JOY & PAIN!

I’d done what I was suppose to do: Graduated from UCLA.

Afterwards, I’d had fun in Europe, and it was time to come back to the United States for the next chapter. What would it be? Honestly, I didn’t have a clue.

But, Frankie Beverly, let me know that Joy & Pain were one in the same and that if I could JUST BE COOL like he was in his own skin, floating across the stage, listening to the music, and feeling the vibe that everything would be alright.

I decided then that I should always dance under the stars!

“As you grow older, you learn to live with the Joys and Pains of Life,” Frankie Beverly would belt out. “Aww, Yeah,” he would sang, feeling the groove!

And some kind of way his sultry sound of soul, gave a generation of Black folks the tools to drop and roll with the punches ( like I did with the 5.1. Earthquake that happen this morning near me)! We would stay in the joy no matter what.

President Reagan was in office when the song came out, and Black folks were disillusioned and struggling. Affirmative Action was under attack. The War on Crime would begin soon, when crack cocaine would be unleashed in our communities. The song carried us through it all, from the beginning to the end of four decades: The Bush eras and the Trump era too.

We danced to the White House with Obama.

Now, it’s time to stay in joy for Kamala Harris and work our butts off to move America forward as the GREATEST country in the world.

Now, more than ever, we understand that Joy & Pain are flipped sides of the same coin in America!

So like I’ve done for all the posts here today, I end with Frankie Beverly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNuKMPeOdfM

Joy & Pain

Remember when you first found love how you felt so good
Kind that last forever more so you thought it would
Suddenly the things you see got you hurt so bad
How come the things that make us happy make us sad
Well it seems to me that
Joy and pain are like sunshine and rain
Joy and pain are like sunshine and rain
Love can be bitter love can be sweet
Sometimes devotion and sometimes deceit
The ones that you care for give you so much pain
Oh but it's alright there both one in the same
Don't it seem we go through life going up and down
Seems the things that turn you on turn you around
Always hurting eachother if it ain't one thing it's another
But when the world is down on you love's somewhere around
Well it seems to me that
Joy and pain are like sunshine and rain
Joy and pain are like sunshine and rain
Joy and pain are like sunshine and rain
Joy and pain are like sunshine and rain
Over and over you can be sure
There will be sorrow but you will endure
Where there's a flower there's the sun and the rain
Oh and it's wonderful there both one in the same
Joy and pain are like sunshine and rain
Joy and pain are like sunshine and rain
Joy and pain are like sunshine and rain
Joy and pain are like sunshine and rain

He would often end it with a moan and SHOUT as the audience took over.

Thank you, Frankie Beverly, for a lifetime of music.