FINDING YOUR ROOTS

 
FINDING YOUR ROOTS is one of my favorite TV shows. I love  to watch people discover ancestors they didn't know they had which changes their perspective on who they themselves are. The other night watching the host, Henry Louis Gates, reveal the past to guests Sammy Hagar (fascinating revelations) and Ed O'Neil (more subtly fascinating reveals), one of the latter's not that distant ancestor's maiden name turned out to be Lally. She came from a different part of Ireland than my grandfather Lally, but no doubt this makes me and O'Neil some kind of distant cousins. Why am I not surprised?

[The photo is me and O'Neil on a set for the short-lived TV series THE BIG APPLE, where I played a priest and O'Neil a detective. I had had dinner with him once, so we knew each other a little.] 

SOME POEMS

 Four poems of mine just came online on the Relegation site. Check them out here.

PERSONAL HISTORY

MY MLK SONNET

When Martin Luther King is shot I feel the

sudden shift in the atmosphere, like trying to

breathe underwater. It's been three years since

Malcom X’s assassination and my new radical

friends and reading have opened my eyes to the

realities of class in the USA. Malcolm verbally

attacked white folks with impunity, but the

minute he decided it was not about race but

about the poor and the wealthy, BAM! King

spends years fighting racism and despite attempts

on his life and tons of threats seemed invulner-

able, but as soon as he organizes a poor people’s

campaign talking about the haves and have-nots,

BAM! I wonder if the Marxists have it right.

(C) 2023 from SAY IT AGAIN (Beltway Editions 2024)

XMAS '23

 

I raised my kids (as a single parent and shared-custody parent) to not stress over holidays and birthdays. If their in-laws or other parent or whoever wanted them to share the day with them we'd find another day to celebrate, which means our Xmases have often been celebrated in January. But this year it worked out to celebrate together the day before Xmas, so here we are in my living room, my three kids, Flynn (in tee shirt), Caitlin, and Miles, behind me, my grandkids Donovan and Deak (short sleeves) on the floor in front of me, and Monk looking over us from  the other room. 

2023 HIGHLIGHTS

 
Two singer/songwriter albums released in 2023 that I had some connection to: Peter Case's DOCTOR MOAN, and Billy Keane's OH, THESE DAYS. Peter, longtime dear friend, included an adaptation of a poem of mine ("Give Me Five Minutes More" the title from a very different popular song in my 1940s boyhood) on his lp. While Billy, friend of my oldest son and my housemate and caretaker Miles (with his partner Hannah Bracken) had Miles playing bass on every song on his record. Well worth checking out.