$20 Bill - for George Floyd (Tom Prasada-Rao)

As you may recall, I am not on Facebook anymore, so I am dependent on others to alert me to concerts and music-related items generating from that medium.  Yesterday a friend posted to our local sf_folk (South Florida) list that musician friends were covering a new song by *another* musician friend... and I hadn't even heard about the original yet!

Tom Prasada-Rao is a gifted songwriter, a spiritual guru, and a brave soul who experienced a tough battle with cancer last year, and continues treatment, even during this pandemic.  I am grateful to consider TPR a friend, and of course had to delve into this cool phenomenon.  Here is but an overview of those who have passed his powerful song along the pipeline:  Mary Gauthier, Ellis Paul, Margo Hennebach & Mark Saunders, Karl Werne, and so many more.  The lyrics are included in the song link, but I am reprinting them below because they deserve repeating... 💙

Some people die for honor
Some people die for love
Some people die while singing
To the heavens above 
Some people die believing
In the cross on Calvarys’ hill 
And some people die
In the blink of an eye
For a $20 bill

Some people go out in glory
(Yeah) with the wind at their back
Some get to tell their own story
Write their own epitaph
Sometimes you see it coming 
Sometimes you don’t know until
You run out of breath
With a knee on your neck
For a $20 bill

Brother, I never knew you 
And now I never will 
But I make this promise to you
I’ll remember you still

Take, eat - let this be our communion
It’s time to break the bread
Do this in remembrance 
Just like the good book said
Sometimes the wine is a sacrament 
Sometimes the blood is just spilled
Sometimes the law
Is the devils’ last straw
The future unfulfilled
Like the dream they killed
For a $20 bill

by Tom Prasada-Rao 5/28/20 Silver Spring MD

Also, referencing the history of my graphic above, this... yet one more example of this adminstration's racism.


SONG:  $20 Bill (for George Floyd) by Tom Prasada-Rao (Tom's voice is whisper-like while he's speaking, but when he begins singing, at about the one-minute mark, you can hear him clearly...  :-)

BOOK:  Hands Up, Don’t Shoot by Jennifer E. Cobbina

POEM:  truth by Gwendolyn Brooks

And if sun comes
How shall we greet him?
Shall we not dread him,
Shall we not fear him
After so lengthy a
Session with shade?

Though we have wept for him,
Though we have prayed
All through the night-years—
What if we wake one shimmering morning to
Hear the fierce hammering
Of his firm knuckles
Hard on the door?

Shall we not shudder?—
Shall we not flee
Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter
Of the familiar
Propitious haze?

Sweet is it, sweet is it
To sleep in the coolness
Of snug unawareness.

The dark hangs heavily
Over the eyes.

QUOTE:  "There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river.  We need to go upstream and find out why they're falling in." ~ Archbishop Desmond Tutu

I Lost on Jeopardy (Weird Al Yankovic)

I'm taking a bit of a break from the weariness of the world (which will still be here tomorrow) to celebrate the joyfulness - three really amazing things have happened/are happening and I had to honor them...

First of all, I finally took the online Jeopardy test - my friend Judi told me about it at book club the other night, and there was one more evening left to try out. For as long as I can remember, I've watched the challenging game show and tested my wits against the three nightly contestants - I always remember to phrase my answer in the form of a question, even in the informality of my family room... and, considering I don't have that pesky eye-hand-coordination buzzer to contend with, I do a respectable job of appearing knowledgable. I'm not claiming to be that smart but I have a font of useless information cluttering up my brain - every once in a while it comes in handy, such that, whoever is in the room usually says with enthusiastic awe, "you really should try out to be on the show!".

So.. as soon as I got home from book club, I registered and read the rules... and logged on the following evening 20 minutes beforehand to test out my Flash player, get settled, etc. Thirty seconds before the test was scheduled to begin (8 PM Pacific, 11 PM Eastern), the familiar Jeopardy theme song began... as did my stomach butterflies - they tell you in advance to pay attention to the category, you do not have to follow the in-the-form-of-a-question format and you have 15 seconds to type in your answer, at which point you can hit Enter or allow the test to capture whatever you've managed to type thus far.

It was fun, in that weird, stressful, time-limited kinda way - some felt like no-brainers (who wrote the Oz books? - jackpot!)... a few others were above my level of comprehension (something about x, y, domain, function?!?). A few I totally blanked on, and most I tried to at least submit *something* - you quickly find out that 15 seconds feels like no time at all to process much less enter trivia, and I tried to allow my intuition to take over (don't second-guess) and not get discouraged if I didn't know something (which could have affected my answers following). They say that they will not disclose your score, one way or the other and that they will notify you if chosen - the next step would be an in-person tryout in the city of your choice (Miami, in my case). Out of 50 questions, I actually think I got more than half right - wish me luck (oh, to be able to meet Alex Trebek is one of my heart's desires!).
Secondly, Boyhowdy at Cover Lay Down has been suffering from inner ear problems for a few months and, in his words, "last week, in a spate of concern about losing a week of posting to my continuing tinnitus, I asked a few of my favorite folkbloggers to donate 'a fave coversong or two, and a short write-up to accompany it'. The plan was to collect coverfolk from bloggers I trust, on the likely chance that I could not blog as my best self for a while, and have it ready to share with you as a celebration of my blogging peers and influences." - I was one of the people he asked to submit a guest blog (!). Big honor (major understatement) - part 1 can be found here...
Thirdly (be still, my heart!), I will be leaving the house shortly for the Dar Williams concert at the Culture Room in Ft. Lauderdale - we've organized quite a contingent of South Florida folks and I've been promoting the show like crazy. It's at a local rock club and we may end up standing all evening - we're troopers and she's worth it (win/win!).

SONG: I Lost on Jeopardy by Weird Al Yankovic (a parody of the song Jeopardy by the Greg Kihn Band)

BOOK: Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs by Ken Jennings
POEM: Follow Your Bliss by Joseph Campbell

The divine manifestation is ubiquitous,
Only our eyes are not open to it.
Awe is what moves us forward.

Live from your own center.
The divine lives within you.
The separateness apparent in the world is secondary.
Beyond the world of opposites is an unseen,
but experienced, unity and identity in us all.

Today the planet is the only proper "in group."
Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.
We cannot cure the world of sorrows,
but we can choose to live in joy.

You must return with the bliss and integrate it.
The return is seeing the radiance is everywhere.
The world is a match for us.
We are a match for the world.
The spirit is the bouquet of nature.

Sanctify the place you are in.
Follow your bliss. . . .

QUOTE: "Life must be aromatic." ~ Gwendolyn Brooks