The Work

Last year (AKA THE PAST) was full of ups and down. Everything had an edge. It was easy to feel out of sorts, out of control. This is the time we take back the reins and remove this “new normal” where hate and bigotry, homo and xenophobia exists unchecked. Balance. Consistency. Action.

I am not going to list my resolutions. I’m not going to mention whether I even created a list. It’s not important. What is important is to get this life under control, to hold back a little of yourself FOR yourself.

You will not be able to stay home, brother
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and drop out
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip
Skip out for beer during commercials
Because the revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruption
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
Blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John Mitchell
General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
Hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary

The revolution will not be televised

The revolution will be brought to you by the Schaefer Award Theatre and
will not star Natalie Wood and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
Thinner, because The revolution will not be televised, Brother

There will be no pictures of you and Willie Mays
Pushing that cart down the block on the dead run
Or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance
NBC will not predict the winner at 8:32or the count from 29 districts

The revolution will not be televised

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
Brothers in the instant replay
There will be no pictures of young being
Run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process
There will be no slow motion or still life of
Roy Wilkens strolling through Watts in a red, black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the right occasion
Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and
Hooterville Junction will no longer be so damned relevant
and Women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day

The revolution will not be televised

There will be no highlights on the eleven o’clock News
and no pictures of hairy armed women Liberationists and
Jackie Onassis blowing her nose
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb, Francis Scott Key
nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash
Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth

The revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be right back after a message
About a whitetornado, white lightning, or white people
You will not have to worry about a germ on your Bedroom
a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl
The revolution will not go better with Coke
The revolution will not fight the germs that cause bad breath
The revolution WILL put you in the driver’s seat
The revolution will not be televised

WILL not be televised, WILL NOT BE TELEVISED

The revolution will be no re-run brothers
The revolution will be live

Songwriters: GIL SCOTT-HERON
© Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
For non-commercial use only.
Data From: LyricFind

A New Start (Sort of)

Blessings on you and yours. Keep coming back!

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, with respect to the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all, and a successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2020 but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other great cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great (not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only “America” in the Western Hemisphere), and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform, or sexual preference of the wishee.

[Note: By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with any and all alterations to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and said warranty is limited to replacement of this or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.]

Best wishes (subject to the above warranty and disclaimer),

Political correctness aside, may 2020 be your best year ever!

ADD/CW/AW

Nugget

Two years old today. My boy’s boy. His first born. He has been in his own space, locked in combat with a body that he can’t control, since he was 9 weeks old. I want so much for him. I want to see him run and play, hear his laughter, see his smile. And I am denied.

I know he is in there. I feel him. I sense him. And more aptly, I love him. His confinement is physical, mine mental. And yet we are both the same. He is a part of me.

Happy Birthday, my sweet, little Wolf, my Nugs.

Nana

Bravery

Floyd Martin

Think you are brave because you go to a racist rally surrounded by thousands of like assholes carrying guns? Fuck you, you ain’t shit.
You know what is brave? A 12-year old Gay boy coming out of the closet in middle school because he can’t live in a closet and getting his ass kicked at school every fucking day?
You know what’s brave? A 39 year old Trans woman on the streets of Chicago working again tonight because no one else will hire her, and hoping this isn’t the last night she has to do this shit.
You know what is brave? A 24-year old black woman, single mom (because her baby daddy is in prison because of a fucked up penal system) with three kids, dropping those babies at daycare she can’t afford, to go work at a stupid fast-food restaurant for shit wages to give her children a better life.
You know what is brave? A 57 year old Gay man that has been HIV+ for 30 years and feels like shit and has watched all of his friends die, and still gets up the gumption to go to the store and smile at a stranger who stares at him like he has two heads.
You know what is brave? Going home and telling your white Republican Baptist church deacon dad, you’re in love with a black man, another woman, a Mexican or a Muslim.
You know what is brave? Defending your country and all she stands for, and not walking in the streets like a coward fearful of someone’s else’s skin tone.
No, There are a million examples of bravery. Being an self-important, entitled, racist bastard is not one of them.

You Will Fail

There is a reason the Union Jack left Boston harbor
There is a reason the confederacy fell
There is a reason Hitler’s final solution failed
There is a reason McCarthy was shamed for life
There is a reason the barricades at Selma gave in
There is a reason the segregation signs came down one by one
There is a reason the Berlin Wall fell
And there is a reason that Charlottesville will belong to the correct side of history.
To all those who deny life liberty and the pursuit of happiness to all races, religions, genders
Consider this
Others have failed… what makes you think you’ll win?“

New Year’s Greeting

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, with respect to the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all, and a successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2019, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other great cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great (not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only “America” in the Western Hemisphere), and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform, or sexual preference of the wishee.

[Note: By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with any and all alterations to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and said warranty is limited to replacement of this or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.]

Best wishes (subject to the above warranty and disclaimer),
the Webbs

Triggers

People need to realize that when a certain age is reached, the drama needs to end. When you are grown, the games need to stop. If you can’t stop them, you at least should be capable of learning who you can inflict with your inner madness. Life, no matter how old you are, is too short for some of the drama.

I understand that we all use what has been most effective for coping. But people! Please recognize that the whiney, baby sniffles that worked on your parents when you were TWO, don’t work when you’re over forty. At least it doesn’t work on me. And far from bringing us closer as friends or coworkers, neighbors or even family, it drives a wedge and makes me clamor for the peace that you are trying to disturb. Snap the hell out of your world of self-absorption. You only defeat your goal and tick me off.

This Trip Around the Sun

I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions. I used to be but then I’d get disappointed when I didn’t make it. So now I just make of things I’d like to accomplish before this trip around the sun ends.

I’d like to:

  1. Increase my swimming ability
  2. Spend more time with my furbabies
  3. Finish at least 3 crochet projects a week.
  4. Learn (yet) another language.
  5. Make a friend.
  6. Get healthier.
  7. Lose *^% pounds

56

I have never liked the idea of the backstory, the rags to riches tale that every minority or person of color who garnered any success had to have in order to prove to White people that no matter what the odds, we could improve our lot if we just tried hard enough.

I grew up in East St. Louis, Illinois. Started out in the projects next to the high school where I would eventually graduate in one of the top ten. There is nothing spectacular about that because it was expected of us. In a town where more than 95% of the population was Black, it was the norm. Because of the flavor of our family, I didn’t really see or understand what true racism was.

We moved from the projects across town into a beautiful home that had been owned by a banker. He was a participant in the “White Flight” movement. Within the year, my neighbors on both sides of us (also white) would move. I loved my life, new home and making new friends. I didn’t realize that the childhood I enjoyed was an oddity. Everyone had two parent homes, friends of different ethnicities, relatives who had children out of wedlock.

M first years on the planet were fairly reckless so I learned later in life. Retrospect is a beautiful thing. Over the next year, I will discuss some of the things I’ve learned on my trips around the sun. I will share my work, my loves, pieces of my life and tales of people who made an impact. There will be politics, religion, arts and crafts, family, whims, fancies and idiosyncrasies, I hope you enjoy the perspective of one who has survived herself. Happy Birthday to me.

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