HOW CAN I ASK YOU?

I WROTE THIS SONG... AND IT IS THEREFORE DEDICATED TO EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER NOT TAKEN LOVE SERIOUSLY AND THEN REALIZED, TOO LATE... THAT THEY HAD MISSED OUT ON THE BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPEND TO THEM... IN THIS WORLD OF GAMES AND BROKEN HEARTS I'M SURE EVEYONE WHO HAS LOVED HAS BEEN TOUCHED BY INDECISION... AND I HOPE THEY HAVE HAD THE CHANCE TO SAVE A LOVE BEFORE IT WAS LOST TO THEM...

 

 

How can I ask you not to leave?

When all I’ve done was to deceive… you

What we had was so alive

And I’m so sad that it had to die,

 

Your first kiss set me on fire

And baby you know you were my desire

I never dreamed I’d break your heart

Can we go back to where we started?

 

How can I ask you not to leave?

But I’m still gonna beg you no to go

Give us just one more chance if you believe

That I still love you so

 

Baby, I know

That it’s been a hard hard and lonely road

But we’ve got to hold on to what we had

Cause baby it’s the only love I know

Baby, take your time

Have yourself a drink and make up your mind

We may look back on this day many years from today

Sharing a love that withstood the test of time

 

Oooh! Baby! How can I ask you to leave?

When your touch won’t let me hide

What I’ve don’t doesn’t matter anymore

Cause I’ll make it up to you for the rest of our lives

 

How can I ask you not to leave?

When all I’ve done was to deceive…

What we had was so alive

And I’m so happy that were gonna give it another try,

 

So glad you’ve decided not to leave?

When all I’ve done was to deceive you love

Your loves what kept me alive

And I'm so happy were gonna give it one more try

 

FIN

 

Written by Bigdaddyblues/AKA, David Vollin

 

PUTT’N A L’IL SUMP’N ON FOR YOU...

THE BLUES IS A GENRE OF MUSIC UNLIKE ANY OTHER IN THAT IT CLEARLY COMBINES THE QUALITIES OF PURE SHOWMANSHIP WITH A MUSICAL FOLK PERFORMANCE... ADD SMOKE, LIQUOR, AND A SAVVY CROWD OF WELL DRESSED, HIGH-STEPPIN PERSONALITIES TO THE LANDSCAPE AND YOU GET A HIGH-CLASS JUKE-JOINT, THE WELLSPRING OF WHAT HAS CLASSICALLY COME TO BE KNOW AS "THE BLUES" NOT JUST A MUSICAL GENRE BUT A CULTURE UNTO ITSELF...  I WROTE THIS SONG WITH JUST SUCH A SETTING IN MIND.  AND IN THAT AMBERED PHOTOGRAPH I AM STANDING IN TAILS, SPATS, A WIDE-SILK TIE, A CUBAN CIGAR AND A LONG-FIR BORSALINO BEAVER FEDORA... ENJOY...

 

You ain’t gotta spend no money

Can’t think o’ nut’n you need t’uh do,

All you gotta do is lay back real pretty

Cause I’m put’n a l’il sump’n on fo you,

 

I ain’t try’n t’uh be yo lover,

You know ain’t no brakes on d’hese wheels,

Ain’t try’n t’uh meet your mama

She don’t know how you make me feel,

 

I just call’s you when I need’s ya

An dey’uh ain’t nut’n you need to do,

Just let me melt your butter

Cause I’m putt’n a l’il sump’n on fo you,

 

You ain’t the  first, I ain’t never gonna lie

An I’ll see many, many many, many others

Before I lay down and die

An baby all I ever, ever, ever asked you to do,

Is t’uh let Bigdaddy put a l’il sump’n on for you…

 


FIN

Written by Bigdaddyblues/ AKA David Vollin

 

FORGETT'N YO NAME: FOLK VERSION

THIS SONG I HAVE WRITTEN IN TRIBUTE TO THE CRAFTSMANSHIP OF ALL OF THE GREAT BLUESMEN OF AMERICAN HISTORY... THROUGH THEIR STORYTELLING THE CONDITION OF THE BLACK AMERICAN MAN HAS BEEN DOCUMENTED.  WELL BEFORE BLACK MEN COULD HOPE TO AUTHOR A  BOOK THEY TOUCHED THE LIVES OF THOUSANDS THROUGH THE GENTLENESS AND SHARPNESS OF THEIR MUSIC...

 

So you is taking numbuh’s baby?

Better dust off my bad book,

I cain’t keep you from cheat’n

you cain’t keep me from get’n a look,

But I stayed beside you

All the time you wuz sick and out of work,

 

If dhey’s one truth n’ dis life

Dhat’d be awl things will change,

They’s one truth that I do know

Everything surely do change,

Even love th’a  once was  strong

One day dhat love may go away,

 

I marked it down baby, huuh!

Put d’hat one notch on our bed,

Baby I ain’t yo clown, yeah! yeah!

I see’s only one color,  n’ dha’ts red,

dhat’s him lay’n on my pil-low

Yes it should have been my head,

 

I understand dhat you a man

O’ I know whut dhat mean,

Gotta get it whiyle you can, brotha

Dhat don’t got nutt’n t’uh do with me,

Naw you can blame it on what yo drink’n

N’ dha’t def-nly af-fect whut y’awl see,

 

How many men d’uh you need…  Oooh!

T’uh make you feel like a man?  (caint say I really want to know)

Guess I got to take a numbuh

T’uh get into yo bizzie plan,

So since we’z tak’ n numbuhs

I know dhat you will understand,

 

I gave you a taste of d’uh city

N’spite o’ yo cun-try ways,

But you ain’t got enough money

To play this game,

So im gown leave you wheyeh I found ya,

An ima fowgit yo name…..

 

FIN

 

Written by BigdaddyBlues/AKA David Vollin

WHILE IN SOLITUDE...

 

i’ve watched the shadows rise and fall

reflections mimicked on the walls

i lay watching the sunlight play

the moonlight crawl

throughout each waning day…

 

i hear the poetry of progress

a million lives at work whist I rest

i sigh listening to the sounds

that i new best

ere I laid down…

 

too long I’ve basked in restitude

my body wreathed in gratitude

the world shall soon have forgotten me

while in solitude

i live as a sleeping memory…

 


FIN

Written By David Vollin

RETHINKING THE SAGGING CULTURE OF AMERICAN TROUSERS…

 

One of the members of my FaceBook Group bought up a topic we have heatedly debated many times, the sagging of trousers and specifically questioning whether it is appropriate and if so in what contexts.  It immediately occurred to me that my response would require more than a few paragraphs and so I opened Microsoft word and began to compose what I felt was a suitable response.  I did this chiefly because I recognized the issue is far greater than the sum of its parts, it’s not merely an issue of style or etiquette, it is a cultural issue and a very large one.  Wearing ones trousers low to reveal a great deal of boxer or underwear and of course a bit of derriere has expanded to include all races, nationalities and socioeconomic levels of men, it is truly a global phenomenon, not just a thing isolated to The Black American Community anymore...

Any wise historian will pay close attention to the vicissitudes of popular culture, its volatility is often far less powerful than its longevity in the memory of mankind as a whole.  Many of the largest popular movements have been utterly lost to human history.  The point of the matter is to determine how relevant popular culture is to the survival of elements of general culture, in this case is it a matter that is pivotal to the very survival of the Black American culture?

 

So who is this new menace to society, wearing his trousers low  walking with a distinct waddle and mechanically pulling his trousers up every five or six steps he takes?  At first glance he appears to be the classic black male that somehow missed the boat to manhood!  Or is he a boy in a man's body?  Maybe 30 years ago but now he might be any man, White, Black, Asian, Arabic, aboriginal, in any city around the globe.  

I have heard accusations about the nature of exposure of these men's derrieres ranging from a rise in the culture of the homo-thug to a breakdown in core cultural standards of presentation to just kids having fun... In the final analysis any of them, including a broader mixture of them could represent the truth...

I guess this topic got started because somebody decided that wearing ones pants low enough to reveal ones underwear was socially unacceptable...  If so this person has had a very uncomfortable 30 years or so as what started as an inner city, east coast rap and hip hop trend has exploded into a worldwide fashion extravaganza!  Still there is something distinctly unsettling about seeing this style worn by children and grown men especially as it begins to leak into areas where traditionally, a gentleman's attire is supposed to conform with what mainstream culture considers to be proper and professional.  To get to the point, some people strongly feel that it is inappropriate for men to wear their pants sagging in any context or in most outside of the privacy of ones home indoors, this, as you all know, is an ultra-conservative position that  deserves to be subjected to careful scrutiny before being adopted as any kind of rule or social standard…  I usually don't like to make such permanent judgments about a person based merely on their fashion choices since I hold that apparel is an external expression not an intrinsic marker of one’s true self... the determining factor for me comes about when we examine closely if the attire was merely arbitrary or if it is truly a social statement that being made?  We as black men have to examine closely the very nature of this style to determine if it is in fact a formal social affirmation and if so what kind, what does it really mean?  We then are kind of forced to have to qualify it, (which is getting into dangerous territory), to ascertain where it falls along the hierarchy of, “The most appropriate types of fashion affirmations”?  We also have to understand that it is now a much larger issue than can be contained by the finite boundaries of our black communities... black men are not the only ones wearing their pants down low... but our concerns are immediate and localized so it is a legitimate concern to focus on usage  by black men in isolation as a specialized cultural concern.

 

I too am tired of viewing the growing tide of the sagging couture which has lingered in the fashion consciousness of black men for the past thirty-some years now since the advent and rise of Rap, Hip-Hop and Prison culture in the Black-American community but my advice is to carefully analyze this phenomenon so that we do not make the same wrong choices we have made with other aspects of The Post-Civil Rights culture as they relate to the black community.  We need to fully understand it’s meaning and purpose and we also need to respect and recognize its cultural relevance and significance.  Any despot will tell you that the tide of popular culture is a bitch to quell!  On the other hand I do not wholly advocate adopting the  careless attitude of the police chief in the legendary movie "Casablanca" who's lack of opinion or concern waived with the winds of political popularity...

 

I am a solutions-based person which means that I believe that for every criticism there must be a solution designed to fix the problem.  Too many times we focus only on the problem never getting to its root finding it loom above us later even “Bigger and Badder” than before!  So here are the problems and also the solutions at least as I see them:

 

1.       PR0BLEM-1:  The first problem is that there is no general consensus on exactly why black men are allowing their trousers to sag exposing their derrieres.  Like any other sociological study this phenomenon is in dire need of definition not just in street-terms but in a form that can be received by the mainstream professional community. 

2.       SOLUTION-1:  Therefore the first solution is that a study must be done!  No more un-researched, bootleg assumptions should be acknowledged.

 

3.       PROBLEM-2:  The second problem is that once credible, scholarly research has been accomplished and synthesized, what are we going to do with it?

4.       SOLUTION-2:  The Black American community is overdue at fixing or replacing it’s think-tanks for implementation of its core objectives and missions.  We need a reliable vehicle to administer the solutions to this research on a comprehensive, grass-roots level in every Black American community in the country.  Are we truly up to the challenge?

 

5.       PROBLEM-3:  The sustainability of the Black American culture in general and specifically of the black male culture is currently a major problem on the verge of utter failure.

6.       SOLUTION-3:  The primary focus of new and revitalized Black American think-tanks will be to pragmatically examine sustainability issues and develop short and long-term plans for the greater sustainability of The Black American Community in general.  The smaller issue of sagging pants is only a subset of the larger problem and its corresponding solution.

 

FIN

 

Written by David Vollin

 

OUR LOVE IS SO GOOD...

I wrote this song while I was thinking about some past lovers and the good times we shared, the fundamental moments in which we built a strong relationship…  this song celebrates the good side of all of my past lovers and the mutual friendship, companionship and understanding we built together…  it is titled; “Our Love Is So Good” and I hope you enjoy it.  It was written to be sung but it reads easy like a poem…

OUR LOVE IS SO GOOD…

 

The nature of his manhood told me

That he would be the one to hold me

That he would be the one to kiss me

To love me, to miss me

The manner of my manhood told him

That I would be the one to mold him

That I would be the man to hold him

To love him, to scold him

I never met a man so tender

A man so ready to surrender

Who knew that I was his defender

His lover, his mentor

Two men have never had it so good

I want to make each moment so good

To be away from him is no good

So ill love him the way I should

When I get off from work I rush home

When I’m at work I text to his phone

I never want to leave him alone

From the moment that I get home

That man is all I ever asked for

And I am all that he had asked for

And if I ever feel he needs more

I step in to give him more

Two men have never had it so good

The love we share is always so good

The way we care is truly so good

Its so good, its so good….

 FIN

Written by David Vollin

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SHERMAN ANTITRUST LAW OF 1890?

John Sherman Author of The Sherman Antitrust Law

 

Over the past decade or so I have often felt as if I was the only one paying attention in my High School American History Class and just to be fair it might be a fairly accurate assumption given the immanent call of the  wild that kept even the most devoted student a bit distracted from the studious rigors of “Superius Educationis”.  But just for the sake of gentlemanly argumentation I will briefly revisit that yellowed photograph of the mid 1970’s in Father Brogardus’ American History class, specifically to the amber negative of the day we discussed; the Sherman Antitrust Act. 

 

On July 2, 1890 Senator John Sherman, an Ohio republican was fortunate to see the bill he authored turned to law.  Basically the Sherman Antitrust law was enacted to ensure that there would be a healthy climate of competition in the busting American economy.  The act made it difficult for the large monopolies which characterized The Gilded Era to wipe out competition by buying it out or bankrupting it through other means.  The Sherman Antitrust Act ushered in the era of the great workers unions protecting the individual rights of workers from the unscrupulous greed of large companies and corporations focused more on profit than human rights. 

 

Much of the hard-earned rights and protections the little man won during this time have been systematically erased by the modern republican congress since Ronald Reagan in 1980.  In cities like Washington, D.C. and Manhattan the cost of real estate and the costs of starting up and running a small business are out of the reach of the average, hardworking American, only large chains and franchises can afford to open businesses.  Entrepreneurs who might have otherwise been gifted to watch their visions blossom are perpetually locked out of the competitive commercial market by the ubiquitous icons of commercial mediocrity.  Nobody should have to tell any American how the loss of small and family owned businesses in America has helped keep employment down.  It has forced everyone to work for a someone else who almost certainly does not have their best interest at heart.  The day of the American Entrepreneur is being hacked away by Big Business against which no one, especially not the small business man or entrepreneurial dreamer can compete. 

In large American cities family business and small privately owned businesses  that once populated the ground floors, basements and upper levels of nineteenth and twentieth century urban retail districts have virtually disappeared.  This is largely because the nineteenth century row houses and structures that once housed them, including living space in the upper storeys have been replaced by larger structures designed to max out commercial area and bulk at per square-foot leasing costs that represent many times what they had historically been.  The movement toward increased density has crossed over into residential districts as well where rising property values have demanded extra bulk for rental units so that property owners can afford to pay their own mortgages.  The result is that older, more generous accommodations are being hacked away and redesigned into smaller units at higher costs to the consumer.   One has only to tour the average condominium in a city like Washington, D.C. to see how apartment descriptions that read  like a suburban dream house sprawled over acres of land has been crushed into a small box with rooms barely large enough for a bed and living/dining rooms that reek of kitchen odours and sights, some even with balconies that barely fit one chair.  Large residential and commercial spaces are generally owned and managed by the same companies over and over again.  Small businessmen rarely have a chance at prime downtown real estate before these huge companies buy it up and in today's slower economy it is clear that they have the ability to float them while they remain vacant, sometimes for years at a time.  Who can compete with such madness that clearly does not follow the rules of competitive marketing.  In the old days someone who built a brand new office or apartment building would go bankrupt if it did not fill up immediately whereupon another buyer would purchase it and offer the space for more reasonable prices... In today's market wealthy corporate property owners are holding out for elusive retail and office tenants that financing banks thought would pay top dollar.  By floating these companies and bailing them out the entire spirit of free market competition is lost.  Much of corporate America has become nothing more than an elderly cow no longer able to produce milk but propped up in the barnyard to consume resources that might be better utilized by younger, healthier, more creative and viable cows... The cumulative result is that in every arena of the American economy consumers are being force-fed products that  mis-represent their actual quality and value in a controlled market where  price, quality and quantity are fixed by some corporate monopoly pretending to be competitive.

At the All-American Suburban Mall, the hallmark of American prosperity and consumerism the shopper will find that most of the retail establishments are owned by one or two mega-companies and their banks who systematically fix the prices of all commodities from a new t-shirt, to an electrical appliance right down to a new pair of shoes.  The ancient concept of  a shopping Bizarre, a magnificent array of one of a kind and similar shops with which one might wheel and deal finding ones own bargains has completely died in the malls.  Outside of a standard 10 - 20 percent manager discount any hopes of real price negotiation are dashed at the register.  Corporate policies, ironically the same policies crafted by corporate attorneys, governing every sibling company under its great corporate umbrella are nearly identical for a reason... "Price Control"!  If large corporations can control the price of commodities by owning all the stores forcing them to agree upon on uniform price it has always been what I have understood as, "Price Fixing",  "Collusion", both of which are illegal in this country or at least that is what I thought.  One has to ask if oneself if corporations ever considered that consumers would notice they were being railroaded by price-fixing or if they cared?  Do these companies believe that Americans are so brainwashed with mindless consumerism that they don't know or care that they are being harvested.  One has to ask the obvious question, “Why are these stores no longer owned by the original owners?”  "Why wold anyone want to create the artificial illusion that a business was independently owned when in fact it is only a cookie cut in a larger machine of centrally controlled retail establishments?" What happened to genuine competition and diversity in the marketplace?  What happened to that elusive but compelling element that truly made capitalism an amazing phenomenon? 

Residential developments in the suburbs are also affected by corporations who buy large tracts of land and artificially inflate the prices of dwellings offering less for more in spite of obvious economic indicators that show consumers are being pinched at every turn and cannot actually afford the commodities they will ultimately be financially locked into for the rest of their lives.  Consumers who might save money having a home custom built, negotiating prices with architects, contractors and manufacturers and doing some of the logistical work themselves are outwitted at every turn.  Few consumers have time or focus to mange such an enterprise and all the good land is already swallowed-up by large developers anyway. 

These are "Paper-Value" times, when virtually everything is not actually worth its cost or value on paper... In a healthy economy this might be sustainable as long as the paper value was not hundreds of times greater than its worth as it is today.  Americans have to take a history lesson again.  They have to question why they are paying so much for so little and they have to question the source of the price point itself!  A few years ago when what has been called by some, an artificially induced fuel oil shortage, large corporations were able to justify raising the price point for every commodity in the economy on a global level.  City dwellers who have experienced the rise in rents, taxes and every price point from paper to food  and to the clothes on their backs during times of economic hardship know that something is fundamentally wrong.  Who raises prices of commodities when they know people are having greater trouble paying bills due to income freezes, lay-offs and unemployment?  Is this logical?  One criticism of and challenge to the classic but now virulent concept of supply and demand is that if you know a product is in high demand and you know you have plenty of that product why artificially and arbitrarily raise the price when you know you have a sure thing?  The answer is greed!  Greed is why it is so very important to cultivate a competitive free market and to sanction companies that grow large enough to single handedly fix the prices of any commodity making it impossible for a competitor to offer lower prices that may represent a lower profit and actual value.  Although the task of managing corporate growth is a tedious and artificial thing in nature lending itself to bias with regard to what companies get regulated at what times "et omnes" it is a far better safeguard if managed properly to ensure salvation from economic imperialism or even communism... I do not use the term "communism" to infer that communism is bad or that those who believe in it are evil, but lets face it, communism is not the American way at all!  Capitalism is a concept which, like communism has come to a point at which it must be revised in order to remain viable in a global market with no possibility of physical expansion.  When the robber barons of the Gilded Era practised capitalism, manifest destiny was a real expectation.  There are no more unexplored continents and populations to exploit, mankind had maxed his occupation of this planet out!  If capitalism does not reinvent itself in ways that do not choke the life out of consumers it will fail!  The problem is not just American it is global and will take perhaps many decades to play itself out.  In the final screenplay we will discover that on this finite planet there are a finite amount of resources which, when managed effectively can allow everyone to live and compete in a healthy free market.  America is a hallmark of how humans can choose to free themselves from tyranny, it has played itself out many times in our short but brilliant history.  The first time America rose up against political slavery, the second time it was against human slavery and the next time, in our lifetime it might well be against economic /corporate slavery...

When one or two corporations own everything it’s like living in the historic communist U.S.S.R. where the state owns and issues everything at a standard rate.   It can be argued that by manipulating the type of diversity in the economy i.e., the range of the price point relative to any given commodity or service we are growing close to that archaic Russian model.  Free market capitalism must remain free even if it begins to look, taste and smell like communism?  I think not!  this is all the more why it is vital to closely monitor the size and influence of competitive business not as a means of exerting biased growth limitations upon them while allowing others to grow but as a uniform practise that does not insult the intelligence of the American consumer.  Why are we allowing companies to make our choices for us?  Why are we allowing unique, interesting and superior products, companies and ideas vital to the growth of the American economy to be lost in an economic wasteland of what ifs because they cannot be cultivated by small competing businessmen without being controlled by huge corporate interests?  Why is congress not enforcing The Sherman Antitrust Law?

Late Nineteenth Century Cartoon of an American Robber Baron

 

Every American should try to answer, "What happened to The Sherman Antitrust Law of 1890 and why is congress not enforcing it?"  Every American who is unemployed and has viable ideas for a new business but no start-up capitol to compete with established business chains who choke out the competition needs to hold their elected politicians accountable!  Capitalism is The Great American Way of life but it is being threatened by the Robber Baron economy of the 21st century, a Keynesian nightmare of mid nineteenth century flavor that is no longer viable in a global economy on a planet in which humans have already maxed out potential for geographic expansion as a catalyst for economic growth...  Wake up Americans this is not the socioeconomic reality envisaged by the framers of the constitution!  It is an affront to the very idea of economic freedom, fairness and diversity!

 

Written by David Vollin