Living in coronavorusworld 82: A toe in the water

6/13

Marching on Saturday

Amazing how even in this time of (quasi) quarantine there can be a weekend with no…uh…breathing space.  Up to work on tomorrow’s ZOOM show then down to Bryant Park for my first performance in front of real live human beings in three months. 

It look alike an (almost) normal late spring day in Bryant Park.

Saturday in the park

People hanging out. Overpriced food and drinks available, walk away style. The ping pong tabes are open. (But no doubles, chase your own ball…) I head to the carousel where the open mic will be held. There is a gathering of people.And a welcoming host. “6 feet apart heart to heart” is the theme.  I’ve signed up in advance to be one of the select 10. It begins to become apparent to me that most here are part of an existing open mc community…as most open mics  have. This one seems to happen on Friday nights not far fro Times Square. Of the 10 performers, 7 are spoken word. At least 50/50 black and white, maybe more. Bronx, Brooklyn, Jersey, Manhattan all represented.  Older African -American poets. The words are rich and seething with anger. As is to be expected. One woman has an epic take on a relationship that just didn’t work out. One guy sets off a confetti popper and the police immediately descend us. I get anxious as the host derides Governor Cuomo’s advice to “stay inside” and see speakers see it all as an affront to liberty. I am after all, a participating member of the ‘Grateful distancing stay at home tour 2020.” But the anger is mainly  directed at police violence.

And as one poet reads her words, I hear the rising sound of ‘Black lives matter”chants echoing down the Avenue as a steady stream of marchers fills Sixth then turns onto 42nd right by us in a heavy flow. eh angry words of poets and marchers pay off each other on the same theme.  Older African-American musicians bring r&b and jazz and a touch of hip hop flave. I’m going with the flow of conflicting  feelings when I get up for my three song set feeling so strange after three months. I give them my hopeful ‘Listen” my romantic “Spending time with you” with its new quarantine verse and my “Don’t roll the way”angry song gets the audience going. I so want to be done with this song, but the President keeps writing new verses. My new last one:

Marchers past boarded up wimdows

Rubber bullets, tear gas ,stun grenades clear your path to the church

Where you  hold up a Bible and pretend you know what it’s worth.

If you don’t behave, I’m calling out the army I hear you say

All I can say (and the generals too)

Americans don’t roll that way….

An hour later, the host asks me to close out and I do with a new verse to my “...walls…”song…

A strong wall rises and it’s blue

No way justice can break through 

But voices round the world make the call

Even blue walls must fall…

Well, it was a toe in the water.

The host invites everyone for Chinese, but we're  ready to go. 

I make a circuit of the park. Stop for a less than satisfactory street hot dog and walk to Times Square.  Shocked to see street after street of boarded up windows, The lights of Broadway still shimmer and dance and then I realize the main thoroughfare of Times Square is blocked off by police barricades. 

Times Square

A masked subway ride home. The for a walk through and around Morningside.. The burned out car carcass has finally  been removed.  The trombone player, Tim Perryman from Kansas City is back. Gates Barbecue is what you want, not Arthur Bryant. Gotta be Gates...the jazz guys they know....

Catch my breath. Call my mom.

Then  ZOOM in for my sound check for the Peoples Music Network Summer Round Robin. Part of a (virtual) Summer Convergence  It will turn out to be a 4 hour plus marathon of songs of social commentary, protest, peace and justice by cultural workers from around the country. Most veterans of five decades or more of raising their voices ….keeping the spirit of Pete alive.  But it's the incendiary work of a handful of hip hop artists that brings the night alive. 

Near the Square

.....and still we die....

By the time the show ends, I still have my blog to write. I go to bed spent. Exhausted.