One more...speakers on.

The Burning Spear show at the Variety last night was a blast. This guy grew up in the same small town in Jamaica that produced Bob Marley. He has been recording since 1969 and is a big disciple of Marcus Garvie. It was sorta funny seeing a bunch of white folk jumping around to some of his musical pokes at Babylon, but hey...everybody was into it and were having fun. Great vibes, lots of love, and second hand ganja smoke made for a fun evening with the posse.

A big ol' ham is cooking in the kitchen and Dorothy Love Coates, Mahalia Jackson, and Aretha Franklin are singing in the house and the yard. The pups are resting in their favorite spot under the canopy of the big ligustrum shrub out front. The sun is shining bright as can be. Life is good here on this sunny southern Easter day.

The First Annual Ghetto Egg Hunt begins shortly here in Edgewood. There are eggs with all of our initials on them. If you find an egg with another person's initials, they have to do something special for you. If you find your own, everybody else has to treat you to something. Marc dyed eggs all afternoon yesterday. What great memories that box of Paas egg dye and the smell of pots of colored water with vinegar brought back!

Happy and blessed Easter to all my "peeps"!

******Aretha Franklin "Precious Memories"

It's all fun and games, but think about it. Think about what Easter really means. Whatever your faith tells you, this time of year in the northern hemisphere is a time of renewal and hope. The ghetto Easter egg hunt Marc, Chanda, Rob, and I are plotting tomorrow will be a hoot and a holler, but a moment spent contemplating the real meaning of Easter should strike a chord.

Mahalia is all the church I need tomorrow. My grandma Jessie made sure I "straightened up and flew right" as Mahalia testified on the Motorola in the background. Sing it Sister Jackson. Sing it Sister Jackson, because you always hit home and your testimony will resonate today and tomorrow. Sing it tomorrow everybody, and move on up a little higher, feel me?

Imagine that..."always howdy, howdy...and never goodbye". Sister sees the same heaven that I do.

Love, T.

Move On Up A Little Higher

One deem morning
Soon in morning
I'm gonna lead on the prose get me a crown
Some morn evening, wait in the evening,
Late in the evening
I'm going home live on high

Soon as the feet strike Zion
Lay down my heavy burden
Put on my robe in glory
Going home one day and tell the story
I've been coming over hills and mountain
Got drained fromt the pristine fountain
Your know all of God's sons and daughters that morning
Will drink that all healing water

And we gonna live on forever
We gonna live on forever
We gonna live on up in glory afterwards

O Lord, I'm going outside sing sing in beauty
March all around God's altar
Gonna walk down and get higher
Go fly Lord and never fall down
I'm gonna move up a little higher

Gonna meet Old man Daniel
Gonna move on up a little higher
Gonna meet the Hebrew children
Gonna move on up a little higher
Gonna meet Paul and Silas
Gonna move on up a little higher
Gonna meet my friends and kindred
Gonna move on up a little higher
Gonna meet my loving mother
I'm gonna move on up a little higher
Gonna meet the Lily of the Valley
I'm gonna face with the Rose of Sharon

It will be always howdy, howdy,
Will be always, howdy, howdy,
Will be always, howdy, howdy, and never goodbye

O will you be there early one morning
Will you be there somewhere on the altar
Will you be there O when the angel sing call arose

God knows I'll be waiting
Yes, I'll be watching somewhere on the altar
Well I'll be waiting
O have a beautiful, yes golden

Well, well
Soon as the feet strike Zion
Gonna lay down my heaven burden
I'm gonna put on my robe in glory
I'm going home one day, tell the story
I've been coming over hills and mountain
I got drained from the pristine fountain
You know all of God's sons and daughters that morning
Will drink that all healing

Meet me there early one morning
Meet me there somewhere on the altar
Meet me there there
O when the angels sing call arose

The experiment was a glowing success.

A Peep and a miniature Cadbury Egg have been crossed to yield the ultimate other Easter miracle.

Marc, the brains of the Doghouse, has an interesting throw down about the origin of the tradition of Easter eggs over at Rules. Seems they were just part and parcel of the wacky pagan Spring fertility rites in Eastern Europe. Pretty interesting.

I'm coming out of my three day funk. I feel a resurrection coming on.

******Burning Spear "Zion Higher"

My dearest Elsa,

If you need me, I vill be een ze lab. Mein faithful mahn-servunt hass bin inshtructet to bring me Peeps unt Cadbury Eggs at pre-determunt intervals sru-ought ze day.

I had an interesting dream last night.

In the dream, I was riding a bicycle around the downtown of a town that I see a lot in my other dreams.  Not a specific downtown from memory...not one I really know, but a composite of sorts of shabby, dirty, poorly engineered small southern downtowns I had seen as a child.

In the dream, I come across a succession of friends and aquaintances from a period of my life about 15 to 20 years ago.  None of them recognize me when I hail them and wave.  They just turn away and proceed to wherever they are headed. 

Then I notice that they are all in black and white, and that I am in color in the dream.  I run upstairs to the old apartment that I see frequently in my dreams.  Not always the exact same apartment, but always old and run-down, but very architecturaly interesting, with lots of character and space. If I ever go to "where I live" in dreams, this is always the place. Even with all the dust and age, you can tell it was a grand, beautiful apartment once. I'm always very comfortable there in dreams. I change into all black and white clothing and put on black sunglasses.

When I return to the street, all my old cronnies know me now.  I'm black and white now like them and I get a warm reception from them all and am asked to come to the club that they are walking to.

I don't go into the club, but instead I ride my bike to an amusement park.  I'm riding across the pad of a ride. It's one of those rides that carries a load of people up like 20 stories high and then drops them in a free-fall, safely stopping just before making contact with the ground.  The one at Six Flags is or was called the Great Gasp, I think.

Anyway, my bicycle chain gets wrapped around my leg and then caught up in the mechanism of the ride and I am being pulled up with it.  I know that the cage holding the other people safely will stop at the pre-determined moment, but I, dangling on the outside of the cage, will just be a big wet spot on the pavement.  I woke up about the time the cage was about to drop.

*******Elvis Costello "Black and White World"