This is The Hood

 

　
30 August 2014

"This is The Hood" 

Dear Kearia,
Meeting you so serendipitously in downtown Lafayette on Monday, as you slipped out of that sporty yellow car, was not only a pleasure but, reason enough to question one’s philosophical ideology in life. As you speedily drove into that parking lot, I jumped out of my “Cargo Can” with a sense of urgency, before you disappeared, to ask directions to Star Bucks.


“Oh maan… that is waay… waay across town. This is The Hood!… give me a few minutes in there (pointing to a building across the street)… come with me, I won’t be long and then you can follow me to Starbucks”.

Inside was a rather funky bar with thick “live edge” wooden bar/tables, old diner tables, MDF paneling , imitation brick chimney, coloured glass bottle somethings as window displays, found pictures, a big flat TV screen covering one whole wall playing a very raunchy video blasting out Hip Hop to pumping, gyrating black asses, while her 11 year old son sat quitely, in an uncensored manner of homey familiarity, watching, as I too, rapped up in the rhythmic beat and in those seductive, perfectly sumptuous, pear shaped, voodoo stomping, gluteus maximus muscles with those forceful pelvic thrusts. Nothing in this place, with its low ceiling, randomly pasted with coloured rectangular, diamond shape chunks of wood or something, could possibly harmonize to any design plan other than some esoteric, instinctive force of nature. Looked like some artsy fartsy pals simply went out on the street or in back alleys on recycling day, picked up a truck load of discarded, precious items, that were shiny or captured the eye, brought them back and playfully threw them into the room. Where they stuck… was where they called home.

 

 

Kearia then lead me into a pitch black room and opened a magic into another mesmerizing space, with similar mismatched objects of tables chairs, benches, a raised up sound booth, accidental wall and floor collages in brick, metal, exposed drain pipes, concrete, wood, siding but, here with higher ceilings (partially open to the sky), …where roof lines and the backs of exterior buildings became interior walls of Frankie’s Burger.

It was all a genuine, ingenious, unpretentious, idiosyncratic mix of cultural confidence, diversity and original inventiveness that can only be found in “The Hood!”

 

 

And then the Pièce de résistance… a stage!

Suddenly I was excited. It all came together, as I enthusiastically declared, “I am coming back here… I love this place… I am from Canada


“Are you one of those “Blue Birds?’ she asked. “No, I don’t have enough money to be a Blue Bird and would not be one even if I did have the money… I am an artist”…

“A musician” she asked. “I do play music but, don’t call myself a musician but, we are going to do something here on that stage” I said.

“Yes we are” she said.


It was like we suddenly connected and embraced each other in mutual understanding. Another heroine had just entered my life. As she focused on a sound test with her assistant, I poked around and found another long room, obviously an old ally in past building incarnations

This bar/club/theatre was absolutely fascinating and definitely fashioned on some eccentric, maybe mythical plan that suited my genetic heritage of old. I imagined it many, many times as a place in which I would feel comfortable, to be an artist musician.

Kearia finished her sound checks inside and on the street, called her son from that sassy assy video screen and instructed me to follow her, which I did, for miles across Lafayette… maybe 20 minutes, from the Hood to the insular, university preppy hub of academia… so different from what I can imagine life to be in THE HOOD, especially when the sun goes down.

When we reached Starbucks we exchanged contact info and agreed, with a warm hug, that our meeting was not by accident.

“I do not believe in God or destiny” I told her, “but, I am searching”. “For what is” she added.

She turned, looked inside her car and said something to her son in another language. “What is that language” I asked. “I speak eight languages and was born in India” That kind of explained or gave me another insight into her… shall I call it, spirituality… her warmth and embracing generosity.

Although I find it difficult to believe in an existence beyond genetic inheritance and DNA evolution, meeting Kearia seems more than an accident of chance, as it seems a perfect fit to my long held imagination of place…home. Was it simply a delightful serendipitous moment of chance? Let me see, as I plan to follow through, go back to Frankie’s Burger in the new year.

See you later…

Selamat tinggal


Rod