Favorite French Phrase

avoir le bourdon (literal translation: to have the bumblebee): to feel down/have the blues

Boogie Chillen': A Blues Parable

Once there was a  boy who lived in the Mississippi delta south.  His daddy was a music playin man.  But his momma liked to run around.
Before the boy was conceived, there were plans for them to head up  north to Detroit.  But instead his woman left the music man for a devil named Jim Crow.

That was back in the day when white folks in power couldn't take untamed "black folks".  And so, they made bad laws.  Laws like curfews (imposed only on African Americans).  Laws that allowed white folks to "pick up" African Americans for "loitering", simply if they weren't working, or if they were merely walking down the road.     

After just a few days the woman got pregnant and the blues they made was a bastard son.  A real unruly boy from the devil seed of Jim Crow.  But just like a heartless devil, Jim put em out.  And with no where to turn she returned back to the music man and he took the both of em back in.

It's a bitter pill, what that devil'l make you swallow.  But his daddy loved the blues.  He loved that blues made from the devils seed like his own.  And so he moved em all up north stoppin off in Chicago and then up to Detroit.  

It was there that his daddy took a job playin at a nightclub.  A nightclub on Hastings street called the Henry Swing club.  And when the music man played, all the towns people would start to boogie.  

Born on the 6th day of the week, they called that boy the blues.  And on the 7th day his Daddy spoke.  And he said "let that boy boogie-woogie, cause it's in him, and it got to come out". 

Boogie Chillen' !!


-(inspired by the lyrics of "Boogie Chillen'", by John Lee Hooker).

MLK sings the Blues

I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law.
-Martin Luther King Jr.

Mahatma Ghandi

"Love thy neighbor as thyself" is no counsel of perfection. The capitalist is as much a neighbor of the laborer as the latter is a neighbor of the former, and one has to seek and win the willing co- operation of the other. Nor does the principle mean that we should accept exploitation lying down. Our internal strength will render all exploitation impossible.

Strictly Business

When I hit the gas of my mini van.......

(I own a mini van........  I used to be cool once..........)

sometimes it jerks backwards like the transmission's falling out.  A couple of months ago it happened again on my way to work and backing out of my garage, I hit the gas.  It jumped.  But that time I didn't even notice because I was pissed......

And Hurt...

In fact, I was so upset that my eyes started filling up and so I just turned the music up to cover over everything and when I caught the sound; in an instant I knew it was the blues.

My drive to work is always a mad dash of danger trying to keep from being late to work.  (new record-only 3 tardies this year).  Sometimes I pray in my car on the way to work (working with the crazies will drive you to it..... Most common prayer?  Lord Have Mercy.)  But my drives are different these days.  Its my wife (and me).  We had "a talk" a few weeks ago and just like that, my 19 year marriage left me feeling like the transmission was falling out.

BTW,* It would be inappropriate to assign blame here (that is, unless of course I'm the only one reading this blog..... which I totally expect one day to be true.  Don't stop reading, Belgium!!!!

But the thing that shocked me, (maybe the thing that happens after 19 years of marriage) was how the conversation was so tame and dispassionate.  A discussion of the worst of our life together discussed like facts....  Numb,  like it was all strictly business.

That said, I was thinking about that  on my way into work.  It's always a long drive south down the highway and I pretty much just have my music and my thoughts, but when I get to the Interstate I start looking for the sky-line (my hospital is close to downtown) and then there's the very short drive down 11th street, and all the strange scraggly people that walk around there.

I've noticed that every city has an 11th street.  It's the place caught between........  The place where everything between the business-suited-rich and the homeless-poor intermingle (and sometimes collide).  It's the place where everyone cross the same street, use the same gas stations and bathrooms; wait on the same buses.  But it's also the place where everything is uncomfortable.  No one talks or makes eye contact; unless, of course, they have some kind of business.

One of my former business associates recently lost his job.  He's been a great boss.  Done outstanding things for his organization (on 11th street).  Loyal beyond words.  When I asked him why it happened, his response (because he's an honorable man) was, "It wasn't personal.  Just business.  Missed goals".  And I thought about how it's all so easily forgotten, how it's such a "what have you done for me lately" kind of world.  And I thought about what a common phrase that is; "it's just business".

When I think of my 19 years with my wife (which we're not giving up on BTW) my former boss, the people of eleventh street I wonder, what does it mean that life is just business?  How did we come to this?  And where is God in a world where people are so blind to each other?.... silent?  And expendable? Invisible?  Doesn't it seem like there should be something more than this?

I pulled into the parking garage; parked my car and started running towards my clock-in spot.  And when I saw I was a minute early I slowed my pace and settled in.  And as I continued my walk I wondered about God, and I wondered if God new any blues songs, or if God understood what it was like to be discarded like leftovers, or how it felt to walk down a busy street awkward, alone, and invisible.  And I wondered if God in all of God's God-ness would ever consider learning how to play the blues.