Account due. (1st draft)

She thought of herself as an old woman. An elder. A veteran of years of this community, of babies born and old folk dying, the life cycle of any neighborhood, hamlet, town, city.

Her roots were deep here. Her siblings had settled close to where they were born, but she had gone and come back. Sought her fortune in greener pastures, she had said. For years now though, she had made it back to where she came from, to people who knew her, as she said, when she was ugly. Secrets lost to time, but dredged up over a Sunday dinner or a leisurely porch sit.

As the years went by, her siblings died off. Each funeral an exercise in grief and sadness, as she comforted their children and grandchildren. Reminding them that they were loved and now their mom or dad was with the Lord now, free from pain and waiting for them to join them up there.

A couple of brothers owned businesses, and she had leaned on them for things. One was a contractor, so when she needed home repairs or some heavy equipment to dig a hole of mow her huge fromt lawn, he obliged after a phone call. No money changed hands, no recompense spoken of. For her end, though, she had hot food ready whenever he showed up, and sometimes he’d call just to check on her and she’d idly drop the list of what she had made – greens with smoked turkey, or a pan of Mac and cheese, or brisket sandwich on toasted white bread, a red velvet cake, a pitcher of lemonade – and he’d find his way to her house. They all did; the family used her house as a meeting place, a place to check in and sit a spell.

TBut that brother was gone, relatively recently, and she missed him something terrible. Not for what he did for her, you understand, but his loud laugh and his exhaustion after a long day of work, drawn out to her stewpot, but asleep at the table with fork in hand. He was gone, and his kids were running his business now, and they knew how much their daddy loved her, so they would call and ask every now and again, “how you doin Auntie? Need anything?” and she would laugh and say no.

This day, she needed something small – a photocopy of some documents, a few sticks of kindling, a 40 watt light bulb – and one of her nieces calls to see how she is.

“You need something Auntie?”

She explains the situation, and before her nine can acquiesce, she laughs. “Your dad woulda ran that out to me after he got off work, and I’d pay him back with a plate of something he liked. I guess that account is closed, huh?”

Her niece responded, “auntie, as long as we hear, your accoShe thought of herself as an old woman. An elder. A veteran of years of this community, of babies born and old folk dying, the life cycle of any neighborhood, hamlet, town, city.

Her roots were deep here. Her siblings had settled close to where they were born, but she had gone and come back. Sought her fortune in greener pastures, she had said. For years now though, she had made it back to where she came from, to people who knew her, as she said, when she was ugly. Secrets lost to time, but dredged up over a Sunday dinner or a leisurely porch sit.

As the years went by, her siblings died off. Each funeral an exercise in grief and sadness, as she comforted their children and grandchildren. Reminding them that they were loved fiercely and now their mom or dad or aunt or uncle was with the Lord now, free from pain and waiting for them to join them up there, as long as they continued to read their Bible and do the right things.

A couple of her brothers had owned businesses, and she had leaned on them for things, but not too often, mind you. One was a contractor, so when she needed home repairs or some heavy equipment to dig a hole or mow her huge fromt lawn, he obliged after a phone call. No money changed hands, no recompense spoken of. For her end, though, she had hot food ready whenever he showed up, and sometimes he’d call to check on her and she’d happen to mention what she had made – greens with smoked turkey, or a pan of mac and cheese, or brisket sandwich on toasted white bread, a red velvet cake, a pitcher of lemonade – and he’d find his way to her house. They all did; the family used her house as a meeting place, a place to check in and sit a spell.

But that contractor brother was gone, recently gone to sit with the Lord, and she missed him something terrible. Not for what he did for her, you understand, but his loud laugh and his exhaustion after a long day of work, drawn out to her stewpot, but asleep at the table with fork in hand. He was gone, and his kids were running his business now, and they knew how much their daddy loved her, so they would call and ask every now and again, “how you doin Auntie? Need anything?” and she would laugh and say no.

This day, she needed something small – a photocopy of some documents, a few sticks of kindling, a 40 watt light bulb – and one of her nieces calls to see how she is.

“You need something Auntie?”

She explains the situation, and before her niece can volunteer, she laughs. “Your dad woulda ran that out to me after he got off work, and I’d pay him back with a plate of something he liked. I guess that account is closed, huh? Can’t bother young folk like I did these old folk.”

She thought of herself as an old woman. An elder. A veteran of years of this community, of babies born and old folk dying, the life cycle of any neighborhood, hamlet, town, city.

Her roots were deep here. Her siblings had settled close to where they were born, but she had gone and come back. Sought her fortune in greener pastures, she had said. For years now though, she had made it back to where she came from, to people who knew her, as she said, when she was ugly. Secrets lost to time, but dredged up over a Sunday dinner or a leisurely porch sit.

As the years went by, her siblings died off. Each funeral an exercise in grief and sadness, as she comforted their children and grandchildren. Reminding them that they were loved fiercely and now their mom or dad or aunt or uncle was with the Lord now, free from pain and waiting for them to join them up there, as long as they continued to read their Bible and do the right things.

A couple of her brothers had owned businesses, and she had leaned on them for things, but not too often, mind you. One was a contractor, so when she needed home repairs or some heavy equipment to dig a hole or mow her huge fromt lawn, he obliged after a phone call. No money changed hands, no recompense spoken of. For her end, though, she had hot food ready whenever he showed up, and sometimes he’d call to check on her and she’d happen to mention what she had made – greens with smoked turkey, or a pan of mac and cheese, or brisket sandwich on toasted white bread, a red velvet cake, a pitcher of lemonade – and he’d find his way to her house. They all did; the family used her house as a meeting place, a place to check in and sit a spell.

But that contractor brother was gone, recently gone to sit with the Lord, and she missed him something terrible. Not for what he did for her, you understand, but his loud laugh and his exhaustion after a long day of work, drawn out to her stewpot, but asleep at the table with fork in hand. He was gone, and his kids were running his business now, and they knew how much their daddy loved her, so they would call and ask every now and again, “how you doin Auntie? Need anything?” and she would laugh and say no.

This day, she needed something small – a photocopy of some documents, a few sticks of kindling, a 40 watt light bulb – and one of her nieces calls to see how she is.

“You need something Auntie?”

She explains the situation, and before her niece can volunteer, she laughs. “Your dad woulda ran that out to me after he got off work, and I’d pay him back with a plate of something he liked. I guess that account is closed, huh? Can’t bother young folk like I did these old folk.”

Her niece responded, “auntie, as long as we hear, your account aint closing. Whatever Daddy woulda done for you, we can do for you too.”

Posted on by ~tbg~

Walking through Wynwood.

My first time in Miami, I had heard about this magical, artsy neighborhood, replete with graffiti and street art, and I had to go. I spent a day walking between The Museum of Graffiti and the Art of Hip Hop in Wynwood. I was absolutely blown away by the display of art there; on walls, on the ground, stickers. It had a great vibe to it that I really enjoyed. I also stopped into an art gallery and a canvas was offered to me for “only” two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but that is another story for another day.

So, on my second visit, I got at the fine people of the Wynwood Art Walk and got one of their tours via golf cart. Definitely worth the $45. In an hour’s time, even through some unseasonably cold rain, we ranged all over the neighborhood. A much better value that a quarter of a million dollar art piece.

First, my perception of the neighborhood itself.

I’ve been around a number of “artsy” neighborhoods in my travels, but none of them have the dedication to public art display that Wynwood does. The threat of gentrification is around the neighborhood, as our guide told us that she was able to get a loft for $600 in the early 2000s, and now they’re asking for $10K. The number of small businesses was notable, and the variety of stuff available was really eye-opening. I’m told that this neighborhood is special in that graffiti and art making isn’t prohibited; that you can be outside painting and the cops just roll by. Only on walls owned by businesses with explicit signage is stuff illegal. But, because of its history and status of a former warehouse district with a lot of abandoned business and bare walls, an opportunity arose, and I think the city did a great job of promoting the scene by making it a self-policing area where creatives can shine.

Can you imagine a blighted urban area, and a city says, hey. these buildings are empty and the walls are bare, we have a ton of creative people here, why don’t you put stuff up? And it’s not just graffiti or murals; simple usages of color and patterns make things look special and new and interesting. And not only involving local artists, but making the city a destination for artists worldwide is no small feat. Now you’re internationally known; what’s bad about that?

I wonder why that doesn’t work in other cities.

Secondly, the breadth of what I saw.

Our guide was a muralist, who was nonetheless knowledgable about the graffiti side of things. What struck me was that, for every burner and mural, there were VERY few throw ups and crossing out. Wall gems were generally left alone, which I’d never seen before. Longevity was rare, but did exist, and the normal turnover of work, painted over by others, did not seem to be done in an adversarial way. Walls were abundant, and the dope stuff wasn’t ruined by a quick tag or monochromatic block of letters.

It wasn’t just spray paint, either. It was acrylic. It was big and wide. On the side of multi-story buildings. It was thematic and individual. It was collaborations and stuff commenting loved ones. It was random and colorful and unapologetic. It was inside jokes and crew names and alternate identities by people aged 16-50. It was local and international, worth the pilgrimage and the risk for a tropical storm to interrupt sunny skies and 75 degrees.

I don’t know the politics, but I do know that, in other graffiti/street art communities I’ve been in, there is room for respect. The notion of meritocracy, of working your way up, of learning from the elders, and the recognition of effort and talent – a “real recognize real” – exists. It’s not just about getting your name up. It’s about getting your name up in such a way that may last more than a few days.

I am big on loosening restrictions on making things, on making time and energy and learning to get those things out of your head that you can share with world, and it seems that, in this Miami neighborhood, they have gotten it mostly right.

Posted on by ~tbg~

Where home is not.

A professor friend of mine told me that one of her students died in a car accident recently.. The student was in a car with three other young women, and one died, one was unscathed, and the other two were injured.

She said that all four were Chinese, having come over to go to school, and the one who died was a senior in college, due to graduate in June. They all lived together, all from the same area/town/city in China.

The professor went to a memorial thing for the one who died, and it was in a room with ten chairs, arranged in a circle. Clearly a small, intimate gathering, she hugged a couple of the people there and left, not wanting to take up space.

I shudder to imagine; thousands of miles from home, from family and what you knew. Thrust into a foreign land, trying to learn the language and get by while studying to make something of yourself.

Then, all gone.

I cannot fathom how that feels to have ten people show up to cry for you. And, a world away, your parents and family and childhood friends mourn, knowing that they won’t see you again.

Posted on by ~tbg~

Goals.

I am trying to be more purposeful in the media I consume, and try to drag myself out of the doldrums of watching others create and not doing myself. I am trying not to scroll IG or Pinterest, tagging things I want to draw that other people already have in an attempt to learn or mimic or re-interpret. I am trying to be more…driven to make.

My habits, as far as visual arts go, have been honed over a lifetime on the internet watching other people make awesome things. As far as the literary arts go, I’m usually reading a book and can’t easily pull out or analyze what I’m reading to inspire my own writing.

Then I read this, and it reminded me, much like when I listen to some great rap bars or an exquisitely turned simile, what I want to do with my own words.

I sent it to a few friends, and one called it “chaotic”. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of the style, but it at least evokes a reaction more pointed than “this was all right” or “I ain’t reading all that.”

 Love for a poet resists justification like a canyon resists being captured by an iPhone camera. There’s a fugitive hugeness.

I mean…yes. I get it . Why don’t my words come out like this?

Some might call this a hallucination induced by modern fandom, an effect of the parasocial phenomenon that’s been observed ad nauseam.

I would think of these words…eventually.

But this paragraph here is the pinnacle of this article, which, I will admit, I was not intending to read because of my avarice to its subject matter:

It’s the common mistake of talented people to believe it’s they who possess the talent and not the other way around. Talent is a tenant that collects rent. I don’t say this to undercut her abilities. It’s the opposite: She is talent incarnate, manifestly representative of its boons and its Faustian bargain. Talent reduces you to a host. Your best stuff visits you while you fumble haplessly for pen and paper to take dictation. Your worst stuff? It’s when you try too hard. When you interfere. It’s a cruel arrangement. You are a secretary at best, a captive at worst.

GotDAMN.

Posted on by ~tbg~

Past bedtime.

Once in a while, I stay up past my normal bedtime so I can make things. On either Friday or Saturday night, I stay up past 10 or 11 with the plan to draw and make stuff.

The thinking behind this is simple, and has proven itself to me over and over again.

There is a voice in the creative’s head that basically tells them that they suck, and that the thing they are making sucks, and everything pretty much sucks. Some of us battle that voice pretty nobly during waking hours some of the time, but sometimes that battle is too taxing to deal with.

But as you get more and more tired, that voice starts to wane. The volume not so high, and then one can get in some work. It may not be the best stuff, or most impactful, but sometimes the issue is just getting stuff out on the page, on the screen. Free of that voice telling you that your work sucks, it’s prime time to do some work.

But there’s a drawback. While your inner art critic clocks out, another kind of critic can pop up. In the quiet of the night, your personal critic can clock in.

I discovered this recently, and while I’m not too happy about it, and caused me to abort an otherwise productive night, it got me thinking.

If everything isn’t going well, or right, a voice pops up and ignores your art and goes straight for your personal jugular.

You know your friend is mad at you.

You may have been too hard on that worker that got your order wrong.

Your mom is really disappointed that you haven’t helped her with her phone.

Your girl would rather watch TV without you.

And so on. In the still of the night, your creative brain is cranking, but it’s also busy making shit up. Exaggerating, embellishing, and you’re in a prime position to listen. You may be putting down some good things on the paper, but your brain is dumping a lot of toxins into your subconscious as well, making that time normally frutful for creativity a really ad time if things in other areas of your life aren’t the best.

So, when this happened, instead of pushing through it, I sighed, closed my sketchbook, and went to bed. Tomorrow’s another day, and God willing, the more positive voices in your head will clock back in, assess the damage, and work at getting you back from the precipice of self doubt and overwhelmingly negative thinking.

Besides, sleep is great.

Posted on by ~tbg~

Of a World Series, and sports fandom.

I am a Comptonite, born and raised. I am a Los Angeleno, a Californian, an African American, a human being.

I am not patriotic in common ways, but I am loyal to where I come from. I remember growing up in a city that was a neocons’ worst nightmare. All these Black and brown people running around, a militarized police force, an attitude that we needed to be policed and corralled and ignored. I grow up and move to Chicago and lo, the same thing.

But we loved our own. We loved our heroes, we loved our sports teams, we loved our city. I was lucky enough to come of age in THE golden age of sports in Los Angeles. World championships in three sports. The Olympics. All amidst a backdrop with its soundtrack of gangsta rap and using sports as an escape.

This year, when my hometown Dodgers faced the Toronto Blue Jays, I saw it as fun and in no way an indictment of my loyalty. I am a big fan of Vladimir Guerrero Jr, having watched his dad toil in nearby Anaheim for many years, and so wouldn’t have minded Toronto winning.

But, as I said, I am loyal.

I was certainly aware of the parallels between this World Series and the events of the past two years between Drake and Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick is the hometown hero, a poet savant who simply pointed out that this Canadian dude wasn’t on his level and was faking a lot of culture bonfires which, in a genre that prides itself on rules of culture and some measure of gatekeeping, resonated in the chord of “A MINORRRRRRR”.

I was prepared to laugh this connection off; after all, neither Kendrick or Aubrey were putting on hats and adjusting batting gloves in facing down 98+mph fastballs and splitters with 15 inches of break. Neither was I. But I started to notice that not everyone saw it that way.

“We gone beat they ass like Drake did Kendrick.”

This bold statement, as wrong as it is, activated the hater in me. The latent hater, dormant since being reminded that all I ever wanted was a black Grand National last year, awakened, and it was ANGRY. ‘

Every Dodger win was proof that Kendrick was right. Every Blue Jay win was pointed to as proof that, somehow, Drake was better and more relevant and indeed won a rap war that culminated with Kendrick going in front of the world at the Super Bowl halftime and reminding him that a lot, A LOT, of people don’t like him.

So, with a Dodger win, and the marketing efforts of Nike and Major League Baseball are going to lead to another few weeks of charting for Kenfdrick’s knock-out punch “Not Like Us”, and the hater can rest again.

For now.

Posted on by ~tbg~

Dementia, you cruel motherfucker you.

It was the Air Force talk that snapped him back to lucidity.

As my uncle and brother-in-law swapped USAF stories and acronyms, something…slid into place for my father. I watched him go from quiet and withdrawn to actively participating. Listening, talking, laughing, remembering.

That lasted about an hour.

This is the same man who was my hero for years. Who knew a little about everything, whose library contained all manner of books; military strategy, nature, Black history. Who was at his happiest being outdoors, mowing his lawn or walking his property, even as I couldn’t get a hold of him because cell phones were yet to be a reliable leash to the people you loved.

But now we reached a new chapter. His care isn’t cheap, and to try to deal with his affairs from 1000 miles away is not working out for my sister or me.

But he’s taught us a lot, most importantly two things. Take care of your business: fill out a will, talk with your family about what you want and how. No one likes to talk about death, but it’s coming. It’s gonna happen, and you might as well prepare the people you love for it, emotionally and legally.

Secondly, is to LIVE. I can boast about how long my dad worked in the plant and how much blood, sweat, and tears he game for the Company, but in the scheme of things? That don’t mean shit. What wisdom did he impart? What funny stories do I have of him? Instead, I have three closets of never-opened suits, shirts, ties, and shoes to try to pass on to people who will wear them. He was prepared for a retirement of travel, and every day he was retired and didn’t go anywhere was to his detriment. He thought he’d be able to catch himself, to know when the curtain came down on his show, and he wasn’t.

And now he’s in the cruelest timeline. Scattered memories, doesn’t know where he is, confused. When I’ve shown up, he remembers who I am for now. He’s called my sister the names of his sisters. And he leaves a mess of land ownership that has taken us the better part of three years to get straight.

Physically, he’s in great shape for a man of his age. Men in my family live into their 90s if they can make it past their 70s, and he’s on that trajectory. But to live that long in a universe with constant shifts, where the faces are changing, where the short term memory of when you last ate or showered is obliterated 20 seconds afterwards, is its own unique brand of hell on earth.

In the meantime, we just keep him comfortable and safe and healthy. That’s all we can do.

The man whose name I bear is no more, but his physical form sits there, quiet and absorbed, and he’s thankfully forgotten by now that I told him I was going to go use the bathroom and never came back when we dropped him at the facility. Otherwise, he’d have wanted to follow me out, to “go home” to a house he’s never going back to, a home he built in the woods of Arkansas where he could be recluse all he wanted.

Life is a series of choices, but you’re not the only one who has to live with the choices. Be mindful of that.

In the meantime, I’m going to keep my father going for as long as he can, in a world of his own.

Posted on by ~tbg~

High schoolin’.

I was talking to a friend of mine about the fact that my high school class didn’t have a reunion this year, which would have been our 30th. (I’m old; shut up.)

Since we were a small class, and (I thought) relatively tight knit, I thought something was going to happen, or something would be planned, I would get the notice, and I’d fly out to particiapte. That was a no from them, dawg.

So I talked to my friend (who I went to high school with) about why and how this happened.

My high school years were fraught with chronic masturbation, a growth spurt, a lot of introspection, and a stable home life punctuated by hormonal outbursts, but it wasn’t problematic because of high school itself. I learned a ton. I wrote, read, experienced the highs of understanding trig and calculus and the lows of not understanding chemistry at ALL. I navigated the social waters by being friends with all the cliques, and never felt out of place amongst a group of people, from the nerds to the jocks and outcasts. I obsessed over girls, and perfected my need to be liked because, my thinking went, if I was liked, then I wouldn’t go through the hell that was middle school, where a number of people saw it their mission to destroy my self esteem.

Anyway, what has happened in the years since was the realization that a lot of people didn’t have it like I did. I was surprised when I heard from people I had hung out with that they hated high school. My mind reeled; I was there! I was around you for high school! What happened?

Thing is, some people hated the time, not high school itself. Oh, I’m sure there were people who hated high school; the homework, the wondering if one was good enough or belonged in a school where nerdom was the standard rather than an anomaly. But no one said these things to me then.

So, no reunion, and another reason I had to think about; 90% of my class still lives in Southern California, and they can see each other whenever they feel like it. I need a few weeks advance notice; these people can make plans within hours.

Add tot hat a realization that hurts, but, as my friend says, it is what it is. No one is checking for us like that. No one’s checking on us. No one’s thinking about us coming out there. If they see us, great, but no one I went to school with is trying to see me like that. No one’s coming to see you, Otis as the joke goes. And they’re not. And I have to accept that and keep it moving.

I find it kinda effed that the class before us did a reunion (which I happily crashed) and we’ll see what the class after us does, but our makeup and circumstances point towards not being what I thought, or fooled myself into thinking, that we were all friends forever or something.

We’re all adults trying to figure things out, I guess. Nothing wrong with that. But it huts a little bit, you know?

Posted on by ~tbg~

The Air Up There, Issue One.

Today, I achieved something.

On the surface, while our social net evaporates, far-right assholes run around with impunity…my little thing makes no big impact. But to understand just what this means, I have to tell a little story.

Growing up, I was the nerd, to surprise no one. I sought validation amongst my peers, I played the friend, I wanted to be liked. Academically, I was the one who had to get As. Those things combined to make my young adult life overly complicated and very contradictory.

Anyway, the things that typically visit people like me, overachieving minority kids who have the pressure of making it big and elevating others and who can’t understand how that never comes to fruition, was in full effect for me. Procrastination and perfectionism crept in, and the result was, well, a doubt in anything and everything I did. Is this good enough? Is it perfect?

Anyway, I’m older, and a number of factors have occurred to dean that inner monologue. First, the creatives I’ve allied myself are doing great things, and it’s hard to be around good people doing good things and not want for more. You really take a lot from your peers.

Secondly, a number of great people I know have died, and it became obvious that, frankly, I’m running out of time. I have some medical issues, and tomorrow ain’t promised. Doing work, whether it be a drawing or digital upload or a zine will exist after I’m gone, and it becomes a question of legacy. What do I want to be known for? What can I do to make things better around me? One of my favorite quotes of all time is from Arthur Ashe; it’s very simple.

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

I may not be able to affect international policy. I may not be able to solve huge societal issues. I don’t have the ears of the 1%. But what I can do is make my people happy. Comfortable. Safe. Show them that the world ain’t all ugly and morose and hopeless. I can write something. I can draw something.

And my zine is me drawing and writing a thing. And I hope it’s a bit of happy for someone.

It’s a beginning for me.

Posted on by ~tbg~

Trying not to be creepy.

Years ago, I was awash in gangsta rap and trying to impress people who didn’t like themselves, much less me. I was afforded a ton of opportunities, and I got to do a lot of things that I wonder now just what had to slide into place to get me those chances to do those things.

One summer, I got to do a summer program, and I made a number of lifelong friends there. One changed my life in a small, but significant way.

I was well versed in indie comics, scouring a couple of indie comic book stores for titles that appealed to me. What I was unaware of at the time was the existence of zines, self-published tracts made by people with something, anything, to share.

I was in this summer program, and a young lady there shared hers with me, and I was taken aback. I don’t have it anymore, or at least I can’t find it, but I had worn it dog-eared from how many times I had read it. And it was just so new to me; she had writing and some drawings and was going through the usual teenage shit I was going through and lived in a completely different city and I was smitten. Smitten in the way that I felt this connection, I wanted to do the same thing and maybe someone else would find their same connection with my stuff that I did with hers. Also smitten in that she was short and had glasses, and I’ve always been a sucker for short women with glasses.

So one day I’m bored and look up her name, and we have some mutual friends, oddly, and I’m wondering if I should reach out and tell her thank you, now that I’ve (finally) made a zine of my own. Would that be creepy? Would that be unwelcome? Should I let that sleeping dog lie?

Posted on by ~tbg~