Tag Archives: Oprah Winfrey

Living The True Story.

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A guitar player I know just posted a summary of his life, on social media.

Guitar players being legion on this planet, many of us tend to pigeonhole these ubiquitous musicians. We not so subconsciously sort them into: 1.) Great! 2.) Solid. 3.) …not so hot. And, then we go about our lives.

This man, however, was a breed apart. He’d done what our generation would have called “everything”. His fingers traveling so far beyond the frets had been in so many pies, professions, callings. And, because we all KNEW him, we also accepted his life accomplishments as valid. True. No question. They all really happened.

Now, why would we not challenge his veracity?

“We” are the generation that birthed the music of the ’70’s. The last intimate ballad. The recording that just was – no gimmicks; no video enhancements; no synthetic percussion; no studio production. And, we couldn’t have known how important this would become, to that fading value: history.

Oprah Winfrey recently spoke, at a Tennessee commencement*. Her topic? The Impostor Syndrome. By now, we all know its definition: “Fake it ’til you make it.”

And, what has this errant directive birthed?

George Santos.

Liar, extraordinaire. Now, facing the music of his masquerade.

Time was, if you did it, you could prove it; if you didn’t, no way could you find acceptance among the self respecting.

“We” aren’t sure who came up with the outlandish idea that faking anything in order to reach status of any worth was the way to go. One thing is certain: the service industry, just to name one, is rife with its following; how many phone calls to customer support yield “I’m sorry for the inconvenience” and “let me put you on hold”? Too many.

Entire enterprises are populated by the oblivious, whose only observable skills include Googling Wikipedia, submitting a screen grabbed report, taking a long lunch, and leaving early. Gone is what used to be called “toil.” Sweat, and blood. Feeling that good kind of tired, at the end of a highly productive day.

On the other hand, jumping on the treadmill of the masses, striving to achieve, hoping somebody notices – that led our generation to the Land of Diminishing Returns. A life really well lived used to be its own reward; now, we lean back in our proverbial rockers and watch the vastly under-experienced sail past us, some of them actually flying, never breaking basal body temp, and swinging from one brass ring to the next like a cage full of monkeys.

Enter the devices of man, as catalyst. Robotics; artificial intelligence; pre-programmed machines, replacing live workers. Perhaps the current generation in charge feels obliteration nipping at its heels; maybe the going motivation is just getting through the day without losing grip on the ledge.

Yet, the glimmer of hope pulsates. Vinyl records are back. Being able to touch something made by another human, without threat of its virtual presence vaporizing in the next second….

In our collective gut, we sense that returning to authenticity is our only survival. Living the true story – the only path which will lead us away from extinction.

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*I didn’t listen to the entire speech; any thoughts verbalized in this piece which resemble statements she made therein are entirely coincidental (or, channeled?).

Copyright 5/12/2023 Ruth Ann Scanzillo. All rights those of the author, whose story it is(inspired by guitarist et al, Joseph Popp) and whose name really does appear above this line. No copying – in part; whole; or, by translation – permitted; sharing by blog link, exclusively. Thank you for being real.

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YARD SIGNS.

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For some reason, I had to make two road trips that weekend.
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The year was 2016, the season autumn, and I had to drive west toward Ohio and east toward New York in two days time. Four years later, I remember far less about the purpose of those excursions than the one thing I still cannot forget.
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All along our Great Lake Erie, it was what I saw posted along the roadside: Yard signs. Political yard signs. And, what disturbed me as deeply as the moment when the doctor opens his waiting room door and enters, carrying test results in his hand, was what I saw on those signs.
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Beyond a mere two or three, from New York across PA to Ohio and back again, they were nearly unanimously emblazoned with the two words which would change our world in ways none of us could have imagined:
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TRUMP.PENCE.
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For miles. That’s all I saw.
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Our city had been pretty determined to honor its long Democratic history by endorsing Hillary. I’d been a Bernie canvassing machine; his name appeared on MY yard sign, up until the election. But, what I saw stunned me with its foreboding. Clearly, everyone who lived on the lakefront – the monied – were a united flank and, that, all across the tri-state area. In fact, after the initial shock had waned, baffled national pundits and analysts would repeatedly point to Northwest PA as one of the pivotal forces which influenced the election results.
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I remember getting home on my final return trip, sitting down at the computer, and telling my friends on social media. “I think Trump is going to win.”
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Tonight, Michele Obama gave an unprecedented, heartfelt, bold, and pointed declaration to America. She withheld nothing. Our former First Lady told us to prepare to pack a brown bag and put on our old shoes, if that is what it would take to see to it that our vote would be placed, and counted.
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When she was finished, I thought about those yard signs. I realized that too many of us, myself included, had let the profuse presence of such signs affect our choices, in primaries past – so many offices, so many contenders, so much reading and listening required to make a truly informed decision. How many had always just depended on yard signs to teach name recognition, to register a subconscious vote already placed before due diligence had been paid.
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This November, forget about yard signs. If we see them, consider who put them there and ask whether those lawns were infiltrated by blind folly – or, worse.
Remember 2016. Everybody knows Joe Biden’s name. Keep your eyes on the sign in the sky, and make the only trip necessary. Just vote to save America’s soul.
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8/17/2020 Ruth Ann Scanzillo.

My Mammy’s Touch.

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Mae Elisabeth [Learn] Sweet was my maternal grandmother. Her first grandchild, Alan Marshall, called her “Mammy”, and it stuck; she, and her husband, would be Mammy and Pappy to all 19 grandkids, thereafter. Let me tell you about her.
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Mammy (seen in this photo, at about 95 years) was widely regarded by all who knew her as a human saint. She was the absolute sweetest, most loving, most gentle, most prayerful, hardworking, resourceful, generous, forgiving person anybody knew. Her character made most men whither. She prayed, daily, for everyone she knew, whenever they “came to mind.” I am not alone in believing that she was nearly psychic, able to attune to the slightest and most immediate needs among her brood, and beyond. And, when mum met dad on the train and began to write letters to him, placing those letters in the iron mailbox just outside the front door on the porch wall for the mailman to pick up and deliver, Mammy would discreetly take those letters and cross off the final two syllables of dad’s surname. Mum told me this, having discovered the act. Why did Mammy do that? Mammy did that, not because she wasn’t a loving, caring, forgiving, generous, prayerful, hardworking, resourceful mother and grandmother, but because systemic racism had borne itself out, in her; dad was Italian, and he was a source of shame to her. She had to remove the final two syllables of his last name, to make it appear different than the identifying  ” – zillo” which appeared naturally.
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Was it Mammy’s fault, that she behaved this way? Did her actions arise out of some corrosive gangrene in her soul? No; it did not. It emerged because she had been taught by her Eastern Pennsylvanian, Danish/English/Germanic societal roots, to regard Italians as second class citizens, as shameful members of American society.
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And, it is just such deeply rooted, largely subconscious behavior toward people of color which those of American “white” society have and continue to portray, however subtley however fleetingly however rarely, in their actions throughout the generations.
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In 1944, mum married dad. Almost ten years later, after a nearly decade long divorce, they remarried. I was their second child, and favored my father; my hair was black, my skin was dark. And, Mammy was fond of stroking my face, doing so every time I would sit beside her. She would regularly exclaim at the beauty of my skin, its softness, and smile with deep fondness into my eyes.
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It’s my belief that my birth changed my Mammy, ever more; she realized, and thereafter made conscious effort, to appreciate that which she had been taught to shame. And, in just such the same manner, only when we reach out and touch that which we are taught to revile will we ever hope to heal from hate.
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© 6/28/2020     Ruth Ann Scanzillo.     All rights those of the author, whose story it is and whose name appears above this line. Thank you for respecting the rights of authorship.
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