Uh, Who dat...

1. From personal experience, the poetry/lit circuit...was both fascinating and brutal. All alone on stage, or behind a podium in a well lit room, being 'on' never felt comfortable to me. The intellectual property was there; I owned it. Committed to paper. It was crazy. Sometime, I was so ebullient from the read, it would carry me for days. Other sessions were tainted by....intense stage fright. Which brings me to the best movie I've seen all year, '20 Feet from Stardom.' An indie production which
'fronts' the backup singers, most notably, Darlene Love, Lisa Fischer, Merry Clayton and Judith Hill who we've all heard behind Luther Vandross, Springsteen, the Stones, David Bowie, Sting etc. but never really knew who exactly some of them were until now. From the opening beat of Lou Reed's 'Walk on the Wild Side,' to his iconic line: 'and the colored girls go, Doo do doo, doo do doo, doo do doo.' this movie will enlighten and blow your mind. Anyone who has hummed a melody or sung lyrics from a radio tune should see this indie, and shame on you if you don't. Face it, it takes a gigantic ego to front a band; on the other hand, the backup singer (s) are unique quasi mysterious partners. Who give it all up to let it rip behind the lead vocal. It is the ultimate 'having their backs.' You might be humming after you see this film,  but music will never sound the same
again. This is a great enriching tribute.

2. The accompanying photo: left to right: Jo Lawry, Judith Hill and Lisa Fischer.

3. Completely comatose on my couch the other night, I was awakened by the Amber alert which exploded from my cell phone. That was some scary gloom and doom shit. Who knew the phone was linked into the alert???

"It takes a train to..."

1. One of the greatest Dylan songs ever. 'It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry.' A song title with your name on it, if you've known the blues. Plug it in, and steep yourself. My default association tale...At midnight, if I'm lucky, after just settling in, far far away, but not far enough, comes the wail of the Amtrack. Starlight route? For five to ten minutes, the engineer launches the melodic train code. This is not your grandfather's steam engine whistle, but a deeper, richer tone resonating over the somnolent city. I never rode the rails until I was well into my 30's. I'm a child of the jet age. The fastest way off the island (I'm not talking Survivor) was through the air. Trains. Def old school. And with with a mystery destination every night.

2. Aftermath of the Trayvon Martin verdict. I happened to be driving through downtown Oakland, a couple of days after the demonstrations. Block after block had establishments with every window broken, boarded up. Oakland, the city, that needs merchants to bolster their sagging economy keeps taking it on the chin. Uh, soon there might not be a there, there.

3. Orange is the New Black. If you've been in outer space and just returned,
this is a Netflix series based on Piper Kerman's book detailing her incarceration for 15 months in a woman's minimum security prison. The telly show takes liberties; the series' genre is comedy-drama, and falls under the 'chick flick' (who cares?) label. It is a raunchy, incredibly funny, frank,  production rift with characters rarely seen on the networks: African American and Hispanic woman who are not just window dressing but an inclusive significant part of the entire collage.

4. Eshleman Hall. Demolished. Gone. Built in 1965 on the Univ of California, Berkeley campus and primarily housing student organizations; site of demonstrations and protests, vandalism, numerous thefts, two fires, a murder in 1992, Grace Asuncion, a cold case, and the barrier from which CeCe flew...wounded, we were young then but will never forget.

...'A-Riding on a pony...'

Childhood memories aside, the song 'Yankee Doodle' will forever be associated with Jimmy Cagney's 'Yankee Doodle Dandy.' 1942. A film about the great George M. Cohan. Waking up this fine morning, (any morning you're above ground is a fine one I heard some old degen mutter at the racetrack one day) and after my tea and donut, I googled and wiki'd
(utopian tree of knowledge) Yankee Doodle. Not so much for Yankee; hey, the 21st century Yanks wear blue pinstripe unis and play ball.  But for the word 'doodle. ' This is what I discovered. 'Doodle' in low German is thought to be a 'fool.' The word 'macaroni' refers to foppish manners ie gay (1774!). Um, so according to our sources, the original Yankee Doodle was written by a British Surgeon pre-revolution mocking the Yanks in the French and Indian war. The Yanks recognizing a sprightly tune co-opted the music and added their own verses; the rest is history.

In the spirit of the day, I'm instituting and presenting the 1st annual 'Fireworks Award.'

1. Senator Wendy Davis for her tenacity and neon Mizono sneaks.
2. The 'Supremes' for stepping up to the mic and ruling.
3. Edward Snowden for spilling the beans. Hey, no discrimination here.
4. KStew for her ballsy outfit at the Chanel couture show in Paris.

Enjoy the day. Good friends with their stories. And free flowing beverages. The grilling, salads, ice cream and toppings. The kids getting older, and almost out the door, but never too old for the after dark show. Pyrotechnics flare and rule! Be safe. Last year, we burned the front door mat and scorched a hole in the living room. But, that's another story.

Fading to Black

1. Thirteen years ago, I bit the bullet and added HBO to my satellite network. For a long long time, I resisted the lure of the luxury channel; I didn't need no stinking recycled movies, or pretentious hyper produced telly series, no sir,  I was having none of it, holding the bull at bay, and keeping the change in my pocket for other amusing hobbies, until...The Sopranos. For those of you who missed the wedding, the six season run of the greatest series that ever laced them up under cable lights, it's not too late for you to re-live the moments. Whatever came after The Sopranos, touched the cloak, but never the master. The Sopranos, my friends, danced every dance, and hit all the fucking high notes. 'The Wire,' 'Six Feet Under,' 'Deadwood,' etc etc emulated, genuflected and kissed the ring. My brother in law once wondered out loud if he wanted to invite the series into his living room every week. The truth was that The Sopranos brought droves of men to the Sunday night viewing. The writing was superlative. The camera work richly composed and lit. There was something for everyone. And when the opening chord of 'Woke up this morning' by Alabama 3 fired up the show, it was money. The most successful cable series, eva. James Gandolfini was a man (bada bing!) among the boys. Tomorrow night the lights on Broadway will dim for one minute in his memory...the ultimate thespian accolade.

2. Mad Men. Close but no cigar. See above. Season finale left no stone unturned. The final 10 seconds close again, but...

'You load 16 tons, and what do ya get..'

1. With apologies to Tennessee Ernie Ford and Lena...uh, if you're a woman, you make exactly .77 cents to the 'man's' dollar while you're grinding away elbow to elbow in the salt mines. Don't have a college education? A woman of color? Hispanic or Black? Hey babe you're earning approximately .68 cents, retro, to the buck. Yesterday, was the 50th anni of the signing of the equal pay act. And no, we haven't come a long way; the gender gap is still held hostage by the prickly zipper. A seminal moment for me: a printing job I stumbled upon down in the western Oakland warehouse district; a stone's throw from deFremery park, site of the Black Panthers rally's. The shop was youthful, filled with vibrant, brash individuals who believed in equal 'everything' much to the owner's outrage and chagrin. My first day on the job, I heard the tapping of a razor blade on a light table.  And knew illicit adventures beckoned. Unionized, every contract negotiation was brutal. In the end, equal pay, a concept, which never existed before for any of us sparked and burnt like wild fire. It was the 70's.

2. Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer. HBO. A documentary. Somewhere in the Gulag deep in Mother Russia, Nadia and Masha are serving out their 2 year sentence for 40 seconds of theater in a Moscow Cathedral before a shocked congregation. With one act, three women belonging to the Pussy Riot collective exposed Putin and his government as draconian neanderthals, scared shitless, by masked neon balaclava'd women engaged in guerrilla punk music and going all H.A.M on them...the thing is, now more than ever, the whole world was, and is still watching.

3. Game of Thrones. It was the shizzil. Good summer reading if you can't wait for next year.

Highway or...

A decade ago, learning everything we know vaulted from the telly into our living rooms at night; now everything we know flashes, warp speedo, onto our personal electronic devices 24/7. And it's free! And it's the people's forum.

Thus, my friends, here are some Mother's day facts. From our pal,wiki, of course. In 1870-1880, Protestant schools observed holidays such as Children's Day (how thoughtful) Temperance Day (opps), Roll Call Sunday (more wiki), Decision Day (ditto) and Missionary Day (whaaat). Anna Jarvis, considered the 'mother' of MD, along with a Philly merchant, John Wanamaker established the first official recognized day May, 1908 in Wanamaker's auditorium to honor her deceased mother.
White carnations, 500 of them rolled out that Sunday by Anna Jarvis, symbolize the day.

Raised in a strict traditional way, my mother as a parent did not fall far from her hard ass father's tree. She was always the bad cop in our home. I once called her a 'tiger' which upset her, and my father laid the wood that night. Our various residences reflected her meticulous order. Of all my aunts, my mother was wonderful in the kitchen. Where she belonged? Uh, not really. For decades, my siblings and I were shits. Our lifestyles, our choices, were confusing. She never understood them, and never capitulated. It was her way, or the highway. When she died, we found a cardboard box, containing birthday cards, mother's day cards and other holiday memorabilia sent from various way stations over the decades by her wandering children. Never expressive emotionally (she would have dropped on a sword rather than admit she was wrong), that dusty box, a nugget in a grove of palm trees, articulated the words she could never say.

Remember your mother, and while you're at it, remember that:

Every Sunday: dessert and deliciousness abides with Mad Men, and GOThones.

Spanning the Globe

1. May 1st is International Worker's Day, a holiday in approximately 80 countries around the world. Our frame of reference here is Labor Day, but in various establishments throughout this nation today, in solidarity with their sisters and brethren across the continents, various elements of the work force shut it down. I was reminded of this when friends of mine tried to buy a pizza and discovered the bakery was dark; a note taped neatly to the door: May Day. 'Commies,' my friends muttered and wandered off to debate what's for dinner. For some of us though, May 1st was not a contemplation of the fields of labor, but rather the plucking of plumerias from a neighbor's tree, stringing them into garlands of fragrant leis for 'May day, or Lei day; a celebration of the island culture, the land, and it's native Hawaiians.

2. The flood gates are open. Jason Collins let the dogs out, and the whole world is watching now. The Boy scouts just gulped. Whither the NFL? Is it ripe for the plucking? The sensational revelation, confession, of his gender preference, dropped Jason Collins onto the cover of Sports Illustrated. Which professional athlete will step through the door next? And when will this personal statistic stop being news?

3. A tip of the cap to the citizens of Boston and it's surrounding boroughs. There is an esprit de corps, a steadfastness that we,who reside in the West, admire; to the inhabitants of the right coast, drinks on the house to your resilience.

4. The grandest 2 minutes in sports this Saturday. The Kentucky Derby. If it's raining in Louisville, a long shot. You can never bet too much on a winning horse. Some wise old man once told me that.

5. Sunday. Cinco de Mayo. Happy Birthday, Alex.