I Remember

I am so old, that I remember when an Apatosaurus used to be called a brontosaurus on the Flintstones and when Pluto used to be a god, a Disney dog and a planet, but I don’t remember when I started to like classical music.

It could have been when I used to take music classes and the teacher would play “The Planets” by Holst and I recognized part of it as the theme music of some TV show or other but I don’t think so. It might also have started when I would watch Bugs Bunny do “The Barber of Seville” or his version of Wagner’s “The Ring” in “What’s Opera Doc?” both shows being classics in their own right. But again, I don’t think so.

It was probably when my father would play his disco album versions of Bach or Beethoven back in the day when we had records. Or when he would play A Whiter Shade of Pale, not the original Procol Harum version, but one done with a reggae beat by but someone I have long ago forgotten. And then it took me years to realize that was just a rip off of Bach’s Air on G. Since then, I have learned to appreciate classical music in the way that it can be used to feed or purvey emotions, especially when it is combined with visuals like video and film. Like the scene in the movie “Se7en” where Morgan Freeman is walking in a library looking for clues and absolutely nothing happens. But as soon as Bach is played in the background, what was going to be just another piece of celluloid lying on the cutting room floor turns into something erudite and wonderful.

Last weekend I had intended to buy Philadelphia’s own Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings.” Ever since I saw or heard it being used in the Oliver Stone’s “Platoon”, I have always loved it and thought that I would use it somewhere at sometime for something. So since I hate going to record stores without knowing exactly what I want, I went on YouTube to see which orchestra or version would the best one for me. When I saw the BBC Orchestra from the Royal Albert Hall I wasn’t that impressed except for the fact that they were playing it in memoriam for September 11th, just a few days after the event and I remembered.

I remembered every minute of that Tuesday from when my sister called me at work from Florida to say that the World Trade Center had been struck. And then she called again to say that it had been struck again and then again to say that one of the buildings had collapsed and so I called her nuts because everybody knew those buildings were built to withstand airplane crashes. I remember how my Ex called and left me several messages each time I was away from my phone. He would tell me that his bus had been diverted away from the New York because no one knew what was going on and that he had arrived at the Lincoln Tunnel just minutes after the second plane had struck and that he needed help. I remember trying to get back to him to find where he was and what he wanted me to do, but the all the New York lines, cell phones and land lines were busy. I remember thinking that logically, everyone I knew would be safe, but I felt frustrated and to be honest a little scared, not for me but for everyone else.

Now it’s been almost ten years since those days and I wonder if I’ll remember as much ten years from now? I wonder if this is what it’s like when people say they remember when Kennedy was shot or the few who are left who remember when FDR died. So much has happened since then but probably not as much as has stayed the same, but I remember.

A Whiter Shade Of Pale - Procol Harum

It's not really that important but I think that I am going to mention this song in a future post so I just need to give a few of the young folks something to refer to.

Black History Month Revisited

Let me tell you about one moment in Black history.

I saw Temple Grandin the other day on HBO and just like the old days when they used to have the movie and disease of the week I have found something else that is wrong with me, I am autistic. There were just so many things in the movie that I could relate to. The ability to think in pictures rather than words, my confusion when I’m faced by noise and lots of visual stimulation that I’m not used to, my aversion to being touched by strangers unless I have that lonely night agenda thing going which we won’t go into here, all point to autism but without the genius thing.

I should make an appointment with my doctor for tests, but he would probably laugh at me again. Bitch! I hate HMO doctors.



What does any of this have to do with Black History Month? Nothing, but speaking of doctors and HBO I'm reminded of that other cable movie Something the Lord Made with Mos Def when he played the heart surgery pioneer Vivien Thomas. Even though Thomas had never attended medical school as a lab technician for the Johns Hopkins surgeon Dr. Alfred Blaylock had developed a surgical technique for improving the circulation of blood for patients with Blue Baby Syndrome. This was one of the names given to children, whose blood bypassed the lungs leaving them oxygen deprived with a blue pallor and was often fatal.

Thomas developed a technique where he was able to attach arteries from the heart to the lungs and therefore increase the amount oxygen and hence the lifespan of the child. But more than this, he developed a suture style where the scar tissue would be able to expand and grow as the patient and as he or her organs did. I bring this up only because I may have benefitted by his procedures.

When I was 14 days old, it was discovered that I was unable to digest any food because of a blockage somewhere in my digestive tract. In the old days, say Leonidas and the Spartans, they would have just thrown me out the back one night and let the wolves have at me, but instead I was operated on leaving a horizontal scar on my abdomen 2 stitches long. I know that because you can still see the marks where the needle entered the skin.

As I’ve grown, that 2 stitch scar has grown with me and is now about 4 inches long and I really have no problem with it unless someone points it out to me or I sneeze really energetically. You see when I sneeze, I contract my abs and if it’s really stressful the muscle will bulge below the scar and feel as if I’m being ripped apart about the midsection. Anyway, I don’t know how true it is but I think I may owe Vivien Thomas, among others, my life.

And that has been one moment in Black history.

And the winner is...

Is it just me or does it seem that Jay Leno isn't really sitting on the same sofa with Oprah and Dave, but just added in digitally?



Oh and I'm sure I've said this before, but Betty White is the hardest working person in showbiz today and maybe ever. She is not only a Golden Girl but she should be recognized as a national institution also.

My Black History Month

I have heard said that the world has been developed on the shoulders and back of the black man. I don't know how true that is, but I had to justify using this picture to the right... Moving on.

I read on Facebook from one of my friends, and I use the term loosely since other than we play games together I have no idea who she is, but she said in one of her posts that it was Black History Month and she was surprised that there didn't seem to be an awareness of it. There were no special events or promotions going on to celebrate or educate  people of what had happened before or what was going on. I wanted to reply to her post that there is so much going on around her that there was so much going on around her that she would have to do is stand up, open her eyes and see.

From the earthquake and its aftermath in the first black and second independent nation in the Western Hemisphere to the first black President of the United States, black history was going on and being developed all around her and still she didn't get that these were the culminations of what had happened before and may happen again and perhaps much more important than a TV show or a dance. Anyway, I probably don't have the skills to inform you and show you the events that have helped shape the world into what it is in any meaningful way. Instead I will just show you what has helped developed me for good or bad.

When I was young, around 4 or 5, my mother would sing the following song to me. Maybe it explains who I am, maybe it doesn't. I don't know, I just remember it now and again.

First Rant of the Year

"All the News That's Fit to Print" is the slogan or motto for the New York Times and I sometimes wish that the local television stations felt the same way about there news programs. If they would only show just the stories that were worth watching, informing or uplifting the public they would be so much better than they are now.

I dislike local television news because it is so full of sensationalism. Not that the national network news is any better, but local news no matter where you go will put on the most outrageous stories just to get ratings...and that annoys me.

I think that Philadelphia TV market is the 4th or 5th largest television market in the the US. It covers not only the city of Philadelphia and the rest of South Eastern Pennsylvania, but all of New Jersey south of Trenton and pretty much all of the State of Delaware. I don't know how many people that would be, but suffice to say that's a pretty big audience with Channel 6's news getting the largest share ratings.

It's believed that Channel 6's Action News garners it's audience because they show more stories about violence and abuse, house burnings and diseases threatening to wipe out mankind than does the competition. And if perchance there should a story that involves a race issue where someone is being hurt or threatened, then they will go all out and enlarge the story and do an in-depth investigation and or analysis of the situation until they can't squeeze anything else out of what will be seen after a few weeks to have been a story about nothing. But like I said before, local news appears to be the same where ever you go.

I saw the story below coming out of Atlanta where some guy wants to start up a "Whites Only" basket ball league of US born citizens only and I wondered what was all the fuss about? Doesn't someone at the news station know that as soon as the man puts his sign up on the street and before the paint has been given a chance to dry, his business would be sued and shut down by the community and the courts for discrimination. Can no one figure out that this man would be filing for bankruptcy before he even took in his first dollar? Does no one there know that that this man's actions would be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause in the Constitution?

The story is a non-issue and yet they felt it was important enough for them to air it and feed it the other local stations so that they could fill their time with nonsense.

Oh, how I hate local TV news.

Death & Destruction

The Presidential Palace

So I went to the barbershop today and you know what one of the topic of conversations was, Haiti.

There was a young man with an accent there who they called Doc. He told someone who was getting his hair cut that he had gone to medical school in New York, so I wasn't sure if was a doctor or intern or still a student. But he said that he had heard from people that Haiti was over populated and that even though the earthquake is a tragedy, the recent events is perhaps a blessing in disguise. I was in West Philly watching a Pat Robertson moment, follow the link if you don't know who is; but I didn't say anything there, and I won't say anything here. It's not the time for preaching my pseudo liberal arguments and fighting without any real information. I can do that later.

In the meanwhile I will let others do the talking for me with some video.

Teddy

The important and responsible thing for me to do would be say something about the huge amount of lives lost in Haiti from the recent earthquake and the possible further hardships that state will face, I should but I won't. I had wanted to write something about communication and the late night NBC TV debacle here in the States. In fact I've written about half of it but I think it needs to be heavily edited and taken in a different direction even before it's finished. Instead I will write about neither one of them because Philadelphia's own Teddy is gone.

It's not that the life of Teddy Pendergrass will ever be considered that important in the grand scheme of things but I've written about him before because it was Teddy that I fell in love with. I'm not talking about a physical love that you have with someone, although I'm sure that for a lot of people that wouldn't have been a bad thing; I'm talking about that scary stalker kind of love where I didn't want to have Teddy Pendergrass, I wanted to be Teddy Pendergrass. I wanted to be drop dead gorgeous and have women who would drop their draws and feel moist between their legs at the first sound of my voice like they did for him. I wanted to have the same animal power and attraction that he had that would make other men walk away with their manhoods cheapened and shrunken, or engorged and maybe wanting to drop their draws too depending on their needs, because he was more man than they were. I wanted to look like him, I wanted to be him.

Truth be told, I was in North Jersey when I really became aware of Teddy Pendergrass. For just a short time from when he sang the duet with East Orange's Whitney Houston who everybody said was gay, and the car accident that would cripple him at 32 for the rest of his life, I took notice of him and realized that he used to be the lead singer of Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes, he was the sexy one with the voice. And now he's gone.

I guess that's the way of all things. Eventually everything and everyone will die if only to make room for others. With all the things that are going on in the world it's probably not that important that Teddy is no longer here except in that Disney "Circle of Life" kind of way but I'm glad I was a around for just a brief part of his career and his life after it because...because he brought me joy.

Reality TV that you can't find in the States

Did you know that CBS was still fighting the fine that they were charged with by the FCC for showing Janet Jackson's titty during the Superbowl?

I am always amazed by the amount of things that people can put on TV in other countries that would bring about the destruction of civilization in the US as well as the wrath of God if the same things were shown here. I long for the day when people can be a little less puritanical here and perhaps a little more accepting of the way people really are.

Also, I'm always surprised by the amount of artists who will not even do a TV commercial in America because they believe it may demean their careers but will at the slip of a hat shake it all loose and show daddy's little dividend just because they have crossed the borders.

Take Sisqo for example on Britain's Big Brother. Can you really see him doing that here? Would you like to see him do that here?

An Inexpensive Form of Airport Security

Alright people, nothing going on here. Move along please, move along.