Personal and public politics....

I helped weed a community vegetable/garden plot earlier this morning and noticed how I finally realized that I'm pretty okay with where I am in life right now. Or rather what is happening in it. In theory or course. Keeping up with the practice is harder than expected.
I can play (SLOWLY I might add) Tracy Chapman's The Wedding Song (one of my favorites) on Gaia, my gender-neutral guitar (woohoo for Oberlin terms...). I soon hope to start playing the song Devotion .... I haven't been this excited since the first time I saw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when I was little. Oh the memories....

So I was checking my email and got an invitation from someone I really did not expect to the Cleveland Pride Celebration this coming Saturday. I've been hearing from many good people that I should go...for myself that is, and because it's fun. I haven't quite decided yet if I should go.

Also while checking my email, I read the following article from my daily BBC news feed about the UN 'runs out of food for Ethiopia'. It's amazing and so interesting to me how we as a country can continue to talk about our own worries and unfortunes (not to say that they don't matter but really now....), when we still have member of our community like Ethiopia who have had starving refugees for months, and no "help". It is absurd to believe that there is no one to assist. I can't do much, but it still doesn't hurt to care. But I digress-even though it's good information to know.

I want to post a song I wrote when I was reading the news about the third or fourth hurricane that hit Haiti (my ancestors 'ma dit sak pase' !!!- that's 'i say how are you' roughly in kreyol) in Fall 2008, but sadly I am not at my labtop which has the song. But I will post it soon. The basically talks about the politics of trying to survive natural and outside disasters without anyone to hear the voices of the community. You may like, you may not, fine by me...

Hopefully this whole guitar playing thing with work out nicely....so I can start a revolution and tour with Tracy. Big dreams have to start somewhere....

For anyone who wants to listen to the songs I'm talking about, here are some youtube links:

Tracy Chapman's Devotion (off of the album Telling Stories; please ignore the Stargate SG-1 montage- unless you like the show):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBTZP64eoHc

Tracy Chapman's The Wedding Song ( Same album) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehpcp1kAcR8&feature=related

BBC link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8103355.stm