SUNDAY
was reading this wapo article about jimi hendrix playing at the ambassador before he was known
and how he burnt his guitar on stage there, one of the 3 times he did that bit and it was like he was
calling on the gods and ive got these vignettes in rest for the weary, had to do one for jimi -
first draft, ima clean it up but im satisfied with it, knew just where to stick it in the manuscript
got this scene where staggerlee is a bluesman playing redemption blues in delta jooks:
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Were you there that night, deep down in the black mud of the Delta, that the greatest bluesman ever dropped to his knees and burnt his guitar in a sacrificial offering, calling a gathering of the gods who had survived the middle passage, every note carrying field hollers of newly made slaves and the moans of burnt out sharecroppers, blind beggars with their box guitars, deep blue divas with diva deep blues, clocking long hard miles and standing at the crossroads, waiting for the Southern to cross the Dog; the supplicant on his knees before the flames, calloused hands raised in psychedelic prayer and swaying in the light of a purple haze, were you there, my friend, the night the high priest of the blues spoke in tongues of fire. Were you there.
WEDNESDAY
what is it about projects that you think they are going to be a easy kill and instead they hunt you down
i thought this revision of mojo rising would be maybe two weeks of effort, instead im buried in it
its consuming my summer woodshed, what little summer woodshed china has not taken
and now my laptop keyboard has gone blooey, bought a little 5 dollar keyboard and attached
it and its working more or less enuf to function till i get back, but when i think about my challenges
i think of rosario ferre, whose youngest doll is a favorite story of mine, who i taught last week and
i mentioned it to miguel, the puertorican artist teaching arthistory and he said, i know her, she hooked
up my 1st showing for me, and that she has some condition that has left her paralyzed and
only able to communicate by blinking and miguel said you know these artist types, i bet
shes figured out some way to tyoe using those blinking eyes and i had to check myself
and my constant string of complaints, lord knows its a cliche but no matter how hard
it is, somebody dealing with worse, all my blessings on her work and her courage
all my love
SUNDAY
well, the verdict is in, and weve lost another one
but you know teaching us history has reminded me of the longgame
you win some, you lose some, you keep on pushing
if we were to let our losses cripple us we would never be able to walk again
the problem of course is that this will encourage other wouldbe vigilantes
to go out looking for a reason to use their hidden guns and stand their ground, this
gun culture thing is whitefolk of a certain ilk being scared of a changing america
and the barbarian hordes they perceive to be at their gates
but the principal goal here was that there be a trial
that he couldnt just kill the kid and walk away
we lost the trial but at least there was one
and it just goes to show we got a lot of work to do
got to turn that anger into productive premptive action
got to keep on working against the stand your ground laws & mentality
got to work against this guncrazy culture we living in
got to cripple the rightwing mentality in congress and the courts
and get hillary elected 2016
and we got to work against that gangsta mentality that
makes our kids targets for fools, both ours and theirs
this is not the only loss that we have taken lately
citizen united, the votingrights act, the filibuster, foodstamps, recently read about
some black teaparty group funded by the right in their fight against immigration
well funded compradors - all these things are connected, more than enuf struggle to go around
what was amazing was how invested the rightwing was in saying it was okay to shoot trayvon
how clear it became that many of them wish they had the guts to go hunting black kids
the struggle has gotten very complex, we cant lose faith, we cant lose focus
take a moment of silence for trayvon, then we got to get back to work
as for zimmerman, the new hero of the right, till the end
of his days may he not know rest, nor peace of mind
i curse his days, him and all his kind
a luta continua
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