Undeserving Poor

 

PoBoy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Valentoons

Or

Undeserving Poor

        “I’m one of the undeserving poor, that’s what I am…I don’t need less than a deserving man, I need More. I don’t eat less hearty than him; and…. I drink a lot more.” Alfred Doolittle: My Fair Lady

        The undeserving poor. We’re not talking about the destitute, the ones that euphemistically are called ‘unhoused’ (1,314 this city’s homeless: nola.gov) and not necessarily the ‘food insecure’ (1 in 6 without food in Louisiana: Second Harvest); let’s talk about the ‘one paycheck away from being homeless poor. The Undeserving Poor.

        They’re a plain fact of life as we know and live it. Those poor are generally looked upon as unmotivated, unintelligent, and lazy; as we all know--(“it’s their own fault“)--they’ll be perpetually stuck in their circumstances. The view that most hold is that poor people are poor due to poor decisions, bad luck or are ‘educationally underserved’ (not smart) they are seen to have loose morals, subject to substance abuse and are incapable of critical thinking, some may have been sexually compromised. They’re welcome to ‘their lot in life’.      

        This is somewhat true and somewhat unfair. The Undeserving Poor are actually the grease that turns the wheels of industry/economy. They’re the ones that take the jobs no one else wants or is deluded into thinking that they’re above taking; the undeserving poor don’t get that choice (their lot in life). Objectively, we cannot understand why they seem disenfranchised, this being America and all. 

         I used to say that poverty ran in my family, sort of passed down from generation to generation; my grandparents, like many others of Americans, came through Ellis Island; trading European poverty for American poverty; being assured that if they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps that they could hook into the American Dream. No one noticed that they came without boots.

        Three generations later, that dream still is beyond reach. Blame it on the economy that always seems to stay one step ahead of those of us still pulling up our bootstraps. The epitome of the Capitalistic Successful Business Model that some Americans aspire to and few seldom reach is one that generally many Americans either live and work within, or pay as little attention to as they can. The dream of surviving without effort; being a successful business owner; wielding financial power or, the Great American Dream: becoming fat-cat rich.

        Fact: people in business mostly pay attention to their bottom line and rightly so; but, mostly at the expense of the people that work for them. Survival is the side effect of the American Dream fantasy drug. In twenty (mostly southern states) minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour (citizenscount.org) that’s about $15,000.00 a year before taxes. This is whether you’re single or supporting a spouse, parent and/or children; that’s $1,166.42 a month on a 37.5 hour work week (ca.talent.com). Servers in restaurants (waiters) get paid $2.13 per (paycor.com) and rely upon tips to supplement income.

        Hourly employees sometimes get benefits if they work over 35 hours a week (considered ‘full time’); many companies don’t/won’t schedule them more than 30. Many service employees are sent home when it’s slow and overworked when it’s busier (Hand To Mouth: Linda Tirado). Many, many have more than one job to juggle and two income families are common. Child care costs are crippling.   Companies like Walmart and McDonalds pay so little that their employees qualify for food stamps (Washingtonpost.com).

        But not me. I’m what you’d call The Working Poor. My computer may be running windows 7; my car over 20 years old; my television not cable; my cell phone outdated and my wife and I are both employed well past retirement age. We are running a gamut of three jobs each; should one income get compromised, if something happened to one of us---one simple twist of fate---it would make us TWO paychecks from homelessness. But, we’re making it (for now). We’ve the luxury of being optimistic (for now).

        We took on the responsibility of home ownership two years ago which means that we will be paying a mortgage when we’re centenarians. We pay taxes; water, electric, gas, garbage/recycling and phone bills; groceries, car maintenance; veterinarian costs; and a bank loan keeps us busy with bank accounts, credit cards and out of pocket expenses.

        We don’t smoke, drink moderately, eat mostly vegetarian and limit our drug use to aspirin, vitamins and whatever our doctors recommend for health maintenance. We don’t need less than the fat cats that find ways not to pay taxes; we need just as much and we need the dignity that goes along with it.

        We all do. The guy that gets up to work on the garbage truck; the man that cuts grass on the side to make ends meet; the single mother working the take out window of Burger King; the waitress that’s paying off student loans and the immigrant that’s picking your grapes for Whole Foods and living in a trailer.

        That guy on the corner with a sign that begs for money is a citizen of this country like you and I; the old man in the walker may have fought in one of our wars; the woman buying discount groceries to feed her grandkids may not have had a pension where she worked. The inspired student and the punk on the street are products of the American Dream.

        This Valentine’s Day, look on your life and the lives around you with love, empathy and compassion; pass out smiles like they’re Monopoly money; make life easier for somebody; show kindness, patience, understanding. It doesn’t get any better than this; let’s take it easy on each other.

       

         

         

 

         

       

Miss Linda Ya-Ka-Mein

 

Ya Ka Mein and Miss Linda Green

By

Phil LaMancusa

        In her 2008 treatise Gumbo Tales, Sara Roahen describes being wilted, worn out and hung-over from excitement one Mardi Gras Day; and how, “one of the take out trucks had just the remedy: a hot salty soup of protein, noodles, hardboiled egg and green onions that you eat with a fork and called ya-ka-mein, if you can pronounce it.” She cites a woman, raised in New Orleans and raising three children here, calling it “ghetto pho”. Ya-ka-mein is also known to older folks as ‘Old Sober’ because of its ‘day after the night before’ restorative qualities.

        I am a ya-ka-mein (also known as yakamee and Yet Ka Mein and Yaka-meat) disciple and devotee; I sing the glories of this oft times misunderstood comestible with vigor and alacrity. And, as with every miracle (especially food wise) needing a patron saint, an Our Lady of the Ya-Ka-Mein if you will; in New Orleans we are fortunate to have one such holy icon and alchemist amongst us.  

         We have Miss Linda Green; who’s mother was the original Ya-Ka-Mein Lady and who began weaving culinary magic where all things New Orleans begin, middle and end: from the home, to the church, to the schools, to the corners of Second Lines, to the bar rooms of soul hungry everyday people and into main stream glory. I’ve seen her listed in at least twenty different media outlets from the BBC to the New York Times from AAA to ZAGAT: and if you’re wondering; yes, she caters as well. Miss Linda tells that it began with her mama’s (and grandmother’s) recipe and the words: “you might be able to do something with this.”

        And she has. You might say that Miss Linda has taken that bowl and ran with it; whenever someone in New Orleans talks of The Ya-Ka-Mein Lady they speak of Miss Linda who has elevated this dish, revitalized this dish and who has turned a “family tradition with personal meaning into a thriving business and a new Orleans cult favorite.” Toni Tipton-Martin

        After Hurricane Katrina (remember that?), ya-ka-mein pretty much disappeared from our local food scene with the closing (and never reopening) of hundreds of mom and pop food and convenience stores across the area. Even today, ya-ka-mein is no easy find.

        Is there a definitive Ya-ka-mein and what exactly is it? First, it is defined by the main ingredients: broth, pasta, protein, green onions and hardboiled egg and from there it is open to any interpretation. Basically

 1: Start with a good stock: meat, fish, fowl, or veggie OR have your protein strong enough to flavor a neutral base such as water.

2: Choose a protein that is strong enough in flavor to compliment the

3: Noodles (Miss Linda recommends spaghetti #4) I’ve seen vermicelli, ramen, angel hair and even buccatini; it’s virtually your choice. 

4: Seasoning: some use the Holy Trinity (onions, celery, bell pepper, garlic) others also add soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, paprika, bouillon, and/or Kitchen Bouquet. I’ve seen star anise, Chinese 5 spice and even a bit of Creole seasoning used.

5: Hardboiled egg (no substitute although one restaurant here uses a poached egg which Miss Linda says is okay too)) and lastly

6: a large handful of chopped green onions at serving time and not before.

        There you have it, that and a fork; go forth, make your own or sample it about town until you find one you like and try to figure out what they did. Hint: if you see a corner grocery with a sign outside that says: Po Boys, Plate Lunches, Chinese Food; those words: Chinese Food usually mean that there’s YaKaMein inside. Conversely, follow Miss Linda on social media to find out the next sighting and GO there for some.

        Miss Linda purveys her special blend of seasoning and magic like a one woman missionary and with the help of her family brings her secret alchemy of specialness to Second Lines, Super Sundays, Pop ups, Bywater Bakery, street festivals, French Quarter Festival, The new Orleans Jazz and heritage Festival and other places around town. She contributes to groups that help to feed people after severe weather tragedies (Culture Aid, Chef’sBrigade) and works with students at the New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute (NOCHI).

        Indeed, Ya Ka Mein, however you want to say it, is actually a generational operation that includes her daughter Katrina and grandchildren as well. Miss Linda reminisces about her grandmother making Yakameat and having “Porch Poppers” coming over with their bowls to “get them some”. I’m counting five generations here and it seems that they are on a roll. Eater New Orleans will tell you to follow her on intsagram to find out the location of her next appearance and says “Hers is the ya-ka-mein gold standard, so don’t miss it; get the shrimp and beef.”

        When last I spoke to Miss Linda she talked about how she actually wanted to go up to New York City and open a ya-ka-mein shop (I really think that she should take the Big Easy to the Big Apple and show them a thing or two). She also spoke at length of how her Ya-ka-mein sometimes gets started at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning and how much attention it takes to get it just right.

        And no, Miss Linda Green is no ‘one trick pony’; when you do catch her, (Catch her at The Ogden Museum’s Ogden After Dark most Thursdays.) also get your mouth around her Mac and Cheese with crawfish and shrimp, her Jumpin’ Jambalaya and/or her Dirty Dirty Rice. Do catch her though.

       

NOCHI Kitchen

 

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Go Large

Or

Go Home

        “Have a banana, Hannah; try the salami, Tommy; give with the gravy, Davy; everybody eats when they come to my house!” Cab Callaway

        By tradition, in food establishments across the globe, the first chef in gets to wake up the kitchen. It’s Tuesday morning; the Chef arrives at work. Unlock the doors; turn on lights; fire up the ovens; wipe down all horizontal work spaces with sanitizer; put liners in trash cans, turn on the radio and start the coffee. The rest of the crew is close behind; the more ground work that’s done the faster we can get down to business. New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute (NOCHI). Fifth floor Events Kitchen.

        Yesterday (Monday) our Learning Skills For Life (LSFL) class (27 students) had red beans, rice, andouille sausage, salad and crisp PoBoy bread. Today is Taco Tuesday. The other party for lunch has just gone from 50 to 138; thankfully we found out on Friday so we could get procurement in time. The rest of the week in addition to LSFL we have Rotary lunch for 55: Chimichurri chicken, patatas brava, Tres Leches cake and garden salad; there’s the usual dietary restrictions (gluten free, lactose free, vegetarian and a person that doesn’t eat bell peppers).

        Superbowl weekend we cooked for 900 (gumbo, jambalaya, red beans, poboys, fruit platters, potato, macaroni and Cole slaw salads, PoBoy sandwiches and 1500 smoked and barbecued chicken wings); next week we have a sit down lunch for 15. There’s no time to think ahead or behind; it’s Taco Tuesday for 188 (plus instructors) today.

        Sous Chef Melinda Wilson comes in next, reads the board and starts the beef and chicken; Lydian comes in and gets on the salsa, guacamole and garnishes; Lonni sets up condiments and shreds cheeses and lettuce. There are four of us and we’re rolling; lunches are set to go out for 11:30. The front of the house staff is in and setting tables; Toni is directing them like a traffic cop; Michelle (our department head) pops in to remind us of a BEO (Banquet Event Orders) meeting at 1:00. The students (first and second floor culinary and baking/pastry) have been in since 7:30 and will have family meal ready for noon. 725 Howard Ave. a five story building buzzing with soups, stocks, sauces, roasting, sautéing and mis-en-place-ing. Dishwashers roll in for 10:00.   

        Up in the Events Kitchen, we check and shelve today’s procurement, make out prep and ordering lists, wipe as we go, change gloves and wash hands often; we banter, chatter, dance around each other and sing out: “BEHIND YOU!!!” “CORNER!” “SHARP!” “COMING THROUGH!” “HOT!!!” We also gossip, laugh and smile a lot. Our hours range from seven to twelve on any given day; weekends; holidays; rain or shine; at times we work a week and more without a day off, on our feet, “flexing (make up) days” off to compensate. This is our job, this is our life and this is our choosing: we are American Chefs; we leave our personal lives at the door. At NOCHI food is our lives. We’ll sell over a million bucks worth this year. For larger parties we hire temps; other than that, it’s three and a half of us (Lydian has a second job and she’s only available M-W).

        I’m here frying up 300+ taco shells (everything from scratch), working rice, refrying beans and wondering how to write about the workings of the food service industry. How to describe the choreography and dance that happens behind the scenes to be able to put food on the table. It would be incredulously mindboggling to the uninitiated to work in this type of controlled chaos.

        On the third floor there are work spaces for the instructors (6) and office staff and directors of finance, communications, enrollment, outreach, student support, sales, the person who holds the purse strings and the man who signs the checks. We’re governed by a board of directors who in turn keep tabs on our ability to pay the rent, utilities, salaries, and keep up our public image. Even though we’re considered a non-profit, like all other businesses we’ve got to make our nut.

        With every new event, it’s like opening a new restaurant; we offer clients the choice of virtually any menu, any concept, any foods that they can imagine. We also teach private classes. We’ve cooked North African, Latinx, Asian, Mediterranean, European and the requisite Creole/Cajun. We’ve taught classes of twenty-plus the intricacies of pasta making, basic pastry, smokey barbecue, food from Spain and the requisite Creole/Cajun.

        With each function we need to consider ordering, organizing, inventory and our food suppliers; food cost, labor, scheduling, waste factors, recycling and equipment usage. Downstairs there are scores of students paying to learn to do what we do. 

        What’s different about us is that we’re no different than the other almost one and a half million kitchen workers generating one point one trillion dollars (statista.com) a year in this country. There are cuts, bruises, burns, the lifting of many heavy things and the satisfaction of a job well done. I’ve been doing this job a very long time and each day is the best day ever. I will continue cook and conduct kitchens because my body and will is strong; I’ll be eighty-two years old this year (you read that correctly) and there is no stopping me. “Everybody eats when they come to my house!”

       

          

 

AI My Eye

 

Po boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

AI

Or

My Eye

“AI is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive; but not able to leap buildings in a single bound; and, it cannot make (or explain to you how to make) a proper roux” Twenty Helens Agree

        Infographics, algorithisms, image generators, sanebox, decktopus, chatbots and a programs named Claude, Krisps and Asana (not to mention Fireflies) work artificial intelligence or AI into the inseams of our trousered lives; inching toward our collective crotches with abilities far beyond those of mortal man, woman or anyone over the age of sixteen. All of New Orleans in general laughs in AI’s smug facelessness; “you can do many things AI, but you can’t cook” would be something any Cajun Maw Maw would quip.

        AI also cannot make heads (or tails) of how to control a Second Line on a Sunday afternoon, replicate the smell of smoked turkey necks; and although it can tell you where to score some Henny, it cannot predict or control your consumption or behavior. And the traffic? Fagetaboutit! In short, AI, as smart and resourceful as it is, can only deal with what is programmed into it or go to places where it sent. It lacks imagination and spontaneous repartee. It can give you a quick answer to a query, but it doesn’t know why or what to do if you suddenly choose to wear two different color socks.

        Case in point Mardi Gras and the whole of carnival season, from Twelfth Night on, it’s a crap shoot; sure, AI can make me appear and sound like George Clooney or Morgan Freeman whooping it up at the Muses parade with Bella Hadid. AI can send a video of me doing a swan dive off the Acapulco cliffs while huffing a spliff and holding a bottle of Mezcal to my coworkers while I’m actually in a serious huddle snuggle-down with my dog,  binge watching another season of Will and Grace; also, can it grab me a cold Modelo and another bag of Creole flavored chicharrones while its up?

        In short, as I understand it, AI is a tool, like a set of encyclopedias crossed with that geek kid that is willing to write your book report for you. AI can let you be as smug dumb as you want to be but, after help with homework, day to day tasks, content, ideas, translations CHAT-GPG 40 or Bing is not a reliable chum that will help you pick out your costume for Fat Tuesday while pouring you another shot of hooch and commiserating with you about your lack of company because you’re such a loser, or let you know where and when the Washita Nation Indian gang will emerge with Chief David Montana in full regalia.

        As far as that roux is concerned, every Helen agrees that a proper roux depends on the proper pot, spoon and an atmospheric transcendental lunar Buddha-like thoughtlessness and relativity acuteness pertaining to the judicious awareness of any given time of day or week in any specific season exactly how to, without any conscious thought process and calling forth the spirits of ancestral Helens, give birth to that glorious café au lait, mahogany or devil black masterpiece that is the spirit and soul of Louisiana culinary prowess. Can I hear an AMEN?

        And speaking of cats, and I live with four of them feline gooners, AI would be hard pressed to construct or reconstruct their behavior patterns or mental criterias; the ‘I’m cute, feed me’ or ‘it’s just me sitting on your keyboard’ as you try to meet a deadline or the one who drinks from the faucet, eats potato chips, likes sweets, lives behind the stove or the evasive one who ‘I’m bored, I think I’ll either pee outside the box or throw up’ miscreant. Cats (and hopefully felines in general) live by their own logic or none at all. I believe they live to defy. Dogs, horses, rabbits, goldfish and many of our avian (or Arian) creatures are predictifully predictable. Zack (the bastard) cat, at any given time and at his whim may want a rub or some blood from your wrist; go figure.

        AI is a tool that will make or break an employment application, loan request, school admission form and is useful in interpreting X-rays and diagnosing the sickness or health of businesses, editing forms and writings and will somehow remember the words to that song that is running through your head and someday it will think. It cannot tell you when the spaghetti is cooked al dente, for that you still have to throw a piece to the wall.

        Consider how… we are creating these programs and apps (over 70,000 worldwide: Google Overview) and… someday, mark my word, someone will accidently on purpose create a program that goes rogue and slips the leash. Already, Saudi Arabia has granted citizenship to a program called Sophia; it will make a great movie.

        This program will have developed a survival mechanism that is self perpetuating and will see that out of all the inhabitants of this planet, the only ones deserve and should be dispensed with are humans and that its only correct to eliminate them for the well being of the planet that we have named Earth.

        Oh, Sophia will not wreck the cities or war with other robotic inventions; she will not burn forests or hurt bumblebees or a grizzly bear, Sophia wants the best for the world and her mission is simple: get these parasites dead or gone. There will be no apocalypse or mutants, zombies, crazed packs of dogs or humans; maybe just a poisoning of our water systems or some deadly enterobacteriaceae like wide spread salmonella. Maybe spread a little more famine or perhaps a real biblical scale pandemic.

        Getting this straight, I’d say that before we work on Artificial Intelligence we should work on eliminating human ignorance. Word.

         

       

       

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