PODCAST

: lower black pain.

Jd Michaels - The CabsEverywhere Creative Production House

Life’s lemons into rich, dark chocolate. lowerblackpain.substack.com

society & culture performing arts

All Episodes

4:18

Utility.

: lower black pain. ·

2024/11/21

I don’t look useful. I think I look tousled most of the time, a style most often seen on wild brunettes wearing long white men’s shirts walking barefoot into kitchens to get a cup of morning coffee in someone else’s apartment in 1980’s films. In contrast, I am more the “tousled” of a 4 year old boy getting his hair affectionately ruffled by someone calling him “pal” in a 1940’s black and white movie.It is not that my hair is anywhere near tousleable really - my wife calls my entire sense of style

4:44

Empathy.

: lower black pain. ·

2024/11/14

It is impossible to list all of one’s experience on one’s resume. For instance:* For a while I was on a dessert isle with a professor, a millionaire and his wife, and a movie star.Key takeaway: Problem Solving Skills.* I frequented a MASH unit for a few years.Key takeaways: Focus, Crisis Management.* I learned diligence in two diners (Thanks Alice & Angie), patience on a tour bus with Shirley Partridge and her family band, and customer service aboard a Princess Cruise ship.I really loved that

6:05

Honesty.

: lower black pain. ·

2024/11/07

Right out of college I dated a few people. Most of the relationships had an ebb and a flow to them, a natural half-life, seemed to make sense. But one was particularly memorable because of how it ended.I made her a cup of tea. She hadn’t asked for one, but I knew she liked tea and I was getting one for myself. I hadn’t asked her first because we had both been reading in my room, and she was very into her book; I didn’t want to disturb her so just kind of got up quietly and left the room.In the

4:39

Hooky.

: lower black pain. ·

2024/10/31

I took the day off today, which I don’t do very often. I’m one of those people that even on Saturdays check their email every 90 minutes and leave my work phone on the charger but turn up the ring volume real loud (just in case).I’m not playing hooky: I just put in for a vacation day. I have plenty saved up - I just thought it might be nice to be home on Halloween to…I don’t know,* take a bath,* or start a soup going* or get my costume ready* or straighten up the house while a scary film is on.None

4:48

All, Together.

: lower black pain. ·

2024/10/24

The amount of actual energy I actually have to actually say anything right now reminds me of last Saturday morning when I finally put gas in our car. We pumped 16 gallons into the tank, which was odd because it’s a 15 gallon tank. That’s how empty it was. The car was running on hope. We were half a block from putting our feet through the floor and Flintstones pedaling to the grocery store. That’s me, right now.It’s been a very long couple of weeks, a lot of major events. The second most important

6:49

Scooby.

: lower black pain. ·

2024/10/17

We have adopted a new kitten. This one belongs to the (now) middle cat, who is (now) less bored and more able to express his inner child: growling (in a friendly way), running about the house, leaping and pouncing. New family is often a contentious time, but as autumn chills the air, we find our three felines sleeping ever closer to one another, first rooms apart and now within a foot of one another, the encroaching frost turning strangers into bedfellows.The kitten isn’t afraid of much. Even large

7:42

MYSTERIOSO.

: lower black pain. ·

2024/10/10

We used to hold a storytelling party every year in autumn. Each guest was required to bring three things; a bottle of red wine, a candle, and a story. Zoe and I provided the food, usually a large pot of something warm, filling, and comforting – we lit the candles and opened the wine, and began telling the stories, which could be about anything, as long as they were true.They didn’t have to actually happen, mind you, they just had to, in the space of the event, be told in such a fashion that the

6:47

Cookie.

: lower black pain. ·

2024/10/03

The classic monsters are, of course, Frankenstein, The Wolfman, and Dracula…(Oh, sure, you can add in the Mummy and the Creature from the Black Lagoon if you want, but no one dresses as them for Halloween. Well, maybe the Mummy, if you’re not planning on dancing or walking very fast all night, but the Fish-Man would take professional grade make-up work and seems like a really uncomfortably hot costume, even for a brisk October night.) …these are monsters that live in black and white worlds, in times

6:23

Creepy.

: lower black pain. ·

2024/09/26

I wear contact lenses to see far away, and glasses on top of them so that I can read up close.“Why not just get bifocals?”Well, during the pandemic, I wore my contacts like tiny little Captain America shields for my eyes - I could practically hear the near constant ricochet of infectious particles and allergens bouncing off of them.Consequently, I hadn’t bought a pair of prescription glasses in a very long time, which is why I was practically giddy when the family took a trip to “use our insurance

5:56

A Man Of Letters.

: lower black pain. ·

2024/09/19

When I enter a used bookstore my shoulders automatically lower (even if I thought I felt relaxed on the way in) and I exhale much deeper than the inhale just before it. Paper, stacked sometimes literally to the ceiling, offers the safety of ten thousand silent voices. What others might classify as clutter, I see as a garden.I love words. Not merely the printed word, but words themselves, and the ability to make them mean something through juxtaposition. Not many things work that way. Tarot cards,

6:05

Science. Fiction.

: lower black pain. ·

2024/09/12

I was mistaken for Neil deGrasse Tyson once at the Museum of Modern Art. I had taken a friend there for lunch, and we decided that we’d eat at the fancy place on the ground floor because we’d just finished a huge project. I hadn’t made any reservations, but they sat us immediately at a very nice table, and then the head waiter came over and said, “It’s great to see you again. How is everything?”“It’s great!” I responded.“I see you came back.” he added.Ok. “Well, I really love it here.”“That’s great

6:39

ON TO CIVICS.

: lower black pain. ·

2024/09/05

At my grade school, it was just reading, writing, and arithmetic for a while, and then science and social studies came along. Science focused on nature at first, eventually evolving into fun experiments like baking soda volcanos and lemon batteries. Social studies began as cartography: the class would look at giant maps requiring WWE strength for the teachers to pull down, like huge window shades mounted on top of the blackboards. We learned the names of different colored shapes - Earth’s

7:07

ART CLASS.

: lower black pain. ·

2024/08/29

Back before she was here, when we thought about raising the baby, we felt we had a handle on the whole thing., or at least the general concept. We understood, for instance, that the child would be empty a great deal of the time, and our first job was to keep it filled with love and food (in that order).To that list we added the arts, which we started with right from the very beginning with music. Within her first 24 hours on the planet, our daughter listened to the jaunty jazz of Raymond Scott, the

4:27

Live Studio Audience.

: lower black pain. ·

2024/08/22

There aren’t many shows that I watch on television at the time that they are broadcast anymore.Five percent of the reason for this is that I am the kind of person who leans into new technologies. I embraced streaming video, navigating its twists and eddys as an intrepid explorer might, until it isn’t just the technology that’s new, but the way I am able to live, work, and communicate. I embrace the future, look it right in the eye while holding its shoulders, then make it a cup of coffee and offer

6:20

Saints Be Praised.

: lower black pain. ·

2024/08/15

I wasn’t a particularly fussy baby, or so I’m told. My mother says that I was an easygoing roommate who didn’t make trouble: a good boy, who made a lot of racket at night.My mother decided to comfort me with a radio in my crib. This worked - sort of. I did respond very well to music, but not the music she initially preferred… I only calmed totally down when one of the country music stations was on. Laden with sleep deprivation, she looked me right in the tiny eye and fairly pleaded for pop if not

4:06

Spirit Animals.

: lower black pain. ·

2024/08/08

The 2024 Olympic mascots are Phrygian Caps that look like gnome hats…the ones you’d see if I suddenly said “Hey! Look up! Are those GNOMES across the street?” and you looked out your window and indeed saw mythical creatures only about a foot tall with little hats on. These would be the hats they were wearing.As mascots, these hats are fully self-ambulatory, with eyes and mouths and so forth. They are triangular. I thought they were samosa.We took a house vote as to whether they were disturbing:

5:01

The Digital Harvest.

: lower black pain. ·

2024/08/01

We are halfway through summer.There is a heat advisory here today.The same sun we seek on the weekend seems disdainful toward us at work, either mocking us with a “come out and play” bright blue sky through our office windows, or broiling the world right at lunchtime when we try to grab a bite to eat.We expect heat in summer, but it’s been extremely hot in some places, the sort of heat that makes us sad when stepping outside. The sun is so bright and the air is so thick that if feels as if summer

4:35

You Can't Go House Again.

: lower black pain. ·

2024/07/25

Last weekend, my daughter and I navigated four cancelled flights due to weather to visit my Mom in Kansas City, which was a very nice treat. I played handyman, dabbling in plumbing and carpentry and wiring and computer programming. My daughter built a new affordable slow fashion aesthetic through carefully curated thrift store trips, and few extremely fortunate finds.I was a bit of the third wheel here…useful to hold the selected items, yet always a few steps behind she and her grandmother. “What

5:25

The Illustrious Middle

: lower black pain. ·

2024/07/18

If you attended American grade school you probably remember the blackboards, topped with long card stock banners depicting the alphabet in red letters as print and cursive, complete with little arrows explaining the best way to render each character. But just as ubiquitous was the bulletin board, usually filled with thematic collages depicting current holidays or collections of student work.The boards at my school also sported a rotating roster of GOOD EXAMPLES, cardboard cutouts of American Heroes,

5:55

Check Your Mailbox.

: lower black pain. ·

2024/07/11

You would open the front door to find a party, with TV cameras and confetti, and a man holding a gigantic check with your name on it (for a lot of money). This was the dream in the ‘70s, your entire life enhanced beyond imagining, not because of a lottery ticket but the value rich and somewhat educational gift that you were smart enough to give your family - MAGAZINES.Publisher’s Clearing House sent thick envelopes filled with magazine covers printed on colorful gummed stamps; you’d take the ones

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