rootwork the rootsblog: a cyberhoodoo webspace

highmagic and gandalf the gray: worshipping at the altar of the gods of literature

FRIDAY

showtime

last grad last yesterday, got up this morning w/a 6 hour shift in mind
dont want to waste no time, i got to get my groove on - woodshed yall

still a little intimidated by texaco and cattlekilling but even if i dont make
that grade there is still a lot of room to maneuver in and it just doesnt matter

i dont care, im moving on

some of the folk in the workshop they respected it but they didnt love it and i thought about how wideman is appreciated by reviewers and academics but folk find his work hard to love and i thought about how my 1st novel i wanted respect, my 2nd novel i wanted to sell, (both times im not sure i got either, not to my satisfaction) and i think of this 3rd one as my literary legacy

and im thinking do i want to code it heavily like wideman did or do i want to just tell a good story and im wondering yesterday which was the most strategic way to go and then i think i cant go there, ima end up with a fake flow if i approach it like that, i have to please myself and thats going to be somewhere in the in between and it was like a relief in my mind, please yourself rick, thats who this novel got to please, thats what will make it sincere, anything else is gravy

also thought yesterday that wideman is like a narrative trickster and how much id love
to play that in rest for the weary, so much i want this novel to do, im really excited

about taking it into the woodshed, for those of you who dont know the story let me recap

when john coltrane came out to play, back in north carolina, he wasnt very good and they blew him of the stage - he had this woodshed out back of his house and he went into that woodshed and he practice and he practice until he was the john coltrane, came back to the stage and said now blow this

black artists call it going to the woodshed when you have to withdraw from the world and
concentrate on your chops - in an interview wideman say he had to 'go to the woodshed'

when he immersed himself in africanamerican lit after the homewood trilogy and
came up with a new lick, a new literary vision - his work became more important

i love the woodshed, every summer i go off the grid and get to woodshedding - was trying to
convince my students yesteday that summer is the only chance a novelist get to really novel

cant really do a novel during the schoolyear, cant achieve the immersion a novel demand, you do what
you can, a little touch up here and a chapter there but that true focus, thats a summertime thing

may june july and most of august - couple weeks out for memphis (my mama put out a curse on me if i didnt) and the marthas vineyard run (which might as well be counted woodshed way i hole up in the outbuilding)

okay, so much for me talking about working, time to get some done, just finished my obligatory morning hour(s) checking my internet traps/news and thank god nothing there that inspire me to do a real post

saw this article say they found noahs ark on mount arrarat in turkey, i spent a little time there,
i couldnt help myself, im thinking who on earth claiming they found noahs ark,

okay, im gone, couple of days my readership dip for some reason, i been doing this blog now for some
7 years i believe and my readership still average out to about a 100 readers a day - thats pitiful

cause i think i be wailing when i blog, speaking words of power

call myself dropping knowledge on young novelists, just follow me, just
do what i do and we gon make some novels - good novels

novels of historical stature and cultural significance

call myself laying a path for the hoodoos of the future
the cultural custodians and ideological orchestrators

high magicians in training

call myself giving blackfolk and all humanity a vision

listen then to the geas of rickydoc and i will 
give you a destiny greater than your adversity

but the world clearly thinks im talking trash, treat me like i dont exist, like i got nothing to say
feels that way about my fiction too, sometime i get discouraged and want to quit doing this thing,

but then the 400 odd folk who do read me by definition the most wonderful folk on the
planet and they often give me props and encourage me to hang in there so i do

mark it down to the curse of the visionary and keep on pushing

i assure you i know what im doing, i assure you i got game

i remember doris jean austin (all praises) once said what you gon do
tell them i will show you, im not going to write any more

sometime when i spend a good morning on a post im thinking now what if i had put that
time/energy into my novel, that was probably a good page of narrative opportunity cost there

(well, at least a paragraph)

but i suspect i dont blog because i want to, i blog because i need to
my little literary dialogue with the world - it keeps me grounded in the realworld

my own little humble stage in this world where i can say what i really want to say how i want to say it
this my space, marginal though it be this my ground, this sanctified ground

no editors, no gatekeepers, no commercial interests, no haters - just me and you dear regulators

you i show my true heart

all this to say that im going cosmic on you for the next 3 months
its just going to be me and that novel -  my world, not yours

may think occasionally about no blogging because of low readership but never ever thought about
not fictioning cause of it, i just dont care, ima be fictioning to the day i die or am incapacitated

if i dont make it as a great novelist ima die surprised

all this to say im likely to bore you with a lot of process work cause thats going to be the only thing
on my mind for the next 3 months, i apologize, its just gon me and that novel, i cant wait

okay, let me give you some quick commentary so its not all me me me

bummer about the oil spill, what does god have against the delta

lets see, what else, bummer about the election in the sudan, battle for the south about to begin

lets see, what else, way to go crist, thought about sending him some money, but lets not get carried away

lets see, interesting piece on palin/beck trading places w/al and jessie - salient point
being we cant afford to give up the highground of the civilrights movement

a statement with which i agree, king thought struggle should elevate a people, not demean them - so do i
i do not agree with his take on al and jessie, i may not always agree w/their tactics but they been sincere

and there is more than enough struggle to go around - i do what i do, they do what they do

when they fumble i will call them out on it, when i fumble please sombody pull my coat
i will not count them as enemies, i will not belittle them, i will not pull them down

lets see, what else, forget this, im just going thru the motions, rickydoc got work to do

1st day of the wooshed, got to be a winner, cant afford bad days this
early, wont get no momentum till mid summer, that wont do

got to hit the ground running, that mean today

yesterday when i was trying to convince my class to woodshed their drafts this summer,
im telling them 3 measly pages a day will get you to the promiseland, probably get away w/2

mikael say but if you win one day you just got to get up and do it all again the next day

and i told him no shit sherlock, thats what separate the writers from the dilettantes

everyday you got to get up and meet the beast, everyday, yesterday dont count,

everyday the struggle begin anew, everyday you got to meet the page

thats what writers do

all my love

rdoc

THURSDAY

i had forgot just how interesting a work the cattlekilling is, last thursday i
asked what his aesthetic was and mildred barya responded

to break all the rules, see what he can get away with

that mildred barya, she tickle me

that about sums it up, all those voices in voices and the way he fearlessly goes back and forth in time, tenses, povs, whatever

using the vehicle of narr telling story to african spiritwoman, w/all widemans speculations on storytelling, how he foregrounds the struggle and act

of writing

he breaks rules the rest of us didnt know we had

im not even going to try to give you a synopsis, who got time to get that twisted

but its clear reading it that its another one that ive intertexted or shall we be a little forthright and say stolen from

i had truly forgotten just how much ive stolen from wideman
but clearly ive picked up a little of his narrative anarchy

his profound explorations of the prophetic
his obsession w/interface between storytelling and literature
w/developing an africanamerican literary language as sacred language

at this point in the game i dont know whats me and whats folk i been influenced by

wideman one of those writers inspire you to go for broke
a he got away with it, why cant i kind of writer

god i love this class, even if it does give me a bad case of narrative envy
it doesnt last long, i am what i am, other folk am what they am

speaking of god im going to do a post on that latest mohammed cartoon controversy bit
the draw mohammed day conceived behind censoring of south park mohammed skit

but i got to have my ducks in order for that one, dont want no fatwas out on flowers

but i have to say that it dont fly for religions to try to impose their religious taboos on other folk
that go for fundamentalist christians here too, i suspect that god doesnt care if you eat pork or beef

or dance on sunday, religious taboos are generally the product of 2000+ year old primitive minds
and reinforced by institutions intent on maintaining power and primacy, but contemporary spiritworkers

have studied principles and histories of religious formations to point of
no longer being subject to their power, some religious precepts like

thou shalt not kill for instance, they translate, but taboos of process like not dancing on sunday,
not eating pork or beef and no images of mohammed, well, that might work for you but dont try to

impose it on me, the basic religious axis for me is progressive vs fundamentalist and
i am against fundamentalism

of pretty much any sort, i would say any sort whatsoever but i dont want to be fundamentalist about it

this goes for secular fundamentalism too, but i really didnt intend to get deep with this just yet

now i got to follow thru, find the links for you, tease out the nuances of my position, etc,

who got time for this

let me end this riff saying that i worship at the altar of the
gods of literature, in case anybody was confused about that

ima have to do a piece on that one day, i love my gods

latest blast from organizing for america, they say they got november covered, that they doing the

hard work of organizing instead of listening to the polls, im hopeful, i plan to send them the $25

folks thats lackadaisical about getting out there for barack best remember how hard the repubs

were gaming, how they had turned the american gov into an arm of the republican party and the fatcats

how they brought america to its knees with the financial crises, sometimes i regret that obama had to
stem that financial crises because its the bailouts that got folk in arms against him but if it hadnt been

a financial crises at an opportune time in election cycle we might have had mccain palin in office, god works

in mysterious ways

a luta continua

-----------------

Arthur --

"Republicans win back House, Senate." "Voters reject Obama's agenda."

If you listen to the talking heads on TV, it's like November 3rd's headlines are already written.

But here's what they don't know -- and it's why they're dead wrong: The same grassroots movement that knocked on the most doors, made the most calls, and inspired the most first-time voters in history in 2008 hasn't gone anywhere. In fact, we're gearing up to do it all again.

You heard it from the President on Monday. We've been planning for the fall campaign all year. And we know full well that winning nationally means organizing locally. Every House district holds an election this year, and all but five states will vote statewide for a governor or senator.

We need to get moving in NY -- and all over the country -- earlier than ever before. David Plouffe and I have taken a hard look at the numbers, and we need 25 donations from Syracuse by May 1st to kick off our efforts.

Can you donate $25 or more to help us get more boots on the ground and start implementing our 2010 grassroots strategy now?

Republicans are already calling 2010 a "referendum" on the President's agenda. They're campaigning to win majorities in Congress, so they can roll back the progress we've worked so hard to make. In fact, hundreds of candidates have signed a pledge, circulated by the conservative Club for Growth, to repeal health insurance reform.

If history is any guide, this is nothing to scoff at. In midterm elections, the president's party regularly loses seats. And an economy that's still recovering only makes our job harder.

But history has never seen anything like us.

While Sarah Palin gives big speeches mocking "community organizers," we're investing in them. Our field operation is far and away the largest of its kind in history. OFA staff and volunteers are pounding the pavement across the country.

From the earliest primaries in 2008 to the fight for Wall Street reform, while the attacks ads were flying and the cynics were talking down our chances, we've done what we know best -- keep on organizing. Investing in these resources is what will make it possible for us to set records again in 2010.

The headlines we wake up to on November 3rd are in our hands. But we can't succeed without a strong start -- and we can't do it without you.

Will you be the one of first in Syracuse to chip in $25 to get our grassroots off the ground? Donate now:

https://donate.barackobama.com/2010kickoff

The fight ahead is going to be tough. With your help, Election Night doesn't have to be.

Thanks,

Mitch Stewart

-----------------------

tickle me when they call me arthur, like we old buddies
sometimes the emails are from my boy barry

i love that line - but history has never seen anything like us

i got the tingle from that one, dont you just love it when you get the tingle

im gone, got to finish preparing for my last literary hoodoo class - the cattlekilling
i approach teaching these books as an effort to note what narrative strategies

we can identify and add to our own repertoire, our own narrative range - for me and my students both

the cattlekilling is a gold mine, i look forward to unlocking it

worshiping at the altar of my gods

rdoc

WEDNESDAY

last undergrad workshop, it came up in class discussion that in my youth i was a hoodoo sorceror.  the class asked what do you mean and i said magic, a hoodoo magician

one student asked with some confusion, well how does somebody call themselves a hoodoo sorceror, end up, well, you know, here,

teaching in such a prestigious institution was implied

i told her because im a writer and a scholar of magic, that my forms course was literary hoodoo, that i make it work on the realworld plane,

i told her with just a little taste of attitude, that ima high magician

what i should have said im no folk magician, you probably thinking folk magician, love potions, spells and such, or maybe a stage magician, with exploding balloons or something

i am a high magician, my concern is enhancing the human condition, shaping generations, shaping reality

i should have said, in terms that she would understand, is that im gandalf the gray
im an essential player in the war between good and evil

that’s what high magicians do, they position themselves to be significant
forces in human destiny - cultural custodians and ideological orchestrators

and where would i be if not teaching at the local hogwortts, or whatever that school in harry potter is called

and whats more since we being real, i teach creative writing workshops, which is what high magicians do, try to forge their students into cultural forces, significant forces in human destiny

capable of shaping reality thru your works

when i told you we were going to spend the last few days talking about literary vision, i am attempting to take you to the next level of being a writer, to understand what it means to be an artist in this world, an instrument of human destiny.  in hopes that you become a worthy instrument.

the reason im teaching here is because the world values what i do, not only am a scholar of magic, one of the worlds great forces, ima a pretty good teacher of young writers, unlocking creative potential is my speciality and above all, im a writer, the world acclaims what i do

for anybody else just going around talking about ima high magician would be laughable, madness, but all i have to do is write about being a magician,

and when im doing my magical studies or engaged in magical endeavors of the human condition its like im doing research for my novels, i can do whatever i want to do in life as long as i write about it

in the last couple of years i have publicly identified myself as a would be prophet of the hoodoo way and tried to manifest it – even if i fail, which is very likely, i will still be able to write about the experience, the prophetic mode, with authority, because i have walked the path

or shall we say i have attempted to walk the path

i love being a writer, not only do i teach here but they treat writers like the football team, we the artists, the creatives, they pay us to be names in the world, they dont expect us to come to dept meetings, unless we feel like it, not the writers, we too busy writing, too busy being forces in the world, doing whatever it is that high magicians do.

not all of you interested in being writers but those of you who do i want to be great writers.  i want you to be writers of historical stature and significance, writers whose work means something. 

i want you to be successful and look back on this class fondly, i want you to be forces in this world.

sametime im teaching you to be writers, im training you to be high magicians
those of you thats interested - visionaries

that’s what i should have said

all my love

rdoc

if a novel doesnt cost you emotionally, its probably not worth writing

TUESDAY

well i guess im in an oldschool state of mind, what about the jim crows from dumbo

you got to admit these guys were cool:

MONDAY

hello world, ima have to file this one under guilty pleasures
zip a dee doo dah from song of the south, ima file it along w/amos and andy

which i also like, couldnt understand back in the day why they were considered racist
but then i was a kid w/o understanding of cultural orchestrations, full of benevolent masters

happy slaves and slow minded negroes, ima man now

and its hard to handle, ima extract what still move me, aint that the story of the south, complications

what i still love is the song, makes me smile, but before we go there some commentary
according to this timemag halperin piece obamas game is on

----------------

Barack Obama's right-wing opponents have cast him as a socialist failure. His left-wing hecklers see him as an over-cautious hedger. But, critics notwithstanding, President Obama is on the path to be a huge success by the time of November's midterm elections.

Before the Right jabbers (what about the huge debt, the broken tax pledge, the paucity of overseas accomplishments?), the Left yammers (Guantanamo hasn't been closed, gays aren't serving openly in the military, too many policies cater to business interests!), and the media chides (POTUS and party poll numbers are down, Washington is more partisan than ever), look at the two key metrics that underscore Obama's accomplishments. It is too early to assess the ultimate measure of victory — whether the President's actions have been prudent and beneficial, domestically and internationally. But by Election Day, 2010, Obama will have soundly achieved many of his chief campaign promises while running a highly competent, scandal-free government . . more  . .

------------------

now that deserve a little zip a dee doo dah

SUNDAY

gon have to make that delta run soon, mother doing poorly, trying to hold out
for a couple of weeks, finish down the semester and a couple of projects

working my way thru folks manuscripts now, trying to clear my decks - so novel is on hold, thats the way it is sometime

so, stanley crouch wrote this piece for the daily beast where he lit into smiley for being trifling - only problem is that stanley can be trifling too and as always he went one step (or two) over the line

stanley always been cool with me, hes always shown me respect so i respect him in return but me and stanley been on opposites sides of almost everything - i got to call him out when he step wrong

stanley fall prey to the same hubris got smiley out here throwing tantrums masquerading as principles and for much of the same reason, because their well paying constituency eat it up whole but stanley should

be a little more serious and a ltittle less sensationalist, both of them

need to grow up

that said a lot of what stanley said was right on, in particular calling minister farrakhan out for his role in the assassination of malcom x, that aint never sat right with me, in particular that he never gave us a sincere apology for that

stanley quotes him in a mosque speech soon after: “We don’t care nothing about no white man law when you attack what we love. And, frankly, it ain’t none of your business. What have you got to say about it? Did you teach Malcolm? Did you make Malcolm? Did you clean up Malcolm? Did you put Malcolm out before the world? Was Malcolm your traitor or was he ours? And if we dealt with him like a nation deals with a traitor, what the hell business is it of yours?”

that was not cool, the assassination of malcom by his/our own wasnt cool, and farrakhans apology some decade or two later was insincere and half ass, i personally still hold that against farrakhan and the nation,

rickydoc dont give absolution easy

im willing to consider it if the regret is sincere, if redemptive contribution been made,
otherwise i hold the grudge when black voices work against the family

i still hold a grudge against whoop goldberg for that thing she did w/sam wassisname, clarence thomas on my list too but he dont care, and michael steele, whitefacing for republicans,

and stanley man a couple of times youve taken positions that swung mighty close 

i remember when he lit into tonis song of solomon, called toni a farce
stanley often been on the wrong side of history

a one point he jacked up some participants by calling them 'hoodoo women just this short of astrologers'

now wait just a minute stanley, wait just a minute here - ima indulge you again stanley, you still family

but you need to grow up man, be the elder statesman you should be

these are serious times, everybody got to step up

rdoc

FRIDAY

dont know that ima do that piece anytime soon, i just dont have the time
that will be like maybe 30 pages of manuscript time blown off

jsut when im clearing my decks, keep in mind its something to schedule - moving right along

i was just checking my boy chairman steele, he stepping in it again calling out the republicans southern strategy

the repub establishment immediately call upon him to retract this blaspheme - what, us, what southern strategy - steele keep them sweating dont he

i think that hes infiltrated them, that he
really working for us - the spook who sat by the door

now skip gates, i dont know who skip gates working for,

did a nyt op ed, end the slavery blame game, its about the most useless article ive read all year

like he aint caused obama enuf grief he has brought up reparations like blackfolk still into that foolishness
and then he makes a case against reparations (?) by vigorously proving that africans sold each other

i hate to be the one tell you skip but this aint news, this

proving something been conceded a long time ago and not pertinent to slavery proclamation issue, he just
parroting the slavery aint our fault, the african did it to each other first folk, both these positions about 10 years out of date

reparations was a joke then, its a double joke now, begging white folk, thats all that was

longgame strategies should be designed to train your generations as you would have them be
all reparations did was train us to be better beggars, it was a joke then, its a double joke now

i lost friends and comrades because i never bought into reparations when it was all the rage and all along
called it out for the foolish distraction it was and i was very glad when it kinda disappeared on its own

begging is not a strategy

apparently skip gates position is that obama should resurrect it for some reason
what is with you skip, you keep coming up with stupid shit, you need to go sit down

in a corner somewhere

quit clowning

rdoc

THURSDAY

hello all

im working on what i believe will be an important piece, a literary manifesto

but then ive done them before and they died the death, but im feeling this one, and i got a strategy for

getting it out there

it was mikael that pulled my coat to this one, sent me a link to essay by jaybaron
third degree burns, which was one of those is fiction dead articles and it generated

a lot of thinking on my part, especially after following links to 'the death of fiction' by ted genoways
in motherjones and old 1991 mj piece, can poetry matter, asking questions still viable and this inspire

me to make my contribution to that dialogue and i want to place it online, will ask the folk over at oxford am
if they will put it online so i got a likely venue, i just got to make a serious contribution to that dialogue

specially since its one that means so much to me, my initial response is to build a forms class around

this question of literary significance, questions of literary success and how lit can survive and flourish
in current climate, how to beat the odds as mfa graduates and become successful and significant writers

have a reading list consist of folk from the program who have achieved 'literary success'
maybe ask them to comment on what got them over the hump, identify behavioral/production

patterns of success, go deeply into what constitute literary success

have already decided im going to devote last two undergrad classes to dialogue on what it means to be an artist
we have spent the whole semester addressing craft, now i want to address vision, literary vision

another link i found was where great writers are made

which explored the role of mfa programs in the evolution of literature
and there was this section about innovations on the basic workshop format

that intriqued me, tried to work that a little this semester w/this novel class
which i have in about an hour so i dont have time to do any more w/this, got to prepare for class

and ima work most of this one offline i think, give you the highlights of the struggle

but this one i want coherent and i want it somewhere it can be seen, be influential, this one ima work

and you know i dont have time for this but this one im feeling, im feeling driven to write, this one i think

the power is caling for it

the main point will be one that i have told students over and over

if a novel doesnt cost you emotionally its probably not worth writing

"i have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith"

SUNDAY

case against goldman sachs by sec is right on time for dems, repubs had outplayed them, spinning finance bill as for wallstreet and repubs as defenders of people when opposite is the case - expect obama to flip the script, to bullypulpit the repubs - this gives him a hook

was reading this artcle by ghanian christian talking about his ambivalence about afrikania practice
what they calling afrikania is i call afrospiritual -

an attempt to modernize and illuminate african traditional religion

subtitle of the article asked if, as he has been taught, trad african religion was evil

in the commentary section one fundamentalist christian say even asking the question is evil incarnate and some idiot ask what did all this have to do with marijuana (because there was a picture of an herbalist accompanying article)

i couldnt help myself: i wrote: i dont generally get involved in religious dialogue, folk enter into it so blindly, but the two posts above were so foolish that i find myself compelled to make a point or two

i am an afrospiritual practitioner in the united states, i grew up southern black baptist and like many of my generation i grew up thinking afrospiritual practice was evil because thats what the christians taught

but they also taught that everything african was evil and as we begin to study africa in the 60s we realized this wasnt so, as part of our study of africa we also studied african religious practice and began to realize there is no only one way of god, that humans have many ways of approaching the divine and it can be good or bad within ways (islamic terrorism, catholic inquisition, hindu suttee) that well designed religions provide avenues of illumination but they can also provide avenues of degredation and that an illuminated buddhist is just as 'good' a person as an illuminated christian etc

once we begin to understand that religious exclusivity was not divinely ordained but imposed
by human and institutional forces w/various agendas we begin to look closer at african religion

quite a few africans in the west begin to study/practice voodoo, candomble, santeria, hoodoo, et al
most of them a fusion between catholicism and african traditions such as yoruba, fon and congo

what we have, some of us, come to understand is that african religions is not evil, problem is its often
archaic, it has not evolved as have so many of the other religious traditions of the world have done, 

part of the reason christanity and islam have been so successful at conquering africa and replacing african traditional reigions is because they are better religions, more evolved, more organized, their adherents live better lives - the true test of any religious practice

but instead of turning away from atr toward the aggressor, conquering religions of christanity and islam we need to devote ourselves to evolving african traditional religion, bringing it into the 21st century, making it compatible with the 21st century mind and sensibility, illuminate it

to do otherwise devalues us as a people, your indigenous tradition reflect your evolution as a people, and as it evolves it feeds and illuminates you and your culture, to turn from evolving our own tradition, based on our history, our culture, our destiny, just participates in our own devaluation, our own spiritual conquest, where we serve the purposes of those who have murdered and enslaved us historically and continue to do so

obviously this is a far more complex issue than i have time to fully eplore right now but i have devoted my adult life to evolving and illuminating afrospiritual practice around the world

if i can change their spiritual tradition i can change the people, i can change the generations, i can change the world - i have deduced this (and writing good books reflecting this) to be the strongest move i can make

during my short time on the planet

i have spoken out against practices like animal sacrfice and the ritual killings of humans for medicines, i have spoken out against archaic practices/attitudes in general and institutional practices that do not illuminate the human spirit

i have in fact gotten a lot of disrespect, disdain and dismissal in afrospiritual circles for my call to evolve, but such it is when you aspire to the prophetic

i am determined to make of afrospiritual practice an instrument of destinical redemption, development and evolution

i hope that all the sons and daughters of africa will join me in this guest

i will give you a mission greater than your adversity

i will give you a destiny

arthur rickydoc flowers
hoodoo lord of the delta

----------------

so anyway after my own little screed i googled afrikania and went to the website
afrikania mission - interesting effort, based on egyptian theology mostly, we in the

states went thru our egyptian phase already, where we assumed only really viable
african religion was an egyptian one, ie still not 'evil/raw' traditional african religion

also small religious groupings bother me, too much room for soul stealing and
cultlike behavior, part of the reason i never initiated w/traditional african religion

here is because i was uncomfortable with their hierarchical do what i say do because

it is divine writ and i am your spiritual leader bit, you know what the old rootdoctor think
about soul stealing, of which there is much in almost all religions, which is why i am

hoodoo, a magical/spiritual practitioner rather than a religious one, its a long story
dont have time to go into the nuances here, read my books, rest for the weary

and my holybook in progress, the hoodoo book of flowers: the great black book of generations

im out, i got to clock pages, it takes a couple days of work before clocking paragraphs

becomes clocking pages, apparently im in the zone, got to stay there, if anything got to
get stronger, get more focused - just going thru the motions at the schoolhouse now,

obligatories will be done this week, cattlekilling, some undergrad stories, couple
of grad stories and two backed up manuscripts and i will be a free man

okay, two more weeks, then its just me and that novel
three months of just me and that novel - thats what i call

the good life

step by step, inch by inch - slowly we turn

all my love

rdoc

SATURDAY

clocking pages again, or rather paragraphs, but there has been an interesting development
its like reading texaco has given me license to take more lyrical gambles, to stretch out

when i think about what rest for the weary does im thinking deeper now, when i think about what a passage does im thinking deeper

this is tripping me out, its like texaco came along just when i needed it

another 3 years and i will have this novel strong as texaco

just kidding, about the 3 years, more like 3 months

and ima have to let texaco be texaco, rest for the weary be rest for the weary

look like i just got over a hump, every step of the way when you want to be a writer
there are psychological humps that will throw you off your game if you let them

for me to consciously try to break down texaco, be intimidated by texaco to point of devaluing
my own lick would have been a distraction that could have cost me my draft

i see it happen to students all the time, i see it happen to peers, some psychological hump

that takes them off their game, i dont allow them, anything that keep me from writing is to be

rejected out of hand, part of hoodoo meditation is cultivating ability to step back and unattach yourself
to thoughts, to feelings, to perceptions - to step back within yourself and observe rather than attach

so that you establish control of them rather than them controlling you

so when you find yourself letting something throw you off you game
you immediately step back and consider it as something separate from your i consciousness

and judge it, is this something i should allow, or refine, or do i go with it - where is the power here

im getting a little esoteric on you, i try to avoid esoterics but you got to remember that i am

basically a mystic, mind, soul and consciousness stuff is probably my forte

thats what high magicians do

but this not something i generally ponder publicly, folk already think im a pretentious spaceranger

at least i do - i dont have time to really work/clarify this right now, im clocking paragraphs again

im reaching for pages

all my love

rdoc

FRIDAY

"i have fought the good fight, i have kept the faith"        ben hoooks

my homeboy died recently, the old guard of memphis,

him and francis, maxine and vasco, miriam decosta et al, my mother and father,

racemen and racewomen, who passed the sense of responsibility on to me

southern black bougie, racial custodianship is a family tradition

hopefully when its time for me to pass the baton on the next generation i will be able to say

i fought the good fight, i kept the faith

rest easy baba hooks, the faith will be kept

finally got back to the novel, last 3 days i been just watching tv, discouraged by
texaco - rest for the weary just does not strike me as on the same literary level

but what can i do, except buck up rick, get back to work, whatever i got is what i got

a luta continua

rdoc

dropping wisdom

FRIDAY

okay, ive figured out that the reason texacos narrative riffs sound so much like my own is because my own sound so much like his,

i realize now how much my stylee has been influenced by texaco - talk about stealing

i aspire to his narrative poetry, i aspire to his density but not his pacing,

i like quick, i like tight, i like lightspeed

considered taking my time and reading it right

decided against it, not at this stage in the game, cant take the chance of being pulled off my game

just keep in mind that the bar has been raised, 

i got to elevate my game, got to go deep,  like the way he engaged storytelling and literature and so many

other threads, i got to elevate my game, i got to take my novel deeper, work threads like my obsession
with work that really means something, that affects the world, shapes and delites generations

just dont get competitive w/other writers, thats a trap, just sing your song boy, best you can

im out, check out dnc video about repub game on the financial bill
dems spotlighting repub talking points attempting to flip the script

swear they defending the people from wall street like their players told them to
defending wall street will be an untenable situation, dems got the spotlight on

im just doing my part to help it go viral

all my love:

WEDNESDAY

so im reading texaco for my literary hoodoo class, trying to skim thru it but keep getting bogged down in the

narrative power, its densely lyrical and i want to savor every sentence, every riff but i just dont have the time, will have to reread it when class

is done, for right now i got to forcemarch thru it but this is the work
i want to be when i grow up, its does so much im trying to do better

got this narrative based narrative instead of scenic, does his own little magical realism thing instead of being derivative

of marquez, rusdhie et al, always nice to see a unique brand of magical realism, this book stands test of repeated readings

for right now forcemarch thru rick, read it when the semester is thru

so i can properly steal

thats the real problem here, if there is any book i envy w/all my literary heart and soul its texaco

this one i have to be vigilant not to get sucked up in narrative envy

this book humbles me like no other

i usually schedule it last but its such an exhaustive read that its not a good choice for that late in the semester
folk just dont have that epic read quality in them at this point, got cattlekilling scheduled for last work

its a challenging read but relatively easy once you have the codes, i might need to discuss the codes

of works before i ask them to read it, that would have been useful for texaco

i think my next forms course will be the way of the novel, i will assign works i want to read

like salvadors, and once again let it be unabashedly about the novel, including writing them

i love the novel, i love the longform and it love me

i have given my life to the novel and its been a good life, if you got to worship something

why not the novel

rdoc





TUESDAY

i been in a t bone walker state of mind, guess i been working w/those blues
aint many things texas done right but they did give us t bone walker

one commenter said, that there is the gospel, son

i was online contending w/some south shall rise again folk back in memphis

and came up with a move on them that put them in a existential double trick

called them unamerican, said the civil war was treason
and like any enemy of america likely to do, you got your little

butts kicked, get over it

said the tea party folk just as bad, trying to defund and weaken
america, whats the difference between your goals and bin ladens

and you call yourself patriots

these are perilous times for america, enemies on
every hand, enemies within, enemies without

you need to be serious, not silly

you need to wake up and smell the red, white and blue

rdoc

MONDAY

im a little depressed, rickydoc got the blues

slogging thru this deglitch draft
has wore me down

i knew this was coming, thats why i gave myself 4 months but still

im just tired, life is such a struggle and im tired

i know, somefolk living horrible lives - i been blessed

but that dont mean i aint tired
that done mean im not weary

i know, buck up soldier, i know

rdoc






SUNDAY

hello world, it is a chastised rootdoctor before you today, i been telling everybody this novel is done and its so unthrough

im doing now what i would call the deglitching draft, you write a novel draft and its full of false starts, repeated riffs w/awkward tonals, passages that dont actually do what you thought they were doing, deadspace, etc  -  glitches

so this the deglitch draft, had speculated to give it a couple of days

not only has it bogged me down, its discouraging - process rick

keep reminding yourself its all process - quit selling wolf tickets
quit telling folk im thru, quit strutting like i sometimes do

sometime i get to macking and before you know it im running
my wouldbe prophet of the hoodoo way mode full tilt

and i really do believe in the low profile
hiding behind the facade of fiction

but when i let my real self come to the party in these posts
which is part of the power, what make me me, well there you are

telling folk my secrets, showing
my secret self, my hoodoo lord of

the delta indeed

got to the point now if i dont tell folk what i really think, show
the real me, then whats the literary point of blogging

my words are important to me, they must have power
they must have agency

i like to think i speak to the generations

i would they think well of me

all my love

rdoc