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I once played basketball with skill, fearlessness and confidence. Stared down all comers. From my point guard position, while dribbling up court on offense, I shouted to teammates: basket or a foul!

Score or get fouled so we could get the ball right back to try and score again.

I smiled in emotional flashback when I walked into the empty gym at Loma Alta Park in Altadena. I picked up a ball resting against the bleachers and slow-dribbled over to the basket, where I read the sign, ‘No Hanging on the Rim.’

I wish! I could never even touch the rim — even when I played basketball with skill, fearlessness and improvisation.

But in the silence of that gym I shot a few mid-range jumpers. Practiced dribbling with my left hand. Flashed back to leading one marvelous 3-on-one fast break. Dribbling full-speed with my left, I went behind my back and in one fluid motion threw a perfect bounce pass with my right to my teammate running the lane. Two of the sweetest points off one of my sweetest passes! Oh but I LOVED to play the game!

My flashback was a 10-minute prayer.

∞

Which brings me to 2021. No clichéd resolutions. Just standing with the present as my Homeboy.

I’m opting in to a renewed commitment that happiness, creativity, and imagination are indispensable tools of personal and social development.

I’m opting in to a renewed embrace of candor, integrity, and curiosity.

I’m opting in to a renewed search for pleasure, love, and companionship.

I’m opting in to a renewed dedication to play with skill, play with enthusiasm, play with stamina.

I’m opting in to honing my tools as a Change Artist.

∞

Change Artist?

A human being in possession of distinctive resonance. Resolved to rigorous citizenship.  A Griot synched up with principles allowing for segue into conversations and collaborations with human beings of all kinds.

I ain’t being a man this year…. my chromosomes are unnecessary … my, like, you know, mumbling understood … everywhere cycles unfold smooth as shifting yoga postures*

As when I played ball with skill, fearlessness and full participation, drove to the hoop, got hacked, and scored anyway.

And one!

∞

*10 Minute Prayer

uppity in God’s chest
a place where nobody stands in line for love
everywhere
I can be on the fabulous end of a sister’s eloquence
reward is stamina to celebrate
& our choice of theme music
exhaled from guitars
cooking with friction of our flirtation

floating in God’s chest
a place solid as a 10-minute prayer
soothing as knowledge of water beneath land
everywhere
calming me at the news my daughter enjoyed her first sex
our reward is stamina to celebrate
& our choice of daring
laughed from chants filling days & nights without suspicion
I ain’t being a man right now
an embryo in God’s chest
my chromosomes are unnecessary

in a place where I am not a prisoner
my son is my mother
my daughter is my father
each moment a universe
wisdom burns on candles of sound

ember in bassinette
invisible shrine for an urban pilgrim
my, like, you know, mumbling understood
everywhere
cycles unfold smooth as shifting yoga postures

ember is stamina in my chest

a place where no child stands in line for love
& fabulous recipes of survival
are rewards at the receiving end of please   thank you   sho you right

∞

BONUS EXCERPT from my book, Black Man of Happiness: In Pursuit of My ‘Unalienable Right,’ WINNER, 2015 AMERICAN BOOK AWARD: “…  I’ve paid my dues. I’ve earned my expertise. I’ve found my stride. I have chosen to walk a quieter road, and speak with the confidence of a man whose arc does not include brushes with criminality, nor paralyzing self-doubt, but instead rests on a foundation that includes life-long parenting of successful adult children, educating hundreds of young people, from elementary school students to Ph.Ds., and distilling from personal and cultural challenges happiness that is a living echo of the African American tradition of grace under pressure. I have chosen to examine happiness from within African American culture, relying on expertise and wisdom earned from embracing the ebb and flow of living as an urban Black male unshielded by academics or scientists, Shamans or salesmen. I have chosen to cast my counter spell in a vital, personal voice of ecstatic insight that does not promise easy answers, formulas, prescriptions, lectures, pre-packaged advice, or promises whispered in the voice of a meditation teacher or a scolding librarian. Whatever my volume, you do not have to worry if you hear my voice coming up behind you. Turn around. Your joy is safe with me!  ….” www.blackmanofhappiness.com/shop

“I bless you in the name of all that is good and strong and beautiful, Antonio. Always have the strength to live. Love life, and if despair enters your heart, look for me in the evenings when the wind is gentle and the owls sing in the hills. I shall be with you—“ —Rudolfo Anaya, Bless Me, Ultima

Cresting as we end the year of emergency in public health and national leadership. I dip one final time into my conversation with big brother Thomas A. Gordon, psychologist, long-time mentor and friend. Since the late 1980s, Thomas has been an inspiring energy source in my life [often via incredibly timely financial, emotional, and conceptual support]. He’s seen me through adversity. He has always been a teacher who stretches me to what he calls the ‘limits of my curiosity.’ No matter how I describe him, I’m barely capturing the humanity that surges from his rigorous generosity.

The following edited excerpts are quilted from the transcript of our long conversation (recorded in spring of 2019). May Dr. Gordon help you ID and tap into the inspiring energy source(s) in your life.

∞

PJH: When I read books about the brain, what excites me [is that] … when you smile, the brain rewards that smile with positive neurochemistry. How do you tell a young brother, for example, in the middle of some shit, how to activate his internal systems? By staying aware of the choice they have to sort of heal thyself, even as you may have to deal with a particular set of dramas or traumas. How do you help a mug navigate that?

TAG: Your brain is the physical entity that’s going to be sponsoring a lot of these choices. What your enemy wants is for you to use very little of your brain…. Your enemy wants you to use it to make choices that are low-level. Very restricted. Not a high return on investment. Your enemy doesn’t want you powerful….

The brain anticipates. … So when you smile, or you say, in the midst of adversity: ‘I know there’s a blessing coming, or there’s a lesson coming, or there’s prosperity on the other side of this corner,’ your brain is starting to anticipate what you just thought of, and that’s what that smile starts to doing. Everything starts mobilizing. So you start paying it forward, before it actually manifests. Then your brain starts being on your side.

… As a child, your brain is so open …. We’re the only life form that enters so ignorant of particular things, but so brilliant in terms of absorbing particulars and making a pattern, which is the true meaning of intelligence. Intelligence is not what you know; it’s the ability to make a pattern. To see a pattern….

We are going to have a lot of inputs. Now all of these inputs are not going to be telling you:

‘You are unique.’

‘Nobody’s like you on the planet.’

‘You came here to give gifts that nobody [else] can do at a virtuoso level.’

‘And we are so thrilled for you to be here.’

‘We’re going to rally to your support and your empowerment.’

NO! You’re going to get mixed messages.

That’s why [a] mentor is so key. Because [we need] one of the village messengers [to say], ‘I see you,’ before you see yourself. You got to have some people in the village that start telling people: ‘Your happiness is not dependent on the circumstances that you’re in right now.’

…. See the default is to say: ‘Oh if everything isn’t great around me, then I’m not happy…’ You will be influenced by your circumstances, but your happiness is a continual choice that is grounded in a moral connection to something bigger than yourself. And it is a principle that if you believe it, your brain then picks it up and says, ‘That’s what we’ll sponsor today!’ And if you don’t obey this principle, you will sit in your circumstances, covertly become a victim of your circumstances, and you will find buddies to talk about your victimized circumstances, which isn’t going to take you somewhere different…

Don’t say what you can’t do. Smile. Say what you can do. Your brain knows you’re in a war, and if you decide, ‘I see the victory,’ your brain then conspires … CONSPIRES … to support you… And [when] we are persons who are connected to other persons, both visible and invisible, there are forces that we don’t see that will conspire to support you. 

∞

… You know a lot of us are so angry at our circumstances that we move into victim complaint or we just attack each other. Or do things that are self-destructive. But if we could think about … imagination, intelligence and intention — my holy trinity. Imagine creating the crucible. It’s hot in here. … It’s fiery but it’s a new kind of comfort b/c now we’re on purpose. We’ve deepened our connection.

I see us as global citizens, members of the planet. Outcomes emerge out of the dance of people, persons and collectives — people dancing with process — and that means circumstances. … It’s not static. It’s very dynamic. Very very deep challenges. Some will take your life if you’re not careful….

We can have great outcomes, but we can’t do it unless we reclaim and authorize our minds to pursue it, define it, choose it, go after it. It’s not going to be bought at a store. … You’re going to have to define it… Everything we see as an outcome is really a covert, hidden process; it’s coming out of people, sacrifices.

See … It turns out if you get a human being to actually believe that they can define a desired future, and you now get that human being to believe that they belong to something bigger than themselves, and they start being in commerce with each other …, that’s the power of us dancing together. We’ve now created a process that will drive the performance outcome that we’re looking for, which is happiness, and all of the symbolic and material manifestations of that and sustainability of that and transformation of it…. Suppose we get people in that process?

∞

Thomas tells me this story about his father. He’s 10 years old, walking to a “South Carolina country school, six grades in one room, potbelly stove, taught by teacher with only a 6^th grade education 3 months out of year.”

On “one rainy day,” he sees lynched Black men in their military uniforms hanging from a tree. His father, according to Thomas, remembers sobbing, being soaking wet, and crying, saying, ‘What is the point? How can we possibly get out of this system?’

Yet he keeps putting “one foot in front of the other, in front of the other, in front of the other one, to go to that school. Now you fast-forward it, my dad’s telling me that story, because he’s saying, ‘You have to have a positive vision! Doesn’t matter what your circumstances are. So your brain and everything else conspires to give you opportunities that you cannot foresee.”

[His father and mother go on to become professors at Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina.]

“My mom taught education and psychology, and my dad taught history, comparative religion and philosophy, critical thinking, French, and he’s this sharecropper kid who ends up speaking five languages. I said to my mother, ‘Why did you marry my dad?’ She said he was the only guy to hit me with this line: ‘There’s a great big world out there. We’re going to escape this system. We’re going to be part of that world.’ She said, ‘That’s what I wanted.’

So fast-forward the movie, I’m 9 years old, and – I didn’t know this till my dad was dying – he borrowed the money to take me and my brother around the world.

[The trip included community members drawn from across class lines, and the itinerary included visits to Europe, the Middle East, before culminating in Egypt.]

My dad’s vision: ‘Wherever we go, I’m going to teach them the history of what really was happening in all these places throughout history, and we’re going to end up in Africa. And we’re going to walk in these pyramids and you’re going to see that the paint … they used to draw the pictures is over 15,000 years old…. Imagine people understanding enough chemistry — so don’t you tell me, when you go to chemistry class in a segregated school with the textbooks 10 years behind, don’t come with an excuse that you can’t learn chemistry….’

Dad did that trip 12 times. So I didn’t get to make a lot of excuses!

He used to tell me:

‘Thomas sweet are the uses of adversity. If you can stay your mind on greatness.’   

∞

PJH: I see happiness as an enzyme, catalyst, a quest …

TAG: I don’t ever think you need to write a how-to book. I think you really got it. People can learn the how-to’s once they get reignited, reinvigorated, reconnected to their being alive, and the opportunity of being a full human being — now that’s when, to me, they’ll figure out the 1,000 particulars of HOW!

We need people to come alive and to me that’s what you’re bringing and what I’m bringing, which is: You don’t let your enemy declare you’re spiritually dead. That enemy is not authorized to do that.

The Deep Wisdom is … when you think of yourself as connected to something, you say:

‘I am a point of light.’

‘I am a force.’

‘I will warm this room up!’

‘I’m not going to be complicit with your fear.’

∞

BONUS EXCERPT from my book, Black Man of Happiness: In Pursuit of My ‘Unalienable Right,’ WINNER, 2015 AMERICAN BOOK AWARD: “… My meditations say make this quest more profound by finding everything more joyful: the anticipation, the uncertainties, the awkwardness, the frustrations, the failures, the wonder in the telephone’s ring, the ping announcing an email…. I’m trying to capture the exhilaration I’m stalking, the ecstasy feeding the percussion of this season…. What is a happy Black man but an implosion of rearranged molecules? H2O on it… Harris to the second power. Two times like James Brown shouted at his band! A huge circle of oxygen, refreshing smell of water…dynamic doing of the do, so I decrease the time between peaks and increase the time between valleys ….” www.blackmanofhappiness.com/shop

I see it … this is how I described it in the stage directions for my play The Black Man of Happiness:

Inspiration House…

…high ceilings open floor plan, gorgeous wood floors;
…huge video screens integrated into design are time-shifting portals;
…powerful abstract African American art on the walls;
…garden through large windows;
…dining room area contains a scrumptious buffet with drinks;
…piano sits in a corner, steel pan and guitar set up near piano;
…thumb piano sits on shelves;
…kora sits on floor;
…birimbau sits on stand.

∞

I feel it … this is how I described in a poem called House:

Inspiration Crib…
welcome to my house built with talk
foundation squat on our grandparents’ chaingang demands
floors creak with closeted lovers’ North Star resolve
walls   rooms   doors   roof  align with my mother’s bedtime prayers
live a barefoot holiday with me
only celebration will measure time
each second an occasion to wilt he said/she said
with riveting telepathy of 2 humans face-to-face
gossiping with kiss from mouths
steady evolving beyond the need for speech

∞

Thinking through my best memories of family gatherings over the years, AND meditating on the ugliest architecture of American history, it comes down to this for me:

Be happy your ownself, you know! Be the antidote to the historical poison of slavery (from self-hate and self-destruction to society’s willful dehumanization and disappearing of chosen scapegoats). Explore life and history from refreshing angles. Often, I choose to live through the lens of happiness of the men whose joy has never been a national priority. Choose your angle and contribute to the tipping point of a national conversation. Given our American journey, happy Black human beings, on their ‘pursuit of happiness,’ can be both last laugh of American history and a basic ingredient for enriching American society.

∞

Thinking through my best moments of human cooperation over the years, AND meditating on the ugliest architecture of American history, a happy mindset is most opposed by a system of:

Following orders: groupthink enforced by government, religion or other constricting social structure infused with myth, buttressed by myths. Stratifying expertise only within a military configuration, top down, chain of command. Granting value to any soldier, any guard, any uniform…

What is leadership? What is power? When you wear a uniform, are your mirror neurons scorched by ideology, seasoning and training into atrophy? Those aren’t magic wands being pointed at unarmed men, women and children! What gives one accent power and consigns another to banishment? What’s in a last name? Peltier? Stone? Abu Jamal? Gallagher? Who defines the criminal? Is English a magic spell? Spanish a curse? They’re both imperial languages that rode in on the horses of cavalrymen! Following orders sanctified by royalty and money. Following odious orders sanctified by cosplaying priests waving their hands and sanctifying lines drawn on an insufficient map! What if you superimposed images from France, Germany, Poland over images of East LA, San Diego, Phoenix? ID Papers. Passes. Documents. Illegal. Aliens. Migration. Immigration. A species on foot. As cargo. As contraband. As ….

And who wants us to be unhappy? Who wants us sad? Who wants us scared? Who wants us doubting our worth? Questioning our righteousness as a member of society, as a member of the species?

∞

Creativity is my indispensable energy. Imagination is my key catalyst. Inspiration keeps me supple. Rigor keeps my thinking from calcifying into one-note mindsets, attitudes, relationships, habits, and hierarchies. Hard work is foundation for keeping my eyes on the prize in the face of personal and social obstacles, mistakes, and setbacks. I consider myself the vital and visionary first-among-equals in any collaboration.

Grounded and rejuvenated, I am always stitching what’s awesome into the quilt of ‘practical’ approaches necessary to ensure healthy futures. My happiness rests on ethical self-expression, relentless search for the elemental, and making myself ecstatically available for new patterns.

Within the first minute of each new day, I pledge to grow and court improvisation. I love folk, but I embrace healthy solitude, pandemic or not. I’m down for silence (Moms would say, ‘If you can’t say something nice…!’), but I am absolutely down for going ‘on record’ with bracing candor.

With my mind on renewal, I’ll be cultivating and blending a no-nonsense, razor-sharp sense of humor, deep concentration, active listening skills, an adventurous mastery of old school (writing, each one-teach one techniques) with new school (hand-held digital devices and social media) — and straight courage to eternally call out BS.

∞

enter my house made for talk
describe our place here-and-now
bury us in the moment of our witness
pin the corsage of my promises in your hair
curl inside motion with me & end your voyage
sift our fears until all we smell is ginger behind closed eyes
sink in the quicksand softening my palms
rise with skin radiant from the grit
lining our elation from nothing to everything

∞

BONUS EXCERPT from my book, Black Man of Happiness: In Pursuit of My ‘Unalienable Right,’ WINNER, 2015 AMERICAN BOOK AWARD: “… But the sight of two skinny brothers, in spontaneous duet with one another, armed with friendship and genuine peace between them, makes us the perfect prism for this call for Black men to play their chord of joyfulness as an equal and opposite response and counter-spell to the American Blues Song about Black pain …. Happy Black men … swapping stories and making memories and resuscitating histories. I’m anticipating The Black Man of Happiness …. Refreshing folks who seek inspiration to maintain their own personal equilibrium. He will help oxygenate their collaborations with individuals and organizations seeking to stop violence between and among Black men, to heal from the reverberations of violence directed at them, and to defuse corrosive stressfulness in the lives of too many Black men …?” www.blackmanofhappiness.com/shop

Once, Fred Scott and I lived as neighbors in houses that sat side by side on Fifth Street in Southeast, D.C. Ma and Daddy moved us to their first house in 1971 after years of living in an apartment in Parklands.

Like my father, Fred’s Pops (of course we called him Mister Scott) worked hard, laughed hard, and lived with that unsung dedication which always makes me think of advice that Daddy always gave me: do what you have to do until you can do what you want to do!

So in May 2020, Fred Scott, now a grown man, started a post on Facebook like this:

“I thought I would share this story this morning with my FB family and friends which caused me to break down and cry this morning.”

Read the rest and you’ll see he meant tears of joy, and you’ll see why I’m so deeply moved.

“My mom gave me my fathers wallet years ago and I never thought about going through it because there was nothing in it [–] so I thought[;] he had this picture of me tucked away. if you really know me[,] you know how private I am. I’m going to show this to my daughter who never had the chance to meet her beloved and wonderful grandfather who was the best father and caring man that you will ever meet. I know his spirit is always with me and all his kids. I will see you again and I miss you so much R.I.P. DADDY I LOVE YOU.“

Like a shocking reveal to an inspiring story, ‘… this picture of me tucked away …’ was a school photo of Fred as an elementary school student!

Everyday, Mr. Scott carried his little boy’s photo. Everyday, Mr. Scott reminded himself why he worked so hard. Erryday until he died!

∞

After international viewings of video showing Mr. Floyd suffocated, U.S. Representative from Boston Ayanna Pressley wrote on Twitter on May 26, 2020:

“Just for a moment, I am going to drown out the images of profiled, surveilled, policed, lynched, choked, brutalized & murdered black boys & men w/images of their joy. It won’t erase the ache, agony & fear, but joy is an act of resistance too. Add your #blackboyjoy #blackmanjoy.”

On May 27, @wodouble22 wrote Representative Pressley: “YOU literally have the power to introduce legislation to protect Black people and hold police accountable but you’re talking about posting some damn pictures. No wonder they can kill us with impunity….SMDH.”

Igniting a thread…debating value of the images…in a classic case of either/or thinking:

Two examples:

@DuaneAMoody wrote: “You can’t symbolically do away with the ugliness of this country by countering that ugliness with pictures and not POLICY!! Lord, you new folks are proving useless as well. I just don’t know what to do after we vote in supposed progressives who STILL draw on symbolism.”

@_AVBAD wrote: “Drown it out by drafting a bill or proposing some legislation that protects us! This is our political class, black people. Notice how useless they are, posting feel good content, during our slow genocide. #MinneapolisPoliceMurderdHim #MinneapolisPD”

∞

The thread of photos on May 27 was LOOOOONG!

The photos featured all generations, all complexions. There were photos from all over the U.S., and from Africa. Photos featured dudes wearing suits and swim trunks. Obvious activists and cats in more quiet settings. Grandparents posted. Fathers, Mothers, Aunties, Uncles posted. Brothers, Sisters, and Cousins posted. Photos showed men and boys playing ball, playing trumpets; with their daughters, with their sons, with their Homeboys, with their frat brothers.

The call for these images was appropriate. Y’all know I’ve been SHOUTING this call for years, most recently in my Faces of the Black Man of Happiness social media campaign See You … Emanating a Sense of Joy on Instagram @seeyou247.

That so many folks were inspired to post photos reflects vitality that too typically goes unheralded. Vitality that at its best actually keeps us inspired to organize, fight in legislative arenas, take to the street. Pressley obviously tapped an emotional vein to have inspired posts by such an invigorating cross-section of folks.

It’s a measure of how wounded we are that even a call to pause ‘just for a moment’ from being society’s bulls eye seems too long for some folks, as if genuine joy doesn’t deserve to be celebrated, as if Black men should be only mourned, only fought for, only used as a cause, only be the poster child of a slogan.

In this case, attacking a legislator such as Pressley, though well within the job description for a public official, seems sigh-inducing. From the beginning of her career in Congress, she’s consistently raised her voice for a humane vision in bills she’s (co)sponsored, including one that would end the principle of qualified immunity, in which police officers and other public officials are shielded from lawsuits in the course of doing their jobs.

Already Pressley has endured (and more than held her own) a national game of the dozens with Trump Devoid of Funk, who derisively and dismissively said that Representatives Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar made up “the Squad” whose members, all U.S. citizens, were asked in a tweet: “…why don’t they go back…’ to their ‘countries.’”

When racist-dehumanizing mythology is the foundation of social attack, then you better bet that the use of ‘some damn pictures’ (not to mention film and other media) MUST be a part of the quilt of conceptions and strategies and actions of resistance and renewal and restoration. 

“The endeavor to affirm the dignity of human life cannot be waged without pictures, without representational justice….” wrote Sarah Lewis in ‘Vision & Justice: Guest Editor’s Note’ for the special issue of Aperture magazine. “American citizenship has long been a project of vision and justice.”

Critically, In the face of lethal relentlessness, these photos belong to a long righteous tradition of creative disturbance on behalf of our humanity.

The photos do NOT represent powerless ‘symbolic’ celebrations in the face of overpowering enemies. They are NOT trying to convince our enemies of our humanity.

Just scan the eloquence of the captions — even at the pace of a Twitter feed. The posted photos prove that we, the people are the sacred audience for these breathtaking images!

In most viewers, smiling at these photos, laughing at these photos, smiling and laughing WITH these joyful human beings, absolutely ignites a gratifying implosion. Absolutely ignites that cascade of brain chemistry and visceral response, which restore or revive our inspiration and motivation to ACT with ethical determination and discernment as citizens. That expansive cascade represents “an inner, life-changing shift,” in Lewis’s words.

(And we damn sure know the visceral rush of that negative chemical cascade triggered by the viral videos of the murders of Mr. Floyd and too many others!)

How effing ahistorical is it to rant that these photos are not part of ‘The Struggle.’ As if we don’t have the right to grieve and mourn along with our right to rage and resist.

These photos are a reflection of what already exists.

Happiness as Geology. As Nature. As Human Hunger.

Happiness as Refreshing Protection. As Motivating Counterspell.

Happiness marked by individuality and distinction.

These photos are now part of the public record, and reflect what Lewis calls the “gravity of this connection between vision and justice.”

These photos illustrate our relentless, and parallel, Oral History of Happiness.

Like Fred Scott’s picture, these photos tell no lie!

∞

BONUS EXCERPT from my book, Black Man of Happiness: In Pursuit of My ‘Unalienable Right,’ WINNER, 2015 AMERICAN BOOK AWARD: “…  I understand and embrace the wonderful African American humanity with which we forged joy out of insanity. But it’s time to forge joy from joy, ignite happiness from happiness, to spiral inward to get to an indivisible irradiation, whose fragrance is exhaled as part of each breath we take. Want to be happy. Will be happy. Become ornery about happiness. What happiness can I cultivate when I don’t have to look over my shoulder? What endorphins will I release – in my body and into the body politic – by singing of myself, singing to myself…being myself…again…? What ecstasy? For ourselves and for others we love …?” www.blackmanofhappiness.com/shop

Here’s another embossed Metro Moment:

I saw a brother striding to exit the train. Just before he stepped through open doors, he stuffed a roll of U.S. currency into the hand of a Latina holding her baby. Could have been a dollar, could have been a thousand. Body language suggested they were strangers and that I’d just witnessed an act of generosity, which was the inference drawn by this Black man of happiness.

I do keep my eyes peeled for public beauty. While on Metro, I’m people-watching big time. And no doubt, riding the trains and buses of LA, I witness America’s pain [homeless riders, drunk individuals, bold individuals shouting, selling, bullying …].

Yet I stay bent on peeping ‘Joy Vignettes!’ And often I’m a witness to America’s kindness.

I love witnessing adolescents, hoodie-wearing, pants sagging, shouting, ‘Thanks bus driver,’ when they clamber out the back door.

I’ve witnessed old heads holding brown bags of wine, or a half-pint of liquor, cheerily giving accurate directions to a family of European tourists.

I once smiled witnessing a 20-something young cat look up from his drawing pad to patiently explain to a dude smelling like four or five yesterdays:

‘No, bruh, you on the wrong train; you need to get off and go back to 7^th & Metro.’

And all riders, whether we notice or not, are surrounded by “innovative, award-winning visual and performing arts” integrated into Metro stations.

According to Metro’s website, “Metro Art … connects people, sites and neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles County… improving the visual quality of transit environments and creating a sense of place….” 

Unable to ride the Metro during the Covid 19 pandemic, I’ve missed entering the subtle fields of beauty that public art provides to stations.

∞

I see public art as, like, boutonnieres and corsages, which I wear like I’m heading off to the prom as I move through Metro stations.

At Union Station, I actually walk with a dancer’s attitude, when I gaze up at Richard Wyatt’s eighty-foot long mural that contains images of Native Americans and settlers of the LA basin as well as contemporary Angelenos in a row of dignified faces. It’s part of City of Dreams/River of History that also includes an undulating aquarium by May Sun that holds 7,500 gallons of water and is populated with indigenous coastal fish.

Or I bop rhythmically to “Take the A Train” playing as part of artist Bill Bell’s installation featuring twelve vertical light sticks producing varying patterns of light and color beside the escalator to the red and purple lines.

“Take the A Train” was written by Billy Strayhorn, genius composer, arranger, and cultural icon. Duke Ellington said that Strayhorn was my “right arm, my left arm, all the eyes on the back of my head, my brainwaves in his head and his in mine,” according to an exhibition I swooned over at the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City.

And in some wonderful way of the world, Mr. Strayhorn’s great niece, Robin Strayhorn, has been an artistic muse and colleague of mine since the early 2000’s, when we began working together in classrooms and on public art projects. Robin’s color-infused art, including her public art, keeps my senses alert to awe in my life.

∞

Robin’s public art can be found all over Southern California. The Ontario International Airport features her Terrazzo Floor and Tile Mural. There’s her Central Avenue Jazz Park Mural and her Morningside Community Mural. You can find her work adorning the Hyde Park Branch Public Library and the Ascot Branch Public Library. Robin’s striking tile work is also featured at the Ted Watkins Park Flagpole and Pool House, Enterprise Park Pool House, and Gigante Supermarket.

And at Metro’s Imperial/Wilmington Station, she co-created with Michael Massenburg the marvelously elemental Pathways to Freedom, a tiled bench that evokes the bench bus seat Rosa Parks refused to relinquish in 1955.

∞

Originally, I wanted to jump in a car with Robin and interview her when we stopped at each of her public art projects. During the pandemic, I had to settle for a telephone Q/A, which I’ve excerpted in closing below.

Q: Why do you make public art?

Strayhorn: I like the idea of working with the community to create something that’s uplifting for people and to enliven people’s daily experience…. [Her public art practice was inspired by a 2004 trip to Spain, where she was blown away by the “artistic adventure of public art” by architect Antoni Gaudi.]

How did you get started making public art?

Strayhorn: I can’t pinpoint the exact moment when I became interested, however, I do remember I was exhibiting my work in Atlanta at the National Black Arts Festival. Varnette Honeywood inspired me to go. Showed me what to do, how to package my artwork, how to ship it. … I was there and remember running into Michael Massenburg,  and I mentioned that I had a strong desire to work in the public art realm. I wanted a wider audience. Michael said he’d just completed his first public art project. Within a year, I received a phone call from a friend who had purchased some of my artwork telling me she had given my phone number to Lydia Kennard, at the time the Executive Director of Los Angeles World Airports. I was an emerging artist at the time. We were all invited to create proposals for the Ontario International Airport. That is how I got started. And I was able to create couple of designs for the Ontario Airport.

I was nervous. It was a fast-track situation. Varnette again helped me. She said you need to look at something you’ve already done and expand on that. I had these mask-like images that I used to take into classes for kids to color. I ended up using those. I expanded upon them. Varnette encouraged me to look at what’s already there. ‘They already like your colors and your work,’ Varnette said, ‘so go with something you already have and that they’ve already shown interest in.’ She gave me so much other advice.

Recently, I saw a movie on Netflix that was filmed in Ontario airport, with Meryl Streep and Jeffery Wright. I saw my work, the terrazzo floor. I was, like, ‘Oh cool!’ I paused it and I took a screen shot. It was motivating to see it. A reminder to me of what’s possible.

What do you want your public art to accomplish?

Strayhorn: I want it to be inviting and to be aesthetically pleasing. I want it to aesthetically enhance the environment, to add to, and not take away, from the environment. I want it to be relevant to the community that it serves. In some cases, I want it to get people to think about something, or to inspire them. When I created the floor design at Ontario Airport, I wanted the art to be playful and welcoming, to give them, like, a blast of energy. One day I had to go there and get some better photographs of the floor. [I was told that a] lot of children are drawn to the mural. They like to jump on certain parts of the mural. Once it’s out there, it’s for everybody. It’s like giving birth to something, but it’s not for yourself. It’s for the whole community.

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Yes yes yes … People get ready there’s a train a coming.

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BONUS EXCERPT from my book, Black Man of Happiness: In Pursuit of My ‘Unalienable Right,’ WINNER, 2015 AMERICAN BOOK AWARD: “… HAPPINESS BURNS WITHIN: …One man’s life-affirming grito, shouted in the uncensored voice of a ‘long-distance runner’ for what’s refreshing and marvelous and courageous about being a man of witness and participation and conscience .…” www.blackmanofhappiness.com/shop