THIS IS AN ARCHIVED SITE. Each piece, each section has been written for a particular purpose, for a specific audience. W/o proper context work can seem puzzling, off-putting. WHAT’S BELOW IS TOTALLY UNEDITED. I’ll eventually touch it up, but it’s plenty good to get things started… if I sent you here. An oasis of sorts.

That First Christmas Again and The Death of Bessie Smith
Preparing for when the levee breaks again….
by OX

“Is there time to rescue the well-intentioned people attending the National Peace Conference, Papi?” — the author’s ten-year-old son.

(My lovely) Edward Albee, who lived for quite some time on W. 10th Street in what I’ll call Maria Muldaur’s Greenwich Village, wrote a one-act play in ‘59 called The Death of Bessie Smith. The sweet drama’s premise is that the incomparable Bessie died (following an auto accident) because she was denied treatment at the first hospital she was brought to — a Whites Only institution — on September 26, 1937… about five years before I was born in Newark, New Jersey (home of that Country Music Station which the amazingly youthful Maria — born only a year after me — listened to as a pre-Little Richard kid). I like to keep things very personal. [I mention this... so that when I have my next conversation with Maria she'll remember to ask me to delineate why that is so.]

Anyway, Albee’s premise –it is said — was false: “The myth of racial discrimination had its origin in an article by jazz writer/producer John Hammond, that appeared in the November 1937 issue of Down Beat.” No matter. The whole shebang is so much like so many stories. It doesn’t matter what the truth is respecting the particular incident being addressed. What IS important — with regard to this specific realm — is that the racial discrimination did exist and does exist. That Bessie could have been denied treatment in Tennessee or Mississippi… and elsewhere at the time. That still today Blacks are treated in many quarters as if they’re the scum of the earth. That contrary to the unwarranted hoopla enveloping the first Black U.S. President’s election*, historical significance notwithstanding, the vast majority of people of color in the U.S. and ’round the world are currently experiencing abominations on a level that exceeds __________________________________. [Pause.] I’ll fill that in when I talk to Maria again.

*This demands clarification, but — for the moment, for our purposes here — permit me to simply point out that the U.S. Military is arguably the greatest single polluter on earth… and that ALL of our presidents, to say the very least, are totally aligned with its abominable agenda. Whilst people of color and their irreplaceable spirit disappear. And that’s just one of many possible angles for (urgent, constructive) criticism… and fresh action.

Seriously, we are clearly documenting ourselves to death. Get past all the disingenuousness concerning our present state of affairs in most quarters, and you pretty much find that all concerned, informed citizens are doing is taking up their heartbeats with the details of one scandal after another, one horror after another. ENOUGH! The scorecard is in. It doesn’t matter whether or not U.S. government forces were behind 9/11. No need of proof. What should be spotlighted, studied, and acted on is THE FACT that such forces are perfectly capable of pulling off such a monumental atrocity. That they have been doing so for ages. THAT lesson has yet to be learned by our public… which is still following the Company Line vis-a-vis Pearl Harbor. Understandably. [To be calmly elaborated on, upon request.]

But we can fix all that. We MUST fix all that. As per Maria Muldaur’s new passion. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AX_9EvbDZo&feature=channel. [Note: What The Women's Voices for Peace Choir is asking for requires institutional change, and that is a big reason why their goals cannot -- for starters -- be secured via the federal level.]

We will have THAT FIRST XMAS AGAIN in my lifetime. So help me God, we will. Now, not later. Now, now. Heaven is truly spread before us, and we do not see it. We will help people to see it, and to act accordingly. No one will have to tell people HOW to act, how to pressure the powers that be, how to transform their lives as individuals. All of that will become quite clear.

How?

Well, to get very personal once again, I say that we should have either Dr. Suzy Block OR The Women’s Voices for Peace Choir be The Governor of California in 2010 as per http://oxtogrind.org/archive/628. Or a blend of the two. Or some variation bouncing off of all those creative souls. By means of some version of “Ecstatic Politics”… to get it off the ground.

Bonnie and Phoebe and Maria et al. should be applauded and supported respecting their Choir recordings. But — to, once again, get very personal (and presumptuous?) — we must not think that such performances will suffice. We MUST embrace some new paradigm for pushing change if we hope to implement a NEW PARADIGM for living in this postmodern world. We don’t want their efforts and accomplishments, their heartbeats… to be permanently marginalized like those of Playing for Change.

http://www.playingforchange.com/episodes/3/One_Love.

I know that Maria will understand. I know that the above will resonate with her. I know that she will do every thing in her power to invite me to blah blah with her leisurely on or before her July 6th gig. I know, I know… because her passion goes beyond just being a serendipitous crossing of the roads with what I’ve been working on 24×8 for over a year, with what — to get VERY personal — I’ve been moving toward since I was stoned in ‘49 running alongside Paul Robeson in Peekskill.

My mother was Minnie Gink (later Betty King) from Johannesburg. She talked about Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie from time to time when I was very young. Tell that to Bonnie Raitt, Maria. Yeah, tell that to Bonnie. [Pause.] ‘Cause we not gonna be able to have THAT FIRST CHRISTMAS AGAIN without her. Without a lot of people putting very personal stakes on the line following a new paradigm… well, we just gonna get bogged down in arguments ’bout how Bessie Smith really died. Whilst the world… really dies.

To THAT FIRST CHRISTMAS AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Love in solidarity following a new paradigm,
Your Richard
831-688-8038 at any hour
1713 Jennifer Drive
in the lovely Vienna Woods of Aptos, CA (surrounded by a proliferation of radiation spewing cell towers)
on the so-called birthday of the U.S.A.
P.S. Maybe we can even get Edward Albee on board before it’s too late… so that he can help us to get the arts and music, etc. inserted into the core of the curriculum (rescued from the periphery)… for those poor kids who are subjected to what’s usually called education.