Long live the Queen....

To be honest, the phrase "The King of England" sounds like something that should only exist in movies or video games. It's been so long now that the very sounds feel strange in the mouth. But now, in 2022.... here we are. She lived a good life.

As much as I can understand a lot of the feelings of...um, less than grief..being offered today by individuals who had...issues... with even the idea of a real life monarchy still existing in the twenty first century, I'm not one to pick apart the life of someone who has passed on. At the very minimum, they no longer have a chance to atone for those misdeeds in this life, and that alone is very sad. Now is not the time for a rehashing of a long life which by definition is polarizing, she wasn't a starlet or some singer but the head of a nation and empire, so let history be the long judge that determines her place. When you get down to it, she was still a mother, a grandmother and great grandmother. And so a family grieves as an era ends within themselves.  

She served. Queen Elizabeth II. 1926 - 2023

'Cause that's how Rough Ryders Roll...

A young DMX looked like a the bad ass avatar in a video game that was never made. His frame thin but muscular, his style and demeanor one you couldn't hope to achieve. His voice that raspy sound that gave gravitas, and his face an expression that let you know without question he'd seen it all and done and it all and that he wasn't about to fuck around on the way to the final boss. 

An older DMX looked like your favorite uncle when you were a child. A little thicker but still with a aura of joy. Quick with a joke but working every day to make sure the spiritual was right too. This was the uncle that would spot you twenty and beer out the cooler when your mother wasn't looking, but would also show up when you were in trouble ready to handle business.  

In between we got classics. I spent to today jamming to It's Dark and Hell is Hot, the classic ...And Then There was X, and The Great Depression and singles from Grand Champ and Year of the Dog Again. I was stunned at how many of the songs I still knew the words too. (I was also surprised that at this age simply rapping like we used to I was out of breath, damn.) 

And then the social media deluge started. Of DMX being Earl Simmons. Father. Friend. Philosopher. And guy who while he struggled with his own demons didn't let it color his zest for life. 

His kind shall not pass this way again.

Because they don't even try to do it like this no more....

Ruth. Bader. Ginsberg.

In a better system, and 87-year old woman dying would not cause people to fear for the future of democracy.
~ The Gravel Institute

Her impact is inestimable. She spent her life and time on the country's highest court using her considerable legal skills to make the country better for us all. And recognizing the stakes instead of retiring and living out her last few years in peace she held on to her position as long as she could breathe. Her tenacity and spirit are a testament to how we all should live.

I didn't understand her friendship with fellow Justice Scalia, but then sometimes we all make odd friends at work. She battled sexism and prejudice while growing up, and engaged the patriarchy with a brilliant mind and sharp wit on behalf of every generation that followed her, man or woman, black or white. And as a writer her dissents from the bench where the she found the majority lacking were the stuff that made law students realize the power of words.

And now she has moved on.

Thank you.   

John Lewis. A man for the ages.

This was supposed to be up a few days ago, but I've just been out of sorts lately. But greatness needs to be recognized. We've heard a great number of stories the past few days, from remembrances of the  character and dignity of son of a sharecropper from Troy, Alabama. One of the fabled Freedom Riders who went first so the rest of us could follow.

The most interesting story I heard, of all the history that seems to get divulged after someone passes, was of his moment at the March on Washington. We all know that this is where Dr. King delivered his historic "I have dream" speech. But John Lewis spoke as well. Something I didn't know. And I also didn't know, much like the family secret kept until after, is that they had to corral the young firebrand. Apparently they were backstage negotiating what he would say on the podium as the event happened. A foursome that included the yet to appear Dr. King under the gaze of the grand statute of Lincoln worked to tone down the young John's fiery words. This man, who would go on to serve in Congress had to be calmed.  


It's funny how things change, the more they stay the same. Passion, but controlled. He and his colleague C.T. Vivian. Arrested the same day, died the same day. Lived the same way.

I salute Mr. Vivian and John Lewis. Because I do not know if I could have endured what they did.

I'm tired

Here we are again. Again.

How much are we as a people supposed to endure? Damn. Just Damn.

George Floyd. He shouldn't have been treated that way. That's all I got.

I'm just so tired.

Kobe.

Ball up a wad of paper. Aim for the trash can. Shoot. Shout his name.

In this modern age of the viral, this simple act was just something that kind of happened. Even if you weren't a Lakers an it was a ritual practiced offhandedly by a whole generation. I know I've done it and I have seen it done. For no good reason at all except that is just how it's done.

Kobe Bryant's play was phenomenal, a game that relied on artistry, ability and a deep well of confidence you could feel in the cheap seats. In the NBA Finals with his big brother Shaq in foul trouble, Kobe looked at his teammates, patted himself on the chest and basically said to the world I got this. And then he went and got it. While we argue today over who the best NBA player of all time was - Michael or Lebron, the Black Mamba has a resume that makes you wonder why his name is never brought up. Championships, gold medals, MVP awards and the list goes on. Magic Johnson, who I would argue is the best player of all-time called Kobe the best player of all time.  

And he passed some those genes down to his daughter Gigi. I watched the clip of her play, and she'd already started to adopt some of her father's mannerisms. Her fade-away was already a smaller version of his dad's, which wasn't good news for future opponents. We'd only just met her, but I already thought she'd be one of black America's little sisters, one of those little girls we all look out for just because.

Retired from the game, Kobe's second career as a storyteller had already netted him an Oscar. I can only imagine if he had been able to bring his legendary intensity to bear on his new path what works he would have wrought. He wasn't about to fade away, but only just begun to find his new footing. But as they say, tomorrow is never promised.

Ball up a wad of paper. Aim for the trash can. Shoot. Kobe!

Thank you Mr. Witherspoon.

The first thing I saw when I checked my social media feeds today was that John Witherspoon had passed. So today did not start off well at all.

Witherspoon was kind of comedian who showed up and took over. From my first real memory of him in that Robert Townsend film where he spoke the immortal line, "Hoes gotta eat too!" he was a scene stealer. From his funny and yet still poignant Pops in the Ice Cube franchise Friday, to his stint in as the father of the Wayans Bros to his absolutely genius turn as the voice of Grandpa in The Boondooks, the man knew how to command attention. Even a quick turn in the classic comedy Boomerang still lives with as all, because everybody knows you got to "coordinate!"

And unlike so many long time actors who spend too long in the dirty jungle that is Hollywood and have become wrapped up in themselves (out of self preservation), I understand he was a voice of wisdom to many a young funny person trying to get to the next level. He still did stand-up, that harshest of comedy outlets where you can literally feel the audience. And there he was the wise man guiding the upcoming through there storms. Witherspoon went from Richard Pyror, then Eddie Murphy, the Wayans, and Jay Pharoah and Kevin Hart. His career spanned generations of laughter.  And the whole time he was outrageous and hilarious.

You sir, shall be missed.

Toni Morrison

I haven't read a lot of Toni Morrison. I think it's odd that I'm about to write a piece about her when I wasn't that into her work. I thought she was an important literary figure, that her voice was powerful and commanded the space it required to be heard, but her subject matter wasn't in my area. But she didn't publish her first piece until she was almost forty, which in an of itself is inspiring to those of us still nursing our dreams. The reality is that she was majestic, her writing just not for me. It's kind of like recognizing the greatness of Gretzky. I didn't watch hockey, but what he had was undeniable. Morrison possessed that same something in a literary sense.

Even though she was the esteemed author of The Bluest Eye and Beloved, Nobel Laureate, and Pulitzer Prize winner, to me it was the interviews where she sounded like what she was...an extremely smart woman who wasn't about to take any shit. Oh, she was going to be dignified about it, but it was clear you could take all that whatnot to the other room. I remember the interview when a reporter asked her a question that seems to be re-occuring theme for all acclaimed black content producers - Jordan Peele was asked a similar question just recently - concerning when will they turn their focus to white characters. With a quiet grace, that seemed tinged with both disgust and weariness, she pointed out to the interviewer the ridiculousness of their question.

In the age of social media and vociferous outrage, she was an eloquent warrior from a before time, when the ideas we take for granted today were still fresh. No less passionate than those who rage and rend at the currently outdated bits of fabric of our reality, she had honed the articulation of those injustices to elevate comprehension of those who needed to hear. Her voice was to me a kind of feminine version of Morgan Freeman - warm,  soft, wise, thoughtful but hewn with gravitas that made even the simple sound like the words from on high. Maybe it's generational, but it made me feel comforted and secure that the person speaking knew of what they spoke. And then some.

I find myself relieved that she found success within her lifetime and that her voice was not only heard, but listened to.

Thank you Ms. Morrison. 

The Breaking News is breaking us

This is a political post. 

How bad is it?

It's so bad that the Dayton shooting barely registered with me as I was still processing the El Paso incident. Two mass shootings in 24 hours? What are we doing?

I often wonder why some people seem to want to return to the days of the OK Corral, or rather what they imagine those days must have been like. In reality in most western townships and settlements the sheriff had folks turn in their guns when they got to town.  The people actually in the old west were well aware that guns were lethal and actually took steps to mitigate the issue, something we seem to have recently forgotten. And in this modern age rife with political demonization, personal overreaction and a complete lack of accountability this apparently deep seated need to add guns to the mix is just terrifying. But there it is. So here we are.

Again.

Again and again. Damn.

Just to be clear, Texas is an open carry state, and the people in Walmart at the time actually had their loaded weapons on them. There are multiple stories where an average citizen took their gun out in the face of danger. Still, the shooter in was able to kill 20 people and wound many others. I say many others because it is believed a number of people who were wounded simply left, fearful of their immigration status coming to light, which is a whole other conversation. But 20 people are dead in what clinically speaking was a perfect case scenario for the Good Guy with a Gun Theory for a safer America. And yet it failed. So could someone explain to me how it's supposed to work again? 

And the gunman in Dayton managed to kill nine people and wound almost thirty more even though the police responded less than a minute after the first shots were fired. That's faster than it happens in the movies. That's action hero timing. The only way a faster response would be possible is if the officers were standing right next to the guy. And yet nine lives were lost and nearly thirty injured. And had the response not been quite so quick, or ineffective due to the body armor of the assailant, the man had a hundred round clip loaded. What could have been is a terrible thought.

We've started the usual routine: incident, thoughts and prayers followed by the insistence that now is not the time to talk about it (I'd like for the record, what the appropriate amount of time is). And if anyone cares, I will be directing my thoughts and prayers to our legislature, in hopes they come to their senses. Please note, that as El Paso police sifted through the carnage and while people in El Paso were lined up to donate blood, our great leader took the opportunity to crash another wedding. So we're not exactly getting shining leadership here. But the rest of them, the what we assume should be semi-reasonable ones need to wake up and realize that the blame lies not with video games or mental illness, but with our current political and economic climate along with our lax gun laws. I doubt, no I'm pretty sure that this rising to the moment won't happen. We live in an age of un-accountability. 

We are A) the only country where this sort of thing seems to happen with regularity and B) refuse to to bring ourselves to do something about it. We seemed to be striving to the be the wild wild west of the Western world. We no longer live in the age of balance, only extremes. There is no nuance, only fevered outrage. Where are the calm voices and measured thinking? Our national question has become when will it be extreme enough to trigger a response from the willfully blind? Shooting up a church, an elementary school or a whole country music festival wasn't sufficient. So one has to wonder what will? And if nothing will, who are these people and what do we do with these fanatics?  

I still of the opinion we just do what they did in California. When the Black Panthers started openly brandishing machine guns, guess what the Republican governor (one Ray Gun Ronnie Reagan) immediately decided need to be banned?

And so we continue with this madness. Nipsy Hussle.

I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that I was a big fan of Nipsy Hussle. A lot of the artists as of late are just wasting beats to me, with flow that seems to have been done completely independent of the music, repeated phrasings or rhymes for rhymes sake. And this critique is coming from a guy who grew up on Craig Mack and Nice & Smooth. I just don't listen to a lot of the new stuff. Maybe it's because I'm old, and that's what old people do. Or maybe it's because most of it's trash. Either or.

But since I heard that Nipsy met a tragic end and more than few friends of mine indicated that he was pretty tight, I went to see what was up. Aside from the fact that he looks like what I imagine Snoop's kids should look like (or like my cousin who does heating & air), it turns out he was actually pretty damn good. I actually had heard and liked his "Last time that I Check'ed" just out and about, but parsing through the rest of his cuts I could see the talent.

But the talent was the tip of the iceberg. On the same corner where he used to hustle and sell mix tapes on he'd literally bought up and opened stores and shops employing local people to help change the community. He was for all intents and purposes the person I had long wondered why every other rapper wasn't - the guy who did more than spend his money flexing. The short I watched, where he had his own store selling his own brand, next to a second store selling basic staples to his community, next to a barber was just fascinating to watch. He was a young man with vision, his latest big venture a co-working space and STEM center in the Crenshaw area that with the use of his celebrity could add a bit of melanin to the Silicon Valley area. Here was an entrepreneur who understood the basic premise of a rising tide lifts all boats.

I'm not going speculate on the reason for his death. Maybe it was because of his work on a documentary involving a controversial doctor. Maybe it was just some old gang shit. Maybe it was something else in between. In either case this man, who dreamt and worked towards elevating others is gone. And that's a pure tragedy. And that's the long and short of it, last time that I checked.

Christchurch

Just past, in the land of peace and Hobbits, those who would see all who are not them as lessors have burst from the shadows and wreaked havoc among the ordered lives of the faithfully religious. And the discourse is outrage, as it should be. Mourn those who knelt in communion and were unceremoniously ushered into the next by cruel intention. And unleash your disdain for the action and ideas that precipitated this event. Let he who hath done this live with scorn all his days. Let those who would deflect the pain and suffering he has caused, by pretending he is something other than what he himself has professed to be, share in his disdain.

But alas, while those at the brunt of the tragedy take heed of their lesson, we here seemed primed to fail one of those things that mean maturity: Learning from the mistakes of others. We find ourselves wrapped in ideology, in notions powered by ignorance and in fear of what may come hold on even tighter for what is past. Our trial awaits in the shadows, for we imagine ourselves invincible, our demons all imagined. Lo that day fills me with dread.

Thoughts and prayers may well be wishes in the face of action to fix the problems we ignore for the sake of hubris.

We're all coffee, the grind is just different

All good things...

When I read the articles about Stan Lee, I kept wondering why most of them didn't take the time to explain why this modern day P.T. Barnum who made himself out to be a literary Edison was so racially sensitive. Maybe it's because he was Jewish, and had adopted the name Stan Lee because he wanted to save his real name for when he wrote the great American novel.

Stan's passing is tragic. I remember sometime ago reading something, on twitter or someplace, about how one day we'd watch a Marvel film and there wouldn't be a cameo. That's when it would hit you, because the films now almost need a cameo. I hope that they'll continue in some fashion - maybe for Spider-man movies it's advert on a passing bus with Stan's face - or his portrait in an embassy or the UN in the background of the next Black Panther film. Something. I'm just saying, it's an idea.

Damn. I must be getting old.

With great power, comes great responsibility...

The Blues Brothers? Sh*****it they still owe you money fool!

Aretha: We got two honkies out there dressed like Hasidic diamond merchants

Matt: What you mean?

Aretha: They look like they're from the CIA or something.

Matt: What they order?

Aretha: The tall one wants white toast, dry, with nothin' on it.

Matt: Elwood.

Aretha: And the other one wants four whole fried chickens and a Coke.

Matt: Jake. 

That scene from the Blues Brothers is quite honestly my favorite version of Aretha Franklin. She's a woman who built something that she's proud of, ain't about to take no shorts, and loves her man enough to sing to him to get his mind right. Matt 'Guitar' Murphy still rides off with the aforementioned Blues Brothers, but it was a very good showing for her in a small choice role.

But one of my most indelible memories of Aretha is her appearance on the initial episode of a show called VH1 Divas. I say initial episode like it I watched the series, but seriously I don't know if there was ever a second episode, because after the finale of the first one there was no point in doing it again. The show was supposed to be a showcase of the true divas of modern music brought together for one magical night. The network brought out talented heavyweights like Celine Dion and Mariah Carey along fabulous vocalists Shania Twain, Gloria Estafan and the legendary song writer Carole King. The icing on that musical master class however was the one and only Aretha.

The finale was supposed to feature all the singers sharing a single stage, singing a single song - (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman, actually written by Carole King. It was supposed to be all harmony and solidarity. But that's not what happened. Once they all got out there, Aretha took over and turned some of the best pop and R&B singers in the world into her back-up group. To her credit, Shania Twain didn't even pretend she was the lead singer. I understand that if you watch the tape that you can see Gloria Estafan actually put her mic down. Celine actually had the audacity to step up like she was gonna do something. Riffing, scatting and putting her touch of soul on the song long associated with her, those women knew and instead of being insulted at the end even they applauded the Queen as the audience cheered.

Listening to Aretha gives chills at times. Her voice was electric, magical, and had an ability to touch a person's soul if she wanted it to. From singing ditties about love with the Blues Brothers to filling in for Pavarotti to singing at the inauguration of the first black president (like anyone else could do it), she was quite frankly the best. Period.

We will miss you Aretha Franklin. We all will.

The Queen of Soul.

He was a good guy....

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully you leave something good behind.” Anthony Bourdain (1956 - 2018)

Anthony Bourdain looked to me like a guy I used to work with. A guy who explained one night, while we were out some place God knows where doing God knows what, that he had to stop drinking because "there are too many jurisdictions between here and my house." Anthony Bourdain reminds me of him - a little rough around the edges, but when he spoke he sounded like an old friend. I liked Bourdain. Mostly because he proved that you could get paid to travel and eat, and you didn't have to always go the end of the earth to do it.

A storyteller who ended up cooking for a living, then writing a book about what really happens in the kitchen and getting famous for it, Bourdain was something special. His voice melodic, his interest genuine. He was a guy that took his fame and didn't just indulge in it, he tried to in his own way to make the world a little bit better. His cooking shows weren't about cooking, but about the people in those places that made the food, be it the a kitchen in Cambodia or Boise, ID. And he didn't think you had spend a ridiculous sum of money on something for it to taste good, it just had to be authentic. He made eating interesting. 

My favorite fact about him is on his show Parts Unknown he traveled to Charleston, SC and while there, a couple of drinks in,  he visited one of the many outposts of that late night life line, the Waffle House. Yes,  the same Waffle House where the steak with sides is less than $10 and you can get your hashed browns like 1,000 different ways. And he loved it.   

Oh, and he like Archer. I love Archer.

Mr Bourdain, I don't think the world will be the same now that you're gone.

And so, they go...

"There should be no boundaries to human endeavor. We are all different. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there's life, there is hope".
~ Stephen Hawking (or at least the guy who played him in the movie)

In what will surely be one of my more convoluted posts, I'm going to honor two men who recently passed who couldn't have been more different: noted physicist Stephen Hawking and rap legend Craig Mack, who sadly passed around the same time. Two from a time when talent got you everywhere you wanted to get to.

Seriously though, Stephen Hawking did put some brand new flava in ya ear.

See what I did there?

I'm going to start with Professor Hawking, who a few years ago agreed to appear on the Big Bang Theory and insisted on delivering his own lines and not having them recreate his electronic voice. When you consider it takes sometimes an hour for him to compose a sentence, it was an enormous commitment on his part. And he made the most of it, much funnier than I expected. For a man who was supposed to die before I was born and who lived everyday trapped in his own mind, he had a cracking sense of humor. But then I guess he had enough time to make the inside of his mind rather nice, so maybe we were all the ones being left out.

As you may have guessed, I didn't know Stephen Hawking personally. But from a wheelchair in a frail body in need of constant care he changed our understanding of the universe we live in. He picked up where Einstein left off. Those who did know him called him engaging, funny and brilliant - from tales of nights in dive bars to extraordinary work in the lab. Because despite the more esoteric nature of his work, it is those understandings which contribute to the continued existence of the human race. And by that I mean things involving items not of this planet that in time will effect this planet. Good stuff. He funked the world...

Yes, that is an odd and awkward segue here...

Craig Mack is however, for us old heads. One of the original Bad Boy artists, the inimitable Craig Mack was a genius of rap in '94 of a kind of rap that artists have kept pretending to discover ever since. His freestyle free verse rap, unlike the story telling style of the contemporaries, consisted of songs that made more sense if you just let the lyrical word play shine through. The intelligence of the rhyme, the patter, smoothness was undeniable. A wicked talent for improvisation along with fat beats made for quite the combination in an age where every song had to have resonance.

But while his single “Flava in Ya Ear” became the label’s first hit, at least to me, he was unceremoniously buried by his label mate the Notorious B.I.G. whose banger of an debut album Ready to Die was released first. The scant few DAYS, not weeks between that musical avalanche  and Mack's Project: Funk da World album release effectively knocked Mack out out the hype he'd started. We remember B.I.G. as an icon, but we have mostly forgotten the artist who was the first to walk away from Puffy's music machine. Mack became a legend more what he could have become than for what he did.

Hawking and Mack have things common. You wonder what these men would have accomplished had they been able to run free in their prime. 

The Death of a Mr. Bond

Roger Moore was MY James Bond, in by that I mean he's the Bond I grew up with.

My introduction to the character James Bond was a suave, just on the high side of cool, just shy of silly gadget carrying world hopping spy who always had a bit of quick wit when the situation called for it. It wasn't until college that I really had a chance to get into the character and realize that Connery's more bare bones and ruthless Bond was closer to the how the character was written. But by then it was too late, because in my mind Bond had gone to space, jumped off a mountain and had car that turned into a submarine. Roger Moore's Bond was a character of it's time, although I'm hard pressed to look back at most it and think it's still cool. The submarine car though.

I realize now that the movie scene I wanted to shoot with all the Bond actors is now NEVER really going to happen for real. Although, they are doing wonderful things with CGI. But that would be cheating.

And although he soured a bit at the end, with the spurious reasoning as to why Idris Elba shouldn't play Bond, I liked him. Moore's spoofs of himself, both in Cannonball run and playing the bumbling Inspector Clouseau in Curse of the Pink Panther after Peter Sellers died, where quite funny, even for a kid from the sticks like me. I thought he made a good action hero in ffolkes ( also known as North Sea Hijack). I even liked him Boat Trip, a film which I'm still not sure why I watched, although I'm fairly certain Roselyn Sánchez had something to do with it.

To a degree I miss his Bond. Maybe that's what Daniel Craig is missing.

Charlie Murphy RIP

Death comes too quick.

We almost shouldn't know who Charlie Murphy is. In the game of Hollywood unlike the music industry, it's rare that family catches on, excluding of course the Wayans conglomerate. But there was something authentic about Charlie, a real person in an unreal situation. Although he'd been around for a while because his brother was mega-star Eddie Murphy, he didn't really catch on until he started sharing his stories of what went on when nobody was looking. True stories of stars being themselves. The kind of stories that us non-famous people would tell each other about each other when we sit down with a few drinks and reminisce.

Lately, he'd started to carve out his own little space. Better acting roles, some standup comedy, and becoming famous in his own right. I think he'd figured out a way to be more than just himself, and was actually acting. And he wasn't bad. 

I bet he's in heaven right now, challenging Prince to a rematch. And afterwards, they'll have pancakes.

2016 Can Get Gone....

On Christmas day, a bit of sadness passed into our lives when George Micheal died. I didn't realize he was that young, so this struck me as a little crazy. George was part of my maturation, the period where I went from awkward kid to, um...awkward man-child? More than a few of his songs I can still sing from heart even though I know it's been five or ten years since I heard them. He resonated, which is something you don't see much of in this instant gratification entertainment culture we live in today. The man could sing.

Careless whisper, of a good friend...

And just as I get ready to properly eulogize him....

Carrie Fisher dies. I knew about the heart attack, but I just knew she'd pull through. Damn, I'm a middle aged black man, but Carrie Fisher was Princess Leia and as a kid that gold bikini talked to me. As much as people decry that women can't be strong on film, we met Princess Leia on a secret mission where she stared down one of the baddest villains ever created, then minutes after the 'heroes' arrived SHE TOOK CHARGE OF HER OWN DAMN RESCUE. As we say now, she could do both.

Now I think that this would make a fantastic obit - so I tell my younger friends that no matter how I go, I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

Now...

2016 has just been hell on my childhood. Prince, Muhammad Ali, Alan Rickman, David Bowie, Florence Henderson, Arnold Palmer, Gene Wilder, Doris Roberts, Ron Glass, Merle Haggard, John Saunders, Craig Sager, Morley Safer and and Abe Vigoda. It's an eclectic list to be sure, but then I was raised in age before curated entertainment. I like everything because I liked it, not because it was cool.

Is this what being old feels like? Watching your childhood slowly dissolve.

Because this sucks.

I'll be happy this New Year because this damn year is over. 

Gene Wilder was....

"It's pronounced, Fronk-en-steen."

And it was then I realized that Gene Wilder was just that good. 

Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein

I don't remember the first time I saw Young Frankenstein, but I remember it was funny. Very funny. For a while even among us black college students if someone said "Blucher" someone else was expected to whinny.  Or maybe it was just the group I hung out with. As a child from the seventies and teenager of the eighties, I just missed what might of been the last golden age of comedy. And now, as cable access and later the rise of the  internet has opened up our world, our response our comedy seems to have shrunk itself, catering more and more to a specific audience. Comedy usually comes from shared experience, and what's funny to say, someone from New York, or country fans, or "urban professionals" doesn't resonate with the rest of us like it used to. We've become niche funny in a niche world. 

But in the seventies and eighties, you had to be universally funny. Everyone had to get the joke. And Gene Wilder was genuinely funny. And the funny part of him being funny, the really funny part, is that he wasn't telling jokes. His talent was the reaction to a brilliant setup that left him with that prose taken out of context is just ordinary, but with him made funny. He was the straight man as funny. Wilder was the whole package: the writing, the timing, the looks he would give. We don't see that very much anymore. 

He will forever be remembered as Willy Wonka, that magical man and his factory that still thrills children, and former children, to this day. He was brilliant in Blazing Saddles as the Waco Kid, his turn as the aforementioned Dr. Frankenstein (pronounced Fronk-en-steen) or his turn as the accountant with a dream in The Producers with Zero Mostel. And then there is the stuff of film legend, his classic parings with Richard Pryor in Silver Streak and Stir Crazy. Pure Hollywood magic. Man but they were funny together. I hope they meet up in heaven. Well, I think Richard might be able to get day passes or something. (Richard was the greatest, but let's be real here.)

Mr. Wilder. We couldn't ask for more, and can't thank you enough. 

This shouldn't be happening.

This is a political post. 

Alton Sterling And Philando Castile.

I shouldn't know these names. I shouldn't have to know about these names. These incidents should not have happened. This shouldn't be the America I live in. I am just so tired of this.

Will these names join the list of names where justice fails. We all know the drill: Death. Suspension of the officer. Blame the victim. No charges filed/No conviction. Repeat. Are we to believe that in every single instance, now numbering in the hundreds, this is always okay? It's like the prosecutors aren't even trying. 

Let's be clear here. Even those considered THUGS have rights. The victim having a police record does not justify a police shooting. And when did we reach the point where compliance gives the officer has the right to shoot?

I just... I tried to let my thoughts settle here, to figure out what to say. But I just can't. Not right now.