Amazing.
Bobby Paulino is also a sax player and has played with many greats including Patti Labelle and Grover Washington.
Note: Dear Friends of this blog,
Giuseppi Logan told me he is going to record the musical piece he named "Suzannah" in honor of me.
Deeply, deeply moved.....
Also note: Bobby Paulino pointed out over my mosaic hexagon in Tompkins with my poem is the word HOPE.
(It is ironic that Tompkins Square Park has a Fountain of Temperance because there are so many drunks it is overwhelming.)
In my short story my main character has died 9-11 but she can't face her own death so she haunts the East Village -- her home, the neighborhood she deeply loves...she can't accept her death and she can't bear to leave....When I saw Giuseppi Logan play that day -- I felt like we were both ghosts in a sense and both compelled to return to the park. So happy to know that high above my poem in the park is the word"Hope". I don't remember seeing that until Bobby pointed that out to me yesterday.
"Love" the one word that is not in my poem but is in every word and note the word "trees"; Jaee kept speaking about broken family trees... I wrote a ghost story and than this hauntingly beautiful real life story takes place by my poem in Tompkins....
I do believe I helped Giuseppi Logan come back to life...he told me without instruments he was dead...
Well he has them now. He has now composed new music and I am so honored that one composition is named for me. I am heartbroken at the broken family tree, trees but to witness part of the healing is beautiful. Giuseppi still needs help and support but this is a story of hope...no matter how late in life there is hope...
I wrote the poem and short story called The Going about 9-11. I cried for a moment at the end when I read part of The Going in a podcast...it is always the end that gets me....the end of the story...when she finally understands and she has to said good bye to the neighborhood... (note: The detective in the story is not based on Community Affair's Det. Hernandez. I just have to laugh because there was a police officer I did have to call the precinct and I could never pronounce his name. The story is pure fiction... a fictional tale to attempt to cope with Sept. 11.) I had no idea the neighborhood would change so much it would be unrecognizable do to Bloomberg pushing a tsunami of community crushing development which I fought so hard against and still do...how amazing that I would be drawn to Giuseppi Logan standing so close to a poem I wrote about death...and loving a neighborhood so much... treasuring the happy memories she had there so much she did not want to let go...
One of the short stories I am most proud of writing is "Chopping the Street", written just before "The Going" and it is about a woman that takes over an international biker club and turns them in to a global financial service firm on wheels". It was really about white collar crime and how hard it is to detect, successfully prosecute and either way it costs the tax payers billions. I wrote Chopping the Street in 2003 way before Wall Street would implode and Bernie Madoff would help cause institutional and personal financial meltdowns of many.
It is amazing that I picked part of a poem from "The Going" to put in Tompkins and that one day I would find Giuseppi Logan playing to an empty house so to speak...Giuseppi was truly missed by a son who thought he was dead and shared his musical gifts...by jazz fans from the 1960's that bought his records.... Giuseppi was missed by a son that lost his son's to brutal random gun violence and is devoted to making change to stop this kind of violence and now this son has regained his father...
So late in life Giuseppi Logan has come back to life. He said returning to New York City changed his life. When he returned here New Yorkers were so generous to him...giving him shelter, clothing, instruments...musical instruments are his life force....being without them is death....
Giuseppi Logan would sit on the park benches and play broken instruments. He would play and play. His small room is filled with instruments and he goes home and plays as well. He is no longer rusty. His compositions are sharp and he is reunited with his youngest son. He looks forward to meeting his Granddaughters. Giuseppi is still struggling. He needs gigs. There is no doubt he is going back to the studio to record more original compositions and again I am so honored one is named Suzannah after me.
Again I have to shake my head that we connected right by my poem a few feet from where he first played Begin the Beguine for me and I ran home and posted the moving rendition on YouTube. I found the video footage from 1966. I have now met the little boy in the footage who was holding hands with his Dad in the park, Tompkins Square Park.......Jaee Logan -- I filmed the Father and Son reunited...I never imagined that would happen. Jaee and I are about the same age... I am so proud to know my art -- my YouTube documentary series with 21 YouTubes made a difference in Giuseppi Logan's life and Jaee's... They certainly have added something to my life.
All right by poem in Tompkins....miss you...miss the neighborhood, the trees, the NYC idiosyncrasies....
post script: In "The Going" I talk about dissociation and after leaving Giuseppi Logan and everyone today I experienced it. I just had momentary amnesia....I had to ask a young woman a question to orient myself....I just got completely disoriented...confused. Just momentary amnesia but as my friends all know I need to rest. This has all been a lot to absorb.
