: lower black pain.

Johnny Carson, Weird Al Yankovic, and Ryan Reynolds were all born on the same day of the year as me. My daughter thinks the Ryan Reynolds part is cool, as she believes this might indicate a mysterious source of Deep Rizz that I may be astrologically heir to, and perhaps could still emulate…someday.

But the big news for me this year is the return of my lunar zodiac sign, the Fire Horse. It only happens once every 60 years, due to, I guess, math. Let’s see: the animals (12 in total) change from year to year, but the elements (there are five of those) cycle around every two years. That creates a 60 year cycle, so in a typical human lifetime, a person may be lucky enough to revisit their birth sign year once.

This is my once, now.

In natal astrology, my birthday directly straddles the signs of both balance (Libra) and extremes (Scorpio). That’s fun. I do think a perfect weekend is going to a classical ballet on Friday night and a monster truck rally on Saturday afternoon. Which we did, once, and it was amazing. And I guess I’ve been described as both balanced and extreme (if not “extremely balanced”).

But the Fire Horse year holds a darker heritage. In 1682, a 16 year old girl accidentally set fire to (what is now) Tokyo during a plan to reunite with the temple page she was in love with. Shortly after that it was thought that folks - particularly women - born as Fire Horses were bad news - so much so that birth rates in Japan dropped by over 25% in 1966.

So even though Fire Horses are supposed to be active, independent, headstrong, and dependable, th e year itself is to be one of Great (and not entirely welcome) Volatility.

I mean, 1966. Not to get all “We Didn’t Start The Fire” about it, but the Vietnam War was raging overseas, civil rights were being fought for in the USA, the ATM and the videogame were invented, and the national arts were elevated in New York City by both the opening of The Metropolitan Opera House and the holiday premiere of “The Yule Log” on WPIX.

And though the legendary albums Pet Sounds (The Beach Boys) and Revolver (The Beatles) were released that year, they were surpassed in weeks at number one by the self-titled debut of The Monkees. Which I know is supposed to be some kind of travesty, but I mean c’mon…it’s The Monkees.

But otherwise, definitely volatile times. Absolutely.

Astrology makes us associate ourselves with total strangers that happen to have been born around the same time that we were. It’s a little weird.

Where my Fire Horses at? I see you, Ms. Janet Jackson! What’s up, Helena Bonham Carter? Never givin’ YOU up, Mr. Rick Astley!

There’s also a writer/actor from the UK named Mark Gatiss: he turns up in all kinds of things and is always inspiring… I was pretty happy about that one. But my second-favorite random name with fame born in the same year that I was? Mary Chapin Carpenter.

The year after I graduated college, her music was the soundtrack of my cross-country train trip: the heartfelt soundtrack to Every Single Little Town.

Still, it’s hard to see any real connection there. Though I did just attend a “birthday reunion” party of classmates from college, where most of us are Fire Horses, and I have to admit we all still seemed like troublemakers, even if we now preferred to get to sleep by 10:30.

Whatever. There’s still plenty of trouble to be made in daylight.

My absolute favorite 1966 association premiered a little over a month before I was born, at 8:30 PM on September 8th.

Eventually called “television’s most successful failure”, Star Trek did not do well at all in the ratings, but it worked hard to hold its own for three seasons…and then 13 films, 18 more original tv series, 850 books,

and now over 6 decades.

I guess that Star Trek is the Fire Horse I feel most closely aligned with. Kind of weird, sentimental, a little cringe here and there, but filled with true emotion and courage and humor and respect for the dignity of other people (even when they weren’t people). I wouldn’t mind being championed by Lucille Ball, or watched every week by Martin Luther King and his family, or to say things that hold true through three generations.

So like it or not, this is my year. Gangly artist vs. legendary volatility and mythical instability. I’ve only got one shot at this Fire Horse thing, so it’s ahead full gallop, mane ablaze: and if I’m walking down the street getting the funniest looks from everyone I meet, my goal is to be too busy singing to put anybody down, live long, and prosper.

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

I’ve never completed a marathon, but I imagine it’s running without the luxury of choice - one can’t pause for a quick cappuccino or afternoon film matinee.

Exhausted and bedraggled, one is driven to complete the activity due to the pressures of publicly expressed determination, earnest self-promise and significant financial investment.

Plus the fact that new technologies allow friends at home to follow your progress on their phones and “cheer you on” from their living rooms, where they are undoubtedly having brunch, including those toasty little brioche things you like so much and that jam that they know is your absolute favorite.

So one relentlessly must press on. Until you cross that finish line, there is no freedom; only willpower, intention, and the stamina required to continue forward motion.

Yeah. The last two weeks of Winter are like that for me.

The last two weeks of Winter are not Spring.

They Are Winter, which this year has been impressive in its old-school authenticity; sub-zero temperatures, feet of snow covering yards of black ice, the works.

Plus, this weekend, the United States enters Daylight Savings Time, when all clocks must be set grimly forward in a dismal ritual of temporal larceny.

“But you’ll get that hour back!” you say. “In November! You get to sleep an extra hour!”

Do not mind my scowl. It is not for you. I’m just blaming the messenger, and you’re right, this year I get an extra hour of Halloween Night. And it’s on a Saturday. Wonderful.

But I need that hour now. My watch is scolding me for not sleeping correctly - it gives me a numerical health score every morning, the current sum of which is an average so distasteful to the device that it has stopped encouraging me with exclamatory phrases like “Let’s try getting to bed earlier!” , and now only offers terse, stern statements:

“Your time awake last night had an impact on your very low sleep score. Make adjustments to improve it.”

It’s like an A.I. parent-teacher conference.

I’ve enjoyed the soups. And the stews and the extra blankets and those weird wool socks that I should be allergic to but somehow am not. I’ve enjoyed wearing my snow boots because they make me ever so slightly taller but outside I still feel like a giant. I liked the cookies and crocheting snood scarves and the stars on clear nights.

I’m not a hater, by any means (make certain that Snow Mizer knows that). Winter is great.

I’m just tired. It has nothing to do with anything inside my apartment, but there’s these leaks where dread and mayhem blow in through these screens on our walls and desks and laps and wrists.

I’ve lived long enough in Brooklyn to effectively ignore the sounds of planes, trains, and the engines, brakes, and enhanced stereo systems of most automobiles - but inside my head is a sub-audible grind of the news updates and pull-quotes I either cannot avoid or feel irresponsible ignoring.

And that’s what keeps me awake at night, which of course is worse when the nights are very, very long.

Even my sweaters are tired. My favorite used to do that thing where I could push the sleeves up and they’d stay above my elbow. Now they “flomph!” down to over my wrists unless I hold my arms tight at my sides. Washing dishes, I look like a cozy suburban homemaker Tyrannosaurus-Rex.

And the days are getting longer, but do I need more Bright Cold? Powder blue mornings where all light filters through precipitation? I’d love to apply an anticipatory optimism to the situation – lie on my back on the frozen grass to see what shapes the endless cloud cover is making… Look! There’s a large wool blanket! Look! There’s an IMAX movie screen!

Ok, ok, it’s only 14 days from now: then birds’ll tweet and pollen will float and the weight of my work slacks will be appropriate for the weather again. In 14 days we replace the snowmen on the bookshelf with bunnies and eggs.

In Spring, we engage all the plans that we made in Winter. In deference to the slumber scrutiny imposed on me by my magical timepiece, my chief plan is a series of elegant naps, and resuming my long walks at lunchtime.

Oh, my watch’ll love that! Maybe it’ll raise my grade point average.

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

Popular media in the 70’s and early 80’s did not uniformly reflect a kaleidoscope of cultures - the most prominent and consistent staple being a popular family comedian who shall no longer be named. The watershed moment came in 1977, when ABC aired the mini-series “ROOTS”, based on the personal genealogy research of author Alex Haley.

Everybody watched that. I felt kind of exposed the day after each episode, coming to school and having my pre-the-invention-of-the-internet classmates ask me follow-up questions, because I didn’t know my family history past who was at the table at Thanksgiving Dinner.

The book and the television event sparked a flurry of interest in family trees, where soon many folks discovered that history was a dangerous playground: relative after relative was newly discovered, the names stacking to create a game of DNA “JENGA”, piled higher and higher until CRASH!, they hit a super embarrassing fourth uncle that did something incredibly illegal or stupid.

But Alex Haley’s family was brave and engaging and excellent television; while the show was clearly a dramatization of informed yet imagined scenes, no one assumed (as they might today) that he just made the whole thing up. It was an historical drama.

I mean, I was only ten, but it never occurred to me that anybody could “make up” history, because there were black and white movies of it happening, and pictures, and books, all the way back to stone tablets. History could be interpreted, maybe re-told, but you couldn’t “make up” something that already happened! That was absurd. Even with a TARDIS.

History is pretty straightforward: right after any event happens, we immediately tell the story of it, then move forward in time, away from the event, until only that story remains.

I assumed that the world had come to terms with history: it wasn’t always fun, necessarily, but you couldn’t just ignore it. That would be like saying “yesterday didn’t happen”.

Which would be nuts.

While the basics of American l’arnin’ are readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmatic, it turns out the most important field of study could indeed be history, which perhaps didn’t make the opening lineup due to its lack of a “r” sound at the beginning. (Art is also missing from the list, which is incredibly mysterious as it sits firmly within the “r” sound family.)

In terms of societal hubbub, writing and math cause less trouble than reading, which has always been a flashpoint in some parts of the world (who is allowed to, what are they allowed to, etc.). Yet, of all common core curriculum, currently the study (or even mere mention) of HISTORY can spark the most deeply intense and fury laden reactions, culminating in the surprising idea that we might not need it at all. Amnesia as generational therapy.

“How bad was it?”

“I… I can’t remember!”

“Well, that’s you sorted then. Two hundred dollars.”

Imagine that… History, taken permanently out of play, just warming the bench with Art. And Science (who’s also missing that “r” sound).

I mention this because here in the States it’s the 100th anniversary of Black History Month, the celebration of which inspired the establishment of this very column. I have, by virtue of my age, celebrated all Black History Months and 10 Negro History Weeks, back before 1976.

The whole thing was started by Carter G. Woodson, prominent scholar of the early 20th century, who absolutely loved history. He studied it in both high school and university, eventually joining the prestigious American Historical Society, though he couldn’t attend the meetings in person. And by couldn’t, I’m implying that he wasn’t allowed to. And by implying, I’m actually just telling you that they wouldn’t let him in the front door or even on the stoop in front of the front door, because it was 1915 and he was African-American by heritage and tonal hue (they did let him pay the full dues, though).

Unsatisfied with this experience, Mr. Woodson started his own historical society, founded an academic Journal (that’s still being published to this day) and wrote many history books.

This man, whose parents had been slaves, became the second African American to get a PhD from Harvard (W.E.B. Dubois was the first, if you’re playing along at home). Carter G. Woodson, widely known as the father of Black history.

Never heard of him. They absolutely never told us about him in school. I knew SO many things about the peanut, but honestly, nothing of Mr. Woodson.

Stories only work when we hear them.

Categories of Black History Month stories that I DID hear:

* The First Black [insert profession or achievement here] This was never my favorite group of stories because it was depressing; clearly reflecting what the experience of being Black felt like - demonstrating that it was exceptional to be able to do what someone else had already done if one considers that the first achiever had NOT been burdened with the experience of being Black. It always reminded me of the description of the often under-appreciated Ginger Rogers, who “always perfectly performed every single dance move that Fred Astaire did, only backward and in high heels” (yaas queen).

* Perseverance. This was the family staple - tales of men and women who might not have been able to take many steps forward, but stood their ground and didn’t move back. I was taught that this was a key element of our family crest, along with gratitude, humor, and kindness.

* Inventors. The BEST. All the household objects and incredible machines and technologies that Black people had engineered - a lot of those objects the direct result of the experience of being Black; less money, contacts, and resources meant they had to be super clever. Now I identified with this - still do: the closest I ever came to being in a society of Black Mad Scientists is when I was asked to speak at the 50th anniversary of MIT’s Black Union. Four literal rocket scientists were in the audience… from NASA. It was like Wakanda up in there.

But the most important category was

* Family. My grandmother was filled with cautionary tales. Between the long lists of who not to meddle with and who not to talk to and who to watch out for were glimpses into how she and my grandfather forged their identities in direct opposition to their given societal roles. Then my mother told me all about growing up with siblings through the 40’s and 50’s, which was fascinating, and always made me super extra happy to be an only child.

That first Negro History Week must have been rough. But without someone determined to tell those stories they would have been lost forever. Yet after a full century, such stories still need to be protected.

What happens when a segment of society becomes disconnected from history and disinterested in legacy? Are they truly free from the past? And how far back does that go? Does that mean that everyone is going to forget the thing that happened when you were seven years old and stop bringing it up at family functions? Do we forgive parking tickets after a year or so?

ROOTS will be 50 years old next year, and due to its subject matter the show might spark deep controversy if it was aired today: not so much because it’s Black as that it depicts history.

Maybe we could call it “hist’ry”. At least it would have the apostrophe.

In 1977, Alex Haley rolled through Kansas City on his book tour and stopped at our church because he was (big surprise) related to someone there. After church there was a reception at the relative’s house, and he signed books, and he took photographs with people.

My mother found the picture of me, my grandfather, and him. I was wearing my Sears™ Optical Department glasses and an exciting new shade of beige and I wanted to be an author. Here I was, standing with an author who had written a real (and really thick) book. I was a little overwhelmed.

But I would never give up who I was then, and all that’s happened since. I recognize that I owe the fruit of my labor to the stability of my own roots, and the journey from there to here, where I’ve learned from my mistakes and built a narrative for not only my future, but someone else’s.

That kid turned out ok.

Though I should get writing -

…I think I owe him a book.

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

I don’t think he ran the race to win, I think he ran to tryto show 2 million kids like methat weshould never shy awayfrom being inthe human race,and that our faces weren’t forbiddenor a burden orexceptions as we all could be exceptional. I think he ran to hold a doorthat he would not walk throughbut had opened first by Douglass,passed to Phillips,Chisholm,Fauntroy, then to one midwestern resident who was at last called President.

Although he did not run to win,and few assumed he would, he demonstrated to a generationthat we could eventuallypush lines which seemed immobileinchesand then feetas we all yelled “I Am Somebody”down on Sesame Street.

he could not smooth the roads aheadcould not hold back the tideor turn the head of every average Joe with hate insidebut he still ranstill stood his ground with grace, impressivelyto hold a spacefor one of us to finally say“that’s me”.Thank you, Sir, from Somebody, for your example; I…

don’t think you ran the race to win.I think you ran to try

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

Back before we had a kid, I didn’t take a vacation for a little over seven years.

Sure, there were times that work was supposed to be closed, like Christmas and New Year’s Day and weekends and nights, but I ended up on some phone call or finishing a project or had to show up in the office anyway. My wife found the entire situation distasteful, though she did appreciate my somewhat maniacal dedication to a role as a family provider.

She began to plan a proper trip for us, far enough away from work that my brand new portable cellular telephone (wow so fancy) wouldn’t be able to connect with the office.

Due to her extensive research and exemplary budget strategies, the whole thing went extremely well. I saw things and ate things and slept seven hours in a row. It was pretty neat. So she set a goal that we would travel to somewhere every two years or so. I was absolutely no help, as it was now clearly established that I didn’t understand the “work/life balance” thing.

Zoe’s trips are always to places that are engaging and intriguing, rather than “relaxing” in the strictest sense. That’s why I always found myself in the absolute middle of a bustling city where I neither spoke the language or understood the street signs.

Again, pretty neat, but a little scary too…up until 2009.

Now, I don’t want to be in any way inappropriate, but to tell one story I very quickly have to tell another.

I once took a bus across the American southwest from Kansas City to Los Angeles, and on the way there was a rest stop at what appeared to be a long forgotten adobe fort. It had a little snack bar with soft drinks and vendors selling random jewelry and key rings and whatnot and a newsstand and of course, restrooms. I didn’t need a newspaper or shiny new bracelet, so I went straight to the restroom.

We all waited our turn, standing silently whether in line or already engaged. When it was my turn I proceeded to stare pensively ahead (as is common practice), when the African American gentleman to my left turned to me and LOUDLY said,

“DR. KING!”

There was no way to pretend he wasn’t talking to me, he was just a foot away.

“I’m sorry?”

“I GUESS YOU GET THAT ALL THE TIME. BUT IT IS AMAZING.”

“Dr. King?”

“YOU LOOK SO MUCH LIKE HIM! IS HE… “ and then just a…tiny bit softer, “ARE YOU RELATED?”

“Y’know what? I don’t… I really don’t think so.”

[Bear in mind the location and circumstance of this conversation.]

“WELL, IT IS INCREDIBLY INSPIRING. IT’S LIKE HE’S RIGHT HERE. MAN!” He turned back to the wall. ”I CAN’T WAIT TO TELL MY BROTHER!”

Later at the sink, washing hands, he gave me a slow, respectful nod in the mirror. One not meant for me, but for the pioneer of social justice he saw within me. Or on my outside.

“TRULY AMAZING.” he said.

I don’t look like Martin Luther King. I just checked, just now, in the bathroom mirror. I’m… alright lookin’, but I’m no Dr. King.

But that guy was so happy, and it meant so much to him, that I felt a teensy bit of pride as I left the restroom, for absolutely no logical reason.

…now, 2009.

Zoe took me to Turkey, and points East. We touched the continent of Asia and had frozen yogurt there. We walked streets which for thousands of years had been trod upon. Again, neat.

But there, half a world away, in one of the crossroads of human civilization, surrounded by visitors from across the planet, I did not experience the feeling of total isolation that other such instances had generated. As soon as we hit the street, they seemed to know that we were from New York City, because of all the black clothing, but most importantly they recognized that we were from the USA.

And for me, this recognition had a universal response. Groups of young men, grandmothers sweeping their stoops, busy street vendors at kiosks a hundred feet away would see me, point excitedly, and then say “Obama!!!”.

Ok, the first time this happened, I didn’t have a response. It was three boys walking past us… but now their eyebrows were raised and they were nodding expectantly. I chose a slow nod with a thumbs up and replied, “Obama!”

Cheering. They sort of jumped up and down a little. Still waving, they excitedly spoke to each other in Turkish as they walked away.

At the Hagia Sophia, as we were coming down the gigantic steps, a group of 12 students from Norway stopped me. One of them stepped forward.

“Are you from America?” they haltingly asked.

“Yeah, New York City.”

“OH!!!!!” Ok, that was a little bit of a flex, but it was true.

“Can we take a photo with you?”

“Oh!” Now I felt bad about the flex, because they obviously thought I was Somebody. “I’m not anybody, I’m just here… I’m just… nobody.”

“But you are a Black African American.”

Well, yeah. “Yep. Yep, I am.” No flex there - that was just a fact.

“Is it ok then?”

Inside a nearly 2000 year old building, it was super strange to be the focus of anyone’s attention, but sure… my wife took their camera and we all stood to take the photo, and when it was time to smile one of the kids said, “Everyone say Obama!”

And we all did. No, I do not have a copy of that picture, because though it somehow made sense of them to take a photo of me, it still felt unsettling for us to take a picture of some random college students from Norway.

It happened at least five more times during the trip, and then on trips after that. And again, I do not look anything like the former President, but this time I understood that wasn’t the point.

I was an ambassador of a place whose chief representative projected an attitude of goodwill that somehow elevated my own identity. And this reflected rizz was intercontinental, where differences in language, age, and culture did not diffuse its impact.

I have to admit, I walked a lot taller on those trips. I felt like a Cub Scout again, in uniform, where everything I did was indicative of a larger whole. I was so polite and excessively tipped and said “please” and “thank you” in six different languages. It was the closest I will ever be to famous, and a unique experience where my first impression was welcomed and celebrated.

Which was also kind of a vacation, ‘cause…that was neat.

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

The genesis of this column was a desire to alleviate my daughter’s legitimate angst regarding her annual recognition of Black History Month, which she found heavy with legacy.

Yes, I said. You’re absolutely right, I told her. It’s not a pretty story, and we don’t just tell it every year, it’s written in our eyes and our hands and our skin.

But that is not our only story. We have marvels and miracles, hilarity and harmony, and so much joy within our perseverance. We are a mathematical impossibility, from property to President in under a sesquicentennial. We hold the nation’s dreams in our ability to hold high notes and throw a perfect spiral; we steer the public good by standing up and staring down. As we endure, we invent; as we’ve suffered, we’ve uplifted; as we have buried - we have planted.

“Yeah, I’m 10.” she said. “That all sound’s nice, but it’s a really sad story.”

Thus the very first :lowerblackpain column

https://lowerblackpain.substack.com/p/672-hours-of-fun

explains my initial predicament; how best to pass along the significance of Black History Month without making the experience overwhelming for a middle-schooler. And an old guy.

I ended up telling her that everything she does is Black History by definition, as she is an African-American (Black) and it’s in the past (History). In fact, my own stories and those of my mother and grandparents (and even their parents) might provide meaningful context to the flood of historical data.

“What if I tell you more about stuff that’s happened to me?”

She didn’t exactly roll her eyes… more of a respectful averting.

“I already know everything that’s happened to you, you’ve told me like a million times.”

“Not…everything. I have some more fun stories to tell you.”

“That aren’t about being old?”

“Well, no. A lot of them are about being young. Like, your age.”

“But my age in the old days.”

She had me. “Yeah. But some are funny.”

“Like what?”

Unprepared for a command performance of light entertainment clarifying the entirety of Black achievement through personal anecdote, I kind of froze.

These columns are the result; a family grimoire of tales both cautionary and only marginally consequential. Yet halfway though this column’s fourth year, I do realize that I may have strayed a bit from the original directive. I asked my (now 14 year old) daughter for guidance.

“Is there anything about Black History that you’d like to…y’know, ask me?”

“I already get 100% in Black History. It’s the same every year.”

“Martin Luther King?”

“Yep. ‘He was awesome, then he died.’ Pre-school, grade school, and middle school. I always know way more than the teachers do.”

I was proud about that last fact, but then again, the bar seemed pretty low.

“Is there any story that stands out to you?”

She thought about it. “That picture that’s always on your desk, of Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe. That’s a nice story.”

There is a picture that is always on my desk, of Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe.

The story goes that in the spring of 1955, The Mocambo - a popular Los Angeles jazz club - did not want to book Ella Fitzgerald because the club owner said she lacked “glamour”. Marilyn Monroe loved Ella, and contacted the club owner, and told him that if he booked Ella she would sit in the front row every night and bring other celebrities.

All that is true. And that is where most versions of this story end, leaving one to believe that the photo is of the two women in the front row of the Mocambo during that historic run.

While the picture does capture the two women sitting at a jazz club, a little research reveals that it is not during Ella’s run the Mocambo.

The two were friends - that is true. And Marilyn did, in fact, secure that job for Ella, and got Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland there on opening night. But Marilyn was in New York City working on “The Seven Year Itch” at the time and was not able to attend any of the shows, which didn’t prove necessary, as the run sold out due to Ella Fitzgerald… y’know, being Ella Fitzgerald.

The thousand words this picture tells are poetry rather than journalism.

But in that turbulent age when empathy and alliance with those less privileged could cost careers or much, much more, the most famous woman in the world at the time used her power to help her friend.

Which is a nice story, particularly for all those times when I forget how powerful kindness is as a weapon against ignorance and greed - a sword nigh indefensible as long as there is a hand brave enough to wield it.

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

Getting older is fun, but feeling older is not my absolute favorite. Quite often there are aches, and sometimes pains. My grandmother used to call them “miserys” (miseries?) and was proud to tell us when she wasn’t experiencing them. I’m not quite that dramatic (ok. well.) and I do understand that my specific physical experience, while admittedly disconcerting and exhausting, is mild in comparison to the concerns of others.

Yet and still.

A great deal of my body issues are audible, which lends a kind of performance art feel to them. My back makes a series of dull snaps! whenever I sit up straight (signaling that obviously I need to do that more often); my tummy positively roils (which is a great word, but uncomfortable in practice), and my fingers crack when I reach for anything like I’m dropping a handful of 4th of July bang snaps.

I am a mobile foley studio, which the winter months exacerbate.

In the morning, I get out of bed with the exact flexibility of a leather jacket frozen overnight in a meat locker. My ‘lil bones randomly pop-pop-pop from head to toe all the way to the shower (which I like to imagine as a Fountain Of Youth™ – so to fortify that harmless fantasy I splurged on some special soaps with ridiculous ingredients and ludicrous scents (right now I apparently smell like MARVEL’s Iron Man, but Ravenclaw is still my favorite)).

I never make a formal New Year’s resolution to get in shape, but this is the time of year I am more aware of myself - since I seem to be stuck inside with myself so much of the time. Outside the world is quiet, city noise muffled with a thick blanket of snow. Inside, I can hear my shoulders moving.

I normally walk a great deal, but it’s not the season for that yet, so I’m trying to find more ways to “stay active” in my “golden years”. The “Golden Girls” on tv were all supposed to be in their mid-fifties, so I am doing what I can to keep up with Bea Arthur and Betty White.

I would love to be that person who takes the stairs up to their office everyday in a spirit of raw vigor, but my new office is on the 18th floor, so I’d be completely vigor-free by the time I got there. Vigor takes you eight, nine floors, max. After that it would be Determination (floors 10-14), followed by Necessity (15-16) and then Embarrassing Desperation(17).

I knew a fella who bicycled everyday from Brooklyn to midtown Manhattan. Amazing. So fit. But damp. He was always kind of damp. I think that would make me sad, a little bit. I may not be in the best shape, but I’m dry. Little victories.

I bought a kettlebell. You might remember when I bought a “chin-up bar”. Yeah. That was fun too. There it is, right on my door. I do pull up on it from time to time, raising my chin along with the rest of me, but it hasn’t become a determinated habit. I did what everyone must the first time I tried it… I counted off three sets of 10 and then kind of rolled my shoulders back (“snap! ka-pop! krik!”).

I imagined how after one week I’d feel it, after 30 days I’d see it, and after three months other people would slow clap when I got in the subway car.

It only took one day for me to feel it, because I was an idiot, and I did not start slow enough. It took one week for me to stop feeling it, which fostered ambivalence toward the “chin-up bar”.

So I bought a kettlebell. It is not as clumsy or random as a barbell, but an elegant exercise accessory for my more civilized age. Most of the movements engage the core, which is great because it reminds me that I have one.

I am starting very slowly, as the first exercise is to pick up the kettlebell. I have not yet mastered the first exercise, because I’m overthinking it. My hands grasped too tight, and my back was GI Joe straight as I bent over. I found a kettlebell master on YouTube with over 500,000 views who was very helpful, but very pronounced, muscle-wise, much like an inverted pyramid. It would be accurate to say that he is bulky.

I do not wish to be bulky. I wish to be flexible. And dry, I guess.

The kettlebell has enhanced my fledgling exercise routine by intensifying that Tai Chi series I’ve been trying to memorize since lockdown.

I have combined the two efforts, using the time to meditatively try to do just one thing. To monotask. But my mind drifts and drifts again, and there’s no un-stressful place for it to land, so it just re-fuels in the air like a fighter jet.

But we’re half-way to spring. I can make it to spring, when my body’s noises will be joined by the trill of songbirds and the blossoming trees joyfully trigger my assortment of seasonal allergies.

See? There’s always something to look forward to.

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

I enjoy making hot chocolate. Ironically, I can’t drink it, as I’ve developed a myriad of late onset allergies, but it’s incredibly satisfying to whip up in the winter for the family, and always brings at least three levels of happiness.

* First the audible “Oh!”- eyebrows raised in happy surprise,

* then the reach with both hands to take the warm mug,

* then the closed-eyes smile as marshmallow steam rises to the nose. Mmmm. Then hopefully it tastes good as well.

I don’t have a secret to my recipe, but if I did it would either be the touch of vanilla extract or the maple syrup instead of cane sugar. Or the melted dark chocolate pieces. Or the cardamom. Which is also ironic, because growing up our traditional family recipe was provided by my yodeling aunt, Swiss Miss™, who was nice enough to provide pre-packaged individual servings.

My mother loves chocolate, and was never really satisfied with the store bought pre-mixes. She would toss a few chocolate chips or a spoonful of brown sugar - make certain the marshmallows were fresh and plentiful. Hot chocolate was a cup of luxury in our tiny little apartment - never failing to make us feel special, and slightly fancy.

As a midwestern student at an Eastern college, I often felt that my life experience was a bit plain when compared to that of my more photogenic classmates from larger cities - in particular the kids from California, a land I had only seen on film. These were fit and tawny folk, who always seemed a bit windswept, even when indoors.

As a junior, I was lucky enough to be housed in the special counselor’s space located on the freshman campus, where dormitories framed a full city block with a gigantic green in the middle. There was one apartment for men and one for women: we were supposed to attempt to perform the role of “rational guiding force” to the younger kids. Many of my roommates took this directly to heart, offering advice, holding back hair, and listening to tales of woe and adventure.

But on November 18, 1986 it was my turn. About 3PM the skies grew dark, then darker, and then it began to snow.

I was right by the windows in our common room, studying on the couch. I looked up from the textbook I was reading and thought “Snow.” I knew I had work boots from K-Mart that almost fit (as long as I wore two pair of socks) and a long blue wool coat I’d bought for $10 at a SOHO thrift store. I started reading again when the yelling started.

One by one, kids were running outside to the middle of the green. They seemed to have no clear destination, just… outside: running in random patterns like untethered electrons. “Whee!” they yelled. “Look!” they exclaimed.

I watched them from the window. First there were five, then twenty, then when the number grew to about eighty or so I noticed that most of those participating were decidedly tawny. And wearing shorts. And well fitting white t-shirts. Some of the young men were not wearing shoes of any kind. These students, from hometowns with beaches, had never seen snow before.

And they were frolicking. That’s the only verb capable of describing it.

The snow intensified quickly, it coated the ground completely - some of the kids made impromptu snowballs and attempted to fling them at each other. A few of my roommates saw the fun and ran out to join them. Someone placed the speakers from their stereo to face out of their window and played “Let It Snow”.

I plugged in my electric teakettle.

In fact, I plugged in all of our electric teakettles. It was on the “suggested items for students” list - so every parent had provided their child with one.

Downstairs the glee continued. I found all paper cups left over from our makeshift Halloween party.

And just as the water began to boil, down on the green, the tallest and most strapping of my West Coast freshman colleagues yelled out,

“Hey!” Then, in a bit of a panic, “It’s COLD!!!!”

And that’s when I opened my Value Sized Box of hot cocoa packets, distributing half an envelope of powder to each cup, and poured in the water. I ended up with about 18 servings: put them on a tray, and after putting on my coat, brought them down to our entryway.

Gratitude. Oh, eyebrows were well-raised, and frozen hands reached quite impressively, and blissful smiles were all about, but my favorite reaction was from the giant football player fellow wearing no shoes who had shortly before discovered what “temperature” actually was.

“What is this?” he asked me, chattering excitedly.

“It’s hot chocolate!” I told him. He took a sip.

“This is INCREDIBLE! Did YOU make this?”

“Yeah.” Watching all the slightly blue faces thaw in the heat of their beverages, I was actually quite proud of my work.

He was very impressed. “How did you think of this?”

“Oh. Dude. I didn’t INVENT it… it’s a thing.”

He stared blankly at me for a second.

“I’m from the midwest.”

“OH!” he replied, as if that actually explained anything.

Later, heading out to dinner, those same kids put on the “winter coats” their parents had bought for them in California and Texas. Stylish, distinctly beautiful and elegant, they each proved entirely useless below 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

That weekend most of those same kids ended up going into Manhattan to pick up a thrift store wool coat for $10.

For all my love of the beverage, I am no longer the family’s official hot chocolatier - that title now belongs to my daughter, who has even created a hot non-dairy allergen-free drink for me.

Now it’s my turn to be grateful, my “OH!” and outstretched hands and cozy smile, because a hot beverage in the depths of winter will always be a special thing, and still makes me feel kind of fancy.

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

Brinks aren’t great. Edges are already suspicious, but brinks are just the worst.

Except for those money delivery trucks; each of those is a minimalist Recreational Vehicle filled with Pure Dreams (tainted only by a measure of grand larceny). But every other brink? Terrible.

And all of that teetering. No one ever frolics or languishes near a brink, it’s always TEETERING. And never toward ice cream, or low interest loans or a smoked brisket sandwich - folks endlessly teeter toward the brinks of insanity, bankruptcy, extinction, and the unfortunate favorite, war. I do try to stay positive, but…heavens. All this teetering.

Everything seems just a little bit much right now. And Winter’s a bad time for distraction - too cold to take my long walks outdoors, while indoors is filled with funny little screens that kind of hate me. I can’t eat or drink my worries away because the math to do that would mean there’d be no food in my refrigerator and I’d be living comfortably in a rehabilitation facility. I bought a kettle ball to get more exercise, then promptly sprained my back cleaning out my office at work, so that’ll have to wait until Spring.

Enter my family, who can always be trusted when teetering looms. Their ingenuity has resulted in a new therapeutic strategy that has kept us all going.

About once a week, my family sits on the couch and listens to an entire album. All the way through. Sometimes we listen to two.

We eat popcorn sometimes and sketch sometimes and sometimes we look at the words and are surprised that we had them wrong, but don’t really correct them in our heads because that’s the way we’ve been singing “Shattered” by the Rolling Stones for the past 45 years.

My daughter plays both contemporary artists as well as a surprising amount of classic funk and rock. My wife plays 90’s goth and shoegaze standards as well as drum and bass. I play everything else: children’s records from the 1940’s, jazz icons, orchestral soundtracks from rarely screened movies, the best of pop music’s 3 and 2 hit wonders.

Sometimes we relate to our daughter our memories regarding the music we choose, or a brief history of its relevance in our lives.

“This is the one that Dad danced to in high school at the one party that someone finally invited him to.”

“I know.” she replies, “You told me that when I was eight, but it does sound a little bit sadder now that I’m actually in high school.”

While it is comforting to bring context to the music, our shared experience re-listening together frees our perception to hear the music through our current ears. Subtleties we never caught before rise to the surface. That Jane’s Addiction album might actually be a little toxic, masculinity-wise.

Many new artists my daughter introduces us to seem to enjoy the endless musical potential of heartfelt profanity. On principle, we have never played censored versions of songs. When an inappropriate lyric came up while driving in the car with our young daughter, we would just both sing gibberish louder than the radio. As she is older now, we all just sing along.

“Is this a love song?” I’ll ask her.

“Not really. It’s more an assertive statement about who she is.”

That seems good, right? A powerful alignment of art and spirit. A good thing to be a fan of. At her age I was deep in the throes of Yacht Rock, and doubt that the North Star of my identity was in any way fashioned by Christopher Cross’s “Sailing” or everything by Hall and Oates.

It’s good this time, spent together. We don’t have to talk. We don’t have to watch anything. It pulls us back from the brink, which the OED defines as the point where something (typically something unwelcome) is about to happen, or the verge of a very unpleasant or dangerous situation.

What wonderful news. We’re far past that! We have, ALL of us, obviously traversed the brink, since we are deep in the land of the unwelcome, unpleasant and dangerous! Huzzah, I say! We teeter no more as we have been pushed in and are now swimming!

How incredibly delightful. I do hope there’s a bar at the edge of the pool.

Next week, Sam and Dave. Soul Man.

‘Cause that’s what really matters.

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

We, are simple folk, with little need for the fancy or extravagant. A grateful family of humble artists - days without drama, foods without gluten, we push ever onward finding delight in what might seem mundane or insignificant.

For instance, a certain movie trailer appeared this week for a film that will premiere (no joke) eleven and a half months from now. Yet due to careful world building, inspired casting, and a lore so deep that is goes back nearly eight decades, to us a year doesn’t seem all that long to wait.

We watched the trailer together on the living room couch, cheering at all the appropriate places. We must’ve looked hilarious.

But we love great movies. Zoe’s rule is that a movie needs to be an experience to remember, not a mere story being told.

“Good or bad, if you can remember watching the movie, it did its job.”

Used to be that we watched most films with an audience, before Blockbuster and Netflix and HD TVs, and that made the experience unique because no one else would watch this exact film with this exact group of people.

(Of course, that was before all the trailers telling us to shush and zip it or they’ll throw us out of the theatre. Honestly, the very nerve.)

It was a tradition in college each December for sophomores, juniors, and seniors to take freshmen to the annual screening of Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life”, the 1946 masterpiece of hope, community and empathy.

“It’s a classic!” they all said. “It’s the beginning of the holiday season!” they all chimed.

What it actually was: the sound of about 300 freshman crying their eyes out. All the pressure of three and a half months of college, mixed with the homesickness and a couple of pre-cinema cocktails, caused pent-up emotion to flow right out of all of us the second George Bailey came back to that bridge, at which point the upperclassmen who brought my group distributed Kleenax to us all.

I DO remember seeing THAT film.

They’re aren’t all that many left, but the Drive-In is a tradition I adore. There was only one left operating within driving distance of San Francisco, so one late 90’s summer night we piled in a pickup with friends a couple of cartons of shrimp stir fry and headed down to see “Blade”, the only-very-slightly blacksploitive vampire kung-fu action movie starring Wesley Snipes.

Somewhere during the movie’s attempt at exposition, Zoe saw a kitten walking past the truck. It stopped and mewed at her, dimly illuminated by the giant screen’s reflection. She took a tiny piece of her shrimp and tossed it over the side, then turned to us.

“There’s a little kitten over here! You guys have to see it!”

I sat up and looked over the edge. “Oh! It’s a little grey one!”

She was confused. “No, it’s striped.” She looked where I was looking. “Oh! It’s another one!” she said excitedly, and threw another piece of shrimp over the side.

Onscreen, Blade the vampire, having completed his lengthy backstory, was now creeping through dripping tunnels looking for the villain. The parking lot plunged into darkness.

Our third friend was a bit slower getting up, but finally did look. “I don’t see anything” she told us. “It all looks like rocks…but they’re…moving?”

For an absolutely perfect illustration of what happened next, you could go to 1:00:20 in Steven Spielberg’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, but I’ll just tell you - the ground around the truck began to undulate, in a seasick fashion. We found a flashlight in the glove compartment and flicked it on to find at least 30 cats surrounding the truck, milling like pigeons to a spread of birdseed.

“What should we do?!” I asked, panicking. Zoe was already trying to feed them more shrimp, throwing little pieces farther and farther from the truck like a line of breadcrumbs leading toward the Subaru hatchback in front of us. But the urban feline pride was not deterred.

“You have to stop feeding them! They’ll get bored and wander off!” our friend said, confidently.

And they did, because someone eventually spilled some popcorn a few cars away.

I’m not really sure what happened in the movie, but I do remember seeing, you know, most of it.

We’re not The South, but summer in New York always includes one day when it is so absolutely miserable that the sun’s radiation penetrates all concrete and steel to somehow still broil the skin.

In 1995 this day occurred on a July Saturday, driving Zoe and I to the cinema multiplex. We knew we could only afford one film, but due to the absolute dispassion of the disaffected teens staffing the theatre, we (and about a hundred other people) slipped unnoticed from one screen to the other all afternoon.

I believe we started with “Clueless”, then may have wandered into “Judge Dredd” before landing (pun intended) in “Waterworld”, the Kevin Costner vehicle about a post-apocalyptic world where the oceans rise to envelop the Earth, and human beings must adapt to a kind of Wet Mad Max society.

It wasn’t great. It was weird, and we like weird, but this wasn’t a good weird, and most of us were only in the theatre because it was 18 degrees cooler than outside. Some folks were sleeping.

But seated directly behind us were two women in their eighties. It became very apparent during the trailers that one of them couldn’t hear all that well and one may have left her glasses at home.

“What does that say? I can’t read it.” one asked the other, loud enough for her to hear.

“IT SAYS ‘COMING SOON!’” came the booming reply.

They were like that the entire film. It was amazing, an unintentional blessing of MST3K level performance, as they - along with the rest of us - tried to figure out what was happening. Eventually, and I don’t feel like I’m ruining this for you - consider it a kindness - the reason that Kevin Costner has survived where others have not is revealed to be the hidden gills he has somehow personally evolved.

“What’s wrong with his ears?” one asked.

“HE’S A FISH!” replied the other.

Then there was a love interest. Alone on a battered raft, adrift at sea, Mr. Costner and his female co-star tended to their wounds and then began to kiss.

“What’s going on now?” one asked.

“THEY’RE GONNA HAVE SEX! YUCK!” replied the other, and the entire theatre burst out in applause.

It must have been eighty degrees in there, but we couldn’t have had a better time. And hard as I’ve tried to forget that particular movie, I am very proud to say that I’ll always remember watching it.

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