Hope

Now I've been happy lately,
thinking about the good things
to come
And I believe it could be
something good has begun.

       - Cat Stevens

The View From The Mountaintop

I read about this on SFGate's politics blog and want to spread it around.


In 1964, Dr. King told BBC News that he expected a "Negro President" in less than forty years.

Of Thee I Sing!

The first song I learned about America was This Land Is Your Land. I was in a hippie classroom, and the other songs we sang during "rug time" were Old MacDonald, Farmer In The Dell, Yellow Submarine, and Love Potion Number Nine. Of course we all sang Elbow Room from Schoolhouse Rock on Saturday mornings in front of the TV.


I learned America The Beautiful once I started attending CSH. I guess I knew the tune, but during Mass I would read the words in the hymn books tucked into pockets on the pews, and "America The Beautiful" was on the last page. When I grew up, I learned from a friend who worked in the Colorado State Parks that the lyrics were written by a lesbian after she had ridden a wagon up to the summit of Pike's Peak and she had looked over the plain below.


When I was hanging around with ComedySportz, like every other athletic event, the evening always started with the singing of the National Anthem. I don't like this song as much as I like "America The Beautiful" or "My Country 'Tis Of Thee," but I heard on NPR during the Olympics last year that most national anthems include lyrics referring to battle (the French one famously so). What "The Start Spangled Banner" does have as an advantage is its challenge to sing well. When I went to East Bay Harmony for the first time, I sang it to determine that I should sing with the altos.


I'll be singing some song on Tuesday, and after Tuesday. There's a lot to be done and the ideal will never match the reality, but I, like the ant with the rubber tree plant, have hope.

Wow

Take a look at the January 18 Candorville.


Thurgood Marshall is leading the swearing-in, and the bible is being held by Martin Luther King, Jr. I recognize Frederick Douglass, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Jesse Jackson, Colin Powell, Lyndon Johnson, Harriet Tubman, Condileeza Rice, Abraham Lincoln, the three Freedom Riders killed in Mississippi, Louis Armstrong, and others whose images I recognize but don't know to which name they belong. It's kind of like looking at the cover of Sgt. Pepper's.

Wise Words

None of the people in this photo is Dances Under The Moon, but we are all wearing hats

YaYa Dances Under The Moon sent out this email the other day, so I'm sending it out to you as well.

Well it's official, I am now a true old lady. What? you might say.
Well the other morning I got up, took my shower, then proceeded to slather
Jean Nate' lotion all over my body. That was bad enough, then I realized I
liked it. So I may never let my snow white hair grow out, but underneath it
all it's true I have arrived. Well I am the senior of all of us. So remember
I demand respect! I also have realized although I am old, I am not dead!!! I
have decided that I have much to do in the next 50 years. It starts in 2009.
I will have my list completed when we meet in March. I will look forward to
seeing your list also.

I will tell you one on my list. I have decided to wear hats more. Hats are good.
They keep the heat in, they are good for bad hair days, and they give you
different personalities, I mean a good mood change thing. God knows I need some
mood changes sometimes. All in all what I have realized is that I am damn happy,
and I plan on staying that way. Hope all the yayas have a fantastic 2009.
Love you all.

Dances under the moon

I get up, I walk, I fall down, Meanwhile I keep dancing.

You're never too far, wherever you are

The first movie I ever stood in much a line to see was Star Wars. We went to see it the first time at the Coronet, which was the movie theater in town. It was a huge theater with over a thousand seats and showed first-run, exclusive films. Apparently George Lucas was a big fan of the Coronet and selected it to premier Star Wars in San Francisco - and it played there for seven months. Tickets to the show were $3 for adults, and one could pay an additional fifty cents to sit in the balcony, where smoking was allowed. My mom says that a friend of her remarked, "If I'm gonna spend three bucks on a movie, I might as well pay the extra fifty cents so I can smoke during it!"


Grush took a bunch of us neighborhood kids to see Star Wars again at the North Point near Ghirardelli Square. That was pretty far afield for us, as we only went to that part of town when there were out-of-towners visiting as part of the "tour guide." We were standing in line when a guy with a guitar and two guys with a camera and recording equipment came down the line asking people to sing the "Reach out and touch someone" jingle from AT&T (as it was known in those days, and is again). They got to us and we were soooooo ready we were jumping up and down, "We know it! We know it!"

And we sang:

Reeeeach out
Reach out and touch someone
Reach out
Reach out and just say hi
Da da da de dum
Da dum de de dum to
Reeeeeach out
Reach out and touch someone!

He told us they would not be able to use us in a commercial since we didn't know all the words. I don't think we even knew it had other words until we got to where they were supposed to go. Needless to say we all very disappointed that we had missed being "discovered" outside the movie theater. The next one of us who saw the ad paid very close attention and taught us all the whole song, just in case a guitar and a camera appeared the next time we went to see Star Wars.

True 'Nuff

Check out the January 4 Bizarro comic about pirates that strike fear into people's hearts.