Currently watching Chuck Brown’s homegoing.
As with Michael and Whitney, there’s much to be said about the amazing way, we send someone off that we consider ours, when they cross into the next realm. Even after the fair amount of publicity following the announcement of…
Man, Chuck Brown was the joy and the funk in the heart of this city, the embodiment of everything authentically DC. He wrote our anthems and dared us to sit when they played. We never sat. We stood, and we danced, without reservation, with our whole bodies, our souls even.
I remember the last time I saw him live, last spring, outside the Ronald Reagan building. It was pouring rain, and there were three hundred people there, dancing in it, steam coming off us like a sendup to something devine - entire families, one, two and three generations deep, reveling in our music.
Through the years of brokenness in this Chocolate City, you did what you could to make us whole. Thanks for windin us up Chuck.
Words fail at describing the obliterated space of your absence. You were a poet of the highest caliber and a friend to the least of these. Your music has sustained and your wisdom uplifted me. I remember our first introduction, and how I knew immediately that we’d be good friends.
Yup, I’m pretty proud of my Urban Dictionary entry. Yes, anybody can submit an entry, and the majority of them are approved. That said, I am now the world’s first (maybe), and as far as Urban Dictionary is concerned, only published authority on the Clap-Clap Mix.
The clap-clap mix (sometimes referred to as the ‘clap-clap list’) pays homage to the romantic possibilities introduced by a device called ‘The Clapper’. An ‘As Seen on TV’ product, The Clapper features a sound activated electronic circuit, which allows a user to turn on/off electronic devices plugged in to an outlet simply by clapping.
A generation of on-screen (and we must assume, real life) smooth operators used The Clapper to cue ‘romance’.In the 2006 film, Accepted, Bartleby (Justin Long) set up a clapper in his dorm room to activate a disco ball and mood lighting. In the 1999 comedy Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Austin Powers (Mike Myers) claps twice to activate the “seduction lighting” in his apartment. An impressed Ivana Humpalot (Kristen Johnston) asks “When did you get ze Clapper?”. Austin, thinking she means “the clap” replies “Dutch East Indies, shore leave.
“The ‘clap-clap mix’ originally referred to a mix CD or digital playlist of ‘romantic’ songs, queued up and ready to play when a would-be Romeo clapped the command. Although The Clapper device is largely a relic of times past, the idea of a ready-to-go, romantic, sensual, sexy playlist (continually updated with the hot-and-heavy or whimsical ballads of the age) persists. Many, this author included, will forever know this ‘in the mood’ playlist as the ‘clap clap mix’.These artists are standard starters on any clap-clap mix: Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Luther Vandross, Brian McKnight, Frank Sinatra…
His clap-clap mix, crafted over years of intimate encounters, kicked in from speakers across the room, and as she melted into his embrace, the smooth stylings of Marvin Gaye’s ‘Sexual Healing’ echoed in the warm hollows of their caramel bodies.
Dave, some years on
It’s two years on now and I still miss you, of course. I did my taxes early this year, in February in fact; April still feels like loss a little. I’ve been trying to write your parents a letter but I still don’t have the words. I never really understood until after you left, how many bridges you’d burned and people you’d hurt. You were trying to make good though I think. The poem I wrote you still applies; I’m still working on the laughter and music and irreverence, and the seriousness too.
—
i won’t mourn you in the way that movies tell us to,
you were always so aware of cliché.
i have a few tears for you,
but mostly i have jokes,
and most of them racy and off-colour.
we were learning how to face life together,
and most of what we’d figured out so far,
involved laughter, irreverence and music.
we were learning how to be serious too though,
so it came as a surprise to me,
that you left during tax season.
we shared ambitions so unreasonable,
that we spoke of them in code,
and sometimes we were forced to scale them back.
we were supposed to finish piecing together,
you know, next week, when we both had time,
our theory of unconventional kindness.
i will remember you as you were,
that night when you tried to kiss that girl,
at the Black Cat,
and failed.
wildly inappropriate, brilliant, searching.
Satin Doll
I went to Christian McBride’s tribute to Herbie Hancock last night and it reminded me of you, Malik. I miss the sound of your trumpet.
I know there were some good times before we became strangers and I wish I could remember them better, like when we used to serenade mom in the kitchen while she cooked.
After the concert tonight, I went to the CoHo and ordered the Satin Doll. It is the only food I ever eat there, mostly because of the name; Satin Doll the song was a favorite of yours. Today would have been your 26th birthday.
THE KUROSAWA CHAMPAGNE
This was the sign I was looking for, the sign that I should go ahead with my affaire, my Champagne Affaire, money and mess be damned. I was searching for inspiration for a party and I found this poem. It blows my mind:
Tonight
I think it is safe to say we drank too much.
Must I apologize for the volume in my slobber?
Must I apologize for the best dance moves ever?
No.
Booze is my tuition to clown college.
I swung at your purse.
It was staring at me.
We swerved home on black laughter.
bleeding from forgettable boxing.
I asked you to sleep in the shape of a trench
so that I might know shelter.
- Derick Brown, “Born in the year of the butterfly knife”
I love that video, it give me the feel-goods. (found @ http://adbelingua.com/music-is-sharing/)
In honor of St. Patty’s Day, my favorite Irish song from Ned Devine
Of all the money e’er I had,
I spent it in good company.
And all the harm I’ve ever done,
Alas! it was to none but me.
And all I’ve done for want of wit
To mem’ry now I can’t recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all
