Setting of the sun - Radar Rose

Setting of the sun - Radar Rose's new single live at the Third Street Coffeehouse.  Catch their next show Saturday, November 29 at The Coffee Pot Roadhouse 2902 Brambleton Avenue, Roanoke, VA.  Please "LIKE" and SHARE!

Wrong Place, Wrong Time

Wrong Place, Wrong Time

Some Thoughts About the Trayvon Martin Case

by j. gabrielle

I live in southwest Virginia in an inner city, predominately African American quiet neighborhood.

Last Fall, on a grey drizzly morning, I stepped outside, out back in the driveway to let my dog walk about a bit and make a phone call.  While on hold with a company, I observed a teen walking quickly down the alley carrying stereo equipment.  He spied me and my dog and his pace quickened as he started dropping components and wires.  I called 9-1-1.  I told the dispatcher what I had observed and explained even then "hey, it COULD be an emergency transfer of stereo equipment". 

 The dispatcher said a squad car was on the way.  The teen walked the long way one street over, met another hooded young man and stood on the porch of a house where neither lived.  Eventually, the two got in a vehicle parked in that property's car port and loaded in the carried equipment.

Another neighbor came down my same alley in his vehicle asking if I had seen two kids.  He had observed them kicking in his neighbor's door and entering her home.  He also had called the police.  

Having lived in this neighborhood for several years now, neither of us had to go and check any street signs to be sure where we lived.  Just saying.

The two teens got out of the vehicle and walked out of sight in the rain.  

Eventually officers did arrive.  They talked to us, wrote down what we had seen and collected the components the young man dropped in the alley.

The court case relating to this incident is continuing even today and I don't know that it will ever be solved.   Feeling violated from the incident and deeply saddened at the loss of a beloved grandfather's watch among other things, the woman's whose home was broken into has moved.

My neighbor and I who made the 9-1-1 calls see each other every couple of months at Juvenile Court for yet another "continuance".  

It wasn't until this past weekend when the innocent verdict came in for George Zimmerman that I considered how my experience might have been different.

Suppose my neighbor or I carried a gun?  Suppose either he or I approached either of the young men?  Suppose we scuffled with the kid and the kid fought back and one of us shot him?

Breaking and entering is not a capital offense.  And FOR SURE suspected breaking and entering isn't.  AND ABSOLUTELY, walking down an alley in the rain with stereo equipment isn't punishable by death.  

How in any court, on any day, for any reason would it have been excusable, acceptable, legal, righteous, or fair that anybody died that morning?

Thankfully, there is nothing in me that makes me want to be a vigilante.  There is nothing in me that wants to do a lawman's job.  There was nothing in my voice or my neighbor's voice that made the Dispatcher say "don't approach him......", for I wan't given that instruction.

What was it in Zimmerman's voice, or his history that made the dispatcher admonish him not to follow ?

On Friday morning, July 12th, the media announced that the court would allow evidence of trace amounts of marijuana in young Trayvon's body admissible.  Waves of relief wafted through me.  "There", I thought.  Anybody with any sense knows ain't no stoned kid confronting ANYBODY unless trapped and cornered.  I thought sure somebody would see that, would say that?

But, they didn't.  The jurors say the law wouldn't allow for a conviction.  

While I can understand those facts with my head, my heart just aches and aches for Martin's family, and for  justice.

Happy Valentine's Day, Mr. Baby.

Happy Valentine's Day, My Darling

by j. gabrielle

I love your spirit.

I love your positive "never gonna get beat" attitude.

I love how our glass is always "half full".

I love the adventures in boxing and face painting and writing for the magazine and going to shows and playing music and going on cruises and making wherever we are "home" because you are there.

I love how you play harmonica along with concerts on T.V.

I love how you call to say you are on your way home to me.  I really love when you "butt dial" me accidentally immediately after hanging up and I can hear you singing along with Chaka Khan in the car.

I love that you really do try to eat right and even though you don't like salads, you will eat one now and then.

I love that you are "strong enough to be my man".  I'm a handful.  Sometimes, I'm two handfuls.  I know this.

I love that you shine up my boots for me before a gig.

I love falling asleep in your arms and the symphony of turning over during the night.

I love that you can't remember what you drink at Starbucks and if I'm not there you will order "something vanilla and wet with 5 squirts."

I love all of your zany stories of a date with Tina Turner and all the crazy baseball stories and I love it that you don't remember if you told me already or don't seem to mind me lying that "you haven't" just so I can hear them again.

I love your calm and that you are always the same person, no matter what is going on in your life.  I like that this calm is reflected in your eyes and your skin and your smile and it reminds me of moving water on ancient rocks in a pleasant creek.

I love it that I feel safe with you.  Always.

I love your patience.  I love your wisdom.

I love it that your Mama and children and grandchildren come first.

I love how faces explode into smiles when you walk into a room.  (Okay.  Most rooms).

I love that you believe in me.

I love that I have this chance to be your girl.

I love you.  Happy Valentine's Day, Mr. Baby.

Long Black Limousine

Long Black Limousine

January Musings by j. gabrielle

"Long Black Limousine.  Shiniest car I've ever seen."

"The doctor says my prostate is enlarged.  He wants me to get a biopsy".  

That was the end of "normal".  

We scheduled  the biopsy for the last Thursday in November.  Afterwards, the doctor was feeling positive and, with a cursory glance he said he didn't see any cancer.  However, when the lab results come back a week later, there is "a little bit of cancer".  My love tells me this after dinner when we've settled in for the evening's glass of wine.  A single tear weaves its way down my cheek.  Fear seizes my heart.  

We make an appointment to see the urologist jointly.  I start researching prostate cancer, and diet and grasp at every food hope that I see.  My love is no doubt sick of blueberries, blueberry syrup, and blueberry juice.  He indulges my edict that we cut out red meat almost entirely.  "Unless it's organic", I say, instantly hating how snotty I sound.

"Back seat is nice and clean.  Rides as quiet as a dream."

It is now a week before Christmas.  The doctor gives us the results.  Stage II sounds scary.  I researched Gleason score and we know what number we WANT to hear and when the doctor says "7", my eyes meet my Love's and he mouths "damn."   Treatments are outlined and as the doctor goes through each one I know there are only four words that my Darling hears; "INCONTINENCE" and "ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION" and "IMPOTENCE".  His forehead sinks to the table on the latter two, "OOoh no."  The doctor shines a ray of bright hope in the form of a treatment called HIFU that is only available outside of the U.S.A. but has a 94% success rate and the lowest incidence of the four dirty words.   The flickering hope is fast extinguished when we learn that treatment is $25,000 and insurance won't cover it.

"Someone dug a hole six long feet in the ground.

I said 'Good-Bye' to you and I threw my roses down."

In the early days of this news, I met with an emotional crossroads all of my own.  You see, I  lost a love suddenly to death in 2005.  My fiancee' succumbed to an abdominal aneurysm.  I was in D.C. for work.  I left for home as he was being rushed to the hospital.  I screamed bloody murder when the family called to tell me "he's gone".  I wanted to drive into a truck.  My idyllic life on Craig's Creek was over.  My best friend was gone.  I lost the house and property.  Eventually, I even lost my job so crushing was my grief.  Friends pulled me through.  I had toughened up a bit when just a year later I lost a boyfriend who died in his sleep.  People started calling me "The Black Widow".  No need to have said this, for I felt it all by myself.

"Ain't nothin' left at all in the end of being proud, 

with me riding in this car and you flyin' through them clouds."

So, there was a moment early on in this new challenge when I had to decide to FIGHT or just give up before the fight even began.  I knew what happiness I had found with this man and I wasn't ready to let it go.  Sleeves were rolled up.  A plan was devised.  We would raise the money!    I became a fund raising fool !  All my energy has been focused on benefit shows, the www.giveforward.com/MacMcCadden site, on silent auctions, on media awareness and taking care of my Baby while he takes care of me.

"I've had some time to think about it.  And watch the sun sink like a stone.

I've had some time to think about you on the long ride home."

A long time friend hands me the first cash donation even before Christmas.  He lends this caveat, "If I were ever going to date you I would really have to rethink it because of this Black Widow thing".  Tears spring to my eyes and I sting as though slapped, but I laugh and take the money.  Instantly my skin thickened.

"Forty years go by with someone laying in your bed.

Forty years of things you say you wished you'd never said.

How hard would it have been to say some kinder words instead?

I wonder at the stars as the sky is turning red."

Tomorrow is February.  The urologist recommended the treatment be done within 2-4 months.  My darling has lost weight.  The time for press releases, music concerts and endless e-mails has passed.  This part so far, this I know how to do.  I just reach back to my black and white movies, to Mickey Rooney days and "Put on a Show"!  I can predict the outcome of this part.  "Build it and they will come" and you did!  And if you did....I love you Man!  Thank you from every cell of my body.  And, well, if you didn't....maybe you will....the website is there...www.GiveForward.com/MacMcCadden.....I just am out of time to e-mail and call and ask.  I must turn my thoughts to the unknown...

"Headlights searchin' down the driveway.  The house is dark as it can be.

I go inside and all is silent.  It seems as empty as the inside of me."

We meet with the trained doctor who will actually perform the HIFU procedure next week.  My Darling will be given assorted medications to take and we will wire the money to pay for this HIFU.  And in three weeks time, we will go to the Bahamas on a Friday afternoon.  On Saturday morning my Love will be anesthetized and super sound-waves will be directed at his prostate to burn this cancer away.  I find it so ironic that a man who loves music so very much may indeed have SOUND heal him.  We are told he will feel well enough to walk out of the hospital and go to dinner that night.  This is stuff of science fiction!  But, I cannot predict the success of this procedure.  I know what I feel....I feel like he will be healed.  I refuse to consider any other outcome or to dwell on it in any way.  My Darling needs my attention on him now.

"I've had some time to think about it.  And watch the sun sink like a stone.
I've had some time to think about you on the long ride home."


Song Lyrics by Patty Griffin, "Long Ride Home" © Universal Music Publishing Group