rootwork the rootsblog: a cyberhoodoo webspace

easy pickings

SATURDAY

just back from thanksgiving in dc, ima couple of pages ahead of the game, such a struggle to sit down and
hit it everyday, you win one day and got to face the beast all over again the next - it becomes a drudge

getting iffy on this blog - when i take away folk coming from google mostly for the imagery i dont have that many readers - but such is life in the literary lane, if it was dependent on my readership numbers i might as well quit writing

i remember doris jean once said -  what you gon do, say i will show you, ima quit writing

im going to cut back on the time i give this thing though, much better investing that time in printwork - it doesnt take a lot generally i just sit down and think on keyboard - but in the longrun it adds up and sometimes i get a little despondent as to whether its worth the investment

mostly the answer is yes i guess cause i get a lot of material from it for my printwork so its all good
i guess this more for me than it is for you, i get to work out things here that contribute to the game

bummer about those reality show folk gatecrashing obama, makes him look bad, the rightwing is going
to say he cant even police his own party, and claim its reflective of his weak security props in general

wish there was some way those two and bravo could be penalized but that would just give the obama
haters more material to work with, best just let it be and keep on pushing, obama got bigger fish to fry,

im not at all comfortable with sending more folk to afghanistan but ima give him benefit of the doubt on this
one - obama been trying my progressive soul but for me its still brotherme brotherblood brotherblack

hangtough

rdoc

WEDNESDAY

was just reading dionne in the washpost comparing obamas thanksgiving proclamation w/roosevelts
and he talked about how 'the happy warrior' took it to his enemies every chance he got,

said at one point  'i welcome their hatred',

dionne said obama in contrast always goes for the inoffensive approach, said that he will have to learn how
to throw down against the republicans if he doesnt want to be swamped by their implacable hatred/opposition

and i was thinking/wondering how much of obamas unwillingness to come on strong is because
of his almost obsessive determination to be an unthreatening blackman, reminds me of that saying

dont make me show my african on you - maybe thats what obama need, hopefully at some point he will

abandon that good negro approach and show these suckers what time it is

ann tankerlys funning - from her eyes watching god series - i believe thats teacake and janie playing checkers

im clocking pages, well, clocking hours, about 3 pages behind schedule, but bonnie made me do the family thing in dc for thanksgiving - for holidaywork a 3 pages deficit aint bad, did 5 hours this morning but my page count didnt move - bes like that sometime - in fact i believe i lost a page

happy colonialist conquerors day

(do native americans actually celebrate thanksgiving, one wonders) obama tried to parse it w/a reference

to indigenous americans helping the pilgrims survive - hard to ignore that it look like pc kumbaya didnt work that time, little did the native americans realize they were on the menu - but had they not been there would be no america and i like being american,

then again w/o slavery there would be no african americans and i like being a soulbrother, i tell you

history and destiny and all that, its a real twisty road - remind me of that taoist story about the farmers son

farmers son broke his leg and the neighbors lament how bad their luck was, farmer say goodluck badluck, who knows - then when the state pressgang came thru looking for soldiers they dont take son cause his leg was broke and neighbors congratulate farmer on his good fortune, farmer say goodluck badluck, who knows

you get the drift, good bad hard to say, just keep a steady roll, and however you read it hope i you enjoy this day - family is forever

all my love

rdoc

TUESDAY

been thinking i might abandon my feelgood approach to this blog

be a little more willing to call it like i see it
even when it challenge my constituency

thinking right now about major hasan, is it terrorism or disturbed individual, well, both, they kinda go together dont they

fbi should have flagged him when he started conversing with the iman

problem w/this observation is that the rightwing is going to try to use it to claim obama admin soft on terror because its just too pc - well, we dont have to go there but major hasan should have been jacked up - way i see it

all the folk/media coming up w/justifications that sanitize it, he was worried about deployment, etc, need to take a deep breath, cant afford to be starry eyed about this thing

this a strange conflict strategically, the west an open society, islam by and large closed - radical islam can establish beachheads the west cannot - that apparent weakness has to be turned into strength

in the longrun we hope that open society thing is the strength, but only if when the hammer called for the hammer fall

ideological orchestration, you got to work w/both hands, starry eyed need to go sit down
and not clutter up the field

that piece by my homegirl nan saville, i forget what she call it, i think journeys when i see it
i like being a little art gallery here, wil make stronger effort to give props to artists when i know them

so now the healthbill boils down to the 3 democratic holdouts determined to bring down the public option

some progressive groups pushing reconciliation, but that just doesnt appear to be feasible to me

reconciliation, you have to strip the bill down to its component parts, abandon what dont fit, redo it every 5 years - that dont really work for our purposes

better the trigger option if it comes to that, im still hoping the public option get thru - burning candles on it

gon be an interesting month, trench warfare, everybody need to do their part, progressive forces
pressuring/buying the 3, 4 democratic holdouts and wooing olympia stowe and suan collins for backup

what little pressure we go should be brought to bear on recalcitrant 3, we need a solid 60 do or die

w/o the pubic option the healthbill is just another giveaway to the insurance companies
but ive said that before, best i get busy on todays pages, didnt clock a page yesterday

if the morning gets by w/o me getting busy the day is pretty much shot - (notice if you will, the new
ratio of commentary to the metablogic/process, if i aint got no commentary ima keep my mouth shut)

you know feelgood is my default, i basically think of myself as the worlds hoodoo, the worlds
spirit doctor, i call myself tending to the worldspirit - enhancing the human condition, ennobling the
worlds cultures and taking humanity to the next step in human evolution, even better setting

up the process of taking the next evolutionary step, one that play out generation after generation - and

so forth along these lines, i just want to teach the world to sing - thats all -

in the old days the conjureman tend to the souls of his or her little community
nowdays our community is global, ima citizen of the world, even better the cosmos

ima soul doctor, i want to tend the worlds soul

i want to shape reality, shape the future of humanity, shape our generations

ambitious of me a little bit maybe but what can i say, i am what i am, im the conjureman

the vision i got clear

its the manifestation i been stumbling

theoretically the novel speak to one set of folk, the holybook to another

between them (this blog & the hand)  i should have my destinic constituency covered

im fully aware of the delusional quality here, im aware the odds are against me being what i aspire to be
but what that got to do w/the price of butter in siberia, you dont play the longgame to win, you play the

longgame because thats your bid at being historical, making your little contribution, a player

to play is to win - i will be long dead before this game come into fruition, what i got to do is

develop the cosmology, work it in my Works, build supporting institutions & social infrastructures

in my allotted lifetime - plant the seeds, develop the ground - thats all

im out

rdoc

MONDAY

hello world, tried to embed this palin disaster movie spoof but couldnt find the code, sometimes i think it would be nice if the repubs actually did nominate palin for 2012, then i think what if she really won: is that

a gamble im willing to take

btw: clocked many pages,(well at least 2) and another manuscript has bit the dust

rickydoc on a sungun, 360%

rdoc

family business

SATURDAY

hello world, been a good day for the righteous today, reid got his bill thru the senates 1st vote, rickydoc clocked many pages

im feeling a zone coming on, im feeling so strong ima go for it, draft by end of the year, why the hell not, just did the calculations, 4 pages a day until jan 10th w/one day a week off, usually i prefer two days off but two wont get it, 4 a day minus 1 will, showtime rick, lets separate the writers from the dilettantes, its like i been training all my life for this moment - lets do it

still got 2 novels need to be done, these novels been on my desk a year now, they been patient, they got to go, everybody else can wait until next year, ima try to get to those mfa submissions but im not inclined, i feel a zone coming on

(now this whats gon actually happen: ima start off strong, clocking pages, but before its over ima crawl up to the finishline gasping and whimpering with a critically diminished definition of what constitute a viable page, but it will be the finish line, ima move the ball)

this what i live for

cue the traveling spirit

showtime

rdoc

THURSDAY

kristof say critics call healthcare reform "a cruel hoax and delusion", say ads in 100 newspapers claim 'the beginnings of socialized medicine", business groups warn of deteriorating services', losing freedom to choose own doctor, and so forth, the lash of the dictator, the end of progress in america, so forth, etc - 2009 you say, well no, 1960

everything you hearing today you heard in the 60s against medicare and even before against social security, except this time they claim to be defending your medicare against 'socialized medicine' -

of course medicare is socialized medicine that seems to work quite well thank you, but never mind logic, its just some knee jerk selfishness on the part of gullible and morally flawed folk falling for the manipulations of vampiric moneylords....

okay rick, thats better, nothing about me, straight up commentary

rickydocs kudos on harry reid getting it this far, is there some way of putting pressure on the moderate holdouts, Lieberman, ben nelson, landrieu, and blanche whatever her name is of arkansas, oh lets call them what they are, shills for the industry

what about that report some time ago that the talking points of both rep and democratic house members were verbatim replicas of lobbyist 'suggestions' - i shoulda linked that one, still will if i can find it

my girl mary karrs new book, lit, is getting good buzz, i like it when my colleagues coming on strong, i like basking in that reflected light

okay, whats really on my mind, thanksgiving break, do i use it to catch up all this ofm reading or do i use this week off to catch up my own work - that is the question

if i get thru kims novel by saturday morning thats a whole week of nothing but my own work, a temptation i cannot resist

im out

rdoc

 WEDNESDAY

okay, i been avoiding this blog and facebook too, other day i put a post about edward p jones, author of the known world, on facebook and got all these thank you arthur for posting this piece responses,

folks showing much love for jones and thanking me for putting it up 

1st i was pleased the post had generated responses then

i realize hell i dont want to be the messenger, i want to be the message - that love jones getting thats the kind of love i want and i wont get it from facebook postings,

or this blog, dont know that my novel will ever gain that kind of love, dont
think its that kind of novel, or rather i fear it isnt, but whatever it is i got to be done with it

had to remind myself once again what aishah rahman once told me way back when, as a young cub i once told her i want to be the greatest novelist that ever lived, she said no art, what you want to do is sing your song the best you can sing it, that way you can appreciate other folk singing theirs

still buried in ofm, but i am getting thru them, im 3 novels down now, 3 to go, and gradually knocking off those mfa submissions, moving into closure on schoolhouse obligatories, im getting there, inch by inch, step by step - havent done a lick

of novelwork in about, god help me, 2 weeks now, but im clearing my decks and thats the dealio right now, i suspect between manuscripts and schoolhouse im not going to get much novelwork done for next 10 days

but come december 1st ima free man, anything hasnt been done by then dont get done until 2010

reason my posts so self absorbed these days is that i just dont have time to do anything but riff
whats in my head, dont have time to focus on current events et al, just dont have the time

so i sit down here at the sacred desk and i say whatever is in my head to say and its usually more personal than i care for but such is life - i keep wanting to shut this blog down but im addicted to those daily numbers

thats you dear regulators

im trying now to think if there is something i can say about something and i dont believe so

maybe later, maybe not, i got to go read manuscripts

didnt go to memphis, mother rallied again, will make usual xmas run

would you believe i missed ms graces memorial, ran into the mother of all traffic jams, took me 10 hours to
get to the city sunday, but i made the burial trek the next day w/immediate family and that was good,

louis called on me to be a pallbearer and that meant a lot to me, guess me and louis aint feuding no more
things like this tend to put the petty matters into perspective

used that time trekking to do a lot of thinking, and all the way down im thinking ms grace wont mind
im the one who tends johns grave anyway, so now i will just be tending the grave for both of them

couple of years ago i tried to get folk together to do an annual ceremony at johns grave, but nobody
was
interested so i just do it myself, ancestors have to remembered ritually to be viable ancestors and as long

as im on the set john (and ms grace) will get their ancestral props

last time i went there i charged up my conch horn - nice touch dont you think, that open book on his stone

i suspect him and ms grace both resting easy, they got their work done

best i get on mine, win or lose i do love the game

all my love

rdoc

FRIDAY EVENING

Mrs. Grace Killens Makes Transition at 90

At approximately 4 a.m. this past Tuesday, Nov 10, Mrs. Grace Jones Killens, the widow of novelist John Oliver Killens, passed away quietly in her home. She was 90 years old. Teamwork and social activism defined their marriage and their home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, was a refuge and meeting ground for writers, artists and activists.

A wake and memorial program for Mrs. Grace Killens will take place on Sunday, November 15 - 3 to 8 p.m., at Unity Funeral Chapel (1406 Pitkin Avenue/Eastern Parkway) in Brooklyn. The memorial begins at 5:30 p.m. The funeral will be at Unity the following morning, Monday, Nov 16, at 10 a.m. She will be interred beside her husband at Evergreens Cemetery.

FRIDAY

i was just looking over some of my recentposts and its like you are seriously out of control, rick

its like stop me before i blog again - i wouldnt mind coming on so strong if i had work coming out

i put these posts out there then i look at them and its like, oops, TMI, lets delete that, but it be

good work so i leave it alone, you cant back up off good work - where does that get you

whatever

hello world

just heard from my sister that mother in hospital under emergency conditions
might have to get on my pony and ride

mother been bedridden some 6, 7 years now, we expected her to die some time ago
doctors wrote her off, she was ready to go, but my sister was not ready to let her

has kept her alive by sheer grit and 24 hour care, its been kinda amazing actually
and when i go home to try to give my sister a break it becomes an emergency
whenever she has to go to the hospital it becomes an emergency cause my sister

the only one know what to do daily to keep her going - nobody else can, its the most profound thing
nobody thought my sister had it in her but when the bell rang she stepped up to the plate

now she say its going downhill w/the quickness, same things folk told me about ms grace
but i kept putting off making the run down and missed ms grace, cant do that w/my momma too

whenever i go there sometime she lucid sometime she not, but she always smile when she realize its me
she always cracking jokes, still be commenting on the issues of the day, she cant hardly eat these days

but she love to eat, its her only indulgence she got left so im always sneaking her cookies and cupcakes
and the like, and elise know it, she allow it, and work a little harder to compensate for my quality time

everybody my generation got these elderly parents checking out, needing full time care and all
bonnie was just down in dc doing her parent thing last week, and she was saying this morning

everytime you can get some quality time in w/them you know its a blessing, and how much you savor them
its going to be real problematic in my life to try to head for the delta right now

but it will be much more problematic if i dont

missed my daddy dying, i had just left memphis and moved to la, and he had been in and out of the hospital
moma told me dont worry about trying to make it right back, he will be okay, but he wasnt, he died and i wasnt there

my daddy one of those oldschool general practitioners, classic crusty family doctor and kinda legendary in
those parts, momma told me the young doctors would come in and ask what should we do dr flowers

elise tell me about all these old folk from arkansas, his 1st practice, come in and do all this hoodoo stuff, sprinkling
him w/holywater, burning candles et al, told her your daddy a special doctor, say he heal with both hands

this news to me, i thought i was the hoodoo in the family, daddy took care of their bodies, i handled their souls
i knew i had come by it on my mommas side but it appear i come by it on my fathers side too - who knew

just missed my last blessing with ms grace, i hope this thing with my momma just another hump
but if its not i cant cry about it, shes had about 7 years beyond what they gave her and they been good years

lot of laughs, good conversations, that special smile she give when she happy

when i sneak her a cookie

fuck it all, im gone

sunday make ms graces memorial down in the city, and go from there to the delta

look like older you get the more flexible your definition of satisfaction

all it take now is a cookie

fuck it all, im out

rdoc

watching the sun rise, licking my wounds, soldiering on

TUESDAY AFTERNOON

just heard from keith gilyard that grace killens died this morning, about 4 am
ms grace was john killens wife and of the two of them she was the militant one

that kept him on point, i knew she was under the gun and i been intending to

get to city to see her and it kept getting put back, feel guilty about that but ms grace wouldnt

hold it against me so im not going to worry about it, guess i will be trekking down to city

im out, let me leave you w/this puppetry piece, i never realized how so very human blinks are

Royal de Luxe - LE RENDEZ-VOUS DE BERLIN, DAS WIEDERSEHEN VON BERLIN from Nina. on Vimeo.

these puppets are so soulful they make me think about what it mean to be human, i enjoy being conscious of humanity and the human condition and all that, thats what literature all about, anything that sensitize me to that, im hungry for that, it make me tingle

Royal de Luxe from Yves Chauvel on Vimeo.

i miss ms grace, as much as i miss john o and my father, life is such a strange journey, i wish her god speed, and sekou and safiya and imogunla et al, all the folk in my life who have passed on, both the living and the dead, and generations to come, gods blessings on us all

all my love

rdoc

WOW, ITS TUESDAY ALREADY

hello world, ive been underwater, but it cross my mind i hadnt commented on the healthbill vote

so, giving rickydocs blessings on nancy pelosi, barack obama, anh cao and the strong 220

now the real battle begins, the senate, looking for the strong 60, i dont quite understand how that works i am shamed to say, why cant they just let the republicans filibuster,

seem like in the old civil rights days they filibustered everything and it got thru anyway - now folk so scared of the filibuster they knuckle under beforehand, i must not understand how that works

what else, im sure there is a lot to comment on but im feeling underwater, been doing nothing but ofm for the last week, other folks manuscripts, trying to get thru all these end of the year obligations

and its clear there is another category that i have to learn how to say no to, undergrad mfa submissions - this year ive been inundated with folk wanting me to critique their mfa application submissions

a lot of them folk ive encouraged to go for it, cant honorably say no when they ask me to read their work - but im kinda frustrated now, havent been able to do any of my work this week, buried in ofm

that make me grouchy

i see the answer to this is to say no

just say no rick, cant do it - trying to get my own work done, just cant do it

school obligatories i got to do, but one story beyond my obligatories takes my discretionary time, lets say 3 hours or more per story, that mean that day shot for my work - a novel takes about a week, or a full weekend, more if its a complicated novel,

and so often folk dont follow thru, thats time been wasted

some folk dont really want to become better writers, they just want help being published, mfa entry, etc - you can pretty much tell by how they come to you who want real help and who just using you

got to get ruthless rick, im not doing this again, im much too desperate to give up days - weeks of writing time consistently like this

me and george was talking about this the other day, what i got he got doubled - geo better w/the no than i am, he has to be

couple of days ago this brother aked me to read a manuscripts of shorts for him, god i wanted to say cant do it man, just cant do it, but he a brother back home thats been serious about his literary efforts, ive known him 20 years now and hes always been respectful, had enuf success to keep him in the game, i feel obligated to help him, thats what it boil down to, so many folk helped me when i was knocking at the door

when you quote unquote successful for so many folk you the best or only gateway they know and you feel like you got to be generous because folk was generous with you when you was a desperate young cub

i guess you might as well quit whining rick, you just wasting time you could be getting thru these manuscripts,

ive already obligated myself for these and i try to live by my word

but in the future, folk gone get a lot more no from me, just cant do it, just cant

had one person send me her work and give me a deadline to get back to her, it was something like 3 days and i could only be amused, okay, what about the 15 folk thats in front of you, some of whom been waiting a year or so to hear back from me, what im suppose to do about them

but mr niceguy say cant do it in 3 days, i will try in next week or so, cause i know she trying to get her mfa application off, but its not going to happen, these mfa apps they not likely to be done before end of month

my goal right now is get through these novel manuscripts, so this month look like

between schoolhouse and manuscriptwork (and evan) nothing for flowers

i really felt for my gradstudents when teaching start cutting into their production time, but i couldnt let them
stay in that space, every writer i know teach, you make it work - i bought pizza and beer last class to

knda apologize for jacking them up week before, i know i know, the beer was pushing it

(was just thinking if i put mfa folk off to the end of month that doesnt give them much rewrite time before those apps start going out dec 1st, might have to push them further up the line, big sigh)

i think when i finish this manuscript im on ima take the weekend for my own before i dig into next one

that might take some of this pressure off my soul, take some of this grouch up off of me

im gone, day feels half gone already, got a string of meetings w/students (about their manuscripts)

starting in about 30 minutes, running late again rick - got to get on my pony and ride

(pony a metaphor, actually im about to get in the volvo and ride)

im out

rdoc

WEDNESDAY

okay, let me see, cant hold back, my  boy alex yates got a deal, its still in negotiation so i cant go into detail yet but he sold his novel, me and alex been close since he got here, always came to me w/respect, came up in here talking novel, alex one of my special ones - im just as tickled as if i had sold my own

wish i could claim credit for him but alex so good he woulda sold no matter who he was working with, book was on the market all of 8 days before the bids start coming in

well, i still got bragging rights and thats what count

that photo, tulsi sent me that, from the jaipur literary festival performance, did that month long state dept goodwill tour of india, photo brought back the glorydays, they treated me like i was some kind of literary guru, bowing, touching my feet, the little halfcircle asking about the meaning of life, amazing sets and astounding offers, it mess w/my head a little bit i have to say, but i could get used to that - it was interesting the way folk responded to the spiritual component of my work in a way ive not experienced elsewhere in my travels

washout on the elections yesterday, i was hoping corzine would pull thru, we would have actually been better off to lose the 23rd up in newyork, that would have emboldened the wingnut right of the republican party to drag it even further to the right and kick out more moderates before the 2010 midterm elections

instead the model will be the virginia guy who hid his rightwing inclinations until elected, id rather have the rightwing in full bray myself

apparently publishers weekly just did a listing, 10 best books 2009, that did not include any women, imagine that - some folk are clueless, pw is not clueless, a conscious decision was made, some penalty should be paid for thinking they could get away w/it

okay, what else, had a productive weekend, im in that strange end of semester space, i got to step up my game for november, do backupped feedbacks, get manuscripts off my plates, hold overdue conferences w/students, overdue lunch obligations, i got to give them my all this month because come dec 1st im thru

i dont accept manuscripts or set up conferences that last couple of weeks of school because they will wait until the last week to give me a slew of drafts, so after school is done im still buried, that dont fly

otherday i jacked up my grad workshop, they were turning in raw fragments and i said this is not your A game, raw i can take, but not fragments, you not getting full benefit of workshop experience,

they made some good cases about struggling w/new stuff, but i think im right on this one, bring your best effort to workshop, but if im asking them for their A game, i got to give them mine, which mean focus, rick

one month, full court press focus, i can handle that

what was cutting into their production was this teaching, which will cut any writers production if you let it,
you learn how to modulate it, cant give it 100%, just cant, you learn to cut any corner that can be cut

and these manuscript, by god in heaven im getting them off my plate too, this week will be 2 down, 3 to go

i can already smell freedom to focus on my own work, maybe a month, minus family xmas time, the temptation is to shut down shop right now, that i have to fight, problem with teaching is that my heart is in it

i like doing well, i like giving my students what they need, (not necessarily what they want)

so i have to resist the pull to pull out early, but its almost time to send my traveling spirit out, thats when the real me is home working while the traveling spirit is out there dealing with people, they think they dealing w/me but its just a facade

what else, my numbers been dropping, cause my posting spotty and self referenced, so be it

did some work on my holybook this week, that was cool, finished off a gil scott heron piece for oxford and
thought if im going to be doing nonfiction i might as well do some that really mean something to me

so i pulled out my holybook, the hoodoo book of flowers, the great black book of generations, plan was to put the novel down (gasp) for nov, while im dug into the schoolhouse crunch anyway, and work on HBOF

but that didnt work, ima have to do both, there is no such thing as put the novel down

okay, im gone, i want to do commentary but its all me me me, maybe later

congrats again to alex, man that felt as good as selling my own

i love teaching young writers and i love even more when i can help them navigate the industry

alex was easy, but i get bragging rights anyway, feels good, real real good

damn every industry gatekeeper that ever was, we coming thru

all my love

rdoc

SATURDAY MORNING

finally, the sun is rising,

i been sitting here at the sacred desk trying to write for a couple of hours now and nothing happening, i feel so beat up wore out tired i just cant get my groove on,

just sitting here watching the sun rise, watching the sky turn

saw keith gilyard today, adam brought him on campus, keith and safiya the ones brought me to syracuse, me and keith go all the way back, his bio on my mentor, john oliver killens, is due out in april, from univ of georgia press, i cant wait

keith know all the secrets, he was telling me stuff about john i had no idea, i had read earlier drafts of bio but its evolved so far beyond what it was, he was telling me juicy stuff the lawyers wouldnt let him include because it was telling secrets on mainstream literary icons, who fucked whose wife, who still holding ideological grudges after all these years,

literary wars they never cease

so many secrets that i want to tell you, as you know dear regulators, secrets are my business, the hoodoo coin in trade, but for once i think i will let discretion be the better part of valor, im out

the sky is beginning to streak with light, its really pretty, today might be a chill out day, a lick my wounds day

a day for watching the sun rise, licking my wounds, soldiering on

rdoc

FRIDAY

nina shope got this from some group call boldprogressives or something like that
now i dont usually sign online petitions and other such tactics of the weak

but for joe lieberman i will make an exception, anything rachel madow (and nina) approve of

i approve of too

===============

Nina,
You may have heard the news. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) is threatening to help Republicans block a vote on health care reform if the bill includes a public health insurance option.
But when reporters asked Lieberman if he'd be willing to lose his powerful committee chairmanship as a consequence, he said: "Oh, God no."
What's our answer? Hell yeah!
You and 90,000 others signed our petition to Democratic senators asking them to strip leadership titles from Lieberman (or others) if they block reform. Can you help us get to 100,000?
Please forward this email to your friends. Ask them to sign our petition to Democratic senators by clicking here.
If you're on Facebook, click here to share the petition.
If you're on Twitter, click to automatically Tweet this message:
Are we going to let Joe Lieberman screw up health care reform? Hell no! Sign the petition to hold him accountable --> http://bit.ly/2N7YVq
We'll deliver this petition to Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), among others. After Lieberman endorsed John McCain for president, and Democrats let Lieberman keep his chairmanship, Bayh said:
"If he does retain his chairmanship, we still exert oversight over him... He doesn't have the ability to just do whatever he wants. The caucus still has the right to remove him from that position at any time..."
Now's the time for Democratic senators like Bayh to let Lieberman know they'll make good on that promise. Lieberman needs to be held accountable.
Please forward this email to friends -- and share on Facebook and Twitter -- so we can deliver 100,000 signatures to Democratic senators!

Thanks for being a bold progressive.
--Adam Green, Stephanie Taylor, Aaron Swartz, Brian Bills, Michael Snook, and the PCCC team

gil scott herons new album and dancing with the devil

MONDAY

excuse me dear regulators, i need to stash this clip somewhere for a couple of days
while i dig into gil scotts 1980 album, indulge me:

also shut em down

a couple of days, i need to listen to these over and over while i work on this assignment

deadline next week so this wont be but a minute

i ask your indulgence, trying to cut some paper

rdoc

SUNDAY

wow, has it been that long since ive posted, no wonder my numbers falling
guess it just bes that way sometime cause im doing catch up

one novel down, 5 to go

some quick commentary, just to get back into the game

obamas war w/fox: long overdue but not going well, when all the news is about the
foolishness of the tactic instead of focusing on foxs transgressions youve lost that one

the public option: looks good, looks like we will get some kind of option, perhaps even a robust
one but now is not the time to kick back, got to keep the pressure on wavering congress

according to this huff post article the person need some backbone is obama, seems he wavering on the public option, just when we got some traction, too often we have to drag him kicking and whimpering, to to the right or rather the left or should i say progressive thing

anna quindlen has an atricle in newsweek entitled  Hope Springs Eternal assessing obamas 1st year and the disappointment he been to us, she say he is not the populist we hoped he was, would be, he is by nature a concilitator and so is government dynamics, say the only way government really moves is when the people force it to:

"So if the American people want the president to be more like the Barack Obama they elected, maybe they should start acting more like the voters who elected him, who forcibly and undeniably moved the political establishment to where it didn't want to go. After all, in our system, even great, audacious change is never as audacious as it seems: calls for a national health-care system can be traced all the way back to Roosevelt—Teddy Roosevelt, in 1912. When Sen. Olympia Snowe, Republican of Maine, broke with her party to vote a health-care bill out of committee, she said, "When history calls, history calls." And it's not asking for baby steps."

let me see, what else, can you tell my heart is not really in this, i need to clcok some pages
and get thru another manuscript, i have got to get these off my plate before the end of the year

if something else comes to mind while im working thru my day so be it

otherwise, im gone

let me leave you with this sand painting by illana yahav, youve got a friend

rdoc

MONDAY

so been thinking about pulling back from fb (and this blog) but everytime i do fb
come thru with a new blessing, had made a comment recently on prezident browns

fan page, next thing i know i get a request for friendship from prezident brown, this
floors me because prezident brown is one of my fav reggae folk ever, got this piece

call dem lose again that renew me in struggle whenever i play it, ran across a cd of his
some years ago, to jah only, and hunted down everything of his i could find

now we been reasoning together, a fellow traveler and keeper of the faith, old boy count
that as a blessing in life, musicians i respect pretty much the only folk i bow to

guess ima hang -  no retreat no surrender

 SUNDAY

panic day, havent done any work fri or sat, today is do or die, still working on john henry segment

been listening to nothing but john henry songs for the last week or so, got john henry on the brain

time for me to roll, get this done

last post had me thinking about students, both at the cuse and in the tradition,

thinking how much i need them, wasnt helping young writers be writers i wouldnt know what to do w/myself

to get paid for it is magical

what worth a mystic w/o students
got the spiritworld manifesting real -

metafictional leakage

life at its best

in the tradition im of the line of o killens, its a longgame line
nothing but the chosen

at the cuse we choose 6 of about 300+ applicants, nothing but the strong
folk with potential of being true force, of being better than we are

they keep you nimble, keep you growing, just to stay up

keep that one step ahead the teacher want to stay current maintain

how else provide legitimate and viable guidance

dealing with young guns year after year keep you nimble, keep you growing

thats what its all about, right, growing, you get comfortable that mean its over

your run is done

i love my students, both at the cuse and in the tradition

they make me whole

at this point in my life their success as important to me as my own
(well, damn near)

this post has begun to embarrass me, as you know, dear
regulators, i been thinking about pulling back

been exposing much too much i mans soul lately

what happen with this blogging thing is you constantly escalating, digging
deeper, hopefully growing in power, working off whats come before and

reaching for richer expression of whatever it is you selling

w/a literary blog its

yourself mostly

whatever - im out

rdoc

SATURDAY

hello world

(to get full effect of this post, hit link now and let music play in background while reading - trust me)

been feeling a little self conscious last couple of days, think i been being a little too exposed maybe
thinking i should draw back on posting and facebooking and all that, cut off my afterburners maybe

the iching says that there are two ways of influencing human destiny for the superior personality
affecting policy at the court (of pubic opinion) and withdrawal to work on yourself as a model of the future

i translate that as an alternating spiral of being out in the arena, making your vision manifest
and withdrawal to renew and refresh to reassess and regenerate, to give it a rest sometime

personally sometime i get to wolfing and stepping out there boldly, then i get selfconscious and feeling
like i need to be more modest and show a little more humility or something, a little less me me me me me

all this yak yak and no book out in almost a decade make me feel funny about myself

like im all talk and no work, no real

but this blog as a 21st century literary form is all me me me me me
and i seem to be good at it and im very conscious of using it as an instrument

destiny work - i got a plan and im generating words and thats always good

but there are times when i feel like drawing back and i believe im feeling that right along here

but the problem is i got a constituency and whenever i draw back i can see my numbers dropping and that

distress me - ah temptation come in so many guises - we shall see

what brought me out my cave this morning is that im finally kinda caught up w/my schoolhouse work
as much as one ever is, still got googabs of manuscripts to get thru, but official classwork caught up

got a couple of days i can give to my own

ran across this selection of cuts from gil scott herons new album coming out in a couple of months
its some powerful stuff, you can hear the dues he has paid in his ravaged voice but his soul has grown

deep through struggle, some haunting work, im surprised he still got the chops,
make you almost feel like its been a decent tradeoff for an artist

but i got to assume he would be even stronger if he had not walked down that path

ive had young trainees flirt w/that path and everytime i run across it it break my heart

and i be using gil scott as an example of how it can destroy a great talent

saying look what it did to gil scot, it took his health, it took his talent, it took his art

i think of ethridge knight and other folk i have loved got lost on that path, great artists who did powerful work while they were on the scene but their potential was surely cut down in their prime

folk like jimi and janis

once read a book about writers and all the things in life that cripple their lifetime output, drugs, politics, sex, etc, all the good things in life - everything in moderation i guess

i am moved by gil scott still putting out powerful work, if anything possibly more powerful

than the work of his youth and chagrined that it messes w/my argument, an argument i will

continue to make, for all the love i got for gil scott and his work, i wish to god he had been able

to step off that path,

i say the same for my young trainees thats tempted to fuck around,

folk w/all the talent in the world, all the potential in

the world to be truevoice, dont put your work your talent in hock to the devil

you just dont know what it will cost, you have no idea - i pray to all the gods of artists thats ever been that

you

step aside

i believe in you, i need you to believe in you too

in struggle

rdoc

a praisesong for edwidge and calling down the spirits

THURSDAY

coming into closure oon whats been a rough week, 1 more workshop and its collapse time
both presentations seem to have gone well yesterday, project advance was most challenging

an hour of motivational speaking basically, but it went well, bunch of teachers, thats my world
and they were easy on me, i told them my goal was to do this w/as little preparation as possible

they could relate to that,

but it was the edwidge presentation that came from the heart me and edwidge
go all the way back and she comes out of that iterary hoodoo school or i

guess in her case literary voodoo so i gave her the full monty so to speak

i brought out the conch and i put the bells on, i considered the kalimba but decided that was overkill

i had planned to really throw down with this im gon sing your praise refrain at the end,
had practiced it til it was wicked strong and going to bring the house down, but when i did the

comeforth bit she came forth and walked up on stage & stood there, it kinda threw me off my game

what i should have done is just stopped at that point, bowed to her and let her have the stage

instead of sticking to the plan i should have improvised and just shown respect

i bowed to her before i went on, she bowed back, respect respect, one literary practitioner to the other

i particularly liked that dewmaster bit, probably she and i the only ones realized i was calling on jacques
roumain with that one, haitian writer who wrote masters of the dew and one of edwidges literary ancestors

that little crack on mfa writing exercises that was me nudging my students not to just write exercises but to write
from the heart, i always look at these presentations as a chance to speak literary truth to my students

they probably my primary audience when i do those things, its always a meditation on
the literary life as i see it, an attempt on my part to provide a little guidance

ive decided im going to give the next 2 weeks to getting thru these manuscripts, these unfulfilled
obligations have begun to wear on my soul - finished mlk rewrite, sent it off, now these manuscripts

im going to forcemarch thru them like bolivian cadre, i literary (that was spose to be literally) have about 6 novels and as
many shorts that have been piling up for a year now, ima have to just put my novel down, god help me, and get thru these

2 weeks, thats all ima give it, what i dont get thru in 2 weeks dont get got (i say ima put that novel down but i cant imagine
actually doing so, ima try, or keep the hourly count down to 3 a day and give the rest to ofm - other folks manuscripts - ima try)

so this the piece i did for edwidge, you dear regulators will recognize a couple of my classic riffs in here
during my research on edwidge to make this happen it reminded me how much i love what she do

she is in truth a fellow traveler,

back when we were young writers i hit on her at a party once, i dont think she even noticed, but we
did become friends of a sort behind it, hey edwidge how you doing whenever i see her around

this experience though may have made literary running buddies of us

when she did comeforth and was about to do her reading she waved around her head
and said i feel a little warm up here, all those spirits arthur called hanging around -

thats what im talking about - me and edwidge on the same wavelength when it come to spiritwork

im out, got to prep for my workshop, its been a grind of a week & i will be glad when its done

though my plan to do catchup this weekend means i dont get no rest this weekend, no rest for the weary

rest is when i am able to get my own work done, thats what renew me - thats all i ask

all my love

rdoc

------------------------------

PRAISESONG FOR EDWIDGE

Lord Legba open this gate, it is I Rickydoc rootdoctor ask that this gate be open and this work be done. 
I have come to sing a praisesong for edwidge, kric, yes im gon praise her, rickydoc gon praise her name – krak im gon praise your name

We have gathered here this evening to honor a master storyteller, a master griot.  Edwidge wrote her 1st story while still a youngster in Haiti, of a little girl visited by a clan of women each night, she say her stories were given to her back in Haiti, and when she came to America she just brought them with her.

Haiti has always had a rich storytelling tradition, kricing and kracing, haiti storytellers considered national resources, storytelling aint no joke in Haiti.  It is a master storyteller that has come to us this evening and we are honored by her presence, by the power of the word in this cathedral of the word.

From her early work, breath eyes memory she has been an acknowledged literary voice, a reputation that grows work after work with an ever widening emotional range and representing with a literary sophistication I can only envy, ffrom breath eyes memory through krik krak and the farming of bones, from beyond the mountains and the dew breaker to brother im dying she has given us a body of work that challenges the way we think about literature, about stories, about Haiti and women, about the human condition.

She has gathered a string of awards along the way, including the recent Macarthur, you go girl, but the one I like most from Jane Magazine, Gutsiest Woman of the Year.

It is a master griot that walks among us this evening, she say ``I come from a place where breath, eyes and memory are one, a place where you carry your past like the hair on your head,''

Let me run a couple of quotes from Epilogue: Women Like Us, by you.  “You remember thinking while braiding your hair that you look a lot like your mother. You remember her silence when you laid your first notebook in front of her. Her disappointment when you told her that words would be your life's work, like the kitchen had always been hers. She was angry at you for not understanding. "And with what do you repay me? With scribbles on paper that are not worth the scratch of a pig's snout." The sacrifices had been too great.

Writers don't leave any mark in the world. Not the world were we are from. In our world, writers are tortured and killed if they are men. Called lying whores, then raped and killed, if they are women. In our world, if you write, you are a politician, and we know what happens to politicians. They end up in a prison dungeon with their bodies covered in scalding tar before they're forced to eat their own waste.”

Thats the sense of urgency Edwidge Danticat bring to the page, that commitment to the word, writing not an mfa exercise for edwidge, writing serious business, writing lifework, a mission from god, Edwidge write from the heart, Edwidge write work that matters, work that counts, because literature does, literature mean something.

“You remember thinking while braiding your hair that you look a lot like your mother and her mother before her. It was their whispers that pushed you, their murmurs over pots sizzling in your head. a thousand women urging you to speak through the blunt tip of your pencil. Kitchen poets, you call them. Ghosts like burnished branches of a flame tree. These women, they asked for your voice so that they could tell your mother in your place that yes, women like you do speak, even if they speak in tongues that are hard to understand.”

You see what Im saying.  Edwidge be doing that voodoo thing, literature as conjuration, the artist as shaman, every book a spell, every draft a divination, opening minds to new possibilities, what Julie Dash call "rupturing their reality."  Edwidge a mythmaker.  Working at the crossroads.  Her work is a sacred text.  Rich in the mythologic, the sacred and the luminous, conjurational literature and at its best visionary, Edwidge be representing.

I am put to mind of her testimony before Congress when her Uncle died after being put in a concentration camp down in Miami.  She told them “I write today not in my own name, but in the name—and stead—of a loved one who died while in the custody of Department of Homeland Security and the Krome Detention Center in Miami. His name was Joseph Nosius Dantica, and he was eighty-one years old.”

Edwidges work give voice to the voiceless, she has spoken not only for her uncle but all of Haiti in all its troubled glory, her work speaks for us all, for all humanity, with a vision that unflinchingly faces the human condition and finds in the struggle of it redemption.  She is a witness.

I humbly ask that you COMEFORTH edwidge and bring the power, the we shall over COMEFORTH, and bring the blessing COMEFORTH and feed the soul, COMEFORTH spellwoman COMEFORTH magicwoman, COMEFORTH voodoowoman COMEFORTH erzuliwoman  COMEFORTH yemaya, COMEFORTH zoraneale COMEFORTH dewmaster COMEFORTH harriettubman COMEFORTH bring your snake COMEFORTH, bring your rattle COMEFORTH bring the spirit COMEFORTH shake the devil COMEFORTH soulfeeder COMEFORTH spiritbreeder COMEFORTH strengthmaker COMEFORTH troublebreaker COMEFORTH pathfinder COMEFORTH make a way COMEFORTH show the way COMEFORTH blueswoman COMEFORTH edwidge gon serve you this evening, she gon sanctify this ground

we have gathered here this evening in the name of the word, the almighty word, in the name of art that nurtures the soul, art that provides a vision - for without vision the people will perish

im gon praise im gon praise im gon sing yo praisesong - with edwidge I suspect the best is yet to come, got nothing but love for you, my fellow traveler and keeper of the faith,  may your work endure, may your song serve many generations  -  this ground has been prepared edwidge, come forth and do your thing

this spell is done

let loose on the world: amiris 75th birthday party, a gathering of the elders

MONDAY

that last post distressed many of my friends and colleagues, had folk emailing me telling me to hang in there, reassuring me that a luta continua

major thanks to buffalo soldier and parker and mikael and other folk who tried to buck me up

im okay, those little up and downs i accept them as part of the deal, cause there days i feel like one of gods literary chosen, i ignore those too, i just keep writing, thats what i do

i just got back from amiris birthday party at the schomberg, it was the most wonderful experience
evan, my budding poet, said it was the best day of his life, then he corrected himself, except being born he said,

mildred barya went down too, i enjoyed introducing them to my crew,

mikael awake came through but he didnt stay, had to leave so he missed the party in the basement, bummer

we had a blast

first it was just the fact that amiri was there, and amina, two of the most wonderful folk on the planet

im going to do the piece i did for his book here, maybe as my next post,

what book you say, let me relate things in their proper order, what happen was that ted wilson
amiris buddy since way back, and some other folk, including adero, sam anderson, marie brown (where was marie, aint no party w/o marie) etc

got together to do a celebration of amiris 75th, they got a bunch of folk to provide pieces for a commemorative book, then they got donations for the book and im ashamed now i sent so little

but hey i did send and im glad im down as one of the donors, cause its a beautiful book, some 400 something pages (im on page 418) so anyway, they said get there early and bring the invite, so we trek on down

as behind as i am you know i dont feel like trekking to the city but missing amiris 75th was not an option

you will see why when i post my piece, the barakas i have known, ive already posted it here but it seem called for again, so anyway down i go, and apparently missing amiris 75th is not an option for my literary comrades in arms either

everybody was there, everybody, folk i havent seen in 20 years, folks i assaulted the literary barricades with as a cub, we all bigger, grayer, carrying that gravitas, it was a gathering of the literary elders of african american literature - the progressive wing, the activist wing, my fellow travelers and keepers of the faith

it was just wonderful, just what the old rootdoctor ordered for that case of literary blues i was carrying

and everytime you approached somebody and they remembered you and still loved you from 20 years ago it just fed the soul

so anyway, after greeting and hugging folk and being surprised at all the folk that was there
we filed into the auditorium, standing room only, and the show commence, alternating bouts of poetry

and jazz, amiris favorites, there was a panel discussion, with of all people aishah rahman, god me and aishah go all the way back, there were young poets and elder warriors like sonya sanchez and everybody giving amiri and amina their props

the highpoint for me was craig harris and the didgeridoo ensemble he call the hoo doo hoo, you know i like that title, about 5 folk w/didgeridoos, ohman it was amazing what they made those didgeridoos do

then there was this youngsister whose name i dont remember did some poetry brought down the house

then at the end when everybody was on stage and somebody came up with the idea of picking amiri up on their shoulders and he was totally uncomfortable with the idea, we could see it in the audience but they couldnt see his expression or they woulda put him back him down cause he was not comfortable up there

no no, the highpoint was when amiri and amina started dancing in the audience to some jazz singer and ended up on stage slowdancing, god it was moving

the program went on a little longer than i cared for and i was considering ways to slip out the back when they said there was going to be a little after program dinner thing downstairs for the donors, which convince me to stay, even when mikael slipped on out the back - i didnt blame him but i wish he had stayed, we had a blast

i was sitting with my old literary crew, the new ren folk, adero, brenda, jacqui, lading, tom, (where was barbara, and new folk like judy and stacey and penda) but we had a full contingent, and oldschool folk like s. pearl and mervyn and esther louise and lamont and gary and louis reyes and redmond and rashidah and dawson (coverphoto), literary soldiers too many to mention

so then the party downstairs, it was restricted to donors w/rsvp invites, they were stopping folk at the head of the stairs who didnt have invites, which included evan and mildred, so we took the elevator down and slipped in the back, jack

this when the party started, folk eating good food, drinking good wine (cider for evan) catching up, getting emails and numbers etc and there was a frenzy of having folk sign copies of the book that they passed out to folk there

o another highpoint, when ted wilson at the end of the program gave amiri a copy of the book, another highpoint when we all got copies, it is such a wonderful thing, everybody is in it, i mean everybody, everybody stepped to the plate and sent some of their best work,

it is not only a wonderful gift to amir for that wall of books about him (see my entry) but its like a document of our literary generation and we had a run that rivals that of the harlem renaissance, just the story aint been told yet

evan was saying that he didnt know of amiri before now and we are all trying to make it clear to him the role that amiri has played in our literary generation, from his up against the wall days of the black arts 60s, when he shaped one of the most influential literary movements in african american literature and all the phases (and names) of amiri on up to his current days of eldership

i dont think there is anybody more respected in african american literature than amiri baraka, cept maybe toni morrison and thats a maybe, one of those apple and oranges things

so anyway we left about 8 oclock cause i had to make that trek back to syracuse, i ended up with 4 or 5 books from folk who had books come out recently and owed me trades, and my copy of let loose on the world

oh, wait, another highpoint, there was a let loose on the world documentary of amiri and it had extensive footage of sekou sundiata throwing down and i mean throwning down, i had already turned evan onto sekou

cause as yall know sekou was my running buddy, and when he came on the film folk in the audience start cheering and calling him out, se kou se kou se kou, im yelling se kou se kou at the top of my lungs, god it was wonderful

it was inspiring and touching and reaffirming,

so the 3 of us went and got some roti at that west indian joint on 124th and 5th and got on the road,

sunday the old roadwarrior just kind of crashed, its monday now and im determined to clock some pages,  which mean another week of falling behind schoolhouse and novelmanuscripts to be read but what the hell

cant do a whole weekend without no pages

ony bummer is didnt get a chance to get through and see ms grace in the hospital, by the time we woulda trekked to brooklyn it would have been seriously late and i was concerned about staying awake long enuf to get back to syracuse safely, basically was trekking a 24 hour shift, im surprised i still had it in me

ima have to go back down in a week or so, i got to see ms grace

okay, im out, still kinda tired and trying to get some work done, i figure this posting got to be refined, maybe work on it some today, after clocking some pages

im out

all my love

rdoc

obama wins the nobel and rickydoc has got the blues

A LITTLE LATER FRIDAY

the anguished 'he hasnt done anything yet' bleats of the obama haters are a joy to my ears

they have picked up my spirits

a luta continua

FRIDAY

well well well, obama wins the nobel, nobel folk call themselves gaming, trying to help him implement his agenda, gon be real interesting to see how the obama haters will react to this one

i have to admit this one surprised me too, but it shouldnt have, the nobel committee always play serious politics with that peace prize, thats the whole point of it

they look at the condition of the world today and try to determine how best to enhance the cause of peace

always nice to give it to folk who have already made their contribution but even better to put your hand on the scale just when it might really count, when it might make a difference

obama was having trouble implementing his vision and the committee decided to do what they do - longgame

what else, looks like between the cbo saying the health bill is budget friendly and this opt out compromise thats been floated lately where the states can opt out of a public option we just might have a public option on the board, today been a good day and its just gotten started

what other news, i guess thats it, i personally got a little taste of the blues, look like im behind on every hand, in every way, w/everybody, everything,

mostly these damned manuscripts im supposed to be reading for folk, every week that pile gets bigger and bigger while i give every discretionary moment to this novel because im just so damned desperate to be thru w/this thing

im about a week behind on all fronts and im feeling a little weary, stretched a little thin

also i notice that the winner of the nobel prize for literature this year is only 56 and i think im having to accept the fact that im just not the important first string writer i always thought and hoped i was when i was a young cub

you reach that point in life where its like damnation im just not as special as i once thought i was and life has just been one big string of disappointment and unrealized potential

i once dreamed of being a nobel prize for literature contender and here i am 59 and damn near a literary hasbeen, constantly striving to stay one step ahead of my grad students, trying to keep their respect, disappointed every time the macarthur come up and im not on the list, still working on a novel that after 10 years has not yet come to life

ashamed of my earlier works and ashamed that they are out of print and look like i just cant get out from under all these commitments i be making to read other folks manuscripts and striving to give them good critiques that will help them break into a literary world tightening up every day

got two presentations ive agreed to do for folk next week that are going to take days of preparation off my schedule, for no discernible reward, sometime you just cant say no to colleagues in need

and kinda feeling inadequate when it come to helping my family, seem like all of them struggling and i only got so much to give beyond trying to keep my own head above water - and evan moving into the household  has just become another tension point between me and bonnie, she thinks im too hard on him i think shes too indulgent and now shes mad at me all the time and expressing her perception of my inadequacy w/him, hes struggling woefully in school, sisters lights got turned off in spite of my little bi weekly contribution, im just tired, im weary in my bones tried  -

then abiba tells me ms grace, whom i have not spoken to in a year or so and was feeling bad about that, is in the hospital in serious condition, going down to the city saturday for amiris birthday party, will try to find out where she is and go see her - try to get by and see john

man im really fighting off the blues up in here and shouldnt be putting my business in the street - perhaps i should quit posting while im in this funky state of mind, try to get a little writing done

feel good for my boy obama, this is a game changer

all my love

rdoc