Yesterday LP and I went over to my Lexus sister’s to help her out. She had foot surgery four weeks ago and is still in a cast. She said it was hard to keep a positive attitude because she’s never had to depend on others for help. I told her that she’s always doing for people and she should just shut up and enjoy being waited on hand and foot, so to speak.

I did her laundry (as you know, I’m a pro at laundry), went to Marsh grocery shopping, and straighten up around her house, and gathered up her trash. Then we loaded her up into the car (wheelchair and all) and took her to lunch and to do a little shopping. LP scored big with clothes. He still loves The Foot Locker and Man Alive (when will he outgrow that “I was born a poor black child” sense of style—I don’t want him to be another PapaZao KFed). Lexus’ credit card was smoking.

Then she wanted to go to a bookstore so we went. We had tea and cinnamon scones. She bought some magazines and books and told us to get some stuff. She bought me that Alan Alda book I mentioned when it first came out in hardcover, so now Never Have Your Dog Stuffed is out in paperback so I got that. Plus she had read John Grisham’s The Innocent Man and wanted me to read it. She really liked it. I also got this intriguing book by Ted Bishop called Riding with Rilke. “A motorcycle odyssey that combines the sensory seduction of the road with the intellectual rewards of archival research.” Hmm. One of my all time favorite books is Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and this Bishop book sounds reminiscent of it. I think I’ll read this one first.

Also magazines: the Rolling Stone magazine with Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert on the cover;National Geographic Traveler highlighting New York City on foot, the Caribbean, Ireland and passages thru India; and two Paula Deen cooking magazines: December issue and a special on holiday cooking. LP selected two hip hop magazines and a James Cagney boxed DVD set. Lexus kept thanking us over and over for helping her out yesterday, but LP and I walked away with some good stuff.

Oh, Also I’m making LP into a Bob Dylan fan. I was listening to one of his CDs when the song “Hurricane” (I love the violins on the song) came on. LP asked me about it, and I told him it was the story of black boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter who was falsely tried and found guilty of a triple murder. Corrupt cops, an all-white jury, etc. I think it appealed to LP’s sense of being a black child trapped in a white boy’s body. : )

I told him that it was really ‘shocking” at the time--to use the words “shit” “nigger” “sonofabitch” and the like in a 1975 song.


Hurricane, by Bob Dylan and Jacques Levy

Pistol shots ring out in the barroom night
Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall.
She sees the bartender in a pool of blood,
Cries out, "My God, they killed them all!"
Here comes the story of the Hurricane,
The man the authorities came to blame
For somethin' that he never done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.

Three bodies lyin' there does Patty see
And another man named Bello, movin' around mysteriously.
"I didn't do it," he says, and he throws up his hands
"I was only robbin' the register, I hope you understand.
I saw them leavin'," he says, and he stops
"One of us had better call up the cops."
And so Patty calls the cops
And they arrive on the scene with their red lights flashin'
In the hot New Jersey night.

Meanwhile, far away in another part of town
Rubin Carter and a couple of friends are drivin' around.
Number one contender for the middleweight crown
Had no idea what kinda shit was about to go down
When a cop pulled him over to the side of the road
Just like the time before and the time before that.
In Paterson that's just the way things go.
If you're black you might as well not show up on the street
'Less you wanna draw the heat.

Alfred Bello had a partner and he had a rap for the cops.
Him and Arthur Dexter Bradley were just out prowlin' around
He said, "I saw two men runnin' out, they looked like middleweights
They jumped into a white car with out-of-state plates."
And Miss Patty Valentine just nodded her head.
Cop said, "Wait a minute, boys, this one's not dead"
So they took him to the infirmary
And though this man could hardly see
They told him that he could identify the guilty men.

Four in the mornin' and they haul Rubin in,
Take him to the hospital and they bring him upstairs.
The wounded man looks up through his one dyin' eye
Says, "Wha'd you bring him in here for? He ain't the guy!"
Yes, here's the story of the Hurricane,
The man the authorities came to blame
For somethin' that he never done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.

Four months later, the ghettos are in flame,
Rubin's in South America, fightin' for his name
While Arthur Dexter Bradley's still in the robbery game
And the cops are puttin' the screws to him, lookin' for somebody to blame.
"Remember that murder that happened in a bar?"
"Remember you said you saw the getaway car?"
"You think you'd like to play ball with the law?"
"Think it might-a been that fighter that you saw runnin' that night?"
"Don't forget that you are white."

Arthur Dexter Bradley said, "I'm really not sure."
Cops said, "A poor boy like you could use a break
We got you for the motel job and we're talkin' to your friend Bello
Now you don't wanta have to go back to jail, be a nice fellow.
You'll be doin' society a favor.
That sonofabitch is brave and gettin' braver.
We want to put his ass in stir
We want to pin this triple murder on him
He ain't no Gentleman Jim."

Rubin could take a man out with just one punch
But he never did like to talk about it all that much.
It's my work, he'd say, and I do it for pay
And when it's over I'd just as soon go on my way
Up to some paradise
Where the trout streams flow and the air is nice
And ride a horse along a trail.
But then they took him to the jailhouse
Where they try to turn a man into a mouse.

All of Rubin's cards were marked in advance
The trial was a pig-circus, he never had a chance.
The judge made Rubin's witnesses drunkards from the slums
To the white folks who watched he was a revolutionary bum
And to the black folks he was just a crazy nigger.
No one doubted that he pulled the trigger.
And though they could not produce the gun,
The D.A. said he was the one who did the deed
And the all-white jury agreed.

Rubin Carter was falsely tried.
The crime was murder "one," guess who testified?
Bello and Bradley and they both baldly lied
And the newspapers, they all went along for the ride.
How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fool's hand?
To see him obviously framed
Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land
Where justice is a game.

Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise
While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell
An innocent man in a living hell.
That's the story of the Hurricane,
But it won't be over till they clear his name
And give him back the time he's done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.


Here's the Wikipedia dope on Carter