Tag Archives: father

Quarropas

The Idol

Forsaking the East required me to pare possessions. Fortunately or unfortunately, I lack a lot of sentimental feeling so few precious heirlooms weighted my way West. Instead, I brought along plenty of memories. All of which bear greater substance than most of the dustcatchers dispersed or abandoned in Quarropas.

One item borne along means absolutely nothing to me. It had been father’s. Looking at it now foments all sorts of questions because having observed him the thing is inconsistent with who he was. Or at least the man he presented. Continue reading The Idol →

Dim Neon, Green Venom, Poky Town

Shoulder to the Wheel

Three Augusts ago I resided at ease in suburban splendor. So much so I took several vacation days to visit Kewpie in Miami. She’d been laboring on film shoot. Warren joined us.

When she wasn’t eye-rolling on-set shenanigans or prima dona outbursts, we treacherous three gamboled along South Beach. Had I known my carefree days were short, I would’ve behaved way more carelessly.

Hmmm. Just might suggest that as my epitaph.

Two years ago, Quarropas, the old hometown, remained somewhat recognizable. That was if a long-time resident squinted. By this time last year, it was less splendiferous since every soul making that loaded word “home” a desirable refuge had died away.

August 2014 marks my first year in Las Vegas. Continue reading Shoulder to the Wheel →

Dim Neon, Poky Town

Bloody Mouth

Here’s a question that indelibly colors its speaker: “Where you at?”

Having lived in Metropolitan New York, I’ve doubtlessly heard it. Now relocated to Las Vegas the phrase echoes frequently. It insults my ears. It diminishes the level of regard the speaker will be held.

“Where you at?” sits among the worst of first impressions. Continue reading Bloody Mouth →

Quarropas

Wartime

    This post follows She Humanized Him. Language and characteristics reflect the times, people and places.

    The Second World War. I would’ve thought Jim Crow defined father. No, that he brushed off. Instead, Adolf Hitler yanked him and millions of others from preordained ruts in American life.

    While father praised Roosevelt for his bravery, grit, willingness to experiment, his simple man’s outlook saw Hitler as a cauterizing savior who advanced American society.

Continue reading Wartime →

Quarropas

She Humanized Him

This post follows Phony Gold and Our Patrimony. Language and characterizations reflect the times, people and places. 

    Without Waymon our two-family home shrunk. That’s a statement I couldn’t attribute to his wife Camille, or sons Richard and Junior together. Combined my aunt and cousins lacked my uncle’s single vitality. Waymon’s subtraction multiplied emptiness.

    Although obviously gone, one truly became aware of his absence after the funeral. Esteem him, fear him, my uncle lived 93 years. He’d known a lot of people. Not all of whom went before him.

    The significance of Waymon’s death was such that even mother made a pilgrimage to our old modest homestead. Certainly acrimony ruptured my parents. However, that happened in 1966. So long ago time had blurred its sharpness.

Continue reading She Humanized Him →

Agitprop/Propaganda, Observed

You Are the Quarry

    

    With no apologies to the Moz.

    Anonymous denunciation inspires this post. On one of the social sites to which I contribute, a correspondent objected to a topic dissected by the Slow Boat Media surgeon. 

    Which post, what aspect, who knows? Only the person skulking in the shadows can inform, and he or she won’t. Can’t confess without a backbone.

     On one hand, these social media boards are terrific because exchanges run the gamut between thoughtful erudition and freewheeling irreverence. Doesn’t matter whether God’s a dog or American intelligence services are financing Cuban Twitter. On the other, more pernicious hand, distance and cloaking permit espousals that likely would’ve remained unstated. These convictions are the sort that ought to have continued seething behind sour breasts.

Continue reading You Are the Quarry →

Quarropas

Our Patrimony

            In their reckless haste to denude Waymon and Camille’s portion of our house, my cousin Boopy and her husband Dim overlooked “the pen.” To them, the instrument must’ve been among the most meaningless of trifles. Like all those photographs of her family.

            The implement was more than an expensive writing tool. Boopy’s grandfather Waymon bought it for a single use, a distinct purpose. He’d paid attention to the processes which granted blacks greater inclusion into American life. All of them affirmed through signatures. What he had in mind was no less momentous than those bills enacted. Continue reading Our Patrimony →

Agitprop/Propaganda

The Whole Shooting Match

    Let’s hope the president was just being cynical when he tossed in video games and movies as perhaps energizing America’s gun nut culture. Pop culture does not incite mindless violence. Simple-minded adulation? Yes. Boy bands prove that.

    Fads that draw double takes such as severe serial tattooing and Marquis de Sade piercing? Certainly. Just in case carnival midways run short of, oh, geeks.

    But the force behind lapses into updates of the Boomtown Rats’ “I Don’t Like Mondays”? Uh, no. Continue reading The Whole Shooting Match →

Pop Culture

Cool. Resolute. Polished.


    Watching John Boehner well up, I wonder what father would’ve thought of such displays. While it’s good the Speaker of the House is comfortable enough in himself to let tears roll at the drop of a charged moment, isn’t there something unnerving about the leader’s, uh, expressiveness? Continue reading Cool. Resolute. Polished. →

Great Books

Not Your Father’s Blue Carbuncle


    We’re dumbing down Sherlock Holmes. If the recent Robert Downey, Jr., efforts making “Sherlocking” more accessible for the earbud/self-absorbed set weren’t puerile enough, BBC TV has gone whole-hog to render Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective and his associate Dr. John Watson relevant for 21st century viewers.

    No need to wonder what Conan Doyle might’ve made of those revisions. He would’ve looked at them as if H.G. Wells had monkeyed with his template. On absinthe.

    The Downey reboots were jarring. Are jarring. Will be jarring. Holmes as imagined by Sax Rohmer. Or H. Rider Haggard. Ripping yarns instead of Victorian Age mysteries. Holmes mirrored his time. Downey’s Holmes distorts it. Continue reading Not Your Father’s Blue Carbuncle →