rootwork the rootsblog: a cyberhoodoo webspace

maintain rick, yopu can do this

apr 26, 2:42 am: spinning my wheels
goot to put the work down and get stuff
off my plate

DO YOU REALLY WANT TO DANCE

so one sunny day in accra I went walking down the beach, call myself dressing down and blending but it was clear that everybody knew I was some kind of alien black person, folk were frolicking in the water though it was dirty brown and at one point I walk past a clutch of rude boys and from the corner of my eye I see them note me and but we surrounded by folk frolicking and nodding shyly at the stranger in their midst, I keep walking, on the way back I see that the rude boys have positioned themselves to engage but I sense its hesitant, all around us couples and families watching them track me with acute disapproval and I sense the rude boys not fully committed, Im an elder these days and I am more vulnerable now but back then I still appeared to be possibly more trouble than I was worth, one by one I look them in the eye, I see you, and I start beaming with all my charismatic power - I am mganga muau, da high hoodoo of memphis, do not fuck with me, I will snatch your soul clean out your body,   do    not    fuck   with    me

think about it now, before you take your stance, do
you really want to dance with da hoodooman,


april 25, 10:04 am - just crawled out of bed

i dont know what my count is,, imm dazed
from taking punches, this is from yesterdays
grind, pal in ghana, apologies for rawness
i got to get this draft done, next draft i will polish

cultural entreprenuership

apr 22, 2021   11:23 pm (165 of 283)



moving slow, have abandoned expectation
determined to get melissa off my plate
got zoom commitments, do what you can rick

maintain, brother floyd lives on
let me pull a passage a day:

PARKERS BOY ON A SUNRUN, 360%

presided over gabe bumps wedding but it didnt take,
unfortunate, when I mate them I expect it to stick
Ima act like that one didn’t happen, ran up to buffalo
to hit w/him at a reading before dont belong blew up
pretty sure it was me and ejiofor, some apt reading
very nice vibe, explained to gabe he had to leave
spaces for the word and he went chicago on me, like
some oldschool delta bluesman was up in there,
bluesifying all over the word, ejiofor is my witness, one
day me and gabe gon style up some memphis chicago
pipeline blues, and I believe my boy jeff allen fiddle
with a little blues guitar, good lord willing and the
creek don’t rise I feel a blues coming on

EXCUSE ME SIR

so a little while back I was on the bus to campus, standing room
only, Im standing and this cuddly little coed sitting in front of
me is staring up at me w/acute fascination and Im thinking alright,
old boy stil got it, when she finally gets her nerve up, leans
forward and says, excuse me sir, would you like to sit

apr 18, 2021   9:13 am (138 of 289)



hello world, been a while,, had to
prepare for my point of contact gig
had to withdraw from the world
it went well and allthesee folk from
varouis phases of my life were there
including cheryl woodruff which let
me give her props for all shes done for
me and woke up this morning with a
hankering to get that beat on the page
and after a week off im back in saddle

just wrote this, dont have time to polish
i got a lot oof ground to make up

be safe

rdoc

 

YOU GOT TO COME THROUGH ME

1^st I took mojo rising to Cheryl at Ballantine, she said art we love your new book but we gon take out everything "uncomfortable" all that history and politics and that mystical stuff, we just gon leave in the newage magical stuff and make it a "gift book", gon makke you the colored depak chopra, and god i was tempted, visions of 7 digit checks floating in mmy head but that booiok i could do in a couple of weeks, it wasnt the kind of sacred text work i wanted to be knopwn for, but they were going to turn my sacred text into a gift book instead of me defining hoodoo as a true power they were trying to define me and hoodoo as spiritual pop - gift book hoodoo - thats what folk be practicing these days - giftbook hoodoo, i walked away from the deal and wonder everyday fi i made a mistake but ann artiste gotta do what an artiste gotta do and so i was telling that story at a reading and a mutual acquantaince who knew the history said are you talking about cheryl woodruff and I was ready to sink into the floor cause Cheryl woodruff had aleways had my back like nobody else in the industry, I forget what cheryls imrint was over at Ballantine but when they did AGLB all the players were black womern, it was quite openly a black womens shop and they loved me, loved AGLB, thought I was just an adorable black male trying to grapple with the eruption of black feminism at the time, grappling with love and all, all my professional life my constituency has been black women who recognize and think Im the hope of the race basically, which has been the major factor in my inability to go the distance with the white women in my life, it would have broken the hearts of the very people who believe in me, at least back then, who cares who you love now, but we were the black arts movement generation, the 1^st generation of black male writers who didnt marry white, we followed amiri and the babajohns lead (amina and ms grace) so when I got caught up in the consolidation of the industry, when new american bought dutton, then penquin bought new american, penguin inherited twice orphaned AGLB and didnt have full allegiance to it, was gon put AGLB out in paper instead of initial hardback, which in literary circles is a demotion, ellen asked cheryl to buy paper up front, which made hardback doable, when the industry tried to take me down Cheryl stood in the breech, told them all, if you want to take dr love down you got to come through me - and my girls, 

DR LOVE

that’s what they called me down at black images book bazaar in dallas, run y these two sisters, emma Rodgers and another sister, and they felt the same way about my work, so they had this annual thing they did, a conference of black women romance writers, all the grand divas in black romance, you talking about showhorse drama queens, all of them were grand divas with diff styles, all 16 of them, from romance thrillers to bodice rippers they were all diffr types of drama queens reflecting their interest, 16 of them, and me, this year they decided to invite me, me and 16 grand divas who just loved the very idea of me and I was in my charismatic male prime at the time but it never went there, if I had hit on somebody it would have fucked up the whole vfibe cause they trewated me like I was their loing lost brother in arms and they called me dr love, champagne and flowers in the hotel room, dr love this and dr love that, god I enjoyed being part of that crew and so there was this one big book sale in big ballroom, they had table for each of us with our books and hundreds of eager buyers, they were the big names in black romance and would have like 10 to 20 stacks of titles per table and like a 100 fplk ion loine who would buy a copy of each title, and then there was me, not a customer in sight, they were like this aaint romance work, you cant even put together a decent sentence I don’t have to figure it out, and so my girls got in line and they each bought a book, I shoulda signed them, enduring affection, dr love


apr 12, 2021   9:13 am (127 of 289)



5 pages, im gooid for 5 pages
but not 10, may have to recalibrate
but im just happy to be working again

what happen is i was rehearsing for my gig
thursday and in my head it sounded so good
but then when listened to playback it was weak
and im like will i never be really goiod musician
and it disvouraged me so i was like well let me
work on soomething im actually good at

and i got back to work

problem is i dont reaally know if Im good at it either
the industry seems to be taking another pass

fuck em

apr 11, 2021   9:13 am (122 of 289)



been preparing for my POC gig saturday
got some new material Ima try out and I
just may pull out my performannce mbira

i have two, one I practice on thats always
out of tune and the one i perform on

problem is even out of tune the old one
is the one Im used to, got a new saigo
stomp box ima try out and two new pieces

thats gon blow them away  if i dont fumble it
new stuff good chance you will fumble but
such it life

i been doing it over and over and over
then when its showtimme you just got to
forget it all, just get out there and emote

showtime


apr 10, 2021   9:13 am (117 of 289)



so the plan was when i retiired to get on road
doing gigs but covid fucked that plan so i went
into the woodshed instead and plan to stay
there for a year or so but two interesting
developments, in negotiations to provide

a narratiive arc /performance for a indian
hip hop / something artists album  in canada
and in negotiations to do a juneteenth movie
for juneteenth watertown folk trying to

move their annual gig online, was showing
bianca how to use imovie, she say willl you

do it and Im like i can do it and relish the
challenge of it but I got to get paid

i been doing for them as community service
cause its a bunch of soldiers at fort drum

pfc flowers, 11C2P, H&H, 1st of the 505th,
82nd airbone, reporting for duty, sir

but they want me to do a movie for them
i got to get paid, generally i would say no
but who gon say no to chance to do a

juneteenth movie, i got ideas

they thinking string of locals doing cultural bits
im thinking a narrative arc / connective tissue
that will make a movie of it, we will see

4th day no work and not even feeling fidgety
dont really plan to get back into saddle until
i do melissas stories, i got to go, be safe

rdoc