You’re Not A Spare; You’re Harry, King of Hearts. SPARE Book Review

Prince Henry, Duke of Sussex, King of Hearts!

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex on Late Show with Stephen Colbert Promoting SPARE

Whenever I travel to a city, I always stay within close distance to a crystal store. I want to be exposed to their vibration and thereby harmonise with that city’s groove. In November 2018 when in town for the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day and Royal Ballet’s production of La Bayadère, I stayed at a hotel in Russell Square so that I could be in walking distance to the British Museum, Covent Garden. I got to the Astrology Shop in Covent Garden and took my time, trying to find a couple of crystals that I could keep in my pockets at all times. Besides, the best most fragrant sagebrush can be found at the Astrology Shop. The day of the Remembrance Ceremony, I stood just to the right of the Cenotaph and opposite the balcony where eventually Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex stood with the German President’s wife. I wanted to be there because I knew that HLM Queen Elizabeth II, looking at the state of those canker sores on her shins, was not much longer for this world.

Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex Remembrance Ceremony, 2018

Standing there, at times I had to reach into each pant pocket and clutch the crystal therein after the vile hateful remarks of positively everyone about me made of Harry’s wife, Meghan, before she and the rest of the royal party came to those three balconies. There were times when for sending focussed light energy directly to Meghan to protect from the island kingdom’s racially predatory, hateful focus, the crystals actually became warm in each palm. I was exhausted at the end of the ceremony, eventually making my way to the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace and taking in a beautiful exhibition that celebrated Queen Victoria’s empire building family, not before the most hilarious cab ride.

The beauty of Prince Harry’s book is that it so undisputedly validates what I have expounded all along about the major royal principals, based chiefly on their numerology. Yes, of course, I have also relied on their Michael Overleaves; however, what I have never done is focussed on their astrology, which is often not remotely accurate. The truly leonine person, for example, is not someone born with the Sun in leo but someone with the Moon in Leo, though, that is obviously possible. Though a Leo, my Sagittarian Moon is a more accurate insight to my emotional makeup than anything else. That aside, the numerology, which never lies, is the real measure of any person’s true character.

Princess Eugenie & Jack Brooksbank at Pippa Middleton’s May 2017 wedding

When initially the Telegraph’s royal reporter, Camilla Tominey speciously reported that Meghan had made Catherine cry, I knew after a quick review of the principals’ numerology that it was a lie. Clearly, the church guests rule was specifically intended to ban Meghan from attending the church portion of the Middleton-Matthews wedding. If Meghan were seen attending the church service then both Catherine and Pippa would readily have been eclipsed. This was an early example of specious and wholly arbitrary rules employed to keep the Yank, the Black Yank, out of the picture.

As Prince Harry, King of Hearts, has poignantly documented in SPARE, the truth, his and Meghan’s had to be revealed to show the extent to which the Waleses’ monstrosity was being protected by the Fleet Street abattoirs. How could these Britons realistically think that they could dismiss a ‘Yank’ in their midst and it not get out. It is not the age of steamships and telegrams. Everything is out there. What the senior royals and their Fleet Street abattoir hacks did not envision, was Henry & Meghan walking.

Obviously, the book is hands down a winner! Here are my takeaways. As to why Harry was so self-revelatory; this has always been one big high stakes PR game. In revealing chatter about his todger and drug use, he readily squashed any potential of the tabloids coming out and releasing this to eclipse his book and, as it were, shame Prince Harry. The most hysterical thing for me was when I was called by a friend and asked if that was a lucid dream that Harry was having when staying at Courtney Cox’s place. That provided a good laugh as I assured him that he was talking about the effects of doing drugs at the party but since nothing less than 9.5 inches ever goes in my mouth and I’ve never done drugs, it had to have been about a drug trip but what drugs I hadn’t a clue. Certainly, dreams don’t go there as in that experience that Harry described.

Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity Oil on Canvas 1954 Salvador Ali

Sometimes, what passes for reality is truly as though a bad drug experience. Though I lived at 380 Assiniboine Avenue’s Bessborough apartments in Winnipeg, I spent evenings from time to time at Arjun’s tiny apartment on Broadway Avenue. One afternoon, in the midst of winter as I walked home in shoes and socks that were soaked with loud-smelling piss, he had pulled up, and offered me a ride; it’s too cold to be on foot, he negotiated with the warmest smile that matched his large, light brown eyes. He truly was a godsend. I got in hardly able to walk and he thought that I had injured myself; my shoes and socks were frozen to my feet. Someone, though, I had a pretty good suspicion who it was, pissed into my locker with the grated wire door and into my socks and shoes. This only ever occurred when there were snow squalls and the temperatures well below -30°C with the wind chill. He drove a cab for extra cash as he struggled post divorce. Arjun was horrified when he saw my swollen, frozen feet with socks and shoes hard to remove. He made a mean curry chicken and after he would give me a beautiful massage after having tied me off and performed the most maddeningly slow, warm-oiled manual massage to climax whilst we sat opposite each other, naked on dining room chairs. Most of all, Arjun taught me numerology; he felt it was necessary as he discovered that I had master number 11. I always recalled him saying that my little accidents at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet school whenever it heavily snowed was like a bad dream. Faithfully, as promised, he was always there waiting for me outside when it snowed and was bitterly cold as I emerged in piss-soaked socks and shoes. The moment that I saw Princess Michael of Kent in that blackamoor brooch, I became a staunch supporter of Meghan’s. I knew what harrowing put-through it was to be a lone Black, entering into what is a traditionally all-White institution, an institution which after having amassed fantastic wealth from the enslavement of Black Africans could not be expected to be anything but racially hostile to Blacks, which has been most focussed in William and his wife, Catherine.

Standing there at the Cenotaph in November, 2018, and seeing HM The Queen for the last time, I was keenly reminded of how important it was to support Meghan. First hand, from all the people around me, who said the most vile hateful things, all I could do was visualise. Holding on to those crystals, I sent her light energy from the crystals, to enlighten and protect her from the hateful maelstrom being directed her way. As the ceremony endured, I thought of that energy being used to replenish the bile being projected onto her which I then drew away and had the plane trees on either side of me absorb, send to their roots to have it eaten, cleansed and returned from the warm earth, travelling to me via the plane trees’ crowns and the cycle perpetuated. There was no way that Meghan would not have been the focussed campaign of rejection and racial animus from William and Catherine for both being possessed of 9 in their numerology.

Too, it was good to have gotten a thorough appreciation of warrior soul, Prince Harry’s time in the combat zone. He was as soldier who had performed in the war theatre and had survived. Harry needed to have devoted the second of three parts of his inspiring memoir to his military service as a way to present himself to his newly adopted homeland, America.

Above all else, Americans respect veterans. This is such a poignant photograph of soldier Harry. He has been on a mission to avenge his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales’ murder and nothing and no one will deter him on his quest. All the successes of the Sussexes are directly a result of Diana, Princess of Wales being there in their corner.

This book is not just about the structural racism of the House of Windsor and British society as a result of its past as colonisers and enslaving imperialists, it unveils a rather telling aspect of post colonialism. In all my seven decades, I know of no one Black: rich, middle class, creative or otherwise who has ever once spoken of a desire to go on an African safari, have been or know of such things. Prince Harry accounts of his retreats to Botswana’s Okavango delta speak volumes. Here is a realm of human experience, which just a few thousand miles away, tens of millions of Blacks are held captive in poverty, the vestiges of post-Apartheid colonial South Africa, which still stridently exists – political window dressing notwithstanding, and about this they know positively nothing. Seeing this aspect of human civilisation through Prince Harry’s eyes, was deeply inspiring but profoundly devastating. The very essence of Africa, one giant getaway for predominantly Whites to enjoy unencumbered by the misery of Black Africans, Blacks elsewhere about which they have no input, was plainly revealed in Prince Harry’s journeys. The most devastating part which made me break down and cry was listening to Prince William, he of the prejudiced 9 mindset, insisting that Africa was his not Harry’s; A whole fucking continent, the homeland of a diverse, culturally rich people the world over of Black African descent, being spoken of as though Africa were the exclusive property of a blasted White male who could not be anymore out of touch with the 21st century than if he were teleported back in time to Han Dynasty China. Of course, what William was referring to, was the rich animal kingdoms in Africa which exists nowhere else; he couldn’t in the least have given a shit about the dredged scourge that is Black Africans’ lives and their culture.

Of course, in that moment, I was reminded of the vast disconnected that exists between Blacks, the diabolical lengths we go to, to deny our Blackness and our connectedness to other Blacks. Knowing that he was going to die, Merlin wrote letters to many of his professional associates, most in the States. As they shared the same eponymous agency, Joyce Ketay, which later became part of the Gersch Agency, Merlin wrote to actor, Joe Morton whom he had directed in plays and who starred in in the film, Brother From Another Planet. They always got on famously. On receiving the mail in November, 1989, Joe called up from L. A. and said that he would be coming up to see Merlin. It was the most noble gesture. Joe flew into town and my sister and I met him at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport and the evening was both healing and bucolic. I ordered Chinese takeout and went around to Parliament Street to collect the food with Joe and filled him in on how long Merlin had been ill; we got in and my lover who had not been able to hold down a meal in several days, joined in and picked at the food and did not even throw up. As this was the age, long before cell phones’ ubiquity, Joe used our phone to call his wife in L. A. and check in. Some time later, we were having refreshments, they coffee – I can’t abide the stuff and I tea. At some point, Merlin had misjudged his strength and the distance to the coffee table piled high with books, one of which was Luigi Serafini’s magical masterpiece, Codex Seraphinianus. From my perspective across the room all the spilled coffee had not been sopped up and not wanting it to damage the books, I got up and used my napkin to clean up the rest of the spilled fare. Almost violently, Joe snatched his Sprint phone card, from atop one of the large coffee table books, creating an awkward millisecond of social aggression. This is the sort of thing that if Merlin were not ill and he were not staying in our house, I’d have walked Joe to the door and violently slam it on him. After he got up in the early hours, my sister came by and drove him out to the airport where a very large moon was close to the horizon. When I got back to the house, Merlin apologised and said that it was most devastating because he realised that if he were Black rather than Jewish, Joe would not have bothered to fly into town and visit him. It was one of the many times that Merlin, an ardent student of Black literature, who relished just about every Black author there was, touched on the subject of Black on Black racism. I always remember him saying, there is no such thing as being half Jewish, mixed Jewish. You are a Jew! Period! Yet the vogue has been for so many Blacks, exhibiting the most embarrassing self-loathing, claiming not to be Black. As Merlin once joked, well if you have a Black parent how can you not be Black, do these people think anyone mistakes them for Chinese? Said Merlin, what is a Jew with a single Jewish parent referred to as, a Goyish, a mixed Goy. Trust Merlin to always see the humour in everything; however, this need to deny one’s Blackness, is precisely why Joe never procreated with a Black woman. How the hell do you go to someone’s house and consider them a damn thief in their own house? I’d be rather surprised if with his success, Joe has ever been on a safari to Botswana. Merlin passed exactly a week later.

Two men could not have been more different. Indeed, it is a good thing that William is the shit-disturbing, stubborn, pugnacious, bully that he is. He truly represents the collective psyche of White Britain, having to face up to its past as colonisers, enslavers and just blood-thirsty savages. That history has given rise to royal heirs who are archly anti-Black in their perspective and conversely pro-Jewish in their preferences. There is nothing wrong in their preference but you cannot be so daft as to put out there your embarrassing perceptions. Furthermore, it does one’s credibility little to no good when a disproportionate number of the pundits who are savagely attacking Meghan and Harry are Jewish. Recently, even Judge Judy has gotten on the bandwagon of preying on the Sussexes. One of the things that all these persons are keen to do, which Merlin first pointed out to me in the early days of our relations in 1980s New York City, is that when being racially predatory towards Blacks, Jews are ever mindful never to bring race into their discussions and open animus towards Blacks. As he then pointed out, once challenged, one can then scream to the rafters that one is being anti-Semitic. One of the errors of all such persons as they savagely prey on Meghan and being openly racist, is not one of them so much as said boo fuck-all when George Floyd was savagely murdered. It was no business of theirs; of course, in having said nothing by way of protesting, one was clearly supporting such hideous racially predatory savagery. Then along comes Meghan et voilà, Methenny and others are barking mad with rage against that Black bitch Meghan whom they hate; of course, as Merlin long ago pointed out and has been validated, they never once mention Meghan’s Blackness.

Carefully chosen words from a man who could not be more disinterested in Black civilisation than if he were a Klansman. Indeed, there were times on that tour where they were supposed to be representing HLM Queen Elizabeth II where their relationships disrepair could not have been more obvious. Of course, Catherine just had to be photographed standing around with a drink in hand… drunk and debauched indeed.

Of course, we finally got validation of Catherine’s energy body of 9 being revealed as the bully behind who made whom cry. Not only was she a rude, dismissive, confrontational 9 energy-bodied boor, Catherine had to go one step forward and lay down the law as to who was boss, she wore a white dress to Meghan’s wedding – so, too, did Camilla to Diana’s wedding in July, 1981. The bitch wore white, that’s how you know who made who cry. All the incidents reported by Prince Harry in SPARE are evidence of both Meghan and Harry being racially harassed and racially preyed on in the workplace. One of the signatures of 11 master number is that it gives one a keen intellect; one is ill-inclined to gladly suffer fools. Who is Catherine to a self-made accomplished actor? Catherine is a blithering idiot who can do not more than gurn like a mad loon because finally, you cannot expect a fucking mad loon to behave like a self-possessed, strong woman.

It may be a family; however, it is also a workplace and it is fairly obvious that Meghan was the target of a campaign that involved mental and emotional abuse, which was orchestrated by the Waleses and in concert with Courtesan Queen Camilla as it suited her to be an ugly duchess who just could not resist going there as she so relished with Harry’s mother and Meghan’s mother-in-law, Diana, Princess of Wales.

Prince William Goes Off Displaying Short Fused Nature

What I am thoroughly convinced of, by Meghan’s body language when they emerged at the Cambridge Gates at Windsor Castle in September 2022, is that she exhibited signs that not only was she regularly yelled at and abused but either or both, Catherine or William; however, either or both may well have physically assaulted Meghan whilst she lived at Nott Cott. How could they live at Nott Cott when in the palace proper was that vile racist bully, Princess Michael of Kent.

“If You Don’t Mind, Take Your Finger Out of My Face.” Meghan, Duchess of Sussex to HRH Prince William, Prince of Wales.

What Meghan was making perfectly clear, William is milquetoast and furthermore, she did not want his smelly, bussy-poking finger anywhere near her goddamn face. There is no mistaking who had the upper hand in that power dynamic, William and Catherine’s vile machinations notwithstanding.

As much as we know that Prince William loves getting pegged, part of that psychosexual dynamic of being bottomed, is almost always being violently impatient, rude and bullying. This is a scene with which Prince William would be intimately familiar. For one thing, his fourth number of 5 guarantees being debauched and it always means sexual infamy – scandal or multiple scandals that are sexual beyond the norm will manifest and more importantly, make their way into the culture, becoming common knowledge. It is not about Prince William being Gay or Bisexual, it is simply a psychosexual dynamic which at its core is sadomasochistic. William’s desire to be pegged, bottomed and owned, comes as a relief from the domineering, bullying almost brutalising aspects of his personality when he is not sexually focussed. Again, William is moving centred so more than most, he ever would need a sexual outlet. Fourth number of 5, rules excess, infamy.

Prince Harry Bird Watching with Archie & Meghan

There is magic all around, you just have to be accurately focussed to capture those moments, which are ever present. These moments of magic, like the incident related in SPARE of the crash of the Queen Elizabeth Christmas tree ornament, are moments which reinforce that Diana, Princess of Wales is not far off. Indeed, loved ones with whom one remains bonded, will never lose being focussed on us here and now. As there are another 400 pages of this memoir, SPARE, yet to be released, I fully expect more of the Waleses, Charles and Camilla’s ugliness to be further revealed. Beautifully written, this is a most raw, honest and scathingly focussed memoir. Godspeed Henry, Meghan, Archie & Lilibet your work is ably fortified by Diana’s guidance and protection. God save a most noble Prince Harry, King of Hearts.

A Love Supreme. John Coltrane. 1965. Full Album

John Coltrane – Soprano & Tenor Saxophone

Jimmy Garrison – Double Bass

McCoy Tyner – Piano

Elvin Jones – Drums

This handsome gem played nonstop as I pored through SPARE, getting to know Henry’s raw, inspiring, beautiful soul. John Coltrane’s creative genius certainly got me through some rough patches in the book, especially, his early trauma at the violent murder of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales. I cannot state enough, but whenever I have dreamt of Henry he has always been relaxed, unpretentious and barefooted, which really made me sit up and take notice during the Netflix & Archewell Productions, co-production of Harry and Meghan, the docuseries. Above all else, special mention must be made of J. R. Moehringer, SPARE’s masterful ghost-writer; he did one hell of a job.

As ever, life is like a flying dream; if you look down, you’re fucked. Enjoy the ride and fear no one!

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©2013-2023 Arvin da Brgha. All Rights Reserved.

Yoko, Meghan & Cécile.

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One thing that the marriage of the TRH Duke & Duchess of Sussex has revealed, is just how hideously racist Britons are. Naturally, as all bigots especially the most invidious racially predatory will have you know, ‘It has nothing to do with race!’ The DailyMail has made an industry of acting as a de facto wing of the EDL in its campaign of destroying the marriage of the Sussexes.

Every single day its gaggle of writers launch another volley of hate to feed their hate-filled multitude of devotees whom they simply abuse in their quest for more advertising revenue. Last week, their legions of bigots were gleeful when not only was the Duchess of Sussex not at Royal Ascot but neither was her husband. Naturally, the rumour was that Her Majesty The Queen had banned the Sussexes from attending Royal Ascot. Of course, last year when Catherine, HRH Duchess of Cambridge was on maternity leave, she did not attend Royal Ascot. Furthermore, not once did her husband attend Royal Ascot. That is the tradition.

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Naturally, when these photographs of this year’s Royal Ascot emerged, the plethora of bigoted DailyMail trolls were celebratory of how happy and wholesome everyone looked. Of course, they were commenting on the homogeneity of the group; their was even talk that the RF looked so much happier without the American in their midst.

The following day, it was announced that the Royal Foundation was disbanding. This not only gave cause for wild celebration by the DailyMail trolls but in hindsight, it was speculated that the group looked as happy as they did at Royal Ascot because at that point, the dissolution of the Royal Foundation would have been known to all. This was seen as more proof that HM The Queen did not want Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex around Indeed, clearly, the Sussexes were headed for divorce and it was only a matter of time before there would be an announcement to that effect.

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By no means was tabloid culture then what it is today; however, there was no getting around the fact that there was unrelenting animus that was decidedly racist towards Yoko Ono because she was non-white. Of course, at the time as now and is always the case, there was strident denial that there was prejudice involved in the animus towards Yoko Ono. Heaven only knows that Linda Eastman was not a Briton, yet she was not reviled and hated for being an outsider as was Yoko Ono.

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So intense was the racial animus towards Yoko Ono that John Lennon had to relocate to New York City to seek peace away from being unrelentingly reviled by Britons, who were nothing more than unmasked Klansfolk; though there were three other wives, Yoko Ono was solely to blame for the demise of the Beatles. Indeed, Britons have John Lennon’s blood on their hands for having racially preyed on this man and his wife to the point where he had to flee and take refuge in a land where guns rule. Paul, Ringo nor George had to flee England because Britons did not approve of their choice of a wife.

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Neither Linda Eastman nor Montréalaise Autumn Kelly were subjected to the same animus as Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex for being outsiders marrying much-loved Britons. True, every woman marrying into the BRF experiences blow-back. Sarah Ferguson, Camilla Parker-Bowles, Catherine Middleton and on and on. Truth be told, neither Linda nor Autumn were subjected to similar animus as Yoko or Meghan simply for being Caucasian and therefore, deemed acceptable.

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Britons may well succeed with running TRH Duke & Duchess of Sussex out of town as they did John Lennon and Yoko Ono but know this, Tungsten has got powerful players in her corner. For starters, if the Sussexes were exiled, Oprah et al have the power to have her appointed as honorary chairperson of the Academy Awards – some such title of an American-British film society – not the American wing of BAFTA – which would see Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex each year present the award for Best Film at the Academy Awards.

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More to the point, when are Americans going to stop kowtowing to Britons because of the latter’s archly over-compensatory inferiority complex, of all things, masquerading as posh, sophisticated, superior and aristocratic. Why should an American actor, after having graduated with distinction from Julliard sit by and watch yet another English actor waltz in and claim the American award for best actor in a film which was not even an American production; this has repeatedly happened in the past. And so like Britons it is; they are the only island dwellers in the English-speaking world who never lose their god-awful accent regardless how long they sojourn abroad. Whether five years or fifty, you can also count on the expat English to maintain their posher-than-though English accent. Some may be readily charmed/fooled by all that posh posturing but it is so much obvious BS.

Glenn Close did not win the Best Actress BAFTA in 2019 that honour went to Briton, Olivia Colman in The Favourite. Ever possessed of this obsequious need to suck up, the Academy and its members voted Olivia Colman Best Actress at an American Awards show when the production was not an American production and Glenn Close was not going to win the Best Actress BAFTA and did not. One thing is clear from her acceptance speech, Olivia Colman is a one-hit wonder and will never win an Oscar again, just as Matthew McConaughey never will; after all, his Best Actor award was by default – so great was the need to deny Chiwetel Ejiofor an Oscar for his masterful performance in 12 Years A Slave.

When Britons prove themselves such ugly racist boors as with Yoko Ono and now Meghan Markle, why indulge, suffer or tolerate these people overlong? Throwing Oscars at them because they talk as though they’ve got a horse’s hoof stuck up their arse, there is nothing much to celebrate when one’s claim to fame is having subjugated 2/3s the world way back when and having enslaved and or brutalised those persons.

Of course, Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex chose not to move next-door to the Cambridges at Kensington Palace. For one, there is every reason to believe that the Cambridges’ marriage currently is nine parts façade and with a numerology attitude of 9, HRH Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, apart from not being the sharpest tool in the box, is also conceited, stubborn, bigoted and intolerant and also is in tight with those pompous-arsed minor royals the Michaels of Kent et famille who with their racist perspective were none-too-shy about showing their true colours, blackamoor and all with Meghan suddenly in their midst and to whom they would have to curtsy.

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A den of racial predators is no environment in which to bring up black children and that would also include those generational members of Kensington Palace staff, who would think nothing of being openly racist towards Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex and her children, For Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex the minor royal Micheals of Kent are no different to Samantha Grant and Thomas Markle Jr. She endured the racially predatory bullying in childhood, which is precisely why she has absolutely nothing to do with them and with damn good reason. Trust you me, there is not a single black person on this planet who would suffer any such environment. It is not human, not civilised and a goddamn waste of time.

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Carping on about how much better Cressida Bonas would have been as a wife to HRH Prince Henry of Wales, is a moot point. Who knows, perhaps, Harry was being forced into the relationship so that his older brother could have access to Cressida’s older sister, Isabella Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe. Is it any wonder why Sam Branson keeps his wife as far away from the isle of England as possible. Of course, had Harry married Cressida, this newfound media love for Catherine, HRH Duchess of Cambridge would not have eventualised. She would be portrayed, even more so, by the DailyMail as workshy and they would even up the practise of only printing photographs of her when her face is at rest, which is a decidedly hard affair. For being blonde, blue-eyed and with an artisan’s fey beauty, Cressida, had Prince Harry married her in May 2018, would currently be eclipsing Catherine, who is now being seen as a fashion icon. No matter how DailyMail repackage and champion Catherine, she is a relative dud when publicly speaking as Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex has time and again proven. The Duchess of Sussex’s commanding performance at the 2018 British Fashion Awards at Royal Albert Hall truly was a study is grace, poise, elegance and commanding stage presence. You’ve either got it or, as in Catherine’s case, you don’t. Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex is quite confidently aware that a mic is Catherine, HRH Duchess of Cambridge’s kryptonite.

The DailyMail and its gang of racist boors can vent and gloat all they want but if HRH Prince Henry, Duke of Sussex were to have married a conservative Muslim and converted, for fear of ending up with their fetid skull on the small of their back, every one of their cowardly racist boors would know to keep their damn mouths shut. Of one thing they are certain, fucking with blacks will earn you no serious repercussions. The DailyMail‘s hacks have proven that England is the isle of the original hooded klansfolk; they are just a little bit more evolved to the point where their hoods have become invisible but no less ugly are they. In the end, who could give a fuck; the boors of the isle of England most certainly did not invent Jazz and speaking of which…

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After having pored through this year’s TD Toronto Jazz Festival lineup, I knew that there was only one show that I cared to attend. The Diana Ross show at the Sony Centre though tempting, however, the centre is just too cavernous a space. Jazz needs the warmth and intimacy of a smaller venue. Besides, I knew damn well that coming the day after the Pride parade, there would be queens aplenty in the audience. Most of them would be expecting the usual Diana Ross show; however, this was going to be a Jazz show.

As ever, I did not attend Pride parade, never have. Back in 1986, Merlin and I hauled arse to a dinner party in the Annex where an artistic director associate of his, held court. Frankly, neither men liked each other but for professional reasons one endured much. Among the group of 8 souls was a redhead interior decorator from New York City who was the most vile dirty-arsed bigot conceivable. Naturally, with yours truly present, he just had to wax overlong about what a scourge on human civilisation blacks the world over were.

Merlin stealthily reached across my plate and removed my steak knife from the plate and placed it to his left as I sat on his right. Finally, when we got home by cab as Merlin sought to shift my mood by playing some Miles Davis, I went and retrieved a pair of scissors and demonstrated to him on returning to the living room, “That’s it, I am cancelling my membership in Gay society. God only knows it is not as if these blasted, motherfucking lisping, bottom-feeding people invented Jazz.” For me what really settled it, was the redhead boor’s decree, “Sorry dear but there is no black in the rainbow.”

Of course, a couple of years back the Black Lives Matter delegation, which had been invited to march in the Gay Pride parade, were booed, heckled and pelted with unopened water bottles. That very day on my way home, I was also attached and it was much fuelled by the general anger at having had the Black Lives Matter contingent in the parade. To this day, the pride community are still mad at the Police and had banned them from participating in the parade, all because they allowed the Black Lives Matter group into the parade. Even though the group had been invited, they were treated by spectators as though they did something as irresponsible as simply showed up and high-jacked the parade.

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The above photograph was the look for the opening act, one of those regrettable experiences, which alas the Canada Council foists on one, god only knows why. Banal and as sexually intriguing as a live webcam set up on a couple of koala bears in repose, some things just have to be endured to get one through to the real deal. As my date, an ageing Jewish actor/writer with the most wicked sense of humour is always great company, we sat in the back row, all to ourselves, in fits of delicious giggles – we were poring through online photographs of Céline Dion parading in haute couture in Paris in the lead up to Paris Fashion Week; when asked what I thought of her whacky, over-the-top, beyond desperate behaviour, I flatly put in, “it ought damn well to be kept leashed and staked out back.”

Next, it was my turn to come undone when no sooner than having slipped in the breath mint that he whispered, “those are the new mint-flavoured super laxatives, I was telling you about.” How soul-gnawing is emulative institutional Jazz whose practitioners know nothing either of blacks or black culture? Hell, even after the bass solo, there was no applause from the house.

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Finally, like a lover with the most foul breath but whose girthsome jousting simply won’t be denied – then the malodorous rogue leaves and you shudder in disgust and return to breathing like a human rather than a goddamn humpback whale – the opening act vacated the stage and when the stagehands were done, only the grand piano was left. Out then walked Cécile McLorin Salvant with a puckish accompanist and it was readily obvious that there is an indelible soul connection between the two, which speaks to intimacy most rare and also more than a dozen past-life connections. Even Cécile’s body had changed, she looked more lived in, she was getting good loving and it showed.

Before proceeding, let me just state that this was the most phenomenal and best Jazz concert that I have ever attended. From Hoagy Carmichael, to Barbara Streisand, to Bessie Smith, every song was her own and every song was a master class in musicianship and phrasing. Then two things happened that blew me even further away; firstly, she sang, Midnight Sun. This is a song that for me as long as I live, will always evoke the most pleasurable memories of living at John Hirsch and Brian Trottier’s Moore Park Home at 187 Hudson Drive in the summer of 1990 after Merlin had passed and I reinvented self and took the time to travel. Until this concert, no one had ever done a better version of Midnight Sun than Sarah Vaughan, whose version daily played at that lovely Moore Park home.

Secondly, Cécile paused and asked if anyone in the audience was French, to which there was a boisterous response and then she asked to sing a song in French. By the time she was done, I was reduced to tears, even my usual jaded friend was blown away. At the conclusion the house went wild and I was reminded of those years living in Montréal and attending all those summer festivals across the province.

Let’s see Canadian, Diana Krall sing en Français in this supposed bilingual country and I am not talking any of that tawdry attempt at French musicianship as with the likes of Emilie-Claire Barlow et al. Unlike those frauds who suffocated the blackness out of Jazz in the 90s and beyond, Cécile is the real McCoy. The primary musical instrument in human civilisation is the voice and when it comes to Jazz, not only is it a language that is the extension of the griot tradition, nothing sounds like, feels like, moves you like the instrument that is the black voice; there simply aren’t any comparisons. This is the voice, the instrument, when on walking through your door can revivify and empower you like no other instrument can and most especially so after having experienced racial animus for the 14th millionth and fifty-seventh time in this lifetime.

During the course of the show, her accompanist did something that I had never before witnessed, Sullivan Fortner got from the piano stool to reach inside and pluck on the strings, making for all intents the most beautiful mbira imaginable. Sullivan proved himself the perfect accompanist to Cécile and it was clear by the end of the concert that these two lovely, magical and gifted souls have thankfully found each other and how we are better for them being in the world. The love and harmony they share, was as rich and smooth as the warmest honey satiating the palate. Even the encores were concerts onto themselves. If there is anything that can be said to be good, to have come from Roy Hargrove’s passing, is that it created the opportunity for both Sullivan and Cécile to form a most productive collaboration.

As we left Koerner Hall, both of us giddy with joy for having been richly inspired, there was a guy outside the theatre, hawking the program for Jazz FM. Brusquely, I declined taking one, I soon explained that I had no desire to be associated with the Jazz radio when they went and hired someone whom Merlin dismissed back in his early on-air days as VJ at MuchMusic as a smug bigoted asshole. Indeed, an ageing leopard does not his spots lose. Just for writing a few hit songs and having made a few million dollars changes nothing. As Merlin always said, “a man changes clothes and nothing else.”

Though last year, there were three good concerts during the Jazz Festival; this year, one only needed to have attended one concert and boy am I richly inspired for having done so. On parting, we both agreed that it really was an awesome concert; more than that, we admitted that it was high time that we saw Rocketman before it goes to video.

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