Wild, Wild, Wild Thoughts

I haven’t written for awhile. I have some things on my mind.

1. One of my favorite things to do is have a dance party. No, I’m not running through West Hollywood shaking things. We have it at the house. My daughters pick songs they like. Usually Bruno Mars or Katy Perry or Sia. We watch YouTube videos. We do the dances they do. We sing loudly. We get some energy out before bedtime. Lately they like goofy songs that talk about butts.

We don’t do that every night. We should.

2. There are some songs that are guaranteed to make me cry every single time. Three come to mind immediately.

Ultralight Beam by Kanye and a bunch of people. Sometimes I think I’m hard and I’ll make it past Chance saying, “This little light of mine, glory be to God, yeah.” But if I’ve made it that far I still lose it with Kirk Franklin saying the song is for everyone who feels they’re not good enough or has said they’re sorry too many times and that you can’t go so far that you can’t come home again.

It Hurts Like Hell by Aretha Franklin. Babyface wrote it. He does what he does, which is pour genuine emotion into some lyrics. She does what she does, which is sing with a passion like no other. She’s in pain but sings it beautifully. I mean, she’s Aretha. I don’t know if subconsciously it’s hitting some memory of what was happening at a time when I was in pain and that song felt right. But I just know that every time I hear it now the water flows.

We Fall Down by Donnie McClurkin. It’s about…it’s basically about the same thing that Kirk Franklin says in the first song. We all falter. We all lose our way. Even the best of us have been in a bad place, asked for forgiveness and found salvation. Any particular reason the idea of making amends, doing better and feeling worthy would appeal to me? Nah, can’t think of one.

3. I’ve been blessed. I mean, that’s what people say. I definitely have had advantages. I have decent health. I don’t have any handicaps. I have a well-paying job that comes with some fun benefits. I have happy, healthy children. I have a loving wife. I live in a nice apartment in a nice area. Both my parents are still with me. I even still have one grandparent alive and I get to see her regularly. I’m blessed, right? But a blessing means that God saw something in me that he (or she) wanted to celebrate. A blessing is a gift from God. If it was bestowed upon me, why not others? If I’m blessed, are others who suffer or who don’t have the same things I do cursed? I can’t see one without the other. It’s why I struggle with the concept of “blessings”. I’ve had breaks go my way. I’ve had opportunities that didn’t work, but more that did. I’m pretty smart. I know how to play the game and that’s brought me professional success. Others weren’t taught some of the same things. Others haven’t had some of the same opportunities I have. I don’t feel blessed. I feel lucky. I also feel guilty. There’s no reason I should have the opportunities and success that I have while others don’t. I’ve had friends locked up. I’ve had friends struggle with addiction. I’ve had friends die. None of them were worse people than me. The fact that I’ve flown while they’ve faltered feels like a fluke. It also feels really unfair.

4. I get a little dumber every single day. It’s true. I’m convinced. There’s more everyday that I don’t know than the day before. I remember being in college class and the professor said the reason he taught a course on John Milton was because he was, “One of that last people who knew everything.” I, of course, questioned that immediately. “He knew acupuncture? He knew medicine and healing techniques being used by natives in the Americas? He knew…” (I was a smart-ass). “Those weren’t part of his world,” he responded. “Milton’s world was Europe. And he knew all of it. He knew its history and its people. He knew its art. He knew its music. He knew it’s literature. He knew its science.” It’s like someone who doesn’t know there’s a world outside her bedroom. She knows the light switches. She knows the bed. She knows the books. She knows everything there is to know in that small world. That’s not the world today. Everyday I learn more things I didn’t know. When I was 19 I knew a little about a lot. I didn’t know a lot about anything, but I knew the surface of enough to converse about anything. Not now. “How does Google’s algorithm work? Build a healthcare plan that covers everyone without impacting taxes or the deficit. Explain modern art. Explain the success of Kendall Jenner.” I don’t know any of those things. I can’t even scratch the surface. I can’t even start a conversation. I can just shrug and move on. Learning more just reminds me of how little I know. I remember my boss telling me I was one of the smarter people he’d worked with. “There’s so much I don’t know,” I responded. “You’re smart enough to admit that. Not everybody does.” Thanks, Pete. I’ll always remember that, but I’m a lot dumber now than when we had that conversation.

5. Did Virginia have another blackface scandal yet? I don’t really care about blackface. I mean, I do, but this isn’t a unique problem. It’s just another symptom of the undercurrent of racism that infests the whole system we have in America. But one part of the current conversation that bothers me is people saying that blackface became offensive. Nah. Blackface was always offensive. You thought black people in the 1920s were saying, “I like the way they make fun of us! The big lips, the ridiculous speech, the goofy dancing, the drunkenness! They sure do a good job.” No. That’s not it. They were disgusted, offended, angered and frustrated. They also had no ability to do anything about it. Now we can at least publicly complain and lambaste those who use our very being as a joke. That’s true about everything, by the way. “We used to use gay as a way of describing things we didn’t like. It wasn’t a slur. Gay people didn’t care.” Yes they did. You just didn’t listen to them. “We used to say things were retarded…” I know we did. And that was awful and wrong then. It’s awful and wrong now. Norms didn’t change. The people who have an opportunity to speak did.

6. So they made a movie based on a Pepsi character, Uncle Drew. It’s a young basketball player who dresses like an old man. He wins pick-up games. It’s not an interesting ad campaign. In the movie he gathers some other old basketball players to go against young people. Chris Webber doesn’t act. Reggie Miller can’t even call games so you know he can’t act. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Nate Robinson speak. These people are the co-stars of this thing. So I watched this ridiculous film concept the other night. I watch more than a hundred movies every year and I just knew this had a chance to be the very worst. I laughed at least 100 times. I guffawed. I slapped the bed. I repeated the lines. I was so pissed I was at the hotel and couldn’t rewind. I’ll be watching it again this weekend. Make no mistake. This is not a good movie. It wasn’t nominated for any awards and that’s right. But it is hilarious. Chris Webber is baptizing a baby but spinning it behind his back like a basketball. Kyrie Irving is talking about which section of his van is the “boom-boom room”. Shaq is doing Shaq things. Highly recommended. And yes, for the obvious follow-up question, I was sober.

7. I also saw Roma. I’ll write more about it when I do my year-end report that I usually write Oscar weekend. I can safely say it’ll be my top film. It’s the best film I’ve seen in…I’m not sure. It’s better than my top films of the past two years. It’s probably better than the last five years. It starts slowly so that you’re immersed in this world. Please give it a chance to move past that. Once you’ve become a part of it you can’t believe what happens. It’s everything that film can do. The only criticisms of it I’ve seen are related to the class of the director and the fact that some aspects of Mexican culture are unexplained. The first is a fair conversation. The second is apt only if we also complain about how the Avengers didn’t explain every character’s back story in the 1st act. If you know Marvel history and not Mexican history that’s not the film’s fault. That’s yours.

8. I have two daughters. Since I’m black they’re both women of color. They know that. We talk about that. But, at least outwardly, only one of them reads that way. The other is very light. She could pass as white. Her sister couldn’t. They might think she’s Latina. They might think she’s Polynesian. They might think she’s black. They won’t think she’s white. But I worry for both of them. I worry for the world we’re creating that they’re left to manage. I talk to them about how they’re smart and caring and how they’ll need to keep that up. I tell them they have to look out for each other. But I worry. I know how people are. I know the challenges people of color face. I know the challenges women face. It scares me. People are cruel. People are selfish. People are uncaring. I love them more than anything. And they love people so much. I hope people love them back.

9. I think about Tamir Rice every day. Every single day. I didn’t grow up with the best circumstances. We moved a lot. Most of those places were truly diverse, meaning not just a few token black people, but a full spectrum of races and nationalities. It’s what happens when you live in a college town. But we moved to an all-white, rural place. I’ve written about it before. It wasn’t easy. It’s wasn’t fun. I didn’t fit in and it was made clear. I got in fights. I had rocks thrown at me. I was kicked and punched and laughed at and joked about. But it never broke me. I could rationalize them as either silly children or out-of-touch old people. I had some friends who would support me and really cared for me. I’d lived enough, even at 14, to know that there are so many others out there that make it better. Being there never broke me. I think Tamir Rice’s murder did. He was the same 14 as I was when I was being harassed in that little town. He was playing with a toy in the park. Someone called the police and said a kid was playing with a toy in the park. A drive-by murder followed. The car didn’t even stop before the shots rang out. The follow-up showed that the officer had a problem history and another force recommended that he not be allowed to work in policing. But he did. And a child lost his life. There’s one possible defense. Only one. It’s not strong, but it’s the only one. “Policing is a difficult job. We don’t know what’s going through the mind of that officer.” That’s it. What is not an acceptable defense is talking about how big or scary Tamir was or how real his toy looked or how much notice he was given or how scary black people are in general or how dangerous it is to be a police officer or any of the other ridiculous lies we were told. The police did a drive-by in a public park on a child playing with a toy and people cheered when he went unpunished. That’s why Donald Trump’s election didn’t shock me and Ralph Northam’s blackface didn’t shock me and why Colin Kaepernick’s blackball didn’t shock me. They killed a kid and cheered. There’s no bottom after that.

10. I also saw the movie First Man. I bet the President is conflicted. It’s about a bunch of white men doing something amazing, but they used science to achieve it. Is our president more White Supremacist or anti-Scientist? A debate for our times.

11. El Chapo is getting sent to Supermax in Colorado. It’s the scary prison for the worst of the worst. I jumped online to learn more about it and got pulled into the rabbithole. On Youtube it always ends in White Supremacists. (Do you enjoy cat videos? You may also enjoy videos explaining why both Jews and Muslims are demons.) On Google it ends up with cool info that you just didn’t know. TIL that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the person we credit as being the mastermind behind the September 11th attacks was located because the US tortured his six- and eight-year-old children! Sleep, food and water deprivation didn’t work well enough, so they tied them down and had insects and other creatures crawl on them to scare them into telling what they knew. And it worked. Who knew that terrifying children would get information. Of course it both ruins them psychologically and creates an enemy for life, but you got the information and that’s all that matters. I wonder what his children are doing now. Well-adjusted and calm I’m sure. No lasting effects or ill-will toward the world-wide Super Power still holding their father and now being led by a person who says that Islam hates us and Muslims should be barred from the country. Good work, Bush administration.

There’s no thread connecting these. I just had some things on my mind. Be well, all. Show love, even to those who have no love for us.