A repeat -my annual Harlem X Mas poem-but it could be anywhere

Was The Night Before Christmas ( and all through the hood) A Daniel Carlton Joint

Harlem Christmas

By Daniel Carlton

It was the night before Christmas

All through the hood

Things were type quiet

You could say all good

The crack fiends were chilling

The weed heads and alkies too

It was so chill

Like the whole block took medicine for the flu

Windows were blinging

With colorful lights

It was like being in Times Square at midnight

The kids sleeping hard

But keeping their cool

On none of their mouths could you see any drool.

Dreaming about X boxes, dolls, and play stations too

Don’t Dreaming make the world feel brand new?

My shorty who is as fine as can be

Was looking flavalicious delicious

Hanging lights on the tree

I was about to give a hug you know, get me some love

When I heard this sound on the fire escape above

I grabbed my bat and ran to the window

Somebody is trying to get hurt messing with my flow

I looked up and saw this dude who was big like fat Joe

Or was it a pimp?

I kept hearing ho, ho,ho

Below on the street was a raggedy ride

I must of been tripping

It looked like it could fly

It was tagged up with some crazy names

Like dancer and prancer and does that say Rick James?

I needed a closer look to see what was up with this dude

But my Grandma would pop me if she saw me being rude

Then he looked at me with bight shiny eyes

I could tell that it wasn’t because he was high

He had on a red suit that looked real nice

His white belt was so big -on me- it would wrap around twice

His beard game was smooth

His sideburns were tight

Something about him was chill

Not looking for a fight

Then it hit me

I swear that it did

I hadn’t thought about him since I was a kid

He said “I see that you recognize who I am”

Then he rubbed his big belly full of mac and cheeses, fried chicken and ham

“ It’s good to be back in Harlem

This much is true”

“The Schomberg, Apollo, and Lenox Avenue too.

I,ve got to get over to Slyvia’s and get some soul food for my boo.”

“But first it ‘s time to pass out these gifts”

“The folks of Harlem need things that uplift”

“I can’t give out apartments that people can afford.

Somebody better get it together before they become null and void”

“I can’t teach the children how to read

Recognize that in your house video games aren’t a need”

“A book is the way to travel real cheap

You don’t even have to leave your couch and the stars you can reach”

“Everybody in life wants to have fun

How does that work if you have a gun?”

“Parents when they take time with young ones

Become the youth’s connection to the sun”

“Kids need to be kids

They’ll grow up soon enough

They’ll find out that without love

Life can be rough”

“Love has to work two ways though

Or you’ll find yourself in a hole face down and covered with snow”

With that said I have to bounce-you know time to go”

“Ho, Ho , Ho”

He was gone like a ghost.

Without leaving toys his presents were still the most

The gift of knowledge was what he dropped

If we use them and share them

We can’t be stopped.

Sing with me( To the tune of Good Times) "Aint We Lucky we got It "Gentrified"

A friend posted the lyrics to the theme song from the show "Good Times" the other day. This got me to thinking about how much I loved this show as a little kid." Sing with me y'all "

Just looking out of the window watching the asphalt grow"-huh? Thinking how it all looks hand me down" Good times "Temporary layoffs- Good Times- Easy Credit Rip Offs - Good Times- Scratching Surviving - Good Times. Hanging In a Chow Line( was just told what that lyric was after all of these years) " Aint we lucky we got em-good tiiimes -Yeah!

" On paper (now) we could all read those lyrics and go wtf? The plots were kind of heavy too. James the father would finally get a job after searching for months -only to then get laid off on his first day before his lunch break. The Kids would get mugged in the elevator (when it worked) , child abuse across the hall ( Micheal Jackson's little sister no less), gangs ( who could be intimidated by one hard look from the dad), teenage pregnancy, broken dreams,e.t.c. Oh and the word ghetto was used so often that it felt like an alternate/parallel universe where hard times were always still good times in the end. Man , did I love their" ghetto" much more then I did my own various "hoods" thats for sure. Maybe it was the laugh track.

Neighborhoods change from ghettos to hot and happening properties that's for sure.

Today the kids on "Different Strokes" could be adopted by a rich white man who moves them ....right across the street.

Cue laugh track:

My pitch for a new TV show: "Gentrified" Watch the wacky shenanigans of a family trying to hold on to their apartment as they try to get their kids through a failing school, budget an unemployment check, and sip mojitos at the new in spot in their suddenly hip neighborhood.

Episode # 1 - We see our head of household mother ( named after a state of course) staring at the bills. An R Kelly inspirational song is playing in the background

cue laugh track :

A knock is heard on the door. It is her 22 year old neighbor-who shares the apartment with 10 other 22 year olds straight out of college (and new to the up and coming area renamed by hip downtown newspapers). She is here to apologize to our head of household single parent for not recognizing her while she (the mother) was standing at the door with her hands full of grocery bags fumbling for her keys. "I mean but really , it was an honest mistake when I let the door slam in your face instead of holding it for you and letting you in" said our fresh from Idaho innocent neighbor. "This hood can still be a bit dicey if you know what I mean" She adds for good measure. The mother slams her door. A loud rap song can be heard from the apartment of our "anyone could have made the same mistake" perplexed innocent neighbor as she exits into her great "deal"( for hundreds of dollars a month more) apt . The last sound is of her roommates chanting along to the chorus" I keep it real son/ Got my Gun/ I keep it real son/ In my hood we never run. Or " Wu Tang Clan aint Nothin to $%#% with"

Cue :Laugh track*

Scene 2 : We see a tall and dark young man walking down the street. He is dressed in a shirt and tie. He is wearing a fitted baseball cap. we don't know where he is headed , but based on the attention that he is getting from the various police who stop and frisk him every 20 yards or so, he is clearly an important person of interest.

Cue laugh track as he empties his pockets and assumes the position for the 15th time.

Scene 3 : A crowded cafe. Well heeled patrons are enjoying wine and various culinary treats. One of the original neighborhood residents walks in-Dead silence

Cue Laugh track

Scene 4 - Her daughter who is working 2 jobs shows up to her first gig which is a bank. The manager tells her that she is being laid off. He does an exaggerated " What can I do?" shrug. Camera pans in on the stimulus check sitting on his desk.

cue laugh track

Aint we lucky we got it? Gentrifiiiiiiied -yeah!

It's the laugh track right?

Scottsboro Boys The Musical/ Double Consciousness In The Theater and even In This Review

Saw a play last night on Broadway aka "The Great White Way called The Scottsboro Boys Musical. The premise : A minstrel show performance to tell the tale of 9 young Black men who were charged with assaulting and raping two white women in a train car during the year 1931 in the state of Alabama. I couldn't help but think of W.E.B Dubois and double consciousness as I took in this mode of a storytelling device .

Some definition in the actual quote before I go on:

From W.E.B Dubois

"It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,--an American, a Negro; two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder"

I watched the show from double perspectives.

Two-ness:

Consciousness 1) In terms of the art of it all -The acting was flawless. The staging was clever. The history accurate. The props and minimal set -brilliant . The songs-wonderful and touching. I would make a terrible critic, because I usually get what the creators are trying to do and say . In this case I believe that it was showing through the minstrel show how ridiculous the dehumanizing imagery appears in the context of a story that shows what the inside lives of these innocent victims of American stereotyping and fear of the Black man looks like if you changed the lens in which this was viewed. The cultural diet that fueled the hate and violence perpetuated against us for so long was fortified by images on stage, film, visual art and even toys that presented us as comical savages who could on a dime into wild beasts that had to be contained by any means necessary. Minstrel shows were very popular forms of entertainment for folks who liked a good , fun, and safe coon show. In this production by using the Black actors to play the white folks in all their ridiculousness , hatred, manipulations, and negative contribution to the narrative of a justice journey reenacted from the prospective of the wronged using the tool(the minstrel show itself), a reversal was the intent.

Consciousness 2 ) The first 15 minutes of this show was such a tour de force coon show that it left a knot in my stomach that stayed the entire show. As many of the non blacks laughed hardily at the depictions of exaggerated showmanship . bad jokes, rubbery faces , I had to keep telling myself that there was a bigger point to the whole thing. Sheer will kept me from just walking out. My logical self kept telling my emotional self that any non Black person who bought tickets to a show titled The Scottsboro Boys was probably not a member of the KKK-but what was so damn funny about Tambo and Bones? The clothes, makeup, dancing, singing , were painful reminders that entertainment first-history 2nd was the priority order. I could have absorbed so much more of the story without having to calm myself down throughout when the cooning would become to much. The ending tried to tie all of it together by bringing all of the characters on stage in blackface for the finale; They then wipe it off in an act of defiance against the White ringmaster. I get it. I would have gotten it anyway( without the final trip into degradation). The history of this gross miscarriage of justice is enough of a story-it doesn't need to be guided by a white man, buffoonery as a guide into the real storytelling, or anything else but the truth of it all.

I am not the art police. I know how tricky intent and final execution can be in the creation of art. I have a character in my show " Memories of Self: Timeless Journey To Weeksville who is a minstrel performer. The premise is that you are the first white visitor into his house. This performer bought his house from the proceeds of his "entertaining" He quotes Shakespeare and Plato often. When he believes that he is exposing to much , he slips back into the dialect that he believes is the only way that the visitor can accept all of his story. Why ? I will quote that great poet Dunbar; We Wear the Mask

WE wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

The show is closing soon. I suggest that you see it -so that we can talk about it( From either or both layers of our consciousness.

Shadows In The Dark- World Aids Day 2010-a repeat posting

This came out of an exercise that I did with a group of young people around H.I.V.

Shadows In The Dark

By Daniel Carlton

I am

A shadow in the dark

In need of a spark

Ask me no secrets

Or I’ll tell you all lies

I’m all about creeping

It’s you who need the alibis

Fluids flow through intertwined bodies above below, and between the sheets

Hidden for the temporary blindness provided by lust and it’s heat

Denial and wishful thinking meet on this dead end street

Blinded by orgasms that bind instant gratification

Passport less I travel through nations

Reality on vacation

Guarantees new patients

Believing that protection is akin to castration

Gives chance after chance for me to stream through a cell creating mutations

I pursued /stalked/ trailed:

a player known as Magic

Arthur Ashe’s blood transfusion turned tragic

A kid who would never grow old named Ryan White

In addition to me there was fear and hate that he had to fight

Not only celebrities pretend that they don’t love who they love

Word from the pulpit “ Punish them freaks with justice from above”

Junkies on lines trying to ease some kind of pain

A short trip for all via mainlines to their veins

Babies seeking food from the gift of the breast

Mothers who never suspected that they needed a test

Not just some dude locked up and down low

A Hint Of Something :

I ‘m potentially everyone that you know

Synonyms: stalker, tail, tracker, pursuer

For Colored (Blank) Who've Considered Suicide when the ( Blank) wasn't enough

Image via Wikipedia
So Tyler Perry will soon release the movie Version of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf is a 1975 play by Ntozake Shange. It's such a classic for so many folks( particularly Women Of Color) that it's hard for some to imagine what in the world is Tyler Perry going to do to it?

The writer herself chimed in recently saying something to the effect of telling him that he'd better not bring Madea into it. I am reserving judgement of course until I see it on cable. I'm sure that it will be a girls night out for women all over the Diaspora the way that Waiting To Exhale was ( and Sex In The City too) . I'm not particularly interested in sitting for two hours of AmenCorner bonding over the "Brutha's aint sh%$%&^T" See how bad they do us" bonding. I don't however deny the value and need to hear Sistah's voices. When I was a kid , I hated the Color Purple because I thought that the message was Black Men aint no damn good. As an adult , I see both the pathos and triumph in the story Perspective can and does change.. Maybe one day I'll actually see "How Stella Got her Groove back

.

In the meantime, here is my list of For Colored (Blank) Who've Considered Suicide when the ( Blank) wasn't enough :

For Colored contact wearers.Who've Considered Suicide …When the blonde weave wasn’t enough
For Orange Colored Jump Suit wearers who've considered suicide when parole wasn't
enough
For multi colored suit wearers who've considered suicide when rainbow gators weren't enough
For National Association For The Advancement of Colored people who considered suicide when Black members of the tea party were too much
enough
For Color Tv watchers who've considered black and white or cable suicide when the BET awards were too much
For Rose colored glasses wearers who considered suicide when The tea party’s rainbow coalition attacks were enough

For Sun colored Brown Indigenous People who’ve considered Suicide when The Nina , Pinta, and The Santa Maria wasn’t enough

Langston dreams/the nightmares of war

Many of us know the great and prolific Langston Hughes because of his dream poems. His ability to capture the voices of the people of Harlem in my opinion is unparalleled. The plays, poems, and short stories are the essence of Black America. Mr Hughes had some less publicized themes in his work too: He was crystal clear in his verses about war and it's cause /effect on the world.
(War by Langston Hughes)
The face of war is your face/ the face of war is my face
What color is the face of war?
Brown, Black.,White- your face and my face.
Death is the broom I take in my hands/ To sweep the world clean
I sweep and I sweep/ Then mop and I mop
I dip my broom in blood/my mop in blood/ and blame you for this
Because you are there/Enemy/
It’s hard to blame me, because I am here
So I kill you/ and you kill me
My name/like your name
Is War

Or: Comment On War
"Let us kill off our youth/For the sake of truth/ We who are old know what TRUTH is/ Truth is a bundle of vicious lies/tied together and sterilized-A war makers bait for unwise youth/To kill off each other /For the sake of TRUTH"

and: “Poem To A dead solider”

We who sent you to your doom/ now we make soft speeches/and sob soft cries/and throw soft flowers/and utter soft lies

But of course this is Mr Hughes, solutions and demands from the people's perspective are always available in his huge canon:
: (Give Us Our Peace
Give us a peace equal to the war Or else our souls will be unsatisfied/
And we will wonder what he have fought for/and why the many died
Give us a peace accepting every challenge
The challenge of the poor, the black of all denied/ the challenge of the vast colonial world that long has had so little justice by it’s side.
Give us a peace that dares us to be wise/Give us a peace that dares us to be strong
Throughout the peace our battle against wrong
Give us a piece that is not cheaply used
A peace that is no clever scheme/ A people’s peace for which men can enthuse/A peace that brings reality to our dream
Give us a Peace that will enlist a mighty army serving all mankind
Not just an army geared to kill/ but trained to help the living mind
An army trained to help the common good/and bring about a world of brotherhood

A few years ago, I wrote a play with some high school students around these poems ( titled Love And War) The students added their own poems around the theme of the heart as a battlefield.
These poems are from the excellent : The Collected Poems Of Langston Hughes.
Peace!

Kool Aid Smiles-or Let's reclaim it before it becomes what the Tea Party has become to tea and parties

Word Association: Tea Party? What comes to mind? Palin, racists, President Obama haters, people spitting on freedom fighting/peace loving icons from the civil rights movement. Maybe even the whole Boston thing back in Colonial times is where it is for you( although Crispus Attacks* is the only part of that scene that interests me). Just a few years back : Little girls pretending that there Barbie dolls were having a pleasant afternoon,or genteel gatherings to discuss arts and culture. Or just the Brits being anti coffee snobs.


Kool Aid : Jim Jones and The Jonestown Massacre-which probably led to folks believing that it is synonymous with a fatal last drink because you believed in a false prophets' demand that you take a sip as your final ambrosia before an awaited next life paradise.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Let us reclaim our drinks as good times/ liquid fun.
We better do it (heaven forbid ) before it happens to lemon aid too.

Ok lets visualize: Picture yourself on a hot summer day during your childhood. You've just come from outside soaked in sweat; You open the refrigerator door and see that pitcher just glistening. What's in it. KOOL AID ( insert flavor)! Sure, there is enough sugar in that one plastic picture to give half of China diabetes( but that's not the point here). You were on your way to a kool aid smile. Why you probably wouldn't have been shocked if while you were sipping on the bomb drink-the Kool aid giant smiling pitcher with legs and arms came crashing through the walls! Today he would be called the multi flavored terrorist for doing that. Reclaim Our Drinks Folks!
It may be too late for tea. Let's not let Kool Aid get shifted into propaganda in strawberry, celebrity gossip in cherry, war against terrorism/military industrial complex in lime,police brutality/justified law enforcement homicide in grape, or anything else that could corrupt:
Apple, Bunch Berry, Blastin' Berry Cherry, Blue Berry Blast, Cherry, Cherry Cracker, Chocolate, Cola, Eerie Orange, Frutas, Frutas Vermelhas, Golden Nectar, Grape, Grape Blackberry, Grape Tang, Melon Mango, Strawberry Splash, Great Blueberry, Great Blue-dini, Groselha, Guaraná,Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade, Incrediberry, Kickin-Kiwi-Lime, Kolita, Lemon, Lemonade, Lemonade Sparkle, Lemon-Lime,Lime, Man-o-Mangoberry, Mango, Mountainberry Punch, Oh-Yeah Orange-Pineapple, Orange, Orange Enerjooz, Pina-Pineapple, Pink Lemonade, Pink Swimmingo, Purplesaurus Rex, Rainbow Punch, Raspberry, Roarin' Raspberry Cranberry, Rock-a-Dile Red, Root Beer, Scary Black Cherry, Scary Blackberry, Sharkleberry Fin, Slammin' Strawberry-Kiwi, Soarin' Strawberry-Lemonade, Strawberry, Strawberry Falls Punch, Strawberry Split, Strawberry-Raspberry, Sunshine Punch, Surfin' Berry Punch, Tangerine, Tropical Punch, Watermelon-Cherry, Shaking Starfruit

Maybe I'll start the Kool Aid Party! Daniel Carlton says " You are the flavor that you savor". Reclaim Your Drinks!

* Crispus Attacks ( A Black Man) was considered by many historians to be the first person to die in the American Revolution