Lay Your Head…Yesterday’s Thoughts on a Winter's Friday

Friday evening, what to cook?  Not fish since I had a baked flounder sandwich for lunch.

There was a whole chicken in the fridge and two half sirloin steaks (an occasional “break” since I started to move away from my chicken/fish/seafood decades old regimen last year but that is another story for another time.) 

Chicken. 

I cleaned and butterflied the bird; removed the back bone, created two halves.  But this story is not about chicken.  It is about an extraordinary vocalist, artist…Al Green whose music I decided to put on the CD player in the chop room where I was prepping dinner. 

Do not take my word.  Listen to his music and imagine that you are a horn player, back-up singer, organist, guitar player (lead or rhythm) or drummer on any of his songs especially his classic R&B hits. 

As a college aged trumpet player with a Latin (think Salsa) orchestra out of East Harlem in NYC, I have played in front of big and small audiences and even have a vinyl record to my credit!  While the Eddie Hernandez Orchestra played with several internationally known bands, I stopped playing by my sophomore year in college.  But…for those who play “air guitar” or beat the drums on their legs or try to vocalize along with a favorite song, preparing the chicken for my marinade (plain Greek yogurt, yellow mustard, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, crushed black pepper) and placing the entire dish in a pre-hot black iron skillet lightly coated with canola oil, I imagined I was playing on stage with Al Green. 

On trumpet, vocalizing, deftly stroking the organ’s keys, harmonizing with my back-up cohorts, hitting the snare drum and cymbal, being on bass on songs such as “Tired of Being Alone,” “Call Me,” I’m Still In Love With You,” “How Can You Mend A Broken Love,’ “Let’s Stay Together,” “Love and Happiness,” “Take Me to The River,” “For The Good Times…” I was dreaming.  And now you may wonder what does seasoned baked chicken, couscous, black beans, carrots, string beans, and Al Green have to do with aaduna?!

Sometimes you may wonder how you would exist in someone else’s skin…do what s/he does…be her or him for a day just for the experience, exist in the shadows of that person’s significance.  If so, consider the portfolio and stature of Patricia Roth Schwartz and/or William Crawford.  One is a poet and writer, the other a visual artist and writer.  Both are extremely creative and accomplished individuals who know how to embrace and enjoy the sweetness and surprises of Life, and how to best deal with adversary.

Patricia Roth Schwartz (photo provided)

Here is an excerpt from one of the two poems that previouos aaduna contributor, well regarded poet,  author, and workshop leader Schwartz will present in the forthcoming winter 2017-18 issue.  These opening lines are from her nuanced piece, “Hammock.”

Those years were not--and indeed none of

my years have ever been --simple or easy,

yet there was a summer or three after Granddaddy

brought us that woven hammock back from his trip—

Che--cheen—itza: how we loved to say it! –

and Daddy hung it between two elms high up

on a flat place in the terraced garden somebody

else's dad once had created with rocks for borders,

         

***

Interestingly, I consider myself to be well read and knowledgeable about several visual art movements.  And yet, I recently discovered “Forensic Foraging” from viewing the submitted work of William C. Crawford, aka Crawdaddy.  His work will be exhibited in The Borders Gallery in the upcoming aaduna winter 2017/2018 issue and another of Crawford's art pieces will grace the issue’s cover. Here is an example of William's intriguing style,

"NYC Abstract: Inside Job," William C. Crawford, photographer (c) 2017

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So am I raising Patricia Roth Schwartz and William C. Crawford to the pantheon embracing Al Green?  Experience their work in the genre and idiom in which they exist, and then decide. 

WATCH for aaduna's winter issue LAUNCHING SOON!

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