jazzthewriter

[jazzthewriter]

Love Hangover

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GejHcPYUgA "I don't know what to do anymore I've shown him all of my love and more"

Mom used to play this song a lot when I was a kid and I immediately connected to it, creating images of this mystery man in my head long before I truly understood the words. He ate fillet gumbo, I think I ordered steak I looked into his eyes and said For Heaven's sake, listen to me I got what you need Now I’m 30, soon to be 31. Six months healed from a heartbreak that took years to occur.  This song isn’t exact by any means, but emotionally it’s right on track. And there’s a symmetry to this, as if I connected to my own fate all those years ago. So I’m starting a new script, a film I have to make, hopefully in tandem with Confide. I’m finally at a place where I can write my equivalent to this song. 

Maybe it will connect to next one down the line, preparing her as this did me.

And he shied but he came As he asked me my name And I said I am love  And how can you resist it

[jazzthewriter]

Y’all Remember Doug | Random Thoughts

✨ Welcome to "I've been up since 3am and can't get back to sleep" Thoughts with Jasmine Golphin. ✨

Today I want to discuss the following: Doug's family was clearly white. Like, purposeful as fuck, right? And some folks were coded as fuck: i.e. Skeeter. And other folks could argued what exactly they were coded as: i.e. Bebe was probably white but could also be 2nd or 3rd generation East Asian (I'm going to say mixed. She seem like the type to have an old white rich ass daddy that went on a hunt for the perfect submissive Asian wife. But I digress...). And that was the white-ass point of Doug. It was on some "we don't see race" shit that was effective enough for 90s kids but you know, deserves side eye all the same.

But one thing is clear and seemingly not discussed AT ALL as far as I know.

Patty was black.

Suburban, comfortably middle class, parents are probably the Huxtables grandparents (y'all remember them right?), fucked her edges all up for white acceptance, respectability politics ass, will be insufferable as fuck her first two years at college when she tells you "oh it's not about race" only to get her heart broken by some hipster racist douche junior year which will hurt real bad but finally open her eyes, black...

But black for sure.

Just look at this photo. The only main cast member not related to Doug that's a normal, non-jaundice ass color. That shit was intentional and since I feel like Doug is one of the most apparent Mary Sue* ass characters around, I know want to know which black girl broke the creator's heart way back when.

That is all, thanks for listening.

*http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue

[jazzthewriter]

Essay: A Different Kind of Pain

I’m used to pain when I read the news. The two are usually intertwined. It’s a trope, perhaps even a joke, that the news is always so bad and so depressing and why can’t we just talk about something positive, you know? Over the years I’ve tailored my news sources to the most vetted, most objective* sources I could find, limiting the impact of pain pundits are paid to inflict. I have developed my own version of self-care techniques: don’t read the comments for too long, walk away from Facebook for awhile, find something fun, etc. I’m used to the pain of being informed and how to manage that.

Still, you can’t prepare for everything.

The Seattle Police Department has a video game live stream series called Fuzzfeed206. The concept piggybacks on the popularity of Twitch and is used as a kind of lure to get citizens interested in the behind the scenes work of the police department. In better, more competent hands this could be the first step in actual community engagement, which has been proven time and time again to be vital in improving race relations with police. But this isn’t that. Instead it’s an opportunity for the SPD to talk at the citizens, not with.   Yesterday SPD made such a video to talk about the murder of Charleena Lyles. I’d hope that I wouldn’t have to go any further in explaining why that’s incredibly insensitive and cruel, but the mere fact that the video exists suggests otherwise. Right away SPD Sgt. Sean Whitcomb concedes “this episode will be a little on the heavier side”, as if that note is enough. And then he spends the rest of 30 minutes explaining the SPD’s side of the case while playing Destiny, a first-person shooter. Enough of a stir up must have occurred after the initial posting because the video is down. However screenshots of the original tweet and a new upload can still be found. I’ve been trying for hours now to encapsulate how this kind of total disregard to the gravity of this situation hurts so damn much. I can’t find words that speak to how invisible I feel as a black woman, that even in death there is no guarantee those in power will have the decency to see me as a human being. The mainstream media has not picked up on this story, for whatever reason. I can’t imagine that would be the case if Charleena Lyles hadn’t been on the bottom of the American social totem pole - poor, black, female, and dealing with a mental illness. Countless videos have suggested Charleena would have lived if she had been higher up. And the complexity of it all is that none of this new to me. Far from it. But this video is so blatant in its apathetic nature that I’m left stunned. It’s as if I’ve been stabbed in a new place. The pain is both familiar and fresh.

I don’t even know what I want anymore, or rather, I don’t care to ask. It’s a privilege for me to even be feeling this sort of pain. Surely my grandmother remembers this wound, probably my mother to a lesser extent. The fight is different today. It’s no longer a war for basic human rights on a minute by minute level, it’s a war of dismantling and intersectionality and microaggressions and explaining why better police training is necessary. It’s a war of the subtle pain, almost all about covert racism unless the white robes and salutes are out.  They aren’t this kind of tone-deaf, public displays of ambivalence. ------ I don’t know how to end this, except to cite this study one more time. I’m tired.

Footnotes * Yes, no source is perfectly objective, everyone has a bias, don’t let the media influence you...blah blah blah. You still have to be aware of what’s going on around you and you as an active, informed citizen have to do the work of pulling from multiple vetted sources to learn how to discern fact from opinion, so spare me. **Passing the mic to someone who does live in Seattle  https://www.facebook.com/ijeoma.oluo/videos/10154461777187676/ *** https://www.gofundme.com/bdgbc8pg ——————————————————————————– If you can, leave a tip in the tip jar. Today was especially taxing. https://www.paypal.me/WelcometoMidnight www.patreon.com/jasminegolphin

[jazzthewriter]

Personal Essay -With Disillusion Deep in My Eyes (2013)

They say into your early life romance came And in this heart of yours burned a flame A flame that flickered one day and died away 

I have this image of who I want to be that plays in my head.  She is a sophisticated lady that looks like a cross between Gabrielle Union and Queen Latifah and owns in a good number of Olivia Pope’s outfits.  She exudes a cool confidence, owns a loft in the heart of downtown and can drink shots of 151 while still being classy. She’s driven, smart, and professional. Warm and loving but never suffers fools gladly.  When I am feeling at my lowest, it’s usually because I fear that I am straying too far from the track she must be on.

In the fall of 2008 I started my junior year of college.  Because of how close this meant that I was to reaching my professional goals, it was also when I began to imagine Sophisticated Lady in hyper detail.

At the risk of getting too personal with you all, let’s just say I’m a generally speaking a “special occasion” kind of shaver.  Which is to say I wear pants a lot. But I just knew that Sophisticated Lady was not like me.  She was perfect at all times.  And unlike dieting and exercising, practices that would wax and wane with my motivation, Nair Hair Removal lets you get rid of hair without much effort.  So my Nair obsession started.  If I wasn’t going to be skinnier or healthier, I was certainly going to be smoother.

I could also be smarter, academically speaking. I didn’t fail unless I wanted to. Sophisticated Lady and I had that much in common. I took it to heart when my mom told me as a kid that I could do anything if I put my mind to it.  It became instinctual for me.  I would come across some obstacle in life, weigh my options and decide whether my effort was worth the reward.  When it was, I never failed.

I don’t want to delude you, dear reader, into thinking I was some sort of straight-A student.  I wasn’t.  But I did some relatively impressive things at my time in the Shaker Heights School system (like earn a scholarship to visit Japan for a month and win second place in both the Science Olympiad and a regional math competition).  And I don’t want to come across unaware of how much of blessing this belief in my mental skills is. I get that this isn’t something that people just have naturally. All the more reason to use this gift every chance I got.

So when I heard in 2008 that do something called Cross Registration, which is where one can take a class for free at another university if they were full time at Cleveland State, my financially strapped self seized the opportunity.

Then, with disillusion deep in your eyes You learned that fools in love soon grow wise The years have changed you, somehow I see you now

A little background first: in sixth grade I fell in love with the country of Japan. Yes, admittedly this was in large part due to the massive amount of anime premiering on Cartoon Network. But it was also the first time I remember thinking “But what was the rest of the world doing?” when we had to study European and American history yet again in class. From then on, I followed a path of total immersion into Japanese culture which I had thought had to stop when I learned CSU didn’t offer Japanese 201.  Learning about Cross Registration not only gave me the chance to take said class but I could take it for free.

The only issue?  It was at Case Western Reserve University.

It wasn’t the prestige of the school but rather the students that I attributed this newly formed knot in my stomach to. Sophisticated Lady would have been just fine around them but I wasn’t her yet. I was a poor, insecure nerdy black girl before Aisha Tyler and Donald Glover were popular.  Case Western is made primarily of well-off white nerdy guys (or at least that was my perception at the time).  I had classes with these same guys in elementary school when I was at Orange  (before I moved to Shaker Heights) and while one would think that nerdiness could cross all barriers, the other adjectives I used kept me from feeling included. I was always on the outside around them. The black speck of pepper in a sea of salt.  The only one missing a Y chromosome*. The kid from across the tracks. Pick your metaphor but interactions with these eventual Case Western students were all inherently awkward for young Jasmine.  

Awkwardness leads to nervousness.

Nervousness into fear.

Fear into intimidation.

But not this time, I thought.  Ass was going to be kicked; names were going to be taken.  Nothing as small as intimidation was going to stop me from learning a second.  I mean, Sophisticated Lady knew at least four languages.

So I walked in to Case a year and two chapters behind the rest of the class because apparently the Case professor, unlike my CSU professor, managed to finish teaching “Genki 1”. I don’t remember how the first class at Case went but I do remember the professor approaching me with motherly concern afterward as she asked if I was going to able to handle this class.  Every part of me except my mouth said no.  I was way too far behind and I still had to handle my full course load at CSU.  But if I put my mind to it I could do it.  That model had never failed me; just like how Sophisticated Lady never failed at anything she touched.

So I worked hard.  I watched all the movies I had in Japanese with no subtitles. I got tutored by the professor on Fridays.  I forwent anything I ever had that looked like a social life.  

I was Japan.

You know, when I wasn’t editing films on the professional editing software Avid Xpress Pro, learning film theory, tutoring a Saudi Arabian woman, taking pictures for the Vindicator, working part-time, working out, running a student organization or doing time consuming things like breathing and eating. I had given up on sleeping for the most part.

Looking at what I just typed I should have known that was a lot on my plate.  I also should have known that it was not just the melanin deficient rich male students, but really the thought of taking this all on that tied that knot in my stomach. But I knew if I just worked hard enough I could still do it all.  Still be all for everyone. 

Sophisticated Lady is.

I am guessing that by this point you can tell that this plan didn’t work.

I failed the class.  I did all the work and extra credit I could but my papers always came back dripping with red ink. Near the end of the semester the professor showed me some sympathy and I got a delay on taking the final. I can only assume she did this because my eyes sat in shallow graves, my hands were covered in a stress induced rash, and I forgot what sleeping was like.  Because of this delay, I was able to finish my CSU finals with high enough scores to stay in good standing.

But I never went back to Case to finish my last final.

I couldn’t.  I remember looking at my Genki 2 book as I was preparing to walk out the door and head to Case.  I remember thinking I could study a little more on the bus before I had to take the final. I remember trying to conjure up every little Kanji I had studied in the past four months. And then I remember something in me just breaking.

I could no longer see the Sophisticated Lady.

I failed. I put in all kinds of work, I had done everything right and I still failed.

I started this essay the day I walked away from Case and I finish today almost five years later.  During that time, I’ve headed down a slightly different path.  I always was going to make movies and television shows, but the six grade nerd in me now knows it won’t be in Japan.  At least not without a translator.

This was an incredibly hard pill to swallow and even after all this time, it’s still stuck in my throat.  My shear will, my drive, my dedicated focus that is so much a part of my being that it oozes from my pores and speaks before I do, wasn’t enough.  It was met with something greater.  And today I can only guess that this helpless feeling is what one is left with after God closes a door on you, though I still couldn’t begin to tell you why He would close said door.

Here’s what I can tell you: in my attempt to not be myself and instead be this amalgamation of a perfect woman I had created, I suffered from tension headaches, I grinned my teeth and I started having my first bout of thoroughly frightening anxiety dreams .

I also left some Nair on my legs too long one morning during that semester and permanently scarred my legs.

Large pale blotches run down the front of my leg now. They have only just now begun to fade after five years. I am sure they will never go back to the correct shade of brown.  The self-hatred I felt back then has manifested in a way that forces me to remember to love myself fully today.  I have to remember that this version of Jasmine, the one that isn’t always health conscious, doesn’t own a loft and has several discolored patches on her occasionally shaven legs, deserves all the love I poured into Sophisticated Lady.  I also have to trust that while Sophisticated Lady doesn’t fail, Jasmine does because that’s what actual human beings do.

Is that all you really want? No, sophisticated lady, I know, you miss the love you lost long ago And when nobody is nigh you cry 

Footnote

*I wrote this in 2013 before I knew much about trans exclusionary language. I’m not sure yet how to creatively rewrite that sentence to be inclusive but I’m working on it and am open to suggestions. 

[jazzthewriter]

Breakdown: The Black Panther Trailer

The challenge of any writer is to capture the depth of what people are feeling and express that for others to understand. At our best we are a pathway for empathy.   I don’t know that I’ll be able to do that for you as I breakdown the Black Panther trailer and why it was so fucking lit, but I am certainly going to try.

The trailer opens with two white men talking about Wakanda and if that’s not a blatant metaphor for American media consumption, I don’t know what is. In the conversation, Ulysses Klaw (Andy Serkis) -tied up, disheveled and missing an arm -explains to Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman) that his perception of Wakanda is way off and he highly underestimates the mysterious and very advanced civilization. The conversation sets up the backstory as this sort of scene does in any traditional blockbuster, but it also subtly sets up mainstream audience expectations. Whatever you may know about Black Panther, heard about the film before, or just simply assumed you knew based on the title needs to be thrown out the window because you weren’t thinking big enough. 

From that moment on the rest of the trailer isn’t about them, which is something that needs to be thought about for a minute. Even if the white male characters are supposed to serve as an “in” for white audiences, they aren’t going to be there long to hold their hands. The cast is huge and there are enough antagonists planned that a white outsider isn’t needed to further the story, a revolutionary idea for a Hollywood film this big [see Avatar, Dances With Wolves, The Last Samurai et al].

Our heroes T’Challa and Okoye (Chadwick Boseman and Danai Gurira) watch these white men for some reason. They are in the position of power, able to observe, judge and render whatever verdict they deem appropriate. Also they are black as hell. Dark. He’s bearded with nappy hair, a style you don’t see in black male leads** often. She’s bald and focused, the fierce black woman if there ever was one, but she is still feminine in her jewelry and makeup, not worn for an overt and standard issue attempt at sexual appeal but seemingly for her own sense of beauty. This is their story and it’s not designed for the white gaze.

The trailer is still a superhero trailer, full of action shots to show off the country side, characters, (afrofuturistic) technology and fight scenes. There is the typical voice over that gives us our thematic conflict - a king that may have to do unsavory things to protect his land. But again, just like with Wonder Woman, the fact that these images exist with black characters in an authentically African backdrop is the revolutionary part. On top of that, the American-made films that are set in Africa, whether they are authentic or not, are never fun or fantastic movies. Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, etc all take place in a European*** setting. All are complex stories that depict a conflict with high stakes but aren’t depressing, joyless tales that are too realistic to be enjoyed like Hollywood films set in Africa tend to be. Again, it’s a subtle move but a meaningful one.

Blockbuster films like this are about escapism but even escapism needs to be rooted in some truth in order to resonate. Every image in this trailer has meaning. Women fighting expertly on the front lines in practical armor****. A clearly important man sitting on a throne in a teal suit that matches his lip plate. Various twist outs, fros, locs, fades, braids and shiny bald heads on every character. The truth of these seemingly small details are what engross us. 

This breakdown could obviously be summed up with the word “representation”, but representation for just the sake of it can fall flat. The excitement black people have taken to social media to share is based in the fact that this kind of representation already delivers in meaning. And to drive that point home, it’s coming out February 16, 2018, right in the middle of Black History Month.

FOOTNOTES

*If you will let me get too into the weeds for a moment: the cool colors of the integration room give way to the warmer colors in the room T’Challa and Okoye are in and the rest of trailer stays warmer as we stay in Wakanda. Additionally, the orange and teal  found in most Marvel movies seems to fade away in Wakanda, or at least aren’t as apparent as it is in films like Age of Ultron. This is just a trailer breakdown and not a film theory essay, so I’ll leave it there. 

But still, peep that shit because it definitely was intentional. **Note that the men listed tend to have low cut hair with the curls picked out, if they have any hair length at all. Same with the beards, if it’s there at all they are very short. Nan one nap to be found. And if don’t get why I point this out, start here and remember Google is a great friend. *** “A European” Ugh, English is gross and annoying. 

****No shade to Wonder Woman and the Amazons, but there are major arteries in your thighs. They could all use some more armor. 

Bonus: Chris Pine and his eyebrows in the last piece I wrote. Evil Michael B Jordan in this one. I’m on a roll

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[jazzthewriter]

Review : Wonder Woman, What the DCEU Needs

I'm going to say a lot of negative things before I say anything positive so let me give you the TLDR up front: It's good. It's worth the movie price in 2D. It proves that female directors have been grossly overlooked for literally no reason at all but sexism. It's fun and it delivers. 

But the hype is too high.

I need to be up front about my bias against this film - I was sure it was going to suck. Positive of it. The trailer revealed little about the plot. There were a lot of slow motion actions shots and lines that sound like they were written only for the trailer. And most importantly, I hate the current direction the DCEU is going in. I hate Zack Snyder's style: his color palette is flat and bland, his stories drip with sheltered white boy college freshman ideals - uninformed, untested, and underdeveloped, the CGI is not over the top enough to be interesting and yet isn't grounded enough to feel immersive. My brother said it best once, he would be a great photographer for cheap hotel chains. He can make an image that is fine enough to look at but doesn't know how to bring meaning or purpose to said image. 

And this is* the guy in charge of creative at the DCEU, a property that would already be overextended and unfocused without his hand in the mix. It’s also no secret that I am a DC fan girl to the core. I fundamentally prefer the themes of the god-like superheroes in DC than the more grounded superheroes in Marvel. The issue is that tackling those kinds of stories are harder to do. You need more time to flesh out the reliability of the daughter of Zeus than you do a teenage boy who was bit by a spider. Wonder Woman has always been an unfortunately undeserved character in this way because executives don't want to take the risk developing a female character when they can bank on the fact that everyone will see a male character in action. So a lot had to come together to bring Wonder Woman to the big screen. I had no faith the DCEU was going to pull it off.

And maybe director Patty Jenkins didn't either. In looking up her past films for this review I was surprised when I saw she wrote and directed Monster (2003 film). Wonder Woman is decidedly safer than Monster in every way. That's not a bad thing, in fact that is probably the only way to serve all masters (DC fans, DCEU fans, the general public, and the producers) in this case. But the film doesn't dare or reinvent the genre in anyway - which is why I warn that the hype is overblown. 

What critics are rightly excited about is that the film tells an entertaining story in a perfectly coherent way. There won't be an extended, director's, or ultimate cut of this film ever. You will see the entire story the first time. All the actors look like they are having fun doing their job. Gal Gadot expresses strength, fun and unapologetic femininity throughout. Chris Pine** brings spirited dimension and depth to the usually uninspired Lois Lane doppelganger. The actors even have actual chemistry, something else that has been sorely lacking in the rest of the DCEU.

The action sequences, while they rely too heavily on the Zack Snyder Slo-Mo Video Game Style™, are actually shot in a way that the eye can follow. It's not a bunch of unnecessary cuts to trick your mind into thinking you saw something cool. Gadot clearly did a number of her own stunts and that effort pays off in viewer enjoyment. 

The themes are accessible, fleshed out and not made needlessly complicated. The dialog is inoffensive, nothing to write home about but also not "Martha!". There are even real jokes in there, jokes that are far better than "We are the bad guys, ok?".

Jenkins delivered a fine, simple summer blockbuster. Because that film starred and was helmed by women, that sadly is a feat for Hollywood in and of itself.  And because that basic task was finally completed within the DCEU - a task Fox Marvel and Disney Marvel has done several times over - Jenkins is the saving grace of the franchise. Don't let the hype lead you into believing Wonder Woman will reinvent the wheel. It is the wheel: standard issue, tried and true, available at a fair price at a store near you. But that's all we need sometimes. It certainly all the DCEU needs right now.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Footnotes: *If ever the phrase "...but not like this" ever applied in my life, it would be for the reason why Snyder had to stepped down ** excuse me but 

👀 Chris Pine and those thickass eyebrows tho... A brave new world of To-be-looked-at-ness indeed (start at page 62 for the reference). Ok that's it, I’m done.

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[jazzthewriter]

Thoughts about my last day at my day job- cont

I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to explain how hearing her say that I never chastised her for being too loud or too black meant to me.

I cried instantly of course, because I so deeply know that feeling and I hope she saw the truth in my tears. But that truth didn’t reach my depths. How could it? I don’t know the depths myself.

I know that almost a week later I still tear up at the thought. I know when I tell other black women about it they don’t need a road map to understanding. I know that when my student said that she spoke to a truth every black woman knows, as if it comes with the melanin and hormones. 

But today, I’ve been granted a path to honor that. A straight forward method to protection for her and future generations that know the intimacy of that truth.

I had promised her  that she would never be too loud or too black if you are in my presence without any idea of how I would make that true. But today in this moment, I do. 

I’m so damn excited about it. 

I can’t wait to show her what she’s created.

[jazzthewriter]

Thoughts On Last My Day At Work

Today is my last time teaching. 

I kept today low key - no celebration, no cake, etc- for a number of reasons, least of which is the fact that my class of 13 students has whittled down to an almost dedicated 6. Some of that drop off is to be excepted in an after school program, but some of that is a direct result of that depressive state that I just began to crawl out of in the last few months.Another issue that hiders me from wanting to celebrate this milestone in my career is the rapid change in technology that has occurred in my years here. This program was born in the cross section of pocket camcorders and relative affordability of editing software. This was back when flip cameras were named after the most popular product of the time. Back before cell phones cornered that market. But now they have, causing Flip and its higher end competitors to go out of business, leaving my 6 students today to work with laptops that continuously crash and pocket camcorders made in the cheapest corners of China because when you run a program like this, you can't assume kids will have access to cell phones capable of recording good video, even if the market does. The mood, to put it simply, is not a celebratory one today. ---

My relationship to failure is a particular one, one that I've cultivated over the years as I've understood that it is always a possibility when trying anything outside of your wheelhouse. I had thought I had came to terms with it, especially after my last depressive state. But today it hits pretty hard and I'm taking this technologically challenged moment and my frustrated students as a loss for sure. 

I can't help it. I built this plane as I flew it and I got my pilots licence from a cereal box. I've been skimming the surface of this ocean like Capt Sully for far too long now and it shows. If I get one completed video today I'll be impressed.

And yet, three of those possible projects are about LGBT issues that they all feel safe to talk about in my classroom.

And yet two of my first students, now in their very early 20s, have brought their kid to today's last class. A kid that wouldn't exist if not for this class.

And yet, Sunday one of my former students told me I was one of the only adults in her life that didn't try to silence her or tell her she was too black (read: militant. Read for real: well read and able to defend herself).

And yet I've had four students in the last month tell me they would have never gotten into video production or photography had I not created an advance class for them to explore in.

And yet CIFF²

And yet...

And yet one of my students who I would politely say has the least technical understanding in this class just said "I still want to be a doctor but at least I know how to make a video now, a real video".

So maybe something that was only supposed to be 10 hours a week for eight weeks back in 2011 is more than what I can see right now.

Maybe success and failure aren't as black and white as they so deeply feel right now.

[jazzthewriter]

Redemption | Story [WIP]

The blood dripping from Loni’s hand snapped her out of her day dream. The callus on her upper palm had finally ruptured and though it wasn’t rushing out, the minor blood loss worried her all the same. It was just one more problem she did not need.

Loni Stevens was precariously situated in a small groove on the face of Mt. Boon.  She and her climbing partner Michael had decided to take a day-long hike up the popular range to celebrate their latest windfall.  It was something of a tradition for them, though it was not something they ever officially declared. More of a habit they fell into every time the checks finally cleared.   Perhaps the physical excursion kept them from getting high off the adrenaline of the getaway and doing something foolish with the money.

Whatever the reason, it was on this early September day that the two of them set out to follow through with their personal tradition once again. And, per tradition, what started off as a normal stroll in the woods became a one upping competition. Mikey started it off by running up the first steep hill he found, never losing his breath as he taunted Loni to follow. She matched him by challenging him to climb to the top of a rather tall,  branchless tree.  

“Did you not bring your rope?”  she teased as he stared at her puzzled.

“No, I just thought be agreed there would be no dares on our break” he answered, already packing away the lunch he laid out in order to answer her call.

“I don’t think I ever agreed to that,” Loni said smiling.  She stood up from behind her backpack pulling out her climbing rope triumphantly, as if she believed he didn’t bring his. Five minutes later, the two were arguing over who reached the top first while they packed those ropes back in their backpacks in order to resume their lunch.

Now it was that rope that kept her from falling to her death.

---

When Loni fell over the edge of the cliff, it was pure instinct that kept her from dying. Her hands went out in every direction desperately looking for something to hold on to.

Anything.

She knew she was better off falling closer to the mountain than to find something soft to land on.  That meant, however, that she regularly kept bouncing off the face of the rock wall.

Time both sped up and slowed down as she plummeted.  Every potential life saving option - branches, edges, ledges-  flashed passed her eyes long before her mind had a chance to process it. Yet another part of her brain, some part with a sense of irony no doubt, casually took note of everything about the day. How unseasonably warm the day was, the hawk that just dove down into the trees, what she had for lunch, that perfect comeback she said to Mikey when they got to the top of this edge.

It was this seemingly unconcerned part of her mind that remembered the rope that was hanging over the cliff and before her conscious mind could even form the full thought, her hands flew over to where she guessed it must now be. The velocity of her fall was something Loni tried to prepare for. “Tried” being the operative word there.  She was screaming almost as soon as her fingers started to slide down the unforgiving braid. The friction burn was something unimaginable, the heat of which caused her to sweat and cry.

After a few more agonizing moments of the ground rushing closer to her, Loni finally slowed down. Just slowed down. Grabbing the rope wasn’t going to be enough.  That conscious part of her brain started to look for a second solution, someway to stop the fall. Any way.

This time it was her conscious mind that realized that if she could put her feet up on the bluff of the mountain, she could perhaps stop her descent. Loni threw her legs in front of her and her feet almost immediately caught the edge of a small indented section of the rocky surface.

Her body jerked in place and she stopped falling.

The entire process took about fifteen seconds.

-------

Now there was blood dripping from a ruptured callus to contend with. She must have dozed off after she finally stopped falling. Loni was not okay with this.

“It is probably because I ran out of adrenaline,” she whispered.  Her voice was dry and strained. It dawned on her that she had probably spent most of the fall screaming, more than she realized.   

Again instinct, the unconscious mind, had taken over, positioning her in an almost vertical hammock position. Her feet were perched on the indention, her arms were wrapped around the rope that hung over the edge of the cliff. She was alive because her body thought to hug something in order to deal with the fear.

It was at the moment of realization that she found herself wanting to scream again. She may have even tried to, Loni couldn’t be sure. Her throat was completely raw and her mind was far too distracted to hear the sound of her own voice. Everything hurt, her hands from the rope, her ankles and knees from hitting the indention with so much force, her eyes, throat, her face...

[jazzthewriter]

A Tale With Two Faces | Essay

Originally Published in CSU’s The Vindicator November 2012

He doesn’t see a problem with it, really.  It’s a joke, everyone knows that.  He’s going to be around his liberal friends that night. The same friends he went to college and voted for the current president with.  These people aren’t hicks or hillbillies; they’ll laugh for the right reasons.  It’s satire.  Why can’t she see that? 

She speaks of “privilege” but he doesn’t think that’s fair.  That’s just a drastic word used to intellectualize a situation that really isn’t that deep.  He’s not making fun of her people, he’s wearing a costume.

And painting his face.

What’s so wrong with that?  She has said it herself that this celebrity, the one he plans on dressing as for a costume party, is a complete joke in her culture.  A buffoon that embarrasses many whenever he opens his mouth.  So painting his face would be a commentary on that as well. That’s a good thing, right?

Yeah, she’s making too big of a deal out of this.

Her friends don’t all look like her. This makes her something of a translator, the unelected representative for all of her culture. She gets a lot of touchy questions under the pretense of friends just wanting to be honest.

Ones about the innocence of blackface for instance.

She balked when he asked about where to get good makeup. A part of her mind wouldn’t let her even process it, wanted to file it away as a joke. But she couldn’t because this wasn’t the first time he had said something like this (though this was the first time he been this insensitive). There was a time not so long ago when she would have passionately and compassionately tried to explain it to him. She would have pointed back into the past.  She would have pulled up old films on Youtube.  She would have flooded him with essays and reports of social science.  She would have talked until she was exhausted.

Now, however, she just calls him an asshole and mentally demotes him from the rank of “friend” to “acquaintance”.

Later, alone, she annoyed by that demotion.  How could she have not seen the signs? A thought so ignorant had to have warning signs of its impending arrival. Had she just ignored them in the hopes of that post-racial wonderland she has been promised?

There are people in her race that don’t allow for the pangs of a failed friendship, especially one with the mainstream.  They take pleasure in informing her constantly that “they” weren’t going to get it anyway, they never do. And besides, a strong independent woman such as herself (according to this same choir) needs to be judicious in her friendship selection.  This one is her fault entirely; she shouldn’t have let him get that close to her in the first place. If she hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been brave enough to say something so foolish in the first place.

The wonderland she hopes for isn’t real. 

She accuses him of never really suffering and therefore can’t properly empathize.   But he’s been victimized too, you know?  He’s worked in environments where he was the only one of his kind.  He dealt with having to go without and the tragedies of an unfair world. He’s insulted by her use of the word “privilege”.  He can’t help what body he born into any more than she can. He doesn’t get government assistance to college for his skin tone and gender (not that he doesn’t see the point of those programs, of course.  He’s just saying…).  And he wasn’t there with his ancestors to set these discrimination she deals with in place.

The best they can do is move on from the hurt and laugh about it.

They always manage to laugh about all that’s superficial in this world, movies and books and the like.  That’s relatability right there. So what’s the difference now? She knows he doesn’t mean any harm, so why should he have to apologize. His intent is good.

It’s just a Halloween costume.

That choir mentioned earlier has a mantra to ease the sting of the thoughtless actions of the mainstream.  The mantra told her she was strong, that she was independent, that this and any other pain should roll off her back like the hard sweat of her ancestors.  She was taught, simply, that because of her lot in life she was emotionally superior.

This frequently passed down mantra isn’t a consciously malicious act against the mainstream, it is a much needed defense mechanism. And like all machines it served its purpose. But it is also fraught with faulty wiring. One of which is that with all that imposed empowerment there is no room to feel anything else. And if she didn’t feel like the strong and fearless, then she had lost the war against the mainstream. She would be showing weakness and for that she only has herself to blame.

So she pushed her annoyance at him down deep inside in order to stay strong.

He really didn’t mean any harm. He hopes she knows that. Her attitude cooled for the rest of the time they were together that day.  She seemed introspective and maybe even troubled. She still interacted politely enough, but she had certainly cooled. Like she retreated or something.

He gets that this is touchy.  She probably just needs some time to let it sink in. She’s responding emotionally, hormonally. She’s not being rational about it. At least she didn’t call him a racist. Their friendship is proof he’s not one of those.

And really, the world isn’t as bad as she keeps making it out to be.  Sure, there are still instances of racism here and there, but no one is making anyone sit in the back of the bus anymore. That’s definitely an improvement.

It really comes down to the fact that she can’t take a joke.  Him wanting to go to this Halloween party in blackface is satire. It’s just that simple if you think about it.

And, truth be told, some stereotypes are just true. She’ll never admit that but it’s true.  If we could all laugh at it, together, then we would be that much closer to that perfect globalized world. We have to be able to laugh at our own faults.

She just needs a better sense of humor.

She feels betrayed by the warring sides of her mind. She wants to not get mad because getting emotional won’t change his mind. She doesn’t want to abandon this argument and go back to the false safety of her racial cocoon.  She’s been taught by television sitcoms and over-paid intellectuals alike that this globalization is for the best. Get to know one another, accept each other, and ultimately build a better world.  That dialog is inspiring and she is happy to subscribe to it. But she keeps learning that idealism is more fantasy than reality.

She just doesn’t compare to the standard.  So those in the racial cocoon tell her she has every right to rage. This is war is cultural. She’s too dark, too large in the wrong places, her hair is too tightly curled. That same liberal, enlightened media lied when they told her that wouldn’t be a problem.  Here she is being reminded once again that she just doesn’t measure up.  That the body she was born into isn’t as highly treasured.

The bodies of her whiter counterparts are though.  Media serves them. The advertisers want their money first and only sell her the scraps of their afterthoughts. When one of them goes missing Nancy Grace yells about it that night and The Today Show grieves with the family the next morning. Not the same with those that look like her. And that previously mentioned mantra saves her and others like her from the misery of that truth.

Her body just isn’t valued.

And that’s what his carelessness reminds her, that her skin can be a joke or a tool to make a point. What he’s doing isn’t even as deep or complex as Robert Downey Jr.’s character.  It’s just a lazy costume idea. And for him, her skin is just fine to use and abuse. He believes that if she just stepped outside herself for a moment and saw if from his perspective, that it would all make since to her. To him, the hurt she feels at the thought of blackface is just her own person pain that she perpetuates in her mind. If she could let go of the hurt and laugh about it, the world would be a better place.

That’s the benefit of privilege; you honestly believe you always know what’s best for everyone else.

Epilogue  At some point I am going to have this conversation with him again and try to explain again why the idea of going in blackface in order to look like a rapper is not a good idea. For the sake of friendship I suppose.  Or, more likely, because I really do believe in that Sesame Street-like world where we all celebrate our differences with compassion and understanding. In that world the minorities never retreat when one party offends the other.  They just patiently explain their culture, their point of view until the offending party becomes enlightened.

But then, Sesame Street is a fictional show.

Regardless, I can’t manage to retreat but I am also too tired to keep fighting. I’m weary and broken by previous conversations, conversations I have quoted and paraphrased for” his” side of this essay. I know I’ll try again. But right now I just needed a place to work out my warring mind.

[jazzthewriter]

Superman Should Be Written By A Black Woman | Essay

I’ve never had much love for Superman. Superman, as a story, is audience wish fulfillment. An infallible superhuman moralist just flies right up and punches his problems in the face. He's the goodness personified for no real reason outside of the fact that it serves the story best that way. That if he weren’t, the story shifts to one of a terrorizing omnipotent being. There's nothing wrong with a fairy tale that you don't want to dissect too much, but he is fantasy.

And yet, I've written more stories about Superman than I ever have about his darker, more realistic (if still very improbable) counterpart Batman. In fact, I have never written a story about Batman, despite my deep desire to explore his pathos. I have, however, written poems, essays, extended metaphors, short stories and even once outlined a one shot about Superman. Clearly there’s something about this fantasy that calls to me but It wasn't until this morning that I figured out what it was. I found myself thinking about an extended metaphor I wrote after watching Man of Steel, that the next director of the Superman films should be an immigrant. What I meant was that there needs to be a conscious effort to reach back to the roots of the Superman tale, a tale crafted by two Jewish immigrants in a developing city in the early 20th century. Two men who understood what it means to be an alien in a foreign land. And it was in remembering this review that the future of Superman seemed clear to me: today, he needs to be written by a black woman.

Black women fluctuate in the popular culture between sainthood and vilification. We are queens, the mothers of the earth, forever independent, spiritual warriors of the community and strong. Oh so very strong.

Or...

Or we are ratchet, impossibly angry, loud, irrational, welfare queens and the downfall of the black family unit in America. We aren't ever human because humanity is the space in between the extremes.  Humanity is all those things listed and also fun and weirdness and depression and fear and anxiety and confusion and joy and wrong and right and

And, and, and...

Superman knows how that works. Some days he's the demigod that was faster than a locomotive and some days he's the adversarial scapegoat that thinks he’s better than us mere mortals. Savior and destroyer. And whatever he is, he’s always the outsider.

Black men still get the privilege of being men, white women of being white. In a culture that values those two things the most, there’s always a safe public space for them. Other races don't get included in our public discourse often enough for me to feel comfortable to extend this metaphor to them, so for now I'll speak to what I know. 

And what I know is that if it were somehow possible, I jump at the chance to play Clark Kent. While I would never want to abandon what makes me who I am, I certainly fantasize about what it would be like to put on a pair of glasses and instantly blend in. To be assumed unassuming. To be overlooked. To turn it off.

White guys of course know best what it’s like to be a white guy in America. Stories like Fight Club and American Beauty have to be told from a white male perspective because to change one of those elements would be to change the meaning of the story itself. I’m sure that can hold true for a Superman comic as well. But to get to the heart of Superman, you have to get to the heart of being a perpetual outsider.  Clark Kent is an act that Kal El performs, he just happens to in the right costume to do so already. 

Additionally, there’s a duality of this life that’s hard to capture unless you know it authentically. As great as the burden is, there’s a part of you that wants to be the unobtainable too. It’s an enticing idea, to believe that you suffer society’s judgement for some great purpose. Who doesn’t want to save every kidnapped hostage or be the queen mother to humanity? So Superman flies to as many disasters as he can and black women share memes about self-sufficiency with a "Black Girl Magic” hashtag and a 💯 emoji. The difference is of course that the fictional Superman just needs sunlight and to avoid kryptonite, while black women can only pretend to be invulnerable and can only dream of a true Fortress of Solitude. 

White guys don’t usually think about their white male identity unless they are required to but I can’t imagine that Superman is able to not think of his identity and how it stacks up to the rest of the public. I simply want the next fresh take on the man of steel to be from someone who knows that plane of existence on an intimate level. 

[jazzthewriter]

Chasing The White Rabbit | Poem

As long as she’s around, try to catch her

Follow her wherever she goes

Even into the darkness

and the random

and the deep, thick, inseparable 

Follow, breathless side aching

Follow as the thorny bushes draw blood

Follow as the path leads to nowhere and nothing as it often seems to do

She promises so much

If only you’ll follow

She promises it’ll be better than this void, 

whatever it is that insists on pulling out your soul when she’s not around

If only you

[jazzthewriter]

Prologue: Why Atlanta and Queen Sugar Specifically?

I love television. 

That’s not exactly a newsflash for anyone that knows me. Growing up I was completely unaware that there was even a division between film and television in terms of (perceived) quality. I just thought that stories that took more time to tell or had smaller budgets went to TV. It was in college that I learned that the reason why we value the Oscars over the Emmys is because the post-golden age Hollywood machine created that notion to bring people back into the theater (pages 28-29 here ). Widescreen, 3D, Smell-o-Vision and downplaying TV as an inferior product were all techniques implemented to increase audience numbers in 1950′s and 60′s. But really, there are just as many crappy movies as there are crappy shows and ultimately it’s a wash between the two.

While I can wax poetic about the great shows we 90′s kids grew up with, I find myself more excited about the television coming up now. That perceived line between film and television is fading and I’m hopeful for a new age where the two mediums are simply thought of as equal and different. But until then channels like AMC, HBO, Netflix (if you call that a channel) and, perhaps quietly, FX are leading the pack in bringing quality television to the masses. Television I always thought was possible. 

There are a ton of shows I could cover and a few I probably still will, including Steven Universe and Narcos, but for now I’m going to start with Atlanta on FX and Queen Sugar on OWN primarily because I’m such a huge fan of the show runners Donald Glover and Ava DuVernay respectively.

There’s an obvious, immediate bias in these choice of course. Donald Glover, otherwise known as Childish Gambino, is a black writer, actor, comedian and rapper who is close to me in age and has been called my future ex-husband several times in an only-partially joking manner (#CallMe). Ava DuVernay is a black female writer/director with locs that works with my childhood hero Oprah Winfrey and hates that the word “diverse” never seems to mean “inclusion” in Hollywood. 

So, I mean, yeah. I’m a stan of both of them.

Ava’s been working on Queen Sugar with Oprah since 2015, a year after they met on the film Selma. Oprah’s network OWN has stepped out of its days of being a reality show wasteland thanks in large part to her partnership with fellow filmmaker Tyler Perry in 2012, but with as him show runner on four different programs on OWN, the channel risks becoming monolithic in a new way. Ava, a different kind of filmmaker than Tyler Perry in almost every sense, has always wanted to do a TV show and Oprah has the playground to run around in. This is a promising match indeed.

On the other side of this equation, Donald Glover has some very telling lines on the first track of the mixtape Royaty “We Ain’t Them”

I sent a long text message to my mom and pop I got the same speech when I left 30 Rock My mom like “Why you wanna leave a good job?” My dad said “Do your thing, boy don’t stop” [...] Back of my mind though, I hope the show gets cancelled Maybe then I can focus

We Ain’t Them is a song about Glover trying to find himself, exploring what it means to be a rapper and creator.  These lines, referencing 30 Rock and Community respectively, show that despite the network television success, it clearly wasn’t enough to satiate his creative needs. In 2013 he left Community to start work on Atlanta and in 2014 dropped STM/MTN, a concept mixtape about Glover dreaming about running the Atlanta rap scene.

Noticing a theme?

So, with these things in mind, I find myself excited to break down the first seasons of these shows their creators were excited to build. Queen Sugar has already been renewed for a second season, a bold move for sure. Both shows boast their diversity inclusion in their promotions with Atlanta having an all black writers room and every episode of Queen Sugar being directed by a woman. And I can write an essay about the lack of good cinematography on majority black shows (a sad fact that can be chalked up to laziness or ignorance) but suffice to say, that essay wouldn’t apply to either of these shows. 

What I’m tying to say here is that I’m hyped y’all. 

Each production team took their time to make something real and I’m grateful for it. The goal of my reviews is to either encourage you to watch these shows if you aren’t or encourage conversation about the developing plots if you are. Both shows dropped their first two episodes this week so I’ve got my work cut out for me for sure!

Alright, enough of this preamble. Let’s get started shall we? [Oh and if you are feeling so inclined, leave a few in the tip jar por favor?]

[jazzthewriter]

Regarding Intent and Behavior

I had a biracial Lyft driver one time state that he didn't think Donald Trump was racist, just that he was stupid. I gently pointed out that those two things aren't mutually exclusive. There was a tone of slow realization in his voice as we continued talking, as if he had never considered that possibility before.

I point out that he was biracial because his white father is going to vote for Trump while my driver supported Sanders. Neither one sounded particularly politically motivated or aware, just went on gut feelings. I think the son, my driver, was looking for a way to reconcile his father's past actions -being married to a black woman and/or latina at one point- with his present decision to support Trump.

This exchange happened during the RNC and it's stuck with me. A lot of people excuse racist, sexist, homophobic and other prejudicial behavior under the guise of the action just being "stupid". Intent is paramount if you want to label it racist (et al) and behavior, for whatever reason, is exempt.

That's not how it works though. For whatever reason, we've reserved these terms for those with overt intent. The monsters. Those that live these views to the extreme. Those with white sheets and protest signs and violent hearts. Never for us though. We are kind. We didn't mean it like that. We aren't like those people. We're just saying...

The fear of being called one of these terms always trumps the will to correct the behavior.

And this idea, this unwillingness to face the issue as it stands and rather just sugarcoat it so it'll pass, seeps into other aspects of life. He's not abusive, she's not an addict, they aren't a molester - all because these traits can be balanced against their better behavior. But as anyone on the receiving end of these more universal actions can tell you, that's just not true.

Good and bad coexist and we have to allow for that complexity in our existence. In the same way that diseases aren't properly treated until they are named, we can't ignore the power of that bad name for the sake of our egos. That musician* can make music you love and be a child molester. Jeffree Star can be an androgynous icon in the LGBT community that makes good makeup and is a racist. Cosby can be an important influence for the perception of black community in our culture and a rapist. I can write this essay and have said transphobic things in the past. You only shed these unwanted titles (if they can be shed at all) with years of work, a truly apologetic nature and changed behavior, not because you simply don't want the burden of it.

This attempt to "other" our worse behavior does nothing to solve it. [*I was going to point out one musician but then immediately thought of five more, so fill in your own]

[jazzthewriter]

Loyal to a Fault - The Killing Joke (2016) Review

Usually writing movie reviews are easy for me. I can come up with concise statement to launch an essay from by the halfway mark of the film. But other times…other times I’m fully aware that I have a lot of feelings to process but I have absolutely no idea where to start. So excuse me as I work my way through my issues with DC animated film, The Killing Joke (2016).

The first and most glaring issue The Killing Joke has is structure. It’s clear that in an attempt to curtail the criticism the original graphic novel received for being a prime example of a “Woman in a Refrigerator” (female comic book characters who have been injured, killed, or depowered as a plot device )  Barbara Gordon was given an expanded backstory and agency in the first half of the film. I'll address the story itself in a bit, but the tonal shift between this straight forward plot about Batgirl realizing she might not cut out for the job and the complex themes of The Killing Joke is jarring to say the least. Alan Moore likes to pontificate in his stories and that wordy, existential style doesn’t exist in the first half. 

Conversely, Alan Moore’s literally style doesn’t seem to work well in the cinematic world.  For every V for Vendetta, there are, well, literally every other film adaptation inspired by Moore’s work (which yes, includes Watchmen. Fight me). There’s a Justice League Unlimited episode called For the Man Who Has Everything that Moore willingly approved, which is about as close to praise as you will get from him.  In V for Vendetta and Justice League Unlimited, the source material was a spring board for the production team. Both the film and tv show strayed away from a literal transcription of the story to instead explored the themes expressed through the use of visuals. Show, don’t tell - the cardinal rule of film.  The Killing Joke does a great job recreating the visuals presented in the graphic novel but it clearly fears to step outside those bounds and that self-imposed restriction chokes what the film could have been.  

And this film certainly needed to breathe. With such a minimal plot, the focus should have been on creating atmosphere and stronger sense of dread. Comics allow for time to take in the details in each panel, film can only mimic that effect by spending time to drive home the terror. At 76 minutes, the film ends up rushing through the most pivotal moments, like the Joker admitting he is very loose with his view of his past.

Which leads into the second issue (and full credit goes to my brother for articulating this for me when we talked yesterday) The Killing Joke isn’t about Barbara becoming Oracle or the simple plot of the Joker’s assault and kidnapping. It’s about the relationship between the Batman and the Joker and whether or not their ultimate fate -death- is unavoidable.  It’s a story about extremes and parallels. The Joker’s hypothesis that one bad day is what keeps everyone from going mad like himself and Batman. The audience already knows all about Batman’s one bad day and how he reacted to it. In The Killing Joke we are presented with flashbacks of the Joker’s one bad day as well (maybe).  A down and out family man just trying to provide ends up loosing it all due to circumstances outside his control. And in the present Gordon is caught in the middle of this debate, he’s the case study the Joker plans on proving his point with. Barbara Gordon is just an afterthought in all of this. Making the first story all about her feels disjointed because it is, she’s not the focus of the original story. Batman and the Joker are. If the production team really wanted to make the addition work, it should have told from Batman’s perspective and the one bad day theme should have been expanded on. (Maybe that’s what they tried to do with the whole “looking into the abyss” line but since it’s not the same metaphor it really doesn’t connect. Also that line worked better when Batman said he didn’t blink in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths ).  Instead the story is about a naive girl that’s in a bad relationship working a job she’s not quite ready for who then gets shot and isn’t seen again until the very end. Shifting the narrative to Batman creates a parallel where he sees that Barbara can’t follow in his footsteps because she’s never had that one bad day and the Joker sees Jim doesn’t follow in the his footsteps despite having one horrible day. Batman becomes the architect and observer of Barbara’s journey as the Joker is for Jim’s.

Finally, and actual spoiler alert here, I have to mention the sex scene. It's been covered to death in other think pieces so I'll keep it brief and within the world of other DC animated works. The idea of a Batgirl/Batman pairing has already been referenced twice in the DCAU, (and it's particularly hilarious here: https://youtu.be/l51dZBSs12w) so this isn't exactly new territory. But the difference between those subtle references and the added scene in The Killing Joke is that here they aren't equals. Batman says that point blank. Their relationship is very much teacher and student, and while that might be a welcomed fan service for some, it's certainly a skeevy thing for Batman to do for most fans. On top of that, despite her being old enough to consent, the entire plot is based on her being naive and easily manipulated, which just makes Batman look that much worse. It's an already questionable pairing to begin with and these factors don't help it at all. 

Now, with all of that said, I didn't hate the film. It's not great but it's not horrible either. It just kind of exists. The second half was really just a motion comic, it was almost too loyal. So maybe I didn't hate it because I didn't hate the book. Or maybe my love for the DC animated team is clouding my judgement. But the characters were strong, the animation was gorgeous and the voice acting was pitch perfect. On those standards, it lives up to every other DC animated production. I am glad it got to be in theaters and I hope that trend continues. It's just that when it comes to the story what the film has going for it is that Alan Moore’s words are strong and his themes are interesting. Everything that works in the film worked in the original story, nothing the film did enhanced or explored that. The fact that (spoiler?) Batman and the Joker just stop fighting and end their climactic battle with a joke is effective and memorable but is only a spoiler if you’ve never read the book. What was added didn’t fit because it didn’t fit the original story.  

It was a fine, if perhaps thoroughly unnecessary, experience

[jazzthewriter]

Random Thoughts: I’ve Always Been Envious of Musicians

I never quite had a handle on why though. I used to just chalk it up to the fact that I come from a musically inclined family and that skill set seems to have skipped over me. I remember as a kid daydreaming of being a jazz singer in a smokey club, captivating the audience with my sad sweet tune.  I also remember that daydream was always interrupted by the knowledge that I had no real talent for singing or even song writing. My mind just doesn’t work that way. But today I’m watching Prince’s performance of “The Beautiful Ones” and a new reason for my lack of musical talent it hits me - I don’t possess the ability or even desire to revisit a specific feeling for the world to see.  When I write, I do it to exorcise. It helps me let go of whatever feeling I’m experiencing or theme I want to explore. No matter what happens with those words - if they are published or filmed or buried in a notebook somewhere - they are out and done. I only need to revisit them if I feel like it. There’s never been a demand for me to do so and even if when I get to a point where I’m asked to analyze my work for an audience, I’ll be allowed to do so in my own way, with distance and new experiences to inform my discussion. I’ll be allowed to speak of my work in the past tense, not present.

But musicians have to live those moments every time they perform.  I think I was aware of that on some level when I thought about 2014 Brittany Spears probably having to perform “Hit Me Baby One More Time” in Las Vegas at some point and that image struck me as funny. But the articulation of that idea really came together today as I listened to Prince scream out “Do you want him? Or do you want me? What’s it going to be? Because I want you”. You can’t help but picture him penning those simple, honest words with some very specific girl in mind.  Or at least I can’t. And for me that level of honesty, especially in a situation so clearly agonizing and desperate, is not the kind of thing I would want to revisit in front of a paying crowd. 

[jazzthewriter]

Untitled - WIP

The sun is strong and steady, shining in a cloudless sky. The air is crisp, casually picking up the autumn leaves up and carrying them elsewhere.

There is a young white couple in the park. Their three kids are under the age of ten, the youngest is just out of diapers. The mother has a short haircut, a black and gray North Face jacket and matching yoga pants. She shops at Nordstrom and Sachs occasionally, but if you ask her she’ll tell you that Target is where she got her pants. She thinks it makes her sound down-to-earth. Her husband doesn’t care as much. He spends too much time crafting his clean cut clothing style -a white button down and dark wash jeans- with his seemingly mismatched personal style - a consistently scraggly three day beard, tattoos on his arm that imply a cooler time in his life, a blue pack of American Spirits in his back pocket.

He wants you to ask about him, Ra’shell thought absently to herself. It was one those thoughts that come to you without really thinking about it, an assessment of the visuals in front of you. I don’t fit here, she thought consciously. The park was immaculately clean, manicured. Not just neat and clean trash cans, but trash cans that sit next to two different recycling bins. Because that’s something this community can afford. There is no resentment in her thoughts, she’s long past that angsty time in her life. It’s just a dull observation of the world she’s in right now.

She looks down at her jeans, frayed due to time not to style. The inner thighs are worn down. She closes her legs to hide what might be a hole soon. The elastic in wrists of her coat is loose and she places her hands inside - an act of comfort rather than for warmth. Everything she’s done this morning has been pretty unconscious, including waiting in this park watching upper middle class people live their lives. She had decided last night she wasn’t even going to be here after spending the entire day agonizing over the cryptic four word text James had sent at 6am that day.

“7:30 at Kram’s, ok?” 

Kram’s Park. 

You know, where they met at last year’s Autumnal Equinox fair when it turned out that his friends and her friends turned were some of the same people and oh my gosh isn’t that funny that you don’t know James!? How is that even possible? Weren’t you both at Cheryl’s party last month? No? Oh, well you two would get along great. He’s even into movies like you are! Yeah that foreign artsy kind of stuff, he loves it. It’s crazy you don’t know each other!

7:30. AM, that is.

An unreasonable time that she once told him should not exist on a weekend. He was already wide awake, dressed and making coffee. She had slept on the couch because, well, Kim and Rachel and Aaron were all going to crash too and it doesn’t make sense for her to drive home this late. Here, the couch is more comfortable than it looks, promise! Do you need an extra blanket? No she had told him but then regretted when she woke up three hours later shivering a little in the dark.  She felt as if she had just fallen back asleep, her hoodie cocooning her and poorly standing in for the blanket she was too prideful to ask for, when James - Jim, he told her. Call me Jim- tried unsuccessfully to tiptoe around his own kitchen.

“Sorry”, he whispered as if she was still asleep.

“Don’t be, it’s your house. It’s 7:30′s fault for existing in the first place,” she whispered back, not knowing that Kim had taken a Uber back an hour after Ra’shell had fallen asleep and that Rachel and Aaron had gone with her so there really wasn’t anyone to whisper for anymore. He had laughed at what she said, surprising her and leading into a casual conversation about morning people as he fixed her a cup of coffee. When she realized that she was the only party guest that remained, she felt weird but only because her pride was rearing up again, reminding her that she shouldn’t overstay her welcome. Not because she was alone in a the house of near stranger. That didn’t even cross her mind until she was walking out a fifteen minutes later, claiming that she had to get home to feed a pet she didn’t own. No, that thought didn’t occur as she drank his coffee and laughed at his argument for waking up early and thought about checking out his music collection but deciding against it, maybe next time because she really should get going.

He probably doesn’t even realize it’s been a year, she thought waiting today in the park. Why would he? Who marks the start of a friendship? Not her usually. But this wasn’t a friendship of course. She knew that the first time he pulled her in for their first selfie, a sight that is always funny to see a six foot tall broad shouldered man do with the unapologetic glee of a teenage girl. They were wearing funny hats, that was the reason for the photo. A strictly platonic act. His free hand fell to the small of her back on accident. Of course.

Of course.

The white family is getting ready to move on. The father said something about getting breakfast and the oldest child immediately started making demands about what he does and does not want. The father heeds them all, offering up restaurant ideas in a patient tone as his wife collects the siblings. The restaurants are all priced higher than what Ra’shell believes a ten year old should have an opinion on and it dawns on her that this all organic, occasionally vegan, comfortably middle class family has probably never introduced their kids to Denny’s.

James - Jim - was late. For the best really since she needed time to think apparently. Also he would have a snarky comment about the scene playing out in front of her and she wouldn’t have been able to to stifle her laughter.

The idea that he may not even show up floats up and she pushes it back down. Not in the mood for that kind of stuff right now, she thinks.  

Her toes were getting cold. She’s need to buy boots soon. She took a second and then noted that would have to be an investment made two paychecks from now. James - Jim - got that kind of stuff which was rare for the circle she constantly found herself in.

You don’t mark the anniversary of a friendship usually. At least people like her didn’t. But she wasn’t here at 7:30am - 7:35am excuse me -for friendship.

The family smiled at her as they left.  She nodded respectfully but not necessarily happily. She watched them leave and on the horizon she saw the shape of another man -Jim, not James- approached her.

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Work in progress - edited 12:45pm