rootsbag 0918: rest for the weary

SATURDAY

mississippi freak show

ex preacher edgar ray killen, ex head of local kkk, who
planned the killing of schwerner chaney and goodman
will be featured at a mississippi state fair booth
sponsored by local white power group

the jury deadlocked in 1967 on a 11 to 1 vote
(the one holdout saying she couldnt convict a preacher)
killen is being hailed by local bigots for his efforts
against 'the negro revolution' in the united states

the new south
smell kinda like old one
dont it

im working on this post ima call
questions id like to ask african american leadership
its going to be real funny

let me give you a couple of advance samples:

skip, when you gon get serious man, whats the use of legbas gift if you don’t know how to use it - is you a gatekeeper or aint you

kweisi, does the naacp have a clue yet

minister farrakhan: who do you support in the sudan – the arabs or the blackfolk

cynthia mckinney: showtime sister, get your act together – is you ready for primetime or aint you

colin: aint you tired of being the inhouse nigger

condeleeza: girl i aint got nothing to say to you – i dont think you savable

well, maybe they aint funny just yet but ima try to make them deep/funny
ima try to make them deep too

ima do a whole string of them
and send it out as my next newsletter
ima try to make this one funny enuf
that folk email it around to each other

i hope i piss somebody off
make them get their act together

THURSDAY

give me strength

david walker: are you walking w/ me
gullah jack; are you working w/me
ancestral line of the delta clan flowers: are you blessing me,

and baba john o killens; the great griot master of brooklyn:
if im looking good babajohn, give me strength

slackers of the world unite

talking about slack - slack aint the word
its about time kerry threw down
hes finally calling bush out
every time bush tells one of his lies
instead of going along with the program and
trying to be bush lite

you cant help but wonder where
he would be in the polls if he had been doing
this all along

been so busy trying to play it safe

he is a waffler but so is bush
and we have to get over our hesitation
on kerry, this election is too important
to indulge in our usual liberal dithering

i saw michael moore the other day
on what he called his slackers uprising tour
he kinda like his movie, pure heart and no discipline

anyway he say wait till kerry gets in before we
start our ritual progressive bloodletting

soon as he president we jack him up
hold his feet to the progressive fire

but first we got to get him in
we got to stop this rightwing revolution
in its tracks

i was with a crowd of students the other day
and word that nader had pulled out and
thrown his support behind kerry
swept thru them like wildfire

i immediately dismissed it myself
nader is a lost soul
but it was so sad to see how absolutely desperate
they were to believe he had redeemed himself

personally i dont think its really nader
i think its an evil clone planted by karl rove
some years ago just for this moment

i have not found any takers for this theory
but thats what ima believe till somebody
comes up w/a better explanation

meanwhile i sent off for an absentee ballot
i need to free myself up to do some
get out the vote work on november 2nd

newyork is probably a lock
i will volunteer in a swingstate:
penn maybe is close enuf to drive over on nov 2
something, whatever, i dont know, got to do something

last election was my first time being
part of a get out the vote operation on election day
this year im taking it up a notch

can you imagine another 4 years of bush
without the constraint of re election hanging over him
can you imagine

all you folk who been sitting these elections out
remind yourself that 500 and something votes
in florida is what got bush in the whitehouse
(with a little help from the supreme court but
we wont go there)

all of you purists who swear it doesnt make a difference
who is in power should consider the possibility that karmically speaking
a certain percentage of the dead, both us and iraqis, can be laid
at your slacking door

dont that send shivers down your spine

TUESDAY

pray for haiti

tropical storm jeanne
kills some 700 haitians
and some 1000s more missing

poor haiti
tribulation just rains upon her

god must have a mighty mission
in mind for haiti

a tempering like no other

please pray for haiti

and perhaps oneday some program to re seed haiti's forest
perhaps one tree at a time - or is that too much of a dream

must our prayers suffice

MONDAY

rest for the weary

hey everybody
feeling a little weary this weekend

got so much to do and dont really feel like posting
but if I dont post regular i lose readership
so I know i got to post regular and eventually i will
have me some regular readership

i like watching those numbers go up up up
i dont like down down down
i like up up up

but sometimes i get tired of the effort i put into this thing
when i got so much to do, im always behind

and today im just tired, I just want to lay down and
just lay there for a couple of days
w/o guilt

i think the theme of this weeks rootsbag gon be
rest for the weary

talking about my novel
and also that weariness we artists and activists get sometime
that weariness all gods children get sometime

i got so many projects and initiatives up in the air
and they all critical, i cant afford to let not one of them drop
not one

and bushs teflon strength I think thats getting me down too
god i think he is so dangerous to the world and our future and the thought
of another 4 years of bushs fundamentalist/imperialist agenda scare me to death

and i want to just cry out to the american people:
cant you see what hes doing to us

what hes doing to the world

and seeing nader get on the ballot in florida didn’t help either
florida of all places - how could he do this to us

and then the un rephrased their threat on the sudan
from we will impose sanctions on the sudan
to we will consider imposing sanctions on the sudan
and meanwhile as many as 10000 a month dying in darfur

and my sister still holding on by the skin of her chinny chin chin and
basically keeping my mother alive by what appears to be sheer will

and my novel just wont move into closure no matter how hard i work on it
schoolhouse got me humping
and pretty much all my little organizing efforts seem to be floundering but then they always do
and sometimes you feel like you just wasting your life/time
and im just tired and im tired of not getting no props for what I do

guess ima spend this week talking myself back into a groove
i know i been blessed in life, im just tired

was talking to a young activist on campus, kris kranen
young organizer that renew your faith in the young generation
make you think the struggle is in good hands
but she was talking about being woreout too, sound like an old vet

got that whatever you do its never enuf blues

and then i think about my novel and how i so want it to be
rest for the weary

how it started off as no rest for the weary
and metamorphed one day into
rest for the weary

how I want it to renew and regenerate, refresh and revitalize
im talking redemption, resurrection and everything nice
im talking about rest for the weary

i want this book to heal the sick and make the lame whole
i want this book to mend faith and nurture dreams
i want it to be a calling to a greater destiny
i want it to be a mighty spell
i want it to be a vision

and how I spec rest for us true believers
boils down to getting your work done

i get my work done and im satisfied
i will roll w/the lifepunches and sing the blues when i must
and when its time i will die well not happy
but with a certain satisfaction, a certain acceptance:

here lies rickydoc flowers. he did what he could. he kept the faith
he done the work

and on that note i gotta go,
gotta get some manuscript done tonight,
gotta go gotta go gotta go

Comments

[byrdie]

Hullo. Just a note to let you know that -- with the help of the link you have called "Syndicate this site (XML)" on your blog -- I've got a feed of your blog piped to LiveJournal. It shows the first two lines of each post after a link pointing to rootsblog, so it may help to get more visitors to your site. I've put the link to the syndicated feed up in the URL section.

I'm currently reading "Mojo Blues," the first book of yours I've picked up. Reading it makes me think of a few people I know who fought in Vietnam: an acquaintence who still has nightmares from time to time, and a college counselor who was considering taking time off to write of his war experiences (I've yet to find anything published under the name I know him by). I've just started the part where HighJohn goes to visit Willie D. in New York.

I've had an interest in both vodou (via Luisah Teish) and hoodoo for years, and thus look foward to reading more of your work. I wish you good luck with your novel!

[byrdie]

A link which, apparently, got lost when I previewed my post. fooey. Here it is:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/rootwork/

[rickydoc]

appreciate that link

im a little trepiditious though
about you reading that
first work of mine

its kinda like folk looking
at your naked baby pictures
w/your little naked boodie
exposed to the world

dont judge me by my early work
the best is yet to come

be well

arf

[byrdie]

In the re-issue of "The Books of Blood," Clive Barker wrote: " The man who'd written that book was no longer around. He'd died in me, was buried in me. We are all our own graveyards I believe; we squat amongst the tombs of the people we were. If we're healthy, every day is a celebration, a Day of the Dead, in which we give thanks for the lives that we lived, and if we are neurotic we brood and mourn and wish that the past was still present."

The copy of "De Mojo Blues" that I'm reading doesn't look remotely new: the title font, the way the cover is designed, even the author photo -- all of them suggest that this is a book that's been around for a while. That, and I occasionally take a peek at the copyright date every so often to get some perspective on the setting.

I've found it handy to read an author's works from the beginning to get an idea of their progress: where they came from and where they've been. Sometimes it's not possible, sometimes it's not preferable, but it can be interesting. There've been points when I've wondered, "is this what he's actually doing? Still doing?" But I realize that:

a. "De Mojo Blues" is fiction.
b. I won't have a bead on that until I've caught up with your blog and "Mojo Rising," at the very least.

You're welcome for the link!

[sungoddess]

Baba Arthur, your words for Tuesday (pray for haiti) and Thursday (give me strength), like so many of your words, raised the pores on my skin. I can find nothing else to say, than I am rereading Another Good Loving Blues, with the same pleasure as if it is new and I have not read it now three or four times.

Baba, I am not flattering you. I shall pay my respects one day, and you shall the sincerity of my admiration for your writing, your voice and my appreciation for your presence here where I can read you regularly.

byrdie
still doing what i was doing then
i just like to think ive gotten
better at it

maturity is a wonderful thing

my boy highjohn is back in rest for the weary
a sorceror who aspires to be a prophet

and i always live out my work
thats where i get my material
lets call it research
though i prefer to call it sorcerors game

sungoddess
thanks for the props my sister in struggle
i cannot tell you how much it touches me
to feel appreciated for what i do

the respect is mutual

be well the both of you

arf