Right now I'm thinking of "Stabilize", the cool theme song to the flop seventies sitcom "Flatbush", set in the Brooklyn, New York neighborhood of the same name. "Flatbush" featured a bunch of dumb-macho-Italian guys known as the Fungos, a blatant ripoff of the Sweathogs on the hit seventies sitcom "Welcome Back, Kotter." I don't remember much about "Flatbush", except that "Stabilize!" was the Fungos' catchphrase, reminding them to keep it cool. Then they'd shout, "Mobilize!" and get on with things. "Flatbush" was so bad a show that the citizens of the real Flatbush neighborhood demanded its cancellation; it was so bad a show that it eventually got cancelled anyway. And I still have memories of when a Fungo stuffed a pair of socks in a girl's mouth to make her shut up.
I'm thinking "Stabilize!" because that what I need to do these days. Life is a roller coaster for me still: I did my TV interview with Lakeshore Public Television yesterday and it will be broadcast on Friday evening. That's the high. The low point is that I'm still broke and I need to pay my smartphone bill. Then there's another high. My friend Bertha Phillips may now be in a position to pay me to illustrate her children's book "God Made the Cats" this month. I wonder if I can get her to pay part of it this week.
It is time for me to think like a businessperson. Art is a business, despite what a former entrepreneur friend says. (I wanted to stuff a pair of socks in her mouth when she declared artists weren't businesspeople.) So D.K. Upshaw must "stabilize": Keep still, keep cool and look for new clients and outlets for my art. And somehow find a way to use my upcoming TV fame to get freelance work right here in East Chicago. And when I come up with some ideas, pick one and "mobilize!"
"Stabilize!" also means to quiet my artist's ego so I don't whine about my troubles to my friends and family just to "blow off steam". I hate whiny black people, especially when one of them's me. So I have to stuff a pair of metaphorical socks in my own mouth.
And I must always seek support from the Lord, the Creator Who made me a creator and is always there for me. He did say, "Be still and know that I am God." That's Christianese for "Stabilize!"
