kalamu update 30 sept 2005

Books by Kalamu ya Salaam

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kalamu update 30 sept 2005

(day 1 new york city)

i fell asleep on the subway last night. woke up, we were at the final stop. the conductor was coming thru locking up. about an hour later, after i got to r's apartment and had fired up the trusty computer (i was good to go for at least another solid hour after that lion-sized catnap), checking email, firing off quick responses, filing some, leaving others for tomorrow, while simultaneously making phone calls (the treo 650 is a wonderful instrument--phone/pde and more), my daughter and chief coordinator, asante salaam, laughs loudly, your butt needed some sleep. i'm sure you're not the first black man to fall asleep on the subway.

surely not. i had been looking at one young fellow, his head thrown back, not dozing, but instead full out asleep, and wondered whether he would wake up in time to make his stop. turns out i didn't, and he wasn't there, just me with my dumb self clutching my langston hughes library handbag that had a sony vx2000 video camera, an olympus 5050 still digital camera, and an ibook on it. i was loaded for bear and sleeping soundly as though i were hibernating...

i'm in new york city, but i arrived via long island at some airport called islip, or something like that, on southwest airlines, one of the few solvent major airlines flying. it was raining and uneventful when i got there. not too cool, fortunate for me, since i was wearing short sleeves. no sooner i turned my phones on (it's a long story. the 504 area code is still having major problems. sometimes you get through. sometimes you don't. so i got another phone, which is where the treo came in, with a nashville area code, but i keep the old-new phone because so many people have that number), so no sooner i turned the phones on, they are ringing. one message is from a guy at the boston globe wanting an interview.

i call back. he has a speech impediment, a stutter. i instantly surmise that he is a very good writer, otherwise, the paper would not have him doing interviews. about a half hour later he is amazed, or should i say sounds dazed. he called expecting to get a few comments on rebuilding new orleans. i gave him more than he thought he was getting. we'll see what he gets from it on sunday when his article comes out. at one point he asked me, so what do you think the new new orleans is going to look like.

i didn't skip a beat, look out our window. just like that, except probably not as tall. it's still marsh lands down there. i laugh my bitterest laugh. he falls into a contemplative silence. a sad silence. he responds after awhile. oh... yeah, that's about all any of us can truthfully say, oh.

oh. shit. oh. boy. oh. well. hell. oh. oh. oh.

it's the end of an era folks.

hours later i meet lynn pitts in front the underground kmart by where the trainlines come up and down the way are the subways. it's penn station. in the city you can live your whole life underground. only coming up to go to the box where you live. or work. or play. or fuck. or whatever. hey, it's new york. and down there in the entrails is a polygot world. every imaginable people—and some you see, you don't believe. all languages. all manners of dress and undress. they even have live entertainment around every corner.

on the way in dorese calls before i can call her. dorese is from connecticut, i believe, and had spent the last two or three years in new orleans. teaching school, until she couldn't take it anymore at the same high school i taught at. except she was an orleans parish school teacher and i worked in an independent program. she was under heavy manners.

i did whatever i wanted to do. she had to answer to administrators (some of whom were well meaning, a few of whom really cared about the students and did all that they could within their limited powers to offer some kind of substantial education, but most of whom were in well over their dear heads and didn't have a clue of how to make our school function to actually help the students).

the kids told me about the day dorese went off on the assistant principal. they said she cursed him out. good. told him about hisself. and his rules. and all that fucking shit. and walked out. just up and quit. and they were proud. proud of dorese for standing up. they loved her because they knew, viscerally that she really loved them and was doing everything she could to help them, and... technically, she didn't end up quitting, she was on leave. they owed her enough money backpay to start a bank. they never paid her.

in fact, the worse part about it is the irony that dorese ended up making more money playing music on the street in the french quarter than she was making with her teaching 9-to-5 gig (well not actually making, since they hadn't yet paid her all they owed her, but you understand what i'm saying--hey yall, don't romanticize new orleans, shit, was way fucked up down home, the system was about to break down under it's own steam, it's just that hurricane katrina was the straw, but the camel was already buckling at the knees under the weight of historic and ongoing unrelenting exploitation and neglect)...

so anyway dorese and i laughed with each other on the phone and she told me that she was going to be playing later in the day at penn station where i was arriving into the city and where i would meet lynn pitts, a member of our neo-griot workshop who was now living in new york, lynn was going to give me the key to r's apartment up in harlem, "r" is a good friend of my daughter asante, so "r" offers to let me stay in her one bedroom apartment for the weekend.

i catch the subway to harlem from penn station, after reassuring lynn that i'm ok. i stayed up until 4:30, slept for about an hour. left for the airport at 6am, dozed on the plane, have a video shoot to do before i sleep, i'm on my way to harlem now, i'm ok.

i get to "r'" apartment--i would call the sister's name but i ain't trying to embarrass nobody and i also don't want no unknowns breaking into her beautiful apartment. it's like an african oasis amid harlem brownstones. from the outside it looks non-descript. as soon as you hit the vestibule, that little space between the big heavy outside front door and the big heavy inside front door, you know you are entering sacred space. there are photos and statues and artwork and walking the three flights up to the fourth floor is like coming through a natural history museum of west africa. i am enthralled. outside her door are two pairs of shoes. i enter and stand transfix.

it's like i'm a ghost. or at least an explorer entering a long ago other world. except this is here and now. and one of the first things i establish is that the wireless broadband internet is working. "r" has left a note on the small desk for me--actually a short page and a half letter.

it's beautiful. amazing. consistent with what i know of new york. how people survive. it's an experience i wish every traveler could have. perhaps they should make hotels like this, naw, you can't do it. this is not commercial. this is a caring circle of friends sharing with the father of a friend. i don't think i have ever met "r" but now i know her at levels of intimacy one can only achieve by sharing someone's living space.

i showered in her tub. walked naked through her rooms. slept in her bed. sit happily working at her desk. look at her photos carefully placed all around. drank some juice from her fridge. talked to her on the phone. looked at the books on the various book shelves. seen that she has music in the front room and in the bedroom (stevie wonder is arm's length from her pillow). i know this woman i have never met. i am blessed to have someone share their life with me like this. i am blessed. and because of these blessings, the blessings of friends like "r," friends whom i don't personally know... i am grateful, in the midst of all of my "my-city's-gone-now" sadness, i smile about the small things, the human sharing, and it is enough to sustain me for another day.

i feel so blessed to be here... i'm out of time... got to run to a meeting... will write later about why i fell asleep on the subway and what all i'm doing in new york... in a minute,

a luta continua
kalamu

posted 5 October 2005