JAN 29 2021 11:53 AM
still not scheduled for covid vaccinations until april
almost everyday we chasing rumors, yesterday kinneys
had openings starting at 12 noon, by 12:20 we still fighting
with the site and by the time we got thru the processing
all the slots were taken - we have gone even deeper into
covid protocol,, dont want to be taken on the last lap
so im dloing my students manuscripts ceause i finished
novel and not totally withdrawn into woodshed for memoir
sent novel off, but was fidgety to get back to memoir and
just get it started - at a wwek per manuscript times 3 we
talking damn near a month of other folks works
i cant handle that, not now, so im thinking mornings
for memoir, rest of day for otehr folks works and
chasing the vac (irs, soc secruity issues, etc)
but once i finally got iinto joels novel, 1st one on my list i want to full
court press thru, it was diff puttiing memoir down enuf to really get
groove but this week i dug in & woke up this morning determined
to finish but i was feeling bluesy about the vac and
this limited life and i knew if i didnt get some of my
work done i was going to have some seirous blues
and so i sat down determined to do a 3 hour session 1st and
its been wonderful, done my 3 and will keep roling till i pass
out - and after i recover i wiill finnish joels work which
fortuneately is reading good and i wont be reading iit all resentful
about not getting my own work done before the covid catch me
tnhis only works cause im workking nonfiction, nonfiuction
is easy, fiction takes everything you got and then some
also let me say i often question the time i put in on this blog
spec since i kinda dont think anybody (but rod) reads it, but i
dont write foor you, i write for posterity
a chronicler of his times, i prefer here instead of social media
because here the truth is my only guide, FB im hunting 'likes'
but everybody else has miograted, blogging is so yesterday
but when i went back thru the 20 years i been blogging i had
all my mateeriial there, anythniung i determined siignificant
(hands trembling, mnore typos)
and even more impo i was able to see what stood the
test of time, mostly overt political commentary did not,
thats why yooou dont see as much of it noow
i got to go, hands out of control, if i got to
fight for my words ima do it on my Work
all my love
rdoc
jan 23, 2021 10:01 boy the year is zooming by
helllo world, you may have noticed more typos these days, the trembling fingers
i spend more typing time fixing errors but then i say fuck itkeep rolling, i look
at them as evidence of rick fightiing thru adversity to get his work done
working on the memoir again, got 4 students manuscripts need reading
got calls nneed to be made to irs, social security, reetiirement folk etc
but i needed to get into memoir enuf to fee like its back in the saddle
the 1st couple of days were hell, just spinning my wheels
theoretically i should have took a couple of days off afteer finishing
rest, accepted a week or so of shutdown to recuperate but i feel
more desperate to get my work done than i did when i was working
will i ever get to coast, i guess not,, when you get my age you just
ticklked you can still keep your pedal to the metal and as long as
i can i guess i will
ekpe got back to me so i got to move on that
i want a good draft of my meopir, we probably talking summer
okay a decent 1st draft, i should be able to do that in a week
whbich mean i got to push my students back, they will not
like that and i wont either because if it takesa me x time to
get back to them they lose steam but i got to prioritize getting
my work done and do them when i can
ding a piece for a tribes issue onn black lives matter
iis commenmorating steve cannon and ish is the editor
and im on the liat of folk asked to contribute, all the big
dogs of afroam and diasporic lit folkk and im on the list
i complain all the time about not being on the list when
the roll is called and im on the list and like a bunch of
jazz folk cutting head everybody gon want to shine
the deadline is april so i got too draft it now and let
it simmer for a month or so and this is basically
a strategic assessmennt of the next phase of struggle
wgere does blm evolve to abd whats the next stage
so i start assessing blm, had dismissed it as protests mosrly
and you know what i thin about protests and appealing to
the better natures of whitefolk, its olay but it cant be the poiint
so anyway now i got to figure out what the point should be
read a review of the purpose of power and found the sample
proovocative, was in fact jealous of what appeaer to be
good analysiis annd my principle when tryiung to shine
is to see what the best already sayiing and pii9ggyback
that so that im the latest word, she got me assessiing
my personal responsibility component of my codsmology
but i been defendiing it in my head annd i see where ima
have to engage it, opkay, getting to involved, came here
to post a raw passage i jjust wrote, dont have time to
clean it up for you
i am so buried in the chaos of this memoir which is why
i got to make it a draft, righht now its liteerarlly a 1000
page chaotic mess, i need a soliid draft of about 300
pages, a solid 300 page coherent draft and i will put it
away to work onn the oter projects demandiing atttn
i want to learn how to finally do pro tools by god
and process the 30 hours of HBOF studio stuff
did thiis this morning, alll that stuff about personal responsiblity
obviousyly i goto to engage that in my varioius forums, it never ends
----------------
MILESTONE: FOR THE WRITER WHO WOULD BE GREAT
It was because of the confluence between my hoodoo studies and my literary pursuits that my worki started taking on eseeds of future realities, my ideological orchestrations the preparation of the ground, it all came together in The Writer Who Would Be Great, which encapsulate my rather hyberbolic role of the writer and ends up ruminating on reality, says the writer creates works designed to strategically interact with the human condition, the human spirit and historical circumstance and your literary tradition. Says a great writer becomes a microcosm of the future, there are times - fleeting moments - when you being strong, disciplined and productive, or when youve written a really good piece or passage, or when youve participated in an historically significant moment - that you are acutely aware of yourself as historical. epochal. mythical. history in the flesh. there are moments when you have placed yourself so precisely in the historical continuum's center of balance that you are aware of being a godforce, a focal point of reality and illusion, a nexus of generational possibility, conjuring reality into being through the sheer force of your will, your work, your craft and your game. Says if you pull it off - you and your works will be studied and modeled in the hearts and aspirations of generations to come. to the extent that your works are relevant and significant to those generations, to that extent are you immortal. immortal. Im very proud of this piece, its vision of the power of literature, ive offered it to various folk but nobody has taken it. Folk have always judged me too invested in literary greatness and I myself have often tried to turn off my after burners and be like other folk and just want to write I guess, I find it difficult to believe that other folk don’t want literary greatness too but I think maybe they too are superstitious and think to ask for literary greatness means it will never happen. The industry and the culture both have rejected my work and used to be I would tell myself im out of my time, the generations will appreciate what ive done, that carried me for many years, it no longer does, I don’t care if the generations love me or not (I tell myself) okay so that’s not true) but I can say this, there is only one thing that drives me now, get the books in my head on paper before I die or am somehow incapacitated
jan 20, 6:15 am
hello world, finished novel and sent it off
free at last, free at last
been off the grid, finishing novel for jan 1 deadline
(jan 20 counts as made the deadline, always a week
or so behind but i do not miss deadlines)
did a mlk reading for deerfield academy that went well
still getting a feel for how performance work in a zoom world
but i had them ask questions on chat and was able to get
a sense of my congregation and establish a dialogue
it was wonderful and i learned a
lot about doing music on zoom
just sent this to ekpe, guess it says
what got to be said for next moves
ekpe is a musicologist back in memphis
we generally collaborate whenever i hit
in memphis, picked up a lot of my
performance chops from ekpe, and he
accompany me sometimes with his mbira
and i was llike show me how to play that
been playing it ever since but i will never
be as good as ekpe - on so many levels
in my work whenever i refer to the
'high priest of memphis' im talking ekpe abioto
when it come to holymanning ekpe
makes me feel like a pretender
1st time we hit for univ of memphis
prof that contracted me walked in and
started negotiating w/ekpe whom he
assumed to be the principal cause
ekpe got the presence like that
whenever im out in the world getting play
i will tell folk if you think im strong you
should meet my boys back in memphis
im the tag along in my crew
all my love
rdoc
----------------
Hey man, wanted to clarify, reason I asked
was you down is cause ima ask you to do all
this work on spec and the odds are always
against us, some folk the industry will let
them show up w/a chapter and say give me
money and they give them money,
Me I been working my novel for 20 years
trying to sell it for 10 w/no play
but I don’t begrudge it, means I had
time to make it strong, so now it’s a
done deal whether they take it or not
but im confident somebody will
But im so far off the industry grid that
I have to do the product if I want a chance
at it being what I want instead of what
the industry will accept so imma just do
the screenplay, decided screen instead of
my beloved folk opera cause it’s the 21st
century, if im just gon go for one its got
to be film, which I know better and
something folk can take home with them
during the next pandemic - so ima be
asking for all this music on spec dawg
your copywrite, or whatever yall call it
and my assurance that I wont cut a deal
without you
way I kinda assume it will go, hope it will go
novel comes out. Gets some play, Hollywood
shows interest, we hit them with the script
they say this shit is amateur hour and they
bring on professionals to beef it out
that’s what they did with tmac, she had
to share billing buut we will take that if it
opens that door
So its gon take me a minute to do a raw draft
cause I got finish this memoir draft. Id say by
end of feb so ill have a draft of the screenplay
by sometime in march
But what I also would like to do is do a zoom
session o0nce a month where we work out how
tol collaborate on zoom and do some gill scott
brian Jackson stuff for our time / zoom
Asking for a lot on spec but I just don’t
see no other way to go for the brass ring
and get the play we deserve
We've reached that point in life where the endgame
comes into focus and id like to go out on a higher plane
that the one they got me slotted into
We spose to colloboarate I suspect, show
the world what memphis capable of
Be safe mi bruddah
In de Craft
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