Then later in the years my sister died.  I thought my father’s death was crucial, but my sister – and she was younger than I was us.  I watched her then.  Whatever she felt, it was not obvious, and as I watched her when one of my aunt’s died, and her father and her mother.  Like she said – each one was different.  When a dear friend of mine asked me how I was able to adjust to all of the changes in the industry that I worked in.  I replied – “I am Programmed to keep going.”  I have learned a lot about myself.  In Tampa a guy that was watching me said, “When you are through with a MF, you are through with them.”  Another associate said to me, in a company take over, that I was different than everyone else.  He said the others were interested in themselves, I was interested in others and how they were going to turn out.

My theory and concept, my determination and will comes from my mother.  My character and what I believe in comes from my mother.  I am a momma’s boy.  Not in the sense that I ran to her, or lived underneath her, but most of the things I did, I took her into consideration.

I can’t tell you that I was a total love to my mother from me, because when I was 9, she wanted to get me things, but I didn’t want them, because I was naturally rebellious.  She totally ignored where I was, and loved me regardless.  When I was 12, I didn’t want to be around her.  She saw through that and loved me unconditionally.  She was the greatest mother of them all, TO ME.  The greatest.  When I was 17, I was a hell-raiser.  Not a street runner, or drug user.  Not a drinker, or a sneaker, not a thief, but a hellion nevertheless.  We had confrontations, but they were mild on my part, I never raised my voice to my mother, nor did I ever call her names or hit her.  I respected her, yet I was me and she loved me uninterruptedless.  (And I know that’s not a word)

She developed my character, and let me be me.  When I had the opportunity to go to Chicago, and I asked her for advice, she wouldn’t give it to me, thus making my maturity enhance, where I made my own decisions and other things.  She cultivated all the good that is in me, I can’t help the bad, when you are exposed to things, you either go one way or the other on them, that’s just the way it is, but when you have a great foundation of principle like the placed inside me, more than less you are going to try to do the right thing.  It was her, responsible for any achievements that I have accomplished.  Whether or not she knew it, I listened to EVERYTHING she told me.

In 2007, February 19^th – she left.  She planned that day for me, all my life.  When I saw her in that casket, I fainted for the first time in my life.  My world ended then.  And had she not raised me the way she did, I would have just stopped, as if a switch that was on, on a toy or device, was clicked to off.  I was done.  But she had programmed me to keep going, and I am still here today, thinking about her every single day and missing her dearly –

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY, “Ma” – that’s what I called her.

If I live longer, I will complete my book which includes her, and will write more about her.

All Rights Reserved…   May 12, 2012  1:40p eastern

A hug, a kiss on the cheek, or a child sitting on a person’s lap could indicate the possibility of something intimate.

Rapist, fondlers and molesters are an area of discussion that has not been taken serious for many decades. A child said to me “I like Tyler Perry movies, but every time I see him the fact that he was molested discusses me so I stopped watching his movies.”  Immediately, I said it was not his fault that this occurred to him and he should not be blamed; if anything, he deserves some compassion for the pain he suffered. Today she can watch his movies without discomfort.

Rape, fondling and molestation have happened to a lot of people.  Some people are open to discussing it while others keep it confidentially inside.  One thing is for sure; if you have experienced one or several of these gross acts, your perception of people, sex and level of trust in others are guided by all three of these experiences in the same way.  What is so unique about it is that you often see what others do not see.  Some people could not fathom such a gross act happening to them or others, nor does the thought ever cross their mind because society has led us to think that these acts only occur when we allow them to happen.  As a result, society blames you and your family as a whole; in turn, you begin to blame yourself.  No support system is provided to you. What you have is a past generation that says to you, “it happened to me too.”  You hear statements such as “You have defiled the family name.  How could you let this happen?  You had to know.  You must have wanted it.”  Everything is said except “This was not supposed to happen. How could I have let this happen? Why did I not see it?  I should have been there. I am sorry.”

People subjected to acts of rape, fondling and molestation sometimes revert to role reversal and become the perpetrator. Coping with rape, fondling and molestation is an on-going process that never ends in your mind. Approach and timing are everything along with the perception you see in others and what they may be capable of. Your keen awareness of your surroundings and people is what helps you to protect others and yourself from such acts. You want to be loved and touched yet it doesn’t feel right at this moment although two days ago you were alright.  Then there is the question of approach.  In a sense, the same approach that disgusts you would at times, appeal to you.  There are times, or at all times when you feel numb or aggressive during intercourse.  It’s not your fault. I am sorry this happened to you. I am happy to see you are getting through it day by day.  You are no longer a victim but a SURVIVOR!!!

Cecelia L. Davis 2012 – All Rights Reserved

“An unexamined life is not worth living” is a quote from Socrates and I am not trying to go deep, just making a point. While sitting in the hospital today waiting for my Myocardial perfusion scan, I was going over my present life. Not just because I was about to have such an exam, which is a noninvasive cake-walk. But I believe in particular, this bit of philosophy from this great man. “An unexamined life is not worth living” and I am willing to wager a few bucks that many of you feel the same way.

The thing I came up with after a very brief moment of thought is: patience…I need to work on my patience. One would think that as the years pass, a good measure of maturity could be the degree of a person’s patience. And the older and, hopefully, the wiser a person becomes, the more he comes to realize the importance of patience.

It is actually amazing as to the number of problems that can be solved by the passage of time. And over the years, I have worn out an old Persian proverb that goes: “This too shall pass.” And whenever I said that, whatever the concern at that time, it would receive no addition attention from me. And sure enough, it would uneventfully pass.

Oftentimes, crimes of violence can be traced to nothing more than a lack of patience. And the number of broken marriages must number in the many millions because of a lack of patience.
Every time a person admits to himself—usually much later—that he has made a fool of himself, he can trace it to a lack of patience; if he had only waited a little while, everything would have been alright. Oh I can continue and give a hundred example where patience could and should have be the course of the time.

And I understand… and you should too, that patience is not passive and should never be confused with idleness and a phlegmatic insensibility. On the contrary, patience is active; it is concentrated strength; it is perseverance—it is knowing that to persevere is to prevail.

Another Greek Philosopher, a surrogate of Plato’s, Aristotle coined the phrase: “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” I subscribe to that too.

So here’s what I am going to do; starting NOW, I am going to work positively on being MORE patience…because I love sweet fruit. Can you dig it?

BRUT BAILEY 2012 – All Rights Reserved

Is today a good day to be discontented? If you are, that’s kool and you should go ahead and do something positive about your discontentment. Discontentment is not a bad thing. It’s actually a part of human nature. Do you have everything you want? NO! You shouldn’t anyway…it dampens your enthusiasm and your “go-get-it-ness” :O). It’s perfectly natural to want…even to want what you don’t have at the moment. In this life, moments of complete and total satisfaction are wonderful— but rare. Even if you have all that you want to have at the moment…it soon gives way to a desire for something else. That too is kool. You see, it’s that discontentment in us that’s responsible for our personal growth and progress. So go ahead and do something positive about your discontentment…go for it. And when the discontentment comes back, repeat the process. I can dig it!

I eat pork. I eat chops, I eat tenderloin, I eat bacon, I eat sausage. I season my beans, cabbage and greens with smoked hocks and sometimes bacon. I put ground pork in my meatballs – it keeps them moist. My favorite pizza toppings are pepperoni and Italian sausage. I save my bacon drippings and smear it all over my body. I got a thing for pork.

I sympathize with people who have decided pork is not a wholesome product. I understand they may have religious principles and dogma that influence their decision. I respect that.

One of my life-long friends abstained from eating pork for many, many years. He adopted this policy because a co-worker, who became his trusted friend, convinced him pork was considered a filthy animal and should not be consumed by a “righteous” person. It goes without saying his friend was a practicing Muslim.

My friend wasn’t a Muslim, in fact he was raised Catholic. But he was obviously highly impressionable. Perhaps it was because this friend who advised my buddy to cool it with the oink-oink was also his main pot supplier, so he probably adopted this practice when he was testing the quality of the product and open to suggestion. That led me to question the hypocrisy of treating your body as a temple when it comes to the food you eat but totally disregarding your lungs and brain cells as you blaze up. Perhaps it’s because the Holy Qu’ran and the bible specifically forbids eating pork, but I haven’t found that “no-blunt” passage in the Word. So I suppose it can be justified. I suppose anything can be justified.

As a caterer and avid foodie, you might imagine that dinner parties and barbecues at my house can be quite the spectacle. But when you have a friend or significant other that has chosen a pork-free existence, you can imagine the difficulty involved in menu planning and adapting recipes that normally include pork. I can’t make a decent meatloaf or meatball any longer, I had to adjust my Shrimp-n-Grits recipe, no more Italian Sunday Gravy, potato skins are lacking something. I have to dual cook real bacon and (disgusting) turkey bacon for breakfast. Oh, and did I mention ribs? I can turn out a drop-dead delicious slab of hickory smoked, dry-rubbed baby backs, but applying the same technique to beef ribs just isn’t the same. Not enough meat or fat between the bones. Nope, just ain’t the same.

So, what’s the case for eating pork? I’ll avoid the obvious assertion that it’s damned delectable. That’s subjective. But I will contend that had it not been for pork, African-Americans would not be here today. It was a major protein staple of our diet as slaves. We survived the 400 years of bondage eating the least desirable pieces and parts of the hog. We elevated chitterlings, pigs feet, snout, ears, and even the ribs—which were initially discarded by the gentry—to high art. I’ve never eaten the extremities or innards. Chitterlings crossed these lips only once in my lifetime, and as Bill Clinton didn’t inhale, I didn’t swallow. As soon as the fork left my lips I knew I’d made a grave mistake. (Just the aroma of them simmering in my mom’s kitchen sent me straight to the medicine cabinet for a swig of Pepto-Bismol.) But without the coveted scraps of bovine allotted us by ‘massa’, the case can be made that we just might not have survived our ordeal.

Pork can be a healthy alternative to other red meats if you choose your cuts well. Yes, I know they market it as “the other white meat”, but we know it’s considered a red meat. The tenderloin is a wonderful cut of pork that is very low in fat – 1gram of saturated fat; only 122 calories in a typical 3oz. serving; and only 48mg of sodium. Compare that to a chicken breast which has 5 grams of fat; 231 calories, and 104mg of sodium. Plus, just like the vaulted chicken breast, it can be prepared dozens, even hundreds of ways by marinating, brining, or applying a crust. And it cooks in less than 20 minutes which makes it ideal for quick, weeknight suppers.

As an advocate of the low-carb lifestyle and staunchly anti-sugar, one of the only permissible snack is – wait for it – pork rinds! Think about it. Potato chips, corn and tortilla chips, popcorn, and crackers are all potato, corn or flour-based snacks which are laden with simple carbohydrates that turn into sugar in the bloodstream and stored as fat if you’re not active enough to burn them. I submit that you’re more likely to have ill-health from sugar than suffer from eating moderate portions of lean proteins such as chicken breasts, beef eye of round, or pork tenderloin.

Pork is eaten by some of the greatest civilizations, notably the Europeans and Asians. It doesn’t seem to have stifled their advancement. My theory is that the mandate to avoid pork emanated from the holy teachings of religion sects because the environment in the Middle East is not well-suited to raise healthy hogs. Pigs don’t do well in the desert. In fact, until the turn of the 20th century, due to their poor diet and unsanitary conditions, pork was easily contaminated with roundworm larvae which could cause a condition called trichinosis, a disease that can be fatal to humans if the meat is not prepared properly. So, there’s justification that the Holy teachings warned against eating pork. In the centuries before modern medicine and science it just made sense to look at pork as un-clean and dangerous to eat. It was the duty of the church to save humanity. However, presently there are only about a dozen instances of trichinosis a year.

As I mentioned earlier I operated a catering business for many years, in fact I still cater for special clients and act as a personal chef from time-to-time. So to close this advocacy for the consumption of pork, I offer the following recipe that will surely impress your family and guests for that next special occasion. This is a relatively complex dish and it may take a few tries to master the preparation, so experiment on family members before tackling it for a dinner party. This should be made the day before the party to allow the pork loin to firm up for better slicing. Attempting to slice it right out of the oven could result in shredding the medallions. If you’re unsure about butterflying the loin, there are several YouTube tutorials out there to help you.

Enjoy, and remember: MODERATION!

Pork on Pork in Pork

Serves 16

1 full Pork Loin, halfed

1 lb. Bavarian ham, sliced thin

16 pieces of thin sliced bacon

Two bags of cornbread stuffing

4  – 6 cups of chicken stock, low sodium

8 ribs of celery, (4 medium diced; 4 cut into chunks)

6 large onions, (2 medium diced, 4 cut into chunks)

1 head + 6 cloves of garlic, chopped (divided use)

1 lb. carrots, washed and cut into chunks

1 Beefsteak tomato, cut into 8 chunks

1 lb. Butter, unsalted

¼ c fresh sage, chopped

1 c parsley, chopped

1 tbs. flour

Salt and Pepper

The day before:

Make the dressing. In a large sauté pan, melt the butter over medium heat until frothy. Add the diced onions, diced celery and cook, stirring occasionally until translucent but not browned. Meanwhile, heat the chicken stock until simmering. Stir in the chopped garlic and sauté for a minute, just until the aroma is released. Pour the cornbread crumbs in a large bowl; add the vegetables, sage, and parsley. Stir to combine evenly.  Add ½ of the stock, stirring to moisten the stuffing mixture. Then continue adding stock until the mixture is very moist – almost soupy in consistency. Salt and pepper to taste – be sure not to add too much salt as the flavor will intensify in the roasting process.

Butterfly the pork loin by making a horizontal cut with a large knife about 2” thick being careful not to cut all the way through the meat. From the center of the meat make another horizontal cut. You should be able to open up the loin as it were a book. Repeat with the 2^nd loin. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Lay 8 slices of bacon on your cutting board or counter. With the heat from your hand stretch the bacon so it’s about 14-16 inches long. Place the opened loin on the bacon (the bacon should be oriented north to south; the loin will lay east to west), place a layer of ham down the center of the loin. Spoon a layer of cornbread stuffing on top of the ham. Only put enough – about 2 cups – so it can be closed completely when the flaps created by the horizontal slices are folded back over. Once closed, pull the bacon around the loin and secure each piece with a wooden skewer driven all the way through the meat at the point where the bacon ends meet. Repeat the process for the other loin. Trim the excess skewer.

Place the remaining stuffing in a roasting pan and bake, uncovered, for 30 minutes until just “set”. Allow to come to room temperature and refrigerate.

In a large roasting pan, layer the chunks of onions, celery and carrots. Cut the bulb of garlic in half horizontally exposing the cloves, then nestle them into the vegetables. Pour chicken stock about halfway up the vegetables, then place the pork loins on top of the vegetables. The loins should not touch the stock or each other. If a fat cap remains on the loin, make sure it is facing up. Cover with aluminum foil and place in a pre-heated 350 degree oven until internal temperature reaches 160 degrees – about an hour. (A probe-type digital thermometer works well in this application and is a worthwhile investment at just $20). Remove from oven and cool on the counter. Once cooled, remove skewers and wrap tightly in aluminum foil and store in the refrigerator.

Strain the roasted vegetables from the roasting pan and discard. Place the pan over the burner if it is stovetop safe (Caution: glass roasting pans are not!, so if you’re using a glass roasting pan, transfer the liquid to a sauce pan and continue.)  Add enough stock or water to make about 4 cups of liquid and bring to a boil, scraping up any brown bits that may have accumulated during the roasting process. Mix the cornstarch and water, then add to the pan in a steady stream while stirring constantly. Season with salt and pepper, add additional herbs such as sage or thyme if desired, store until service. Alternately, you can use canned or packaged pork gravy or add those products to the pan sauce.

For service:

Place 2 large scoops of stuffing in a large roasting pan that will be used for service. Remove the loins from the wraps, and slice using the bacon as a guide – each slice should have a piece of bacon. Place a slice on each mound of stuffing. Drizzle with about 2 tbs. of stock for each portion. Cover and re-heat in 300 degree oven about 20 minutes until heated through.

Serve with additional stuffing and pass with heated gravy.

All Rights Reserved 2012

I know it’s not much, considering other songs on youtube, and other songs that I have written, or got partial credit for writing, however, this is with little or no promotion – Passion Lust Melodic -

just think, if there was a machine behind this and if it were recorded professionally -

My friend and I were discussing intelligence as a motivator. His position is that it takes an intelligent person to be motivated to great heights and accomplishments. And he colored his conversation with several light-weight, unrelated, and hypothetical examples…but nothing tangible or factual. He took a very cerebral but non-stimulating position, I must say. I still love him though, but I wore him out with some simple stuff.

For an example: I believe that intelligence never urges men into action. Only fear, enthusiasm, self-sacrifice to be sure, haltered, and I’ll add one more; you guessed it…love.

Yes sir buddy…that’s why people do things. And that is also the reason why people do not do things and wonder why they don’t. These are the motivators of man: fear, enthusiasm, self-sacrifice, haltered, and yes, love. If one of these motivators is not present, chances are you are not going to do much in this life and one of these motivators is responsible for just about everything you do…surely everything you do of significance.

I told my friend that you can be intelligent and sit and watch TV for the rest of your life. It may never dawn on you to get up even to use the bathroom. You’d be funky, but you’d be intelligent. I know, I know, not a good example.

Take fear! One of man’s greatest motivators. Many things we do we do out of fear: fear of poverty, fear of seemingly looking stupid or ridiculous; fear that others will see through the façade we are presenting, fear of being thought of as a coward, fear of ostracism, fear of the law, fear of death, fear of being alone…you get my point.

Now enthusiasm…here’s a motivator that can and does move mountains. With enthusiasm we are full of energy and only a few things appear to be impossible. You can count them: 1, 2, and 3…that’s it!

Self –sacrifice: It’s a motivator for husbands for their families, as it does the wife. The lives of the martyrs of the world are stories of self-sacrifice. Nothing…not even torture or death…could sway them from their causes.

Hatred: The motivator of motivators. You can see its ugly face daily on the front page of every news paper or on page 17. Hatred is mans last terrible link to his primitive and bloody past. Many knives have been bloodied and triggers pulled in the name of hatred. Although conjecture; that is probably why we are so focused on Florida these days. The word should be banished from our language in hopes that it will be banished from our hearts. Hatred is a big word and the world itself, I believe, has not developed completely, fully, and successfully because of that word. Just the sound of that word makes my skin crawl.

Love! Love ‘o love…to me, the best motivator of the bunch. The one that motivates people to climb the highest mountain and swim the deepest sea. Man will do most anything for it; mostly good, but sometimes not so good. Love is the one that shines in the eyes of parents as they watch their children. Love is the one that represents hope for man. As you know, I could write a book on love. But suffice it to be said that God is love.

Intelligence is a beautiful thing. But by itself, all alone—it’s a little shy on motivation. But we do need more intelligent people in this world. So that those of us that are motivated can expect to be understood. Because we’ve got stuff to do.

Can you dig it?

Brut Bailey 2012, All Rights Reserved

A COMMENT ON RELATIONSHIPS & RESPECT
I’ve never been in an actual “relationship,” but there was this 1 woman I fell completely in love with. She was my boss where I had worked at the time, so that can tell you ISSUES right there. Me and my big mouth, I just had to boast. She didn’t like that, of course, so I obviously lost-out on that opportunity. First lesson to be learned from this is to not boast or be proud.
I hurt for several years after because she is the woman I had wanted to be with.
I don’t know what The Lord has planned for me as far as an intimate relationship with a woman goes, I don’t think I am destined to be with anyone, but there was a lot I could take away from this debacle. When this happened, my eyes were opened to the tragedies of the world around me (U.S. soldier be-heading was front page news) and I became aware of things I had never paid any attention to in the virtue of the many circumstances of her. I suddenly cared about what was going on in the world.

What will I do now? I am trying to address certain issues that came from this experience as best as I can and make them better in any way I can.

There are multiple circumstances I address in this virtue, but they are personal, so I can’t mention them here.

I will mention this one, we need to be more aware of the morals of and examples we set for our sisters and daughters. We need to comprehend what is important and take responsibility for vital circumstances that most others do not.

Rock’s tangled roots sent out new shoots. Cleveland heard it all, somewhere, on radio stations that splintered from top 40 into focused formats, and college radio played what commercial stations didn’t.

Doc Nemo, Martin Perlich and Lynn Tolliver heard. Billy Bass, Denny Sanders, John Gorman, Kid Leo and others heard, and they made WMMS the country’s leading station for new rock, in a format that had no classification, and they made a carnivorous, swaggering Buzzard its mascot.

Starting in 1974, its “World Series of Rock” shows filled cavernous old Municipal Stadium, and filled it regularly. When the station turned 10, in 1978, Bruce Springsteen played a free show at Henry LoConti’s Agora, and treated it like a homecoming. WMMS broadcast it live to a network of stations for an audience estimated at 3 million.

LoConti and concert promoters Jules and Mike Belkin had heard. They built a machine of venues, small to large, that became a stairway to heaven for the artists who climbed it. Not for nothing had David Bowie started his first U.S. tour in Cleveland, in 1972.

Once where hits happened first, Cleveland was where performers happened first. Other places wouldn’t know their names. Clevelanders knew the words.

“Cleveland probably broke more acts than any other city in the country,” Gorman said to The Plain Dealer. Kid Leo said, “We had good ears.”

In the ’70s, it was said, Cleveland sold more records per capita than any other market in the United States.

****    ****

There’s a great story from ancient Greek history that perhaps illustrates something Tommy Marshall woke up in me recently. And that is something Negro Slaves believed and participated in as much as safely possible: “Each one teach one.”

Many of you may not be fully cognizant, or as much aware as you would like to be, of Greek history. Yet I would dare say that everyone reading this is aware of the three greatest names in Greek philosophy. Those names, of course, are Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

What many people do not know, although they know the names and are aware of some of their contributions of these great thinkers, is that each of them directly interacted with the other.

It’s an astonishing thing to discover that Socrates never wrote anything down at all. He was what’s called a pedantic teacher—that is, he was a walking teacher. And like other pedants, he would walk from city to city and was paid a fee for the lessons he would give at each location.

As he would journey, he would attract various students who were interested in, or fascinated by his great mind and particularly by his great personality and the strength of his character—as you may know, the kind of man who would rather drink poison than to give up his beliefs. And of course that was his fate.

One of his students was a young man by the name of Plato. The only reason we know anything at all about Socrates is because Plato wrote down his words, and these became known as the dialogues of Socrates. Plato took the great man’s thinking and improved on it with his own massive intellect. Plato created a number of concepts about the state, and how one should govern, that underlies our U.S. Constitution to this day and even some of our management thinking today as well.

Plato, in turn had a series of students. The most notable was a young man by the name of Aristotle. Plato was a direct teacher of Aristotle.

Here we have as an example, the greatest minds in Greek history, each being the direct instructor of, each adding to, the work done by the previous teacher. Socrates to Plato to Aristotle. Amazing huh?

Yet actually the story doesn’t stop there. Because Aristotle was approached by Phillip of Macedonia who had an 11 year old son and he wanted a private tutor so he hired Aristotle as his son’s teacher. Again, the boy was 11 years old at the time, and his name was Alexander. In time, history would call him, Alexander the Great.

I know we don’t like to read and if you got this far, I am impressed. More important than that, I just wanted to share with you an example or a reason why we should find it important to share what we know.

Again, a while back, Tommy Marshall resurrected an old saying attributed to Negro Slaves from back in the day: “Each one teach one.” It is still a great thing to do. Can you dig it?

Brut Bailey 2012.  All Rights Reserved