: lower black pain.

* I am older than my mother’s right to vote.* She was first allowed to cast a ballot in the State of Kansas in the late 1960’s.* She took me along with her that day - she wore a Sunday church outfit and dressed me in a little suit, bow tie, and cap.* There is a photo of that somewhere…she is standing alert and proud, accompanied by what looks like a leprechaun made entirely of chocolate.* My mother’s federal and state right to vote, legally, predated her actual opportunity to do so in her hometown.* That is to say, my mother’s federal and state right to vote, legally, predated her actual opportunity to do so safely and unchallenged.* At every opportunity she has had to vote since that time, my mother has risen before sunrise, gotten a quick breakfast, and been nearly first in line at her local polling center.* The point is not that her candidates always win.* Her win is the voting itself.——————————————————* I rarely write about current events, as in its purest form this collection of essays is a compendium of general stories for my daughter: a now admittedly voluminous grimoire of family tales, hopefully more whimsical than cautionary.* But today I feel illuminated by the twilight rays of a new dawn of faith in human beings - that when given very clear options more might choose empathy and harmony over cruelty and control.* This bright perspective was evidenced by the majority’s choice of civic leadership in the most recent election.* My wife scheduled us to vote on Halloween, so I left with not only a sense of pride, but a spooky sticker as well. * I’m giving my daughter that voting sticker.* I want to place a surveying flag in this moment to better allow mapping of civic engagement from here, back to my mother, back to my grandfather.* When my daughter first votes, I want her to clearly understand the longitude, latitude, and elevation of THAT moment.* I hope to accompany her, as a somewhat less delicious companion than I was for her grandmother.——————————————————* “Bas relief” is a sculptural style where a subject extends gently from a flat surface.* The beautiful three dimensional effect it creates is subtle, hinting at greater perspective.* A friend asked if I felt the recent election results made me less incredibly tense about the state of the world.* I considered how I actually felt and decided I was bas relieved - a feeling beautiful, yet subtle, hinting at a greater perspective. Get full access to :lowerblackpain at lowerblackpain.substack.com/subscribe

In the early 1970’s, back when a good meal was “square”, one could be found at “family steakhouses”, civilized alternatives to “fast food” that offered plates and silverware and meat and potatoes and bread and the brand new choice-laden cornucopia called a “salad bar”.There were many places to choose from:Beefsteak Charlie’sBlack AngusPonderosaSteak and AleAnd our family’s favorite, Sizzler™, which served lobster (for truly special occasions!) and an addictive garlic laden complimentary “cheese toast”, which must have proved incredibly economical for the all-you-can-eat salad bar, as it was nearly impossible NOT to have at least two thick delicious slices with one’s meal.My greatest dream was to someday have a star-studded premiere of my latest movie, and then treat cast and crew to a Sizzler party (because I’d rented the entire restaurant out for the evening). We would laugh heartily, tossing our heads back with joy as we ate all the cheese toast we wanted. Then, I would be truly Successful.I haven’t entirely given up on that dream. I’d just need gluten- and dairy-free toast at this point, but the salad bar would be totally cool.In the early 1970’s, a terrifying rumor spread across the nation that “strangers” were putting “sharp objects” in “healthy snacks” and handing them to children for Halloween.The specific example was a razor blade in an apple.There were no known cases of this - it would be an easy crime to trace because most people did not give out apples to children on Halloween. It was most likely, if not entirely obviously, generated by someone in the candy industry, which responded by creating individual bite sized wrapped treats in giant bags to counteract the horror of reaching into a bowl of chocolate lentils which may or may not have a scorpion at the bottom of it.In any case, in an age isolated by a rational level of communication technology, this rumor ruined trick-or-treating for kids across the USA for a couple of years, as parents sought to protect their children from murder fruit.In the early 1970’s, I was eight years old. Coming a mere week after my birthday, Halloween had always been somewhat tangentially connected as a celebration, though I was never subjected to a cake shaped like a pumpkin.The year of the murder fruit rumor, I was barred from public trick-or-treating - even at the houses of people we knew, because my mother told me we didn’t know them “all that well”. I thought we knew them well enough to determine if they’d put needles in a banana, but who could say.So that year my mother let me put on my costume and we went to Bonanza Steakhouse. They had in the paper that they were having a children’s party (a safe option to offset the trick-or-treat embargo). It started at 6PM. We got there at 5:30.We didn’t go to Bonanza all that much, but it was very welcoming - all the waiters had on costumes with their name pins on them - black and orange crepe paper was up everywhere - and they were playing a “Monster Mash” album. We were the only people there. It was still broad daylight. I was a little disappointed.Our waitress came up to the table. “We’re not quite set up yet, but we’re making a haunted house in the back!”“Does it cost extra?” my mom asked.“No, ma’am!” our waitress assured. My mother went into full research mode as to the safety standards… was it too scary? “No ma’am, you can come and see it…”We went to the back of the restaurant: in the doorway of must have normally been a storeroom a curtain of crepe paper was dangling - my mom went inside for a moment and came back out.“Go on,” she told me, “You can go in.”It was kind of dark and there was a pin the tail on the werewolf game, and a box hiding a bowl of peeled grapes that were supposed to be eyeballs, and someone said “boo!” a couple of times, and then at the end was a tub for bobbing for apples.If there was ANY forbidden activity - THAT WAS IT - not only was the dreaded Halloween Apple involved, but BOBBING had been explicitly forbidden by my mother, I wasn’t even allowed to do that at my school’s annual carnival - where every other kid did it - all because my mother thought that putting your face in water where other kids faces had been with their mouths open was “nasty”.As a parent now, I see her point.In any case, our waitress must have read my mother’s face, as she immediately said “Ma’am, no other kids have been back here yet.”“So he would be the first one?” my mother asked.“Yes ma’am.”“Well… I guess it’s ok then.”What??? It was a Halloween miracle. I dove in and got one by submerging my entire head and pushing the apple against the side, like a hungry seal being baptized.They offered me a bag of candy, but I wasn’t allowed to take any, so they put two more fresh apples in a Halloween bag for me. We went home, my mom cut them into very thin slices, and we ate them that night in front of the television for dessert.Best Halloween ever. Get full access to :lowerblackpain at lowerblackpain.substack.com/subscribe

As I’m a kid from Kansas, New York City has always been pretty impressive to me - it looked liked the movies, no matter where you looked. After 30 years here I thought I’d seen it all, but one afternoon Zoe called and asked me to meet her uptown after work. “We’re going on a trip!” she said. “I think you’ll really like it.”I’ve learned not to ask a lot of questions - I mean, it’s not like I’m trying to make some sort of informed decision as to whether or not I’m gonna do what she’s telling me to do. That would be silly.My wife plans all the trips, when we’re lucky enough to be able to take one. She chooses locations “significant to the evolution of human society”. Very few beaches, amusement parks, or resorts of any number of stars fit into this category.But I have found myself five stories underground surrounded by thousands of skeletons, standing on a mountain bathed in green light as the first rays of dawn broke over North America, and running away from small groups of ill-intentioned men in three continents. While not textbook “relaxing”, each location has offered an experience which powerfully lingers - without, curiously, any photos having been captured.And this destination was the best she had ever chosen.All this month I’ve been writing about America not being afraid -of monstersto speak its mindof a little hard workof innovationand I would continue this list if Spookytime™ was a little bit longer -“the United States of America is not afraid of ghosts, heights, clowns, the dark...”.but I add to that list today that America is not afraid of its heroes.I believe the USA is a story we keep telling ourselves. We are a nation that has been directly assured by management that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, which our country did take to heart for a time with a bout of red-scaring and cold war-ing (lions and tigers and bears) but then girded and pulled itself somewhat together.And it is these literary and cinematic heroes that reflect how we see one other and the world around us. Whether it’s Gotham City, Wisteria Lane, or Starfleet, our collective courage is embodied in these characters. They may have evolved from six-guns to laser swords, but a few have been powerful enough to retain consistent relevance through many generations.I met Zoe at the subway stop that night, and we walked a couple of blocks to a nondescript building, where her friend was waiting for us at a back door. We followed her in, made a few turns, and found ourselves on Sesame Street.Jim Henson’s Muppets™ of Sesame Street represent a USA at the absolute height of harmony and community, and to step onto that set immediately brought tears to my eyes. I had never been there before, but I knew every inch of it: Hooper’s Store, Oscar’s trash can, and that STOOP, that wonderful brownstone stoop where everything in the universe seemed to happen.Zoe had a co-worker whose husband was one of Jim Henson’s original puppeteers - she had invited her to the set and I guess must have asked if she had any kids that might want to come and she answered “just the one”.Here’s the deal with physically standing in front a Muppet™: your logical think-brain tells you to look the puppeteer in the eye and speak with a mature, adult, calm tone directly to their face. But you’re facing two faces, and almost instantly one finds oneself speaking both to the puppeteer and (technically) their hand, which is now, in fact, an autonomous living being.I leaned heavily into this, carrying on conversations with The Count and Zoe (theirs, not mine) and finally meeting the creature of the moment, Elmo.Elmo was accompanied by Kevin Clash, a Emmy Award winning performer and artist who, I guess, just happened to be visiting Sesame Street as well.“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Elmo!” I said.“Elmo is happy to meet you too!” said Elmo.“Good to meet you too, Sir.” I said to Mr. Clash.“Likewise.” Mr. Clash replied.Elmo was called to set for a take on the stoop with a group of kids: we were allowed to stay and watch. When the take was completed, he came back over.“That looked fun.” I said.“Those kids are very nice!” Elmo commented. The stage manager called for Elmo: one of the parents of the young performers wanted her child to have a photo with him.And this was the height of my visit: the mother spoke directly to Elmo, telling him where to stand and how to pose, but she seemed HONESTLY CONFUSED as to why Mr. Clash was standing near her at all, and at one point physically pushed him ON HIS FACE to get her child as close to Elmo as he could be and Mr. Clash as far away out of the frame as possible AT THE SAME TIME.They both came back over after the photo-op.“I guess that must happen to you all the time.” I said.“You have no idea.” Elmo replied. Get full access to :lowerblackpain at lowerblackpain.substack.com/subscribe

In about 12 hours I will have been breathing on the planet for exactly sixty years. No mean feat to make it to the Digital Age from the Age of Aquarius - 6 groovy and happening decades of invention and constant adaptation to technologies that dissolved the gaps between time and space, past and future, and communities and individuals.Bell Telephone (the precursor of AT&T) had an advertising campaign in 1979 with a jingle that went,“Reach out! Reach out and touch someone!”Ok, of course I see it now. Yuck. But it sounded totally different back then.Back then, the bridging of distance to counter loneliness was so powerful a societal and emotional priority that it could be used as the primary marketing focus for the nation’s largest communications company. Isolation could be cured through technology! Just think - we can gab with Auntie Neuneu for an hour and hear her crazy stories, not just at Thanksgiving, but any time we want! She is so hilarious.And it did work, that connection - but a tacit invasion of privacy (which is CLEARLY IMPLIED in a modern reading of the slogan) happened along with it. Today, communication is more powerful than ever before, but somewhat out of our control. They kept their promise though; my phone makes me feel plenty touched, every single day.But I just wouldn’t feel right complaining about it: America is not afraid of innovation.Of course, now conversations and images share the same device, so we can reach out and touch someone (yuck), and if folks are right in front of us we can capture them and put them in our pocket, which sounds just as incredibly creepy.One thing about being an only child of a single parent - you don’t have all that many photos of you together, since one of you has to take the picture. As a child of the 1960s, image capture was clearly dominated by Kodak™, who produced a dazzling assortment of film cameras but none that had yet been engineered for operation held backward and at extreme arm’s length.Yet and still, there are a few photos of my mother and I - one of her bathing me at one month old, one where she is giving me a bottle, and a cool one where we were flying a little red whirly airplane toy that I ABSOLUTELY LOVED and was EXTREMELY DANGEROUS called the Electromic (sic) Super Flash. I would GLADLY explain in great detail the magnificence of engineering that this toy represented, but suffice it to say that I loved it and played with it for years and years until it hit something and broke and then I still played with the rather ingenious mechanism that had made it work, though it didn’t fly anymore as much as manically flap about.Anyway, there’s a photo of my mom and I playing with this in a park, which is amazing for a lot of reasons: I almost never played outside as a kid (mostly I was an indoor book nerd, which is why a flying plane toy was so dangerous), there wasn’t really a park near our apartment, and even today, neither of us has any idea who was holding the camera.But the photo is pretty good - besides our sight-obvious urban charm, it could have been on the front of the box that the little plane came in.The computer, the microwave oven, electric locks on car doors, Velcro™, the ATM, the MRI and cotton candy grapes. More than half a century of science making life more interesting. I have shared this magnificent time with these miracles, though don’t think I’ve accomplished enough to stand toe to toe with sugar floss fruit.I believed, as a child, that I would grow up in the world I was born into. But the world grew too, and tv’s got wider and they tore all the malls down and my car, lights, and watch all speak to me now. I didn’t realize there’d be this much talking to inanimate objects in the future, even though I saw people doing it on Star Trek.New is great. Improved is fine. I am no Luddite; far from it, I enjoy technology in the form of ever more clever tools. But I don’t think that everything needs to be improved, or even evolve - say, for instance, the chocolate chip cookie. It’s fine. I think we’ve got that one.The very first iPod is still a miracle. It’s the only thing I own that is also in the Museum of Modern Art, and it was announced October 23, 2001 - 25 years ago. It’s an icon of both design and engineering which is now, literally, a museum piece. Time did not change the object - the object just wasn’t as important as the idea of the object, which did keep evolving and was re-rendered and re-rendered into my current smartphone.I suppose that’s fair. I mean, I was there too, 25 years ago, but I had the quiet decency to grow and adapt - working really hard to cultivate just the right amount of creases in my face and grey in my beard and loss in my range of motion. That iPod stayed exactly the same.Ultimately I don’t feel right complaining about technology because my engagement with it is somewhat up to me. I don’t have to call Auntie Neuneu, I still have a film camera to take photos, I can listen to an album on vinyl if I want to, and I can purchase and consume regular grape-flavored grapes. I’m not scared of more options if I’m free to make a choice.But I am glad that I can take photos with my family, all of us together, with no one left out of the picture. I’ll do that tomorrow, to commemorate the day, and even dial in my mom on FaceTime to be a part of the moment, and then I will capture the warmth and the happiness of that moment, and put it in my pocket.How touching.the friends onethe mom onethe (wait for it…) clown and nun one Get full access to :lowerblackpain at lowerblackpain.substack.com/subscribe

I’ve had, according to my resume, 8 jobs. I’ve had a few more than that: some not worth mentioning and a few I really don’t need to remember. But the major ones, the places where I stayed for years and years - those have been pretty interesting because I entered those companies as one thing and left as another. I came in to the first one as a secretary, and four years later left as a “mechanical artist”. Five years at the next place and I was a “creative studio manager”. Then after 16 (yikes) years at another I was an “EVP Director”. There were a lot of other esoteric titles in the middle of all those.Most of my career mobility has centered on my enthusiasm toward doing stuff that nobody else wanted to. Need somebody to wash the dishes? / calm nervous people down? / fix a toilet? / make a meal for eight people with five dollars? / work past midnight finishing the report? Look no further. This tendency toward utility proved extremely useful in corporate situations. I was identified as a “work horse”, a boss told the clients I was a “swiss army knife”, and one manager described me as “an Ameri-can, not an American’t”.None of these sound great. I don’t think there’s any MasterClass about being the one who cleans up, voluntarily, after company parties. But I never minded the “American” thing: after all, America is not afraid of a little hard work.My key business assets:Endurance: I was raised to persevere - toil proudly, not stop until the job was done. On my very first day at a big job in New York City, the manager showing me around took me to my cube and told me to bring a sleeping bag. I thought it was a joke until I noticed that most of the other employees did have one stashed beneath their desks.My record at that place was a 33 hour shift. I was 27 years old. I started out strong at 9AM, didn’t even hit the caffeine until about two in the morning, then when the sun rose it re-invigorated us all for a while - some breakfast and lunch kept me going until about 4, but then I realized that I was no longer tired yet no longer awake in any traditional sense, so I tapped out and headed home. And no, there was no overtime involved - this was just…work. One person went for 47 hours, though I think she took some naps.Adaptability: I have a particular knack for taking not-so-useful things and putting them together to make a much more useful one. More than once this enabled me to come up with solutions that could never be bought, only made. Duct tape was sometimes involved.Also, I became the ad-hoc bartender at college parties because I could mix relatively obscure liquids together into something potable.Appreciation: Other people needed things like comfortable work chairs or bathroom breaks or respect - I found that I could exist on the much the simpler diet of purpose and paycheck. As the hoi polloi business tripped and expense accounted, I’d be trading quips over microwave popcorn with my team while we built something cool. We all really liked making things and enjoyed one another’s company - we’d bring our kids (and pets) in, celebrate holidays with hats and food and original songs (my contribution), and had a pretty good time for a grown-up type corporate office situation.Hey, I knew what was really important…they could keep the fancy chair. I didn’t have anything that fancy to put on it anyway.There was one business lesson that I was taught twice. I’ve always ignored it, because I do not agree with its basic premise, even if it’s true.The more robust version of this strategy was its second telling: a manager was walking past as I stood by the printers; he asked how I was doing.“I’m good! Busy, but good!” I thought this a fine comment to say to your boss.“Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that… you always seem to have a lot to do.”“Well, yeah,” I replied, “there’s a lot of things I’m trying to make happen.”“Yeah…” He looked around to see if anyone was listening. “Yeah, you’re working too hard.”I thought that was an odd comment to hear from your boss.“Am I?” I asked.“Yeah. Listen, if you’re ever gonna be a manager or something you need to learn how to handle problems.”I enthusiastically launched into a list of solutions I’d come up with to recent workflow challenges.“No, no. See? That’s what I’m talking about.” he said. “You solved all those problems.”“Was that not you said?”“No,” he explained, “I said handle a problem. Look at this.” He picked up a nearby stapler. “This is a problem, right?” He began passing it from hand to hand. “What am I doing now?”“Juggling?”“No, I’m handling the problem. First it’s here…” It was in his right hand.“… and now it’s here.” It was in his left. “I can’t pick up anything else because I got this. But if I put it down…” He put it down, “…now I’m not doing anything.”Ok. “Ok...?”“See, I choose a problem, and I handle it for maybe like, six months, and then I solve it, and then pick up another problem. Everyone knows I’m busy because I’ve got this thing I’m doing. You have, like, seven staplers a month over there. People don’t move that fast. Business doesn’t work that way. You’ve gotta to slow down… handle one problem at a time… you get it?”Sure, I got it, what’s not to get, but it’s always been harder for me not to do things than to do things. I was trained to make things better, even when it wasn’t necessarily my job, and if that makes me some kind of stapler juggler, then fine. Though I don’t know where I’d put that on my resume. Maybe down next to “telephone psychic”. Get full access to :lowerblackpain at lowerblackpain.substack.com/subscribe