feeling gil scott heron today: my fellow traveler and keeper of the faith

hello world

i been off the gun lately, woke up this morning with gil scott heron on my mind

cause i had seen that detroit piece on youtube couple of weeks ago and this the gil scott i love, he look like he been thru the fire but he look like a survivor here - this the way i want to remember him

i think this performance captures him at his best

nephew james ross cracked on me about why i hadnt been posting lately so i figured i would

been under the gun trying to get all these projects off my plate before school starts
starting working on my martinlutherking bit for tara press while i was up at the vineyard

did a really nice draft, martin as chosen by the gods to be their instrument, fighting it
got this africanamerican storyteller voice happening telling the myth of a people and their prophet

a lot of the materials and issues i been dealing with in my novel with a reasonable closure date - whats not to like

it flowed like rainwater, i was clearly in the zone, figured done deal, but then i sat down to polish it and realize there were some historicals that i wasnt certain on, had this book sitting on my shelf

let the trumpet sound by stephen oates, figured id skim through it,

lord help me there was so much about king and the struggle i didnt now - hell i was there, been in the struggle since i was old enuf to carry a picket sign, i thought i knew it intimately but whatever possess me to think

i could write anything worthwhile without some research

isnt it always like that, you think you gon knock a project off right quick and the next thing you know youve stepped in the quicksand

i fear that the public option is gone from the health bill, i fear that unless obama find some strategic backbone somewhere its toast, thats unfortunate, it was the only part of the reform package that was actually reform far as im concerned

was reading where all these gun nuts have been going to the town halls armed, cause of that gun carry permit nonsense - that makes a lot of sense, all those raging wingnuts and loaded pistols

you know right that this aint about no healthplan, it aint about no birthcertificate or no death panels
its just a bunch of folk who cannot accept the idea of a black president, just cant deal with it

reading about the rabid responses to the civil rights movements, the civil rights and voting rights bills
feels like deja vu all over again and makes you wonder about all the folk talking about the election of obama

meant the end of racism, okay?

i been wondering who out there really believe sarah palin writing those death panel facebook policy statements - raise your hand

i got to go, trying to get a draft of this mlk piece before i head for the delta

i havent done novelwork in over a week, its like i got about a two week window before school starts so im getting thru these manuscripts been sitting on my plate and doing overdue projects like this mlk thing

but you know thats the way it always goes, you get caught up in obligatories and you lose your groove, its clear i wont make my deadline so ive quit trying but i need to maintain a minimum 3 hours a day

thats the only thing that will get me to the promiseland and all these supplemental things i do, they just dont really count

couple of days ago i made a bold post on facebook, let the mask slip and start talking about the geas of rickydoc, - listen o ye firstborn to the geas of rickydoc and i will give you a mission greater than your adversity, i will give you a vision, etc etc

usually i dont come that upfront, thats the kind of power you suppose to keep hidden and i was concerned that i had said too much - hardly anybody noticed, i got to get this novel out, make my vision manifest

im out

oh thats right, i was thinking about gil scott heron, i once had a novel written by a young gil scott heron in my library, over the years it got away from me, was thinking about how over the years gil scott heron almost got away from us too, drugs and the artistic ferver - my generation pretty much all trod that path, some of us made it back, some of us didnt

im glad hes still on the set, limping lame and still game, my fellow traveler and keeper of the faith

a luta continua and all my love too

Comments

[BuffaloSoldier]

THEY WERE TIRED OF THE HATRED BuffaloSoldier salutes Gil Scott Heron. (Not to be confused with Philly's Jill Scott. Don't laugh. More than a few young people have called themselves correcting me
when I bring up The Poet.)Revelance! I listen to the above sit-down with Gil and I'm reminded that
as youngsters, we once told oldsters, they weren't relevant mostly because they were old. I heard
that during the LionKing's campaign. Suddenly we were now old. Young folks spurned on by the media said We're Post civil rights, post racial, post anything that was
fought in the past. But I listen to Gil, to The Last Poets, to early Amiri, to Felipe Luciano and I
hear THE FUTURE in their every beat. Good ideas don't get old, baby. They get better and more
revelant with age. They actually get younger, right before our eyes. And, brothers and sisters,
(Yes, brothers and sisters, not the supposedly NOW supposedly revelant because it's NOW bitches
and 'hos) Gil Scott Heron, The Last Poets, Amiri Baraka, and Felipe Luciano are some of the
best ideas our experience on this side of the pond has brought us. I'm BuffaloSoldier and I approve
this message.