Charles, that was perfect! When you write about your family, it's so lovely and quietly tickles.

Good recollection.

From this and his article on Spike Lee, I believe that Charles Mudede has "Sidney Poitier" disease.

Sidney Poitier disease is the belief that any black person who aspires to an art or science must be unblemished perfection. Spike Lee cannot make a bad movie because that is impossible. There are no mediocre black artists and certainly there is no black equivalent of Ryan Seacrest, a profoundly mediocre person who rakes in the big bucks.

The corollary is that anything that reaches a state of unblemished perfection must then have been the product of a black person. There is no way a white person could be both profound, polished, great and artistic without going bonkers. Mozart is clearly a white person, with his high pitched nerdy laugh, his multiple mistresses and drug snorting self-destruction.

@3 Oh for fuck's sake, Charles didn't write the piece on Spike Lee. Ijeoma Oluo did.

P.S. Charles, I loved this piece. It was really quite beautiful.

A moment of beauty and clarity in my day. Thanks, Charles.

This brings me back to the many hours my late father and I spent listening to Monk and Miles and Coltrane. Thank you, Charles.

God, today there must be some sort of cosmic wavelength dictating fantastic journalism relating the death of fathers and art. This was a great piece, and similarly, today Noel Murray at the Onion AV Club published a piece about losing his father, and the fantastic episode of Friday Night Lights where Saracen loses his dad (http://www.avclub.com/article/one-best-t…). I highly recommend it.

That was lovely.

Now I'm thinking of my father, and the things we shared, and the conversations we didn't have when he was dying. But I could never write about the topic as beautifully as Charles has.

Charles, that was great.

My elderly next-door neighbor passed away at home this week. He was a lifelong baseball fan. When I moved in here I hadn't thought about baseball in many years, probably since Hank Aaron's successful run at Babe Ruth's record in the seventies. I liked my elder neighbor very much and began to spend time with him, and therefore to listen to him talk about baseball, and his life, and his life in the past of Seattle, and horse-racing, and Guantanamo in the 1950s, and the Elks, and the IBEW. But mostly about baseball.

I'll miss him very much. I think I'll keep watching baseball.

That was good stuff. I will be traveling soon to see my Mom for what is likely to be the last time. Would that I had the some fortune as you, finding that last, enduring connection.

Thanks Charles

Charles, your best work is stuff like this. Stuff where you're not trying to make some clever philosophical or political point, not trying to change the world, just taking a long look at ordinary things in (extra)ordinary life. Beautifully written.

@3: JBITSMFOTP

Charles,

That was a beautiful piece. I have been following your writing for years now and this reaffirms why I seek it out.

This was a lovely recollection. Both well-felt and well-expressed. I enjoyed reading it.

Charles, I love your writing, and stuff like this is a big part of the reason why. Of course I enjoy your trolling as well, but even when they don't work quite as well as this one, I love your introspective pieces.

<3<3<3

This is the type of writing the Stranger needs more of. I remember a story a long time ago about "10(?) of Seattles Mysterious Places" or somesuch. The writer described these places with real concern, hilarious pondering, and great writing. Mudedes' story is thoughtful, entertaining, deeply felt and downright enjoyable to read. Thanks

This is so true of Bach. Also, in my opinion, Debussy and Chopin too. Mozart, Hayden, Beethoven and others , though incredible geniuses and with utmost historical significance,
I always hear a Royal Ball with the chosen European members of the upper class. Ghostly white with powdered wigs and pointy shoes
dancing on the downbeat. Music for the priveladged few. Moussorsky (dead at 40 from alcohol abuse) could be a Rockstar had he lived in a later century. Chopin, Bach, Debussy, Moussorsky and their collegues ROCKED.

Charles, you are a self-centered prick.it's disgusting that you couldn't be troubled to sit with your father without texting friends or wanting to discuss events he could have no further influence on. The news? You only wanted to watch the news with him so you could hear yourself speak. For fucks sake the man was on his death-bed while you have decades to spew your nonsense.