O Trem Azul -- A Life in Conversations

Well, I guess I should just say that I missed the the fight. I worked late on Thursday so the whole Condi Rice versus The United States Senate was totally over and out of my normal visual range. I did not see nor hear of anything till this Friday morning glancing over the front page of the New York Times even though I have been far more satisfied with the Wall Street Journal this past winter.

This morning I watched Meet the Press and the Mclaughlin Group. Both seem to miss some major points, mainly that the talking and bickering of congress is of little consequence, the powers of the Middle East will respond according to their own self-interest and those of their particular religious and political lines. I guess it is sobering to ponder an army of warriors without ideology or tiresome 200-year-old Western notions of the nation-state battling to the death in the largest oil fields of the world. Talk about Newt Gingrich, Pat Buchanan, Harold Bloom and the barbarians at the gate. It is unfortunate for them and their analysis, soon they will not be the center of the world.

OK, I promised to relax the political slant.

Otherwise Friday was a haphazard diabetic day. Blood sugar normal till I got to work and tested and saw that that my sugar was high (snacking on some Cheeze Its before the evening shift). Was under control till I kept getting delayed from eating my 6:00 pm meal, so I started to feel a low. Then I evened out after that cause I was really hungry. The sad state of affairs is that good food choices require lots of money and if your money is funny so is your diet. Period. Maybe congress should hold a hearing on that.

The only other things to report is that I was talking to a co-worker. She graduated from the same HCBU (Historically Black College or University) that I went to. She works with hedge funds. Very, very interesting world she belongs to during the day. I want to hear more about her everyday -- much different than the motley crew and career choices I have made.

Thursday night I had dinner with Alice and a friend of hers we will call SC. First Alince and I went to Borders in the new (to me at least) Time Warner Center. We sat at Dean and Deluca and talked for a good while about my younger sister, her niece, her girlfriend, women in dance hall, future projects, newness in my life and how to raise a child. I am not sure if the people around us liked her rants on capitalistic society, but fuck it, ten years back that same street corner would have seen a handful of old 60's radicals and septarian cold war socialist dotting its quadrant at anytime. Now I am astounded by the consumerist milieu that is sprinkled on top of normal heady New York literary behavior. I guess I shouldn't be a sour puss . . . but I kind of am.

After the Dean and Deluca experience (I have only eaten in one other Dean and Deluca, about 10 years ago in Soho), we went to meet SC for dinner on the Upper Westside in the upper 60's, lower 70's. Again a different NYC, but at least more neighborhood like. There we talked about Vibe,where I interned eons ago and wrote a couple of articles. Seems they are looking for a copy editor and posted it on Craig's List. Well this is a sign. Then we talked about Vibe's trajectory an arc from test issues, to New York darling, to Fashionistas secret choice, to not being hood enough, to being gangster, to writers being beat, to staff turn overs, to now. It is epic and it is symptomatic of something else in hip-hop that I am honing in on, but decline to comment on till I have thought my hypothesis out clearly. But at the end of the day, Vibe showed so much promise when I was younger, that I am still speechless on what a waste it has become in comparison to its expectations. The wisdom I have earned tells me that people are more apt to tearing other people down (and their institutions, notions and dreams) rather than building them up. You choose what you will fight for, and I must admit that hip-hop is not what I am fighting for anymore. I just had a flashback to me and other interns standing alone sipping our gin and juice. Just watching.

But that was the past.

Otherwise the dinner was more about this season of The Wire and Clive's rescue of Whitney. We all agree, this will be the comeback of comebacks. All she needs is a cigarette and an orchid in her hair and bitches will be throwing tantrums.

Other conversations:

-- We talked about Hunt's Point at work on Friday. It is a stroll in Brooklyn that was featured on HBO where there are a mass of prostitutes. I like to think of it as an ass mall. There is a young gay guy at work who talks to everybody with much respect about everything from politics to Sanitorium (the inanimate noun, not the person, I will say no more), which can be political. It was nice because we are all of varying sexual identities and we just talked about all the types women, transgendered and male hustlers found at the ass mall. That would never have happened in Tennessee. I forgot that I like NYC for that reason, and I think that many black men have gotten a bad rap uptown for being portrayed as homophobic. Many straight uptown brothers are very open minded and will not shy way from any questions concerning sex and what one likes.

-- I have been playing O Trem Azul by Milton Nascimento to calm myself down a bit. It is nice. It is helping me get into a position to get through this plot issue I have with a particular project.

-- Jochencito! Congratulations.