rootwork the rootsblog: a cyberhoodoo webspace

fighting words: the phantom lives - patience puppy, its getting there

THURSDAY

hello world
i am weary unto my bones

down in the delta on family business
and doing a full rebuild of rest for the weary

you take your manuscript and cut it up into little bitty pieces
then you throw it into the air, let it land where it may and

see what you got
divination by novel

rdoc

SUNDAY

lorigirl, pleased that it tickled your fancy
and hoping things well with you, sound like you in a good space

its been me and gloria lynne today world
im in a special state of mind when im listening to gloria lynne

not only do i love that oldschool sound she got

used to hear her late at night after we had been put to bed and my parents and their friends playing cards and having a good time

and it was moms mabley and pigmeat, mingus, fathead, ray and gloria lynne, you get the gist of it, takes me back

got to go back to the delta next week
gloria lynne put me in a family state of mind

got the schoolhouse blues, they ran me last week, and im back on a weekend Work schedule now

today ima try to finish the rebuild of rest so i can move into redpen next week

schoolhouse blues got me
got to beg borrow and steal worktime now

god i love woodsheds
i love being a full time writer

wake up in the morning and your only concern
is how much Work can i do today

guess you will be getting more commentary dear regulators
old rickydoc back in the world

i really wanted to be thru with this novel this time
at least a moneydraft, thats what i wanted, a moneydraft

patience puppy
will i never be thru with this cursed thing

i remember once penda aiken made a comment about having the
patience to move a Work from bad to good to great

i guess best i leave on that note
my day slipping by and i hear the clock ticking

tick tock
tick tock

rdoc

FRIDAY

“I know what it’s like to be on the side of the little guy against big corporations and corporate power,  You cannot deal with them on their terms. You deal with them on their terms, their rules, you lose. You give them a seat at the table, they eat all your food.”

edwards trying to stir it up on the campaign trail in iowa
thems fighting words aint they - and i have to admit they appeal to the old war horse

wouldnt trust a politicians rhetoric no more than the man in the moon
but rhetoric does shape the presentation, and politicians try to maintain the front of their rhetoric

my concerns would be hillary, little too much pressure to prove how tough she is
obama would be a new way with the world, maybe take off some of the hot pressure on it

do some healing maybe whereas hillary would i believe dig in to win

but domestically i believe obama would be status quo, perhaps not as bad as bush
and under pressure to prove he is no black radical in moderates clothing

from neither do i expect fundamental change, guess ive just gotten too cynical
cause the powerful taking advantage of the powerless irk me too, it really do

whereas bush seem to thrive on it, was reading the otherday that they are expanding the
ability of coal miners to strip mountaintops, this is a heinous sounding practice where they sheer

off mountain tops and dump the refuse of which there is a lot in nearby valleys and streams
so what was mountains streams and valleys is just a level field of rubble

this sound like a terrible thing to do to the world, and indicative of an intolerable rapaciousness
i would like some fundamental change here

may be dissing obama, the onceuponatime community organizer, he might be ready to do some
stealth work, samesame clinton, and i dont think edwards is going to win, seem to be a onetrick pony

no foreign policy that i can tell and i dont
know that i trust anybody with just one answer

to complex problems, i guess im just confused
i think all of them have their basic heart in the rightplace

and can probably live with either of them - which is a reasoned statement
as cautious and calculating as they have been, guess this is

what being a grown up radical is about these days - whats practical,
what can actually be achieved, what reality got to be dealt with

but for a few minutes there those words brought out
the warrior in me

in struggle
rdoc

THURSDAY

hello lesley ann, i suspect you back in nordica, chilling
sungoddess, longtime no contact, good to hear from you

thanks for the props both of you, cant tell you

how much i appreciate it, specially
right along in here

going thru a little fire right along in here, one of my
boys bit off a little more than the family can chew

mounting a rescue mission
keep those prayers coming

funny space with novel, gang
finished draft but reconcepted endgame

which meant had to go back into text to clean up newly developed holes
which meant new outline, which ended up getting more extensive than i hoped

at the sametime im reading all this afroam criticism
and analysis of the great african american novels

and being impressed with the complexity of afroam literary thinkers
and how powerful the works i consider guidemarks really are

and striving to make sure my own novel is not only competitive
but kinda the next step, whatever that is, and i started letting the whole

thing evolve, ive kinda changed my narrative approach, mostly structural, moving
stuff around, giving different passages different %s of emphasis

im shamed to tell you this, so many folk think im just futzing around
with this novel but that is not the case, it just keeps growing and

i cant tell it not to grow, i want this novel to be a literary wonder
this my masterpiece, my great spell - my ima show the haters what time it is novel

and im very attuned to when im futzing off
and not being serious - this is not the case here

its just that ive learned so much teaching in this syracuse mfa program
its so clear to me that my literary training previously was spotty

a lot of things i should have learned in highschool im just now learning
talking metaphorical systems and literary visions now,

i used to look at novels that were being acclaimed while mine were going out of print
and wonder what are they doing that im not doing

now i know
and i just wish i had known when i was 25

but i was trained in the tradition rather than thru the mfa system
i learned enuf to write a novel but not the kind of masterpieces ive always aspired to

now i know
and thats what this novel got to be

i cannot stay on the level of literary achievement i have been on
i got to reach for new ground

dont get me wrong, i love who i am and what im working on and
i got no complaints, my life has been one blessing after the other

and my work got heart, always had heart, thats what got me this far
but now its got head too - take head and heart both to get you to the promiseland

now that i have learned a new literary sophistication
my work got to reflect that

this last year been a major learning curve for me
did my literary hoodoo class last semester and new literary blues theory class

this semester and my classes are always designed to make me a more informed writer
a better writer writing a better more powerful novel - otherwise i cant justify the time and

energy spent on them - in the last year ive grown immensely as a writer
and my novel has to reflect that  -  im feeling very apologetic about it dear regulators

in the last 10 years ive kinda fallen off the literary grid - in all this literary criticism
i been reading - my name, my novels, my work, did not come up very often, if at all

and the few folk that still believe in me waiting on me to finish
concerned that i might be playing with myself with this novel

i fear that myself sometime - but this last draft was a good one, its coherent
now, its good - but its not great - and great is the only thing i will accept

trust me dear regulators, it will be worth the wait
and aint nobody more ready to be thru than me

just gon have to work harder, smarter
one more time, rick - laserfocus rick, laserfocus

you can do this

i was telling chelsea a little while back, you gotta let a novel breath
got to let it evolve and take you to places you could not have conceived

before you dug down into it, before you got into the zone
cant hold it down, gotta let it grow - thats where the magic come from

built two new bottletrees in riverside park while i was home
one classic blue bottles, the other of found bottles, mostly beer

thanks for your prayers on the family situation
my love to you all

rdoc

bottletrees and holygrounds, getting beat at my own game: rickydoc gotta roll

SUNDAY

gotta roll, trouble in the delta
rickydoc gotta go

this a jpg of my 1st bottletree, that was a pretty tree, caught the sun just
right, announce itself to all evil spirit - do not stop here

finished draft - but because i reconcepted endgame
got holes in the structure need to be mended

and last 3rd kinda raw rick, need to hit it again rick, you know you do
the thing w/projects like this is the fear of dying in mid stride

everytime you finish a draft you sigh relief cause you that
much closer to a good read no matter what

a good red pen and this novel will be real
still need polish mind you but good to go

been working structural changes all day and its feeling good to me, i will squeeze me another
day before i get on the road,  a good day of sructural work do my literary heart good

fix the structurals i can print out the manuscript
take it to the delta, redpen it, see what i got

what i got is a family emergency

work might get done
might not

pray for me would you
my love to you all

rdoc

FRIDAY NOON

hello world, last 20 pages, got a lot of holes got to
be filled in but im closing in on it yall - pray for me

lotta folk got problems w/mambo racine
she do seem to be kinda mercenary, initiate anybody

who pay her, got an little operation down in jacmel haiti thats almost

cultic, folk go down there, pay their money and be doing a lot of pretending
if you get my drift, do they little 2 weeks and swear they voodoos

swear they got power

then they go out and initiate other folk, start their own houses

two weeks of training mind you, i studied with babajohn killlens
for 13 years and still didnt get it all

racine got some pretty rabid opposition in the voodoo community
ive seen them destroy a list or two, it can be pretty amazing

so anyway i had heard that two of her american initiates tried
to bring skulls back to the united states and got arrested at the haitian airport

that when the haitian authorities wanted to question racine
about where they got these freshly dug skulls she decamped

to the dominican republic and caught a plane home
so now two of her initiates in jail  in haiti (can you imagine)

for trying to bring skulls home (racine say they 'sacred skulls', freshly dug)
so mambo racine sends out a request for donations to get them out

wasnt for that hapless two stuck in a haitian prison this would be amusing
dirt encrusted skulls - one wonders what kind of 'training' going on down there

pretending is what i call it, dangerous pretending
like a little corrupt strand running thru our tradition

make us a joke
and raise a lot of issues about initiation, responsibilty and good common sense

destiny too: i judge that strand need to be denied
and stripped of power - its a joke, a bad joke

she is trying to get them out, i give her that much
but then again, this probably aint good for business

this the link: judge for yourself

rdoc

FRIDAY

hello world, wouldnt exactly call it clocking pages
but i am back in the game

more than i can say for AT&T and south africa
apparently in south africa, doctor death is back

deputy minister madlala-routledge, credited w/effectively addressing aids crises in south africa after years of denial by mbeki and health minister tshabalala-msimang, has been fired by mbeki

mbeki press release states that he will no longer allow this cheeky deputy to upstage his girl tshabalala-msimang,

makes his girl look bad and he cant have that

mbeki say forget fact we got highest aids population in the world - let em eat beets he say

meanwhile back at the ranch
AT&T censors pearl jam anti bush lyrics

its like we in a little downhome policestate these days

both mbeki and bush policies be killing folk indirectly
(one wonders how many folk died in iraq today - how many in new orleans)

but at least in south africa you can protest official foolishness without being censored or wiretapped by bushs enablers in congress, media and corporate america

one of these texts by this guy jimoh im studying for my literary blues class say the difference
between spiritual, blues and jazz based literary works is that the

approach to life shaped by spirituals (lets say gospel) depends on god and external forces
to deal with lifes problems, the blues based life depends on attitude and the resources

of the individual while jazz is innovative and multimodal, guy says the first two
are more community based, at least spirituals/gospel id say

it was an interesting and provocative theory
though it didnt all hold up i dont think

of course in the tradition its not that cut and dry
got to have a mix of coping modes appropriate to the moment

like the hoodoo way
anymethod anytime

strictly what works
im outta here

rdoc

postscript 08:24: this post got cut, i had a whole post
thats gone and dont remember what was there beyond the link to bottletrees pages, will do something later today to fill in the hole

postscript too 08:26: finally remember what that missing post entailed

quick recap to fill in that hole as follows:
was wandering about the net when i looked at bottletrees

last time i googled bottletrees some years ago i got a couple of hits, this time

there were hundreds, including this site w/pics of bottletrees folk had sent in

i been using bottletrees as the root metaphor in rest for the weary - sanctifying holyground, sanctuary

but its already dispersing into the world without my definitions laid on it

look like reality got away form me again, beating me at my own game

hoodooing the
hoodooman

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

okay thats the gist of it
probably had more but who got time

didnt want to leave that hole after
sungoddess mentioned it in commentary

(oh i enjoyed this one, a little metablogging
im likely to play with that some more)

im out of here
rdoc

working at the crossroads: sekou sundiata memorial aug 22nd and african voices memorial issue

SATURDAY

hello world, to get the full value of this post,
put some nancy wilson on

started a blog on myspace yesterday
under rickydoc flowers - may change to arthur rickydoc flowers

awkward but since im in there for promotion i need to use both names,.
both faces - arthur flowers the writer, rickydoc the conjureman

its all about raising your web presence, establishing yourself as an literary (or magical) entity
on the web the same way you do in realife promotion - its a literary skill, 21st century stylee

but truth be known dont know if im gon follow thru w/myspace
still got this idea myspace is for kids

joined about a year ago just to see whats happening
but never filled out profile or anything - in fact never went back

then bonnie told me i had been mentioned on it a couple of time and im always
monitoring my web real estate - so i went in to check it out

and lo and behold - both hoodoo and literary colleagues there
must be some power laying around, perhaps i should establish a position

but once i did it, i thought am i now suppose to go around trolling for 'friends'
i dont think so - and who got time for another web commitment

gon give myspace minimum maintenance, just blog post occasionally for awhile and
see what happens - im there to spread my hoodoo gospel - promote my works,

promote my literary name
will have to see how best to do that there

the web literate players seem to have established myspace positions
web presence = 21st century real estate, gotta get me some

but in spite of my rootsblog numbers having doubled in last couple of months
(quadrupled fri, big spike for some reason????)

im feeling conflicted lately about the time/energy i spend on rootsblog
much less opening up another front - feeling desperate about getting

these projects done, im 57 this year, too old to be
trolling for friends on myspace

too old to be doing anything but being laserfocused
on novel and holybook, laser focused rick

also getting a little tired of putting my business in the street
though as a writer thats what i do for a living -still, it gets tired

and the old organizer tired of begging and cajoling folk, and only thing got a chance of making a real
contribution/difference in the human condition is to finish this novel, get this holybook done, etc etc

reason i havent been doing much commentary lately is i just dont see anything important enough
to invest my time & dwindling energy, nothing where my commentary will effect real change

i think im just too damned esoteric, too damned literary, too damned something
my words just dont seem to resonate in the culture (or literature)

darfur - my commentary hasnt changed a thing
haiti - my commentary hasnt changed a thing
islam and the west - my commentary hasnt changed a thing

african world crises - my commentary hasnt changed a thing
african american malaise - my commentary hasnt changed a thing

bushs degradation of america - my commentary hasnt changed a thing
humanitys struggle to be greater than we are - jury still out

i just dont have time to do nothing that aint working at the crossroads -
where every word, every act, every thought, changes things

and some things you just dont feel like wasting your time on

for instance this sept report on iraq by general patreas, is there anybody
out there who doesnt know what this report is going to say

"things are rough but getting better - the surge is working"
bush admin been playing folk for months now, prepping them for that 'report'

running various scenarios up the flagpole to see who salute -  o its just a snapshot,
what about a december report, or maybe a 2008 report, 2009, give the surge a chance

and folk likely to fall for the bush okeydoke, been doing so 6 years now
pointing out the imperial nakedness just a waste of my time

old conjureman got to be focused
got to be laserfocused

been working on my class reader last couple of days, been interesting, this class gon make me a stronger writer and its inspirational to see how disregarded i am canonically - that inspire me, that focus me

but i got to figure out a way that the schoolhouse doesnt take it all  this semester - and
my millions of projects, got to get them done - got to be ruthless and focused rick, laserfocused

im 57 this year and i aint got time to play - or socialize 
cant fuck around in any shape form or fashion

rickydoc working at the crossroads this year
rickydoc on a sungun: 360%

im outta here

FRIDAY

hello world - rickydoc has got the blues

i can feel a major breakthru coming but right now all im
conscious of is the weakness - breakthrus can rough you up

aint got a chance in hell of finishing draft in next
couple of weeks, ohwell, one marches on

if i can just get a roughdraft of the new endgame i will be satisfied
louis reyes sent out a notice about 2 sekou memorials

1) aug 22nd at tishman auditorium,
new school university, 66 west 12th st

6 to 8 pm, w/testimony and performances by
poets, musicians, family, friends et al

2) special african voices magazine sundiata issue
(kudos: carolyn butts and layding kaliba)

looking for poems and commentary from
sekous friends, artists and fellow travelers

special issue  dedicated solely to sekou sundiata
the mighty mack master - should be nice

they plan to have a lot of folk in it so keep it tight
strict 500 word limit

layding also looking for photos and graphics
to go with dedications - should be nice

send submissions to africanvoices@aol.com
by aug 20th - no exceptions on the deadline

so dont wait until last minute
call if you got questions 212 865 2982

right time of day and sekou
might answer the phone

wouldnt put it past him

im outta here
rdoc

if i stay focused, gon be a magic carpet ride

THURSDAY

hello world, this aint exactly what i call crunching
when you doing more sitting there thinking than writing

trying to figure out how to bring my endgame to life
good dramatic endgame fiction rather than the rhetoric it is now

and i think im getting a feel for it, think one thread ima play w/is animal sacrifice
in african traditional systems, use his objection to that to bring his prophetic thing to life

that animal sacrifice might work if we were a culture that still killed our own food

but in 20th century afroamerica, animal sacrifice is an anachronism and representative of what has kept african peoples & cultures noncompetitive in global competition

use this w/secretsociety and mythwork theads to dramatize
his attempt to bring african traditional into the 21st century

a sacrifice thread
which is basically what he considers himself (best kept secret in afroam lit)

right now my endgame more rhetoric than good fiction but i
once had an ocha priest, covered in the blood of goats and roosters

tell me we needed to do human sacrifice to get out of this historical trickbag
we have found ourselves in, start talking about how the orisha told him this

i was appalled, dismissed it as an individual aberration, not cultural
upon reflection i might be able to use that as part of my prophetic endgame

wish i could use that but i think its a tad too sensationalist for my purposes
somthing about animal sacrific maybe but i dont believe that other will fly

right along in here when hoodoo trying to determine how much of atr religious
flavor to adopt - stay magical or become a more religious system

id say the majority of black hoodoos these days initiated into
one or more of the atr traditions

for a magical tradition based on the premise of anymethod anytime
a tradition that dont even necessarily follow the rules of magic, folk been trying to

subject hoodoo to religious dogma, the orisha/loa/etc
say do this, dont do that

or else

that dont necessarily fly w/me, dont fit w/my 21st century understanding of divinity, we know
too much about the formative dynamics of religion to be subject to archaic rules of ritual

wanna refine the transcendent, leave the dogma behind

i vote magical - or rather should i say the prophetic
humanitys relationship w/god too complex to leave to the religious

got an email from miriam de costa willis today
sent out to her memphis list, seems one of the old guard of memphis

d army bailey, has an article on black agenda report in which he
takes credit for the civil rights museum in memphis

in it it accuses much of memphis old guard, incl ben hooks
and maxine smith, as mercenaries and compradors

now you got to be part of  the radical wing of bougie black memphis to know how much
this hurt - and miriam, mentor of the young politicals of my generration, our 1st model

of intellectual activism, is on the warpath - this is an unfortunate battle, d army
has declared war on my earliest mentors in the game

maxine, vasco, jesse, aw and them, if i got to choose sides i got to side w/miram and
maxine - got to go w/the oldschool - the racemen and racewomen

of my youth, the hooks, smiths, willises, turners and sugarmons
the delta clan flowers

kinda funny for somebody spose to be a class outlaw
to feel the call of allegiance for memphis oldschool

even more funny is that civil rights museum dont mean much to my generation, it
surprise me it mean so much to them, i mean its not like it does anything

my attittude on this one is who cares

ima stay out of this one, unfortunate d army took the lowroad
probably still bitter about being voted out as chair back in the day

i once got deposed as director of the harlem writers guild, still hurts
and theyve since tried to write me out of the hwg history, that hurt too

but i would never put hwg down
or my old comrades in struggle

i just give my heart to new ren now
and the folk who broke off to form it

supporting me, so i wouldnt be left out on a limb, now theyve
been written out of hwg history too (cept for dorisjean and tmac)

and its on me to make sure folk get their propers
and dont have to pay historically for backing me up

gotta make new ren real, gotta keep babajohn killens legacy alive
dont nobody carry that quite like i do

so instead of being director of 60 year old institution w/generations of struggle behind it
im director of a stumbling start up in constant danger of failure - ohwell - thats life

you take the blows, you make your adjustments
you keep on pushing - limping and lame, still game

but you dont turn on your old comrades
the struggle is bigger than that

a luta continua
in the name of the conqueror

rdoc

WEDNESDAY

hello world, really wanted to do some more work on last post
have to dig out my 101 talismans list, just dont feel like i have the time right now

did my outline yesterday and the problems were right there in my face, im back on
manuscript today and feel like i got a slim chance of finishing this draft after all

but man i got to be on it
i got to be focused

some quick commentary and im out of here
been a little conflicted about rootblogs tone lately

cause i been in a woodshed mode everything
been My World and not much commentary

not comfortable when i get too self referential like that
but my numbers have doubled in the last couple of months

whatever im doing yall must like it
ima stay with it awhile, see what happen

one thing i want to do is start giving some props to my syracuse mfa students
been here long enuf now that students starting to publish and manifest

interesting development, i got to start giving props
(and ride they formidable coattails)

thought about this cause phil lamarche just gave me copy of his new novel
american youth, and its reading good, im real proud of him

me and phil go back to when he was a undergrad and now here he is
a colleague with a strong new book out - just as tickled as i can be

and then i think about cherly strayeds novel, and salvador
and the legendary nina shope
and becky curtis book of shorts got nice nyt book review this sunday
and ellen litmans shorts coming out
and my boy parkers novel -ovenman - coming out in fall
and ockerts shorts out and christians pandas
and don pablol and god knows who im leaving out

syracuse been strong in the literary house lately and
getting good strong reviews too - serious position - and i need to

start giving some props

and strive to be ever more useful, a better reader of manuscripts
w/enhanced publishing networks and other such service

been turning out young writers a long time now, long enuf to know
most folk dont make the cut, never become real writers

and w/all these mfa programs turning out 100s and 1000s of wannabes
it become ever more difficult to break out of the pack

over the years most young writers give up
so you try to deduce what factors at play

what determine that optimal blend of craft and discipline
that pigheaded determination to be a good writer

and whatever it is you hope they got it when you send them out into the world, hope
they stay focused stay productive, hope they manifest - and when they do

when they beat the odds and do it, it warm the literary heart
been mostly george saunders work, this is the house that george built yall

i will put you some titles and links in here later
will also do up my 101 talismans later too

and got some commentary on conflict brewing between
ethiopia and eriteria, if that breaks thats going to be ugly - again

what with somalia and the ogaden
ethiopia biting off some mighty big chunks

personally i think that wont settle until
ethiopia has a seacoast - again

also i was reading on abebooks blog that a 5 vol set of hyatts
hoodoo rootwork conjuration and witchcraft  just sold for $5000,

was just thinking i need to re read my own set, extract the historical
hoodoos in there for the 101 talismans, guess i will handle w/care

patience dear regulators, ima put you some links and all in later
but right now im feeling the need to clock pages

worked outline yesterday and back on manuscript today, now just plow
thru it rick, march thru these pages like sherman thru georgia

hopefully i will hit the zone and put this puppy to bed
richen it up later

started putting together reader for my literary blues class yesterday
couldnt help myself, starting to get nervous about class prep

supposed to be a theory class, like i know theory, but thats why i chose to
teach it, be interesting working out a theory of literary blues

and whats the point of
teaching if not to learn

the oral trad in african american lit (and you know i dont do nothing
aint designed to make rest for the weary a better novel)

so just as im reconcepting rests endgame, im being driven to focus on a theory of literary blues
and immersed in all these articles and books as i try to put together a reader

and already i can feel myself growing as a writer, already my craftmind
is perculating, this gon work itself into the re concept of rest for the wearys closure

how it handle its tropes
its literary vision

i wish it wasnt so,
id rather this novel not grow anymore and just be finished

i cannot afford distraction, not even growth, not at this point in
the game, i got to keep moving towards closure -  do it rick, you can do this

if i stay focused, i expect at some point to fall into the zone, where real Work get done
and this novel will start speaking to me and make

itself known to me - showtime
if i stay focused

next 20 days gon be
a magic carpet ride

post got kinda lengthy didnt it, just wandering all over 
the page, feeling spooky yall, feel a zone coming on

im outta here

rdoc