ChillSpot Online: Our Art is Life

A stretch of highway near the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge collapsed Sunday after a gasoline tanker crashed and burst into flames.

I couldn’t help but think about how this was going to affect the price at the pump, since these days EVERYTHING affects the price at the pump. Oh, by the way, no one was killed…

From the Edge is going sporty today, with the NFL Draft just concluding and the NBA Playoffs going on. Randy ‘Bad Moon’ Moss has pouted his way into his wish, going from the recently hapless Oakland Raiders to the perpetually-contending New England Patriots. (Did you notice that smooth segway?) Now, I like him, but he probably shouldn’t have been given the keys to the Maserati if he couldn’t keep the Cavalier running smoothly, no offense, to you Cavy owners … The Miami Heat got thumped by the Bulls, who are no longer so Baby-ish. As a Cleveland Cavaliers fan, I winced at the thought of the Cavs playing the Heat, and figured they’d dispatch the Bulls with little problem. Ah, but it didn’t happen that way now, did it? The Bulls treated the Heat like the team they turned out to be: An old, injured, undermotivated squad that gave all it had to win last year, and had nothing left for this one, especially with Dwyane Wade hurting. But for their troubles, who do the Bulls get, but those pesky Pistons. This all sounds good for the Cavs, who should only have to survive their games to advance to the NBA Finals… Baseball player Josh Hancock was killed in a car accident early Sunday. He played for the Cardinals, who won an improbable World Series last year over the Detroit Tigers. The older I get, the more hearing about young people dying touches my soul. This cat was only 28, and his parents are going to have to bury him. Folks, appreciate every moment.

This piece is about something I know pretty well … riding public transportation. I spent many years trying to get somewhere on the bus, and usually ended up late, cause you know the buses ain’t ever on time. But, in hindsight, it gave me time to think, with a big ol’ heaping of humility.

Commuter carousel, full of bustling traffic,
With one set of eyes fixed on the sight of briefs and bags,
Carrying more than the minds that tote them,
But never mind that
As my consciousness erupts from a volcanic dormancy,
This knowledge hits me
Life is like the RTA, with some folks riding every day, and others visiting e’ry now and again,
Dropping by just enough to make a friend,
While others sit alone.
I sat alone while this wisdom unfolded itself in my frontal lobe,
That on the RTAs around the globe,
Peeps just like me are thinking thoughts,
And living life in the bowels of the beast, bloated and gluttonous,
The beast that is.

See, I watched this cat get on at 12th street,
This older cat with a Harlem beat playin’ in his stride,
And he sat beside a wisp of a woman,
Whose Eyes Were Watching God,
Hoping that His eyes were watching her,
Neither seemed to notice me, or notice each other noticing the other,
But they dun sat in those same two seats for countless yesterdays,
As the driver shouted out “36th street”
My mind traveled on.

There was this one white girl with a green plaid skirt,
But not hardly Catholic,
Cause see she had a Blunt personality, like the kind from Philly,
You know, too Sweet to Swish,
But Blacker than a Mild case of lung cancer,
She walked like a lioness returning from the hunt,
Full of rage
But also misplaced intent,
Because when the words “Norwood Avenue” filled the air,
She got up and off, without a School in sight,
Caught between somewhere and nowhere,
But my mind traveled on.

To this woman whose eyes glimmered with the intensity of memory,
Life-long and head strong,
She hobbled to the first open seat and settled in,
With hand on chin she glanced back at me and nodded her head,
In response I nodded back,
We on the same track, ridin’ the same train,
As “71st and Addison” came over the speaker.

Before long I was at the Dirty 8th, my time to depart,
And my mind traveled on.
But again the cycle renewed,
As one got on to replace and replenish the lost rider
Life personified.

Anyone who knows me knows I have what I’d like to consider as a different way of looking at things. Thus, when strange things hit my mind, I tend to want to capture them. And then someone suggested I publish my thoughts on subjects - varied and vulgar (sometimes) - so I will. And so it shall be written; and so it shall be known as: From the Edge. Welcome!

I’ve been on a House, M.D. binge the past few days. I copped Season Two on DVD, and have watched every ep of Seasons One and Two within about a 10 day span. Needless to say, I ain’t had much sleep. My favorite ep is the one where Omar Epps’ character, Foreman, gets infected by something while at the home of a patient who came into the hospital with some pretty wild symptoms. My main man Epps acts his ass off, looking systematically more manic as the two-part episode progresses. Epps has been one of my personal favorites since Juice, and followed that up with some good work in Love and Basketball. This cat who writes for ESPN.com - Matt Mosely - called Epps his favorite of all time! That’s a bit much, but he does hold it down…

… Damn insomnia! I’ve been hypnotized by Shaun T. Who the hell is Shaun T.? He’s the Hollywood trainer to the stars (according to the Web site) who is all about Hip-Hop Abs. This is what happens when you stay up late watching House too much. You end up at 6 a.m. watching some cat Tuck, Tone and Tighten (again, from the Web site) without the burden of sit-ups! But wait, there’s more! You can get $100 in bonuses if you don’t TAKE YOUR TIRED ASS TO BED!!!

… Random of random thought: The worst late-night food around? White Castle. It wouldn’t be so bad, except that I think they hire the laziest of lazy people. I’m talking about cats who get turned down for Taco Bell gigs. The food ain’t great, and then you gotta wait 15 minutes in the drive-thru line for them little ass hamburgers, which should take about 20 seconds to make? Come on! Coming in a close second is the aforementioned Taco Bell, which pulls the same stunts, but with food that turns your digestive tract into the Daytona Speedway. If House surmised you ate there, he’d order an LP and a CT, stat, with a side order of a biopsy, just for spite.

Hmmm … I think I’ll have some White Castle tonight……

Now seemed as good a time as any to crack open the archives on a piece I wrote after another significant world-changing disaster occurred. That’s all the intro I’ll give to this.

9/14/01

I’m tired.
Tired of work, tired of death, tired of threats,
tired of being taken advantage of, tired of losing things
and/or having them taken from me,
and just plain tired of shit in general.
Yup, it’s a phase, but losing things in life is not.
Every single day, you lose things.
Lose time, lose security, lose touch with someone,
lose jobs, lose a friend, lose a memory, lose life.
The older you get, the more you lose
until one day, you’re as old as you’ll ever get
and you’ve lost everything you could lose,
maybe including yourself,
and all you have left to give is your life,
which you never really had to give,
but it’s taken anyway, and even after that people still take from you,
through your legacy and loved ones,
if you were lucky enough to have them.
It is this feeling of hopelessness
that leads young people to commit suicide
or worse, homicide.
It is this same feeling of utter fear and loss
that leads people to commit heinous crimes against humanity
or to just waste away in a personal shell of themselves.
No one can predict when they’ll reach their limit,
when they’ll reach the end of their rope, but it’s coming for everyone.
Not death, but the end of loss, which is worse than death because death is certain, the level of personal loss is not.
Ask the man born healthy if he ever expected to lose his arms, legs and be burned permanently if he COULD HAVE EVER PREDICTED THIS COULD HAPPEN TO HIM and what will he say?
What about the child who goes blind before adulthood,
and is forced to stand idly by while other children climb on jungle jims and ride bicycles and run and jump and play?
What will that child say when you ask him or her about how they feel?
They’ll say, unless prompted otherwise, IT’S NOT FAIR. IT’S NOT FAIR
to lose things, but it’s life.
GET OVER IT BECAUSE THAT’S THE WAY OF THE WORLD.
Loss in life is like climbing a slippery slope.
You might make some progress,
but eventually we all slide down to our beginning, or end.
Acceptance of this fact will help, but the truth is still there,
like a thorn in your mind, splitting your consciousness.
All we have to gain in life is each other,
and the joy that comes with experiencing one another
and the virtues we all bring to the world.
Loss is inevitable, but gains are the part of life that makes it beautiful.
Gain a friend, gain a memory, gain a worthwhile experience,
gain a love, gain an important life lesson,
achieve a goal, achieve a dream,
if nothing else, achieve, achieve, ACHIEVE.

I love you all. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be alright.
You do the same. Thank you for listening.

Soon, the jokes will start to flow.

Coworkers, friends, people who feel no sense of attachment to others, will begin to make off-color comments about Cho Seung-Hui, otherwise known as the murderer of 32 people — all of whom most of us never knew or will ever know — on the campus of Virginia Tech University on April 16.

This is the last time you’ll hear him referenced in this piece.

What’s bothering me is the apathy, the desensitized carelessness that pervades people in this country. When horrible things happen in the world, there seems to be a set pattern of behavior, likely born from the very frequency of the occurrences.

First, there’s the gasp! … right at the moment we realize something surprising and unexpected has happened.

Then, shortly after, the gabbing begins.

The “Oh my God, guess what just happened?” of it all. After all, what’s the point of being shocked by something if you can’t turn and shock someone else by virtue of having found out about it first? (Along with taking personal credit for being in the know.)

Once enough people know, they flow. The jokes, remember?

As the media dilutes the subject, and people run out of viable things to say, nonviable ones slowly seep out, like pus from a wound that won’t heal. It infects us, unavoidably, until someone spews something that causes the rest of us to get that big question mark on our foreheads, indicator of the fact that we’re dismayed that someone, ANYONE would say such a thing.

But, as we are taught to kindly dismiss slightly off-the-mark rhetoric, the verbal venom will evaporate into the air. Then, inexplicably, we’ll start to forget. Or more to the point, we’ll fail to remember. After all, how long can your soul stand to look into the eyes of a disaster before you begin to see the essence of it in yourself for looking so long in the first place?

Besides, Iraq will happen. Katrina will happen. Something will happen.

And they will flow again.

I never understood the point of blogs before now. In a way, I still don’t, because this is my first post in about a week. I could try to say something poetic, or even slightly exciting, like …

I read the blog of the Toledo Blade (former one) photographer whose only “mistake” was to edit out a woman’s legs from the photo of the Bluffton baseball team praying before the game. Well, he did that to dozens of other photos, which ran in their publication. This is just the only one that was caught. A friend of mine once got stopped by a police officer for speeding, and when he asked for leniency, the officer responded “This ticket is for all the times I didn’t catch you speeding.” Guy, you just got the death penalty.

I’ve been collecting stories I thought might lend themselves to something to say, but it’s only been pissing me off, while feeding my thirst for watching people drunk drive in the car-wrecks of their lives (sometimes literally). Such as …

The North Carolina House formally apologized Wednesday (4/11) “for the injustice, cruelty and brutality of slavery,” becoming the latest state to offer its regret.

The state is one of several to express regret for its role in slavery, but the big thing states are considering in their determination for how strongly to apologize is the possibility that blacks will ask for … gasp … reparations. Just imagine the explanation that would have to come after that: “Dear mister and misses black people, we sorry for enslaving your kin, and becoming exorbitantly rich off they sweat and toiling, but we don’t owe you nuthin’. Just accept our thanks. And by the way, we don’t validate parking.”

I ain’t about to go deep on the issue of reparations (but please feel free to comment!), but is it wrong to even look into the viability of it? Or should black people just “get over it” like Virginia state delegate Frank D. Hargrove suggested? Uh, don’t think so, partner.

Don’t know if any of that is interesting, but I figure I’d put it in MY blog, because one of my five readers may not know about it (I love you all, my goodest best friends!). If you see something good, forward me a link and I’ll rep you out, unless you don’t want that sort of thing. Holla back, and comment, DAMMIT. If a blogger writes in the cyberspace forest and no one is there to read, does his next bowel movement make a sound? Hmmm …

(Random note: Kelly Ripa just called my man on TV Japanese … he’s not. I imagine at this second - at 9:54 a.m. - she’s apologizing for it, off-camera, of course)

After watching the same scene repeatedly for the past three days, I can now say, with certainty, that Happy Feet deserved the Oscar over Cars. Now, I still like Cars better, but The Boogie Wonderland scene was more moving than (spoiler alert ahead!) when Lightning McQueen pushed Mr. The King across the finish line.
Does this have anything to do with art? Sure it does. Ignoring the obvious, Happy Feet is all about art: Dance, and song. And the scenes in the film feel good. Like hearing Mariah hit that note, or chillin with a glass of merlot listening to Coltrane. You gotta take those moments where you can get ‘em, because mostly, they ain’t out there so much.
Oh, and yeah, I watch children’s movies. They have more substance than most of the rubbish in the theatres rated higher than PG. So, cop Happy Feet, or at least rent or borrow it. You might just enjoy yourself.

What’s shakin, People Who Visit My Site? Got a lil somethin’ fresh for you. Somethin that I had fun writing, and fun thinking about. Is there anything else to say about this piece? Well … you tell me.

Wrapped inside a womb of lunacy,
you and me, more or less chillin’,
fillin’ the little time we have with a laugh,
a kiss, a cuddle, a shower, a meal, a game,
could be lame, but that don’t matter;
lame is for folk who cain’t relate,
Do we date? Well, not really,
but feel me, it’s deeper than that;
even in a spat you got love for me,
lunacy indeed, don’t speed to get here,
take your time, and in time you’ll find
yourself in my arms, nice and cozy,
heaven knows we need to relax,
take a spell, I should tell you what you wanna hear,
but my dear I ain’t never been THAT easy,
so appease me, don’t tease me,
wash me up and grease me down,
and let me make you rise,
then sleep in the crazy bed we made.