Death Meditation

 Last two days I switched up my morning meditations and started doing 'death meditations.' Ten yrs ago I took a class on mortality and the after life. The class assigned weekly meditations on death. Primarily focusing on the big 3

- death is certain

- the time is not (check the obits...all ages and reasons)

-  the only thing that can help me is non-material wisdom. 

I remember that ppl returned to weekly classes with greater clarity. Some students quit their unhappy jobs, ended toxic relationships, said 'fuck it life is too short...I'm going to do what I want.' One of the other things that happened is that ppl reported having incredible supernatural energy and focus coming out of gratitude b/c we meditated on the fact that so many things can kill me, so few things keep me alive. It takes millions of tiny correct actions each moment to keep going, arteries openings, natural clots dissolving, valves pumping, not choking on food, not being poisoned or getting sick. So you also wake up each morning like it's a freak miracle thinking 'OH MY GOD!! I DIDN'T DIE. I'M STILL HERE. I GOTTA DO SOMETHING. NOW! TODAY!" 

I woke up this morning and kept my computer off. I went to meditate on 'today might be it.' I had been thinking about starting up a not-for-profit foundation but I was waiting for a few things to play out. Fuck it, I emailed my accountant to start up the foundation. Let's do it. I emailed people and stayed off social media most of the day. I laughed with friends...ridiculously. Deliriously. I worked out b/c I wanted to and my body felt good. I go to sleep tonight knowing tomorrow isn't promised.

Lovecraft Country, Episode 9: Catch the Fire

 Disclaimer: I am still a bit confused about LOVECRAFT COUNTRY and question question QUESTION so many things. But....

Episode 9 was the first time this show actually made me cry. The transcendent blend of Sonia Sanchez's poem "Catch the Fire" with historical events and an sweeping aria made the whole latter part of the hour feel like some grand Wagnerian Black sci-fi opera. Still problematic, still confused, still question some choice, but for a fleeting moment I felt actual catharsis.

Catch the Fire

(Sometimes I wonder:

What to say to you now

in the soft afternoon air as you

hold us all in a single death?)

I say—

Where is your fire?

I say—

Where is your fire?

You got to find it and pass it on.

You got to find it and pass it on

from you to me from me to her from her

to him from the son to the father from the

brother to the sister from the daughter to

the mother from the mother to the child.

Where is your fire?  I say where is your fire?

Can’t you smell it coming out of our past?

The fire of living…not dying

The fire of loving…not killing

The fire of Blackness…not gangster shadows.

Where is our beautiful fire that gave light

to the world?

The fire of pyramids;

The fire that burned through the holes of

slaveships and made us breathe;

The fire that made guts into chitterlings;

The fire that took rhythms and made jazz;

The fire of sit-ins and marches that made

us jump boundaries and barriers;

The fire that took street talk sounds

and made righteous imhotep raps.

Where is your fire, the torch of life

full of Nzingha and Nat Turner and Garvey

and DuBois and Fannie Lou Hamer and Martin

and Malcolm and Mandela.

Sister/Sistah  Brother/Brotha  Come/Come

CATCH YOUR FIRE…DON’T KILL

HOLD YOUR FIRE…DON’T KILL

LEARN YOUR FIRE…DON’T KILL

BE THE FIRE…DON’T KILL

Catch the fire and burn with eyes

that see our souls:

WALKING.

SINGING.

BUILDING.

LAUGHING.

LEARNING.

LOVING.

TEACHING.

BEING.

Hey.  Brother/Brotha.  Sister/Sista.

Here is my hand.

Catch the fire…and live.

live.

livelivelive.

livelivelive.

live.

live.

- Sonia Sanchez

Good Luck, Grandson

 Suppose there was a highly contagious and deadly plague that killed ppl in their 20s and the coldest elderly ppl said 'If he dies he dies. Not my problem. Good luck grandson.' 

Now suppose the elderly voted for candidates that don't believe in climate change, social safety, or the future. But I repeat myself. 

A few weeks ago a huge party was taking place on the balcony a few buildings down. There was a DJ, drinking games, packed crowds, few masks. I took a picture of the carefree celebration. I was going to post it online. See! See! Look at these monsters! Then I thought 'but why?' What am I trying to prove and who am I trying to shame? Would it shame the parents who raised the kids or the grandparents? Would it shame the society that raised the generations not to care about others? Or would the picture scapegoat the symptom of a larger malady?

We get surprised when teens want to party in the middle of a global plague and don't show respect for others. We get surprised when the elderly take a 'fuck it, burn it all down after me' approach to social safety, the environment, being good stewards of the earth. We are surprised that ppl who have never been taught to care for the earth, their neighbor, Black Lives, the homeless, undocumented immigrants turn out to be the same people who are totally unable to care for themselves or their own country. They party, they get sick, and then they post deathbed confessional 'oops, I guess I shouldn't have done that.' It happens again and again. Elderly billionaires rape/pillage and turn the earth into a wasteland and look out on their empire and feel profoundly empty. They feel the darkness they have unleashed but do not take ownership of the misery. Unable to place the cause of sadness, they rape/pillage/abuse more to numb themselves. Unable to connect to others, they binge to the point of numbness alcohol, drugs, sex, social media. The problem is always 'out there' on another balcony across from mine. It's not me. It's those damn kids. it's those damn inconsiderate elderly. It's those damn billionaires. Damn damn damn. 

It's never the root. Always the fruit. Never the disease but always the symptom. The plague of apathy spreads in the United States of Me. It prevents us from solving anything societal because all problems revolve around my immediate cares and comforts. 

I didn't intend of writing this. This started off as a joke. It's 5 AM and I woke up because of a leg muscle strain and I started off Mark Twain-esque 'but I repeat myself' pun. And then the punchline turned...like a ouija board. The joke turned against itself and revealed the truth lurking beneath the idea of a disease that killed the twentysomething and didn't spark the least bit of concern among senior citizens. The joke is the same as the plague: apathy.

Good luck, grandson. We really fucked it all up for you. I guess it makes sense that you want to party. Play your drinking games. Turn up the music. You won't have to listen to the world scream. 

My 40-Year-Old Version

I have laughed more in the first 10 min of 40 YEAR OLD VERSION than anything this year. White man trying to get a black playwright to work on a Harriet Tubman musical is so... hilariously truthful. NYC peeps, theatre ppl, teaching artists, middle age dreamers, you need to watch this! It dropped today on Netflix.

The laughter in "The 40 Year Old Version" also cuts deep b/c every blk playwright I know has experienced all the slights, insults, gaslighting satirized in the movie. Every. Single. One.

Several yrs ago I was introduced to a successful white producer who specialized in telling black stories. He began the meeting by insulting a black playwriting colleague as not being special...just good. Besides being untrue, I knew the subtext of his unprompted attack was that this black playwright probably turned him down. She was probably too smart and/or too powerful to need him. Yet, here was my dumb ass listening to this old white man and not my gut instinct which was telling me 'run, negro! Emancipate yourself.' Anyway, he had a project in mind involving a black college athlete. It sounded interesting until he told me he really wanted the story to be told from the POV of the older white male college dean. I was like 'but why? The story is about this particular black athlete.'  We had an interesting back and forth. Finally I was told 'you just don't get it.' Yep, I don't get black stories. Thanks. Oh well. He paid for my fancy lunch. But then again, there's always a price to pay for a free meal. 

I've also been hit up to write several slave plays. Guys, I already wrote a few plays about enslavement. You just don't like them b/c in my plays white ppl get their asses beat...like in many of the actual historical events that have been suppressed. Oh well. I guess I don't get slave narratives either. 😂 

Also, I spoke to my ancestors: they said my work should pay my rent.

Black Joy Art

 Friend: I'm sick of all these stories about blk pain. What about stories about blk joy?

You can't have an honest story about joy until you've dealt with the trauma. To demand blk storytellers just start pumping out stories of blk ppl living fabulous, carefree, love-filled "Crazy Rich Asian" lives amidst all that's going on is ridiculous. It is overly simplistic to tell people dealing with 300 yrs of slavery, followed by 100 yrs of Jim Crow, followed by 60 yrs of the incarceration complex to just 'shake off those shackles and dance, negro. Dance faster!' We live among the caskets of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and the bare minimum awakening of 'white allies.'

"The 40 Year Old Version" wouldn't have been great unless it first began with all the shit Radha had to overcome. The difference between great art and a forced smile of pretending everything is great is the difference between therapy and strained positivity. It is the difference between healing and stuffing down the pain. It is difference between Jill Scott's first and second album (oops).

I've met far too many blk artists trying to live 'golden' while sitting in the toilet bowl of reality. It is laughable, it is schizophrenic, it is dishonest. And it makes for terrible 'joy art' like those tacky paintings of tangerine sunsets that you see in cheap motels. Bad joy art is more painful and dehumanizing than therapeutic rebirth. Stop denying the catharsis necessary to reach joy. We have to go through it, acknowledge the reality, and then transform it.  

Blk storytellers aren't butlers or maids who are here to clean up the blood on the floor, spray some perfume to hide the smell of burning flesh, and hide the nooses hanging from the ceiling...with a fake smile. If you want that 'real real art' you have to deal with the 'real reality.' We are living in the middle of a reckoning...and real artists are wrestling with this era in our plays, movies, music, and stories.

Black in the Arts

 It's been 2 yrs since Andre Lancaster passed away. This morning I was still thinking about "The 40 Year Old Version," and particularly the parts that dealt with how Black artists are treated in this culture. And I remember Andre talking about how hurt and damaged he felt by theatre shortly before his death. 

In 2011 I saw Radha Blank's play SEED and thought 'well, surely I'm seeing the hip hop Ntozake Shange...surely she is the next one up.' Pernell Walker and Jocelyn Bioh were in the cast. And everything felt electric. Surely POC talent will win out in theatre. Well...yes and no. Some times, in certain conditions with the right timing and a phenomenal agent, and something that appeals to white older people, and the right theatre, and after waiting your turn for years, and doing workshops, and temping and struggling to pay rent, and waiting some more, and smiling and smiling...more smiling until the point of tears...a light shines down.

You have to be hard-soft kind of person to make it through the loopholes, triggers, potholes, roadblocks. You need more than talent. You need guile and shrewdness and marketing aimed at the right gatekeepers...during the right moments. And you need the grace to keep all these things bottled up inside and not be labeled 'angry' or 'difficult' or 'enraged' as the world carves you up. 

Andre had all those things...but he didn't make it. Two years ago I was getting out of an Orange Theory class when I got a text from Bryan to call him. It was about Andre. In that moment I knew he was gone. I showered, changed in the bathroom. My clothes felt like they weighed 100 lbs.

Trump's Covid Hoax

 Trump is sick. His advisors are sick. His generals are sick. They continue to ignore CDC advice as local Republican officials are literally dying to host maskless events. And some of my friends think that Trump having covid is a hoax! A hoax?!?

This is not a hoax. There is no brilliance behind the October surprise of Trump's campaign descending into sickness, bankruptcy, and twitter rants. Most of the advisors, generals, and reporters at the Rose Garden massacre are sick or under quarantine. We are not seeing some shrewd orange-hued Iago employing Machiavellian double-fakes to gain sympathy. What we are watching is unbridled white male conservative madness. Yes. A black man could NEVER do this. A white woman could NEVER EVER EVER act this insane. Only a white man could employ this consistent level of madness and be supported by 50% of white people. Our culture has given them supreme privileges and minimum responsibility, so we are seeing the demise of our economy, democracy, and our own citizens. We are seeing the personification of a septic tank rupture in paroxysms of 'roid rage and paranoia. Stop looking for the pony in the pile of shit. It's not there. This mountainous man of manure  has nothing hiding in him except more mania, rage, and delusion. And he destroys everything. Everything. America: welcome to the TerrorDome.