The Long Kiss Goodnight
My mother was an endurance athlete. Not in the gym or on the road….but of life. She did not want to say goodbye to it. She comes by that honestly; in our culture the long-suffering, tenacious, enduring woman is someone to be admired—a figure of virtue, of honor. This attitude was interwoven in her DNA; thick like blood, deep like marrow.
She lived up to this image, and down to it as well. For the same woman who was used to putting others first, often put herself last. She bought a set of fine china when she was in nursing school that to my knowledge, has never been dined upon. She had some beautiful clothes that were seldom (or never) worn. Same with jewelry. She was all about taking care of business, and not much on pomp and ceremony. Frankly, she was hard to buy gifts for. But…she had a lifelong love for action movies—even westerns—anything that had suspense, thrills, speed, gunplay, strategy, and most of all—where the heroes won at the end, and the villains got what was coming to them.
And it was with that thought, that several years ago, I got her some films for Mother’s Day; among them, The Long Kiss Goodnight. It’s an action-packed spy movie featuring Geena Davis, who plays an amnesiac kindergarten teacher with a very interesting past as a top CIA assassin, and Samuel L. Jackson, a disgraced former-cop-become-private-eye who helps her research her past and rediscover herself—much to the shock of her former colleagues, the architects of a false-flag operation designed to create a faux-”terrorist” threat (with real explosives) in order to secure greater funding for their department.
It had everything my mother loved in a movie: politics, intrigue, fast-paced action, killer fight scenes, revenge, redemption, the requisite good guys winning and bad guys dying, and a badass female hero….who wasn’t just a hero, but also Somebody’s Mother.
She watched this movie all the time. More often than The Godfather, another of her favorites. Every time she played it, she lived vicariously through “Charli Baltimore”, the fierce, never-say-die heroine of the film. Charli, who cheated certain death several times throughout the story. Who above all, fought for her little girl. Charli didn’t just save the day; she was the path through which Samuel L. Jackson’s “Mitch” redeemed himself as one of the good guys. Charli was tough, resourceful, and a tough taskmaster; one of the more salient lines in the film comes from her stern lecture to her daughter while teaching her to ice-skate: “Life is pain. Get used to it!!” Charli taught her daughter well, and realized this when she handed her the exact tool Charli needed to make yet another of her great escapes; hidden in her daughter’s arm cast—the cast she wore from the fracture she received ice-skating, from the fall that prompted the lecture.
Poet Maya Angelou once said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” My mother didn’t tell many of her stories; omertá was her modus operandi. I think on some level The Long Kiss Goodnight wasn’t just entertainment for her; it presented an authoritative statement on motherhood, and the intensity of a mother’s love. The lengths to which we must go for its defense.
G’night, Ma.
Crystal Lee Sutton: Labor Heroine (cross-posted at Feministe)
Crystal Lee Sutton, originally of Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, died of cancer September 12 at the age of 68. She was instrumental in the 10-year fight to unionize the J.P. Stevens mill, where she once worked for $2.65/hr. You may remember her as “Norma Rae”, as portrayed by actor Sally Field in the Oscar-winning film of 1979.
Crystal moved on from the J.P. Stevens mill after becoming an organizer for the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union; she eventually returned to school and graduated from Alamance Community College, who maintains her records of the organizing battle and a website about her life. She was initially denied coverage by her insurance company for treatment for her cancer; her husband worked two jobs to help pay for her medical care. The North Carolina State AFL-CIO is also accepting donations for her medical bills.
“It is not necessary I be remembered as anything, but I would like to be remembered as a woman who deeply cared for the working poor and the poor people of the U.S. and the world.” –Crystal Lee Sutton
Rest in peace, Sister.
Lu Lutta Continua.
headnod: Uniongal
That’s Why I’m Cryin’: R.I.P. Koko Taylor
We lost a giant the other day. The Queen of the Blues died from complications related to surgery on June 3, 2009 at the age of 80.
Koko Taylor was born on September 28,1928 on a sharecropper’s farm outside of Memphis, TN. Her mother died when she was four, and along with her brothers and sisters she grew up helping her father on the farm—until he died also, when she was eleven. She had an early love for music and sang gospel in the local Baptist church; at home, her brothers and sisters made rudimentary instruments and “played” along with the radio. In 1952, she moved to Chicago with her fiance, Robert “Pops” Taylor; they married in 1953. They both had day jobs—Koko cleaning houses on the North Shore while Pops worked in a slaughterhouse—but at night, they’d go to the Chicago juke joints and sit in with the musicians. Koko became a favorite of the audience for her rough, low growl that invoked Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Big Mama Thornton.
In 1962, she met Willie Dixon and started recording with him; he helped her get a contract with Chess Records, where she had her first hit with Dixon’s “Wang Dang Doodle”. Dixon encouraged her to write her own music, so she penned her first song, “What Kind of a Man is This?” about her husband, friend, promoter and producer, Pops Taylor. After Chess Records folded, she signed with Alligator Records, and was there ever since. In 1989, a serious car accident injured Koko and several members of her band, including her husband Pops, who later died from injuries sustained in that accident. During the 1990′s she made appearances in the films “Wild at Heart” by David Lynch, “Mercury Rising” and “Blues Brothers 2000″.
Always one of the busiest performers on the blues circuit, she performed an average of 200 shows per year up until 2003, when she had a heart attack and slipped into what became a 28-day coma. She had to relearn how to walk, and returned to the stage in the spring of 2004 for a more moderate average of 100 shows a year. She has been nominated for eight Grammys and has won numerous awards from the blues community, including 25 W. C. Handy Awards (more than any other performer). In 1997, she was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, and in 1999 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Blues Foundation. In 2004, she made a cameo appearance on the PBS children’s television show, “Arthur” along with Taj Mahal. (“Mama!! C’mere!!!! It’s the lady who sings ‘Don’t Mess with Mother Nature’!!!!”)
She co-hosted the radio program “Blues You Can Use” that aired Thursday nights from 7-10PM on Gary, Indiana’s WGVE 88.7. Still a touring musician, her last performance was at the Blues Music Awards in Memphis, May 7, 2009. Koko Taylor was an inspiration to other musicians in the blues world; Susan Tedeschi, Shemekia Copeland, Bonnie Raitt and Janis Joplin all counted her as a strong influence. From a 1994 interview, Koko says about her music, “In other words, my career, my singin’, a lot of people ask me, “What is the blues? What does your music mean to you?” To me, my music is like a therapy. My music is healin’, you know? It’s healin’, it’s therapy, it’s encouragement. I try to sing the type of songs that make people happy. I try to sing a song that’s gonna touch somebody, to make them look up, pep up, feel good about themselves, encourage them–have a lyric that will encourage them in some way…”
And that’s one of the best explanations I’ve heard on what the blues is and why it’s still around—the frank admission of pain and cartharsis; speaking recovery into being.
“Don’t mess with Mother Nature……you’ll be sorry if you do….’cuz I’ll rain on your parade, and I’ll storm all over you!”
R.I.P. and God bless, Koko, for sharing your gift with us.
For more on Koko Taylor:
Pacing & Howling
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Changing Moods
