Unlimited carry-on

This one is going to be harder to explain. I may have to spread it out over multiple posts.

I think I mentioned earlier this series of dreams where my mother was gradually becoming more impaired and then disappearing, with more detail about her disappearance. They were getting progressively more horrible. That seems like pretty clear symbolism that as her dementia progresses, I get a clearer picture of that loss. 

There was recently a new dream that was much more positive. I was taking my mother back to see her family, and trying to remember my way to one aunt's apartment. This particular aunt died shortly after our last visit. Just as I remembered where to go, we got to a lobby and an elevator door opened and my aunt was there. 

I had not been worried about my aunt being dead, but I had been worried about whether Mom would recognize her and be happy to see her. They instantly embraced and were very happy and that was okay.

Yes, fairly clear symbolism there too, but this is good, and it corresponds to my beliefs, which still does not mean that event will be all happy feelings, I know.

One reason I hedged on accepting that meaning for the dream is that I was also traveling with my sisters and our father. 

Now, you can argue that my sisters and I are on this journey together, so it makes sense that they are there; not so for Dad! What was he doing there?

Another frequent dream occurrence that I don't believe I have written about is where I am trying to make my way into or home from work (and over a decade later, it is usually Intel), but I have my mother and I am trying to drag her along to my cubicle or get her situated, and it makes things harder.

She has not been my primary responsibility for a little over three years, but she was for a long time, and she still takes up a lot of my worry (and the hospice calls do come when I am working most of the time) so, yes, there is a way in which I am still carrying her with me.

I realized that my father is still always with me. I have made a lot of progress, but the impact of the years and the ways they have shaped my path are all still there.

This is why they call it baggage; it travels with you. Sometimes it is heavy.

For review, previously a lot of my baggage was this sense from before I can remember that there was something wrong with me, along with a sense of needing to try and fix everything and take care of everybody. I eventually was able to attribute that to misplaced responsibility for my father's own unhappiness with... himself, but it was always blamed on everyone else; I just took it more personally.

The way I dealt with that was trying not to feel anything, but there would be times (mostly during movies) when I could sense this deep pain, and it felt like it would just destroy me if I let it all out.

Sorting that out was important, and it has led to me feeling things more, without stuffing them down. This leaves room to feel other things.

What I am remembering now is my big frustration with my mother, from before all this, when her mind was still sharp. 

I'll feel more guilt for anything I say there, but I believe in healing, and I believe it requires truth. 

However, we have spent so much time on my father that I can wait and start with my mother next time.

Well, actually, I will probably start with a movie.

Black Music Month 2023: Other viewings

Let me start by saying that even though in last week's post I said I would probably have to give up on those last two movies for now, I was still trying to come up with strategies so I could somehow get them in this round.

It's just not going to happen.

Besides that, I got to see many cool things that I enjoyed a lot.

Slash: Raised on the Sunset Strip (2014)
Paris is Burning (1990)
Unsung: The Story of the Sylvers (2011)
Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (2021)
Reggae in a Babylon (1978)

Actually, I didn't enjoy Reggae in a Babylon all that much. The sound quality wasn't that great, and it didn't seem to have a strong point of view. What it did have was original footage from an important time, so there is an importance to it regardless.

The others all filled different places, but I liked each of them so much!

That previous post focused on serendipity, but the factors that made that serendipity possible were my having a lot of interests and frequently checking on those disparate areas.

(Actually, I believe a big help to my "book sense" is that I will periodically look though my entire to-read list, keeping the options fresh in my mind and allowing new associations to pop up.)

Anyway, The Sylvers and Slash both came up as suggestions on Youtube because of other things I had watched. I know the algorithms frequently lead toward white supremacy. Since I am often checking on things for research rather than taste, I also get a lot of suggestions that are irrelevant (no more jazz now!). However, sometimes things work out.

Slash was just a lot of fun. It certainly gives an idea of someone who must do music, but also it shows a whole Hollywood world of his childhood that I had no idea about. There is history of the band, but it's more than that.

Unsung is a whole series of episodes about various bands, many of which seem interesting. I hope to get to more eventually, but currently I have only watched two.

I had mentioned watching the one on Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam in a different post, but I knew about it because I had kept getting prompted to watch the episode on The Sylvers, singers of (among other songs) "Boogie Fever". 

Actually, when I combined Black Music Month plus Pride Month last year, as much as I knew Sylvester's music, I did not know him. My awareness of the artists who made the music was practically nonexistent until MTV (unless my parents played their records; that is a limited group). It has been enriching to learn more about music that is often so familiar.

That was one of the most intriguing things about Summer of Soul. It was great seeing the old footage, but especially touching to see new footage of people watching the old footage. Yes, that included Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. seeing old footage of their performance. More than that, there was someone who had attended the concert, and remembered, but also kind of didn't trust the memory. Was that real? And it was. 

That moment was just really beautiful.

Part of looking at history is tracing the path between it and the present. I have been looking back at things that are peripheral in my memory and bringing them forward. 

I remembered reading a review for Paris is Burning back in the day, and maybe even knowing there was a connection to the "Vogue" song. With the contemporary vilification of drag and seeing occasional references to Willi Ninja, it was just time to watch it.

It is easy to just have this impression of drag as garish queens. That is one cross-section, but there was so much more to it. Your drag could be military or a student, or just anything else that you wanted to try on. There was definitely a competitive aspect, and in that way I guess shows like Drag Race make sense. What stayed with me the most was the vulnerability of some of the house members that we got to know better, and then learning that they often didn't live very long. 

Paris was probably the least musical of the movies; the music was there, but not as much the point.

The points it did have were good, and ones we might be getting back to fairly soon.

More about my mother

The big resolution of the last thing that was happening with my mother (back in July) was that she was admitted to hospice.

(It was digestion related. Enough said.)

That sounds dramatic, but it initially did not seem so. She was having this one issue, and it was at a time when there were some staffing changes at the facility, and it just seemed like a good way to get her some extra attention.

Note: there may have been some denial in my reasoning, because there was another thing going on.

She was on an anticoagulant that builds up in your blood, so requires regular monitoring of the levels. That is the INR test. I had been the one taking the measurements because the pandemic had made other options unnecessarily difficult. Besides, I do finger sticks for my blood sugar all the time; it's not that different.

The INR requires a slightly larger drop of blood, about the size of a ladybug. The real test is how long it takes to clot, with the desired score being between 2 and 3. Lower than 2 means increased risk of clots, but higher than 3 means increased risk of bleeds. 

Earlier when the other issue was going on, her scores kept going back and forth. They were always out of range, but changing sides.

More recently, they settled on high, and getting higher. 

You want to avoid clots to avoid a stroke, but apparently bleeding can lead to a stroke too. The hospice nurse suggested quitting the anticoagulant and I agreed.

One of my sisters asked if we were just going to let her have a stroke then. Well, no, that wasn't it exactly. It didn't feel good.

Finally, after one of her falls (which are still not frequent, but they are more frequent), her pain was not going down. She had been on Tylenol for arthritis, but we recently added a small dose of morphine.

She is doing pretty well on that, but things were starting to feel a little dramatic. 

As we were admitting her, they said they could end up discharging her if she stabilized; that may have helped it just feel like a tool. It still brought changes. The focus is on making life comfortable, not prolonging it. That sounds reasonable, but then different medications aren't covered, and there is no more trying to diagnose... it is all logical but may not feel good.

Eventually, it was trying to explain the INR issue to my sisters that shifted my perspective. It's not about whether or not she has a stroke. Up until last month, we were able to use medication to keep her in a good range. The medication no longer doing that is the cause of her no longer taking it, not the result, but it's one more thing we don't control.

There has been the cognitive decline all along, but her physical health had remained stable. It's not anymore. That's why it feels so different.

One thing that kept us thinking we were in for the long haul was that not only was Mom physically pretty strong, but she had siblings who lived into their 90s. They were also mentally sharp. 

Okay, let's look at the family members who had dementia. 

Our mother has outlived her mother by eight years already. She is at the age when her sister died.

I am not exactly thinking it will be any day now, but I do not think she will be discharged.

That's part of why we are not planning any long or far away trips. Yes, money issues make that sensible, but it's not the only thing.

That is still not the new grief coming up. Grief over losing Mom has been present for some time, in multiple layers. There is something else too.

Related post:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/06/7-or-so-calls-to-get-to-know-my-life.html

Black Music Month 2023: Serendipity

One reason that I am always behind on various reading goals is that I am always juggling multiple goals. So, yes, I was working on Black music, but there are six other lists on my main tracking page and then other things come up, like books about birds.

(Because different materials tend to combine in surprising but good ways, I am okay with that, even if I periodically wish that I was 100 books or so ahead.)

My comics reading tends to be more spontaneous than planned, but there are a couple of series that I have been meaning to check out for a while and decided to get to this year. That had me thinking, well, how many volumes does the library have for Bee and PuppyCat and for Stumptown.

As I did a quick keyword search, there was this intriguing result, When Stumptown was Jumptown, A Sam Allen film. 

What is this?

It is a 45 minute film about the Portland jazz scene starting during World War II and for about 25 years after.

It is a student film, and I don't even mean a college student film. When he is talking about Century High, I was thinking he meant when he had been there, but no, he was a sophomore, and in the credits thanked a family member for doing all the driving, because he couldn't yet.

In terms of cinematic quality and editing and focus, it is not a great film. Also, Sam Allen is a little too enamored of himself as an artistic, musical, not-like-the-other-kids kid. Those are both probably age appropriate.

However, there in the first shot is the Aloha Mall! Then there are places I recognize in Beaverton, and Jimmy Mak's and Shute Park and Dick Bogle!

The movie itself is inspired by a book, Jumptown: The Golden Years of Portland Jazz, 1942 - 1957 by Robert Dietsche. I had not been familiar with him or the book, but he was a co-founder of Django Records. That name was totally familiar because the mother of one of my best friends worked there. (And I will read that book, but not this year.)

So there were all of these little flashes of recognition, which I enjoyed a lot. It is also important that someone filmed it, because we have lost of a lot of those those people since the movie release in 2005. 

It was a good find, and a surprise.

There was another surprise, though not quite as delightful.

For all of the movies and videos that I have been able to find, there are two that have been eluding me, and I just may need to put them off.

Joseph Shabalala: Music is My Life (2022)

The United States vs Billie Holiday (2021)

The issue is streaming of course. I know exactly where to find the Billie Holiday movie, but I don't have Hulu, and this is not really the time to sign up for new channels. If I do go that route, there will be other things I will want to watch, so I am not taking that lightly.

For the Joseph Shabalala movie, it may even be available for free, but my searches kept leading me to Apple TV+. I decided to sign up for the trial, and was shocked to find out that the free trial was only one week; most services give you a free month. I was just going to make sure to watch it right away, and then end the trial.

Once I completed signing up and signing in -- even though I was clicking on prompts to watch the movie to even get there -- they did not have it available.

However, they had a link to CODA (2021) which I have been wanting to see. It was really good, it gave me lots to think about, and I don't regret that.

I do think that Apple TV+ sucks the most out of all the different streaming platforms, and I do not love that business model under the best of circumstances.

Of course, CODA does not relate to Black Music Month (despite quite a bit of Motown), but it fits in with other interests. 

It will probably come up again.

Survived: First paycheck of 30

Some follow up from last Tuesday is required. A lot of people read it, and a lot of people commented. 

I hope no one is worrying too much. It felt important to write about it because I know I am not unique. If you are not in the same boat, great, but a lot of people are. Rising income inequality is going to increase that number. 

I gave up looking good long ago. I can only speak for myself, but I will speak honestly and openly. I hope it does help others.

I believe I can make this month's mortgage. It does require getting Maria's rent in, but today is her payday. We can survive that.

One thing that helps is that my last paycheck was not garnished. 

I get paid every two weeks. On the non-mortgage paycheck I have been holding back $300 so that the mortgage paycheck would go far enough. The amount being garnished is $318 per check. I held back some extra from the last check. Normally I would not need to wait for Maria's rent; that would go to groceries or utilities.

The next time the mortgage is due, both paychecks will have been garnished. Just for extra fun, it will also be a water bill month. (Most expenses are monthly, but water and garbage are every two months.)

Based on the amount being withheld and the amount granted, it will take almost thirty paychecks to pay off. That should make next Thanksgiving very exciting. (Unless one of the other creditors decides to sue me, but if they do they have to wait in line until Absolute Resolutions is done.)

Here is an example of my emotional state:

I have to inject a few times daily, and I use alcohol wipes for that. I noticed my box was getting low and had this brief upsurge of anxiety. Then I remembered...

1. I had more in the drawer.
2. I can use cotton balls and alcohol.
3. That is totally something Julie would buy for me. They are not expensive.
   

That is a common cycle: notice something, stress, calm back down. Not all of the answers are as easy, but we will get through this, just like we get through everything else. There surely will be some sacrifice, but that's life.

It is very fortunate that my most important hobby is learning and that our library system is so good (including their participation in Inter-Library Loan).

Two other things seem worth noting.

I do not doubt that some of the emotions on this are going to be harder because of things happening with my mother. I had gotten over this one source of pain, and now another one is coming into view. I am sure there will be more writing about that, but right now I am still getting familiar with this one.

In addition, allow me to mention that it is time for Julie's sabbatical. You will note us traveling. It may seem irresponsible. I would tell you it was already planned, but honestly, plans have changed quite a bit. That may have more to do with our mother than with finances, as spending longer times away seems like a worse idea now. 

I mean, we are always looking at being economical and efficient anyway, but this feels like extra pressure. There are a couple of overnight trips and one where we will be gone for two nights. 

The first time she had a sabbatical, we were gone for an entire month, but our situation was very different then. I did have more money, but I miss what we have lost with my mother more.

Black Music Month 2023: The Worst Part

The hardest part was listening to so many hours of free jazz; the worst part was reading two different books about the same two murders, and spending so much time in the mindset of cops.

Murder Rap: The Untold Story of the Biggie Smalls & Tupac Shakur Murder Investigations by the Detective Who Solved Both Cases by Greg Kading 

Labyrinth: A Detective Investigates the Murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., the Implication of Death Row Records' Suge Knight, and the Origins of the Los Angeles Police Scandal by Randall Sullivan

Those subtitles get out of hand.

I was a little irritated with the hero cop narrative in Kading's book, which I read first. I just re-read the reviews I left for both books, and I had put a line in there about how only cops minimize the Rampart scandal. That was because as I was reading it, I kept remembering a former classmate and police officer telling me how overblown it was, and it was just a handful of bad apples. Very familiar.

Sullivan was so much worse.

To be fair, he was much more willing to admit corruption, but all of it was the fault of the increased recruitment of Black and Latinx officers (not said so nicely). That was not just the source of all the corrupt cops, but was also because they lowered the standards so they even could have officers of color. And then that liberal thinking gave them a Black chief of police!

I know the corruption of white police officers became a lot easier to find after we started having video cameras everywhere, but that doesn't make it new.

The overt racism was astonishing. It's hard to tell how much of that comes from the detective, Russell Poole, or the author, Randall Sullivan. I guess they're a good match. There is just such enormous contempt for everyone who is not white, as well as a few white people who are too friendly with those others. There are some fairly contemptible people in it too, with some pretty terrible actions, but the book just becomes a work of racism, and an ode to Poole. Multiple sections start with quotes about how great he is, though they seem to largely relate to his time at the academy, giving the impression that maybe he peaked there, and no one (except Sullivan) had anything to say after the regular evaluations.

I have two more things to say about LAbyrinth. 

1. It is so thoroughly steeped in dominator culture that it is absolutely perfect that in the related movie Poole is played by Johnny Depp, who had a powerful influence on abusers suing their victims and successfully exploiting power.
2. I recently realized that I had another book by Sullivan on my reading list. It was set in Oregon and sounded interesting, but being familiar now with his writing and his racism, it can't possibly be interesting enough.

Otherwise, the conclusions of the books are pretty similar. Sullivan -- who is more likely to see weird conspiracy -- does suggest that one of the initial conflicts that played a key role in both murders may have been a setup. It's not impossible, but it doesn't really go along with the level of planning on everything else.

My overall impression from those books is yes, defund the police! The sooner the better!

But I already leaned that way.

I could leave it at that, but there were some other thoughts, and they came more into focus recently.

One of the interesting things in reading about Suge Knight and Death Row Records is that it seems that everyone eventually wanted out. Some made it out more successfully than others, but that's what they all wanted. As much as Knight could promise in terms of safety and wealth and success, those promises kept falling through, for multiple reasons.

There is a lot of violence -- some of it mind-numbingly stupid -- and that's not really a surprise. "Gangster" rap; it's right there in the title! But does it have to be that way?

That leads to the other thing I as thinking about.

I also watched Marley, a 2012 documentary about Bob Marley.

After, my sisters asked me if he were a pig. 

Well, he certainly wasn't a police officer.

They meant if he was a cheater, a not uncommon failing with professional musicians. I don't really know how to answer.

He did sleep with other women. Rita knew about them, but the other women did not always know about her. 

One of them seems to have been young, and one he started out by calling her "ugly" for having treated hair... like is this early negging? There are ways in which he isn't too likable, and he doesn't seem to have been the best father.

But also his father seduced Bob's much younger mother, and the mother of the half-sister he only found out about accidentally, and he wasn't really there for either of them.

Bob was shunned for being mixed, and then his mother moved to the States, which you would think was mainly for greater financial opportunity but it turns out there was also horrific political violence in Trenchtown. It was like gang violence, but going for elected positions rather than positions that are officially criminal. And even though he did not choose a side, just for wanting the perform a benefit concert and try and do some good he got shot.

Who am I to judge him?

He was a person. Despite a hard beginning he left an impression. He had faults (don't we all), but it is easy to forget how hard life can be, and how much we can be influenced by the world around us, often without even noticing.

So, no, I would not describe him as chaste or monogamous, but he wouldn't expect me to.

The new stress

Perhaps I should clarify that I am running at a higher stress level with my mother now, regardless. I think the events previously covered took us down a level, and I don't know how many levels we have left.

That is stress, but mainly in a way that makes me feel sad. This new one is more like sudden knots in the stomach, or an increase in breathing that seems like it might be going into a panic attack, but it doesn't get all the way there.

Brief review: In 2016 I was laid off and became my mother's full-time caregiver up when I realized she could not be safely left alone. That lasted until 2020, by which time she had lost all attachment to us and the pets and the house, and then after a very discouraging search I found a new job in 2021.

I lost a lot of ground financially during that time.

On the mortgage level, that has been resolved by a refinancing that changed the 30-year mortgage to a 40-year mortgage. That means that even though if you add up all of the payments, I have paid more than the value of the house once, but I will still have to do it three more times. 

There was no similar resolution for my commercial debt. I never got to the point where I was making enough money to pay that back. Periodically I would get offers to have the debt reduced if I would make a big payment, but that also required having money which I did not have.

I kept all the numbers in a spreadsheet, updating when I would get notifications about one of the debts being sold. I always hoped for a breakthrough, where I would be able to make some headway, but things never got better enough.

This Friday, my wages start being garnished.

For this particular stress, a big part of it is fear: how will I keep making the house payment? Or utilities? 

There are smaller things, like maybe sometimes being able to give someone a few bucks, or to order food in. It doesn't add up to enough to make payments, but it does make life better. There's going to be less of that.

I know the standard example is a daily $5 coffee or avocado toast. I spend less than that on myself, but for the record, a year's worth of $5 coffees would not equal one of the payoff amounts. Trying to cut enough to get a monthly payment... it's just not there.

I have to say, though, that a really big part of the stress initially was just the shame.

I know that is intended.

I actually did say in my job interview that if they were going to do a credit check it would not look good. They said they didn't do that, so, it's not like there were any shattered illusions. Still, my employer knows that I am a deadbeat. 

Looking over that paperwork, I feel so worthless. Loser!

I was really conscientious before. One of the debt collectors even mentioned it, back at the beginning. Eventually I just stopped answering the phone, because there was nothing new to say. I got used to not being able to pay.

Now I am still not able to pay, and yet I will be paying.

That is probably going to get worse before it gets better.

When I don't have a few bucks to give someone else, that will probably sting. I mean, I've been there lots of times, but this will be worse. 

Wanting things will be worse, but it may not be that bad. My needs are pretty simple.

When my sisters plan a trip, they will probably still take me. I like having some spending money of my own, but that's my problem. 

I could have it so much worse, and I know that, but you don't stop feeling things just for knowing that.

I am not feeling so hot.

I am trying to reject the stigma.

Black Music Month 2023: The hardest part

One of the books I read was Black Music by Amiri Baraka, though it is generally listed under LeRoi Jones.

His writing is lyrical -- perfect for music writing -- and passionate. I think he had a tendency to be passionate anyway, but compared to his writing about blues, jazz enraptures him.

As we have covered, I do not appreciate jazz. 

Well, I do seem to be okay with hot jazz but this is mainly free jazz. Avant-garde.

I do not hear what he hears. 

I had sort of made peace with it, in that some people seem to appreciate rock or jazz but not both, and I definitely lean toward rock. there is still some wish that I did understand.

For example, in Ken Kesey's Sometimes A Great Notion, Lee gets a rise out of Hank -- after they have been bonding over jazz -- by playing some Coltrane. I can get why he objected to Coltrane, but why not the others? 

Was some of it too modern where it's related to the times? Am I too young to understand it?

When SpongeBob and Patrick were trying to be sophisticated, I believe they showed it by listening to smooth jazz.

A friend recently told me about a Langston Hughes character, "Simple", who theorized that be-bop is the sound a police club makes on a Black man's head, so white people can't appreciate it.

I might be too white.

However, I would like to add that it was like when I was reviewing M83 and my dog left the room. The cats don't like jazz either. (They must not be hep cats.)

Anyway, Black Music has a discography in the back, and I made myself listen to all of it. I did not really enjoy any of it. I felt like I should do some daily songs, but picking was going to be difficult.

Listening on Spotify, when you reach the end of what you started, it brings up something else that it feels is related. I usually did not hate those as much.

So the daily songs for July are mostly things that came up after listening to an album from the discography. Sometimes the artists were people I listened too, but not from those albums.

I don't necessarily love these either. Some are chosen on the strength of the names, like "Boplicity",

Maybe someday I will be sophisticated, but it's not today. Still, I did make it through that discography, even though it was the hardest part.

And it was not the worst part.

Daily Songs

7/1 “Smooch” by Miles Davis
7/2 “Shu Shu” by Ike Quebec
7/3 “Brownskin Girl” by Sonny Rollins
7/4 “Caribé” by Eric Dolphy
7/5 “Volga Boatmen” by Ahmad Jamal Trio
7/6 “All the Things You Are” by Dizzy Gillespie
7/7 “Softly As In A Morning Sunrise (Rudy Van Gelder Edition)” by Paul Chambers Quintet
7/8 “Portal” by Matthew Shipp
7/9 “Angel Voice” by Ornette Coleman
7/10 “Bye-ya” by Thelonius Monk
7/11 “Boplicity” by Miles Davis
7/12 “Love” by John Coltrane
7/13 “Free” by Ornette Coleman
7/14 “Our Delight” by Fats Navarro
7/15 “Drum One” by Paul Bley
7/16 “Windows” by Chick Corea
7/17 “You Are My Lucky Star” by Sonny Rollins
7/18 “Eventually” by Ornette Coleman
7/19 “Giant Steps” by John Coltrane
7/20 “Care Free” by Art Ensemble of Chicago
7/21 “Shirl” by Horace Silver Quintet
7/22 “Monk In Wonderland” by Grachan Moncur III
7/23 “Tomorrow Is The Question!” by Ornette Coleman
7/24 “Blue Free” by Grachan Moncur III
7/25 “Ida Lupino” by the Paul Bley Trio
7/26 “Ankh #1” by Sun Ra
7/27 “Mascaram Setaba” by Mulatu Astatke
7/28 “Spirits” by Albert Ayler
7/29 “London” by Angel Bat David
7/30 “Addis Black Widow” by Mulatu Astatke, The Heliocentrics
7/31 “Sweet and Lovely” by Elmo Hope Trio 

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/07/black-music-month-2023-prelude.html

Potential additional factors in the pain

I believe that the stress with Mom was the greatest factor in the pain. I also believe that the amount of time that I spend at the computer and the position and the work stress -- which was made worse by that need to be available for Mom's issues -- was a big factor in the pain.

There might have this other thing, too, but it's weird. I had been thinking about it for a while, so it was old news.

Regardless of what other careers I imagined myself in, writing was always there. That's my thing. I love telling stories, I love passing along information and helping other people to get to know things, and I love language.

Five novels, nine feature-length screenplays, two pilots and treatments, contest submissions, and 3622 blog posts over three blogs later, I have made about $100 from it. Some of it was for people, requesting help. They did not pay. (This is very normal.)

There has been a whole journey with that. I remember when I was still young and fresh reading something about how it was impractical for people to have these side creative endeavors, because you did not really have the time for them and you were very unlikely to earn a living from them. Being young and fresh, I did have time and energy. That has gotten a lot harder, with a lot of discouragement along the way.

In 2015 was reading Scott Timberg's Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class, about how a lot of the types of jobs and programs that allowed people to get by long enough to establish themselves in their desired profession were going away. I could see the sense in what he was saying, but not long after people started doing away with paid internships. There were some signs of at least the possibility of more equality of opportunity.

The one that really encouraged me was the ability to submit unsolicited submissions to Amazon Studios. Attempts to get an agent had gone nowhere and I didn't have any connections. Having somewhere to submit seemed like a gift, except everything got turned down so quickly. They did produce projects, but they were all from existing materials, or had come attached to names.

There was really never a chance.

That had struck me earlier, but not that long ago. I might have needed to mourn my writing hopes, except they had already been dead for so long.

Then, quite recently, I was reading Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood by Maureen Ryan.

It's about how toxic Hollywood is, which in light of the strikes now, yes, there was a lot about how capitalism kills everything. I kind of knew, but it was worse. I started feeling like it was good that I never made it.

I am pretty sure that I could have avoided becoming corrupted by it, but I don't think I would have been able to overcome the system. That would have left me another person who has to walk away to keep their soul, possibly not before becoming utterly burnt out and bitter.

Okay, I got burnt out anyway, differently, but I am mostly not bitter.

That should have been a relief, like "Wow! Close call!"

Nope. I was really angry.

Maybe it hurt more to have the dream be crappy than unobtainable; I'm really not sure. Maybe I just felt too connected to everyone who got in and then suffered for it.

Then, again, looking at the strikes and the greed on the part of the studios, they are not that different from all of the other job creators.

I don't regret the writing. Some of the things that I have felt while writing, and the flow that I have been able to experience... that has been valuable. I know there are times when I entertained people, and times when I touched people and helped them with things through my writing. Numbers are low, but those people are real and I am glad for them.

I might regret ever entertaining the idea that success was really possible. I have some good talents and abilities, but the class I was born into has had more career and economic impact on my life than anything else. The loss of the illusion that I could escape... I knew ways in which the world was bad, a lot, really... but it's worse.

And possibly I just started feeling all of that weight on my right shoulder, and neck, and collarbone.

Black Music Month 2023: Art and loss

This is not about people pouring their grief into art, though that is a thing that happens. 

I'm having a hard time knowing what to write about it, probably because I have not come to any conclusions myself.

It started with a Twitter conversation that was probably related to the writer's strike, and the work that goes into writing. Someone referenced a writer who only writes one book in their entire life.

The response that caught my eye (and I wish I could find it now) was that even if they only published one book, that was not all the writing that they did.

Truth.

Someone else had made a point about family releasing things after the death of an artist that would not necessarily have been desired by the artist. I believe they made a reference to the large vaults of material recorded by Prince.

I had just read The Rose That Grew From Concrete by Tupac Shakur. That is a book of poems written by Shakur as part of a writing group. 

They are not good.

They aren't terrible, but the rhythms are off (which would never have been an issue if he were recording them) and he was much younger at the time of writing. They are a curiosity. As such it is nice that you can see the handwriting as well as typed versions.

I remember reading that it was a transparent grab for cash. Maybe, but I thought I detected grief (to which I am overly sensitive), and also a desire to show another side. He was a loyal friend, and cared about relationships and people and had a complexity beyond the gangsta rap side.

I sympathize with that, but I think the people most likely to read it will not need much convincing.

However, Prince is relevant, not just because I have read three books about him, but because one of them refers to a recording that was amazing, and deleted as soon as it was done for being too personal.

That's one way to avoid the issue.

More recently, I saw another post, with a musician saying he had told his band that if he dies (he has had some health problems), that he wants the current music released, but he had felt differently at a different time.

The conversation that started led to some people sharing their love and ambivalence for Jeff Buckley's posthumous release, Sketches For My Sweetheart, The Drunk. Would he have wanted it released? And yet, it means so much to them.

I don't know. My tendency to want to know and hear and experience everything conflicts with my respect for others. I am a little sad that Jane Austen asked her sister to burn her letters after her death, but since she did ask, it is right that Cassandra honored it.

I do see the value in considering things that might happen, and how you might feel. Sure, things can change at any time, and your predictions can be wrong, but we learn things by asking, and that has value.

I wish for a world where art is safe and revealing yourself is safe, but that you still aren't forced too. I also wish for a world where it is possible to be secure enough financially that artistic decisions don't get influenced by desperation and greed.

I wish comfort for the bereaved.

And, this is starting to touch on another area of grief (and anger) for myself, so I'll get back to that on Tuesday.

For a few other connections for the month, one story featured in the Muscle Shoals Documentary is that the recordings the band made there were not initially released due to a conflict with getting radios to accept the longer songs. Then, the crash happened. Those sessions were the source of Skynard's First and... Last. 

I was distracted by the band's apparent inability to play without a Confederate flag in the background, but I wouldn't wish that crash on anyone.

From The Wrecking Crew, one of the names that kept coming up was Mike Melvoin. Because I was reading about Prince, I kept thinking that sounded familiar. Yes, esteemed pianist and keyboardist (and past Recording Academy president) Mike Melvoin was the father of guitarist Wendy Melvoin, and also (Prince's former fiancee and) singer and songwriter Susannah Melvoin, and Jonathan Melvoin, who was the touring keyboardist for The Smashing Pumpkins at the time of his death. 

I had really only known about Wendy before, but that was a really musical family, and one not unacquainted with grief. Jonathan's death ruptured some relationships.

Back to Prince, he has his own conundrum with posthumous releases. With his perfectionism, surely if he didn't want things released he had a point. With his unusually high productivity, I can't imagine it would have even been possible to release everything he did. Those were never the only factors, as contracts were a big issue.

Mainly I see how much there was to him, with generosity and selfishness and celebration and grief, and I wish he could have had longer to sort things out and heal, but living longer doesn't guarantee that.

I wish him well.

And I wish you well too. 

I will write a bit more about the loss of Tupac Shakur (and Biggie Smalls), in a different post.

Related books:

The Rose That Grew From Concrete by Tupac Shakur
I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon by Toure
The Most Beautiful: My Life with Prince by Mayte Garcia
The Beautiful Ones by Prince with Dan Piepenbring

Between mourning and burying

My neck is a lot better. The collarbone is worse, or at least seems worse because that is the focus now.

I am not quite better yet, so I am trying to work my way toward that.

Plus, there is another big stress coming. (This one will be financial.)

The surface stress of Mom's health issues were feeling a need to do something and not knowing what to do, but it also pulled up things that were not quite at the surface.

I mean, we don't really ever stop carrying this grief with us. We love our mother, we had a lot of good times together, and she is absent, but still here. We know her, and we recognize so much of her nature, but we are not recognized back. 

Where dementia is especially cruel is that it happens in stages, where we keep adjusting and then constantly getting knocked off of that tentative equilibrium. 

One thing I have been thinking about here is that while I have been more emotionally present since June last year, it may be time to grow beyond that now.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/10/all-better.html

Yes, it was a big thing to break down some of those inner walls. I feel the pain of Mom's loss more now, but at the same time it is just this sad inner cry: "Mom!" 

I don't do anything with it. I don't know what to do with it.

Well, okay, what I have been doing is reading and then writing in my journal and sometimes blogging. Shortly after writing that post in October (about the realization in June), I posted about books I was reading and planning on reading that I thought would come together.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/11/deciding.html

I still think they will, but that list has expanded to include books about Italy and grief and trauma, and it will be a while before I am done.

In fact, while things were going on with Mom, there was brief wondering if this was the beginning of the end, and if so, well, I haven't finished the books yet! (Because then I would be ready, see, because being ready is possible.) 

It is not surprising that someone who spent decades trying not to feel might not completely work out the details of what to do with emotions over a thirteen month period. It is something I am thinking about more.

It is probable that I over-intellectualize things. That was probably one thing that was helpful with the bodywork, in that it was not all taking place inside my head; it couldn't be. No matter how much the pain was rooted emotionally, it had anchored itself physically.

I did find myself thinking a lot about and feeling that there is so much unresolved grief all around me. I personally am not the only person who does not know what to do with their pain.

I am not the only person who has buried without mourning.

One hope I have is that after all the books and the things that I learn, that I will be able to help others.

That distance will not be marked solely in books.

Black Music Month 2023: Prelude

Not all of the reading was specifically about "Black" music. There was other media that had been on my list that related to music more generally.

For this post, I am going to focus on The Wrecking Crew. That means both the 2012 book by Kent Hartman and the 2008/2015 documentary by Danny Tedesco, both about the session musicians operating in Los Angeles in the 60s and 70s and collectively sometimes referred to as such.

If you are wondering about the two dates on the documentary, the filming was completed in 2008, but music licensing took a separate fundraiser. 

Danny Tedesco is the son of original Wrecking Crew member Tommy Tedesco. Originally, he filmed a conversation between his father and three other prominent members: Carol Kaye, Hal Blaine, and Plas Johnson. There kept being more interesting information, so he added background and interviews. I spent a long time watching DVD extras and it was enriching.

I don't think the book and movie had any official connection, but one of the extras has Lyle Ritz (I think) mentioning getting called up by someone clarifying that both he and Carol Kaye played bass on the same song. He used the anecdote to explain how they would stack musicians, and that it wasn't unusual to have a standing bass, electric bass, and maybe one other bass on the same song. I just knew that the call he had gotten was from Kent Hartman. 

The amount of time spent on the documentary made things like that likely, but it also meant that with an aging group there were losses along the way, including Tommy Tedesco himself. (I believe the initial filmed round table discussion was at least partially inspired by Tommy's cancer diagnosis.)

I had a lot of thoughts from watching this, and then the previews on the DVD had three other interesting looking documentaries. That included Muscle Shoals (2013), which I just finished, about the session musicians at FAME Studios and then Muscle Shoals Sound, in Alabama.

One thought with that is how much influence a place can have on a sound. There are indications that the river itself influences the sound there, where perhaps in Los Angeles it was more the scene, but that scene was at least partially created by being a place with a lot of work for musicians, meaning it could attract some of the best.

Prior to that, just with reading and watching The Wrecking Crew, I was thinking more about music creation. There is so much that goes into making music everything that it can be. Writing lyrics and melody matters, but then there is the arrangement for how it all comes together. What riffs and fills will you have? It deepened my appreciation.

I saw the Ramones documentary, End of the Century (2003), in theaters, but it was on the DVD extras that I saw them asking different members (separately) how much they had contributed to some songs. It was always 90%; that the song was mostly theirs. I kind of understood the self bias that might make you think that anyway, but I think I have a different perspective now of how you might see that the part you are playing is what is unique, and that was you.

I'd had no idea how common it was for musicians to not play on their own albums before. I understand how it worked, but also it did not work for some musicians, and it seems less common now. Of course, with multi-track recording and other technology changes, there is more room for different working styles anyway. I did hear in some of those voices how they missed those group sessions, even when they were still working but one at a time. I sympathize with that.

It helped me with one other thing.

Another book I read had me listening to a lot of jazz, which I still do not appreciate.

Well, a lot of the Wrecking Crew started as jazz musicians. Honestly, that ability to adapt and respond quickly to others is probably a huge part of their skill development.

A lot of them did not initially like rock and roll, though some of them learned to appreciate it later.

So from now on, when I feel unsophisticated because I am forcing myself to listen to jazz and gritting my teeth, I am deciding that is because I am too rock and roll.

But it does not rule out future appreciation.

Please excuse Gina for not writing Friday...

... she was not feeling well.

That's been coming on for a while. Ironically, I had been feeling very optimistic when I wrote this:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/06/episode-2555-new-hope.html

I guess the thing to remember when it feels like you are making progress is how quickly that progress can be lost.

Technically the issue that sent me backwards started around June 15th, where my mother started having some health issues that also seemed to indicate some communication issues with her facility. That was stressful, but seemed manageable.

It got a whole lot worse, culminating in a hospital transport on July 4th, with a stay of a few days, and two more transports after getting released from that. 

Things are okay now, though it does feel like there are some steps downward. Obviously, all along it was very stressful.

Somewhere along the way, I started developing this tightness.

I mean, I kind of always have this knot in my neck that I live with, but it started sending lines down along my shoulder and collarbone. Moving it definitely hurt (especially overhead), but sometimes standing still could hurt too.

Like the frustration was not already enough to make me cry.

Of course it was my right shoulder, attached to my dominant hand that I use for everything.

I'd had a similar issue before, and what it needed was a massage and then follow up with stretching. I can be very functional, though I was not exactly proving it.

I dragged my feet on getting a massage. 

Money was a concern, as always, but the almost paralyzing concern was scheduling: that I would have to take time off, and then not be able to get time off. Yes, I have hours available, but getting them approved for the time that aligns with someone else's schedule is not guaranteed, especially in summer when there are so many vacations scheduled. 

Combined with that was the fear that if I took time something would fall through, requiring a different time, or that something else and worse would happen that would require time, and I would have already used it.

There was also quite a bit of frustration about things that I was not getting done. There is a lot that I still need to do and haven't.

But I was in so much pain.

Beyond that, there was this... tiredness does not seem like the right word; I am always tired. There was this downward pull. Keeping my head up was hard. I just wanted to bend it, down to my chest, or fall forward onto the bed. 

I was able to schedule a massage for a day off, and the worst of it is gone. It would not be reasonable to expect this to be gone in one session. I don't know that I can manage scheduling others, but I can still stretch.

The pull downward is still there. I do not feel quite as drained as I did the week starting July 4th, but I don't have a lot to give.

I am doing something bold, and taking off my two available days. I may regret this, but it also may keep me from screaming at someone over the phone. I mean, you can't always know.

When Mom first went into the hospital, we had a fun day planned, and we did not do those things. That was not a restful holiday.

Saturday, she was back at her facility, and we thought great! We can do at least one of the things we meant to on the 4th. That was our trip to the clematis garden.

https://sporktogo.blogspot.com/2023/07/rogerson-clematis-garden.html

We did that and it felt really good, and then, well Sunday kind of sucked. That's life.

I don't think my feelings from that dream was completely wrong, either. There are things I can handle better now. I have grown and progressed.

That just doesn't mean that the next thing to go horribly, horribly, wrong won't feel like it is going to kill you.

Can we hold off on those flowers?

I am reacting to something that I can no longer find, at least not the way I first saw it.

What I saw was a tweet with a clip of comedian Bill Burr going off on white women. It said "Give Bill Burr his flowers."

I was thinking about that on the 4th. I knew I wanted to do something with it, but we were having home issues and I put it off. Now that tweet and all the people agreeing with it are gone.

I think this makes sense. The clip was a short snippet of his monologue from Saturday Night Live from October 2020. I initially thought it was recent, and I think other people were going on that assumption too, like maybe it was a reaction to recent Supreme Court rulings on affirmative action. Old things do sometimes pop up as new, and then sometimes people reacting to that find out, get embarrassed, and delete.

It is possible that there was another reason for embarrassment and deletion, which I'll get to, but I must first express surprise at how many references came up to Bill Burr and flowers without me being able to find that one. Like, did he do a bit about it at one time that people are referencing? I don't know.

I could not find that clip, but I did find an article that gave me the date and a longer clip:

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a34338294/snl-host-bill-burr-white-women-cancel-culture-rick-moranis-opening-monologue/

For the record, I don't think it's a great article, but it does clarify how much was edited. The clip in the tweet only had criticism of white women. It was missing the criticism of pride month and unironic uses of "woke" and "cancel culture" and glee over Rick Moranis getting sucker-punched. He did also criticize anti-maskers, but his emphasis was on not caring that they are dying or taking out relatives with them.

This is not surprising.

I am not saying that criticism of white women is not reasonable, but my immediate reaction to it was "You're not the one who gets to say it."

Yes, I realize more than half of white women voted for Trump, but you know what group had a higher percentage? White men.

Burr refers to white women getting Black men lynched by sleeping with them and then declaring it was rape. Well, maybe sometimes, but let's not forget the high frequency of times when everyone knew it was consensual and didn't care, or the times when there wasn't even that; just economic success that needed to be punished. Or, you know, that maybe if there really was a crime, you don't need a lynch mob, you can just let the law handle it. We all know that white men are big fans of criminal prosecutions and penalties for rape.

It reminds me of the movie Rosewood, where the whole massacre was the fault of a lying, cheating (but actually with a white man) white woman, but it was okay because at the end her husband was mad about all the deaths and beat her (just like her white lover did!). 

Sorry about the spoiler.

Here are the things that don't surprise me:

1. It does not surprise me if someone recently edited the clip to focus on white women but without sounding racist or homophobic. There is some strong misogyny out there, and there are people whom that appeals to, as long as it does not sound bad in other ways. This in no way means that white women are the last group that you can criticize, only that different people are more susceptible to different things.
2. It does not surprise me that Burr jokes about killing off your cousin with asthma, and does not express any concern about anti-maskers killing off other people, that are not their relatives. Honestly, it doesn't surprise me when any comedian is hateful. It's not the only path to comedy, but that path gets a lot of traffic.
   
3. It does not surprise me that in searching other references came up to Burr being transphobic. You can think that you accept almost everyone, but these things have a way of growing. You can find men who say they are only sexist but not racist, or people who say they are fine with "LGB" as long as you take off the "T". Don't put too much trust in them.
4. It does not surprise me that even an old, truncated clip would get a lot of people immediately going "Yeah!" without noticing the hypocrisy. There is that "taking sides" thing, but also that thing where a Republican will take one principled stand out of 99 and then have people praising their leadership and wanting them to run for president.

I firmly know that this is not helpful.

If all you have to offer is slamming on the group that seems safe, you are not going to accomplish anything good.

Our legacy of bigotry is build on the exploitation and abuse of others where it is allowed. Leaving some groups out of that, but still only focusing on pushing down, does not make you brave or wise or useful.

We cannot build anything good with those tools.

But it might result in a temporary burst of flowers.

A Book A Day for Native American Heritage Month (twice)

I got  started blogging about Black Music Month early because I was still waiting on two books for this. This means my posts are not perfectly sequenced.

There was always a chance of that.

This reading list started at https://www.heisereads.com/nahm2022/.

Jillian Heise's #ClassroomBookADay was inspired by Donalyn Miller's (The Book Whisperer) #bookaday.

There could be many of these lists our there, and I am not sure that I want to know given how hard a time I have passing up any such lists, given my passion for literacy and representation.

Regardless, I did read all 60 of the books that Heise selected, for 2021 and 2022. If she makes another selection for 2023, then I suspect I will read another 30. For now, all I am really committed to are some more curriculum-geared books also listed on that page. (But not the Dunbar-Ortiz book; I've read that.)

I try and keep my eye out, but there were so many books here, and most of them in our local library system (the handful that weren't is why I could not post until today). For a few favorites...

May We Have Enough to Share by Richard Van Camp

I adored Little You, Van Camp's collaboration with Julie Flett, who is fast becoming one of my favorite illustrators. That is a poem of love for one growing child, and beautiful. 

This one is a collection of photos, with lots of different, smiling faces, affirming that the Native people are still here, alive and vibrant.

Shaped By Her Hands: Potter Maria Martinez by Anna Harber Freeman, Barbara Gonzalez, and Aphelandra.

Beautiful artwork, and I was impressed by how vivid they made the colors, which is important because part of Maria Martinez' contribution was finding a technique to recreate a type of black pottery that had been lost. 

Sharice's Big Voice by Sharice Davids, Nancy K. Mays, and Joshua Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley

This is a good one for the rowdy kids, because cage fighting and political office do not have to be mutually exclusive, and loud kids can do good things.

A River's Gifts: The Might Elwha River Reborn by Patricia Newman and Natasha Donovan

This is beautifully illustrated and full of hope. It makes me think that we could get Celilo Falls back. In addition, there is so much about ecosystems and history that while that may not interest younger kids it could put a little bit older kids on a good path for a science project. 

We Are Still Here! Native American Truths Everyone Should Know by Traci Sorrell and Frané Lessac could help start a social studies project, but I did not find it as enthralling.

Of course, everyone has different needs and tastes. So if there were things that did not mean a lot to me personally, they might still mean a lot to children with sensory issues (Thunder and the Noise Storms), or facing a move (Forever Cousins), or frustrated with recent Supreme Court decisions (probably all of the ones with "water" in the title but especially The Water Lady).

Because, really, we all need lots of books, all the time. 

Here are the books. In general, the names in parenthesis are the author, illustrator, and sometimes translator, but sometimes there is more than one author or illustrator, or even translator.

Be A Good Ancestor (Leona Prince, Gabriel Prince, Carla Joseph)
May We Have Enough To Share (Richard Van Camp)
Thunder and the Noise Storms (Jeffrey Ansloos, Shezza Ansloos)
The Water Walker (Joanne Robertson)
Runs With the Stars (Darcy Whitecrow, Heather M. O'Connor)
Unstoppable: How Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team Defeated Army (Art Coulson and Nick Hardcastle)
First Laugh – Welcome Baby (Rose Anne Tahe, Nancy Bo Flood, Jonathan Nelson)
It's a Mitig! (Bridget George)
Classified: The Secret Career of Mary Golda Ross, Cherokee Aerospace Engineer (Traci Sorrell, Natasha Donovan)
Forever Cousins (Laurel Goodluck, Jonathan Nelson)
A River's Gifts: The Might Elwha River Reborn (Patricia Newman, Natasha Donovan)
My Heart Fills With Happiness (Monique Gray Smith, Julie Flett, Angela Mesic, Margaret Noodin)
Chester Nez and the Unbreakable Code: A Navajo Code Talker's Story (Joseph Bruchac, Liz Amini-Holmes)
Powwow Day (Traci Sorrell, Madelynn Goodnight)
When We Were Alone (Davd A. Robertson, Julie Flett)
Mashkiki Road (Elizabeth S Barrett, Jonathan Thunder)
Finding My Dance (Ria Thundercloud, Kalila J. Fuller)
Berry Song (Michaela Goade)
Ojibway Animals (Jason Adair)
SkySisters (Jan Bourdeau Waboose)
Where Wonder Grows (Xelena Gonzales, Ariana M. Garcia)
Tallchief: America's Prima Ballerina (Maria Tallchief, Rosemary Wells, Gary Kelley)
Still This Love Goes On (Buffy Sainte-Marie, Julie Flett)
Keepunumuk (Danielle Greendeer, Anthony Perry, Alexis Bunten, Garry Meeches Sr.)
We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga (Traci Sorrell, Frané Lessac)
Dancing With Our Ancestors (Sara Florence Davidson, Robert Davidson, Janine Gibbons)
Young Water Protectors: A Story About Standing Rock (Aslan Tudor, Kelly Tudor)
The Good Luck Cat (Joy Harjo, Paul Lee)
Together We Drum: Our Hearts Beat As One (Willie Poll, Chief Lady Bird)
I Hope (Monique Gray Smith,Gabrielle Grimard)

I Sang You Down From the Stars (Tasha Spillett-Sumner, Michaela Goade)
Jingle Dancer (Cynthia Leitich Smith, Ying-Hwa Hu, Cornelius Van Wright)
Nimoshom and His Bus (Penny M. Thomas, Karen Hibbard)
The Train (Jodie Callaghan, Georgia Lesley)
The Forever Sky (Thomas Peacock, Annette S Lee)
Wilma's Way Home (Doreen Rappaport, Linda Kukuk)
Sus Yoo the Bear's Medicine (Clayton Gauthier)
Birdsong (Julie Flett)
Mission to Space (John Herrington)
Look Grandma! Ni Elisi! (Art Coulson, Madelyn Goodnight)
At the Mountain's Base (Traci Sorrell, Weshoyot Alvitre)
Wolf Cub's Song (Joseph Bruchac, Carlin Bear Don't Walk)
We All Play (Julie Flett)
We Are Water Protectors (Carol Lindstrom and Michaela Goade)
Mii maanda exhi-gkendmaanh/ This is How I Know (Brittany Luby, Joshua Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley, Alvin Ted Corbiere, Alan Corbiere)
The First Blade of Sweetgrass (Suzanne Greenlaw, Gabriel Frey, Nancy Baker)
Sharice's Big Voice (Sharice Davids, Nancy K. Mays, Joshua Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley)
When We Are Kind (Monique Gray Smith, Nicole Neihardt, Mildred Walters)
Greet the Dawn the Lakota Way (S.D. Nelson)
The Girl and the Wolf (Katharena Vermette, Julie Flett)
A Day with Yayah (Nicola I. Campbell, Julie Flett)
Shaped by Her Hands: Potter Maria Martinez (Anna Harber Freeman, Barbara Gonzalez, Aphelandra)
When Turtle Grew Feathers (Tim Tingle, Stacey Schuett)
Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story (Kevin Noble Maillard, Juana Martinez-Neal)
Hungry Johnny (Cheryl Minnema, Wesley Ballinger)
We Are Still Here! Native American Truths Everyone Should Know (Traci Sorrell, Frané Lessac)
Josie Dances (Denise Lajimodiere, Angela Erdrich)
On the Trapline (David A. Robertson, Julie Flett)
The Water Lady (Alice B. McGinty, Shanto Begay)
Bowwow Powwow (Brenda Child, Jonathan Thunder, Gordon Jourdain)

The Master's Tools

 “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of support.” -- Audre Lorde

Yes, it is the 4th of July. That may be one reason I am holding off on writing something lengthy.

This quote by Audre Lorde does pertain to some of the things I might have gone off on today.

I will also tell you that I have spent some very unproductive time thinking about this quote really literally.

I first heard it at a young age. Even though I knew it was meant to be more metaphorical, I was still thinking that tools should be tools. If the master wasn't letting you use them, that's one thing, but they should be able to work, right?

The interference of the "master" can be a real issue, but I think you also have to consider the structure of the house. If what shelters the oppressor comes from demeaning others, capitalizing on ignorance and hatred... you get a very flawed shelter from that.

I have read the full essay a few times, and I didn't think so much about that next line, about the women. That has a different resonance now, but yes, there are absolutely men who are threatened by it. 

For today I will only add that it is worth thinking about what shelters us and how it was built. These can be things that are very hard to honestly scrutinize; culturally we have told stories that may contradict what we start to find. 

That only makes it more necessary. 

Black Music Month: Daily Songs for June 2023

If we are going to be strictly technical, I have been working on reading for Black Music Month for about a year. I am almost done, but I am finishing up one book and some movies.

I nonetheless just posted the last of the songs.

Toward the end of Queen Sugar, Nova was talking to a class about music, and mentioned Blues artist  John Lee Hooker tracing the path of modern music from the ring shout, a tradition that had just played a role in an earlier episode.

I started envisioning a month where I started with a ring shout and then had other milestones in music. I thought about things like Sister Rosetta Tharpe's influence on rock, and Robert Johnson pulling that boogie-woogie line from piano and playing it on the guitar. I thought about Dizzy Gillespie and Ella Fitzgerald and scat, and DJ Kool Herc and Gil Scott Herron. I had just read an article about Lara Downes and Florence Price, and I was remembering other things like "Rocket 88" and the use of distortion.

I thought there were some pretty cool things to include, though I was worried about whether I would have enough for 31 days. Two things changed my course.

First, I wanted to know more about John Lee Hooker and what he had said about the ring shout.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/110q3b5/john_lee_hooker_and_his_origin_of_the_blues_flow/

He made a flow chart. It was a little more complicated than I was expecting, and not quite as linear. Also, it focused on the blues, but it's not like the blues didn't influence rock or other genres. 

It felt like coming up with good example songs was going to be a lot harder.

Then, in trying to understand the ring shout better, I found a book, The Power of Black Music: Interpreting Its History From Africa to the United States, by Samuel A. Floyd Jr.

Well, that book mentioned everything I was now wondering about, and more, but it also reminded me how much I don't know. I will need to take another crack at it, after I have read more history and more about music. Maybe in about three years.

The month I originally envisioned could still happen at one point. This time, it was just trying, and often feeling like it wasn't good enough, but that trying mattered to me.

I did let myself skip the days I was away from home without any guilt. 

I am going to do more notation on this song list than I ever have before. If they are not all accurate, I tried.

6/1 “Plantation Dance Ring Shout” by Georgia Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters
(This is a ring shout, and I loved it.)
6/2 “Doin' The Shout” by John Lee Hooker
(I just liked the reference here, and getting in John Lee Hooker early.)
6/3 “Stars and Stripes Forever”
(march)
6/4 “The Entertainer”
(ragtime)
6/5 “When the Saints Go Marchin' In” by Rebirth Brass Band
(New Orleans brass band)
6/6 “Tiger Rag” by The Original Dixieland Jazz (“Jass”) Band
(New Orleans jazz)
6/7 “Bourbon Street Parade” by Louie Armstrong and the Dukes of Dixieland
(Dixieland)
~ San Diego ~
6/11 “Jesus Lover Of My Soul” by Isaiah D. Thomas
(hymn)
6/12 “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” by B.B. King
(spiritual)
6/13 “You Are Not Alone” by Mavis Staples
(gospel)
6/14 “Throw Me Anywhere Lord” by Georgia Sea Island Singers
(this was an attempt to get a ring shout plus a "cry")
6/15 “Raggy Levy” by Jake Xerxes Fussell
(work song)
6/16 “East St. Louis Blues” by William Brown
(early blues)
6/17 “Down Hearted Blues” by Bessie Smith
(the blues)
6/18 “I'm a Man” by Bo Diddley
(mainstream)
6/19 “The Virgina Reel” by The Bucket Band
(reels and jigs)
6/20 “Dipper Mouth Blues” by King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band
(vaudeville)
6/21 “Yellow Rose of Texas” by Lane Brody and Johnny Lee
(coon shout)
6/22 “The Crave” by Jelly Roll Morton
(minstrel)
6/23 “Can the Circle Be Unbroken” by The Carter Family
(hillbilly)
6/24 “Waiting for a Train” by Jimmie Rodgers
(hillbilly)

At this point, I thought I was done, though I see I missed dance games and jug band. That's embarrassing. Regardless, perhaps my earlier ideas influenced my choices, but the next connections made sense.

So I went from a hillbilly train to a gospel train, by someone who had a big influence on rock. 

There had been a section in the book on "chariots" turning into cars in songs, and I kept remembering Dizzy Gillespie performing “Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac” on The Muppet Show (though that wasn't the version I used).

Then, with the two different ring shouts, even though I thought it was more "gospel" I started remembering the end of Alvin Ailey's Revelations, and that's why I used a (different) version of "Move Members Move".

There was also quite a bit in Floyd's writing about the often sexual nature of the music, which correlated with African musical traditions. Because of that, I knew I was going to end with Hooker again, and specifically with "Boom Boom",

However, in the time I was reading this, there were two other books. One was The Wrecking Crew by Kent Hartman. While it was not specific to Black music history, it introduced me to "What'd I Say", which clearly fit, and hey, there's some call-and-response.

The book I am still reading is Black Diamond Queens by Maureen Mahon, and Big Mama Thornton had a musical influence, while herself being influenced by the blues tradition. It all fits!

6/25 “This Train” by Rosetta Tharpe
6/26 “Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac” by Dizzy Gillespie
6/27 “Ball and Chain” by Big Mama Thornton
6/28 “Move Members Move” by Rosie Hibler and Family
6/29 “What'd I Say” by Ray Charles
6/30 “Boom Boom” by John Lee Hooker

There is one other thing. While things like minstrel shows and coon shouts did happen and were part of the musical evolution, I did not know if I could find anything I could bear to post that would fit that description. I at least had to look. 

Jelly Roll Morton played in minstrel shows. It was actually fairly common for a lot of musicians of color at the time, often darkening their own faces. That was not the end of his career, and I could live with using one of his songs.

Searching on "coon shouts", there was a hit on "The Yaller Rose of Texas". Okay, I remembered a song where that was "Yellow". I had it in a piano songbook with a lot of different songs. 

I also remember a series of fashion dolls named after songs, including a "Yellow Rose of Texas" doll. She was fair-skinned and blonde, with a yellow dress and hat and a red rose accent. ("Lady of Spain" was dressed in red with black lace.)

So a song that originated with "black face" performers about a "darkie" going to see the mixed-race woman he loved was literally whitewashed, becoming one of the top 100 country songs of all time and the theme for a soap opera starring Cybill Shepherd and David Soul. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yellow_Rose_of_Texas_(song)

That is surprisingly not surprising.

Episode 2555: A new hope

If anyone is wondering how many published posts there are on this blog, there you go.

I have written before about common dream themes I have. The most common have been dreams where I just can't progress.

One way that happens is that there will be things like upside down staircases or blocked passageways. Sometimes, I will work a way around that, and then the passage will get longer or new obstacles arise, which then kind of bleeds into the other type of dream, the ever-expanding task.

I first started having this dream when I was working at McDonald's. As it would be time for me to wake up in the morning -- and I was not ready to wake up -- I would dream that there was a line of cars in the drive-through. I had to serve them all before I could get up, but the line wasn't getting any shorter.

Later this would change to a line of customers at K-Mart or Burlington Coat Factory. Because of how it would happen I always associated it with being too tired and needing more REM sleep. As it has become just things to do, not quite so tied to customer service, I associate it more with just feeling like I am never done. Tiredness remains an issue, but it no longer seems to be as much about keeping me asleep.

Regardless, I don't know if this constitutes a psychological breakthrough, but the other night I was dreaming about going through paperwork, sorting out what could be recycled and what needed to be kept...

AND I MADE PROGRESS!!!

It's not exactly that I got done, but I could see things becoming more organized and there were no new piles appearing.

I still have a ridiculous amount of projects going on, but it is not unreasonable that I might feel like some progress has been made, and that I am actually getting somewhere.

How amazing is that?

I haven't dreamed of my teeth falling out for a while either, or being naked, so I guess I am doing pretty well.

Kaepernick

It turns out I did not finish that thing I thought would be finished. I will write more about that eventually.

While I like grouping similar posts together, I have about 166 books, movies, and plays in the spreadsheet that I can write about; there is no shortage of topics.

You may be thinking, 166 seems kind of specific to use with "about". You are not wrong. There are some things that I did not put in the spreadsheet. I did not think I would want to write about them, or that they would fit my usual categories. Sometimes I am wrong.

In fact, I did not even review I Color Myself Different by Colin Kaepernick, illustrated by Eric Wilkerson, back when I read it.

One of the issues I run into with children's books is that I don't always feel like I have anything useful to say about them. I know some are great, or like different things about them. I find some not great at all, but still something that children might like. Is it worth reviewing some of those where I am more indifferent?

I Color Myself Different is based on a real event in young Colin's life when his class was drawing family pictures, and he used a different color crayon for his skin versus the rest of his family. Then the teacher is really affirming with him and with all of the other students, everyone is unique, the end. I mean, it is affirming but also pretty easy, and I didn't want to make a point of just saying, "It's fine."

With some of my more recent writing about children's books, it has reminded me that there is a need for lots of "fine" books, and I have also been more aware of how more kids might need that affirmation.

(Plus, people will literally go and put one star reviews for his books because he is himself, clearly without ever reading the books. "Fine" may actually have some value.)

On the other hand, I was extremely moved by the graphic novel, Colin Kaepernick: Change the Game. 

It was illustrated by Orlando Caiceido and written with Eve Ewing, whom I love. 

I was always going to want to read it, but it got my attention because of articles about the book and how Kaepernick was accusing his parents of racism.

I was pretty sure that was being interpreted more harshly than he intended, and probably more harshly than his parents received it, but I was curious.

I did know Kaepernick was adopted and raised by a white family. 

I did not know that he could easily have played pro baseball, or that he was raised in Turlock. Turlock was in my mission. I was never assigned there, but I have been there, and some things made a lot of sense.

It covers a time of Kaepernick needing to find his own path while in high school. He is being recruited more for baseball than football, and getting a lot of encouragement in that direction, but it isn't really what he wants.

There are not a lot of students of color at the school, but that is his friend group, and you can see that they need each other.

As he speaks out against casual racism and catches flak, you can see the seeds for his later path, and understand the need to make the choices that he did.

Along the way, his parents are baffled by his desire to grow his hair longer, and get it braided, and irritated with some of his social choices, like taking a Black girl to a dance instead of a nice white girl. They don't say it in those words, but you know in the background there is a sense of frustration with their son acting all Black.

I am sure they didn't even think it in those words, though the admonition to not act like a thug comes up.

Teenagers have a long history of frustrating their parents, even when everyone looks alike. However, when we don't talk about or examine the racism, we are more likely to fall in line with it.

That may hurt people you care about personally, but it does worse damage than that.

So really, both books are important. I liked one a lot better than the other -- the children's book is probably only for children -- but they are both important.

And I added a review.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58563479-i-color-myself-different

7 (or so) calls to get to know my life

Friday was intense. 

The exact number of phone calls was not seven, but some could be combined. That number just kind of goes with the recent theme.

The day started with my cell phone completely dead. I don't think there had been any warnings, except that I occasionally had trouble with my multi-factor authentication, which is the main thing I use the phone for. I use it for my work network, and one web tool. Sometimes I was not getting codes texted for the tool, but it is a tool that acts up a lot, so I was not blaming the phone.

Maybe that was a sign. 

I discovered its death as I was trying to log in to the work network. This started the first sequence of calls, trying to find a workaround for logging in. There were two calls with tech support, and then three calls getting authentication set up on the landline, but I was mostly able to work, a couple of times having coworkers look things up in the tool, because I did not have time to reset that.

Okay, it was Friday, so as long as I could make it through the day, I would have the weekend to try and replace the phone. I just needed to make it through to 5:30 PM. 

At about 4:50, the landline rang. 

We always worry when the phone rings that it might be something with Mom. Usually it's a survey or political ad or sales call that we are not interested in, but this time it was actually about our mother, who had been sluggish all day; did we want them to send her to the hospital?

I was working, and in fact on a call that required looking up and figuring out many things. One sister was fielding that call, but I am generally the one who deals with issues like this. 

I really wanted medical advice. 

Wrapping up my call, I was going to try and get a hold of our mother's primary care provider. I had her number stored in my phone. Rats.

I was able to find the number and get the call in just at 5:01 PM, when they switched to the answering service. I was not feeling very hopeful. While I carefully confirmed all of the information for the service, the landline rang again. It was Mom's provider.

I started to get some clarity here. She'd had a video visit with Mom earlier, and had left instructions for the facility, which included not transporting unless the family wished it. I think around shift change someone decided they should ask if the family wished it. That may not have been clear, because I was not on that call.

The provider had sent me e-mail asking if we could talk, but of course I had not read it because technically I was still working. Even then I had not finished logging the work call.

There was terrible guilt about dereliction of duty, but also, it's my mother; there is always guilt there.

Mom is in the POLST registry. Part of her expressed wishes are no resuscitation. I agree with that. I am glad we went through it when she could still understand the decisions and think clearly about them. What this really brought home is that there a lot of things that are short of resuscitation and may or may not be good ideas.

For example, one possibility was that a small infection was going into sepsis. That sounds horrible, but if that is a part of the body shutting down, that would probably be something to allow.

We decided to wait until Saturday to see how Mom was. They were also going to contact the hospice team to see about checking in, just in case. They were going to call me.

In fact, during this phone call, the other line was ringing in. That was not the hospice team, though; that was still the facility, wanting to know if they should transport. I gave that call back to Julie, and ran back to my desk.

There were still fifteen minutes left on my shift. I finished logging the one call, checked some other things, but was also paying attention to the conversation I could hear out there. 

About 5:29, the phone rang again. This was from hospice. Fortunately, the clock finally flipped over, and I was able to take that call with only parental guilt, no work guilt!

That was also the official start of the weekend. Unless things were dire, they would probably not be able to make it until Monday. I didn't know if it was dire, but we had decided to wait and see. I would call them after checking, and message the primary, and there was nothing else to do that night.

No, there was. I had to tell the other sister. The one who doesn't live with us. That was another phone call.

We have had some pretty busy weekends recently, and I had been looking forward to not having much to do for this one. A lot of errands had built up in spite of that: the phone issue, my new glasses were ready, we had not shopped, but also, I really needed to see Mom.

We were going to go Sunday anyway, but this was just a day earlier, to see.

She was fine. She was talking to a friend. She'd had her breakfast. I took an INR reading, and that is still all over the place. As I left I wished I'd thought to get her temperature, because she had a slight fever the previous day. Regardless, there was no sign that on the previous day she had been sluggish and weak and not wanting to swallow anything.

Inability to swallow is one of the last things that happens in the full progression of Alzheimer's. That made the phone calls more alarming, but this wasn't it.

There was one more round of phone calls, messages, and entering test results. We have groceries again, and I don't have to take off my glasses to read now. 

I have a working phone again. It's the same number, but I need to replace my contacts. At some point I need to set the network authentication back to text, but it hasn't happened yet.

Friday was more stressful than usual, but those biggest stressors -- work (and perfectionism), Mom (and a sense of helplessness), and trying so hard to be responsible -- that's kind of how it always goes, just intensified.

That may explain the chronic tiredness. Probably.