Little Ol' White Me

I'm must look a sight, walking as much as I do. This tall white dude, that looks like Jesus, who listens to nothing but Jazz, hip-hop and reggae, and who was known for arguing with people about who the best MC's are. Haven't really been around a lot of true hip-hop and jazz cats for a little while, so nobody's been really shooting the shit with me about music, for a while. All my friends out in LA are making the music, not studying it anymore, so we talk about mostly beats we've been working on or drama in our lives. Having had this time to myself, and in different context, I think I came across something from my child hood. Being a white dude. I'm an awkward fuck, live off Coltrane, but look like I should be frolicking through a meadow on a hair flare, or something. I mean it, used to play Trane, Miles, Clifford Brown, Monk, man Monk. If there's not a better person to learn about living, it's The Thelonious Monk. Anyway, what am i doing listening to the masters? They're black. Right. Where could I possibly live and get a mix like that? Well, people have been more than generous to share with me things they've found helpful, especially, when it comes to music. Something about music, the corridor of communication opens in a way, especially in jazz, that makes it so easy to know what's going on. At the same, gives the listener the choice of how they listen, what they listen to, and what they like about it. So, I am always mindful of the things that I have learned from the greats. Identified with as much as I can as a human. And most definately, have learned more about the 50's, 60's and 70's from jazz than anything else. Even politics and politics would have been my other profession, but music always had a draw, that I knew if I just put my mind to it, I would figure out how to play an instrument. Listening to jazz allows me to sing in ways that only yodelers in sweden have used across large mountains. Any luck of Flamenco in my mom's line, adjust my vocal chords in ways I never could connect to, had I not started singing in the shower when I was 23. Steaming it up and just saying ohm. For like an hour, helped me to calm my mind enough to make dinner, and function on a level that I could take care of myself pay my bils, etc. Putting one finger on one fret, on one string on my guitar, and playing twinkle twinkle little star on every string, just one string at a time, was how I learned to play by ear. I practiced scales and chords I had learned when I had taken guitar lessons, and now I've been playing for 5 years, and am ready to start reading music, again. Not that I don't like playing things my own way, that's how I'll figure out how to play standards that everyone knows, from Fake Books that are out there. Could be a traveling act, if I had enough tunes under my belt. But as of now, I'm working with alot of chord changes from cd's I have and sitting down to the piano and mapping out chords as I work out melodies of songs I like. So how do I walk down the street with a gate to my step, and mouth on my face? How do I talk like what I hear from the street, but still never look like I belong? Cause this is where I'm from and the place I grew up valued the interaction of people living together. Not splitting up everything up on stuff that divides us. Cause if it's not being worked on by all of us, or rather, everyone's input isn't being put in, it's not working itself out. And it needs some help. I know. Having grown up in a neighborhood more black and middle class than my family could make white, I learned a lot. Call a lot of people family that would have only happened any other way from the layers of destruction that have clouded our perception of the vision we all hold for our country. This is the first generation where we can look at each other from the same economic and social status. If wasn't for the black resident looking after my mother while she was pregnant. She might have died from complications. No one had looked at her blood pressure to see it was real high for her (she having lower blood pressure, as is), only at what level it was below the line drawn for too much. He had looked at her chart and saw that it was well above where she was normally, and suggested the Physician in charge take it into account. I was born at 2lbs 14oz and my mom survived the pregnancy. I haven't had much interaction in other countries about race in america. But I do know that america is the only place that race matters as much as it does. The whole rest of the world, whether they are starving searching for food to feed themselves, to looking for enough resources to develop and function, most people look at the rich for needing to be involved to make things work. Here we just blame everyone for everything and are surprised to hear things do work out. Now I love this part, it takes me back to when I was 14 and a group of young people I knew, we were all in high school, majority of us from public schools. We would have weekly discussions about what it meant to empower youth. One of my most memorable discussions we've ever had was about Race. We made four squares. One for white men, European descent, etc. One for white women. One for women of color and one for men of color. Just like that. Dialougue has only one rule, only white men can be racist. Man, I knew what they were saying, but I didn't want anything to do with this. Are you kidding me, let's get these white sheet wearing mother fuckers. Fuck em, I need a world that included everybody, not some bullshit ass stage to make sure my tobacco fields get picked for subserviant pay and benefits. Fuck that shit. Wait. I can be racist, too? And only because I'm more likely to make it as a corporate president than the dude with the same idea in North Philly? Well, then how did I find myself wanting to meet that dude, more than the corner office? Ok, let's talk about this. Could you help me not be racist, like how am I racist, if I'm not trying to be? So, we all said something that they enjoyed about being the race they are. I mean all of our families come from somewhere. Well, did I mention I was having trouble grasping something? How about my Dad's family was Bretheren? People, I don't know about today, but used to be very strict about worldly things (women wore bonets, men wore beards and had very short hair, farmed and thought that everyone was created equal. I've always liked that part. Meant my dad could explain to me things in a way that I could ask others about it to. I mean a white dude. Used to mess my friend's up, "you're white, but you act black." I get "you talk black" occasionally these days, but I'm still a white man. All I know is where I'm from. Who lives around me, and what they appreciate about life. I love knowing what people appreciate. Having the opportunity to hear someone say something positive, makes me see them open to something better than anything that could keep us down. It means a lot more to me to hear stuff like that, than watching the news could ever tell me about what's really wrong in the world. Makes me sad to think that I enjoy all of these things and you enjoy all of the things you enjoy, but when I turn on the news it's all negative stuff about people getting killed, or fires in peoples homes. Then I get sports and the weather. If I was on the news. I'd want more people on talking about stuff they like and less about stuff that we really need to fix. I mean if someone gets shot, and it's on the news, I only have 15 seconds to say a prayer to my TV, instead of making dinner and taking it to someone's house. The Cops have it weird, they get there after the fact and try to figure out what happens. Whatever they work out, well, there's a lot more to be worked out in regards to making sure it never happens again. I mean people get so low when someone around them dies. EVERYONE IS AFFECTED. But I guess that's why I say a prayer everytime I get caught watching a news story. I have to admit, I'm a little deeper about it. I mean, if it were me, I would be furious if someone with a TV camera was in my face as my whole spirit tries to grasped the loss to my heart. Thanks guys, I think maybe we could make that news slot something else from now on? Atleast give it a week or so, so the familes can get through being so numb and hurt. I'm sure the people who need to be around or need to know already do. But, I'm not gonna leave it at not being beneficial for the whole community but it's a bit of a superficial level, emotionally. Amazing we have the internet, maybe I'll do some news clips of my own. I wonder if anyone would like my blog enough to let me write for their paper. This is me writing, and this is how I'd love to make my living. My goals are filled with doing my part to help people find space for something better. This is why I started this blog, this is why I started playing music, it's why I've started studying shiatsu. This is why I try to give all my friends a new idea everytime I talk with them. There's something I think we can find brand-new in every moment. There's always a way to make the world better. As we live to learn, all we do is change our perspective and we can learn something new. Man, I've been jacked, robbed, I mean, and felt so self-conscious after that. But I made myself go outside, just so I could make sure I knew how to do it. I didn't want to stay inside just cause I was scared. If I get scared, I usually find something familiar and follow it. I never learned anything else from all the human and civil rights movements that I grew up with. Which brings me to my thesis for this essay. It's weird being a white man, who's stuck between a world that looks at me as the quickest one to a 100 g's in some corporate job and one that learned about the inequities being spread across the world, from people doing something about them. I mean, can you imagine getting paid to make the world better? That's what I want to do. Know anyone hiring? I have experience and I have problems.