‘Don’t Blink’: The Legacy of Dick Gregory
It’s 3 am and I can’t sleep though I usually am dead to the world by 9:30. I keep thinking about Dick Gregory, who gave us so much and lit up even more. I have a theory that public people pass over just when the world most needs to receive the message of their lives. So when figures I deeply admire die, I try to hear what’s being said.
In Mr. Gregory’s case, he had jokes but was not pop culture; he was culture, pure and sharp. Sharp-dressed and sharp-toothed with kind, sad eyes that scarcely blinked when it came to taking it all in. “I’m not a comic; I’m a humorist,” he said, and showed us the difference. With his kindly, kindling wit, he never sang for his supper but cracked on love and hypocrisy, diet and addiction, and, always always, race. He talked about our blood legacy, the generations of backs that refused to break, the greed and loutishness that was as American as apple pie. He was a bridge who assessed the toll already taken. Continue Reading →
No Book Is An Island
There are so many dreadful things afoot and if we let them (as I did yesterday) they can devour us entirely. This morning I did not. Some of you may know I am writing a book and finding it the greatest challenge I’ve ever tackled. It is lone-wolf work. You must be alone and you must be focused and you must listen well. But it is also collaborative. Spiritually, emotionally and even physically I sometimes need rescuing from this story, and I am used to relying only on myself. On a day like today, when I write long and well and see how it all may fit together, I feel more grateful than any time since I was a 3-year-old viewing the world from the safety of my daddy’s shoulders. In turn, I send love to you. For the love we each generate shores everyone else, even when we think ourselves islands.
