Me Big Chief

On Saturday night I took the opportunity to use my sunburn as an excuse to stay home on a Saturday night and do homework.   (You know, the sunburn I got while I was making myself walk the dog, which turned into running into college buddies, which turned into watching ultimate frisbee for a few hours without sunscreen, which turned into drinking a couple beers in the middle of the day, which turned into an exhausted sun-burnt nap, which made me wake up cranky and incapable of social activities, which made me ignore any and all of my said social engagements in exchange for a quiet night at home).

And because I don’t nap (I’m like a freak of nature with the sleeping), this 45 minute slip into a REM cycle apparently made me incapable of rational, intellectual thought.   Realizing my research paper on Erich Fromm, the tantalizing German Jew psychoanalyst who I’m sure has amazing things to say, was NOT going to happen, I caved and did what all grown folks who work full-time while in graduate school do: REPRESS FEELINGS OF GUILT ABOUT NOT DOING HOMEWORK ON THE ONE NIGHT YOU HAVE FREE AND PROCRASTINATE.

Instead, I ordered a pizza and decided to park my happy ass on the couch with the dog and catch up on the new HBO show Treme.

I’m an admitted David Simon stalker admirer.  I pretty much watched the entire series of The Wire over a series of a few weeks and found myself so involved with the characters that I still refer to them on a first-name basis as if they’re real people in my life.  You know, Stringer Bell? Lives down the block?

The invention of the television show on DVD really did wonders for my social life.  At one point, I was so involved in watching the entire series of Six Feet Under that I began thinking I might actually be in an episode.  Every episode of this show starts with someone dying in some kind of freak accident.  I’d be walking down the block and envision a hammer being accidentally dropped from the top floor of the building and then in my head I’d cue the opening music and flash forward to a view of my own tombstone.  Thank God I finished that series before I developed schizophrenia.

And don’t get me started on the L-Word.  I think I actually craved lesbian drama in my life just because I felt so entitled to it after watching all that melodrama betwixt the ladies.  Which, for the record, is never drama ANYONE should crave.

Okay, back to Treme.  (Sorry, I’m over-caffeinated).

I had the chance to meet David Simon through my job last year and almost urinated down my pretty little dress with excitement.  And he, in person, is just exactly what I suspected him to be: slightly neurotic, totally depressing, and simultaneously one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met.  You know how you meet people and you just know they’re smart?  They got that pretty talk and yuns know they can ‘cipher good? Yeah, well.  He did.

So when I heard David Simon would begin working on a show about post-Katrina New Orleans I started emotionally cumming all over myself.  Because, you know, us geeky liberal arts college graduates LOVE television shows that blur the line between fiction and fact—especially when it involves things like sexuality, racism, and poverty.  I’m getting chills just thinking about all the cultural and sociological implications I’ll inevitably try to sneak into a classroom discussion someday.  Sidenote: We also love reading the Atlantic Monthly and pretending to be smarter than everyone else.  And posting clever, biting, intellectually snarky comments on each other’s Facebook pages, ESPECIALLY when we get to reference our favorite NY Times op-ed columnist as if we know them personally (umm, duh, Gail).  And of course wrapping it all up by finding a way to connect it all to some obscure Always Sunny in Philadelphia scene.

So here I am on a Saturday night watching this new show on HBO about New Orleans.  And the storyline isn’t great—it’s fairly predictable.  I see all the usual suspects—about half of the cast from The Wire (which is like running into old friends with guns) and I’m trying to get used to their new character names and disconnecting them from their darker, more addicted (and definitely better armed) Baltimore alter-egos.

But there is this music.  And the second line gets warmed up on the screen.  Without warrant, my feet start tapping.  And I notice I can’t help but rock my hips.  And my head starts moving.  And I’m not even thinking about it but I’m shifting around to wiggle my little (okay big) white girl ass around like I got some rhythm.  And before I know it my head is in a million places at once and I’m flashing through all these moments.

Then the character puts on his Mardi Gras Indian costume.

And I'm thinking about the first time I saw a real-live Mardi Gras Indian.  And how hot it was.  And the smell of those feathers.  And the sounds that came from his mouth.  Raw, guttural noises that were something in between song and prayer.  And how it almost scared me.

Then he is playing his tambourine.

And my brain is thinking about three years ago in Winneba, Ghana when I stumbled across something that looked vaguely familiar: a parade in the middle of a village with a line of people marching down the middle of the street with horns and drums and dancing and singing and bright colors.  Handkerchiefs were twirled in my face.  I was so hot but so enthralled in the procession that I didn't care about the sweat dripping from my face.

And then I’m back in New Orleans, thinking about the taste of that po’boy and wondering if the shop we used to go to survived the storm and if it didn’t if they’ve reopened somewhere else.  And thinking about how delicious those crawfish Zapp’s potato chips are and the time I saved all my money to buy myself a kitten watch (with a ball of yarn as the seconds hand) from a flimsy booth in the French Market.  And how good those beignets tasted.

And what it felt like to see a real, live voodoo ceremony in Benin.  

And to hear a goat be sacrificed.  

And to run into Quint Davis, the freakin’ godfather of the Jazz Fest, in a random village in Benin because he was trying to find artists to bring from West Africa to New Orleans for the Jazz Fest.  To bring the music full circle.

And I’m thinking about Katrina and how angry it made me.  And how obvious it is to me that no matter what you try and tell me, if you're poor in this country, you've probably been fucked over by somebody.  And I'm gonna go out on a limb here and blame a system (although I won't narrow it down to just one).

And then I'm thinking about how much I wouldn’t get this shit if I’d never moved to Baltimore.  And never taken that first job in the Baltimore City Schools.  And never felt all the things I’ve felt.  And been in the places I've been.  And felt, first-hand, what my skin color affords me. 

And here is how I know David Simon is brilliant.  Because all of this happened to me on a Saturday night on my couch.  In yoga pants.  And I only watched like three episodes.

This is also how I know I’m Presbyterian.  I’ve found myself in this life of mine, where all these things make sense to me.  And I find it strangely normal.  Like it's the path I was always intended to be on.  With all these experiences connecting and merging and overlapping.

And I do believe in magic.  And I think sometimes we're given special knowledge from our ancestors that lets us in on some pretty big secrets about the universe.  When I was a kid, my dad would tell me I was part gypsy.  He told me all kinds of wacky things, but this was my favorite.  Well, no, the Easter Monkey was (is) my favorite.  But I've always liked to think about my totally-made-up fantasy gene pool (as if you couldn't tell from my sunburn that I'm totally Scotch-Irish-German-English and like 1/32 Cherokee).

Once upon a time, there was some rumor that up that magical family tree of ours was a Spanish bear trainer in the circus.  Naturally, I've embellished and blown up this story in my extra-fancy tree and Great-Great-Great Granddaddy who tamed the bears and wooed the ladies is this central figure in my family's history.  I'm assuming this is probably the way people feel when they are related to someone famous like a Kennedy or Abraham Lincoln.  In this fantasy family tree I can't help but feel like I've got connections to these places that I love so much.  And this gypsy grandfather of mine probably traveled around a lot.  And maybe procreated in New Orleans.  And I probably have cousins there. 

And maybe in West Africa, too.  Because it only makes sense.

And of course, I like to think I make him proud.