diabetes, brother nagin and the new orleans diaspora: a tough row to hoe

FRIDAY

kids, what do they know

all writers steal
the question is how well you do it

the trick is do it so well
nobody can tell

got to digest it

i once broke down one hundred years of solitude line by line
for awhile everything i wrote sounded like bad marquez (and thats really bad)
now i want to write chamoiseaus texaco when i grow up

what interest me is not that the kid fumbled the steal
but these book packagers getting credit and royalties

its appalling how badly out of the literary loop
i am these days - $500,000? where do i sign up for one
of these packagers deals - school me somebody

ive tried to write genre, ima big fan of scifi and got some
literary scifi (uh magical realism) in rest for the weary

but i remember once when i was a young cub in new york and
before there were any black romance novels - this company with a vision
approached the harlem writers guild and dangled success in our faces - said
once we got the hang of it we could produce one a year forever

we all tried it, me, adero, ashanti, barbara, brenda, doris, imogunla, jacqui, wesley, tmac, all of us
and they sent us this manual - the lovers had to kiss on page 16, sex by the 5th chapter and not before, the suggested details of the act - and so forth and so on and so on

we all tried it and we all abandoned it - took the same hassle it took to write a real book
folk write whats in them to write and we was all irredemptively oldschool by that time

but what with the abundance of ghetto lit and slick commercial works and the
industry caution on serious african american literary works these days

sometimes you feel like you out of your time - a literary dinasaur lumbering along
wondering howcum its so chilly lately

some of my literary buddies upset with the commercialization of africanamerican lit but i figure it just the maturation of the culture

when i was coming up to be taken seriously as an african american writer you had to be deep and historical, now the culture will sustain any number of genres and thats just the way it is

i dont have time to be whining about the way of things - too busy trying
to get my own work done

literature always been a tough row to hoe
just the nature of the challenges that change

buddy of mine once said said if it was easy
everybody would go down the street and get some

hanging tough
rdoc

WEDNESDAY

some fox commentator tony snow is bushs new spokesman

brother snow has a column on a whitepower website that was
reprinted here

i will let his column speak for itself
commenting on why kwanza is a bogus holiday:

"Detroit native Keith Richburg writes in his extraordinary book, "Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa," that "this strange place defies even the staunchest of optimists; it drains you of hope ..."

Richburg, who served for three years as the African bureau chief for The Washington Post, offers a challenge for the likes of Karenga: "Talk to me about Africa and my black roots and my kinship with my African brothers and I'll throw it back in your face, and then I'll rub your nose in the images of rotting flesh."

Nobody ever ennobled a people with a lie or restored stolen dignity through fraud. Kwanzaa is the ultimate chump holiday"

and so forth along those lines

then he goes on to talk what a great colored guy this richburg is
a leader of his people - bah humbug, a chicken eating comprador if ever there was

reminds me of that quote by jc watts daddy
"a black man voting for a republican is like a chicken voting for colonel saunders"

so this is bushs new spokesman, you see what time it is
bush playing to his base, bush playing pr games

hope this snow fellow gets back pay for all the shameless shilling
hes done for bush on fox to date

this ought to be interesting

cause bush he like to run the okeydoke and the flimflam
i suspect this boy more forthright than bush is ready for

in struggle
rdoc

forked tongued politicians

congressional republicans and the bush administration
worried about the effect of rising oil prices on the november elections
making populist sounding noises about gas policies

whilst in the chambers of congress its business as usual

ignoring a $400 million dollar bonus for retiring exxon chair
ignoring exxon report last quarter of the highest profit in american history ($36 billion)

gop negotiators just yesterday knocked out tax bill provisions that would have
forced the oil companies to pay a measely $5 billion more in taxes on their profits

said they dont believe in 'windfall taxes'

populist flavored proposals bush put forth yesterday do nothing
the perennial federal probes of oil companies profits are election year ploys
that inevitably conclude big oil innocent of skullduggery and misunderstood victim
of unfortunate market trends

the tax measure bush mentioned stretches big oil tax relief from 2 years to 5
we can live with that one big oil spokesman say, thats not necessarily a bad thing he say

a true measure of reform would be to get access to cheneys secret deals/meetings
with oil company executives negotiating last years energy bill - information the tame
supreme court said he had the right to hide from us

remember that cheney and bush are both oil men running the flim flam
everytime you pull up to the pump, everytime you drive to work

take that anger to the ballot box in november
where it belongs

in struggle
rdoc

black snake moaning

the latest offering from whiteboy who did hustle and flow
is about a whitewoman with a jones for blackmen healed
of her promiscuity by a memphis bluesman

when asked if it wasnt a tad sensationalist
brewer started talking about how blacks and whites conduct
dancehall 'orgies' in the memphis jooks that he goes to

in his mind maybe

boy got issues

spewing black sexuality fantasies all over
the celluliod screen

and lying on memphis

aint that much difference between the brutes in birth of a nation
and the pimps and bluesmen of brewers vision - except they macks now
instead of rapists

progress

ive had folk try to point out the redemptive qualities of hustle and flow
and i suspect the same ones will laud this latest offering from mr brewer
nothing succeeds like success (and pushing americas race button)

dont get me wrong now, i much prefer black man as sex machine
over more recent urban myth of black men on the down low

but much as i like seeing memphis mythologized
much as i like the premise of the healing power of the blues

ima have to call this boys work for what it is
sensationalist exploitation - the latest in a long line of same

black snake moan comes from a blind lemon jefferson bluessong
could have used: they have took my blues and gone

lord deliver us from whiteguys w/issues
anointing themselves experts on black culture

a luta continua
rdoc

TUESDAY

on you i said to the enemies of the soul

for my money ishmael reed probably the most influential
african american literary artists alive today - him and amiri

folk like toni and john edgar have a different kind of influence
the longterm diffuse influence of literary players to shape cultures

but ishmael, john o killens and amiri
were also ideological players in a way that most writers are not

as did john os efforts to build a black literary infrastructure
and amiris contributions to the black arts movements

mumbo jumbo transformed african american
literature and culture

in order to understand it you had to do like this paradigm
shift into an afrospiritual worldview and once you did you
never came back

after ishmael blackwriters on the cutting edge moved from a christian mode
to being afrospiritual word magicians using books as spells to shape the future

mumbo jumbo and conjure blew my young literary mind
and im proud to consider myself of his line
my literary hoodoo thing just a riff on ishs neohoodooism

this counterpunch article show uncle ish still on it

talking about medias use of colored surrogates as
mind doubles to keep other blackfolk in line

i like to think of myself as a destinyplayer
but im forever humbled before a true master
of the game

in struggle
rdoc

MONDAY
not quite the zone but it will do

pretty good weekend, i got last 80 pages of rest to longhand
i figure 4 a day will get me to the promiseland in about 30 days
then i redpen the whole thing over rest of the summer - thats the plan

i clocked 4 saturday and 6 sunday, im okay
raw manuscript so they aint the best pages in the world but im okay

course every morning i got to fight the whole battle all over again
but so far so good, i aint complaining, ima do this

brother nagin though i dont know if he gon make it to highground

the black new orleans diaspora didnt turn out for him
we generally slack under the best electoral conditions much less these
lot of those folk have moved on and my brother blows an uncertain trumpet

he got most of the black votes that did vote, blackfolk tend to the redemptive
its a jungle out here and anybody can stumble

but landrieu is nagins worst case scenario
heda been better off with forman, a clear cut fatcat whereas
landrieu got crossover support

on the real side, it aint about nagin or landrieu
its about whats best for rebuilding new orleans and nurturing
its unique afrospiritual culture - who will defend us

from the fatcat efforts to ethnically cleanse new orleans

im a big cynic when it comes to politicians of any stripe
but i do believe in voting

we need to jack them both up
make them bid for their black support

as a black dawg democrat im willing to give nagin another chance
but blackfolk can live with landrieu - thats a problem for nagin

nagin will have to fire up his newfound black support while trying to
reassure white support that has abandoned him

thats a tough row to hoe
boy gon have to speak in tongues

say it aint so lord

guess i better tell you, no sense acting like it aint so
my life seems to be orchestrated around it these days
and the personal nature of this blog makes it a lie not to tell you

doctor told me i got diabetes, man you talking about a bummer
i keep wondering was this avoidable - my mama and daddy had it
so it seem im inclined

but i feel like its a negative reflection on my hoodoo skilz
the hoodooman aint supposed to be coming down w/no diabetes

it embarrasses me

and its amazing what ive got to cut back on
fruit and freshsqueezed orangejuice
(im told a serving of grapes is 8 grapes)

and you should see the piddling little portion of watermelon
im allowed

got to poke my finger with the regularity and modulate the carbs
and i got to be serious about it
dont want to lose no organs, dont want to have to shoot no insulin
gotta deal with it

i used to be so proud of myself, i would go in for checkups and the like
and the doctor would say are you taking any medicines and i would proudly
say - no im not

now im locked in on a rigorous schedule for a toxic cocktail of meds
im only 55 lord, kinda early for all this

gon be a rest of my life struggle apparently
im seriously bummed out over it but hey i can do this

i assume its going to make me more serious about life, bonnie, family
getting my work done -
puts everything in perspective and further trivalizes the inessential

i can do this

but today im feeling mortal today, rickydoc has got the blues
today im looking over my shoulder - got hellhounds on my trail

i tell you dear surfer, time is a boogerbear, a stone cold boogerbear
ruthlessly marching on - seem like just yesterday i was young, fit, fine and immortal

reminds me of that nicholas brother in his 90s when he said:
if i had known i would live this long i would have taken better care of myself

ohwell, whatever - buddy of mine just lost part of his foot so im real focused
i just wish i had done all this caretaking before the crises rather than after

and it is in that light ima keep a running commentary of this struggle
hopefully i can help you avoid what im about to go thru

all my love
rickydoc flowers

Comments

[Laniza]

Re: Diabetes. No need to feel embarrassed. You said it best "you can do this". Too bad there's not sugar-free grapes and watermelon on the market :).

[rickydoc]

hey there laniza

followed your link back to your website
enjoyed the read

sound to me like you might have some work in you

sound to me like you might be interested in
doing a little black speculative work

you need to check out my homegirl sheree thomas blog
black pot mojo, the link is under the hoodoo way links

sheree is the editor of dark matters 1 and 2 and a
powerful speculative worker on her own

also we are part of this workshop based in brooklyn
thats about to establish an online component

most everybody in it doing afrospiritual work
either literary magical realism or black speculative

if you interested in doing a little craftswork yourself
let me know

thanks for your comments

always good to know im not just spitting
in the wind

be well
arf