Let’s Just Be Friends: Brass Section

My Trombone Gently Weeps

Year: 1994
Age: 11
Scene of the Crime: Hesperia Middle School

(You’re going to come to realize that I’ve taken the grand tour of Riverside and San Bernadino counties through my school age years. – ed)

If you ever sit down with someone who knows me very well and you ask them about me, somewhere within that conversation, they’ll mention my love for music. Music fuels everything I do! I started designing because I wanted to make band t-shirts. I started writing because I wanted to share my love for music with the world. I played music because I appreciated and admired musicians and I desperately wanted to be one.

My first musical foray was when I studied the piano when I was nine. I made my second attempt with my school’s concert band. The band was embarassingly small, six brass horns, four woodwinds, and two drummers. I decided to play the trombone because it looked cool to play when I would watch the Southern University marching band members play it. Too bad it didn’t do the same for me when I awkwardly played it. In our band, there was no arrangement so woodwinds and brass mixed in together like it was nothing.

For the most part, I sat next to Stephanie. Stephanie was incredibly flirty and sensual for eleven years old. We would make jokes and do little things to touch each other, but we never acted on anything. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to, but every time I looked into her eyes I said “wow” thirteen times and pretended to not be so impressed, you know, typical pre-teen. During this time in my life, I stayed home about 95% of the school year because I had to take care of my brothers while my mom went to work. One day, I came back from such an absence and the group was about to play a new song, “Wipeout” I think.

The band got rowdy and the instructor slipped out to grab a smoke . Stephanie started teasing and blowing kisses at me while running. Naturally, I chased after her as we dashed across the music room. I cornered her and she blurted out “Stop! I don’t kiss niggers!”

I stopped for a second. It was like she pushed a button and it brought me back to reality. She was smiling wide as I glared at her with anger. See, I wasn’t the only black kid there, but I was one of five in the whole school which meant Hesperia wasn’t exactly the picture of progress the Chamber of Commerce made it seem. What began as innocent schoolyard play, ended up being a very harsh reality check reminding me where I was.

I didn’t attend another class after that. My family moved yet again and I actually tested into the 8th grade despite missing most of the 7th. I’m pretty cautious about who I flirt with or who I even talk to because of the burn I felt when that happened. It’s something I’ll never forget.

This Aint No Picnic: Get Your Teabags Ready!

I've Got Your Tea RIGHT HEEH

This country angers me sometimes. It angers me a great deal actually. By now you’ve probably heard of the Chicago Tea Party, a series of large scale national protests against TARP funds that was ironically inspired by CNBC reporter Rick Santelli who makes a living reporting on Wall Street. What disappointments me is the people have waited THIS LONG in order to really take some sort of action. I remember when TARP was rolled out back in October and these dittoheads were nodding along in unison while President Bush helped failed financial institutions rob us blind. The crazy thing is, you went along with it! You were bullied into being okay with it and you even argued in favor for it! Sure some conservatives were very vocal about the TARP bailouts, but not vocal enough to hit the streets in Tea Party formation. Certainly not enough to make statements like the following plucked from Fixed News:

“People are getting killed — they’re getting hammered with taxes and it’s not the way this country is supposed to be run. … We want to fight back,” said Kristina Mancini, who’s helping organize the April 15 rally in Fishkill, N.Y.

“Sitting back and being quiet never helps.”

Really? You seemed to do such a great job of being silent during the last eight years. I’m curious as to why all of a sudden you feel moved to make such vocal (and comical) demonstrations against these bailouts? Because they’re laden with pork? Do you even understand what pork spending means? Pork spending is inherently unattractive because it doesn’t yield many benefits for K street, why does it matter to YOU. You’re unemployed, you’re fighting to pay the mortgage and your manufacturing job just left for Columbia. Are you that easily persuaded by people making ten times more than you? The pork spending you’re fighting against is what’s keeping that pothole that’s throwing off your suspension alive and kicking. Pork spending is what pays for local services you’ll utilize when you need a helping hard, Pork spending is what pays for your boneheaded abstinence education, pork pork pork! It’s all pork, don’t you understand?!

This country is falling apart right now and it’s about damn time we start using tax money to invest in our nation instead of trying to fill the pockets of the rich even further. I’m disgusted by the misguided indignation of the right as they proceed to protest a bailout that they were in favor or didn’t care that much about in October than now is a big deal when Obama has assumed office. Yeah, I said it! You’re only doing this because Obama is in office. Because Obama wants to use the funds to benefit our communities and projects to better our country, you’re in a tizzy because politicians, talking heads and RUSH are brainwashing you into submission.

Please, by all means keep voting and protesting against your best interest. One step closer to destroying your credibility is another step closer to a better America. You’re a joke! Take your tea bags and your faux outrage and get a clue! You’re only bankrupting yourself in the long run. If you want to protest something , protest the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, a war that has broken the back of this nation’s financial infrastructure. That’s the real problem if you focus on the numbers, numbers that increase with President Obama’s proposed budget.

I plan on protesting your tea parties and I plan on doing it WHILE I pay my taxes and allow the state to take 9% sales tax from the sale of my latte. Maybe that 9% will help you get by on unemployment insurance.

Politics: A Political Song For Barack Obama To Sing

I can read your US/Russian unity subtext.

Have I told you how much I don’t like the name Lady Gaga? When I say her name I feel like I’m about to describe this master of infantile babbling, like a Baby Whisperer. Why would Lady Gaga be on my tongue (pause) in the first place? Her single “Poker Face” is damn near unavoidable and I may schedule my own intervention after I post this blog. The original track and its many iterations (most notably, Kid Cudi, Kanye and Common’s “Poke Her Face”) have me lost and turned out like fiend with my iTunes now randomly self-destructing in a gesture of love in the best interest of my well being.

During my 82^nd listening of “Poker Face”, I started to feel faint. Suddenly I began hallucinating to the sound of Keith Olbermann’s velvet tones in the background, guiding me through an iridescent field of Huffington Post blog entries. As soon as I regained consciousness in the middle of the Walgreens Pharmacy, I picked up the Times (because Alec Baldwin told me so) and I suddenly gained this heightened level of clarity. Blog posts, news articles and political commentary from many of the nation’s luminaries on both wings of the proverbial bird have been piling up on President Obama and the way he’s handled everything from the Iraq/Afghanistan war to going to church this Sunday for Easter services. It seems as if the initial obsession with a man making history has worn off in favor of a new obsession to tell the new guy what he’s doing wrong. I admit, I’m a sucker for dissent and policy wonks gone wild, but that doesn’t mean we need to declare open season on a President who is still working within his first one hundred days.

Then again, it is our duty to keep this administration honest, trustworthy and accountable to any and all shortcomings it may experience along the way. We’re dealing with an unprecedented amount of transparency from this administration and we’re seeing the good, the bad and the ugly played out right before our eyes. Meanwhile, Congress is starting to resemble a KinderCare facility with all of the whining and immaturity that’s plaguing lawmakers right now and it’s beginning to extend itself into the media. Comedian of errors Glen Beck just poured “gasoline” on a guy to illustrate what the Obama administration is doing to average Americans, like it’s a BAD thing. I would in fact applaud the Obama Administration if they poured gasoline on a few of the Americans ruining this nation (I’d mainly praise Rahm Emanuel because he would pour gasoline on people with a smile).

But I digress.

These political luminaries are obsessed with playing Fantasy Lawmaker right now yet nobody’s scoring any runs, just strikeouts. There is no easy answer to this nation’s problems because we’ve become even more divided than ever. The chasm between liberal and conservative has now splintered off into even deeper divisions between straight up pinko commies and Christian fundamentalists to “anybody but Barack-ocrats”. Everybody has an answer, but nobody has a solution. This does make for great entertainment on the right and it makes for award winning analysis on the left, but I’m still uncertain how all of this division is actually helping this country progress from the political dark ages we endured under the Bush Administration. The brow beating and hard blogging treatment is probably doing more harm than good to an Administration that’s open to suggestions. Not to be so sacrilegious this close to Passover, but trying to get a unified vision through all of this commentary is like God trying to hear each and every prayer, cry and gripe simultaneously. I’m sure it’s all in a day’s work for God, but for humans it’s nearly impossible.

I have a feeling though that I’m not the only person that’s listening to “Poker Face” these days on repeat. I’m sure between appearances, good old Rahm has a set of Bang and Olufsons tied to the ears of President Obama in the best interest that he gets the underlying message that this pop gem is trying to convey.

I wanna roll with him a hard pair we will be
A little gambling is fun when you’re with me, I love it
Russian Roulette is not the same without a gun
And baby when it’s love if it’s not rough it isn’t fun, fun

Now, let’s just press pause for a moment and reflect on what was said. If you’ve paid attention to the news everyone’s favorite master and servant Vladimir Putin and Dimitri Medvedev have stepped up their presence on the world stage and have been working closer with the Obama campaign on everything from Iran to Nukes. Certainly a partnership with Putin is a “gamble”, almost like “Russian Roulette”, but it could be beneficial in the end for the Obama campaign to partake in global diplomacy with Putin. Sure the arrangement might be a little “rough”, but that’s how Rahm Emanuel rolls.

Of course, President Obama must hide the overt glee of having the Russians as close as they’ve been in years from McCarthy worshipping conservatives and the blogs they keep. This means that Barack Obama has to put on, yes, a “Poker Face”.

So see everyone, we’re all going to be cool in a little while once we ease on into a comfort zone with the Kremlin. All questions will most likely remain unanswered until a united front against terrorism, poverty and corruption is achieved when the two megapowers collide at Wrestlemania V live and in living color only on pay per view!

THIS SONG IS RUINING MY LIFE!!!!

I just hope the President isn’t listening to “If You Seek Amy”. Lord help abstinence-only funding the day that happens.

Deuces.