fromthemouthofmoi

Science fiction has not been a genre of literature that I've paid too much attention to in my life. Not for any hard and fast reasons, I've just found myself in other aisles of the library or bookstore more often. That being said, I get well chuffed seeing a good science fiction film. During this Covid lockdown I've had more time than usual to sit around and ponder life and where we might be heading. Not in my lifetime mind you, but rather what the future might bring. What will life look like in two-hundred years? A thousand? We live at a time when everything can be documented, recorded, and made note of. I don't know if there will be a time in the distant future when archaeologists will be attempting to reboot ancient laptops and attempting to figure out what Facebook or TikTok was all about; perhaps there will be no need to dig stuff up and take wild guesses. Perhaps we are documenting life as we know it and in time the missing link of our time and place will be c

Last night I watched the live staged Broadway performance of Hamilton, which premiered for television audiences on July 3rd, 2020. I felt giddy inside while watching. If you had seen the bubble over my head you would have heard me say: Child, these white folks can't say they hate rap and hip hop anymore. General admission is two hundred bucks; if you don't want to sit in the nosebleed section of the theatre, expect to pay a thousand. I've seen oodles of plays on Broadway in my life - loved them all; even the mediocre ones and the performances that closed early from lack of enthusiasm. When I think of a musical, a Broadway musical, I am never, ever, thinking of Cats. There was a window of time in the 90's, when Times Square was crossing over from seedy to swank and I think Broadway got scared. It filled its theatre's with rank material designed for unsophisticated audiences from elsewhere, -- I'm referring to tourists -- who had a fantasy about visiting New Yor

I am lucky to have had more mothers than most. Women who entered my life when I needed guidance and love the most. I got all the good stuff without the baggage. The seeds from warriors, and women with convictions; women with visions and an abundance of love for what seemed like, only me. I got filled up. Thank you Yvette, Freda, Sue, and Blanche, Margaret and Diane. Happy Mother’s Day. Signed, That Other Kid.

Attempts are often made by guests to my home to offer me advice and to persuade me to make improvements to my home which have proven satisfactory elsewhere. Other people-- I've never been inclined to be. More than once it has been suggested that I need to install panes of thick glass in order to block the various sounds from outside. Each time this tip passes my ear, I smile vaguely, with such subtlety that I am sure my inner response goes unnoticed. Inside my head are all sorts of responses: That's the kind of guy that swears he can hear mice pissing on cotton behind walls, or, that person needs to get a job as a sonar technician on a submarine. I like sound. I acquire a level of comfort from the peripheral hum that resonates from outside my window and enters my life without any engagement or assistance from me. It enables me to be a part of life without being involved. I suppose having spent most of my life living in New York City my wiring has been arranged in such a way

It seems you left us on your wintery day. I can only sit here and wonder what kind of courage it takes. Is it courage or weariness? Is it wires crossed or having witnessed too many horrors in one short life? I don't know. Was it the shaking of your bed that bought you to your precipice? I just don't know... But in my own very bones, I know you left. If I had one more conversation with you it would only be to say goodbye. I wouldn't stop you, I'd just want to tell you how much you meant to me. How a warm glow emanated when you passed by. How I saw myself in you. How hard I tried to get you to see that life can move past war. When I read the letters you wrote to your wife I am struck by your insight. You actually understood yourself! What didn't you understand? Of all the people one might wish to drop dead, you weren't one of them. Of all the people I have known I feel a tremendous loss. You lost but I lost too. Something about you felt familiar. You felt li

I remember all three puffs vividly. I remember who I was with, where I was and what I was doing. But before I recall those puffs for you, let me give you some background. I grew up, thankfully it seems, with a parent that droned into my head that marijuana usage led to heroin and heroin led to prostitution. In my mother’s mind it was all a train ride to hell. What I was never informed of was how it was obtained.  My teenage years never saw the stuff beyond standing at bus stops, or at social gatherings where someone would inevitably, with an arm outstretched and a joint pinched between thumb and forefinger, would say: Do you want a hit? I’d never been present when someone actually purchased marijuana and no one had ever offered me a ‘hit’ in exchange for money. It just never happened, so I never put two and two together that marijuana actually cost money. It was always presented to me like a garden yielding too many zucchini’s to eat; you shared the bounty. So when I was fifteen, a

All you had to do was arrive and eat. Maybe say something charming sprinkled here and there. That’s all you had to do. It was Christmas Day after all, that season of goodwill and cheer. The day we suspend our grief and rage and hold it still until the New Year. That’s all you had to do. But instead you sat at the other end of the table from me, just out of earshot, pretending to hold court like Jabba the Hutt, like you cooked a feast for eight, like you gathered everyone to my home for festivities, like you owned the place. You decided that this might be a good time to rage against Obama, and The Blacks, the Pakistanis and some other unsuspecting group of people who were lucky to be absent. You moaned about your housekeeper, the one I procured for you. You don't know this but you have been placed in the Never Darken My Doorstep   Again  pool of people I’ve known. Yes you and that tired old queen who arrived late —from the waist up looking like an ancient sophomore and a peasant