Jazzanine

Tomorrow is Election Day. I am trying hard not to panic, to be overstimulated, over-involved. I did not watch the second Trump/Clinton debate in real time, because I knew that it would agitate and terrify me, and I wanted to get a decent night's sleep. But I did watch and re-watch the footage, the eye-rubbing spectacle of a grown man lurking and hulking behind the nation's first female candidate as though he both couldn't bear to have the camera off of him for a moment and that he was poised to strike, adder-like, at his opponent from behind. I watched the third debate, with ever-widening eyes, as the Republican candidate continued to approach what should be reasoned political discourse as though it were a 5th grade playground standoff ("Wrong! Wrong!" "Such a nasty woman!") And so my terror deepened, and in the intervening weeks leading to tomorrow's finale, I have been engaging in mindful soothing techniques designed to detach me from the proce...

I’m working a desk job in Washington, D.C., these days, doing what I spent much of my career doing: Writing. But three years ago I was employed at a major department store, putting in 30 hours a week. It was my only source of income at the time. While there is nothing remarkable in that – hundreds of people earn a living that way – it was remarkable for me . I’m a writer. I’ve written and edited at consumer and trade magazines, websites, and radio syndicators. Editor at Billboard. Editor at Essence. Daily news writer for syndicated radio. Interviewed major recording artists and other notables and celebritiess. That’s been my gig: A computer, a phone, a notebook and a microphone. But in November of 2012, my situation got tight. I’d moved from California to Virginia to be closer to family, and during that time I struggled to find meaningful, full-time work. I was in the wrong market, but couldn’t move again. Desperate to tide myself over, I swallowed my pride and filled out an applica...

Ah, the daily commute! One of the necessary evils of working in a big city. I grew up in NYC and since the age of 12 was riding the subway a minimum of twice a day, so I knew the system and I knew the ropes: Move quickly, don’t block anybody’s way, be aware of your surroundings, use common sense. And you could ride anywhere in the system for a standard fare. NYC was dirty and there was crime and it wasn’t perfect, but it was an efficient system that set my expectations for how a city’s transit system should be. Admittedly I have been gone from the daily NYC grind for 20 years, and I’m obviously older, so my perspective may be skewed. But despite the Washington Metro being named the Number One public transit system in the U.S. by a firm called SmartAsset (should be called SmartAss), I’ve been in the VA-DC-MD area for four years now and this is not my experience. Riders are throwing in the towel and going back to driving (if I had better night vision for driving I probably would, too)....

The recent New York Times Sunday Magazine story, “ The Creative Apocalypse That Wasn’t ,” uses some broad government labor statistics and anecdotes from a handful of creative artists to make the misleading and specious argument that the Internet has been a boon for creative artists. In arguing that art survives despite technology, the piece blithely ignores the fact that many creative professionals themselves have been devastated by it. Creators within the music community are finding it more difficult than ever to make a living at their craft, and much of that difficulty is directly traced to Internet-based music services that don’t compensate them fairly for use of their work. The digital revolution that began in the ‘90s ushered in an era of devaluation for intellectual property across a range of industries. As the article rightly points out, consumers expect music – and movies, magazines, and news coverage -- to be free or nearly free, and the Internet feeds that expectation. ...

The following is a creative piece I wrote while completing my MFA. Justine The daughter I do not have is named Justine. Her name aligns with the proliferation of names beginning with “J” that pepper the leaves on my family tree. I picked out her name long ago, almost since I could read, and I am hopeful that when she grows she will be judicious and wise as her name implies. Justine looks at me with golden eyes. I plait her long, brown, kinky-curly, fine hair into two skeins, one over each shoulder, the way I wore mine when I was a child. But I won’t turn the braided ends up and tuck them into rubber bands so that they look like the blunt stumps of docked dog tails, the way my mother did me. No. I will spray the loose ends with water and let them curl as they may. When I have more time I will sit with her, mark out her scalp with a pink comb, and make many long braids, so that she appears to have a mane of thin twined ropes of brown. I will watch her braids fly around her head as...

“Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need.” -- Voltaire It’s another Labor Day. Most of us think of the holiday as the demarcation line on the calendar marking the end of summer, our last chance at a warm weather barbecue or swim, or just that much-needed day off from work. On this day honoring “the economic and social contributions of American workers,” I’m thinking of what it is to “labor.” I’m thinking of the many unemployed who don’t currently have the opportunity to serve the nation, their families, or themselves through a simple thing we probably always took for granted: a job. Since the age of 14, I’ve earned some kind of paycheck. I’ve been a summer camp counselor, a department store cashier, a library page, a photography school intern, a girl Friday for a filmmaking foundation. In college I juggled classes with Boston gigs as a writing tutor, a retail store clerk, a hospital assistant, a publishing company researcher, and a program assistant at the Cambr...

June is Black Music Month. I first heard this tagline during my years as editor of black music at "music industry bible" Billboard in the late 1980s; heretofore I was unaware of any such celebration. I was raised in New York City and blessed or cursed with the cynicism of natives of the metropolis; after a few years in the music biz I was quickly learning the warp and woof of the rather slick fabric undergirding the frothy array of the music industry. So I quickly attributed the proclamation of black music ascendancy for the month of June as an invention of the record industry itself – much as Valentine’s Day, Secretary’s Day, Mother’s Day and other heart and hearth holidays were inventions of the greeting card biz. I thought, Hey -- the kiddies were out of school for a glorious stretch of "hot fun in the summertime," and the season offered endless opportunities for music-infused vacation activities of all kinds. The record labels and their distribution com...

I am devastated to learn of the passing of the brilliant Donna Summer, whose music was such an integral part to my maturation. "Love To Love You" was mindblowing, with its driving synth and daring vocals. I thought Donna was gorgeous. When her second album, A Love Trilogy , was quickly released in March 1976, just eight months after Love To Love You , I went to DiscoMat on Lexington to buy the album. Reminiscing about dancing to Donna's music, I listened to her 70s output on YouTube one day back in 2008, and it reminded me how much I loved these tracks. I even incorporated Donna into the current novel I am writing, in which the main character is obsessed with her (Lady Lady or Personal Summer). In tribute to Donna, here is what I wrote back in 2008: Writing while jamming to music on YouTube. Why does “Try Me (I Know We Can Make It)” by Donna Summer give me such a delicious thrill? Because it’s 1976, lost in time. Donna’s voice is operatically, candy-coat...

Whitney Houston: An Alternate View From the beginning she was the embodiment of duality: Sweet yet sensual, young yet old, pop yet R&B, gritty yet sophisticated. Who could successfully balance these opposites without verging on schizophrenia? The world is bidding farewell to songbird Whitney Houston, who left us much too soon. Her passing at the age of 48 is so tragic, ironic, and awful that even these words can’t encompass it. Her voice was a gift to the world, a force so powerful that whole generations of singers owe a debt to her shimmering mix of gospel feeling and pop precision. She had seen the pinnacle of success through adulation, awards, applause, and admiration. She had also endured the deepest recesses of hell due to addiction, abuses, failed expectations, troubled relationships, and public ridicule. I mourn for her passing, and pray for her family, friends, and fans – all of those who loved her. I first became aware of Whitney Houston in the mid ‘80s via ...

I’m not sure when I first became aware of Soul Train . I probably heard my friends talking about it, or perhaps it appeared in psychedelic splendor before our startled eyes as my younger sister and I battled for control of our living room television set, flipping channels between cartoons and reruns on a South Bronx Saturday morning. Our attention was galvanized by a seldom-seen-on-TV-in-the-70s glimpse of hip young black folks (hey – they look like us!) in their Afros and bell bottoms dancing in a yellow and orange stage set to the latest soul tunes. I was instantly hooked. I don’t know what I liked more: watching the live or semi-live performances by the flesh and blood R&B artists whom I only knew by name from the Top 45s list at the Korvette’s record shop, or watching the funky dance moves executed with such abandon by the studio dancers. Soul Train was THE show, hands down. You were socially required to study and report back on the dances, the clothes, the performances, the ...

Within every new decade, pop culture looks back 20 years. As we get closer to 2010, ‘80s nostalgia has reached its apotheosis. Look around. Lady Gaga is channeling not just Madonna, but the theatricality of Grace Jones with the spirit and hooks of Debbie Harry from Blondie. Atlanta’s Janelle Monae fashioned a robot persona to explain her music and stagecraft, a blend of techno, soul, and rock that seems like a foward-looking black spin on Talking Heads and David Bowie, who in the ‘80s was coming out of the elegant iciness of the Thin White Duke. Edgy artist Santigold wears the day-glo colors and polka dots of ‘80s fashion with the door knocker earrings and asymmetrical hairstyles of early hip-hop circa Salt N Pepa, while her 2007 tune “Lights Out” is new age proto-punk surf pop, like the Go-Gos on acid. Rihanna and Keri Hilson are rocking asymmetrical ‘dos right out of the ‘80s fashion playbook, while Dorothy Hamill wedge cuts and shredded T-shirt, straight-legged jeans and wide belts ...

I am sitting in front of my TV, watching Michael Jackson’s golden coffin, bedecked with crimson flowers, as it is loaded into the hearse at the Forest Lawn Cemetery, just a few miles down the road from where I sit. It’s hitting me anew that this talented, conflicted entertainer will no longer be walking the earth in his velveteen loafers and military style jackets. I am both weary of the barrage of news coverage – Jackson doctors being investigated! Debbie Rowe decides not to attend public memorial! Battle over children to heat up! Estate wrested from Katherine Jackson! – and wholly riveted. The Staples Center memorial is getting underway half an hour later than anticipated. The golden-ticketed chosen gathering downtown are of all ages, all races, some dressed as for a funeral, others as for a concert. Roland Martin on CNN is saying that you can go to any club in America, and anyone young or old, white or black -- even the toughest gangbanger -- cannot stand still in the face of “You ...