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

Comments

[BuffaloSoldier]

TELL ME WHEN WILL THEY CALL YOU A MAN- BuffaloSoldier salutes Alex Yates.
SoulDoctor, I tried to will Corzine through. But the corruption and other issues...well, when I got to the polling place, there was maybe one other person there. I have to bring this back to the LionKing and identity politics. Building a movement around one man means once that man is in or out, the movement is over. There was absolutely zero buzz on the streets of Newark about Corzine. As for the TeaParty folks kicking their "moderates" to the curb. Great stuff! Great stuff! The reichwing
repulsican wins does all of us good. It's already paying off. Owens walzes in. As for Virgina(right next to Maryland, right? Virgin Mary?) That's always been a difficult read. This, I have to add.Meb Keflezighi became the first "American" to win the NYC marathon in 27 years. He finished ahead of the Kenyan. PLEASE! He was the absolute definition of a ringer.
Those Eritian legs were brought in to offset the Kenyan. I'm reminded of the office manager who hires the ex ball player for his softball team. The ball player's official job? maintainance czar. This secs up an interesting
observation on the LionKing himself. I'll have to explore that one later. I'm BuffaloSoldier and I approve his message.

[masterymistery]

holybook sounds interesting --- what's that about, or would you rather not say at this stage?

the artwork on this site rocks --- are you the artist? Especially like the black and white drawing of the guitarist. The full color one is pretty great too --- would absolutely match the color scheme of my blog. If I were to ensure all the appropriate attributions were made, would you give me permission to carry your artwork on my blog?

Being an australian, I'm not personally affected by USA health reform or lack thereof. But I support the concept of free healthcare for all. In Australia we have a system called "Medicare" which ensures everyone can access healthcare services at zero or little cost.

Hope youy don't mind --- I'm adding "rootwork" to my blogroll (under heading of "other domains"). I hope you will come and visit... There's some interesting stuff to read, and some cool music to bathe your ears in.

masterymistery at cosmic rapture

the rootsblog: a cyberhoodoo webspace

[arthur flowers]

not my artwork, just work i take off internet mostly, sgould make better effort to attribute, some of it i dont know who it belongs too, will check out your blog, thanks for porops