Tamerlane Ashoka

 

PoBoy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Tamerlane(War)

Or

Ashoka(Peace)

 “The sword will plunge down and the mob will drool; the blood will pour down and turn the sand to mud.” Jacques Brel: The Bulls

        The verse actually begins with: “On Sundays the bulls get so bored when they are asked to drop dead for us”. It’s a satirical song about bull fighting and the mentality of the crowd seen from the bull’s perspective.

        I saw a woman reprimand/admonish her toddler for stomping ants. On the news, a mother in an argument tells her 14 year old son to shoot and kill a man. (NBCchicagonews.com) The other day I saw a woman feeding peanuts to crows; the other day I read about over 41,000 civilians being bombed indiscriminately, retaliating the killing of 1,325 other civilians (and the capturing of 250).

        I read where in the USA we kill 245,000,000 turkeys a year; 8,127,632,113 chickens; 124,061,094 pigs (animalclock.org). And 733,000,000 people in the world are suffering (and dying) from hunger, starvation or living in famine-like circumstances mostly due to poverty, conflict, climate change, food waste, and gender inequality (riseagainsthunger.org). If we’re killing billions of animals a year and a bunch of millions of people are dying of hunger, you would think that there might be something half-baked in human mentality/morality/sensitivity, especially when an estimated 526,000 people die each year due to armed conflict (databank.worldbank.org). Absurd. The human condition. I could go on but I only have 1,000 words.

        So, lemme get this straight; we are evolved from a bunch of ape-like humanoids that came down from the trees and set about taking over the planet by killing everything that challenged them because part of that mutation/evolution hinges on testosterone, greed and blood lust. And then, about 5,000 years ago the monkeys threw religion into the mix which gave us subjective concepts of good and evil, which has tortured, and killed, with great sincerity, alacrity and brutality (including but not limited to crucifixion)  anyone who  doesn’t worship like specific sect monkeys. 195,035,000 (reddit.com) We also assassinate anyone who advocates for peace and brotherhood.

        I have a theory about monkey #1 who came down from the trees and never went back up; he was an alpha badass mutation of the ones who inhabit trees, we’ll call him Adam. No monkey messed with Adam; placid monkeys resolved conflict by merely moving to another tree; however, Adam took whatever tree anyone else had, and when he peeped the ground he sussed and thought ‘WOW! This is pretty cool and I’m gonna make it ALL MINE!’ And when another ground animal thought that Adam would make a tasty meal, Adam learned to kill ‘for his own protection’.

        Soon Adam got real comfortable, ground wise, and thought it might be best to  make himself Emperor of the World, establish some perimeters/parameters and perhaps launch some preemptive strikes just in case any of the other woodland creatures might think of breaching ‘his territory’ that he fittingly named Eden.

        This was the times when other monkeys would forage on the forest floor for fallen ripe fruit, look around, find it nicer back in the trees, and go back after grabbing some goodies. One of them, a female (Eve), took a look at Adam in his fortified territory, bravely, arrogantly and with great license guarding it from no monkey in particular and decided to give him a piece of fruit (and maybe some nookie). You see where I’m goin’ with this?

        They have kids; some take after the mother, mild mannered (Abel: shepherd), some more like the father, tough, mean and privileged (Cain: farmer); and wouldn’t you know it, the meanies get the upper hand and the gentle ones get their asses kicked, killed or thrown under the bus. Thus, this accounts for the state of affairs in world today; I find no evidence to support this theory, except that 24,849 people are murdered in this country per year (cdc.gov); I blame that damn monkey who should have found some calming herb and stayed up that tree.

        But, actually, there’s nothing really wrong with the human mentality, it’s just that we’re hard wired in conflicting tendencies. We’re all descendents of that first couple that are responsible for the beauty and brutality of our world today. On one side you have (Eve’s) people who act for peace, encourage the arts and believe in kindness toward all of god’s creatures, whichever god you may happen to believe in; these include poets, environmentalists, artists, vegetarians, burlesque dancers, ukulele players, teachers and nurses.

        On the other hand, you’ve got the Alpha (Adam) mentality: bullies, con artists. misogynists, injury lawyers, inconsiderates, many politicians and The Three Stooges. In everyone there exist both of these qualities. Yes, were all imbued with percentages of the qualities that in fact, make us all unique and individual; neither all good nor all bad, just kaleidoscopic character pie charts of absurdity. And we get to choose the colors.

        A perfect example is our ability to love dogs; eat pigs; wear cows; kill neighbors. It’s not really okay but it is what it is. The saving grace is that there is all those people that advocate for peace, kindness and fair treatment in our world; because, if the Alpha ape-shit crazy meanies had their ways, they would surely have exterminated us all and there would be no people, no planet, no harmless pleasures like skinny dipping in the moonlight or ice cream of any flavor. What kind of world would that be? Hmmm.

        “and when finally they fell, did the bulls dream of a hell, where men and worn out matadors still burn? Huh? Or perhaps with their last breath would not they pardon us their death, knowing what we did at Carthage? Verdun! Stalingrad! Iwo Jima! Hiroshima! Saigon!” (Auschwitz, Tulsa, Kiev, Gaza, Sudan?): Jacques Brel (and Me): The Bulls. Happy Peaceful New Year Y’all

Kid Games 1951

 

PoBoy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Fair Play

Or

Time Out

“A. A my name is Alice and my husband’s name is Al; we come from Alabama and we sell Apples! B. B my name is…..” A kid’s ball bouncing game.

        There’s a certain playing ball made by Spalding Company, it’s called the Spalding High Bounce; it looks like a pink bald tennis ball and its bouncing ability is legendary. It’s used primarily by city kids for street games such as stick ball, stoop ball, throwing, catching, hand ball and bouncing ball games like the one mentioned above where the ball is bounced in cadence time and at every capital letter word (“A my name is Alice…”) has to be bounced under the leg until the entire alphabet is sing-songed to its end. Get it? There’s usually only one or two Spaldings to any group of kids so that if a miss occurs the ball is passed to another kid to try to get further, beginning all over again (“A my name is Alice...”).

        Back in the day when mothers were between their husbands coming back from WWII and sons going off to Korea, we as kids played in the streets and courtyards under their watchful eyes while they sat smoking cigarettes and gossiped with each other: “Marcia! Get down from there before I hafta get up from here!”---“Tommy! You better learn to pick on somebody your own size before I tell your father!”

        Girls played with Jacks and jump ropes; boys collected baseball cards, played with tops, yoyos, and anything that resembled mock weaponry. Some played with marbles; others pitched pennies against the wall. We sat on stoops and played card games while the older kids congregated in parks playing older teen games (softball, basketball and showing off).

        Card games by the dozen: War; Old Maid; Casino; Slap-n-Match; Knuckles and the infamous ‘Fifty-two-Pick-Up’. Roller skates were these metal things that strapped to your ankle and were held vice-like on the front of your shoes, tightened by a ‘skate key’; if a skate went missing it was probably because some boy nailed it to a 2x4 to make a scooter of sorts. Pea shooters, sling shots, spit balls and carpet guns rained on the unsuspecting. Chalk games like hop scotch and Skellies; ask your grandparents.

        Choosing sides by throwing finger signals or Rochambeau or ‘one potato-two potato’. Hide and seek; Red Rover-Red Rover; Red Light-Green light; Ringolevio or the dozen kids long ‘Rattlesnake’. There were summertime swimming pools and beach outings. Minimum wage was a dollar an hour. “A my name is Alice…”

        There were playgrounds that we could go to on school-less days with burning metal slides, swings with wooden seats that you could stand on, see-saws that were used as whip lash testing, monkey bars that you could either fall from and break a bone or surreptitiously get a glimpse of Molly’s underwear and that round merry thing where you ran around it to get it going real fast before jumping on for a ride or falling on your face in real gravel. We went home tired, dirty, bruised and happy.

        Mothers called kids in for supper and let them stay out until street lamps came on. Our parents were beer and whiskey drinkers; filter-less cigarette smokers and physical punishment was swift and brutal. Bigger kids stuck up for smaller ones and smaller ones emulated the bigger ones; I got caught smoking when I was eight years old (Mom made me eat a cigarette). It was a rite of passage when someone took you aside to show you how to stick up for yourself by using your fists. You never hit a girl or someone wearing glasses.

        This was the projects; the welfare checks came on the first of the month; few had televisions, but everyone had a radio; you got your phone calls at a neighbor who was lucky enough to get a phone installed; you could smell what everyone was having for dinner in the building’s halls; you knew their music. Gas was .23 a gallon; nobody had a car.

        Food was coin of the realm and as long as your parents had breath in their bodies, you had food on your table. Dinner time was mandatory and at a precise hour. All kids had chores to make it happen: going to the stores; helping with the dinner prep; setting and clearing the table; washing (and drying) the dishes; taking out the trash.

        Kids collected soda bottles for refunds and spent the money on penny candy. Keeping up with the newspaper funnies was de rigueur. Girls taught each other how to dance and then taught their brothers how to lead. There was this new music that kids listened to on transistor radios; the music was called Rock and Roll (which was originally a euphemism for having sex).

        On Saturdays our parents would send us to the movies and it took years to figure out that that was the only time they could get some privacy. Everyone went to church on Sunday and holidays were sacrosanct. We dressed up for Easter; were smug about our school supplies, showed off our Christmas haul and danced in the streets to marching bands. There were no ‘only childs’; everybody had brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents somewhere, and besides them, you had neighbors. Folks were always dropping by or gathering in groups.  Mothers hung out windows watching the world go by; you couldn’t get into mischief unseen. Pops would be home soon from work.

        Growing up in an inner city, you’re are a tribe unto yourselves; the economy is someone else’s concern; there’s rich folk, the ones who make it to the suburbs and you. Poor but proud and gonna be somebody some day. “A my name is Alice…”

       

       

 

Poetry 2024

 

PoBoy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Words

Or

Feelings

        “Anytime is sometimes sometimes. Sometimes is sometimes anytime. Sometimes is always sometimes. But only anytime is always sometimes And Eddie time is all the time”:  Eddie Tebbe (Sir Bone Funk)

 

        That is poetry. Poetry inspires feelings, patience and verbal skills; poetry asks/teaches us to make sense of words; poetry invites us to listen and learn. Poetry will speak to us if we listen; it will resonate and amaze. “We’ve all walked into the bar of a joke we’ll never get” begins a poem by Dobby Gibson.

         “There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold; the Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.” Is the beginning of a poetic tale by Robert W. Service, who began another with “A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute Saloon” that’s the stuff that resonates and amazes a reader.

        You could say that the reading of poetry is coming back with somewhere between 20-25% of the population reading it…(Quora) or you can say it has never gone away; that poetry has always been with us or that poetry is stuff that other people read and why they appreciate it is a mystery. After all, poets kill themselves don’t they? Nobody knows why, just that a large bunch do.

        Poetrysoup.com will list  of the top 100 most popular and best famous poets who committed suicide if you care to read some less than relative to your life information; they’re (poets) a weird bunch and who knows what the heck goes on in their mind/lives to want to express their thoughts/feelings only to have no other recourse but to end their lives for their own reasons which nobody knew because we were busy trying to find some obscure meanings, justifications and possibly lessons that in some fever had them put thoughts on paper for the world to ponder. I wonder if Elizabeth Bishop’s brain aneurism wasn’t some kind of force of nature euthanasia.

        Some of your favorite songs are merely poetry put to music; some pieces of music are merely pure poetry. Poetry has rhythmic qualities of a myriad of forms from limericks to sonnets; Hallmark cards to Haikus; little ditties to profound empirical discourses; odes to enjambment. Oddly enough, you don’t spy many folks carrying a book of poetry with them as they make their daily rounds; in fact, oddly enough, you rarely see anyone carrying books of any kind as they make their daily rounds (kindle excluded). You will occasionally spy a newspaper reader, but I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here (bless them anyway). I personally think that carrying a book of poetry around with you would be a pretty cool thing to do (although I haven’t done that …yet).

        Rarely do I hear anyone start a conversation with “as Garcia Lorca (or Pablo Neruda, Silvia Plath, Emily Dickenson and/or Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) would say….”; however, start someone off with “there once was a man from Nantucket…” and off you’ll go on a whimsical train of thought. Not exactly Proustian existentialism, but, what the hey.

        Begin a conversation with something by John Prine, Joni Mitchell or Bob Dylan and people’ll match you old school lyrics word for word; more recently try a little Jay Z, Alicia Keys or John Legend. Barry White, Teddy Pendergrass, Mary J. Blige, all poets. Locally, and, true dat, who can deny, Doctor John, Allen Toussaint and Little Queenie Harris were all poets extraordinaire?

        New Orleans has forever been a poet’s dream cave to mine, a Gold Mine, so to speak. Justin Lamb, Sunni Patterson, FreeQuency, Skye Jackson, Gina Ferrara and Brad Richard are here. There is a New Orleans Poetry Festival every year; ten years running. There are poetry jams going on in New Orleans, ten different (at least) locations around the city. If you’re interested, you will find them. Why go watch poets expound their thoughts? I don’t know, but somehow it’s a pretty cool thing to do; who knows who you’ll meet and maybe hook up with on an intellectual mammalian level?

        What are poems about? In The Daily Feast, Bart Schneider writes poems about sunny side up eggs, dirty martinis and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Raych Jackson wrote: A Sestina For A Black Girl Who Does Not Know How To Braid Hair (a sestina is an intricate thirty-nine line poem featuring the intricate repetition of end words in six stanzas). A verse pattern split into two 7/4 measures and a single bar of 8/4 followed by a one bar of 7/4 is quite evident in John Lennon’s song All You Need Is Love.

        In short, in conclusion and in the end as we know it, we are all poets and writers; we all have the ability to write something down that will be considered poetic if only we are able to use words to express ourselves. Simple. You look, you feel, you imagine and you articulate.

        Face it, you might not be able to write poetry starting: “I think that I shall never hear a poem as lovely as a beer” or “By the shores of Gitchee Gumee, by the shining Big-Sea-Water…” but you could write something; like I just did:                  EARLY MORNING VILLERE STREET

“The woman crosses the busy street

to the dead grass school yard

hair the color of new blossomed gardenias.

 cawing for crows that swoop catching peanuts

 flung like wishes from dandelion

school busses and garbage trucks

rumbling like rabid prehistoric behemoths.

The air still on humid southern mornings hanging

as blanket on the city that they call The Big Easy.

 Clouds like cotton candy indifferent to it all

the woman finds peace in the caring.”

Try it

Where Yat Picks Summer 2024

 

PoBoy picks 5.24

Best Local Food Guru This is a tough one because mainly there’s two; the good news is that they’re easily accessible. Poppy Tooker has weekly residency on WYES Steppin’ Out and Louisiana Eats! radio and podcast.  Ian McNulty writes about restaurants and food culture NOLA.com Times Picayune newspaper and intsagram (@ianmcnultynola)

Best Place to buy Crack Creole Crack that is. After Kitchen Witch cookbook shop closed after 20 years here, the demand for their spice blends did not abate. They have sold and shipped worldwide; considered the best by more than a few; available through their website (www.kwcookbooks.com)

Best Hidden Pop Up Restaurant, right before graduating from New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute (NOCHI) every class operates a pop up café, strutting their stuff for two weeks at the school. The themes change with each pop up: French, Caribbean, Spain and even Viet Cajun have been executed with vigor and alacrity. Find out when and reserve quickly as seats go fast (www.nochi.org)

Best Bet On The Next Mayor You heard it next here: Helena Moreno. Quietly and effectively moving up over the years, from newscaster to President of the New Orleans City Council with calm assurance taking head on the tough issues from women’s rights to gun safety. If she decides to run, she’ll be hard to beat.

 

 

 

Politics and Presidents

 

PoBoy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Gone Correct

Or

Precise Absent

“It’s useless to hold a person to anything he says while he’s in love, drunk or running for office”: Shirley MacLaine

        “Whistle while you work, MacArthur is a jerk, Eisenhower has the power, Taft will never work”: was a childhood street chant from my wasted, lost and ill spent youth; and that should give you a glimpse of how long ago that politics have been invading my confused and flummoxed aura. It’s scary. In my quiet reflective moments, somehow I see a parade, a procession, a pageant (in costume) of past elected officials  dancing toward the center ring under the Big Top; complete with short statured clowns on little fire engines, elephants with shimmering turbans and tall blond ladies in pink tights.  I can site you a plethora of them; however, it’s the presidents that bring on my cold sweat goose bumpy angst.

        I was a little late for Franklin D. who muscled his way into 12 years of office; it’s rumored that he allowed Pearl Harbor so that he could spring us from isolation into a full scale world war for personal reasons. He was also responsible for forced internment of Japanese citizens; nothing new, previous presidents did it to Native Americans and African abductees.

        Followed by “Give ‘em Hell” Harry S. Truman (the ‘S’ doesn’t stand for anything) He got the tail end and took over from FDR when FDR died in the second month of his fourth term; inheriting WWII and stepping up as Vice President and went on to win a term of his own.

        Ike came back and gave us interstate roads and warned of the takeover of America by the Military Industrial Complex; incidentally, Joe MacCarthy, the Senator and ring leader of the Red Scare that blackballed suspected Commies was squeezed in there, to their discredit (he never did catch a single spy and was censured by the Senate).

        Then comes JFK; shot during the assassination period (RFK, MLK); followed by LBJ who stepped down: ‘Tricky Dick’ Nixon who quit; Gerald Ford who only served 3 years; peanut farmer Jimmy Carter (best of the bunch if you ask me); Daddy George Bush (one term); Bill Clinton, who was almost impeached because of some in-the-closet activity. George junior came next (who seems really harmless about now); Barack; Donald and now Joe. Whew.

        All these guys, in my lifetime, that stood at the fan as the feces were being distributed; some were catching and some throwing the stuff. All the while they were being subjected to the downward command chain replete with constituents and fellow elected officials vying for an ear to express their views and concerns; some telling truth which was not listened to and some telling lies that were.

        It appears to me that you’d have to be certifiably insane to want to be Commander in Chief of this nation of certifiable wing nuts that call themselves citizens and are really spoiled children guarding their corner of the sandbox being watched after and spoiled by people that swindle them out of their hard earned money and laugh all the way to the bank at their expense.

        With the president is his vice president, advisors, councilors, Chief of Staff, Press Prevaricators, his cabinet members, spouse, chef, barber, interns, personal physicians and the person who shines their shoes. The president is the most powerful politician in the free world (so they say).

        Except, the president must please 100 members of congress, 435 in the House of Representatives; and the rest of the legislative, executive and judicial branch talking heads. Just imagining that gives me a headache.

        Then consider governors, mayors, city council members, law enforcement, the IRS, court systems (from Supreme on down to Traffic), lawyers (prosecutors and defenders) and the person who can tell you ‘where you got your shoes’. And everyone wants a piece of the action.

        “Politics is very much like taxes—everybody is against them, or everybody is for them as long as they don’t apply to them”-- Fiorello LaGuardia who was mayor of New York City from 1934-1946

        Now we come to how laws are made and how any of those elected yayhoos are influenced: money. Period. Yes, I’m here to tell you that from city inspectors to bill collectors and all the way to the highest offices, somebody gets/wants greased. Oh, it may be a plum appointment, a campaign contribution, trip to the Bahamas, a betrayal or retribution. If you want to know how things are getting done… follow the money.

        However, that’s not completely true. Some people go into politics for honest altruistic reasons. “Because of one plain simple rule. Love thy neighbor, and in this world today of great hatred a man that knows that rule has a great trust.”-- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 1939

        I have empathy and compassion for those selfless individuals, the ones who brave the tide of mendacity, corruption and deceit; the ones who won’t take a bribe or a dive. They’re the real contenders for an honest, open and caring society. The ones who take a beating for not bowing down, the ones who stand up for the little guy and that advocate for social justice and equality. They’re the ones that want the best for you even though you might not behave like you’re worth it.

        Those are the people to vote for. The softies not the bullies and it’s all about that; it really is. Mean people suck and I personally don’t want any having the power over you or me. There’s enough “hate goin’ round tryin’ to break our hearts; we’ve got to, I’ve got to stop it before it goes too far”, Stevie Wonder—“Love’s in Need of Love Today”

       

 

         

 

Breaking News

 

PoBoy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Breaking News

Or

Millions Like Me

        “The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, they taste your guts and they spit ‘em out; they use your bones for telephones and call you up when you’re not at home…” The Hearse Song

        I consider myself a healthy guy, that is until I watch the evening news in the television and subjected to the commercials telling me to be suspicious about how sick I might be.

        Oh, it starts off easy (if you’re like me); you watch the news, paying kinda attention to the sixty second sound bites of info that are fired at you, hoping to soak up empathy, outrage, understanding, sagacity and possibly some sense in Olympian time about what is going on in your city, state and country and like a sponge watch with wonder and horror as the world goes to hell in a hand basket, down the creek without a paddle in a leaky old boat. You basically tune out the commercials to catch your breath and maybe digest what you just heard/saw. Letting it all kinda sink in.

        However, and you may have noticed, commercials are at different decibels from the news, a little louder, the voices more insistent, the wording more forceful and the themes more dramatic. Buy a car, truck, SUV, go to the casino for a big payoff and you better get that auto glass company to come out right away!

        In a half hour of local, and the same for national, news there can be between 12 and 20 commercials (Quora.com); each advert is from 15-30 seconds and typically this can take up 7-8 minutes of a half hour program (mocktheagency.com). Doing the math myself, this subjects my un/semi/complete consciousness to up to 32 commercials in an hour’s time just trying to stay abreast of what’s happening in the world around me.

        Wayfair, healthcare, vitamins and ZZZQuil; financial planners, asbestos lawsuits, Freshpet dog food and Cox mobile. Stop smoking to avoid disfiguring amputations; take Prevogin so you can remember stuff; get vaccinated and a Pod for you to get out of town efficiently. Prudential wants to insure you; shingles doesn’t care (Shingrix); get stronger enamel for your teeth and Charity Hospital is here for you. Vapofreeze for back pain, body wash for your silky skin and some deo for your b.o. Better get a bathroom update, some shutters while you’re at it; windows, a new roof and a boost for your antidepressant with side effects that include “suicidal thoughts and actions”.

        Dry eyes; dry mouth; Visit Mississippi and join a Credit Union. Metamucil will keep you regular, Tums will keep you settled; replace that old air conditioner; now back to the news.

        Murder, mayhem, a woman who had a baby had another one; a silver mine in Rio is tarnishing; a defrocked Mother Superior is on the lam; the war has moved again and we’re sending lawyers guns and money because the shit has hit the fan. Protesters have taken over the Mall because of our policies in the Middle East, Sudan, Ukraine, China, Korea and Afghanistan.

        Repatha; Solanpas; Keytruda; Ozempic; Quilipta; Prezervision; LDLC; Arezvy; Ingrezza, Fasenra, Breztri and Syfovre all want me to ask my doctor if they are right for me. Advil for fast pain relief. Do I have TD, RFT, ED, ADAD, EYLEA-HD or a GED? Is it TED.com? Well, all these are good for coughs, colds, sore holes and will put hair in anything but a cue ball and I better get crackin’!

        There are at least four injury lawyer companies that grab at my attention in case I’m ever rear ended, t-boned or slammed into by an 18 wheeler, company car or mule and wagon and I need to “make that call!” “They got me 200, 300, 750, 800 thousand dollars!” here’s the number; write it down, memorize it, tattoo it to your eyelids; it’s gonna happen to you and you should be ready to do like thousands of other people have done; don’t delay, operators are standing by 24 hours AND weekends! “We’ll fight to get you all the money you deserve!”

        Does your mom need elder care; maybe a protein supplement, a trip to the Fairgrounds, something to subdue her or maybe I should look up my ancestry for my DNA to see if we really are related. Now back to the weather, news, traffic, politics, wildfires, earthquakes, tornadoes, floods and storms that are affecting my area.

        Why I bother to sit down in the afternoon, just about every afternoon, with coffee, cookies, Debbie and the dog to watch this assault on my psyche, I wonder. Is this worth it? Is this the price I have to pay for wanting to know what the heck is going on? I mean, I was not exposed to asbestos in 1982; I have never used hair straighteners that can cause uterine cancer; hell, I don’t even have a uterine! I promise that my doctors have no suspicion of COPD or other things that will affect my longevity and immortality and I’m still not bad on the dance floor.

        So what do I do? I’ll tell you. I subscribe to media in print, hard copy that I can read at my leisure; decipher according to me; believe what I want; stay up to date with whatever the press is willing to assume that I will take at face value and if I want to know the weather, I’ll stick my head out of the window. I may even get a Mr. Rogers sweater, a rocking chair and a porch to sit on (my own preferably). I may even start smoking a Meerschaum pipe with something worth lighting up and practice my Italian. Buona giornata gente mia.

 

Football Season

 

PoBoy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Hail Mary

Or

Uncomfortably Numb

“Perseverance. Adversity. Triumph. Defeat. We see it all left on the field, as football season is officially upon us” Mandy Antoniacci

        YAY! Football Season. Yay; and what I don’t know about the sport could fill a stadium. My original perspective on the game was curiosity as to why the ‘teams’ were fighting over one ball when they could have easily gotten two and separated to their perspective sidelines, slapped each other’s asses, maybe drank a few cold ones and fired up the Webber.

        But no, they (mostly refrigerator sized gladiators) gotta get out on a field marked with lines and throw, fight, pass, tackle and protect their mates to get that pigs bladder (do they really use pig skin?) shaped lead balloon over to an imaginary goal line. And then they jump up and down over the fallen bodies of their opponents, slapping asses and high fiving each other while thousands of screaming ‘fans’ yell: “KILL THEM!” That doesn’t seem odd to you? “Football is a game of controlled anger. It’s a game of retribution. It’s about will”-Brian Dawkins

        It’s not like baseball where the teams (as it was explained to me) “hit the ball with a stick and run in a circle”; while the “fans sit in the sun, talk and drink beer.” That I can understand, as long as they don’t choose me to be on a ‘team’ (I prefer to play a position called ‘Left Out’).

        Tennis I get: two players with ‘racquets’ try to kill each other with a yellow striped fuzzy ball while sweating and showing off their legs. If you miss bad enough, the other person gets a point and the most points win so that the loser can jump over the net to congratulate the opposing would-be assassin. There’s a lot of sweat.

        Games and contests of adversity and brutality go back thousands of years; some interesting twists occur when the losing Mayan team gets literally executed. Also, in ancient Rome the games may have had scores like: “Lions three, Christians nothing.” 

        The Spanish like to go one on one with a bull that is systematically made to suffer a hundred cuts and worn down until it is exhausted and finished off by some guy in tight pants who receives the dead animal’s testicles or ears, I can’t remember which. Interesting enough, the crowd constantly yells “Ole”, which I think means something of a sexual nature. At times, these wild and crazy Spaniards let the bulls chase them in the streets, somewhere called Pamplona I believe; go figure.

        Now, golf is anybody’s guess. Folks even watch this on television. Everybody’s got to be quiet while players, who have commandeered huge swatches of real estate (that I could have had a picnic on with my dog), hit this teeniest hail sized ball with long sticks called “irons” hundreds of yards to go into a teacup that has a flag sticking out of it. They play this game for hours and there are people that actually watch it. As usual, the winner gets a trophy, a green jacket and choice of the next annual dinner’s menu… or something.

        Now, an American football team has 53 players, not counting coaches, but only 22 of them get to be on the field at any one time (and only 11 in the altercation itself). There’s also kids with towels and drinks (‘energy’ drinks I suppose) and ‘referees’ that throw yellow rags if one or more players misbehaves. The part that I hate (aside from not knowing what the heck is going on) is that they have magnificent ‘Half Time’ shows that they never show on TV (exception being Super Bowl), which is the only place I ever get to be subjected to this melee; that, and, they have these animated, long legged, sparsely dressed women, known as ‘cheerleaders’ that go through synchronized acrobatics, that I suppose is to goad the players into exerting more masculine energy into their physical prowess, mental toughness and myopic focus in order to vigorously annihilate the challenging group of eleven that have their own aerobic cheerleaders charged with the same task; and THAT I never get to see either!

        Sports like badminton, croquet and even volleyball are a ‘no care who wins--it’s all about the form and fashion’-- type activities that I can relate to. Throwing darts and axes seems too dangerous to be done indoors, while archery seems like a ‘something could seriously go wrong’ thing. Bowling I suck at. Chess appears a bit too cerebral while checkers is best on a porch with a “straw hat, a suit of overalls and a worn out pair of shoes” (Shirley Temple); while ‘basketball’ is just that: tall guys in short sweats faking each other out to pitch a ball into a basket (there’s an awful lot of running back and forth). Horseshoes I understand.  

        In football, as I vaguely understand, you draw lines ten yards apart and you get three or four tries to move the ball across that line and if you do, you get three or four more tries to do it again (and again); or you can throw, pass or hand off the ball and if anyone gets in your way, you can knock them down or you can ass whup anyone/everyone on the other team that tries to move that ONE BALL away from you. It’s kind of like West Side Story without the weapons and catchy singing.

        All in all, competitive sports are not high enough on the testosterone level for my lionhearted masculinity; I go for the real thing: the stuff that makes your blood boil; the stuff that continues to amaze you with its brutality, shiftiness, viciousness and sadistic no-holds-barred ferocity: The Evening News.

               

 

 

Opie

 

Po Boy views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Requiem

Or

Universality

        “It’s only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. All grownups were once children… but only few of them remember it.” The Little Prince

        “Once upon a time there was a little prince who lived on a planet hardly any bigger than he was, and who needed a friend”. The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery is called a wise and enchanting fable; if the book doesn’t inspire you, then I believe that there is no hope for you.

        The book starts with a pilot that has crash-landed in the desert with little or no help available and out of seemingly nowhere comes a small visitor (picture David Bowie at eleven years of age). The boy is called a little prince, but as he is the only inhabitant of his planet (which is no bigger than a house) he has no competition. Little Prince is only what he is called by the pilot and the book, and that’s good enough for me (and should be for you).

        The boy has travelled far and wide and has had experiences on other small planets with a series of archetypical adult figures that when taken objectively; resemble many adults (grown-ups) around you now. The little guy asks the pilot to draw him a particular picture and the adventures, lessons, and wisdom begins. It is a classic example of ‘from the mouths of babes’.

        In other words, it’s life in its simplest form, and when life is seen in its simplest form, happiness is within reach; but also is heartbreak. Life is usually seen in its simplest form when someone has nothing left to lose.

        My veterinarian, ten years ago, found a newborn kitten on a rainy Moss Street roadway, nursed it to life and we got the pleasure of it sharing our lives with it. Debbie named him Opie because he looked like Ron Howard. His colors were what are called butterscotch. He grew with an appetite and a gentle lovingness unsurpassed. Before his illness he weighed about twenty pounds.

        The Little Prince teaches us that, if we look with our hearts, loving a person, place or thing makes it ours. Although there may be many persons, places and things seemingly alike to others, that cannot take away that that is not the one that WE love. WE, in loving the ones WE love, makes that ONE special and ours alone; one rose out of a thousand, if it is our rose, is, in its uniqueness, the only rose we truly can love with all of our being. All roses are beautiful; but, OUR rose will outshine them all. So too it is with a star that we choose, a piece of music, work of art, lover and/or a cat.  

        When we experience this sensibility, we become like children who love with all their hearts and all that they love, without reason or regret; without condition, becomes significant and personal.

        Opie was diagnosed with an incurable cancer and instead of subjecting him to the discomfort of debilitating procedures and medicines we had chosen to bring him home and spoil him and love on him until it was time for him to, as they say, cross that Rainbow Bridge. His tumor had grown too large for him to function normally now, growing to a twenty-six inch stomach circumference and he was fading. We took him back to the clinic today to begin his next life’s journey; his time here is at an end, and the quality of life we promised for him had become no longer an option.

        We feel that it is only fitting for our Vet who brought him into this world to be the person that takes him out. I would say that we are heartbroken, but heartbroken is too mild a term for how we feel; once again the Bureau of Happy Endings is not answering our calls or wishes.  

        You know the drill; every day there is an inhumanity against loved ones, yours or someone else’s. You put your faith in a higher being to guide and assist you and to offer succor and support. As it turns out, this higher being has plans of its own and you may say that this higher being is “moving in mysterious ways”. I differ to agree. I don’t think the mother f*cker cares a whit.

        I’ve had friends, lovers, family and critters that I’ve loved cross that frickin’ ‘Rainbow Bridge’ without knowledge or consent for this “Mysterious Way”. And I call foul.  I believe in the teaching that all religions that tell us to treat others as we would be treated; I take exception to the teachings that have the caveat that it means everyone except those that are not like us.

        Opie rallied today (of all days) and we took him in praying for a reprieve that did not come. I watched the light fade from his bright eyes and heard Dr. Nicole Larroque tell me that his heart had stopped.

        The Doc told us that the first shot took Opie’s spirit out of his body and the second shot (once his body had relaxed) took his body away from him. That means, to me, that Opie’s spirit is still out there and will find itself back to us.

        Call me what you will; but, if you should one day spy a little butterscotch asking for directions… please send him home. He’s my good friend and I miss him so very very much.                                      

 

School Daze

 

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Let It Roll

Or

Hey Nineteen

        Blow up your TV, throw away your paper, go to the country, build yourself a home; plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches; try to find Jesus on your own (Spanish Pipedream—John Prine) 

        LSU, Tulane, Loyola, Dillard, Delgado etc etc; blah blah blah: you’re heading off/back to school and nobody can talk you out of it, eh? In it for a good time or do you really wanna graduate; party or purpose? Which school? Statistics vary school to school from 11% acceptance and 86% graduation to 87% accept and 17% grad (Google.com), choose wisely Grasshopper, it’s goin’ on your resume.

        It’s every parents dream to have their kid graduate from college, get a degree (or many), become a doctor, CPA, lawyer, or rise in the ranks of the military and you owe them, right? To heck with being a plumber, electrician, chef or Rock n’ Roll star; it’s their money and your debt. With luck they gave you a year off after High School to travel and ‘find yourself’ (rich kids: Europe; poor kids: Gulf Shores). One thing for certain: student debt (no matter what the president says) can hound your heels for the rest of your life, so you’d better pick a major that will bring income; I’ve met many a Political Science major who are now tending bar or slinging hash.

        One thing that schools cannot teach you: becoming a person of worth and value; a person who acts with kindness and sincerity; someone with concern about others and their environment. This can only be done with personal practice. Face it, in those hallowed halls there’s not academia labeled ‘Harmlessness’.

        In motion pictures there are teachers and students that challenge each other’s humanity, humility, self worth and at the end of the film there are epiphanies where all is made clear and the world becomes a better place. That happens in motion pictures, television programs and the final segment of any news program; in ‘real life’ that’s more exception than the rule and it’s all your fault.

        In real life, teachers are generally underpaid, overworked and underappreciated, OR, like some ‘professionals’, just want to get through the day putting up with ‘students’ that don’t care about any subject that they might be ‘teaching’ and only want to get the answers to any tests that might be given, answer any questions that the teacher might pose and get the hell out of the class and back to a life that they believe is the real thing. Sometimes the teacher might get even with that gang of ingrates and impose homework and reading assignments that belie comprehension and time management.

        Do you really want to go to school and learn the tools of a profession that you will be forced to practice for the rest of your life; it certainly is what your parents want. “Find a girl, settle down, if you want you can marry; look at me, I am old, but I’m happy” Cat Stevens.

        As you age you progress through stages: at 17 you’re ready for a radical departure from your, up to this point, life. At 21 you’re more confused than ever and are going through hard times finding yourself. At 25 you’re golden, indestructible and at ease; by 28 you’ve had your ass kicked by life real bad and finally start to get a clue (note: astrologically it is where your moon comes back to the exact spot as the moment of your birth). At 30, you’re catching on and there’s a glimmer of a reflection of the person that you want to become; physically, mentally, emotionally and professionally. It goes on, ad nauseum (40’s, 50’s, 60’s). At each of these junctures there is a birth or rebirth of you the person. Society is not willing to accept this.

        “I was once like you are now and I know that it’s not easy to be calm when you’ve found something going on; but, take your time, think a lot, think of everything you’ve got now; you will still be here tomorrow but your dreams may not.”  Cat Stevens

        Society as a whole is controlled by people that knew what they wanted to be from an early age, and on becoming that person never changed until they reached their zenith and are unwilling to accept new (for them) ideas and concepts of themselves. The people who ultimately control your life never wanted to run away with the circus (your Mama don’t dance and your Daddy don’t Rock n’ Roll; Loggins, Messina).

        School can educate you on many subjects; school cannot teach you to think. And if you think that going to school is the right thing for you to do; to become a doctor and heal the unwilling; play football until your brain implodes; learn to take other people’s money until you have a bunch of your own--for the rest of your life--then, have at it by all means.

        Or perhaps you just want to enjoy a few more years of freedom until you join your Daddy’s firm, practice or dealership; I say: Go For It!

        However (and here’s the big HOWEVER); maybe you like working on cars, perfecting soufflés, busking on Royal Street, painting sunsets, writing poetry, selling balloons or performing with squirrels at a sideshow. Why the f**k not? It’s your life.    

        Find something that you really like doing that gives you enough money and time off to enjoy what’s left of your life. Listen: there are 393,800 millionaires in this country who are under 30 years of age (millenialmoney.com) 14 are billionaires (Kiplinger.com). Conversely, 3.4% of Americans will not reach age 40 (Quora) out of our population of 341,772,225 (worldometer).

         “The future’s uncertain and the end is always near” Roadhouse Blues: Jim Morrison

 

         

 

       

         

Jazz Fest 2024 second weekend

 

Po-Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Fair Grounds

Or

Bust

 

“Fear in the air, tensions everywhere, unemployment’s rising fast, The Beatles new record’s a gas; and the only safe place to live is on an Indian reservation! And the band played on.” (Temptations: Ball of Confusion)

       

 

        Hey, don’t complain just because it’s only a third of the way through the year and you’re ready to curl up and go fetal; because, if you think that the ass kicking 2024 has given you so far is bad, fasten your seatbelts, ‘cause you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet (the psychic columnist strikes again!).

        All around you, you see war, hunger, homelessness, carjacking, murders, muggings, rapes and senseless politics; not to mention greed, dishonesty and inhumanity. Getting a dog or cat, close family ties or cutting your bangs may assuage your plight but it will not eliminate it. Face it, from the beginning until the end, life will work your nerves; “the girl by the whirlpool is lookin’ for a new fool; don’t follow leaders; watch the parking meters” (Bob Dylan) However…..

        Okay, so you think that just because you’re playing your part with honor, integrity and value it’s gonna get you a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card from life, you are sorely mistaken; I know, it’s what I used to think. Take it from me, from here on out it’s about to get Think or Thwim Time and the water’s rising fast. But soft, do I hear the Sirens call of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage festival? Ah yes, the Sirens: half bird and half woman seductresses of Greek mythology that sang sailors to….; yes, I hear them over by the race track calling me (and you).

        2023 was bad, badder than the years before and here come 2024 like the Dire Wolf (600 pounds of sin); cost of living went up 10% and your raise was only 3. Rent, groceries, gasoline, your dentist, and your dealer have all increased their fees and don’t get me started on the electric bills meteoric rise; the car needs tires, baby needs shoes and, I don’t know about you but, I need a break. Hell I could do with a dose of amnesia!

         Hey, take my hand. Life is short no matter how long you live. Close your eyes. Open your hand; feel this slip of paper? It’s a ticket to The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival week two. On me. No it’s not for the Rolling Stones Day (I’m not that magnanimous).

        What? It cost as much as a day’s pay? Well, the way I consider it, when I spend a day’s pay to go to the Jazz Fest, I’m actually giving myself a day off with pay to go have a most wonderful time. Believe me, I save up all year to give myself this ‘stay-cation’; I deserve this. I deserve to be able to take every day of Jazz Fest off from work and responsibility to render myself immune to the days cares and concerns; I know that my life, as it is, will be waiting for me when I exit and I’ll face what I have to face and ignore everything else that I can that is waiting to work my patience, emotions, understanding and ken.

        But I need this. I need this respite, this time off and out; that’s what it is: I’m giving myself a ‘time out’ and going to the corner of Sauvage and Fortin Streets or 1751 Gentilly Ave, through those gates and off the grid.

        I get a giddy feeling as I stand in line with the other folks eager to be the first in; I go through the line like a greasy butter knife, carrying so very little (a towel, sunscreen, cash and a big grin); I’ve got on comfortable closed toe shoes; clothing in just enough layers for the weather and eyewear to protect me from the sun.

        I pass the Gospel Tent and look in on Jesus; pass the Blues Tent and look in on a poster of B.B. King and over to the WWOZ Jazz Tent where I deposit Debbie because that’s where she likes to spend her days and then I’m off!

        I’m not saying that I’m old; but, my experiences with and at music and art festivals get me so high that I cannot sit still for very long. I’ve got to be out there; I’ve got to see everything, be everywhere and poke my nose into everybody’s business. I am nonstop for hours and I’m electrified by the energy of the Fest; I’m movin’ and groovin’; I’ve got gut in my strut; glide in my stride and no shame in my game. Amazingly, I don’t want to talk to many people, I seldom interact; if you know me, I’m perfectly more than capable of enjoying and amusing myself without outside help or influences.

        I eat, I drink (non alcoholic beverages), I bring Debbie beignets and coffee as well as other gifts of refreshment and I observe. And when someone afterward asks me who I saw, I smile and say “everyone!”

        So, here’s your ticket; go forth and soak up the magic. Find all the secret, sacred corners, routes, and avenues through the myriad of Jazz Fest brethren and if you don’t enjoy yourself… it’s your own fault.

        Oh, if you see me and I seem to not recognize you… just let me go on my way. I’m in a world of my own and I call it heaven.