rootwork the rootsblog: a cyberhoodoo webspace

done deal

FRI 01/19 8:08 am

on my way to studio in about an hour
time to finish this HBOF oral project
been down w/mucus but im tired of waiting

snowing heavy of course, such is life
major revision from last push, it will never
be done, i spent weeks taking out the blackness
trying to make it saleable to industry but now
that its clear industry doesnt care for it no matter

what i do im putting the blackness back in but
much tighter so it doesnt become rhetoric again

decided ima do like ive done my lit hoodoo class
im being much looser than i have in the past, im
basically training them to be word magicians

last class we talked about magic, about what
makes a text magical and they were on

told them magic is making real into the world what was not
told them you create the image in your mind of the alternate
reality you want to conjure then pour all your magical energy
into it until it becomes real in the world, asked them what
other process does that - told then art

told them a text is magical when it changes the reader as it is read
what it changes the world as it unscrolls itself, ima go deep on them

also im going in studio today for the 4th take
the 1st 3 were toss aways, now i think i got it

and i was thinking ima approach it differently
before i was very formal, thinking this is for
posterity its got to be perfect, but now ima
be more laid back, more personal, more
conversational, now im thinking ot if
as a chance to hold a dialogue with the
future,  ima try to make this endurance
run fun, its three 5 hours shifts and by the
end of a shift im wore out and drifting

but ima get this done
ima get it off my plate

photos are of baobabs im south africa that climate issues
are killing after some have lasted 1000s of years of climate
challenges and i thought about once i read that griots were
buried standing up in the hollow heart of baobabs, that

appeals to me, im gone, i got to read apps
i got to read manuscirptx and do all kinds of
schoolhouse paperwork, im gone

all my love

rdoc

 

TUES 01/08 5:50am

hello world

sent off my novel and my holybook
now i got to put them out of my mind
when you been invested like i been invested
hard to step back, this last read was hardcore
thoroughly sick of it, have lost faith in it but at
this point all you can do is fall forward

now i got to full court press schoolhouse
i got folks manuscripts and this is my only
slot, once schoolhouse starts its a grind
but this morning bereft of a major project
i swtarted thinking about mojo rising but

ima restrain myself, i got so much need
to be done, already i know of some novel
issues, i saw a sequence glitch, should
fix it before i seque out, erven if ive sent
it off, at least fix it in the draft i have

im gone, all my love

rdoc

 

anytime somebody tell you dont vote assume you being played

my apologies to the new york times 12/17 for stashing this but this is critiical info to me
you know i dont like it when blackfolk get played, i want a race of playas not fools
ima use this and the report to do something, i dont know what but ima stash it here

i will not have them fucking w/my culture like this, i will not have it
the full new knowledge report is here

in the book of flowers this is a game changer

Russian 2016 Influence Operation Targeted African-Americans on Social Media

The Russian influence campaign on social media in the 2016 election made an extraordinary effort to target African-Americans, used an array of tactics to try to suppress turnout among Democratic voters and unleashed a blizzard of activity on Instagram that rivaled or exceeded its posts on Facebook, according to a report produced for the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The report adds new details to the portrait that has emerged over the last two years of the energy and imagination of the Russian effort to sway American opinion and divide the country, which the authors said continues to this day.

“Active and ongoing interference operations remain on several platforms,” says the report, produced by New Knowledge, a cybersecurity company based in Austin, Texas, along with researchers at Columbia University and Canfield Research LLC. One continuing Russian campaign, for instance, seeks to influence opinion on Syria by promoting Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president and a Russian ally in the brutal conflict there.

The New Knowledge report, which was obtained by The New York Times in advance of its scheduled release on Monday, is one of two commissioned by the Senate committee on a bipartisan basis. They are based largely on data about the Russian operations provided to the Senate by Facebook, Twitter and the other companies whose platforms were used.

[Read the report here.]

The second report was written by the Computational Propaganda Project at Oxford University along with Graphika, a company that specializes in analyzing social media. The Washington Post first reported on the Oxford report on Sunday.

The Russian influence campaign in 2016 was run by a St. Petersburg company called the Internet Research Agency, owned by a businessman, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, who is a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Mr. Prigozhin and a dozen of the company’s employees were indicted last February as part of the investigation of Russian interference by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel.

Both reports stress that the Internet Research Agency created social media accounts under fake names on virtually every available platform. A major goal was to support Donald Trump, first against his Republican rivals in the presidential race, then in the general election, and as president since his inauguration.

Creating accounts designed to pass as belonging to Americans, the Internet Research Agency spread its messages not only via Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, which have drawn the most attention, but also on YouTube, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Vine and Google+, among other platforms. Its attack on the United States used almost exclusively high-tech tools created by American companies.

The New Knowledge researchers discovered many examples of the Russian operators building an audience with one theme and then shifting to another, often more provocative, set of messages. For instance, an Instagram account called @army_of_jesus_ first posted in January 2015 images from The Muppet Show, then shifted to The Simpsons and by early 2016 became Jesus-focused. Multiple memes associated Jesus with Mr. Trump’s campaign and Satan with Mrs. Clinton’s.

The Russian campaign was the subject of Senate hearings last year and has been widely scrutinized by academic experts. The new reports largely confirm earlier findings: that the campaign was designed to attack Hillary Clinton, boost Mr. Trump and exacerbate existing divisions in American society.

But the New Knowledge report gives particular attention to the Russians’ focus on African-Americans, which is evident to anyone who examines collections of their memes and messages.

“The most prolific I.R.A. efforts on Facebook and Instagram specifically targeted black American communities and appear to have been focused on developing black audiences and recruiting black Americans as assets,” the report says. Using Gmail accounts with American-sounding names, the Russians recruited and sometimes paid unwitting American activists of all races to stage rallies and spread content, but there was a disproportionate pursuit of African-Americans, it concludes.

The report says that while “other distinct ethnic and religious groups were the focus of one or two Facebook Pages or Instagram accounts, the black community was targeted extensively with dozens.” In some cases, Facebook ads were targeted at users who had shown interest in particular topics, including black history, the Black Panther Party and Malcolm X. The most popular of the Russian Instagram accounts was @blackstagram, with 303,663 followers.

The Internet Research Agency also created a dozen websites disguised as African-American in origin, with names like blackmattersus.com, blacktivist.info, blacktolive.org and blacksoul.us. On YouTube, the largest share of Russian material covered the Black Lives Matter movement and police brutality, with channels called “Don’t Shoot” and “BlackToLive.”

The report does not seek to explain the heavy focus on African Americans. But the Internet Research Agency’s tactics echo Soviet propaganda efforts from decades ago that often highlighted racism and racial conflict in the United States, as well as recent Russian influence operations in other countries that sought to stir ethnic strife.

Renee DiResta, one of the report’s authors and director of research at New Knowledge, said the Internet Research Agency “leveraged pre-existing, legitimate grievances wherever they could.” As the election effort geared up, the Black Lives Matter movement was at the center of national attention in the United States, so the Russian operation took advantage of it, she said — and added “Blue Lives Matter” material when a pro-police pushback emerged

Very real racial tensions and feelings of alienation exist in America, and have for decades,” Ms. DiResta said. “The I.R.A. didn’t create them. It exploits them.”

Of 81 Facebook pages created by the Internet Research Agency in the Senate’s data, 30 targeted African-American audiences, amassing 1.2 million followers, the report finds. By comparison, 25 pages targeted the political right and drew 1.4 million followers. Just seven pages focused on the political left, drawing 689,045 followers.

While the right-wing pages promoted Mr. Trump’s candidacy, the left-wing pages scorned Mrs. Clinton while promoting Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. The voter suppression effort was focused particularly on Sanders supporters and African-Americans, urging them to shun Mrs. Clinton in the general election and either vote for Ms. Stein or stay home.

Whether such efforts had a significant effect is difficult to judge. Black voter turnout declined in 2016 for the first time in 20 years in a presidential election, but it is impossible to determine whether that was the result of the Russian campaign.

The New Knowledge report argues that the Internet Research Agency’s presence on Instagram has been underestimated and may have been as effective or more effective than its Facebook effort. The report says there were 187 million engagements on Instagram — users “liking” or sharing the content created in Russia — compared 76.5 million engagements on Facebook.

In 2017, as the American news media focused on the Russian operations on Facebook and Twitter, the Russian effort shifted strongly to Instagram, the report says.

The New Knowledge report criticizes social media companies for misleading the public.

“Regrettably, it appears that the platforms may have misrepresented or evaded in some of their statements to Congress,” the report says, noting what it calls one false claim that specific population groups were not targeted by the influence operation and another that the campaign did not seek to discourage voting.

“It is unclear whether these answers were the result of faulty or lacking analysis, or a more deliberate evasion,” the report says.

The report suggests a grudging respect for the scale and creativity of Russian influence operations. But the Russians were not eager to take credit for their own efforts.

After the election, the report says, the Internet Research Agency put up some 70 posts on Facebook and Instagram that mocked the claims that Russia had interfered in the election.

“You’ve lost and don’t know what to do?” said one such post. “Just blame it on Russian hackers.”

all africa peoples conference 60th anniversary

FRI 12/14 12:24 am

digging in on revision rest, that phase where all you see are the
insurmountable problems, the insurmountable problems, this
is the time of testing, my faith has been flagging last couple
of days and its liike im walking thru crises, i think its just
ccause im about to embark on a big push and i fear failure
whatever it is old boy got a bad case of the blues

 

SUN 12/9 1;24 am ori in ghana but this is revision 12:11

hello all

so, was invited to be part of opening ceremony for 60th anniversary of the all african peoples conference, univ of ghana, accra, and i was like cool, ima blow them away, went full regalia medicine man, my global griot thing, mganga maua, afroam stylee, activate  my ghanian legions, i fumbled thru, it was okay - but the experience itself was revelatory, being introduced to all these stalwarts of struggle, 1000+ or so pan africanists from the continent & diaspora, i tend to think i know everything i need to know but every once in a while you exposed to new & ancient beats,

and after i did my little hoodoo prophet thing, de geas of rickydoc, this brother came up to me and said my people are being genocided, will you do a song for us, i will get it before thousands (actually he said millions, I'm just trying to keep it real) - i was so moved and i was like the global griot strikes again - but it turns out he is from cameroon and the situation is like dicey and i was like well maybe i can heal their afflictions and then i was like maybe you should just chill the fuck out, mr global griot, but i will keep an eye on it, i like being wanted, save us rickydoc gets me every time

 

 

allmy love

rdoc

 

 

 

one w/the great all

SAT 12/01 10:35 am

i think i already told you, doing this hoodoo calendar project
and as part of it im dusting off my old astrology skilzz from
when i made charts and im like a doubting astrologer, not
a true believer but i have found something intriiquing in it
but for this project i was thinking follow the seasons and
then i thought it would be even more informed if i knew
what the stars were saying and so im studying astrology
texts and they talking about the positions of the sun and
planets and stars and i get excited because once again
im studying the cosmos with intent of attuning the indiviidual

with the movements of the cosmos and its like trying to
attune yourself to god the divinity and its majestic

passage and i feel like a dancer, a tai chi master
moving iin tune wiith our perceptions iof the unjiverses
movements and im still a doubter that we can comprehend
the universe much less attune our ilves as we do our spirit

i will have to articulate this better later
but this will be the next phase of my life
im going to become a star gazer again

i bought the lewwellyn calnder notebook
and ima do an entry for every day as a
trial run to get hang of it and see what
stands the test of time and ima look at
a farmers almanac and see how the
classics handle it and when the lewellyn
star guide for 2020 comes out i will use
it and others to do informed hoodoo
calendar predictions w/nice imagery
attuning all things w/the great diivine

will be its stated purpose

all my love

rdoc

 

in the studio

FRI 11/30 12:40 am

the mighty shadow has left us, some kind of cancer that moved quick
in like a week, bonnie was on top of it, knew something was wrong

man its been a hard semester

working on hbof in studio, been afraid to listen to it for fear
of discouraging myself but i can only hope it good

folk havent been getting back to me about my bovel thats
not a good sign, im close to giving up on it - no mas

my cohort is going to critique it, i dread it, i got
to remain resolute, i feel like this is the test

god help me

i have been to a port, a sanctuary,, the eye of the storm
and i found there a certain grace, my favorite form

the hbof has transformed itself on me
i can only hope its found its way

going to ghana to represent, do the opening
performance for the all africa peoples conf 60th
anniversary, got no idea what ima do w/that

i got to go, i got hbof text to prepare
for tomorrow, all my love,

rdoc

 

 

 

WED  11/21 5:09 am

this is the 1st draft thats been not research based
tihs is the 1st draft im cutting and i have cut half of
this book, from 400 pages to 209

i cut so much the 9 x 9 frame no longer worked
had too many segments that werent substantial
repetitive, slushy,  was trying to generate more

material for them, which was weak, and then it
decided to compact it from 9 x 9 to 7 x 9 and

put stuff like "tribulation' and 'adversity' together
it was like a major revision and again, im cutting
out a good decade of work, but if you look at it
another way i had to have that big lump of
narrative coal and now im squeezing out a diamond

im giong thru a period of anxiety about my work
that i work so hard and dont get any play and i
tell myself again it will workk for the generations
but i wonder if im just caught up in an illusion
and that my work will die when i do, i got to
make it happen, exist, the book, the musiic

then at least i got a chance

im gone, finished a drafr, got schoolhouse
manusceripts need doing, all my love

rdoc

 

 

TUES  11/20 8:29 am

thing about being an artist i never get to coast, im
always anxious cause im always trying something new, got
this unortho novel out there waiting to hear what folk think
doing 9 hours of recording im afraid to listen to for fear of
discouraging myself, & doing major revision of the hoodoo
book of flowers that has cut it by damn near half - and
depoliticized it - which makes me fear ive 'sold out' but
i had to universalize it, i had to, Fa demanded it, its
destinywork, the gods have demanded this of me
(trying to negotiate this god thing - holybook, duuh)

o im just a mess of creative anxiety but i love being an artist
all i can do is do what the creative passions say do, also
i got to work out my relationship w/the divinity, i fear ima
sound spacey going forward but such is life in the spirit

new look for blog, shorter postings, trembling hands preclude wordage
got to go cryptic, mystic, same same HBOF, i must count my words

all my love

rdoc

 

 

 

 

MON 11/19 4:32 am

hello world,, i have been in the studio

doing oral version of the hoodoo book of flowers
ive done 1 - 5, got 6 - 9 to go, im kinda discouraged
iots been a bo hawg grind and i havent even listened
to it for fear it sounds bad and i fear i will discourage
myself and its costing me a good little biit of change
and folk havent gotten back to me telling me how
good my novel is (excdept for you rod) so im kinda
feelijng doubtful now

but i said i was gon do this project and ima do it
cause i said i woujld and hope its better than i fear
all you can do is just do it, long as im able ima do it

im gone, be well

rdoc

 

off the grid

FRI 10/26  6:40 am

hello world, the creative process never ends
sp i finished novel and looking for next project
decided to do oral version of the hoodoo book of flowers
in part because doing oral tends to cut out anything
that does not hold audience, that is slush so im in
studio (subcat syracuse) and i find myself stumbling
over the historical and political so i start cutting it
which leaves the spiritual, the mystiical and its a
diifferent text, one that might actually sell, so i
decide two texts, one for all humanity and a

limited edition w/all the blackness

the true text

the humanity text is still afrospiritual
but its been universalized,, which is
one of my goals anyway, i think of the
years of hard work im cutting and its
kinda heartbreaking but the Book
giveth, the Book taketh

i did a lot of fiddling around in studio, doing
arthurs fav hits next session is friday, this
time ima be ruthlessly focused

been getting good responses to novel

please vote

all my love

rdoc

SUN 10/14 6:25 am

hello all

been a while since i been in pocket
finished my novel, it works for me and
i kinda dont care what the industry says
all im doing now are poetry drafrts, takes
about a day, cleaning up the poetry
sharpening muddy passages, these
are the fun drafrts, where one word

one phrase, add layers of meaning to
the text, been trying to decide whats
my next project, screenplay vsn of novel
and an oral version of my holybook
those are my two goals

the screenplay, i can already see the movie in my head
and im hoping it will finance my retirement, ive decided

its time, it was so dfiifcult comiing out of my summer
woodshed, im still not fully out, this has got to be my
last year, its just that im afraid of being out there w/no
check, no institutional affiliation and damn if im not
going to miss my students, this is likely my last cohort

i been off the grid cause i had some computer issues
and other distractions, im back, more or less, im
kinda in a state of flux and dont know whats what

im in an interesting space, ive finished my two major
projects to my satisfaction, i know that when i read them
cold i will take them to higher ground but what i got i
can live with, or rather die on, so ive gained a certain

freedom from the worriation of mortality, i can enjoy
the rest of the ride and whatever i do now is gravy
ima try to do my multimedia thing, ima do an oral
version of my holybook,, just start booking studio
time and just force march thru it and accept the
raggedy nature of whatever comes up and ima
ask all my literary, musical and hoodoo folk to
like do cameos, strictly background, we will see

the biggest thing is that it has to be something folk
dont mind listening too year after year, generations
after generatrion, thats always been a goal of mnine
so thats how ima apporach it and anybody who

participatesw got to understand that

also will start folk opera/fillm script (???) of novel
ima play music while i still got hands and a voice
im gone, i have schoolwork manuscripts to grind
thru that i have put off till the last minute

all the nore reason to solidfy this retirement process
and not dither on that, i need to be free . . .

i want to be a full time writer again
guess that means i will be poor again
but im a lot better positioned this time
to do the starving artist bit, we will see . . . .

the same thing thats driving me out, wanting to focus
on my work instead of student work is the very same
thing ima miss, my student, grad and undergrad

my cohorts and the surprise bondings
with folk you would not have thought
fellow travelers and keepers of the faith

im gone . . .

all my love . . .

rdoc

 

if you gotta limp then limp, dont whine, limp

MON 8/27 7:16 pm

done deal, ima do another read thru on
plane to aus and back, then ima put it
down and let it get cold, if the next read
thru reads thru ima send it off and focus
on other projects, im gone

off to melbourne tuesday, i got all
these anxities, what if something

happens ot my axe in luggage
what if i get on stage and freeze
fumble it, what if a cap falls off
so ima just put all that aside
got my novel done, nothing
can faze me, i will take a hand
mbira as a just in case, otherwise
come what may, fuck it, im golden

all my love

 

 

 

 

FRI 8/24 8:23 am

hello world, im basically done w/this draft
doing poetry drafts now, clean up work on
the new stuff, got about 3 days before i get
on a bird for melbourne, ima finish this draft
do a full draft on the plane et al, then put it
down for a month or so, do a read thru and
hope its clean enuf to turn it in

whats amazing is that a month ago i was in
despair of ever making this thing work and
fearing i didnt have it in me afrter all, now its
done im just as tickled as i can be, though it
needs more polishing and who knows how i

will feel once i let it get cold, ive felt this way before
but right now im happy, i got a text i wouldnt mind
leaving behind was i to die tomorrow im cool
turned out novel about death and immortality
i guess cause thats whats on my mind these days
and i noticed as i was going thru it, a lot of dead folk

im gone, trying to finish this draft today
by the way, im getting good on my mbira

ima give this novel one more year
and then ima do my folk opera

one of renee stouts pieces, reached
out to her about potential collaboration

gotta go

all my love

rdoc

 

 

WED 08/15 3:46 am

hello world, takes me about 5 days to do a draft now,
i am so tired of reading tihs novel, over and over and over
until you can read the draft w/o cringing, w/o doing more
than dotting Is and crossings Ts, i am such an obsessive
works for being a novelist, an artist, not so much for life

i had things to say, i dont recall what they were
might come back to me, might not, im zombie tired
i believe i might have to take a day off, im gone

been working all morning so i an do this w/o
guilt, i believe the weary need a little rest

 all my love

rdoc

 

FRI, 08/10 11:06 am

hello world, so i might have mentioned my hand tremors
and i might have told you been having trouble w/my voice
i did not realize they might be related but i told my doctor
about hand and he say essential tremors, genetic, and i
look online, one of the symptoms is voice tremors and

im like what the fuck, cause when i speak now its
all tremorly fortunately when i project i still have power
for performances but its different now, and i have to
figure out how to get emotional resonances from a
changed instrument, fortunately hands dont tremble
when im playing except when i stand and get intense

so ive had to do some serious adjustments, have not
been able to type or write consistently and when it

starts and i try to stop it it gets worse, i fling food and
drink over the table and its diners, i cannot brush my
teeth or sometimes button my shirt, its been a trip but
the most disturbing is my voice tremors and often
runs out of breath mid sentence

adjusting the hand thing been relatively easy, i eat
brush teeth et al with my right hand now and its shaky
but i will cross that bridge when i need to, doc said
the treatments include beta blockers, other shit inclu
tranquilizers and its like fuck all that, sounds like shit
that will fuck with my head and my thinking much less
whatever it is that goes on in my head that is the
creative process, fuck that,, id rather tremble and
go silent like a fucking monk, ima try meditational
type techs 1st and physical therapy, and adjustments

the biggest adjustment so far been my voice during
performance, im learning how to breath different, im
checking out different tonals, see how they work on
stage and im adjusting to me more limited range
learning what i can and cannot do

while fully aware it will only get worse and require
further adjustment, further limitation, i remember my
father once saying he heard billie holiday when she
was youong and her voice ea brilliant instrument
and he heard her when she was older, ravaged w/a
lifetime of drugs and her voice nothing like what it
was but so much more because all her life experience
was in it, it had, he said, soul

thats what i want,, whatever i got left i want
the soul to come thru, i want it to be more

than what ive lost

im almost 70 now and this will be the least of my adjustments
as i head into this phase of life, still got my chops, still here
i got no complaints, trying to get these two big projects done
before im disabled and/or gone, and ima play my mbira till i just
cant play it no more an when my hands go bad ima just kinda
stroke the keys and mumble w/my remnant of a voice, if i
gotta limp ima limp but like MLK once said, ima keep moving

speaking of which, best i get back to work, finished a draft yesterday,
they coming easy now, mostly poetry drafts where you refining the
poetry, the story is coherent, some weak spots but the poetry draft
addresses them, the poetry drafts are fun drafts, where one word,
one phrase can add layers of meaning to entire text, ima read thru
this one more time and put it away for a couple of weeks, let it get
cold while i take care of business that has gone critical while
i been wood shedding, i got to go, i got to get back to work

hands fucked, voice fucked, my
primary instruments fucked,

brain still good, still got literary chops
i got no complaints, let me finish
this novel, the rest is gravy

god is good
gotta go

all my love

rdoc

 

 

put the hours in you get the product

THUR 8/9 12:32 am

hello world, been a while i guess, damn near 2 weeks
i have been seriously in the zone, crunching pages
i justify the time i spend here talking about process
which is a large part of my life, by telling myself im

giving folk insight into the creative process
i got a lot of observations about latest developments
but ima try to keep this tight as possible

what ive done is ive isolated jubilations threads
the visions/stories are fine, its the primary thread
that needs to be done over and over so i isolated
the passages i needed to enrich and its about 100
pages and ive been doing them over and over,
takes about a week per draft, riffing whenever i can
amazing how after diong this for like 50 years
running workshops for 40 and teaching mfa for 20
im still learning new tricks, production & craft

i had a lot more to say but im feeling fidgety
i believe i need to get back to work

ran up on two works today, a prophets manual
and prophet arise, by some dude eckhart or
something like that and its pop prophecy but
its going to put prophecy riffs on my mind
wihch is a major part of jubilations trip

interesting how the world gives you what
you need when you need it when you let
the creative process have its way w/you
which basically entails putting the hours in
even when you are totally lost, as i am now

all my love

rdoc

 

 

 

 

SAT 7/28 6:09 am

so im sitting there working my text and im suddenly
assailed with this tsunami of anxiety about putting
such a relentlessly personal document out in the public

i feel like to make this work i got to pour my heart and
soul into it, demons, flaws and all, and just hope folk
find value in it but i am not looking forward to that gaze

/judgment

 

 

SAT 7/28 3:31am

writing is so hard, im in the zone and happy
about it, the zone is where you get serious work
done, where everyday is just a struggle to get
as many hours as you can in, and you work till
you collapse, toss and turn w/scenes and chars
talkiing to you, telling you where to go, what to do
with the text and you get up and stumble to the
computer, dont want to eat/do nothing but crunch
those pages but im eating weird, (today was grits,
watermelon & warmed over pizza), consuming sacred
intoxicants & sleeping weird if at all, not controlling my
diabetes, and basically driving myself into breakdown
like that scene in amadeus where he works himself
to death, in the zone, creating and willilng to

pay any cost and the novel is taking shape
on an unprecedented level, working the
primary character most, my sorceror who
aspires to be a prophet and i needed a whole
new narrative tech to achieve that, this awkward

flash fictional block tech that deconstucts as we
move to closure and i dont even know what
deccnstruction means but i use it for how the
separate narr thrads will lose integrity and begin
to bleed into each other in a narrative weave that
folds time and place, or something like that, which
should work due to my flash fictional block format

(god i wish i wasnt such a styliist, the literary world
does not feel me, fuck them all, i will show them all . .)

problem is every scene, every word, line, paragraph
every beat, i do it maybe 20 ways before i settle on
one and start polishing it up, literally, about 20 drafts
to get to one that works for me, constantly having to
decide which of infinite choices to work here, how each
little self contained para fits into the puzzle, and constant
worry that my craft is inadequate, that whatever chops i had
i have lost, that i have been delusional to think i ever had a
shot at being a great writer, not just a writer, a great writer,

im in the zone, my brain is tired, my soul is tired, im weary . . .but
i am not wiling to accept anything less than literary greatness

swear before god and all thats holy im not
whatever dues required i will gladly pay
thankful for the opportunity to do so

i need to go, i need to be crunching pages
instead of writing about crunching pages

all my love

rdoc

 

 

MON 6/23 9:13 pm

hello world, dug in on novel, wading thru the mud
but still wading, but you know whats growing is my
mbirawork, preparing for the melbourne gig and
thats when i grow when i dig in preparing for a gig
trying to get new stuff to work and just yesterday
i discovered a new lick, apparently i work with/an

alternatiing hand tech and just yesterday i triied
to more consiciously coordinate chords and it was
a wonderful effect that adds to my reportoire

i have this vision of one day holding an audience
in rapt awe while i play music for them and ima
just let myself go at some point or two in this

performance, the melbourne concert
i see they have me hitting twice, once
martin luther king and the other brer rabbit

instead of giving a historical overview of king
as the book does, ima riff on what king means
to us in the age of trump, all hands on deck
and ima talk about being an artist in the age
while laying down what im callilng sacred blues

im good enuf now that whatever i do its gon work
but i wish to god i was beettrer and i will be in the
month of rehearsal and prep, i gotta go, i need
to be clocking pages, all my love

rdoc

 

all my love

THUR 7/19 8:19 am

so im dug in, spinning my wheels
struggling w/the page and grinding
thru epic frustration but para by para
im forging my narrative and it feel glacial
but you put the hours in, you get product

generating a lot of raw manuscript
so its still not good product but if
its a stage i got to go thru to get
to good product so be it,

glad trump exposed his russia position
wont affect his base but it will peel folk
off for november, ima stay on it, fullcourt
activism/electoral politic, but i refuse to let
trump consume me, ima stay focused on

my work/longgame, my
corrective to the crazy

that photo thats papa joe, aka
papa gede nibo bey la kwa in front
of his praise house down there
on rabbit trail road, s carolina

gotta go, got pages need  clocking,
let me take a moment to express
my appreciation you still with me,
i wont let you down . . .

all my love,

rdoc

 

i see the vision, do i have the craft

MON JUL 16, 6:03 am

on the disquiet stage in lisbon w/sista dawson
flinging words of power straight up off the page,
a testimony from when rap spoke straight to god
w/a taste of sacred blues to light the way

hello world, just got back from lisbon, had a great reading w/
erica, love lisbon still, got a lot of work done, its a good city for
crunching pages, it respects literature and so does disquiet
and it has all my props for good production available

just sent this to my agent, FYI:

Hello ellen, no need to reply, just an FYI
am deeply buried in my revision and no longer
crippled w/anxiety I just don't have it in me

There are passages in that previous draft
that I find incredibly embarrassing to think
That you/folk read them but such is life

Mostly I am articulating connections between
his life and his visions that before I thought
Proximity and sequencing would suffice

I am fleshing out his thread so it will carry
the vision heavy 2^nd half better, making them
subordinate instead of primary drivers

Reconsidering my strategy of speeding
narrative and ‘deconstructing it’ towards
closure in order to achieve narr velocity
as making it feel too lean, rushed

Perhaps most discretionary Ive changed, after
much deliberation, all jubilations sections to
2^nd person instead of 1^st and 3^rd, so far it

Appears to be working well, hopefully it will
Sustain itself and carry deeper charwork
and more compelling narrative play

also 2nd gives me more room to play w/the interplay
between character, reader, writer, and narrator, between
reality, fiction and narrative illusion, like i do so love to do

(i know, arthur, make it even
more complex why dont you)

Extracting beats where I let my teaching and
preaching narrative nature get away from me

Moving quicker than I had anticipated
but ive generated a lot of raw manuscript
fleshing out jubilations thread and him
interfacing w/his prophetic visions, gon
Take a while to polish all that up

Going for end of year January

I guess that's it, mostly the report is that
I believe in it again, had lost my faith for
a moment there, wondering if I would

ever get it to work and when I reread what
I turned in last time It cause me to question
My judgement, I seem to have blind spots

Im gone, need to be clocking pages
just wanted to tell you how im trying
To address the issues you and readers

Raised, mostly im articulating connections
That I previously only implied – problem
Being of course that I will likely over articulate
But I will leave that for another draft

Hope things well w/you
And yours, all my love

arf

 

TUES JUL 3 2:07 am

hello world, so im in lisbon, disquiet, full on experience
but my determination is to maintain production, damn
summer is almost over, so its more like desperation and

im feeling my mortality, like give me a year lord so i can
get this done, and anyway its like this race against death
and i realize i can use that for what breaks him, i been
conscious i got to break my conjureman on a whole
new level, this impending death (he turns into a tree/myth)
that the 7 sisters of memphis have prophesied (i know,
you like what the fuck) i can have that fuck w/his head
already decided i got to articulate more than i have
okay im not giong to go into detail but death/legacy/

the immortality of art, these will be new drivers
im gone, 2 in the morning and im crunching, I
got to put this down at some point and prepare
for class at 10, ima give it another hour then
ima have to do the schoolhouse crunch

the one thing i will not do is
come to class unprepared

fuck it, put the text down i have pushed
it as far as it can be pushed, i can climb
back in the saddle after class/nap

all my love

rdoc

 

 

WED JUN 27:2018 5:59 am

i am really moved when folk acknowledge the
spiritual in my work, in my conduct, every year
the su black grads ask me to do the invocation
for their graduation program, they treat me kinda
offhand, but just that they ask me acknowledge

the spiritual in my work, i love it

recently had some folk im close to
ask me to baptize their toddler, i am
moved beyond my ability to articulate:

--------------------    

Well 1st let me say that the honor
Of being asked overwhelms me
I will do it if yall insist you want it
But I do not feel worthy of the
Responsibility, I draw your attn
To one of my favorite lines:

I must be the slackest
Holyman ever been,

I say this seriously, Im flawed
im slack, often fear im a farce

but I am moved to be asked
And if yall persist in this folly
I will try to come up w/
something appropriate
something quiet and
lacking in pretension
something infused
w/a % of grace

arf

 

 

TUES JUN 25:2018 9:29 am

hello world, i been off the grid, let me do some quick catchup
been rolling, cuba, amazing experience, hung out w/a cool crew
jeff and rita and latasha and duriel and them, it was amaazing

memphis, jamey and the african jazz ensemble, a revelation on
many levels, profound generational interactions w/jamey & danian

me and ekpe decide to go for a CD, his band was primetime,
all these years i still think of him as a single, but his band

magnified his power and now i got visions of gil scott
and brian jackson danciing thru my head, we got a
plan, ima bet the credit cards, i see the vision

umass: hit w/noy holland,, we pulled it off, at
one point we did this word weave that was cool,

noy do that smoky thing

reverses: trump/repub base family separation policy
just so he could rile up his base, the daca kids
werent enuf, so he kidnapped babys, w/no plan
on how to put the families back together, doesnt
care, now he saying can have child back if you
agree to deport, he and his deplorables are
heartless, you couldnt write this as a thriller

november cant come quick enuf

umass: missed an op to speak on the role of the
artist in the age of trummp, was in my mind to do
it, just forgot, which is to do what you can but
get your work done, a corrective to the crazy

so, speaking of which, i am in the zone
on novel, was fretting cause all that
traveling i wasnt getting no work done

lot of thinking pushing roaddog thru
all those states but no work, got home
couple of days ago, maybe 4 day
lapse before going to lisbon and i

sat down to see if i could get a groove on
what im doing now is trying to enrich the
protagonists thread to make a more compelling
literary character and better subordinate the future
scenarios that are his prophetic visions, make them
a supplemental thread instead of driving closure

so, got to generate tons of raw manuscript and wasnt
so anyway, to make a long story short, i started doing
it in 2nd person, you, which is generating interesting
narrative, who knows if it will sustain itself/work

but if the criteria for 'works' is that im generating
manuscript then its working, also working out the
new storyline, i got so many ideas for where to take it

only question, once again, is do i have the craft, im feeling
good, give me 6 mos, lord, and i will have a good novel

give me a year & i will
have a masterpiece

your boy

rdoc

 

 

ignoring the fear

THURS 6/7 9:21 am

hello world, getting a grip on what i got to do
to address my agents concerns w/novel

goal is still to imbue each para w/
power of stand alone flash fiction . . .

and I desperately want to pull off time folds
where I conflate the past present and future
In the same beat, I figure that's what prophets
do with time and I want narrative to reflect that

I am almost crippled w/fears that I have
reached that stage in a career arc where
writers just become a parody of their
earlier potential but I just have to ignore

the fear, do the best I can do to bring
this beast into fruition this time

god I can only hope im still viable
still doing viable manuscript, im such
a stylist that I might be just fooling myself
at this point, I can not tell you how much I
wish I were a more conventional writer

but it is what it is, I think I still got my chops
and its like this draft will finally tell the tale,

am I the writer I aspire to be or must I accept
thatI am just incapable of delivering the novel
I have dreamed of for some 30 years now,

I think im almost there, I hope I pray that I
am not caught up in an illusion of craft

also keep in mind conversation i had w/kayla where she
said she isgiving herself the freedom to venture beyond
the edges of her own understanding - keep that in mind

showtime . , .

least i finished the hoodoo book of flowers
and sent it off, my novel may be trash but
my afroam holybook is one of a kind strong

nonfiction so easy, you put the hours you get a product,
fiiction you put the hours in its still maybe maybe

there times when i curse  the name of iohn oliver killens,
hadnt been for the babajohn i wouldnt be a novelist, ida
been some other kinda writer, some easier kind of writer

I saw a movie about dickens last night
the man who invented christmas, it
was very moving, and inspirational

Just what I needed now . . . .

All my love