fiction and musings from a gay black dude with delusions above his station
From the Oompa Loompas, we learned the following: Who do you blame when your kid is a brat, pampered and spoiled like a Siamese cat? Blaming the kids is a lie and a shame. You know exactly who’s to blame: The mother and the father! At age 16, Ethan Couch killed four people while driving…
I got my first motorcycle in December 1987. Before then, I had owned two scooters, a Honda Aero 50 followed by a Honda Passport. Neither were freeway legal, but that didn’t matter. I navigated the surface streets of LA like a boss. Commuting to UCLA from South-Central had its challenges, but I had various backroad…
As a reaction to the horrible mass shooting in San Bernardino, the New York Times published its first front page editorial in 95 years. Titled “End the Gun Epidemic in America,” it is yet another plea for common sense to prevail and for politicians, particularly the US Congress, to pass common sense laws to curb the…
New York City will host several events to mark the 100th anniversary of Billy Strayhorn’s birth. Details can be found at a special centennial website. Ah, to be in New York this autumn. Fortunately, we all have access to his incredible body of music. Here’s just a short selection of recommendations and some of my favorite…
The homophobia that Joe Morgen, Duke Ellington’s publicist, possessed only reflected the homophobia of the society at large in the late 1950s. Around the time the New York Times ignored Strayhorn in its review of Such Sweet Thunder, a move undoubtedly engineered by Morgen, the Amsterdam News, Harlem’s daily, published a series of articles and…
I fear that I have to interrupt my Billy Strayhorn tribute posts to make an important announcement. 16 shots equals sadism. Over a year after Laquan McDonald, a 17-year old black kid, was shot and killed by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, a white cop, under very suspicious circumstances, video of this shooting has…
Bebop hit the scene in the early 1940s and grew as the decade progressed. Rhythm and blues got more attention as the 40s rolled to a conclusion. Thus, by 1950, club owners began booking smaller R & B combos and jazz joints booked bebop combos. It was cheaper to pay 4-6 musicians than a large…
1939 was a good year for a composer/arranger to join the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Several important musicians joined its ranks around this time, adding to the band’s considerable aural palette. Jimmy Blanton freed the bass from its simple time-keeping role and made it a fluid, melodic instrument. This is best heard on the track “Jack…
For the first few years of his life, Billy Strayhorn didn’t have a name. His parents had buried two of three children born before him, so when the new born started life sickly, with rickets, they did not rush to name him. He was called “Baby Boy Strayhorn” on his birth certificate. The rickets went…
Spanish Bay by Hans M. Hirschi Published by Beaten Track Publishing Genres: Romance, LGBT 196 pages Release Date: October 10, 2015 Synopsis Spanish Bay is a feel-good novel about two young men who, despite having the odds stacked against them, never give up, always see the silver lining, work hard, and are committed to their families, come…
