The thing that’s really cool about Central Brooklyn State Sen. Jesse Hamilton is that besides being an able and hard-working lawmaker, a good family man, and one of the most personable people you’ll ever meet, he throws a great party.
This reporter first discovered the latter of these attributes during the recent holiday season when he went around to the various political parties doing what seasoned political reporters often do – eat, drink and fraternize in the name of shoring up existing and developing new sources, and looking for stories. It can get sloppy at times, but by golly, it’s part of the job and somebody’s got to do it.
Anyway, Hamilton’s holiday party started down the street from his office in Crown Heights at a restaurant and then moved to his office, where this reporter found great discourse with among others, a pretty single mother from Harlem with her kids in tow, an elderly financial planner and his wife still looking for their first grandchild and a former arts major now doing government relations for a state hospital.
So when word got out a week ago that Hamilton was having a birthday bash featuring old school music, this reporter got out the finger horn and texted Kings County Politics photographer extraordinaire Emily Sanborn to pack up her gear and head to Brooklyn for this dubious assignment.
The birthday bash was held at Woodland, 242 Flatbush Avenue. It’s a rustic-looking restaurant and watering hole, a brisk walk from Barclays Center arena, and to which I’ve frequented with the agent for my second novel, The Street Singer: A Tale of Sex, Money & Power In A Changing Brooklyn (shameless self-promotion here).
Anyway, upon entering this fine establishment, we were ushered downstairs where the senator himself greeted us in front of a large banner advertising the birthday bash and with the DJ blasting Slick Rick’s Mona Lisa. Don’t want to date myself here, but listening to early hip hop and R & B from the 80’s and 90’s lifted my spirit like ending a barroom pool game by sinking the eight ball after calling a double bank in the corner pocket.
So after we entered, I quickly introduced Senator Hamilton to Emily, and then left her to start snapping photos while I made my way first to the chicken wing table, then the bar and finally to the dance floor. All the while circling back to Emily every once in a while to point out this elected official or that district leader that had come in and that a photo of that person was needed.
Among the elected officials and district leaders I ran into and/or danced with were City Council Members Laurie Cumbo and Robert Cornegy, Assembly members Latrice Walker and Jo Anne Simon, former Assembly Member Karim Camara, State Senator Kevin Parker and District Leaders Arelis Martinez, Olanike Alabi, Geoffrey Davis and Josh Skaller.
A few drinks later and I was in the middle of the dance floor swept up with many in my age group for this party was not generally an affair for the young, but more age appropriate dated to the music. My personal crescendo for the night came when the effects of the alcohol mixed with the DJ spinning R. Kelly’s sensual, rhythmic and heartfelt song, Step To The Name Of Love.
R. Kelly. If ever there was an American musical enigma, it is R. Kelly. I know he’s done some weird kinky things, but that will never, ever take away from his musicality. For my money, he possess the most soulful voice since Sam Cooke and maybe ever. This man’s music and voice reaches from the carnal and mournful depths of the human experience to the heavens with a plea of redemptive longing for closeness to the Almighty.
But thank God on this night, Step To The Name Of Love, didn’t elicit the usual step dancing in unison that African-Americans often break into when it’s played. That’s because while I’m a passable dancer, I never could figure out that unison step dancing. Whenever I try, I get self conscious and it tends to bring out the white boy in me. Good old R. Kelly sings step to the left, my brain hears it, but my feet takes a mind of its own and steps to the right.
Which brings me to the end of this diatribe with a theme that this scribe has returned to time and again. We Americans should thank our lucky stars for our black brethren. Our culture is so much richer from African-American contributions that have helped build this country from its founding to the present. It is why we celebrate African-American History Month every February and why black lives do matter.
That said, thank you Senator Hamilton for inviting Kings County Politics to your birthday bash. It was great fun and all the best to you and your family in the coming year!
For anyone interested in receiving a copy of the photo album from this event, please contact Emily Sanborn at emily.sanborn@tkc.edu.
