NERD and MENTAT NINJA 2020 ! with Music

Elizabeth Warren

Stacey Abrams

2020 !

We need financial and voting integrity and reform bigtime. These women have been in the trenches fighting for a long damn time. They got the guts. Give them the glory. They have the experience. Anybody want to try an amateur businessman again?

Graphic below our heroes by Buddy McCue.

Morning in August - Real Philadephia - #1 - First Draft

I keep baker's hours. Snoring at nine p.m. and up at three a.m. Philadelphia time. My front step is on the pavement. What happens on the street happens fifteen feet from my desk. Dawn happening. Peace.

I began to feel vibrations in the ether. Maria de los Dolores passing: earrings flashing, bracelets clashing, accompanying cherubs jiggy jigging. Everybody calls her Lola. Lola is louder and crazier than I am. I find that soothing. Everyone else runs when they see her coming. Lola starts her circuit ride around ten o'clock most days. Big disturbance in the pattern means big news. It is the Cherubs. Little fuckers tell her everything. So I opened my door.

"What?"
"Baby Dee is dead. You got a stamp? Give me fifty cents and I get my own stamp."

Lola jiggy jigged away, Cherubs in tow and one dollar richer. I sat until the light told me it was coffee hour. I meet all my neighbors at the bodega, one time or another.

Robbers shot the clerk behind the counter at the bodega five years ago. Then they went straight home. Cops had them in 45 minutes. Robbers had a wee problem with drugs. We got new owners of course. They spent their first year looking fierce. Now as the hipsters and Art studios begin their invasion, they just look bored.

Everybody in the world goes to the bodega just the same. The bodega is our oasis in a food and sundries desert. I get mango ice cream and Dominican beef stew. I get the heat. I get succulent roasted pork leg. I get fly tapes, socks, lottery tickets and EZwider. I get the story.

When I rounded the corner onto Tangerine Street, I saw the Commodore and Shorty.  The Commodore looks like a mocha stork. Just as tall as can be. I call him the Commodore because he is a sharp dresser. Always looks like he is about to go sailing. Classic Sport, you know what I mean? Shorty is short and short.

"What happened to Baby Dee?"

"Maybe you don't know Baby Dee worked with these young druggy kids. One kid freaked and Baby Dee was trying to calm him down. Boy shot him 4 times. Shorty found him."

Shorty nodded. He short.

"What can I do?"

"Funeral on Thursday at the Baptist Church at three o'clock. They started putting candles and flowers around his door. Shorty put up a balloon say PEACE."

Shorty nodded. Just stood right there. Shortening.

I keep walking toward coffee at the bodega like always. I pass Baby Dee's altar. It grew over days. Candles, flowers, notes. He was the Mayor of the 'hood and kept the day folk nicely separate from the night folk.

Baby Dee and I, we had a thing. Knees. I would hobble around to the bodega on my (I can still walk and get my own coffee) mission every morning at 7 a.m. Dee ruined his knee being a football person. He would stop detailing some Cadillac, limp over and hug me. I am like a child. I thought it was forever. I can walk now and Baby Dee is gone to Jesus.

Miss Norma - Real Philadelphia #2

Midnight. It was a soft day. Now it is a balmy night. A gentle breeze is sending smoke from the chemical plant out to sea.

Miss Norma is parked outside my door in her running car. I can smell the engine and hear the exhaust. Norma is dancing in her seat with the windows closed and the bass turned up so high the car is pulsating. She has been tossing her hair and waving her arms about for 20 minutes now. Norma has good taste in music, thank you God.

Norma is living in the rowhouse next door with another single Mom and eight children. Norma is sheltering a family while their house is repaired after a fire. The combined children range in age from 3 to 14. It has been three months now. You would be pulsating in your car too. Norma was so trashed after the Eagles game that she was out there pulsating at 2 am. She told me "I do not think I can make it inside." Offers of aid were refused. All must be well because she is running another concert tonight.

Norma has five children. Rosy Posy is my favorite. I promised crayons to all the kidniks for Xmas and then I fell. For awhile I could not write a sentence or even read. I need the boxes with the sharpener and all the colors. Soon children, soon. The girls came by after Christmas and politely reminded me I made a present promise. They are beautiful and I love them.

Norma and I, we have an unspoken deal. I ignore the constant pile of dogshit in her backyard, and her blood curdling howls of frustration that penetrate the brick walls that divide our rowhouses, and she lets me borrow the children and pretend I am their Grandma. Solid. 

I just heard this...

Occasionally I write a Poem. Sometimes good and sometimes bad.
As long as the Poem floem,
I am happy and not sad.

I just heard this on the cable tv...

"...the rescue mission was successful.
Twenty three people died."

I thought to myself:
Self, "War is peace."

Then I thought:
I really ought to name this poem
Quotation to the Second Power
...and spoiled the whole reflection...erection...perfection. 

I am old as dirt.

Graphic by Favianna Rodriguez.

Bless me, for I have sinned. I have done everything. I have been everywhere and nowhere. There is nothing I have to do. I am not at all accustomed to this luxury.

I got married. I gave birth, not in that order. I worked. I went ornately mad. I 'tuned in, turned on and dropped out.' I did my Art. The only thing that is left for me to do is become a Real Girl. And die. That is a lot more challenging than it may seem to the casual lie...I mean eye. I am a Beast.

I am astounded these sentences have appeared. I am dry. I am empty. Lady Shrink says that like a computer, I am buffering. I am terrified I will be in nowhere blah forever. When my Eye is on my eye, I I I...

Thank you Jesus, I can write something again. I just wrote something again. I do not believe Jesus will save me. There is nothing to be saved from. I just enjoy the conversation.

Peace on Earth

There is no trust more sacred than the one the world holds with children. There is no duty more important than ensuring that their rights are respected, that their welfare is protected, that their lives are free from fear and want and that they grow up in peace. -- Kofi Annan

Banner from D&B Graphics

Happy New Year, Cher Reader.

As we discovered on the train (terrain?), tomorrow never happens. It's all the same fucking day, man. - Janis Joplin

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.
Make your mistakes, next year and forever.” ― Neil Gaiman