Pallie Greene – the kid from our hood who dunked at our block party (above) – began playing ball late just like my late brother Tom, who didn’t get into the game until Jr. High school. Might be a life-changer for Pallie though. It sure made a difference to Tom. When I think about how he came to make his life on Tiemann Place (as he worked at the 125th St. Post Office), aesthetics and politics of b-ball – along with people’s soul musics – are keys to his story. Tom was out there with Pallie – a spirit, not a ghost! – as our hood re-upped on the tradition he invented (with the West Harlem Coalition). The 34th Annual Anti-Gentrification Street Fair jumped off on a proud Saturday in September. The crowd kept getting refreshed – a wonderfully odd of mix of Old Heads, parents-and-infants, O.G. returnees, lifers from Grant Houses, newbies-to-the-neighborhood, curious students drawn by the D.J.’s arrogance but not conceit (“He’s the Greatest Dancer”!) or by the nimbus of urban amity, or by blue skies in a post-Covid(?) city.
Tom’s son Jamie deserves major dap. He and his crew have got the fair flourishing (like his bushy beard). I get juiced whenever I recur to Hannah Arendt musing on human beings’ capacity to do something NEW. (Which scares the shit out of status quo brains, born institutionalists, and quid-pro-quo-ers.) Yet there’s much, maybe more, to be said for Sustainers. Jamie is one. There’s no going on without this son!
And our fair isn’t a guaranteed slam dunk. I remember one time – ten or fifteen years ago – me and Tom rolled out to middle of the block around noon and NOBODY was there to rock with us. We both figured this (mainly Latin) thing was dead-dog-dead. “Anti-gentrification” en espanol was over. Columbia had won. Our block would simply be a bland annex to a U. where (per Simone Weil) “culture is an instrument manipulated by teachers for manufacturing more teachers, who, in their turn, will manufacture still more teachers.”
That day wasn’t a blip. Columbia’s power is (probably) undeniable. But we’re still here. Marsha Music’s (pace Detroit!) no-filter speech brought it all home when she got on the mic. She bowed to David – her lost street dance partner (she’d meringued all afternoon at last year’s fair in his memory) – invoked Indigenous People’s Day, invited everyone to St. Mary’s Church, recalled how Tom translated every WHC notice into Spanish. I’m not sure how much of her talk came through to the ensemble, but her voice carried history. Roots for real for real.
Paul Hunter’s snap of me and Maria – Tom’s wife – doesn’t convey the turnout at this year’s fair, but the greying hints at the, ah, age of the event.
We olde!? Fuck dat. I’m going to get my breath and show Pallie my first step NEXT year! (Keep your dribble low P.)
This time around I was content to share Sancerre with buddies and anyone who knew what was in my brown bags. Paul H. (who’s a painter) gave me back more – reminding me I need to watch Ed Harris play Jackson Pollock as well as try on late flics by Julian Schnable. (We both looked back in rapture on Schnable’s Before Night Falls.) I poured a glass of Sancerre – beverage of champions – for Amarou, Pallie’s older brother, who needed to cool off after b-balling. His pop took it well when I told him I’d been the purveyor, though a few lines in a post-party email hinted he might not have been all in…
That wine brings to mind a very dear friend to our family, Kathy,…she was our main child care person for both guys for years, we would go to their family house in the Catskills for Summer…One summer I was standing out front of that house to witness little (3 – 5 year old) Amarou sitting in Kathy’s lap, DRIVING their car up the compound drive to the house!
Kathy told Sibylle she thought I’d never let her near him again, but of course it was great. Great to have friends who help our kids live a little in the oppressive regime that is my parenting…
Regime talk reminds me pols came by our party. I have to be careful about my comments as we’re trying to prompt Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine and our Councilman Abreu to follow through on promises to get our block co-named after Brother Tom. There have been hold-ups on this front for a couple years, though nobody is saying who’s nixed the co-name. I followed up with Borough Pres Levine this month, teasing him about the murk and another politician’s presence at our 2021 fair when…
Congressman Espaillat played a little street chess with Leo Rodriguez, who’d schooled my own chess-playing son earlier in the day. The Congressman stepped off abruptly when he realized Leo was headed for another win. He didn’t hang around to take the L. Leo’s response: “That’s a politician for you.”
Let’s prove Leo wrong, ok? If the co-naming is NOT a happening thing, please find out why and tell the people. Candor isn’t everything in politics but it’s a key to true democracy.
If powers-that-be can’t come through, maybe we’ll take a grassrootsy approach that might be more apt anyway for…Tom DeMott Way. Paul H. figures we could hang our own damn street sign. History from the bottom up!