Getting out in the AM

Ramblings Post #270
It is said that you can't keep a true player down. When he falls off in one spot he just pops back again somewhere else, with brand new game and does it all over again. That might be Iceberg Slim or a seventies blaxplotation movie, I'm not sure. Or maybe a urban interpretation of Kipling. But since I consider myself a true player, FROM THE HIMALAYA, it's time for me to pop back somewhere with a new hustle.

I took this with phone. So attribution to me. Sucka!

This is not an ad for Starbucks, or an endorsement, but as a method of "re-acclimating myself with society" after accidentally turning myself into a hermit I've taken up residence at the local coffee establishment. And let me tell you, putting on pants daily is a wild experience! I'm kidding. But this does get me out of the house, up the street and into the company of other people trying to get their hustle on. After many, many years in a strictly office environment, the number of folks who have the freedom to wander in and pay four dollars for a cup of coffee in the middle of the morning is astounding. I shouldn't knock the hustle, but wow!

At 10:30 am the joint is packed, every table being used, every seat full, people standing at the counter, the drive thru humming. Yes, I realize most of you already know this happens, but I'm not a big coffee drinker. I actually use my coffee maker at home to make tea twice week. If I don't have a cuppa in the morning, I only lament wasting the coffee I've already purchased, scared it might grow stale. But my brother swears by Starbucks. I was considering getting a library card (and I still intend to get one) but this is more lively I must admit.

It is an interesting cross section of people. I've seen job interviews, business presentations and proposals, group meetings and seen people studying. One guy in the back has his own porcelain mug. The way one guy bobs his head in his headphones, I think he's mixing music, while others are just sitting and chatting or just checking email, folks reading the paper and maybe even plotting a coup in a unnamed Central American country. Or they could have been discussing a charity event, I'm not sure, it kinda loud in here. Young and old, sweater vest or baseball hat tipped to the side it seems like everyone comes to Starbucks. Maybe the library would have been better.

So, what's the point of this post? None, really. I haven't been posting in a minute, and since I'm now a "regular" I thought this would be nice filler. I do try to switch it up - some days morning, others its the afternoon. Sometimes a different Starbucks... and for the love of Georgia do not get their Sweet Tea. I just remembered that. They know coffee. Think about that for a minute.

They do play some nice jazz though.

Barkeep, no I don't want a double half caffeinated mocha latte frappa-whatever with a shot. Can I get just a coffee? Plain coffee.

He had a certain dignity. A certain bearing.

As the Mysterious Baron Samedi...

You have to be a certain age to appreciate he who was Geoffrey Holder. A tall imposing figure of a man, he sprang into existence in the greater cultural conscious as Baron Samedi in the classic James Bond film "Live and Let Die". He is actually the first movie henchman to not be killed, predating the legendary character Jaws by almost four years. I was mystified watching as the credits rolled and his very much alive figure straddled the front of the train that carried a triumphant Bond sped into the night...after Bond had supposedly killed him. Twice. 

Or if you're a bit younger you might remember him as the libertine art director in Eddie Murphy's also now classic opus to love "Boomerang." Holder's distinctive deep baritone voice, his interpretation of the words on paper to create the character of Nelson. The man in a few screen moments managed to portray an odd, educated yet wickedly perverse person, whom you knew you wanted to hang out with just ONE time so you could say you did it. Think about all the other characters in the film, wouldn't Nelson have been someone to follow into the night for drinks...just to see what would happen?
 

Geoffrey Holder - Actor.

But in reality he was a actor. A stage actor. Live theater. No retakes, just talent. Winner of Tonys. Revolutionary is how people have referred to him. And most of us were just amazed by the little we did see. Imagine had we been privy to it all. Mr. Holder, I wish there had been an opportunity to see more of your magic. But thanks just the same, for I am grateful for what I did receive. 

Odd Quotes

Photo from Somewhere. I wish I give it the proper credit.

 “Self-acceptance comes from meeting life's challenges vigorously. Don't numb yourself to your trials and difficulties, nor build mental walls to exclude pain from your life. You will find peace not by trying to escape your problems, but by confronting them courageously. You will find peace not in denial, but in victory.”
~ Swami Sivananda

Things I don't want to comment on

Ramblings Post #269
These topics keep either popping back up or begged for attention in the moment I just couldn't get to them. No matter how many times I nailed that door shut. By the way, me cleaning up my junk room was NOT one of the reasons I couldn't get to these, although it should have been. I'm coming for you room! I don't want to comment, but I am. Because sometimes you just need to mumble a bit and then stumble your way the bar and pretend you just arrived.

Sometimes, the hair on the back of your neck stands up, the sensation of uneasy fills in the bottom of your gut, your feet itch, a familiar sound or the movie cliche of decade - You've just got a bad feeling about this. None of your five senses registers it, but your brain suddenly suggests you probably should be somewhere else like, now. That's what my literary skills are doing right.

In between studying for another test to take I had been working on a project, a story that sprang up after a writing exercise, and then erroneously got into a online conversation with a black feminist which is a whole different story in and of itself, and so now I'm behind in my own personal schedule. But these are front page items that demand I say something. Well, not demand, more insist. And I am reluctantly. Even though I got a bad feeling about this.

ISIS (or whatever the new designation is)
My personal feeling is that we should leave it the Middle East constituency to handle this threat, the latest in a seemingly endless line of threats. Only our foreign policy has historically neutered all our allies except Israel, which is a whole other set of comments I have not desire to make. Has any one just tried offer them some pizza? I mean like real, real good pizza. Or nachos?

Ferguson, MO
I don't want to speak on Ferguson again because by now I thought it would be over. They arrested Zimmerman after a month, I mean really. And now because the Prosecutor has essentially told the grand jury to figure it out for yourselves, making no recommendation for a charge, this will only continue to get ugly. One can only hope at this point the Feds step in before this just gets too blatant. So, which rap star concerned citizen is going to stand out there for the voter registration drive?

Stuff Involving Celebrities or them being pregnant.
This isn't worth the time it took me to write this sentence.

Joan Rivers
She could be a bitter old lady, contentious and at times extremely nasty. But she paved the way for a whole lot of women comics to come behind her. While Lucy was family friendly and goofy, Joan let the ladies behind her talk about sex and sexuality, and stood shoulder to shoulder with her male contemporaries, true comic heavyweights. She might not have shared your views on the topics you deemed important, like feminism, so now after death you want to demonize her? Is that who we've become? Where some talk about being a feminist, she actually was one.

Ray Rice
As currently the only one acceptable way to talk about this issue is in trying to decide if Rice is evil personified, the personfication of evil or maybe a person of evilfication; and which NFL officer should commit hari-kari first for lying; or how the NFL now needs to give all it's profits to women in restitution, means I'm not going to discuss it here. I'm not going to defend Rice, what he did was wrong plain and simple, but there are too many other lessons here that the collective rage is missing and doesn't want to talk about because it provide less time to call Rice evil. Which is kinda sad. 

Barkeep. It's been a minute, hasn't it. A bourbon and sprite for old times sake. Three cubes.

The House I Want (Part Two)

Planning for the Future Post #2 

I couldn't find a picture of the room I'm describing, but I like this...

The house I want will have a library. Not just a bookshelf or two, but a library. A whole room dedicated to the idea of reading. I've gone to people's homes...people who have children...and seen nary a book or bookshelf. There are so many things wrong with that. Books allow hear the voices and ideas of those beyond our time, or to learn the thoughts of people on the other side of the world.  To not read,  ugh.

I'd like it to be a good sized room, with natural light if possible, with lots of wood in a burnished dark brown. Floor to ceiling bookshelves. A comfortable leather chair or two, with ottomans. Chairs big enough to curl up in and get lost in an adventure, or fall asleep in with book resting on your chest. A small book table or two. A little art. If there is room, maybe a bookshelf that hides a secret door that leads to a little room where I keep acrylic models of spaceships and 3D maps of places.  

No computer...that's a separate room, no stereo, just books. A place where you could sit down with a good book and get lost in your own mind.

Odd Quotes

Is the good life really that good?

 "Sometimes when people get what they want, they realize how limited their goals were."
~ Internet