Back in the Day When I was Young, I'm Not a Kid Ne-More!

We've all been there.

   When I think of all the cringe-worthy things that I have done, the mind-numbingly ridiculous stances that I have taken and the all in all preposterous events that I have caught myself up in---both invited and uninvited--- from the age of adulthood (that's still 18, right?) to say... 25 years old, I feel so embarrassed. Not just a little red in the face, a little milk spilled, embarrassed. EMBARRASSED!!! Like choking to death on a peanut butter and fluff sandwich on the toilet, embarrassed. Or getting caught by TMZ dining at Planet Hollywood during Oscar weekend, embarrassed. Or this. Mortified. And what's even worse than the knowledge that I have done, said and thought such ridonk things, is the realization that at this very moment I have probably entered into a new stage of life where the new crop of embarrassing things fly below my chagrin radar--- never to be heard or seen of again until a decade later when I realize how dumb I was NOW, like some Bermuda Triangle of stupidity.

Nope! We definitely won't regret hipster glasses. Or Snookie for that matter.

But in the meantime, I'll just have to keep playing the "Oh-no" song every time I remember how bricks I must have been to let the following things slide...

Don't Go To Strangers

   Yeah... it's been a heck of a couple of months. The news of Etta James passing on to the Big Jazz Club in the Sky was really shocking, if only because most people didn't realize the gravity of the illnesses that she was dealing with. Or even that she was in fact sick. I've honestly only ever owned one of her albums but every song on it is soulful, heartfelt and cool. From Fool That I Am to Willow Weep For Me every track takes me to a place and a time (not so) long ago. When the struggles and setbacks of people of color could be heard in our music and all of the art that we produced. When it fueled us collectively to push farther and dig deeper until we found our truth. One could fast forward twenty or thirty years and see the fruits of that labor ever present in the works of Mr. Don Cornelius. Even though my generation missed much of the heyday of the creative peak of  Soul Train, it remained a Saturday morning staple in many households and a very important part of our culture. Something self-made that we could be proud of. Not only self-made but well-made. Yeah, that brother was cool. In watching video clips of old episodes from the 70's with the well-groomed afros and smiling faces one can not deny that we seemed happier, more at peace with ourselves. A stark contrast to that uncomfortable in our own brown skin feeling that permeates so much of the current hip hop market... no matter how much machismo and grandstanding we use to camouflage it with. It hurt me that yesterday's Grammy broadcast did not take the time to acknowledge the work that this man put in and the great deal of debt that is owed to him for bringing many of "our" artists to the public for mass consumption. Yeah, you'll tell me LL (who I am finding less and less reasons to qualify what exactly ladies are supposed to love about him) and Questlove did right by him with a proper shout out but the fact remains that he was missing from the "in memoriam" portion of the program and their head nod seemed like little more than two guys being smart enough to save face for a set of producers that really dropped the ball. The entire reason I ( and so many others) were even watching the awards show was to see what they were able to put together in tribute of this woman...