All Write

Michael Joseph Jackson 8/29/58-6/25/2009

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:35:39 -0400

I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears when I heard about the death of Michael Jackson. It goes without saying that Michael was a consummate entertainer, and everyone who was blessed to see him perform live knew they were witnessing greatness in motion.

When I was 4, I remember sitting between the legs of a woman who was styling my hair in small ponytails. I don’t remember who the woman was, but I remember that Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall album was playing in the background. I am sure the music made the process of getting those tight ponytails a little easier. "Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough", "Rock with You", "Workin' Day and Night"...Just typing the titles of those songs still makes me enraptured. At four years old, Michael’s music made an imprint on my soul.

I was 7 years old when Thriller was released, in November of 1982. I know when most people think of that album ,they think of “Beat It” or “Billy Jean”, but my favorite song was ”P.Y.T.” I remember visiting my father during the summer and he sang “I Want To Love You (P.Y.T.) Pretty Young Thing”, and while doing so he pointed at me. From that moment on, “P.Y.T”, was my song and nobody could have ever told me that Michael wasn’t singing to me. Memories of dancing in front of the full length mirror, while my brother practiced his Michael Jackson moonwalk in his zipper jacket, are prized carefree childhood moments that passed too swiftly.

When the “Beat It” video would come on television, we would shout the chorus and watch Michael be the fashionable and fearless dancing peacemaker. I thought it was so cool that he could stop a fight without fighting, and I always looked for an opportunity on the playground to re-enact that video. That never happened, but what did happen was that I developed my first girlhood love affair; I was convinced that one day Michael would marry me.

Sitting in a stadium full of screaming men, women, and children, watching the Victory Tour concert in Miami, I remember feeling the collective heartbeat of the crowd becoming more rapid as the beginning of the concert approached. When Michael took the stage, the entire stadium erupted! I was convinced that Michael could hear my screams above the others, and that when he said ,“I love you”, he really meant it...for me. That night I felt like the luckiest girl in the world.

When the Bad album came out I was 12 and I remember Michael trying to romance the woman in the "The Way You Make Me Feel" video. I loved it, but more than anything I loved the way that she walked in the video. I practiced that walk with my 12 year old beginning hips for an entire weekend, and when I stepped off of the bus at my middle school that following Monday morning, I felt BAD!

Between the Bad and the release of Dangerous in 1991, I fell deeply in love with George Michael (that relationship didn’t work out), but when I saw Michael’s, "In the Closet" video, I fell in love with Naomi Campbell. I was mesmerized as she and Michael played cat and mouse, and she definitely was the pussy cat. I watched that video a million times and imagined being her in the video, but most times I imagined being him. Sigh...Thanks for that Michael.

Like most, I was disturbed by the allegations that were tossed at Michael over the years. I watched the coverage of the trials, and admittedly, I questioned whether or not those things were true. I’ll just leave that verdict to the Universe. My love of Michael was because I remember the feeling of watching the American Music Awards in 1984, screaming in front of the television as Michael picked up award after award, and of course, Moon Walked. I felt like anything was possible when I saw him perform. I felt like he belonged to me and I loved him in that 9 year old girl sort of innocent way that made me think he was everything. Michael wasn’t just an entertainer, he was the reason I danced to “P.Y.T”, bragged to friends that I had the Michael Jackson doll and parachute pants, the reason I only drank Pepsi, and yes, wore a lone white glove that I took from my grandmother’s drawer. He was my childhood. No matter where the truth lies with Michael, no matter how unconventional he was, and no matter what the details are surrounding his death, nothing can take that from me.
© 2009 Alexis Monique Escalante All Rights Reserved

God Is Good

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:54:44 -0400

I am not a religious person. My beliefs are a mélange of Paganism, Bahá'í,Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism, but I am not a follower of any one of those faiths. I don’t believe the way to enlightenment is through one particular religious figure. I don’t cling to one religious philosophy over another. I don’t believe in the devil or a hell, other than the one people conceive for themselves. I’ll leave the proselytizing to those who are compelled. I’m not threatened by your beliefs, and you shouldn’t be distressed by mine. God is good.

As a child, my concept of God was contrary from those that I had been taught. I innately couldn’t accept the God that I heard about in Sunday School, or the one adults in my life said I should fear. I didn’t fear God at all, but I did fear spankings from nuns, going to confession, the disapproving stares of stern women who wore gold crosses around their necks, the minister in my town who everyone knew had assaulted his mistress in the church parking lot, and the gossiping older women who whispered about the faux pas of others. I feared the “followers”, but never God. In my eyes God was hidden in my grandfather’s neck, in the macaroni and cheese my grandma Susie made, the fragrance of approaching rain, the smell of a rising pound cake, my English teacher who read my paper aloud to the class because she thought it was exceptional. My God sang like Chaka Khan and looked like Grace Jones.

I have an appreciation for the beauty of religious traditions. One of my dearest memories of attending church as a teen is of my brother, who played piano, singing the song “Give Thanks”. Every time he would sing that song, my eyes would search to find Mrs. Anderson in the pews. “Give thanks with a grateful heart. Give thanks to the holy one. Give thanks for he has given Jesus Christ, his son...”, and as his voice filled the small Lutheran church, my eyes found her face. Seeing her soft smile and closed eyes, that sometimes released a lone tear, was palpable. My hidden admiration, disguised as a respectful teen, was elevated every time she lowered her head in prayer, smiled, and said “Good morning”. It was the first time I remember recognizing God in church.

Once at a February protest in Washington, D.C, I stood shivering in a crowd of hundreds of thousands listening to speeches by Jessie Jackson and Ralph Nader, but all I could focus on was that 20 degrees was too cold to be standing outside (no matter how many layers I had on). All of a sudden God offered me his hand warmers, his tea, and before I knew it several bodies had given themselves to me to use as heating blankets. That day God danced to the rhythms of handmade drums, held up 6ft tall puppets, passed out pamphlets and buttons, and even posed for pictures.

God has made many appearances in ordinary places to do extraordinary things in my life: a couch to sleep on when I was 20 years old, suggested life changing books, sent flowers, told me “not only is it all right, it’s all right-RIGHT NOW”, talked me through a breakup/makeup/breakup, sent handwritten letters and cards, and was my traveling companion. We even shared a bottle of wine on a living room floor in New Mexico.

Over the years I searched to find a religion that correlated with my experiences, but after reading countless books, attending various ceremonies, lectures, joining the Bahá'í Faith and leaving the Bahá'í Faith, I accepted that no one religion could contain my belief in the great abiding energy. My spiritual home was closer than I ever previously recognized: It was inside. It wasn’t based in fear or tradition, but in love and freedom.

Call it God, The Universe, Nature, or The Great Spirit, I know it is real. One need only to sit on rocks in Sedona, Arizona at sunset to know that there is a supreme love energy in the universe. I’ve seen it for myself, but rarely from pulpits. Turn your head slightly. Squint if you must. Perhaps you will see it in the woman who just let you in front of her in traffic, taste it on the tearstained cheek of a lover, feel it on the cusp of an orgasm, experience it while listening to Nina Simone’s version of “Feeling Good” or better yet, Mahalia Jackson singing, “How I Got Over”. Admire it confidently in the mirror. That love/God resides in me...and in you.
© 2009 Alexis Monique Escalante All Rights Reserved

Life’s Ink Blot

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:46:12 -0400

I spent a couple of hours yesterday in a tattoo parlor. Recently, my friend Lia found out that she has cancer that has metastasized. The prognosis? Something that I haven’t completely permitted to plunge into my psyche. The day after getting the news, Lia and her best friend decided it was time to go get a tattoo. They got the same thing: Eastern Tailed Blue Butterfly.

As I entered the shop, I heard Lia say, “Is that my girl?” We greeted each other with a warm hug. I was then reintroduced to her friend Jodi, who I had met once before, and introduced to Russell, the tattoo artist who Lia jokingly calls her “boyfriend”. Russell has a beard that ages him beyond his 31 years and hides a sweet face that is exposed with every smile.

Lia and her friend had heightened energy, and at times I felt like I was observing 14 year old girls doing something that they knew would anger their parents, which somehow makes it more exciting for the girls involved. There was a lot of cancer talk mixed in with stories about body modifications that entail men splitting their penises in half, how breasts do nothing for the other tattoo artist because he has seen so many in the shop, medical marijuana, metal music and a lot of expletives that seemed at home in that environment.

Watching and listening to the life around me and how Lia spoke of her recent diagnosis as “fucked up”, which seems to be the best way to describe it, I struggled to make sense of it all. She doesn’t drink. She doesn’t smoke. She’s a vegetarian. She exercises. She is probably one of the most spiritually connected people that I know. I kept looking at her round cheeks kissed with life, her blue eyes, her animated way of being, and wondered how it was even possible that she has anything inside that could silence her. Were it not for the sometimes shortness of breath and the biopsy scar that all agreed resembles a labia, there are no outward signs of sickness.

As the tattoo process began and the buzz and voices merged together into a hum, I thought about the day and how I would live the rest of it, and even the rest of my life. I plan on living a very long and healthy life, but none of us know the outcome. I plan on being a very queer old woman who yells at the Girl Scouts who come knocking at my door. I plan on seeing my 3 year old nephew get married and possibly have children. I plan on eating fruit and talking about how back in my day strawberries were sweet. I plan on a lot of things that are not guaranteed. As the needle injected pigment into Lia’s skin, I thought of a new plan. I plan on being here now.

I was consciously observing all things about that moment in the shop, even those that were unpleasant like the raunchy sexual jokes, discussing the position Lia has named the “Butt Fuck Position”, which is the only one that helps to alleviate nausea, and her saying when she “croaks” she will haunt her best friend. Unpleasantness and uneasiness are a part of this journey, but so are laughter, warm embraces, eyes that stare back into mine, the sort of quiet love that speaks it’s own language, and the surprise of finding a tattoo artist named Ari, who is eager to tattoo his sketch of Noam Chomsky on someone. That’s what this journey is- a hodgepodge of discomfort, joy, heartbreak, love, disappointment and surprise. I decided I didn’t want to run away from any of that.

Russell didn’t charge them for the tattoo and said it was his get-well gift. Lia was amazed by his generosity, although she shouldn’t have been. There are more people in the world like her, and like Russell than most of us ever really focus on. She said, “Hey, maybe I will come back and get a Fuck Cancer tattoo.” That sounded like music to my ears. I definitely want to give cancer the middle finger, and to give everyone else in my life another finger that motions them to come closer.

© 2009 Alexis Monique Escalante All Rights Reserved

Miss Thang

Mon, 8 Jun 2009 15:23:56 -0400

In recent months I have been gathering old photos from relatives in order to create a history album. Until the album project, I hadn’t seen many pictures of myself as a young child, and never a baby picture. Over the past year, the photographs have one essential commonality: I was “Miss Thang”.

Rarely is there a photo without my hands on my hips, or head cocked with confidence and attitude. When I look at some of those photos I think, “There is a girl who knows exactly who she is”. It seems odd to think of children with such secure identities, but the girl in those pictures was sure she was the star of the show. Who I was and am, is that little girl pulled up to a chair in front of the typewriter. Confident.

What I noticed is that those vibrant pictures changed around the age of 9 years old. There were fewer glimpses of that Alexis, but more of one who was trying to figure out how to create a black girl bang without a roller bump, the one who learned how to pose in photos so that her freckles didn’t show, and didn’t smile as much because smiles were somehow corny. By the time I was 14 or so, those joyful and confident childhood photos had disappeared, and had been replaced by the self that believed there was something defective within. These messages came from advertising, from television, classmates, and at home.

The first time I remember my looks being criticized as a child was by a relative telling me that I had a “pig nose”. I remember the relative laughing, but I failed to see the joke. Why did I have a pig nose? Did he mean that something was actually wrong with my nose? I remember looking at my nose from different angles in the bathroom trying to figure out what I would do with a horrible pig nose stuck on my face. There had to be something wrong with my nose if someone who I loved told me so, and of course, this was reinforced when my fifth grade boyfriend told someone that he too thought my nose was too big. It was then that I learned how to pose my face in pictures in a way that I thought hid the piggy-ness of my nose.

Pebbles thrown at self-esteem eventually turn into boulders at the opening of a tomb, where Miss Thangs are buried, and the knock off model takes her place. The knock off is the one that envies, gossips, and doesn’t like walking into crowded rooms alone. The knock off doesn’t tell her shoe size, because they are classified as “big”. The knock off follows rules blindly. The knock-off cuts off parts of herself that others find useless. As lovers of the Valentino Rose Vertigo Satchel handbag know, a knock-off is never as good as the real thing.

Recently I took a photograph of my three year old niece, who struck a pose when I prompted her to get ready for a picture. Imagine my surprise when I noticed the similarities between her pose and the ones I saw in many of my young photographs. It occurred to me that what I was witnessing was her very essence, before anyone feeds her a story of imperfection. It was the spirit before she is told that there is something wrong with her. It’s her before she’s ever criticized for her beads not matching her outfit, before someone tells her that her legs are too fat for a short skirt, before anyone talks behind her back and she feels the sting of betrayal, and before she ever compares herself to anyone else. She is untarnished.

I will likely place the picture of my niece in a frame and hope that same spirit survives as she travels through this experience. With each passing day, the little girl in the picture at the typewriter is becoming more recognizable in my reflection, and I am tossing fat pencils, Crayola Crayons (64 pack), and glue sticks in the Smurfs book bag at her feet.
Although there are some who would say that my inner Miss Thang has never vacated, I am working diligently to create an abiding home for her...and I’m taking pictures!
© 2009 Alexis Monique Escalante All Rights Reserved

My name is Alexis, and I Kill Shit.

Mon, 2 Feb 2009 18:11:22 -0500

First do no harm.
There are a few things that give me the willies: owls, cats, squirrels, and snakes. Out of all of those things, snakes are the creatures that I am the least offended by, but they still give me chills. Well, yesterday a snake somehow slithered its way into the garage and it was up to me to get it out of the garage. I would have paid someone to remove it for me, but I was terrified that if I lost sight of the snake it would hide behind paint cans, bicycles, never to be found again. (It made me regret not having saying "I do" when I had the chance, because if there is ever a reason to have a husband, that would be it.)

*It was a face off : In the blue corner, wearing all black with an orange stripe around the neck, weighing in at 2oz, 9 inches long, is poor helpless snake. In the red corner, wearing a black nightie, weighing in at all booty and boobs, standing at 5’7, is Alexis Monique Escalante. Let’s get ready to ruuuuuuuummmmble *ding*

Initially I thought I would send messages to the snake, like, “Yo, it’s either you or me, so get it together and get to steppin homie!” I guess it didn’t receive the messages because it didn’t move, only raised it’s neck , which I interpreted as one of those, ‘Oh no you didn’t” sort of neck rolls that black girls from Lil Pakistan learn to perfect early on. I looked around for something to encourage the snake to leave, but for some reason panic took over and I took a 2x4 and slammed it on top of the snake. “There. It’s over and I don’t have to do anything but lift up the wood in a few minutes and it will be over.” Then the guilt started hitting me, but I kept a distance from that, and figured I had plenty of time to hate myself for what I had done later. I looked around for the shovel so I could lift the plywood and toss the dead snake outside. I moved the plywood a few inches with the shovel and suddenly the snake’s head and body emerged moving! “Oh my gawd! This fucker is still alive!”

Then it happened. I was overcome with fear and disbelief and without really thinking I began to savagely attack the snake with the shovel, all the while screaming. Over and over again I tried chopping the head off with the shovel. Then, when I did notice it was cut in half, the body was still moving! So i just kept hitting it over and over again like I had been transported into the pages of The Lord of The Flies. Finally once there was only a little movement, I scooped up the battered body and tossed it into the hedges where it hung pitifully from a small branch. I closed the garage door and returned to my living room where I tried to calm my nerves with conversation and coffee.

A few minutes later I was looking through my sliding glass door and there was movement inside of my screen inclosure. I stared in disbelief and said, “I don’t even believe this shit! Another fucking snake!” I ran and got the weapon I had used before and repeated the same Black on Black crime that had transpired only moments before. This time the body was thrown in the lake behind my house.

I returned to my living room with a racing heart beat and sat trying to still myself. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears getting louder and louder. I could hear my heartbeat after I took a life, and I kept telling myself that “It was just a snake. Only a snake. Snakes don’t matter.” I suppose serial killers justify their crimes somehow. It would be impossible to take any life if one thought that life mattered.

I looked the snake up online and learned that it is no more dangerous than an earthworm. The snakes are docile and if one ever bit the teeth are too small to even break the skin. Snakes have lungs, a pituitary gland, a stomach, spleen, kidneys, etc. Snakes have hearts that function like my own. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had not only murdered something, but had committed murder twice, The site even said that people even keep these snakes as pets. (Ok, now having a snake as a pet is something that I am just too Black for...but still!) I imagined a relationship with the snake. I would have been able to keep it close by with the certainly that when I returned to the tank it would be there, it would desire nothing from me other than food and water, would keep all of my secrets and would never use them against me, would never betray me, or ever hurt me. My harmless victim would have likely been more dependable than many people I have known in my life. Shit.

While laying in bed last night I asked the snakes to forgive me for killing them. I even did my own sort of confession to the universe that went something like, “Hi, in case you don’t remember me, my name is Alexis and I kill shit.” I then proceeded tell the universe that I was thankful for the lesson, even though it took two kills for me to “get it”. Every thing on the planet deserves life. Every thing deserves a chance. Every thing deserves second chances and third chances even... I guess that even includes me.

© 2009 Alexis Monique Escalante All Rights Reserved