of warhorns, towers and masquerades

SUNDAY

sometimes i despair, i look at african american culture today and i despair
i look at black youth when i was coming up and how the struggle was everything

at least for my circles, and then i look at african american culture today and sometimes
i just dont know how we will survive this

and i know i cant give into to despair, i was reading about the flashmobs and how they have degenerated into violence,  how one knocked down a 70 year old blackman and trampled him and i just despair

as a conjureman and longgame player my aspiration is to shape future generations
when you trying to change a culture you have to think in generations

this book designed to affect generations
one of its problems is serving too many masters

im one of those kind of artist - my book, my vision, will save the world

but then i look at mumbo jumbo, which actually did affect afroam culture
so i know it can be done, i see how he did it, why not me

have not read my novel since i 'finished' it, want to stay in the glow for a minute
and i fear a failure of craft - again

that 1st read will be rough

too many fundamental changes in last draft mean its not clean yet

clean is when you can read thru w/o cringing, w/o structural changes

i got a working novel now but its not a magnificent novel

and after 10 years thats all i will accept, i dont want people reading my novel and
saying is this what you had us waiting 10 years for, is this all you got

 but more than anything else i want to save the black generations

1st photo civilrights movement, 2nd one a flashmob

that many black kids does not give me a warm tingly feeling

thats a damn shame

may the gods of literature

be good to us all

rdoc

FRIDAY

well, didnt take but a day to clean up those 10 pages, which are now about 4 pages but such is life
4 good strong pages, which look nothing like i ever imagined them to but i think it works

will have to put it down, let it get cold, i want to go right into next draft but i know better
ima spend the rest of the day cleaning it up, maybe saturday too if i can

hopefully i have come to my senses and put away those fantasies of saving obama
we shall see, as of this moment i got to clock pages - im out

THURSDAY

well ive come to my senses after that last post

obviously i heard the warhorn blowing

but i cant let nothing stop the partyrock w/my novel, nothing, got to be fullcourt press til its d o n e

ima do what i can for obama,

swore i was going to a org  for america meeting next week

my 1st,  jconsidered doing a little leadershipping

unleash the old charismatics

i enjoy being a leader

ex director of this and that

organizing has already cost me a book or two in my life, i dont have any more to give

was i to go in in game mode this what i would do, you come in low profile, you assess the power dynamics, you place yourself, you establish presence, you work the roots

assuming you got that kind of time, focus and commitment, i dont

but i do feel like i should have obamas back more

im comfortably settled into cushy academic slot

but god help me i hear the warhorn

dont feel right sitting by and watching them take obama down

make america the beast they would it be

it will take longame to truly change american culture, working generations

for that i need to get my work done

as a young politically inclined artist, activists used to make me feel like i wasnt making a real contribution
as a mature political artist/intellectual i know that getting my work done is my most profound contribution

political organizing not game changing, just plugging holes

i speculate thats what drove obama out of organizing into the whitehouse

did mama day in my hoodoo lit class

she really put the weave on that work

i love this class, these are the works i want to intertext and everytime im forced to reread them it remind me

why i love them, i learn something new, i get better at unpacking their secrets -
course i also see more flaws, but thats cool too, no such thing as a flawless work

thats what i want, a book you can read over and over and over, flaws and all

and get something new every time

i got to go, i really must go

all my love

rdoc

Comments

[Alex Yates]

Hey man, don't know if you read this. Not breaking news, but it articulates some of the details. Talk about a beast...
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2010/spring/rage-on-the-right

[BuffaloSoldier]

THEY WERE TIRED, OR SO TIRED, OF THE MISERY BuffaloSoldier salutes Floyd Mayweather/Shane Mosley. Floyd: "I was happy for his victory because he's a BlackAmerican and I'm a BlackAmerican" None of this AfricanAmerican stuff for him. Anyway, I said I'd make a clear distinction between the Soldier and the Travis Smileys. My case with The LionKing is pure identity. I don't fault or overly support his policies. I don't fault presidents because they aren't dictators like, say, Robert Mugabe. I did fault George W Bush because he wasn't elected. Therefore the will of the people was not at play. A man jumps off a cliff. Halfway down, he can't say I've changed my mind. Gravity has the last say. So it is with our choses. Especially, in elective government. For ill or for good, The LionKing was elected president of The Uniited States of America. All the Templars(Rush Blowhard, Savage Mike, Monica Crawing) can't change the facts. He was elected by an overwhelming mandate. SoulDoctor, when you see Travis, tell him The LionKing isn't The BlackPresident of the hood. He ran as MAINSTREAM. I have no idea what all of those people who cried and hooted at the Corniation er inaugaration expected. He didn't run on BlackPlatforms. There was no talk of %50 more infant mortality in BlackNeighborhoods. No talk dying infrastructures in both those neighborhoods and in the family structure themselves. No talk of the Prison industrial complex and no talk, of my personal favorite, reparations. Certainly no talk of the assualt on Black farming. So the %96 of the %96 that voted for a BlackMan Should have been educated by the Travis Smileys. And everybody else with Contract with Black America or whatever they call it. The LionKing is Mainsteam. Not Negro subculture.
Like any man, he is to be critized. But raked over the stones because he doesn't live up to realistic expectations? Nawwww! I'm BuffaloSoldier and I approve this message. P.S. Panic not over the Rage of the Right. Didn't we see this movie before? Falling Down starring Micheal Douglass as Angry White Male.

[BuffaloSoldier]

BUT THEY HAD TO KEEP ON FIGHTING BuffaloSoldier salutes Rita Dove. that should read "But raked over the stones because he doesn't live up to unrealistic expectations"

[masterymistery]

I'm totally with you on the "despair" part. Our culture is in terminal decline due in large measure to a perceived lack of meaning and purpose, especially among younger people. Who knows where it will all end. Ah well, luckily you don't only live once.

[nanakwame]

Folks need to re-read Baldwin's The Price of a Ticket. I did two years ago. What a prophet Jimmy was. I am very careful of what I hear from my generation the baby boomers, both of the liberal and conservatives, what we see on the far-right is lead by Euro baby boomers, we need to place things in its context. What our children are facing is greater than what we faced coming out of H.S. in the sixties. Since the 1970's, this nation has been lied too by many poltical forces. It was actually an end, that was not dealt with and we have return to the issues. Why as Malcolm stated, I remain Independent. If you haven't seen this film, one should, our ethnic group has many.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102458/usercomments
Mister Johnson 1990 – a should be seen film
In my view Mister Johnson is someone we can ALL relate to, a man obsessed with being a bigshot in a town of nobody's and he will do anything to achieve it.