Uncategorized, Writing Challenges

If you could change ONE THING that would make the world better, what would it be?

2 April 2017

Because any question or comment is liable to get me singing the closest related tune floating through my mind, I started singing Change the World by Eric Clapton.

Yup, “If I could change the world, I would be the sunlight in your universe.  You would think my love was really something good, baby if I could change the world.”

Then I got stuck on the love being something good.  Wouldn’t it, if there were more of it?

Here’s why my mind is stuck on love.

Both of my stories for work dealt with tragic anniversaries.  A new exhibit at Arlington National Cemetery marks the centennial of United Sates involvement in World War I.  One hundred years since 116,000 lives were claimed during the Great War from combat and disease. Those were just folks from the USA. Looking at each country, the number totals spike into the tens of millions. That’s a LOT of people.

Sunday’s second story covered the kickoff event for National Crime Victims’ Rights Week in a local county.  The whole thing made me want to go weep in the station vehicle. Nine photos were perched on concrete stairs leading to a stage in the middle of a town-center style shopping center.  Each photo represented a life cut short by criminal activity.  From the cute little boy with chubby-looking cheeks, to the 18-year-old young lady who perished in the Virginia Tech shooting nearly a decade ago, to a 22-year-old who was gunned down, and his family still doesn’t know why.

Each photo represents an unknown number of family members and friends who are left to grieve absences that will never be filled by another human being on this planet.  Ever.  Each photo possibly represents an unknown number of first responders who may never be the same after working the crime scenes where these victims died.

Where do the tragic ripples end?  I have no answer for that, but what seems certain is that somewhere, somehow, love for these victims was absent during the slivers of time it took to commit each crime.  Can’t help but think that’s a truism, whether any victim’s life is taken by a stranger, an acquaintance, spouse, lover, or parent.

It’s not up to me to hash out each case and condemn any person.  What I deduce is rooted in another song.  The world just needs more love dipped in compassion and sprinkled with patience.

If I could change one thing to make the world better, that would definitely be it.  Love.  More of it.  I’ll let it begin with me, and put it to practice the next time I want to curse out an awful driver on the Beltway.

Writing Challenges

Who inspires you?

1 APRIL 2017

There’s a reason some folks list parents among the most inspiring figures in their lives. I’m no different. My mother and father are two of the people who continually animate me in my quest to keep pursuing my goals. Whether I gather that inspiration when I speak with them or by simply reflecting on their sacrifices for their children, they consistently top that list of personal influencers who keep me trying my best. When I grow weary, their example and kind words remind me to rest awhile, regroup and get up and back to chipping away at making those goals reality.

She, as the oldest of 11 children, was the first to leave home to build a life for herself. Fresh from high school, she traveled west from California’s Imperial Valley to “the big city,” San Diego. Those years were filled with school, work, socializing and dates. She saved up and bought her first car there and ended up teaching a cool Deep South fellow, the sweetheart she met there, how to drive. Mr. Deep South Navy man eventually became her husband… and my dad. My dad would occasionally regale us with tales about olden day driving lessons, and how my mom could stretch her money as a young single woman. She was no crybaby, though. Mom was persistent and she really could (and still can) make a dollar out of 15 cents.

Mom’s inspiration is especially palpable now. With a recent cancer diagnosis, the strength she’s showed in this post-operative period has cemented her place as one of the greatest people I know. She’s a woman with a faith which, from what I can tell, has not wavered during this challenging period. Not only has she not drop kicked her God belief during the ordeal, she also shows a resolve to regain her former strength and ease back into her daily routines with the help of my siblings and my Dad.

Speaking of Daddy, his brand of inspiration got on my nerves when I was a kid. I didn’t realize his influence was taking hold way back then. See, he would leave work every weekday, some days a bit before dawn when he used the city bus to hop across town to work. He got on my nerves because if we were supposed to do chores before he got home he would always arrive too soon. Wasn’t really too soon. We were just too busy lollygagging instead of working on our tasks.

But his consistency and example during my childhood helped impress in me the importance of routine: To work, back home. To church, back home. To the grocery store to get something Mom forgot and needed for holiday meals, back home. Of course we broke the routine every now and again, but that early example left an enduring mark in my mind.

There are many more personal influencers in my life from a longtime friend from church who is battling Multiple Sclerosis, to elementary, high school and college pals who are living their dreams, and to my dear fiancé—they all inspire me to keep plugging away at my goals and developing into the best version of myself.

Viewing Pleasures

Lady Mae cans choir director, tension between cousins begins burble

First of all, Lady Mae is going after Carlton. But it’s not because he’s gay.   That doesn’t mean she’s on the right side of wrong, though.

Meanwhile, I predict some boy-related tension is about to go down between Sofia and Cousin Zora. Sofia likes this young singer at Triumph Church, and Zora’s coaching her on ways to get his attention. But when they go watch Isiah Hambrick rehearse, he bores his attention into Zora as if awkward Sofia doesn’t exist.

Continue reading Lady Mae cans choir director, tension between cousins begins burble →

Things, Viewing Pleasures

Lawd, them Greenleaves are back with tawdry church drama to boot!

At the final scene of season 1, Uncle Mac’s still a cad. And he’s fresh out of jail. Poppa Greenleaf is still struggling with his disease and trying to hide it… I think it’s Parkinson’s. But the cops come for his ass as they drop Uncle Mac off at the mansion doorstep. They warn Pastor to stick around town. Why? Because he’s accused of being complicit in the death of a church caretaker who died in a fire at an early church Bishop ran during the 1980s. Lady Mae’s father (who is also a cad we’re learning) told Grace that fire wasn’t an act of God as had been previously thought. Some Johnny struck a match but the match DIDN’T go out.

Continue reading Lawd, them Greenleaves are back with tawdry church drama to boot! →

Uncategorized

Stomping out the Rittenhouse core, Houdini’s beginnings: Timeless episode’s 10 and 11

Our time traveling trio Lucy, Wyatt and Rufus are wondering if they are hopping through years and space for the bad guys and if the good guys are actually the ones they should fear most. Talking to Garcia Flynn makes them wonder. In the meantime, Agent Christopher knows the slightest changes in the past could cause present family members to vanish as if they never were. She knows Lucy’s sister has disappeared, so Agent Christopher asks Lucy to safeguard some memories in case her family is somehow erased.

Flynn sweetens the pot to enlist Wyatt’s help.

So they end up smack dab during the American Revolutionary War days, and they cross paths with Benedict Arnold. Flynn lets Rufus, Lucy and Wyatt know Arnold is a founding member of Rittenhouse and they should want to stop him.

Flynn sweetens the pot to enlist Wyatt’s help. He offers to reveal the name of his wife’s killer.

But first, they end up finding out that the mastermind behind Rittenhouse is another man. They succeed in killing that man, who also has a young son. Lucy wanted to spare the boy’s life… But Flynn wanted to smite that child. While Lucy was advocating for the boy’s life, the lad slipped away. We don’t know where that child is… But you can bet a bottom dollar that he probably filled his dad’s shoes within Rittenhouse.

Flynn wanted to kill that boy so dead in order to squelch Rittenhouse fresh out the womb, but since Lucy stopped him, he grabbed (basically kidnapped her) and forced her to board the nice, shiny, new time machine and they disappear before Rufus’ and Wyatt’s eyes.

In episode 11, the rickety Lifeboat pops back to Mason industries. And they’re trying to figure out where the mothership is located, but it’s been all over the place.

Back at Mason, they figure out that Flynn’s been able to hop hither-thither and yon because of a battery he made with Anthony’s help using the nuclear core from several episodes ago.

The kidnapped Lucy is typing at some computer, when Flynn comes back from a journey on the mothership and tells her that he tried to go back and finish the job. That means he went looking for the son of Rittenhouse’s founder so he could smite him. But the kid was nowhere to be found, and there was no subsequent trace of him in history.

So, Flynn says instead of trying to stamp down Rittenhouse at its origins, he’s going to kill each member one by one.
So they end up at the Columbian Exposition, or Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, with Rufus and Wyatt trailing them.

One of Flynn’s guys throws them off they end up going to a hotel, a sort of Roach Motel [https://youtu.be/jKhGHxO-woc?t=29s] for humans, called Murder Castle. Some monster, who went by the alias H.H. Holmes [http://www.biography.com/people/hh-holmes-307622#the-murder-castle-is-built], killed a bunch of people in this death trap hotel. Holmes is considered one of this country’s first serial killers, claiming his victims before the term “serial killer” was commonplace.

Rufus and Flynn ended up trapped in an airtight room with another man and a woman, who is an architect who was supposed to die, but ends up influencing the world.

Harry Houdini plays into this episode. He’s at the start of his ascent to fame. If you guess his help is enlisted to maneuver around some locks and get folks out of tight spaces, you’re right.

Confirm any other guesses by watching the entire episode:

Ideas, People, The Issues--Politics

Antonio Sabato, Jr. talks politics, a possible office run, what he thinks the U.S. Needs for unity

Interview with actor, model and entrepreneur Antonio Sabato, Jr. as entertainers geared up for party at MGM National Harbor the night of the inauguration to honor the military and their charities. Sabato stopped by the WTOP studios for a chat the night before the 2017 Inauguration.

Listen to the interview:

Artists, Ideas, Music, Things, Uncategorized

Celebrating music and stories that changed America

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Museum of History and Culture opened with lots of fanfare in September.

Tonight… a two-hour star-studded show to celebrate what the museum is about. A conversation about tonight’s show with Tasha Coleman, Senior Manager of Counsel Relations and Special Initiatives at the museum.

A preview of tonight’s extravaganza

Places

Home, heart and hearth

Gallery

Home is where the heart is, so said someone somewhere. Home can be here, there or everywhere at once. Warmth is what my heart-cockles feel in those special hearthy-homey places and spaces.

For me, home conjures a desire for a warmer holiday season—specifically Christmas.

One of the things I love most about my hometown… These beautiful, lithe-looking trees.

Memories of Laker games, concerts, tennis matches and hockey…

The Forum after dark. Memories of matches–tennis, hockey, basketball games, and one time riding the bus back home from Inglewood library.  I encountered a couple of Aerosmith fans who asked for directions after getting lost on the way to the show. The year?  Likely 1990. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pump_Tour

Familiar sites along the street—using utility poles to visually hawk wares and services…

From bug killers to hair stylists, to club shows (I grew up seeing TONS of Bobby Blue Bland flyers).

Chicken joints I never frequented, but recall folks in the neighborhood swearing those fried fowls were the business!

I don’t recall ever eating at Jim Dandy, but this joint along with Golden Bird and Louisiana Fried Chicken (back in the day), folks swore on the tasty-goodness of those birds.

The liquor store along a familiar street from my youth. For better or worse, booze barns speak every language in every neighborhood.

Small strip mall with stores I used to see each week on my way to church. I never paid much attention to them back then.

A memorial to local legends, the Beach Boys.

Memorial to the Beach Boys at W 119th Street near Kornblum Avenue in Hawthorne, Calif.

Their childhood home in Hawthorne, Calif. was demolished to make way for “The 105” or Glenn Anderson Freeway.  But some folks got together to to memorialize the location where they crafted some of their works. This group—one to help change the musical landscape and put everyday parts of sunny Southern California on the map in some ways. I grew up not too far from that area. Never realized how close! I literally caught a bus one block south of their home while traveling to the local Hawthorne Mall (which has since closed down).

By the time I was born, I’m sure the neighborhood’s demographics had either significantly changed, or were about to. The Beach Boys’ tunes struck my fancy as a kid after I started listening to an oldies station in our area. Their songs sounded so light and airy. Whenever I want to steal away to a carefree bubble, I put their songs on. Whenever I want to feel appreciated for being a California Girl, I play that song… even though I can’t help but wonder if, in those days, that vision of beautiful ones included young ladies who look like me.

Uncategorized

This is Us episode 10: Hooking us in for a January comeback

Why must folks threaten to kill off characters to keep us coming back for another go-round? Gets on my nerves. But it works.

So we see the good doctor again, the one who delivered Kate, Kevin and their wee little brother who passed away. He’s also the one who was partially responsible for getting Randall to Jack and Rebecca.

It’s Christmas time. No, not in Hollis Queens… But in 1989.

So we see the good doctor again, the one who delivered Kate, Kevin and their wee little brother

Kate gets a tummy ache and they have to take her to the hospital, which is where they see the good doctor. He had gotten himself into a car accident… Skidded on an icy patch and sustained some internal injuries and bleeding… a slow bleed between the heart and lungs. Doc seems to think he won’t make it out of the needed surgery.

Of course Jack reeks of positivity. He thinks the doctor will be just fine. It was Christmas Eve, the good doctor’s family was not around… So the Pearson’s stood in as Doc’s supportive family. And Randall, the sweet young man that he was (and still is), used his allowance money to buy a snow globe to thank the good doctor for bringing their family together.

Stage Drama
So Kevin and the playwright, Sloane, slept together. And she tells him he needs to go to Hanukkah dinner with her. Because he owes her. And her family’s piece of work. But so is his, so he’s in great company.

So what happens is that he spills the beans about Sloane’s play is a no-go. Olivia disappeared, they don’t have a star, so the folks who are (were) funding the play pulled their money. So Kevin, in the spirit of his dad who was the EEEEEEternal optimist, he suggests they put the play on themselves. Kevin offers to back it with his money… And encourages Sloane to play the starring role. She’s familiar with it. She wrote the play, and played that while work shopping it.

Meantime Kate is meeting with a counselor about gastric bypass surgery. She’s listening to all of the risks… Rebecca is also present and seems unconvinced this is the best move for her daughter. Rebecca also learned a little more about Kate’s medical history. Like how she’d been on Prozac. But she stopped because it made her gain weight. Rebecca also learned about Kate’s binge eating.

So what else is up with their disconnect? It can’t only be because Kate mom is skinnier than she is…or is it? What else happened to Kate or to Rebecca that makes the relationship so fractured? I wonder if they’ll go into that more when the show returns on January 10. Rebecca wonders if Kate’s food problems are her fault, and tells Kate she didn’t know if she was bringing it up too much or not enough… she never knew what to say. Kate hasn’t put her finger on it either, and says she doesn’t know if her mom caused her food issues.

William is at a support group. And he speaks about taming his addiction from the inside. And then another man named Jessie speaks afterwards. As he talks about a man he loved. And a man who left. And left his heart in shambles. That man… William.

Yes sir, William is gay. He’s like the kid with two dads—like in a book at school. That’s what one of his granddaughters noted later on in the show, after William showed up at Randall’s house with Jesse. Grandad is gay. “Or at least bi,” she schooled her parents. Out of the mouths of babes who know what’s really going on, and have no qualms about love in all its forms.

Continue reading This is Us episode 10: Hooking us in for a January comeback →

People, Places, Things, Ideas!

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