Groove Therapy Vol. 3

Groove Therapy Vol. 3

It Tugs At My Soul...Part II

My first visit to C’s home was memorable to say the least. It was a typical Chi-Town summer and I was coming from an interview and wanted to share the experience with C. The evening sun was still perched high above the city and children were frolicking and playing double-dutch. As I got to the front porch I noticed a couple of scoundrels breaking into a car right across the street in broad-ass daylight. Nobody batted an eye. C and her mom came out on the porch to greet me. C’s mom, an older dark skinned woman with piercing grey eyes, looked my up and down, took a long pull from her square and turned to C, “ooooweee, if I was 10 years younger” she replied. This was light-years before old thirsty broads lusting after dudes half their age became fashionable…I think I threw up in my mouth a little…I digress. After the “eye-raping” I made my way into the living room and found a safe place to sit. Out of the corner out my eye I noticed two little girls easing there way into the room, shy but intrigued, nosey but unassuming. “These are my two little angels Jasmin and Jorie”, C said and by the end of the night they had me wrapped around their fingers.
On our first official date I took C to a concert at the Park West featuring none other than the Fugees and The Roots. I was rockin’ the Karl Kani overalls and C was draped in some tight fitting jeans, heels and a waist length leather coat…we thought we was the shit! Couldn’t nobody tell us we weren’t the freshest couple up in the joint! My man Phil was a writer for a local hip hop magazine and he was able to cop us some tickets along with backstage passes. After the 1st show we made are way down a dark hallway into this little ass room were we chopped it up with Questlove and Black Thought. Me and my boys drank all the Corona’s they had and one of them even tried to bum a hit off of Black Thoughts’ “medicine” even before he had a chance to roll it up (that shit was blue!) The scene was crazy…there was some dude in the corner talking loud and shittin’ on Chi-Towns’ own Common. Talking some nonsense about how Common doesn’t represent the hometown properly. Black Thought checked duded aggressively. This was before the whole “Soulquarian” click came about with D’Angelo, De La Soul, The Roots, Common, Jazzyfatnastees, Bilal & Raphael Saadiq. Enough of the music lesson…needless to say after that night I was lookin’ like Black Jesus to C.

Groove Therapy Vol. 2

Groove Therapy Vol. 2

It Tugs At My Soul...Part I

I remember that night so vividly, it was a Tuesday and I had just driven my busted up Chevy Cavalier all the way from the Southside of Chicago and landed on the planet they called the Westside. C’s Mom had just left to go to work and I was playing “patti cake” with her 2 little girls. After successfully putting the girls to bed C and I were ready to indulge in what I really made the journey for…a night of unbridled debauchery. Despite the numerous “mommy I can’t sleep, mommy can we sleep with you?” interruptions we were determined. But there was something about this night that will always have a hold on me.
C and I meet in ’94; we were co-workers and quickly became good friends. We ate lunch together daily and would entertain each other with deep thoughts of a future that seemed so distant. I was a recent graduate of Olive-Harvey College and was trying to find my place and she had just removed herself from a relationship with the father of her two children. We were both employed by the Chicago Tribune in the mail room which I was desperately, achingly trying to escape. I would constantly submit resumes to different entities of the Trib Company and when the rejections came C was always there to encourage me. C was just trying to survive, still living with her Mom she thirsted for a sense of freedom but with two children she felt defeated.
C had beautiful brown eyes and possessed a smile that was infectious; it didn’t take long for me to eventually fall for her. But I was caught between a rock and a need to be loved. See, I was already in a relationship that was at the time 2 years too long but I wasn’t ready to leap just yet. Hope kept whispering to me and I still wanted to listen. But I wanted to take this journey with C…wanted to enjoy her touch, her smile just a little longer.

Blowin' The Dust Off...

The Verb is Back!