T has flown the coup for the Big Apple and that means I get to go to sleep with the chickens! Or at least when Tin does. There is no rest for the weary (or the wicked from what I hear) so you gotta get it while the gettin’s good.
I was so into Mardi Gras, but today as I was headed to the gym and passed the folks from Treme filming behind the Mahalia Jackson Auditorium with a fake float and people in costumes catching beads I wanted to spit – DONE, my head shouted – no more costumes, no more beads, no more floats – for goodness sakes take it down the road. Then when I thought I had really had enough I noticed they had the Jazz Fest banners flying on Rampart Street and my neighbor sent me the invite for the St. Joseph’s day bash and parade on the 18th and 19th. That is, of course, after St. Patty’s day parade on the 17th.
Lord today!
I’m a great fan of Chuck Perkins, so don’t get me wrong about what I say here, these are purely my own musings. Chuck posted this to his Facebook page, but this didn’t sit right with me at all and not because it is exposing the underbelly of a root problem. I tried to slice and dice this statement of Chuck’s a number of different ways, substituting a number of different nouns and each time I came up with the same roughness in the back of my tongue. I looked at the comments that people wrote Chuck, giving him an atta boy on his way with words.
I thought about the answer to don’t shoot – and I tried to imagine what I as a mother would think if if this boy was holding that gun to my son’s head – would I see the backstory – would I care? The answer is no. Do I care that so many children are being raised into violence and poverty and see no roads out, a resounding yes. Still I don’t see this story of Chuck’s working for me – I don’t see the boy, and notice I say boy, because I don’t visualize a girl with a gun in this scenario, not that it couldn’t be a she, but I don’t see her, I see a boy, a he, scared and hopeless about to pull the trigger because he’s angry at something larger than his target. And I don’t see Chuck’s words here as anything else but exposé and I don’t see the good that comes from writing an exposé and having people comment – yeah, you’re for real Chuck, because yes, Chuck is for real here, as real as real can get, but there have been a lot of boys who came up living in that same hell who had something inside of them that wasn’t dead on arrival – they saw hope where none was given, they felt love instead of hate, and they didn’t see the enemy outside of them, but only the enemy within them that they had to overcome that we all have to overcome to be better than who we are, or who we came from, or where. The answer to Don’t Shoot is not Fuck you, it’s Don’t Shoot because you and me, brother, are one and the same.
The Answer to Don’t Shoot.
Fuck you, you self righteous bourgeois bastard. Yeah my momma had me when she was fifteen, but her and my grandma raised me the best way they knew how. You mutha fuckers are always saying why not graduate from high school and college and go out and get a good job. We’ll my grandma didn’t go past the fifth grade but she believed what was said about education. With the hope of a better future for my mom, grandma sent her to school everyday; she sent her to the school she was supposed to go to, and my mom did graduate but the certificate she received ain’t worth shit, my momma was told she barely reads on a fifth grade level. It’s all good; because despite that, I always had the nicest shit. My momma and all the niggas she fuck with is about that money. It’s called hustling. It’s a dangerous game but at least you’re living. Who gives a fuck about school? When my grandma died everybody talked about how good she was, how she worked until her death, even through part of her sickness, and how she went to church every Sunday. Nobody mentioned that for over forty years she lived from check to check, washing and ironing other people clothes and mopping their floors. She never had enough money for nothing, had never been on a vacation, hell my grandmother never left the state of Louisiana. As much as I love her she was as close to being a slave without being one as you can be. If me and my mom choose to live like my grandma you would like that ha, but I bet when the lights are about to be turned off you won’t be around to help keep that shit on. Before I put this pistol to your head I was somebody else’s problem. You didn’t give a fuck about me or them fucked up schools y’all make available to us. I love the rappers, they’re the only niggas representing for the hood. They reject the bull shit idea of working like a dog for minimum wages, barely able to make ends meet. I love their mantra get rich or die trying. You’re right, the problem of the poor is not your problem, and it’s not mine either. When your day is ruined by the paper’s mention of more spilled blood, don’t blame me. I know you would love it, if me and my kind went back to our holes and suffered in silence, but fuck you. No education no peace. No good role models, no peace. No equitable sharing of the American pie, no mutha fucking peace. Now give me that wallet, and get your pussy ass outta here.
I decided to give up cussing for Lent and am putting $20 in a jar every time I slip up and say a curse word. I have $60. The money will go to charity and right now all of you nonprofits don’t start drooling yet because I will curb this habit.
I was happy to see a few hippies around on Mardi Gras day – my friend was one, she was supposedly on an acid trip and we were her hallucination. I saw one hippy carrying a sign that said “Never Trust Anyone Over 30” – which is sort of scary to read that the census shows New Orleans has lost over 45% of its children under 18. Lesli Jacobs, optimistically says the young people moving here will have children and repopulate this city – she says, New Orleans is Woodstock to young people and I do believe she has something there as we ran into friends, young from Boston, who are here in this city trying to make things better than before.
Well it seems all good things must come to an end or at least that is the theme playing out in my head right now. My laptop died and I had to get a new one. My airport router died and I had to get a new one. My external hard disk drive died and I had to get a new one. Yesterday my printer died and I had to get a new one. I believe I’ll call it a day.
Considering this was my year to not purchase one thing and I have had to purchase that many things – I’m spent out on consumer electronics. The good news today was that Hewlett Packard gave me a substantial discount because I’ve been a loyal customer for over two decades. They gave me a printer that normally sells for $150 at $79 with free shipping, free ink, and an extended warranty for only $1. Can’t beat it with a stick. This upgraded printer has separate color ink cartridges so it prints better photos and it also scans better – so now after a long delay I can finally go back to scanning the family photo – a project I started now two years ago.
Last night, I slept like a baby and dreamed of my past lives, one where Arlene scampered from room to room with her plush toys.
Squirrel
Truthfully, I ruminated when I came down from the tree.
Had sorrow made me say all these things?
Had someone been with me, they would say at once
that I was ‘deeply wounded.’
I would like to show them
the squirrel that flickers in and out of sight, small as a crumb
but still able to animate the dark forest.
Her soul is surely the picture
of this tranquil elation that quivers and rests inside me.
The squirrel was drawing my path toward the forest.
ECE TEMELKURAN
translated from the Turkish by Deniz Perin
Book of the Edge
BOA Editions
Now that the costume is filthy and ready to be put up for repurposing, and my outer thighs are tight as a rubberband from carrying Tin (approximately 26 lbs) in his pack as we walked up and down the Quarter, and my face is still suffering from the overload of makeup – I’m here to tell you it’s done.
And in sum, as much as goes with it every year, Mardi Gras is a perfect way to stop the earth from turning, create for the sake of creation, enjoy for the sake of enjoyment, and parade down the streets because you can. There is simply no other thing like it in the whole wide world – it’s Carnival – and it’s fun.
Now back to reality.
On Lundi Gras, at the gym, a woman took a sip out of her water bottle and spit it out – “Damn, I forgot I had cranberry and vodka in here last night.”