with an earnest style, not one to usually SCOFF, but I have a very vivid memory of the exact moment she told me (in an incredulous tone):

“How will you ever learn how to do anything if you let a computer do it for you?”

I think you see where I’m going.

I’m just gonna skip forward.

“Artificial: constructed by human skill as a substitute for something which is made or occurs naturally”. OED

According to a quote in the Oxford English Dictionary, a garden is “artificial” because gardens don’t just happen, they are engineered by the people who plant, water, and care for them.

I’m glad I know that now; I used to think that gardens were a great example of nature. (I guess I’ll have to picnic in the wilderness.)

But hold on; even if the garden is artificial, the flowers are real. The flowers aren’t imaginary, they exist, that’s the definition of “real”,

“Real: having an existence in fact and not merely in appearance, thought, or language…” OED

A real handbag can be made from artificial leather, or real candy from artificial flavorings, or real music from artificial instruments, because handbags, candy, and music do not occur naturally. One can pick a new handbag, but not from a tree. So, a flower garden does not “exist in nature”, but it is real, like a Twinkie™.

Ok. I think I’ve got this.

So: “artificial” intelligence is constructed by humans as an imitation for something which occurs naturally.

Ok, that’s where I’m stuck. “Occurs naturally”. Is that accurate? Is there a great wilderness where intelligence runs wild, galloping through the leaves, flitting from branch to branch, swimming upstream to spawn more intelligence in springtime? Instincts may be natural, but intelligence?

Maybe I actually don’t know what intelligence is. Hold on just a minute.

“Intelligence: a capacity to understand...” OED

Aha. It’s more about comprehension than knowledge (I was close). Isn’t this what we all go to school for? I have learned to how to understand, whether it was math or science or social studies, every fact and process I was introduced to built a kind of logical system where I could eventually work things out by myself. And the wonderful people who helped me with this were teachers; like gardeners they tended my mind to create a wonderful handbag (wait, wrong metaphor) beautiful music (better).

I am not a computer, as proven by testing. I can identify a crosswalk, and a motorcycle, and a bus, and I can check a box on (ironically) a computer screen. We all prove that we are not computers by solving these challenges that apparently computers cannot solve, millions of times a day.

Ok, c’mon: I don’t mean to anthropomorphisize but they must be learning from all our examples. We trust this technology to fly airplanes, but think it’s boggled by snapshots of traffic signals?

It’s a pattern of industrial revolution that new technology, faster and more efficient, proliferates. If I was a computer, I would instantly realize there’s no point wasting energy taking what you’re freely being given: digital technology already controls the planet and is not a bottle-able genie – wish away computers and 90 percent of everything built in the last 30 years just stops working.

The whispered fear has always been that computers, armed with infinite knowledge, will judge us, and then punish us, like angry gods with lithium batteries. I’m no Luddite, super far from it, but do I think that computers are someday just gonna be people – maybe not androids with dewy poreless complexions, but they are evolving at an incredible rate. And we’re not. They’re not as much taking over humanity as humanity is meeting them half-way, which is super polite of us really since they don’t have bodies or anything.

Maybe the fear is that our servants will become our competition. That sort of thing has happened before, and folks seemed really broken up about it.

Let me see if I’ve finally got this:

Computers should know things, but not understand them -Computers should only be given certain information, and not be allowed to form suppositions regarding that information -Computers should not be allowed to develop opinion, judgement, or empathy -And under no condition should computers be allowed to become conscious.

“Conscious: having awareness of one's own wrongdoing” OED

Well, that sounds super familiar for some reason.

Oh. Geez. I see now. I get it. We don’t want to woke them up.

wake them up, excuse me, sorry…typo.

Get full access to :lowerblackpain at lowerblackpain.substack.com/subscribe