: lower black pain.

I started a little garden at work, in the window.

Our office is on the ninth floor of one of those old-time office buildings that looks like an old-time office building - all brick and stone and evenly spaced windows with bold lentils. It’s a building that is easily drawn with a pencil, perfect for Superman to fly by or Spider-Man to swing from as he’s rushing uptown.

The building is about 100 years old, and while the interior has been updated a few times, no amount of industrial carpet and pastel paint can distract from it’s basic structure as a vertical collection of giant concrete rooms with pipes on the ceiling. However, its simple design includes the luxury of windowsills. Take that, new-fangled glass towers.

And it just so happens that, due to our elevated positioning at the southeast corner, our office gets plenty of sunlight.

At the beginning of Spring I ordered a seed starter kit, with little Alka-Seltzer™ tablets of soil that expand to five times their size in water. I forgot to order seeds, so I picked those up at Whole Foods.

I wish I could explain at this point the intelligent method I used to carefully choose what to grow in the office window, but it was during a groggy Saturday morning of grocery shopping, so I picked what I considered to be the prettiest of all the seed packages.

I did not read the word on the package because, again, I was at the grocery store, a place I am used to purchasing things by looking at the image on the package.

So.

The word on the package of seeds was “Wildflowers”.

I sprinkled the seeds into each little compartment and carefully poked them down into the soil a bit. My co-worker was a bit confused, as we were deep in conversation concerning an event being planned later that week when I just stood up and began casually gardening.

(This was, I now recognize, a bit odd, but my team is “used to me” at the office. I believe that’s how they describe it.)

After our meeting, I filled a plastic bottle from the sink down the hall and liberally watered the seed container. Then I placed in the window.

The office is by no means private, just cubicles in an open floor, and there were furrowed brows as folks passed by, but no-one commented.

For three days, there wasn’t much happening in the little planter. Then we had a long weekend, and when we got back, the plants were almost five inches tall.

I was so proud. I told my family all about it when I got home.

“What are you growing?” my wife asked.

“Wildflowers!” I said enthusiastically.

She paused before replying. I now recognize that as a sign that something was wrong with what I just said. Rather than review my statement, I now wait patiently for her reply, confident that her next words will point out whatever the problem was.

“The ones that grow next to the highway?”

I thought about it. I am not a botanist, but y’know, probably that was right.

“Yeah, probably.”

“Why are you growing wildflowers?”

Because they’re pretty, was the answer. Or rather, because the painting on the little envelope at Whole Foods was pretty.

“They’re pretty.” I said, with waning confidence.

“Aren’t you allergic to flowers? You have terrible allergies. Does anyone else have terrible allergies in the office? Did you ask everyone? And you know that those flowers are basically weeds and grow to, like, four feet tall, right?”

So, in order: Yes, I don’t know, no, and no I did not. However, my audible response was “Huh.”

Unimpressed with my brevity, she walked away.

I am not familiar with the agricultural rules of the city. One colleague from the next cubicle collection cheekily asked if we were cultivating cannibis, which I vehemently denied, which started a discussion about whether that was even illegal anymore, which sparked an investigation as to local law, which surprisingly leaves a great deal of those kinds of policies up to individual building management.

It’s not cannibis. But to be totally honest, I don’t know what it is. Wildflowers are not a specific thing, it turns out. I didn’t have a plan about the flowers, really. I just wanted to watch something grow.

We already have a plant in our other office window, one of those super hardy ones that is advertised as “impossible to kill”… survives anything, lives off any light available. It’s doing well. The wildflowers need more space and fresh soil and maybe a little bit of that MiracleGro™ stuff on them… they require a bit of care and attention.

This morning, I will pick up a nice little rectangular plastic pot at the Lot-Less discount store and transfer them over before the status meeting. I know they don’t belong there, trapped inside a giant stone tower, sunshine filtered through dusty windows, locked away from the fresh air… but honestly, neither do we.

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I left work yesterday whistling a sea shanty. I do not know many; I understand they are a quite popular genre in some circles. One of my first “favorite songs”was “What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor?” which for some reason we sang in Montessori - an odd choice given our landlocked position in Kansas City and lack of experience with alcohol.

I don’t know that I can categorize the song I sang yesterday as a proper shanty, as it was written by John Denver, a very popular folk and country artist of the 1970’s. Most of his work concerned farms and mountains, but he wrote one song about a very famous boat, and this tale begins with that ship:

the Calypso

- a 1940’s military vessel retrofitted to become the research lab, film studio, and floating mobile home of Jacques Cousteau, the famed French oceanographer and co-inventor of the “self-contained underwater breathing apparatus” (SCUBA).

Cousteau lived and worked onboard the Calypso for nearly fifty years, capturing the first full color underwater films of the ocean. In his lifetime, he created 150 documentaries and many popular television shows, including The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. That’s how I knew who he was… it was on every week, along with Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.

In Kansas there are places one can stand and see in the infinite distance an impossibly horizontal line of horizon entirely surrounding them. I imagined the ocean was the same way, but wet.

That’s where the Calypso came in: bringing to our flat, flat land the mysteries of the deep, deep sea, and Jacques Cousteau was our salty Captain Kirk, filming where no one had filmed before.

And this is where time comes in.

The Silent World, Jacques Cousteau’s first documentary, won awards worldwide for its incredible images of the deep sea and changed the way people understood the planet they lived on.

Don’t look it up. You can find it online but please don’t, as it is… a bit dated. I mean it wasn’t when it first came out, we all knew that sharks were super bad and should be shot a lot because it was us versus them, and we had to strike first and fast even though they would definitely would lose a quick draw contest since their fins make it super difficult for them to fire a spear gun back at us.

Thus, sharks do not fare well in this movie. Also, men “ride” giant turtles, blow up underwater reefs with dynamite, and callously disregard the safety of whales. Mistakes were definitely made, which Jacques Cousteau not only admitted later, but in response both honestly expressed deep regret and never repeated those actions.

Ironically, a major portion of the conservationist views toward the ocean which are prevalent now came directly from Cousteau’s work. Over time, his behavior shifted from conquest to exploration, respect, and protection. He gave up all the poking and the stabbing and the squishing to instead develop, through a lifetime of experience, a sense of keen empathy and responsibility toward aquatic life.

Which is why it feels so good to think about Calypso. Cousteau challenged his opinions, gathered new information, and continually re-defined his own compassion. Today, his Cousteau Society works to educate the public about the sea and the importance of the world’s oceans, and stands as his chief legacy.

Because he didn’t feel it was weak to be nice to animals, I get to look back on this ship as a true vessel of good, even when it didn’t exactly start out that way. It can still be a symbol to me of courage and harmony, representing the best in science and ecology, healing that disillusion I felt when the “lemmings jumping off cliffs” nature film thing was exposed as a hideous fake. Who even does something like that? Yeesh.

My favorite contribution from Cousteau was his “Bill of Rights for Future Generations”, presented to the United Nations in 1991. In it, he declared that future generations have the right to an undamaged Earth, and that it was “the paramount responsibility of each generation to maintain… the balance of nature… in order to protect the rights of future generations.”

Yeah, nobody signed that or anything, but it’s a great sentiment to see in print, mirroring the Native American idea of being responsible for the next seven generations. This kind of compassion represents strength to me in this age when some believe it that is weak to care. About anything.

I hope that some of those people will, as Cousteau did, eventually experience a change of heart though their own life experiences, for as Cousteau himself pointed out, ultimately we’re all on the same boat.

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I have been called a maximalist, by both absolute strangers as well as people with whom I share the same silverware drawer.

I’m forever “cleaning up”, “straightening”, and “organizing”. The trick is to just put things “back where they belong”. Most things have “a place to go”… books, for instance live on the bookshelf, vertically. Except for the few that are too large for the case, which have to go on top of it.

And then the ones that don’t necessarily fit and have to be placed atop the others, horizontally.

And the second row that goes in front of the first sometimes, because why waste all that space at the back of the bookshelf?

And then the nightstand, of course, and a bit of the floor next to the nightstand where the books that will eventually make their way to the nightstand are placed in a sort of staging ground.

But those are all places to go, technically.

Some things do not have a definitive home in our home because our apartment lacks a garage, music studio, and trophy room. I hold few trophies, but that is where the yo-yos, sonic screwdrivers, and Millennium Falcon model would go (not the LEGO one… I’m no Rockefeller). We could also benefit from a basement, where I’m told by my wife that “I would go” with “all my stuff”. She’s so protective.

Thus, until the house expands I must continually attempt to contract, a turtle inside a snail’s shell. I wish there was a similar metaphor that was less slow-moving, but it does seem that taking one’s house with them wherever one goes is a lumbering affair, and I guess I can relate.

I render my memories through specific objects. That old radio? Reminds me of how much I love oral storytelling, while that antique television antenna always brings to mind the wit and daring of the dawn of the medium…Sid Caesar…Lucille Ball…Ed Sullivan.

That signed photo of WWE Hall of Famer Trish Stratus represents how one person’s hard work and perseverance can pave the way for others, while that vintage framed 1940’s Aunt Jemima magazine advertisement keeps me both pragmatic and humble.

And that tiny little Spider-Man™ lunchbox is where I keep my guitar and banjo picks, so that’s, y’know, useful.

I celebrate memory by keeping it close, but don’t want to live inside it. I am often challenged by my family to choose what’s “most important” to me and “get rid of” the rest…but how to do such a thing? What memory is not worth remembering? Ok, the theme song to the 1979 sitcom “Hello Larry” starring McLean Stevenson, which for some reason I still remember… that could possibly go. But in regard to the vast majority of the objects in my home (and on my desk at work, and in my backpack, briefcase, and coat pockets) I am Time And Again comforted by their simple anchoring power, milestones and markers through life’s beautiful chaos.

I may be alone in this regard. The problem is that no one else in the house has a swell of emotion about that particular Hot Wheels™ car (the idea of having a dune buggy in Kansas City was the most awesome and impractical thing one could imagine (it didn’t even have any DOORS) ), or tv show dvd set (because Angie is a straight up Forgotten Classic and Bill Bixby’s “The Magician” - about a magician who solved crimes and lived (for some reason) on an airplane is epic, no question), or action figure (that is an original Uhuru from 1974…still has her insignia on the uniform!).

I try to explain, but then I have to talk a lot, which somehow compounds the annoyance; eyes gently roll as my family wanders away like ducks in an open field, pretending they forgot something in another room, or another apartment altogether.

There may indeed be a clinical name for this condition, and a recommended series of pills to discourage it, but I am not a “hoarder”, I know that for sure because I checked online with the intensity of a hypochondriac on WebMD.

As a private curator, I now understand the importance of labels in museums, as they offer context and history. I have a few photo albums from the early 1900s which are fascinating, but very few have any names or dates on them, so each picture is a riddle with no answer, open to interpretation, life turned to art, original meaning sadly entirely lost to time.

So I’ve begun an exhibit book for all the things I truly care about. I have vowed to donate, recycle, or trash anything not worth putting in the book. I do understand that the book itself will be one of the things that will eventually make it into the book, but I’m not working on that level of meta right now.

I just want to pass on the verbs within these nouns, the stories that I see, the little smiles these things bring me that bridge the gaps in my “it’s all gonna be ok” philosophy, the idea that the world can seem totally against you, but if you just sit down and read X-Men 143, things will probably work out.

Then you can put it straight back in the comic box, over there on top of the LEGO drawer, next to the bucket of lightsabers.

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There I was, after work, standing at the front door looking out at the pouring rain, feeling all misty-eyed and wistful. So as the soundtrack for my two-and-a-half block walk to the subway, I played a song called “Rainy Days and Mondays” by The Carpenters.

[Note to youth: The Carpenters were an incredibly popular brother and sister band in the 1970s, like Billie Eilish and Finneas.]

The song is indeed kind of a wistful one, written by the same man who composed “The Rainbow Connection” for Kermit the Frog. It’s a good song, filled with notes and whatnot, solid, well-crafted…

…no, I’m serious, it’s a great song. Excellent song. But this moment wasn’t really about the song. Facing the deep grey skies, at the end of a wearying day, I wanted to hear The Voice of Karen Carpenter.

The Voice Of Karen Carpenter elevated that short, stormy walk into one of those moments when you feel the camera following you for that first establishing shot of the movie, as you make your brave and hurried way through busy streets to join the thousands of commuters on their way back home. I could practically see the reflections of superimposed opening titles on the wet streets around me.

[Another note to youth: The Carpenters did not write much of their music, but their incredible vocal arrangements and vocal harmonies turned any song that they played into a totally unique piece of art. Richard played keyboards, and Karen played the drums so well that she is listed as one of the great rock drummers of all time. So I guess they’re kind of like the White Stripes too, except that Jack and Meg weren’t actually siblings, you know, they just… you know what - you can just look that up later. ]

The Voice of Karen Carpenter distinctly lacks drama and pretension. She just sings a song (out loud, and out strong).

The Voice of Karen Carpenter is artisanal: sound to tape without digital technology to warp the pitch or tone.

I find it very relaxing.

Interestingly enough, I am, at this time (for various reasons) gathering an extensive collection of everything I find relaxing and keeping it close at hand, just in case anything stressful, y’know, were to come up.

I downloaded The Carpenters “Greatest Hits” album on the way home.

In between tenor and mezzo-soprano women’s singing vocal ranges is contralto. It is oddly not next to “alto”.

Etta James. Annie Lennox. Patsy Cline. Julie London’s “Cry Me A River”. Judy Garland’s “Do It Again”. Billie Holiday’s… everything. Shirley Bassey. Lisa Gerrard. And, of course, Ms. Karen Carpenter.

After a little bit of research, I created a contralto playlist.

Music has always been soothing. My school days began with the clock radio in our 1970’s kitchen, playing top hits between traffic reports on the half hours. That brick of LPs of Disney soundtracks ordered from TV that I was given as a birthday present when I was five years old. The organ at church and soprano with the life-altering vibrato. All my boom boxes and Walkmen™ and iPods. The guitars and keyboards and that gold painted Bundy alto saxophone. But it is the human voice that has proven to be the most accessible, affordable, and portable musical device I’ve known.

Lately, I have found myself drifting away from music, as the more intense life gets, the harder it becomes to open up and relax. This is actually kind of a problem these days, because I adore writing music, yet can’t do it with my fingers all squeezed into fists and my teeth all clenched. I’m like one of those wind-up organ grinder chimp toys with the cymbals clashing together.

As a theme for the columns fourth year, I considered evolving it into a more journalistic chronicle of Current Times, but I don’t wanna.

I appreciate the broadcasts, segments, and monologues that help us all “process things” as our guts roil with the over ingestion of fiber-optic data, but with so much ready content about Now being produced, future historians will be able to accurately reconstruct every second of our days from absolutely every angle in dynamic detail. I think that’s covered, and do not feel there is a need to, as a friend recently described, put a hat on a hat.

Instead, I will focus on salves and antidotes, remedies and poultices, balms and potions. I will create a cookbook of soul healing recipes, a grimoire of balanced civility, a curated cabinet of simple joys forgotten or not yet discovered. I will stand against despair even when it’s impossible to ignore, appreciating something every week.

This week, it is The Voice of Karen Carpenter. If you already have her in your music collection, do me a favor and play a tune… and if you don’t, there are some links below.

Welcome to another year of a little humor column written in what might prove to be the least humorous time of American history. Ah. Timing.

Glad you’re here. See you next week.

and a drum one to justify the random White Stripes reference…

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“…hey. pal. how do i get to town from here?”

“…well, just take a right where they're going to build that new shopping mall, go straight past where they're going to put in the freeway,take a left at what's going to be the new sports center,and keep going until you hit the place wherethey're thinking of building that drive-in bank.

You can't miss it.”

* Laurie Anderson [Big Science]

If I was, and I’m not going tobut if I was to attempt to summarize 12 monthstie it in a bowwith a pithy phraseor twee comment: if IWAS going to attempt to do thatI would not choose this past year.

It was too much.It held, within it, far too muchof whatever years are made of.The same number of daysbut each somehow longer.The same amount of timeat a far greater density.

And so much changenot just at solstices and equinoxesbut, like, all the timeand BIG ones, tooone right after the otherpersonal, local, national, worldwidehistoricalit’s like change was on saleat COSTCOin those giant packagesthat only fit in garagesand we had to eat some everydayor it would spoil and we’d waste it.

and I normally love changeI don’t even have to melt cheese on top of itbut last yearI did lose my taste for it, somewhat

And more than twicethe game board that I was playing onswitched beneath me from chessto checkersto backgammonto chutes and laddersall without warningbut I kept rolling diceand moving (what I hoped was probably) forward

so here I am. here, we all arewe get no choice as we never can be anywhere else”I’m right here / over here/ up here/ down here”still here.

If I WAS to tryto summarizethe last 12 months(which I am not going to do)I would choose to mention the bookstore.The one that closedtwo blocks from workto be replaced by nothingthat could soothe the soulor inspire the mindor tickle the funnyboneor capture the imaginationits replacement rumored to be a new pickleball courtI am disappointed that the bookstore is not here anymoreand would frame the bookstore’s close somewhat symbolically, as a prime example of a trend of ill conceived ideasand curious priorities

“…there are problems with the infrastructure concerns about the narrativean issue with the overall direction – “

but I’m not gonna do thatbecause I am thankful that we’re all hereit’s all happening right hereright where we are

even though so many daysI would much ratherit was all happeningover theresomewhere

as lately I find reality somewhat exhaustingand more difficult to navigatebecause I realized that I’m mapping the worldthrough well-worn used-to-be(s)calling the bridges the names we used to call themrather than the new ones on their giant metal plaquesmy faith in spectral signposts and directions written in pencilon tattered notecardsbecause I remember where that used to beand what used to be on that cornerand how we used to get there,but don’t know exactly where THIS is.

If I was to attemptto express the year to comeI would smile

because if our feet become wearyand the paths are destroyedand all of our road maps are set on firethen I guess we’ll all just have to

fly

[Thank you so much for another year. Enjoy your day.]

- Jd Michaels

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The penultimate column of the third year of lowerblackpain. I never saw it comin’. But here we are, together. Thank you for your time.

There is a popular internet trend where two photos are displayed next to each other, the first labeled “how it started” and the second “how it’s going”. The juxtaposition implies that between the first image and the second a great deal has occurred:

First image:

a summertime photo of two kids in overalls sitting by a lake on a dock, laughing.

Second image:

a summertime photo of what must be the same two people, now as adults, in similar clothing on the same dock, holding a baby.

The key to this being fun is assumption; that they fell in love, had a child, and still vacation at the same lake, the crazy kids.

(This game is not nearly as fun to play with your own photographs because you know exactly what happened between the two pictures. Memories are more substantial than assumption, heavy cream to a meringue, a pound of lead to a pound of feathers.)

My “how it started” photo would be me wearing COVID attire (you know what I mean) seated our tiny office space, typing with furrowed brow.

But “how it’s going?” In a spirit of brutal honesty, I am still in the same tiny office space, my brow not quite as furrowed but still a little furrow-y.

For various reasons I’ve recently been in a few waiting rooms, each of which was equipped with a ludicrously giant television playing a cooking program starring superstar chef, Bobby Flay.

At my old dentist’s office, he was working with kids to make Ultimate Desserts.

At my new dentist’s office, one of his oldest friends was competing with him to create the Ultimate Hamburger in just under 20 minutes.

At the doctor’s office, a comedian from the 1990’s and a somewhat-less-than-superstar chef served as judges in his poblano pepper contest. Sorry, Ultimate Poblano Pepper contest.

I do not work as hard as Bobby Flay. I know that. He follows in the footsteps of celebrity brand leader Martha Stewart. I do not work as hard as Martha Stewart, either. My “how it’s going” photo is never going to be me on the set of my lifestyle show, arms around my guests Elvis Costello and Dr. Bronner (that’s a real person, right?).

But I work hard. I really do. Just not that hard.

My social media algorithm has figured out that I am

a) more or less sixty years old

b) an office worker

c) not in what anyone would call “beach shape”

thus my feeds are flooded with “30 day chair workouts”, promising that “in two weeks you’ll feel it, and in four weeks you’ll see it”.

There are tons of these, each with their own icon of golden age fitness - an impossibly tanned man with his long white hair in a savage ponytail and a full white beard that dares you to call him Hot Santa… the “regular guy” that transforms, through a series of jump cuts, to a regular guy with a washboard tummy and Cliffs Of Dover pectorals… the “guy who looks even more tired than you are” who begins the program incredibly begrudgingly and ends up one of the Avengers™.

My “how it’s going” photo is never going to be me as Chocolate Thunder: legs like iron, abs of steel, arms resembling cubic zirconia. But I should work out more. If I do one of these programs, it will be the one with the super intense guy in a backward baseball cap promising “this is your opportunity to improve your swagger and get those Michelle Obama arms!”

Hashtag Black Girl Magic.

I am not content.

I looked it up, just to be sure.

Unsurprisingly, the Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries don’t exactly agree on the definition - one says it’s

“a state of peaceful happiness”

and the other says it means one is

“pleased with their situation”

Actually, they both skew a bit darker than that: their full entries read

“a state of peaceful happiness; being willing to accept a particular thing”

and

“pleased with their situation and not hoping for change or improvement”

So, like I said, I am apparently not content. There are currently loads of particular things I find myself unwilling to accept.

Content implies a stationary satisfaction without forward motion, ambition, driving passion, or evolving purpose. Let none of us be content! Let us march ever forward toward enlightenment, improvement, and innovation! Let us push the boundaries of –

no, you’re right, that sounds exhausting.

I remember, from the long ago days when I used to be able to eat all kinds of food, something called a Cinnabon™: about three quarters of the way through one a state of peaceful happiness occurred, and I was, indeed, pleased with my situation. But that went away - usually within 15 minutes.

Thus, in my experience, contentment is a temporary state of being. Looking back on 157 of these columns, I think my “how it’s going” photo would be me standing on a staircase landing, holding the bannister, wearily smiling, with 157 floors below me, and somehow (and this would have to be a pretty incredible shot) hundreds of staircases left to go.

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Dear Grandpa,

I haven’t been up to much: went to a new dentist this week because our old one stopped taking our insurance. The hygienist took 45 minutes to survey my mouth, racking up a list of potential things they could charge for: I felt like a car on the rack at a disreputable mechanics shop. You could almost hear the “ca-ching” sound of an old cash register every time she poked and prodded something. My teeth are actually fine – our old dentist just examined them.

The family’s doing well, but the world is a mess, still, I guess. Work is good – I “take the A train” every day - not to Harlem but from (and back to) Brooklyn, which (of course) reminds me standing by your record player in the basement, listening to your jazz 78s.

Back then, I had absolutely no idea what an “A” train was. I do remember thinking (probably because I was five) that it might be the best way to get to Sesame Street, which Mom had told me was in New York City.

When I moved here, I was SO EXCITED to see those brownstones and stoops, and that my trash cans were out in front of my house just like theirs were, even if Oscar the Grouch™ wasn’t inside one of them.

I was actually 35 by that time, but still very excited.

To be honest, I’m happy about that even now.

Sometimes I listen to the Duke Ellington and his Famous Orchestra recording of the song on the ride to or from work. I only really remember the lyrics of the first line because Ella Fitzgerald’s version is wonderful, but she scats through most of it so, no lyrics.

“You must take the "A" trainto go to Sugar Hill, way up in Harlem”

I haven’t visited Sugar Hill yet. To be honest, I had always equated the area with a trio of young men who rapped about “the rhythm of the boogity b” : they called themselves “The Sugarhill Gang”: I didn’t understand how important the area was during the Harlem Renaissance as an enclave for successful African Americans seeking the “sweet life”.

Man. I cannot imagine being neighbors with Langston Hughes, Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Thurgood Marshall, Lena Horne…

On grocery store runs, I would have to dress a whole lot better than I do now.

It’s amazing that Great-Uncle Lawrence is on that record. I’ve seen him playing trombone on YouTube and listened to him hundreds of times. It’s cool that I can still hear the music of somebody related to me… and pass that along to The Future Generations.

I’ve written tons of music, but no one’s really heard it. I know that in your experience music was mostly live and not recorded, and the idea of capturing music was like putting leftovers in a Ziplok™ bag to save for later.

I mean, I was never as daring as you to sneak out of the house and head to 12th and Vine to listen to bands like Basie. Mom would’ve been apoplectic. Anyway, how could I do better than your basement, complete with fancy lights with colored bulbs and sometimes a full can of pop?

Now that is a jazz club.

I have been working on some music, but they discontinued the computer program that I write it in, so I’ve had to translate it all to another one.

I know, I should have just written it on paper, but then I can’t hear it played by an orchestra (except in my head).

Your encouragement for my aspiration as a composer has always been appreciated, but I never could imagine how being a composer could initiate the kind of significant changes you’ve accomplished. I always seem to be riding trains and visiting dentists and whatnot.

I remember your telling me that Billy Strayhorn actually wrote “Take the A Train”, and I just read Duke Ellington’s memorial of his life, which described him as a man with “four major moral freedoms”:

* freedom from hate, unconditionally

* freedom from all self-pity (even throughout all the pain and bad news)

* freedom from fear of possibly doing something that might help another more than it would help himself

* freedom from the kind of pride that could make a man feel he was better than his brother or neighbor

That is, without a doubt, a template for a role model. If I could be an artist like that, maybe I would be uplifting my historical legacy.

Well, your historical legacy.

It’s not just that I’m easily amused, but I am quite often fascinated with life.

Good or bad, complicated or blissfully simple, the kaleidoscope of need, drive, and aspiration that New York City generates is hypnotic to watch.

Every morning, every person on that subway car is going somewhere, hundreds of individuals, criss-crossing paths at over 80 mph.

It should be overwhelming, but the soundtrack in my head, of sweet saxophones and crisp brass and bright piano licks, turns that chaos into jazz.

Thanks for all the records in the basement.

Love from Sesame Street.

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April in the US has been officially designated National Poetry Month.

April in the US has also been officially designated National Brunch Month, National Jazz Appreciation Month, and National Welding Month. Not wedding; WELDING.April is also Stress Awareness Month as well as National Cannabis Awareness Month, two Awarenesses which seem to entirely offset one other.

It’s a lot of things, April - a time when quite a few incredibly important issues are annually commemorated, and in this mix is “National Poem in Your Pocket Day”, begun over twenty years ago in New York City by the Academy of American Poets. It is, ironically, a book well read by its cover: we are all supposed to carry around a poem that means a great deal to us, and share it with passersby in a manner which will not incite violence or inspire the “calling of authorities”.

Perhaps leave the Charles Bukowski home.

I missed it this year by a full week. It was the first time I’d heard about it: our family celebrates poetry on January 25 during Burns Night, the Scottish celebration of the work of Robert Burns, whose most famous poem is sung ‘round the world 25 nights before - “Auld Lang Syne”. We heat up the neeps and tatties and try our hand at authentic Highland brogue before pulling out the Dorothy Parker, e.e. cummings, and Dr. Seuss.

It’s the perfect thing for a cold winter night (a drop of Scotch does help), a tradition we have shared with only a few people, as it’s harder to read poetry that we all remember. It’s not just words, but meter and structure… when reading some poets I feel like I’m assembling a fold-up pup tent at a campout, stumbling over pieces that don’t seem to fit together but they MUST, we just did this last year, does somebody remember how this goes?

There was some kind of Poem In Your Pocket Day competition at work, but I don’t think there was a prize or anything.

The guidelines were pretty broad: write a poem about the city and then share it on social media.

I’ve been writing poems for a while now, since COVID lockdown (I had written lots of songs before, but not many poems, which sounds ridiculous, I know, but there it is). So I gave it a shot. I don’t expect anybody to really carry it around with them in their pocket, but as it is online and folks have their phone with them all day, the criteria may technically be filled.

eight point five million

beating heartsin wild cacophonyislands walking upon islandswith emboldened entropywho understandand toleratewho say it isor isn’t great

yet still remainto call this homewhile others fled to lawns and basementspre-arrangements of down payments

we remained herecramped togetherjust to hear the Everythingor see that perfect rising sunthose mornings we find time to run

it’s not just a song we sing”if we can make it here” we swearwe should survive life anywherebut that is not a reason why we should attempt to leave or try to make believe we wouldn’t miss that cloying radiator hissthat boom boom outside, rolling slowfrom someone else’s radio(the shower pressure could be morebut that’s what a vacation’s for)

and no anthropophobic fearfeels stronger than

belonging

here

eight point five million story booksall islandsupon islands.

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Ok, the world is nuts.

I never really write about how crazy the world is because I’m always writing to The Future. I don’t want to be too time-specific in order to be relatable to my great grandchildren, who will read aloud my quips and jibes in their blue reflective jumpsuits, marveling at the simplicity of the writing (“…perhaps Great-Grandpa took a sharp blow to the head as a child?”) and the universal themes which somehow still ring true to them, even though I lived so long ago and never had even one cybernetic implant.

But, c’mon. The world is nuts. Maybe I can just leave it at that. Maybe that’s the universal. Isn’t that what Marvin Gaye was writing about? Will Rogers? Jonathan Swift? Since their writing of then helps me understand now, shouldn’t I try to pay that forward?

Let’s see…

Hello, Great-Grandchildren!

The world is nuts right now.

I’m sure you’ve taken care of all that and are reading this from a lawn chair in a societal utopia, breathing clean air, relaxed and carefree, enjoying a “green drink” that actually tastes terrific.

To boil it down, the world is currently illogical. “Things” don’t “make sense”.

We carry ever-increasingly powerful and complex communication devices that cause us to talk and interact less.

Playing a game with a person has evolved into a technological platform which costs $500 – but can only be played together with someone in a different house (who has also spent $500), while playing cards still cost just a few bucks. (Tic-Tac-Toe is free.)

The world’s primary game is “keeping people from doing things”. Groups large and small pursue this, but in reality are focused less on limiting what somebody is doing than “who someone is”. Quintillions of dollars are spent here.

It’s all very confusing and it’s hard to tell from here how we’re going to get to where you are. If you’re reading this far enough in the future to have access to a time machine, it would be great if you’d come back and let me know. I’m that black guy on the F train. I’ll keep an eye out for you.

As an artist it would be my greatest legacy to provide useful information, navigational signposts from my own experience, but the most honest thing I could tell my great grandchildren is that the world has probably been nuts as long as it’s been round, and as it is highly unlikely that they live in any kind of utopia, they should take care of themselves, enjoy their lives, and try to leave everything a little better than they found it.

Art can be inspiring. Even if mine is not (which is likely) maybe I can curate some wisdom that has guided me:

We have a favorite family movie where a young man who’s given up on everything is spiritually revitalized after successfully navigating a legendary local ski run, which, for various reasons, he completes using only one ski.

At the beginning of his quest, his best friend attempts to give him a skiing lesson. Atop the impossible slope, he tells him,

“Go that way, really fast. If something gets in your way, turn.”

Now there’s a useful piece of advice. Simple, elegant, yet undeniably applicable to everyone, mirroring Frank Zappa’s quote, “There are only two things to remember. Number one…Don’t Stop, and number two…Keep Going.”

But there is one phrase, a keen distillation of respect, harmony and self awareness, that I have carried with me for decades - immortal words not from any pundit or guru, but a made-up hero named Buckaroo Banzai:

“Don’t be mean. We don’t have to be mean. Because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.”

There you go, Great Grandchildren. Live long and prosper.

P.S.

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In 1976, my family celebrated America’s bi-centennial with red, white and blue Jell-o™ parfaits that used Cool Whip™ for the white part. These fancy desserts represented the United States of America. I knew from the flag that the white represented the states, and because my mother was a teacher, that the red was courage and the blue was justice.

The ad with this recipe had been printed in nearly every magazine as patriotic inspiration.

Those currently prone to over-analyzation might make gentle fun, pointing at processed foods and the like, but besides all of us not quite knowing how to pronounce the word “parfait”, none of us held any irony in our hearts: we really were celebrating the 200th birthday of the history of a nation with a spoon.

It wasn’t only seen in the midwest - across the country people began to put their own spins on it. Strawberries in the red part, blueberries in the blue. Kmart™ began to sell tall flared glasses, just like at the soda shops.

We used jelly jars, setting them up on the kitchen counter to make an assembly line, like when we would color Easter Eggs. It took forever to make these because each layer had to set before you put the next layer on, and the next had to be kind of already cooled before you ladled it on top, but not so chilled that it was too thick because the sides had to be perfectly straight.

Science.

I later discovered that the US flag did not fly on July 4, 1776. A version wasn’t officially adopted until 1777, and it took until 1782 for the Continental Congress to give the colors definitive representations:

Red was “hardiness and valor”.

Blue was “vigilance, perseverance, and justice”.

I had those right as a kid, but white wasn’t about the states, it stood for “purity and innocence”.

We can strive to be brave, and work all our lives to defend fair judgement and treatment, but we cannot become innocent. Innocent is where we begin, not-knowing, inexperienced… we move away from that every day towards enlightenment, perspective…wisdom.

Also, I’m not sure how Cool Whip™ represented “purity and innocence”.

Again, it’s hard to put all that into a parfait glass.

While delicious, the best thing for me about this dessert was holding it up to the sun… light streamed through it, illuminating the chemical miracles of Red 40 and Blue 1. For me, this treat was all about the colors and the light.

The middle layer was always opaque, a cloud in a clear sky, but as seen through the actual science of light, that layer would represent of the sum of all the colors in the spectrum, added together.

Alas, the same is not true in science of Jell-o™, which is why we had to use the Cool-Whip™. In our house, it was the metaphorical non-dairy representation of the best of all possible intentions.

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