Cleopatra Jones

Every so often, people will ask me about my ancestry and, as it so happens, it is almost always disastrous, especially to someone who doesn't really understand genetics, history, or the human diaspora across the globe. It's disconcerting to me, but such is the nature of impairments  and/or little formal education. My much-older friend Tony asked me about a necklace my mom bought for me from Ireland, a beautiful silver Celtic cross hanging on a chain, and from there he asked me if I was mostly Irish, right? I know he's "just Sicilian" (or so he thinks as an American), so it's really hard for him to have fully developed ethnic conversations, plus he's 90+, hearing impaired, cognitively impaired, and he never had a real college education. Ah, there's the rub.

In deference to his age, his service to this country, our friendship, and my innate respect for older people, I always try to answer him, but he either interrupts me abruptly before I can finish explaining it all to him, or he vaguely stares off and then just walks away from me, both utterly disturbing habits to have while in conversation with another person. To whit, I have done this: told Tony my ethnic story countless times, which has left me with either interpretative dance as an option, and/or performing a Broadway musical in his honor, neither of which I am willing to do for him at this point. 

He's from the "pie chart" generation of ethnicity, when you split the difference about parents and grandparents over who married their cousin or niece from the old country, which is parlayed into "purebred" status here in "Amereeka", much like the inbred lineage of a certain Macedonian Queen ruling Egypt at the end of its golden age. Needless, studies have shown that during the gestational process in utero, genetics actually battle it out for dominance in the womb and beyond (http://phys.org/news/2009-07-maternal-paternal-genes-tug-of-war-childhood.html), so to answer your question (again) Tony, and also my mom: no, I am not "mostly" Italian because my grandma's parents were from the same town in Italy. I am predominately Northern European (British/Irish), because that's the way it goes with ferocious werewolf genetics. Sorry, mom.

That's not to say that I don't love being from an ancient Mesopotamian line of Greco-Romans who predate the creation of Europe, like my other Norman ancestry of movable merchants. Tony trailed off at this point, because the only reference point he has is "Sicily", and that's about it. It's unfortunate, because our real genetic histories can tell us fascinating stories about our ancestors, and how much they actually moved around the ancient world. So, here it is, once again: I am English, Irish, FrancoGermanic from the North and Southern European with a small percentage being modern Italian, since GrecoRoman predates Europe, and Acadian Métis, that predates Canada and the United States. Okay?

I know. It's a history lesson and a half, but it's also not rocket science. This is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v. Got it? Good! Let's move on. So, in addition to having Mesopotamian genetics that skipped the horrible incest that marks most modern nobility (see the above jump for more about Cleopatra's inbred family line), I also have very old European DNA so, fuck you, too. I'm "Cleopatra Jones", and I'm definitely not your typically fucked-up royal. I'm much better than that, actually. Oh, and yes, "Joneses" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jones_(surname): family reunions in the Maine back-country are still "on". See you there, moonshine or not. We're still wild, folk.  

http://www.metisofmaine.org/

Digable Planets 

Rebirth Of Slick (Cool Like Dat)

[Butterfly]

We like the breeze flow straight out of our lids
Them they got moved by these hard-rock Brooklyn kids
Us flow a rush when the DJ's boomin classics
You dig the crew on the fattest hip hop records
He touch the kinks and sinks into the sounds
She frequents the fatter joints called undergrounds
Our funk zooms like you hit the Mary Jane
They flock to booms man boogie had to change
Who freaks the clips with mad amount percussion
Where kinky hair goes to unthought-of dimensions
Why's it so fly cause hip hop kept some drama
When Butterfly rocked his light blue-suede Pumas
What by the cut we push it off the corner
How was the buzz entire hip hop era?
Was fresh and fat since they started sayin audi
Cause funks made fat from right beneath my hoodie
The puba of the styles like miles and shit
Like sixties funky worms with waves and perms
Just sendin chunky rhythms right down ya block
We be to rap what key be to lock

But
I'm cool like dat [x7]
I'm cool...I'm cool...

[Ladybug]

We be the chocolates taps on my raps
Innovates at the sweeta cat naps
He at the funk club with the vibrate
Them they be crazy down with the ?five plate?
It can kick a plan then a crowd burst
Me I be diggin it with s bump verse
Us we be freakin til dawn blinks an eye
He gives the strangest smile so I say hi (wassup)
Who understood yeah understood the plan
Him heard a beat and put it to his hands
What I just flip let borders get loose
How to consume or they'll be just like juice
If its the shit we'll lift it off the plastic
The babes'll go spastic
Hip hop gains a classic
Pimp playin shock it don't matter I'm fatter
Ax Butta how I zone (man, Cleopatra Jones)

And
I'm chill like dat [x7]
I'm chill...I'm chill...

[All]

Blink..blink..blink..blink..blink..blink..blink....
Think..think..think..think..think..think..think...

[Doodlebug]

We get ya free cause the clips be fat boss
Them they're the jams and commence to goin off
She sweats the beat and ask me cause she puffed it
Me I got crew kids seven and a crescent
Us cause a buzz when the nickel bags are dealt
Him that's my man with the asteroid belt
They catch a fizz from the Mr. Doodle-big
He rocks a tee from the Crooklyn non-pigs
The rebirth of slick like my gangsta stroll
The lyrics just like loot come in stacks and rolls
You used to find a bug in a box with fade
Now he boogies up your stage plaits twist or braids

And
I'm peace like dat [x7]
I'm Peace

[Butterfly]

Check it out man I groove like dat
I'm smmoce like dat
I jive like dat
I roll like dat

[Ladybug]

Yeah I'm thick like dat
I stack like dat
I'm down like dat
I'm black like dat

[Doodlebug]

Well yo I funk like dat
I'm fat like dat
I'm in like dat
Cause I swing like dat

[Butterfly]

We jazz like dat
We freak like dat
We zoom like dat
We out...we out...

Songwriters: Vieira, Mary Ann / Butler, Ishmael R.

Rebirth Of Slick(Cool Like Dat) lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Bunny Boiler

My maternal grandmother and grandfather always told me the best stories, so when they didn't remember some of them in their advanced ages, I did it for them. I began telling them their stories back to them, as a reminder of who they were to me, as they still are, and forever will be. They taught me that having no money wasn't the same as true impoverishment: a soul-deadening condition that only the power of faith can take away. A lot of their rowdiest stories happened during their heady youth that coincided with the Jazz Age of "The Harlem Renaissance", and because my grandfather loved photography (he used to develop his own film and print from his negatives), they had the photos to back it up, which stayed with me, informing me and my work as a publisher to this day. Words are wonderful, but nothing beats the hard evidence photos provide. Period.

Because my grandparents and I liked to cook and were proficient at it, we often talked about food when we were together, happily cooking up something on small stoves in smaller apartments, but always glad to be together. Food was something we shopped for almost every day, for economy's sake and freshness, because anyone who's carried groceries up four flights of stairs knows that over-shopping is a curse in of itself. Besides, when you pass by a store every day, what's the point? There isn't any reason to hoard when there's plenty!

They lived through economic recessions far worse than anything their children went through, and it made them softer for it. Not for me, though, because I kept pace with them intellectually, which was freeing for all of us. There were no excruciating back-and-forths with a table of fat psychos more interested in checking out mentally and/or stressing out intentionally to create friction they could get high from. Ick...go away! We got into the real stuff of life, enjoying it pleasurably in a way that the inept among us would never do be able to do. We respected their illnesses as separate from us and our reality, without giving in to their crazy demands or insane schedules.

Eating for us was part of G-d's inheritance to us, as the good life we deserved as His Most Faithful. We savored the dishes we made excellently without showing off about it, because it was a part of our everyday lives, and because crazies are often deeply insecure and ravenously envious about a prowess and excellence they can never really participate in. Even as we spread our gifts evenly among them, they greedily wanted ever more from us, in response to our daily productivity. Still, the margins can be great places to live in, especially when drama queens display the same drab colors over and over again.

Our disordered family were easy to checkout on mentally-speaking, fast-paced as our real lives were in the very large world that is the greater New York City area. Like me and my brothers, my grandparents lived real lives, working really difficult jobs with a long list of great experiences to show for it. We laughed easily and often, passing the fruits of our labors among our small social group within a group, going over the heads of our sick family and friends. 

One Easter when I was little, my grandmother and I sat at her dining room table listening to her youngest prattle on and on about shopping and bunny rabbits, like the nervously immature girl she is. She lived with them all of her life, until they died. She had a pseudo-lesbian relationship with another sick woman from the old neighborhood she called her "best friend", but really, they were simply two sick women living with their parents long-term, because it was either that or an expensive mental institution. It was sad and tortuous to be around them, because they spoke repetitive nonsense to each other, in the similar way that compulsives do. She called my mom's sister her "Bunny", which made her hoard rabbit statues in response to her gay friend's devotion, relishing trips to the local mall like you and I look forward to riding the surf at the beach in summertime.

Yeah...we ignored them...a lot. For my beneficial and habitual blocking out of their inanity, I was rewarded with actual stories by my grandmother about her wild Depression-Era childhood, when her ability to survive might be the only thing that pulled her through the day. I could relate. My own parents (her daughter) were dangerous like her parents. We understood each other well. Back then, butcher shops were on the street, barking out their wares for your close inspection, because every penny counted. If you made a poor decision with your one purchase, you might not make it through the week with a decent meal, because your parents rode you about that, too.

On the week leading up to Easter, her mother purchased a live rabbit for their Sunday bolognese sauce, and barring an indoor cage for her to keep it in, she stored it in the tub for the few days until the big holiday weekend. My grandmother loved the little creature, rare as pets were for poor immigrant families recently arrived. Tenement living was rough, and space was scarce. Families often shared a bathroom on every floor, and baths meant you lugged buckets of hot water up some flights of stairs. If you've never done it, then you don't know to what lengths you'll go to keep yourself neat and clean. She loved the cute furry thing as a welcome diversion she could entertain herself with, after schoolwork and her chores were done.

On Sunday, she was delighted to eat her mama's handmade macaroni (that she cut on a bed covered with a white sheet, in great lengths) topped with a sumptuous red sauce, because meat (expensive as it is) was a rare treat for them, too. Sometime during the day, though, she went into the bathroom to peek at the bunny rabbit in the bathtub. But...what?! It was gone! Quickly, she ran back to the kitchen to tell her mama that the bunny had escaped. Oh no! "Haha...oh no, no, my dear little one," my great-grandmother Rosa laughed, "she was in the pot!" Slowly but surely my grandmother realized the price of her great Sunday dinner. Ohhh...

"Were you upset?" I asked my own dear Italian grandmama. "Oh, no!" My grandma smiled back at me! "I loved my mother's cooking! It was delicious!" It was as true then as it is for me, today. Nothing beats home cooking. Absolutely nothing. And I still love cooking Italian-American food as much as we still enjoy eating it, because the recipes we make for each other in gladness is the true wealth that we inherit, as a real manifestation of His Love for us all. That's what Easter, rabbits, and family mean to me. "Mangia! Mangia! Mangia!"

Per Angelina , proprietario di Angel di Dio.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rag%C3%B9