rootwork the rootsblog: a cyberhoodoo webspace

rickydoc trickmaster the high hoodoo and the baobab society: copping a plea

MONDAY

SUNDAY:on the nature of mission failure

hello world
seems the cherokee voted out their black members - that hurt

consider walter reed soldier care scandal and bush drive to cut vet benefits and  privatize support services

more of bushs ownership society - some things private industry just dont do well - often no profit in doing well

somethings government got to do - like katrina rebuild - or take care of its wounded soldiers - bush talk about supporting the troops but deny them benefits - whiteman speak w/forked tongue

speaking of forked tongues, seen august wilsons gem of the ocean last night and it was an act of wonder

sanctuary work - an issue dear to both our afroliterary hearts
and it put so much on my mind (and soul)

i was telling bonnie some of the ideas it gave me for rest
and she carefully said   'isnt that . . .borrowing?'

i said no, thats stealing - depending on how well i do it
'amateurs borrow, professionals steal'

an august wilson play is a primal experience
like stories around the tribal fire

so i took notes - how could i not, a master was at Work
and on that note let me see if i can get back in my own groove

kinda deep how he finished his 10 play mission and then he died
o i got to get busy - the work is cold and i am tired

no, i am beyond tired, i am weary
a weary from which there is no rest

ticktock ticktock

rdoc
stealing from the very best

SATURDAY

hello world, didnt get no nibbles from de geas, ignored again
what else is new - all you can do is take the shot

one thing blackfolk love to claim is  - i got a little indian in me

even i consider native americans natural alllies and like to romanticize the black seminoles of florida fighting off invaders

however it seem the cherokee having a vote today
on if they should toss out the black members of the tribe

like brother ("this should have been a nonissue") baldridge here
descendant of black cherokee slaves called freedmen

who have been members of the tribe since being freed during
the civilwar and the treaty of 1866 decreed them tribe

went on the trail of tears and everything

about 3000 still with the tribe, more cherokee than black
with just that one magic drop

now some in the tribe sayiing they not really cherokee
tossed them once in 1983 and got overruled by a tribal supreme court - so they trying it again

apparently its all that casino money, the tribes afraid freedman descendants, which potentially number in 100s of thousands, will try to claim tribal largesse, like many whites w/minuscule indian blood have done - the freedmen are an easy target

the cherokee, the choctaw, chickasaw, creeks & the seminole
were called 'the 5 civilized tribes' because among other things they owned slaves

now the tribes deny the existence of its exslaves, say the dawes commission
justify it, say they want to be pure

seminoles tried to dump the black seminoles in 2000 but got overruled by dept of indian affairs
creeks battling their freedmen in court

you get the gist of it, blackfolk under the gun again
you listen to the old rootdoctor now, we gon have to finesse this racial identity thing

i got a plan - what i need from you is to carry yourself with the dignity of true players
and eventually the world will get the message they dealing with a new people -

conduct ourselves as we aspire to be and we shall
this is the essence of conjuration -

destinywork take 3 generations minimal: what we know in our minds, our children will know in their hearts, our grandchildren in their souls - culture move hard culture move slow

but it do move
and we cant afford no slack when it come to the destinywork

thats why leaving the baobab society hanging like to broke my heart
that is not the model of struggle i want to be to them

my word is bond

listen o ye firstborn to the geas of rickydoc
and i will give you a mission greater than your adversity

i will give you a destiny
swear fore god i will

rdoc

FRIDAY

hello world, well good news dear and loyal surfers
one - my favorite singer in all the world, randy crawford, got a new album out

her and her boy joe sample say they feeling good - a new randy just what the rootdoctor ordered - i got everything she ever did - hunted them down over the years - and in a couple of cases transferred rare lps to cd - thats my girl

two - the esf baobab society has invited me back for another shot  -  april 26th, dont let me forget now, somebody remind me, april 26th

if i do good i might be asked to do the black history month
banquet again, i think the dinner on the 26th more multiculti

which mean i cant do my spiritual leader of the blackworld thing and need to come with my we are the world approach

what made that other one so special is that i could speak
as spiritual leader of the blackworld and those opps are rare

usually my audiences mixed and so i come from
my healer thing - my wash all your troubles away thing

my we the world, the future belongs to you thing
i do both equally well, i serve both families as appropriate to the moment

but black history month thats when i get a chance to do whats
dear to my heart - save the race

ima do it so well on the 26th they ask me back for black history month next year maybe
and ima see if i can do some service

i used to open the annual caribbean students show w/a libation/witchdoctor act
but that leadership group graduated and that little gig died out

i enjoyed that and was disappointed when they stopped calling on me

and i realize the problem was that i was doing the show but i wasnt doing the service
i was a fake shaman

since that convocation ive had something like that w/baobab society
but i missed the show, now i got to do the service

my own slack has forced me to the real, aint that the nature of slack

okay quick commentary and im outta here, whats happening in somalia
my understanding? is that troops from puntland heading south

as you may know, puntland and somaliland are autonomous and relatively
wellrun regions of somalia that have stayed clear of the chaos

if puntland is aligning itself with the government thats a very interesting move
gotta put my finger on that pulse

last day of admissions process, gon be wonderful getting that energy freed up
be able to Work again - been a rough two weeks my friend

but i got randy, freedom, still cool w/the baobab society and puntland in the fray
this just might be a good day

all my love
rdoc

WEDNESDAY

hello world, im coasting
starting to recover from missing that gig

that will always be one of my liferegrets
but what can you do but keep on stepping

finally caught up with the schoolhouse and can breath again
get a little Work done

did a strategic distribution of de geas, got to divorce myself from any response, or even worse and more likely lack thereof

im just trying to recover the fumble, do what i said id do
though it do embarrass me when i get to huffing and puffing

some quick commentary and im out of here
still feeling a little battered

i see where there been a lot of controversy over word nigger lately - pure d hate it myself

old delta boy like me who lived through the pre civilrights south - who remember little dittys like: niggers and flies i do despise, the more i see niggers the more i love flies

call me nigger at your peril - nigga niggas niggaz niggist - whatever

but the efforts to legislatively ban the n word seem misguided - what you gon do, throw kids in jail if they insist on using it

they will use it just to show us they can - like they do now

got to be another way of breaking them of that one
they swear when you spell it nigga or niggaz its new and okay and even endearing

according to the nigga motorcycle repair kit the spelling aint that new after all
my generation will fight this one till our dying breath

might be a lost cause maybe not - guy who built the niggaspace networking site for young blackfolk had to do a lot of explaining on his homepage:

This site is in no way meant to be racist.  A common endearing term used by many black people is, "nigga" not to be confused with a different and offensive term, "nigger".

The word, "nigga" is in rap songs, daily conversations, on TV, etc. yet the word still has so much mixed emotions attached. One of my intentions is for this word to no longer have such mixed emotions. Part of my intention for this site is for the word nigga to embody images of brotherhood, and fraternity rather than images of ignorance and hate.

How great would it be, if the mixed emotions that this word carries along with it, were stripped down to something more positive? Only positive.  Of course there are going to be two sides to this, but just know that intentions are noble. So create an account, and start the revolution!     Tyrone

the revolution - anytime you got to do that much explanation you know you wrong
when i googled it for the link some blog said something along the lines of

"a space where niggers can call each other niggers while the world watches - kinda like tapdancing with typing"   
apologies to the tapdancers but you gotta admit that was cute

by the way, that little ditty about niggers and flies was a black thing, not white - cant legislate something like that out of existence, wish it was that easy

we got to maintain our ground on it

and in the same way its become tacky for whitefolk to use it we got to keep insisting its just as tacky for blackfolk to use it and hope it dies the same death - win or lose we fight the good fight

one of those cultural conflicts i been talking about
accentuating the positive, eliminating the negative, hanging on to the in between

patience children
culture move hard culture move slow

on that note ima try to get some novelwork done this weekend
been a couple of weeks no noveltime now  - that will never do

images from the jim crow museum of racist memorabilia

i got a couple of nice memorabilia pieces myself, got a nice picaninny
in overalls, a mammy ashtray and a grinning banjo player  -

i consider them sacredworks - go figure

in the conquerors name
rdoc

MONDAY

hello world, i cant believe i missed that gig
i was so looking forward to it

the esf students done right by me and i left them hanging
god help me i left them hanging

i live for that tribal relationship with black students
guide and guardian - its more than a job its a mission

folk from my generation know what im talking about
a luta continua

gotta go by the next baobab meeting and apologize
hope they give me another shot

try to use this hammer to be stronger, otherwise it just feels bad
got to try to finesse it, turn it into power

- be more serious about what i do
- develop true relationship w/boabab society if i can
- get that piece into the idea marketplace

then i will feel better about it all, even if piece is ignored as they generally are
i got to assume that everytime i get my vision out there it speaks to a chosen few

on another note, i was reading this nyt article this morning
about the future of the nation of islam after farrakhan

it made a couple of comments reflecting my own reservations
about black islam in the united states

im conflicted about islam in the afroam community
i have to accept it, my own many roads to timbuktu political philosophy demands it

and some of my best friends are afroam islamics,
they tend to carry themselves w/a dignity and purpose that i admire

but i consider islam just as imperial as i do christanity

black folk who go islamic expected to make themselves over into little quasi arabs (maybe rename themselves after muhammad ali, one of the worst slavetraders to ever depopulate the sudan)

in america as in africa and the sudan and elsewhere
those of us follow an african way of god in competition for the souls of blackfolk

with the proselytizing and often coercive religions of the desert

the african way of god been losing out for centuries, aint been organized
or as illuminated and/or ruthless as islam and christanity - like its been stuck in a historical rut

de rootdoctor been trying to prod the african way of god
make it a contender

same way i dont submit to christanity and its biblic worldview
i dont submit to islam and its arabic worldview which presuppose

black adaptation to its precepts, culture, language and vision
but then i dont submit to yoruba fon akan or congo either

of them all i am more comfortable w/african ways of god
hoodoo is a proud member of the afrospiritual family but

i dont like other folk lording it over african americans - period
white, african, arab, latino, asian, nativeamerican, whatever - not in the conquerors house

i believe your spiritual system should reflect your particular history
your particular worldview, mythology, culture and destiny

only in that way do you and yours grow truly strong
thats why ima hoodooman, a practitioner of the african american indigenous spiritual system

thats why im so determined to make hoodoo a strong and illuminated system and not
just a cultural curiosity - a system you can believe in dear and loyal surfer

one in which you can grow strong

i believe the judgement of a systems power is in the lives of its believers
are they a strong people, a beautiful people, contributing gracenotes to the worldspirit

i will work with all these other systems, christanity, islam, yoruba, fon, wicca, etc
and whatever else blackfolk decide they want to be, buddhist, hindu, whatever

hoodoo aint never had no problem working with folk: any method anytime
(the hoodoo modality is to absorb contenders - just like we got to do)

but the high hoodoo dont really approve of blackfolk remaking themselves to fit the visions
of other folks cultures, i believe we should put our energies into empowering our own

nyt article about the future of the nation of islam after farrakhan raised
some of those issues - im just gon quote the passage

“They still haven’t reached the point where there is no color,” said Yassir Chadly, an imam based in Oakland, who immigrated from Morocco 30 years ago. “Islam is universal; it can’t be cut into little sections.”    (rdoc note: tell that to the muslims of darfur why dont you)

Such statements make followers of the Nation bristle.

“We are not imitators of Arab culture; that would put us in an inferior position and make them our superiors,” said Muhammad Muhammad, a 40-year-old adherent from Oklahoma City.

i dont mind blackfolk identifying w/other systems, thats very 21st century
but within that, black allegiance got to be paramount in my world

islams submission thing dont leave a lot of room for other allegiances

the name islam mean submission or something like that
and as you know the conqueror do not bow

on a more personal note
ima go by the multiculti office and cop a plea, all i can do

had a nice relatonship with the baobab society
they believed in me and i left them hanging

that hurts, you have no idea how much that hurts
folk believe in me i cant leave them hanging

need to find out when they have their meetings
go by and cop a plea - all i can do

try to redeem myself , offer to do some service
they aint gon want to hear it

not looking forward to abasing myself
but on this one i will bow

repeatedly

rdoc

gettting my conjure on: social justice and effective radicalism in the 21st century

 ive become the go to guy among certain circles on campus

behind that convocation speech
been asked to do presentations one after the other

first i was gratified but i soon got over that

in my youth i did it for the fun/function of it
and i enjoyed dazzling people, made an art of it

its no longer fun, its a distraction from my novel work
specially when im not getting paid

i had 4 requests for october, more coming in for other months
would have burned away all my discretionary time

plus these all come from faculty and administration
thats gratifying of course but its students i want to want me

the caribbean student association used to have me do a
witchdoctor/libation thing to open their big annual show

now that i enjoyed doing, that was fun
they would write a witchdoctor routine into the scriptline

but that leadership group graduated and new folk
know not flowers (or do not appreciate what flowers do)

best i stay focused

been making an effort to attend meetings/happenings of black student groups lately -
low profile, finger on pulse mode - ive decided its my responsibility to reach
out to them - strictly lowprofile observer mode, itching to provide guidance and

determined to restrain myself - cause i dont have time for more tribal responsibilities

and they dont deal in the strategic matters which are my forte, shows take up a lot of their time but their hearts are right and they do good service programs - ima keep an eye on them

shoulda made more of an effort to be an integral part of the caribbean group community
rather than just show up at showtime - true witchdoctor is the instrument of tribal/community consciousness - i was just acting the role instead of being it - live and learn

so i owe the multiculti people one, will say no to others
until people move on to next sensation

this one however i could not resist
social justice and radicalism in the 21st century

brown bag 10 minutes or so, told them i wasnt doing anything
that required research, a personal riff is all im willing to do

and that only because the subject matter interests me
social justice and radicalism in the 21st century

reason this one interests me so is because i am very conscious
of being an aging radical and somewhat out of step with everybody

im no longer a radical in the classic sense of the word and many of
my radical peers consider me an apostate

but to my way of thinking im more effective a radical than ive ever been
ive learned to work within the system and w/the evolving instruments of the 21st century

im comfortable working w/both hands

the most salient point of being a mature radical
is that i dont mind defying radical dogma when necessary

thats why so many folk consider me apostate these days
for instance i think reparations is the biggest joke ever played on the struggle

how did we ever get back to
begging whitefolk to save us

again

my focus is on empowering blackfolk and fixing their souls, mending their spirits
racism and whitefolk just aint my primary focus these days, im a devotee of self determination

determined to use my little time and energy
to cause fundamental change

the tribal soul is the hoodoo field of play
fix the soul and the rest will take care of itself

and i pick and choose my battles, got to use my energy wisely these days
i dont sign up for every campaign and i am not susceptible to activist guilttrips

i do my part but im systematic about it, i got game in play
and no need to prove nothing to nobody

except the people - and i will defy them if i have to
in order to manifest the game

there are times though when i wonder if i have unduly compromised myself
am i truly a viable force, or just an unwitting instrument of the powers that be

or even worse, a deluded dreamer
and not even in the game

i consider my own comfort, my own power, and that of my family, important
cant do much in this world if you yourself weak and poor, im a shameless social climber

now im cool about it, aint no panderer, but i do keep my eyes open
i will adjust to the terrain

i aspire to be a man of power
so i got to look at class issues

at the observational distance of the artist and the intellectual,
the obligatory strategic callousness of the wouldbe leader

in my bid to live a socially productive life
to achieve my artistic dreams and be a leader of my people

a hero

i watch young writers/intellectuals get caught up in the activist charge of being marginal to struggle
and i tell them that means you dont understand the power of art, the power of ideas,

you do not understand the power of the word

i do my community service because its whats expected of me and you always do what you can
to alleviate the human condition, but i dont expect that service to cause fundamental change

it might help an individual -  or a community
but it wont cause fundamental change in the human condition

my only real shot at causing fundamental change is through my words
my work

as an artist (or a visionary) you try to use your craft (words, ideas, media, etc) to create a vision
that so excites the human imagination that folk try to live its principles in the realworld

so that, no matter how neglibly, reality adjusts itself to your vision
producing a destinic body of work

is a dynamic that has been studied and processed
if you have the power, the gift of craft, you can be a cultural instrument

keep your priorities straight young hoodoo
get your Work done -  get your conjure on

conduct yourself as you aspire to be and you shall
it is the essence of conjuration

(note: was doing basic audience, switched into prophetic mode, wondering now if thats the dazzle factor - play with some and see, if it dont work can always extract it)

i am interested in what constitutes effective change in this world
and what is merely diversionary sidegame

keyword is effective, my mode is moderate, my aims are radical change
empowering the people, trying to ensure that the people are not abused by the powerful

power institutions and overachievers like myself

as a wouldbe leader and man of power
i am systematically concerned w/the ethics of power

i am interested in exploring just what effective activismr in the 21st century entails
i consider it in fact a critical and essential speculation

just how does this work out
on the hoodoo board of destiny

so i said yes to that one
supposed to do it 12/4

as you can see im already digging into it
this gon be messy

cause as you know dear surfer one of my imperatives as
a master of the oral tradition

is that when i do a performance/presentation it must be exemplary, paid or not i live to shine
i always come on strong cause my rep is at stake - every time

i long ago decided i would establish a public reputation as a man of power
this is my response to what i perceive as disrespect from cultural establishments

so when i speak i speak in words of power
like the conjureman should

these rootsblog posts, i strive to make them exercises in profundity
sometimes i hit it sometimes i miss
but whenever i generate words i strive to ensure that they are words of power

words of significance

now im feeling even more pressure to show
that convocation was no different from any other of my presentations

but it reached a wider campus audience - one friend said your anonymity
is gone - i prefer the low profile, maintains privacy and open options

but now folk expecting me to throwdown

to be enlightening, empowering and entertaining - thats the way i roll
folk expect me to dazzle them - to put them in the hoodoo hand

and i do not like to disappoint people expect me to throwdown
to take them to higher ground - best i get started on that one right away

work it out here on rootsblog
thats what i been doing lately, so as to free up noveltime

discretionary ideological/magical work i do on rootsblog cause that
blesses two birds with one prayer - gets Work done and provides
rootsblog wordage on issues of substance

ima fiddle with this piece till its a decent 1st draft
clean it up a couple of times over november and be good to go

another work of significance
in the collected works of rickydoc

once i get the text, start working the music
(if it fit and feed instead than distract)

i hate for you dear surfer to see me sweating out works in progress
but that has teaching value too - its all about showing the young hoodoos

of the future how i get my conjure on

how i go about shaping reality
and the destiny of all humanity

destinywork by rickydoc

ive withdrawn from hoodoo forums and dialogues
for the moment

i am so tired of folk magic i dont know what to do
im tired of love potions and reversing candles

i Work with my head not my hands, and apparently
i do not Work on the same plane other folk do

for awhile i tried to fake interest so as to retain
my standing in contemporary hoodoo circles

but a faking hoodooman aint worth the time of day

gon spend my little time left on the planet doing
what need to be done, get my Work done

i will let future generations
decide who got they conjure on

hoodoo magic in the 21st century
gon be of a much higher order than

the folk magic of the 19th

tired of talking about it
gon show you how i roll

im outta here

schoolhouse holiday today and bonnie out of town
im in a barbarian mode today, i plan to clock pages

word
by rickydoc trickmaster

wouldbe prophet
of the hoodoo way

walking on shaky ground

hello world
im walking on shaky ground here

still getting emails from parents
talking about look after my child

what on earth did i let these folk see

i keep this job at an emotional reserve
i cannot afford to start feeling tribal about this job

i do my work, i do above and beyond
cause its my nature to overachieve

teaching is a mystical thing w/me

sometime im amazed they pay me to do
what i would do anyway - gather students, run workshops

couldnt live without running workshops
trying to pass on what john killens passed to me

but i dont do social
every found moment goes to my novel

told folk this summer, look if you see me its just a mirage
dont waste your time saying hey

so i dont monitor and maintain my finger on the pulse
the way i do my tribal responsibilities

i canot afford that type of commitment
to this job - i cannot get my work done as is
for all the tribal responsibilites

but thats what i do in my hoodoo soul
because i cant help myself - i take care of the tribe

i may be the slackest holyman ever been
but thats what i am - the tribal shaman

and i dont care what the real world thinks about it
ima do my job - ima carry my load

i make sure they dont starve when times are lean
i make sure they survive the hard winters

i make sure the tribal destiny is strong
i keep the tribal soul healthy and growing

i awaken the sleeper, i protect the weak
and i guide the strong, thats what i do

in my magical world
the world of rickydoc trickmaster

but i keep that world hidden from the
shared world - the socalled realworld

in the real world its arthur flowers jr thankyou

basic academic -  mild mannered novelist and wouldbe thinker
mystic, metamagician

and blogger

you my dear and loyal surfer know all my business by now
but in my personal and professional life i keep my

hoodoo charisma under lock and key
to flaunt that power cheapens and corrodes it

maintaining a low profile is standard
operating procedure

but when im performing i come
out of my magical world

been trained in the hoodoo skill of turning the
charisma on and off as necessary, when i
deal i deal in souls

and thats all a performance is
you put the soul of the audience in the palm

of your hand and you handle it

try to take them to higher ground - make the
moment transcendent

its real primal, gathering the tribe around the
tribal fire like that

if done well its a healing thing, a cleansing thing
been doing it for years now, can do it in my sleep

but if you do touch folk you responsible for them

dont want them to walk off a cliff w/a little happy
smile on they face

and you choose your audiences
the college circuit is my turf

it pays well and college students
are my natural constituency

i like exposing them to the tradition
showing them its potential power

correcting social misconceptions about
african religious, magical and spiritual systems

representing

and contributing something to their evolution
both students and the tradition

but i generally give college audiences
my healing presentation

my we gon wash all your troubles away presentation

as opposed to when im downhome
and in the tradition - when i go prophetic
and speak in tongues - to those who understand

closed presentation wformulaic magical
closure:    that is all - this work is done

whereas its written
that is all - this spell is done

also left off my ankle bells, didnt want to get loose up in there
formal occasion and all, didnt know what they could handle

didnt want the spirit to move me and get to dancing and prancing
and shouting the blues - oh i greatly restrained myself

but clearly i let a little too much of my
hoodoo show

ima have to watch that
rdoc

newschool hoodoo and old: israel takes hostages: we killing 50 lebanese a day till the world gives us what we want

SUNDAY
clocking pages lord, yesterday was a good day
worked until i collapsed and my forehead hit the keyboard

thats the way i like it when im in the zone

jive turkeys indeed

interesting in light of that recent dog and pony
show renewing the voting rights act

that blackwell in ohio is at it again

running for gov and repressing voters
for the ohio republican party

part of a slew of voter repression
measures across the republican domain

in each case justified by a concern they say
for voter fraud

so they come up with all these programs
designed to wink wink keep poor folk from registering
traditionally been targeted as easy pickings

blackwell and gop point out ohio voter drive that registered
somebody called himself jive turkey

though jive turkey did not show up at the polls they
use this to justify voter fraud measures

of 9 million ohio votes in 2002 and 2004
only 4 were fradaulent

but they prefer redmeat to facts

they are election stealers
the lowest of the low

the age of bush has been a disaster
it will take generations to fix his messes

if they was to play fair he would have long since been gone
but they aint played fair in a long time

wake up america, its showtime

im pretty sure but not certain that blackwell is a colored man of some sort
but its clear and without a doubt that he is a jive turkey

in struggle
rdoc

rolling the dice in the middle east: part III

update on middleeast strategics

doesnt look good
primary actors just fanning the flames

bush administration disappointed in israel
thought you could take care of that partner

neither one of them expected hezbollah to put up a decent fight
now israel trying to regain its rep for invincibility

us/israel deflect international pressure
with fake un resolution process which
giving israel everything and lebanon nothing
except another israeli occupation, direct
or by proxy

this is a nonstarter
the killing will continue
as is intended

it is clear

bush and israel have decided once
again to roll the dice

an eerie replay of neocon delusion in iraq
youd think israel would know better

will france sign up as proxy cannon fodder
can israel afford to lose myth of invincibility

will their mortal insecurity cause them
to keep raising the stakes

this self destructive
cycle that can only end badly

consider a paradigm shift

i suppose you can always
as bush call it, stay the course

but only sincere generosity toward the palestinians
will address this condition

if the new killing field is a 
a bush/israel production w/supporting roles by hezbollah et al

how long before this act
plays on broadway

SATURDAY

let the force be w/you

this novel is killing me, i remember that last
scene in amadeus, where mozart is working himself to death

and that scene riveted me because i recognized it
as something im capable of doing in the final stages of a woodshed push

i drive body (mind and soul) till it collapses, then i rest just enuf to be
able to stand up again but im feeling impending breakdown

cause you know when youve
crossed the line and burning your seed corn

ima have to come up off it soon
spend a week or so getting right with my body mind and soul again

when i finish this novel ima just lay there for a month
reading trash scifi

aint answering phones, emails, nothing

reading sci fi is my cool out reading, like other folk watch tv i read scifi
and im almost shamed to tell you how much of my vision ive gotten from sci fi novels

got my focus on being a prophet  from dune
got my focus on the longgame from the book of man
got my focus on being a star traveling race from a deepness in the sky
got my focus on human transcendence from aristos

wonder where i got my destinywork concept from

most of these are works of my youth
picked up dune a couple years ago and it was unreadable

got racial responsibility from the destruction of black civilization
i remember bicycling down jamaica ave in queens

nickel and dime retail street and thinking o my poor people
and started crying, tears trickling from my eyes and making my vision fuzzy

ithe craft of power turned me into a player
that and a book called taking state power 

the iching and the sacred tarot by the brotherhood of light
deeply influenced my spiritualwork

an elementary school reading of and then we heard the thunder
and the cotillion by john o killens made me want to be a writer in the first place

when i was a kid you could count the known black writers on one hand

more recent literary influences: beloved, mamaday, the healing, cattekilling,

craftwise: one hundred years of solitude and texaco, glass bead game

special hoodoo mention:  ishmael reeds mumbo jumbo and conjure

my particlar brand of hoodoo
primary mission taking care of the tribal soul
shaping human destiny

the licks that make me different from every other hoodoo on the planet

fortunately hoodoo has always been an eclectic system
shaped to the peculiarities of the practitioner

any method, any time

is what hyatt called it, the propensity of hoodoo to break the rules of magic

with a patchwork quilt of procedure in search of what works - a refusal to be restricted by rules and traditions

a bastard tradition like the african american culture that sustains it

colleague of mine, djenra windwalker, say its new hoodoo and old hoodoo

say old hoodoo is what folk told the anthros and ethnos
and what most folk be doing is old hoodoo

stuck like folk who think the blues stopped w/muddy waters

while the culture constantly generating new licks they know nothing of
windwalkers position is let them have old hoodoo while we move on

but i cant do that, cant leave our sacred tradition laying by the side of the road

windwalker say i be telling secrets
and i agree the core should be withheld, it is after all an occult tradition

train the wrong person and next thing you know they have stripped it
of its cultural significance and marketing pablum

warmed over wicca

instead of the dance of discovery and years of training
they train anybody who pay them

one list im on started talking about whether a new orleans botonica was in the ghetto
the moderator of the list start talking about good a business location the ghetto was

because of how gullible 'those people' are and how he tricked one of them out of 1000s
of dollars and even after the trick was exposed they still believed in him

the very kind of folk i protect the community against
i cannot abide a thief of souls

i train somebody only after a long exploratory dance
and i hate to say this cause im already considered racist in some hoodoo circles
but if they not black they have to work harder at it

cause training generations in the care of the tribal soul
is my primary mission, both literary and hoodoo

generic i focus on destinywork

but my heart is about saving the black race
training its shamans, literary and magical

southern black bougie stylee
ima race man, its in the blood

i was brought up to save the race
like my mama and my daddy before me

dont know what new hoodoo is
but i know what it is not

it is not what folk where doing 100 years ago
or even now - poppa got a brand new bag

determined to shape the hoodoo future as i see fit
got to shape the public perception of it and walk the line

between telling secrets and holding them

okay, so much for all that, dont know where all this came from
windwalker probably thinks ive told too much as is

windwalker dont slide no slack

sat down to comment on maddog republicans
going all out for their boy joe

focus flowers focus:

delay and coulter and cheney and other repub attack dogs
have started a campaign to rescue joe lieberman

and failing that - convince him to forget running as an independent
and come on over to the dark side joe, where you belong

darth lieberman: republican senator from connecticut

may the force be w/you
rdoc

FRIDAY

not happy w/my manuscript, im discouraged and just going thru the motions now
dont know what else to do w/my life - making books is all i know to do

i have never understood people who abandon novels, i aint never abandoned a major project
i do however understand why hemingway put a gun in his mouth - if i couldnt do id rather die

mission accomplished: the west is losing this war, within and without

the bush admins democracy in the middle east project
is a shambles

civil war in iraq got folk remembering the days of saddam fondly
all out war in lebanon and gaza and nato taking casualties in afghanistan

iran on a political roll and americas middleast allies
afraid to identify w/george bushs policies

the world more afraid of american policies than jihadi ones
and now israel trying to find some idiots to be their proxy shock troops in lebanon

so the us and isreal holding the world hostage
strategically killing innocents till they get their way

o its just a big mess

democracy in middle east never was a real project
it was a clumsy pr rationale to justify invasion of iraq
one of a string of them, musical chairs, okay this one works

the american people will buy this one if we package it right

bush admin governing philsophy, packaging
frist calles minimum wage/estate tax bill the family prosperity act

bush and israel share myopic fascination with military deterrence
in a political war

the west is losing this war
which is unfortunate

problematic as the west can be
i man do not want to live in an islamic world

neither do i want to live in the world
our own fundamentalist dream

i man aint submitting to no body no god no thing
i man free

rdoc

THURSDAY

closing acts: shock and awe redux: part I

israel is now concerned that hezbollah is perceived
in the arab street as the winner of this war

israel is now looking for a closing act that will change this perception
by quote unquote 'searing the hearts and minds' of its enemies

as if declaring a policy of using civilians as hostages wasnt enuf
to sear the hearts and minds of its friends

in struggle
rdoc

redux: part II
6:58 in the morning: listening to dinah washington today
im in a dinah washington state of mind

did that piece above earlier this morning

started thinking about how ive moved from cautious
chiding of israel to full throated condemnation

and wondered if im being fair
then this morning im reading in the wash post
about israeli helicopters rocketing a bedouin family tent
in an onion field and the discrepancy

between the im a victim here mythwork 
and the ruthless reality just too blatant to ignore

israel has decided to kill innocents
as part of its strategic posture

and all that can be said in israels defense does not mitigate
the horror of that decision

i like to think of myself as historical but in truth
i dont have much power in the world (if any)

what little power i do have comes from my
ability to wield words of power

the word as instrument
to speak truth to the people

no matter how uncomfortable or inconvenient
no matter anybody listening or not

it is my geas,
my magic depends on it

as a hoodoo intellectual
attempting to alleviate the
human condition whenever i can

i am drawn to the crossroads moments
where destiny lies in the moment

with these words i try to

awaken the sleeper
protect the weak and give
guidance to the strong

i trust my sense of the significant

the middle east has become a crossroads moment in human destiny
and that means i claim it, this board belongs to me

this board belong to the conqueroo

it distress me to call israel out
but you just wrong, you so wrong it hurts

and the more i speak on it the less
sugarcoating its gon get

word by rickydoc trickmaster
woutdbe prophet of the hoodoo way

WEDNESDAY

its the president, stupid

a piece about presidents bushs cluelessness
dont want to call him stupid, that degrades the dialogue

lets call him clueless, its like he doesnt know whats
going on - and thats so dangerous in these dangerous times

its like he thinks in slogans and he gets programmed for
one whole week with that week slogans and it doesnt matter

what happens, for that week he responds to all things w/his little
weekly stock of slogans

each sunday his handlers program his new stock

it would be funny if it werent
so dangerous

conjure in african american society by jeffrey anderson

this article on was brought to my attention
by my homegirl, sheree thomas of
black pot mojo

i avoid posting articles in their entirety
unless i feel like it and so:
 

      

Excerpt from the Introduction         to

Conjure in African         American Society
http://www.lsu.edu/lsupress/Books/Fall2005/books/Anderson_Conjure_Excerpt.html


        Jeffrey E. Anderson

      

        Introduction
        The Invisible Conjurer: The Disappearance of Hoodoo from Conceptions of         Black Society

      

Thomas Nelson Page,         one of the major architects of the “moonlight and magnolias”         myth of the Old South, published his most famous novel, Red Rock,         in 1899. Set during Reconstruction, its pages are filled with the standard         characters of Page’s genre: heroic southern planters, dutiful Union         soldiers, and depraved carpetbaggers. One villain, Dr. Moses, is particularly         overdrawn in the depiction of his physical as well as moral perversity.         Rachel Welch, the novel’s heroine, observes, “His chin stuck         so far forward that the lower teeth were much outside of the upper, or,         at least, the lower jaw was; for the teeth looked as though they had been         ground down, and his gums, as he grinned, showed as blue on the edges         as if he had painted them.”

      

Moses is a trick         doctor, a term Page felt no need to define. Modern readers are left         to question why the bizarrely misshapen Moses should be such a threat         to the white population. Other contemporary works provide answers. For         instance, Philip A. Bruce, author of The Plantation Negro as a Freedman         (1899), described the trick doctor as “a man whose only employment         . . . lies in the practice of the art of witchcraft,” who “is         invested with even more importance than a preacher, since he is regarded         with the respect that fear excites.” Moreover, Moses’s physical         appearance is typical of the numerous descriptions of trick doctors that         appeared during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For         instance, in the early-twentieth-century article “Observations on         the Practice of Conjuring in Georgia” Roland Steiner recorded the         African American folk belief that the spells of blue-gummed blacks invariably         caused death. Likewise, folklorist Mary Alicia Owen, using the language         of her informant, in 1893, described a legendary “witcheh-man”         as “de mos’ uglies’ man in de worl', wid er whopple-jaw         an’ er har’-lip, sidesen er lop side an’ er crookid         laig an’ one eye dat wuz des lak fiah an’ one dat was daid.”         In short, published accounts of African American magic were so common         during the era that Page had no need to explain what he meant by trick         doctor. After Page’s time, however, literary and academic interest         in black sorcery declined. The net result has been that the trick doctor,         also known as the "hoodoo doctor" or "conjurer," has         become virtually invisible in most Americans’ conceptions of black         society, even while the vocation of conjuring lives on in many African         American communities.

      

How can one explain         such a drastic shift in attention to conjure? The answer lies in intellectual         and cultural shifts over the course of the late nineteenth and twentieth         centuries that have changed the ways both blacks and whites have constructed         identity. Between the Civil War and World War II, Americans in general         and southern whites in particular feared losing their cultural identity         to the homogenizing effects of industrial capitalism, and conjure was         one expression of peculiarity that they used to resist the threatened         loss of national and regional distinctiveness. Once war catapulted America         to the forefront of world politics and economics, regional distinctions         became less important than national pride and a united front against Communism.         For blacks, attention to hoodoo was likewise a question of identity. Unlike         whites, however, they tended to view hoodoo as a negative feature of their         society. Its practice, they thought, would have to be stamped out before         they could hope to achieve equality. Recently, the influence of the closely         linked forces of cultural pluralism, postmodernism, and the New Age movement         and rising black assertiveness have made magic an acceptable expression         of spirituality for many. Nevertheless, conjure remains an understudied         facet of black society.

      

        Before the Civil War, southerners, white and black, were well aware of         the existence of conjure. For instance, in a diary entry for 3 March 1816         the South Carolinian George Izard recorded an encounter with a sickly         Mr. Perkins, who explained his illness as a result of a spell cast by         a spurned admirer. After physicians’ remedies failed him, Perkins         turned to conjure. Izard’s experience was far from unique. Many         whites learned of conjure from their slaves. Such was the case with Thaddeus         Norris, author of “Negro Superstitions.” Writing five years         after the Civil War, he admitted that he had “firmly believed in         witches” as a child, a conviction he had acquired through his close         relationship with an elderly “house servant.” Frederick Douglass,         the most prominent of black abolitionists, included an account of hoodoo         in his antebellum Narrative, spreading knowledge of the practice         to northern readers. Nevertheless, few observers commented on the practice         beyond pointing it out as a sign of slaves’ intellectual backwardness.         Slaves were to be either worked or freed, not studied for their culture.

      

Immediately following         the war southern whites were too busy restoring Democratic control of         their states to devote increased attention to sectional identity and certainly         to black folk religion. After all, their recent experience of military         defeat and occupation had left no room to doubt their distinctiveness.         One of the few whites to address black folk religions was Thaddeus Norris,         who bluntly wrote that “the more refined a people, the more interesting         its mythical legends. Those of the Caucasian race are attractive; while         those of the negroes are repulsive, especially when connected with their         heathenish religions.” Literate blacks generally felt the same way.         A selection of letters on conjure published in the Southern Workman         provides evidence. This newspaper was associated with Virginia’s         Hampton Institute, one of the nation’s oldest black schools. In         1878 the school solicited reports from its students and graduates on the         level of superstition among the freedmen. The response was more than one         hundred letters, only six of which saw print. Most of the responders frankly         stated that conjure was a negative but common feature of black society.         One author, referred to as “L.” in the printed version of         his letter, was particularly harsh in his denunciation of hoodoo, asserting,         “Conjure doctors are not so numerous now as they were before our         race became so enlightened, but still they are too numerous. They are         a curse to their race.” Overcoming racist oppression and abject         poverty through education was much more important to blacks than questions         of culture. With both whites and blacks disgusted by Negro ignorance,         few were interested in doing more than denounce conjure.

      

Since Reconstruction,         interest in conjure has generally followed a wavelike pattern of increasing         and decreasing interest. Since the end of Republican rule in the South,         interest in conjure has crested three times. The first of these upturns         began in the mid-1880s and persisted until shortly after 1900. Following         the turn of the century, writings on conjure appeared less and less frequently         until the 1920s, when a new wave of interest began. It had passed by the         early 1940s, when conjure once again faded from public view. The second         trough was much deeper than the first. With occasional exceptions, few         works on hoodoo appeared until the 1970s. At that point, a new respect         for black folk beliefs, including conjure, arose.

      

As local distinctions         seemed threatened by industrial homogenization following the Civil War,         whites searched for regional peculiarities in order to construct a distinct         identity. Corporatism, national advertising, and consumerism threatened         to transform the South into a carbon copy of the North. It is no coincidence         that articles on conjure peaked in the 1890s, when a generation that had         never owned slaves or fought in the Civil War came to prominence.

      

In addition to ending         the most important distinction between the North and the South, emancipation         had begun a process that would cause blacks and whites to grow more and         more foreign to each other. Under the peculiar institution, members of         both races had lived and sometimes worked side by side, occupying the         same geographic space. Whites inevitably learned much about blacks’         culture, including their supernatural beliefs, from simple observation         and conversation, and the same was true for blacks. Though convict leasing,         sharecropping, and other forms of “free” labor that replaced         slavery resembled it in many ways, they were a first step in a growing         physical separation between the races. When the temporary political entitlement         and citizenship rights that blacks had gained during Reconstruction faded         during the last two decades of the nineteenth century, African Americans         became increasingly vulnerable to racism. By the turn of the twentieth         century a rigid system of economic and social segregation had developed         throughout the states of the former Confederacy. During the first half         of the 1890s the white Democrats’ “Solid South” had         begun to crack in the face of the Populists’ agrarian radicalism.         In part, the implementation of Jim Crow was the work of white politicians         seeking to reunite their race under the banner of white supremacy. Whatever         the cause, blacks and whites lived their lives ever more separately, and         each culture became less familiar to the other.

      

Whites had long         considered blacks a primitive and superstitious people. With African Americans         safely cut off from political and economic power, their folk beliefs could         now be used to bolster white superiority and regional distinctiveness.         To white authors, the hoodoo doctor became a powerful image of the southern         past, conjuring up images of aristocratic planters and their happy but         dependent “servants.” Moreover, by describing blacks as a         backward people, whites defined what their race was not. At the same time,         African Americans began to develop a class system. As members of the small         but growing middle class became educated and quickly adopted the scientific         outlook and social Darwinism of the larger American society, they confidently         expected conjure to disappear. In fact, according to many blacks’         ideology of racial uplift, such backward features of black society would         have to give way before the race could hope to advance. Thus, while whites         used black folk beliefs as a point of contrast to display their own glories,         African Americans rejected whites’ self-serving characterization         of blacks as superstitious.

      

The local color         literary movement typified whites’ construction of identity. In         the South, this impulse often found expression in collections of black         folklore, relayed in the dialect of the plantation “darkie.”         Most prominent among these works was Joel Chandler Harris’s 1880         book Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, a collection of         African American animal stories ostensibly related by an elderly former         slave to a child whom he had befriended. Over the next twenty-five years         numerous authors sought to duplicate Harris’s success, with the         result that black folklore became staple reading for white American youths         until well into the twentieth century. In practice, local color works         provided a bridge between the romanticism of the early nineteenth century         and the realism that came to characterize the twentieth. As such, it was         the perfect vehicle for whites to record the exoticism of the plantation         past, dovetailing nicely with the chivalric tales of Thomas Nelson Page.         At the same time, it allowed authors to glorify the region’s race         relations by providing “records” of friendly interaction between         superior whites and dependent blacks through the medium of African American         stories told in dialect. In an age when white southerners sought sectional         reconciliation while maintaining their distinctiveness, local colorism         helped them write their past and present racial systems in a way that         made their acceptance by the rest of the nation more palatable.

      

The growth of the         social sciences, especially professionalized folklore, provided another         vehicle for white southerners’ search for identity. Brought to prominence         in Europe by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm during the early and middle nineteenth         century, folklore quickly became a popular pursuit. By the late 1870s,         folklorists had begun to professionalize their field. One of the earliest         signs of this development was the founding of the English Folklore Society         in 1878. Ten years later, American folklorists created their own national         organization, the American Folklore Society. The international expositions         of 1889, 1891, and 1893, which stressed the importance of progress, hosted         folklore congresses in order to emphasize the backwardness of primitive         societies, while preserving their beliefs for future generations. During         the 1891 exposition, Mary Alicia Owen helped bring conjure to scholarly         attention by presenting a paper entitled “Among the Voodoos,”         which described the magical practices of Missouri’s blacks. The         newly founded Journal of American Folk-Lore (later the Journal         of American Folklore), an organ of the American Folklore Society,         published numerous articles on conjure and related practices throughout         its early volumes. Following an article on Haitian Vodou in its 1888 inaugural         issue, the journal published W. W. Newell’s “Reports of Voodoo         Worship in Hayti and Louisiana” in its second volume. The journal         did not confine itself to Voodoo proper, however, and over the next decade         and a half numerous brief notes and full-length articles appeared. Typically         they resemble Roland Steiner’s “Observations on the Practice         of Conjuring in Georgia,” an essay that combines conjure stories         with instructions for using particular magical materials.

      

After 1893 southern         African Americans had their own folklore society, based at Virginia’s         Hampton Normal School, later to be known as the Hampton Institute. In         a notice to students announcing the founding of the Hampton Folk-Lore         Society, an anonymous author stated, “The American Negroes are rising         so rapidly from the condition of ignorance and poverty . . . that the         time seems not far distant when they shall have cast off their past entirely.”         If a record of conjure was not preserved, blacks would become a people         without a history beyond what whites chose to give them. Progress, destined         to wipe out folk beliefs like conjure, would nevertheless preserve knowledge         of such “savagery” for future generations through the work         of professional folklorists. To this end the Southern Workman,         the school newspaper, published numerous articles on black folklore during         the late nineteenth century.

      

Throughout the 1890s         and the early years of the twentieth century the Southern Workman         frequently included a column entitled “Folk-Lore and Ethnology,”         which regularly addressed conjure. Like the articles appearing in the         Journal of American Folklore, these accounts tended to be simple         descriptions of hoodoo beliefs. Nevertheless, a few accounts display a         high degree of analytical sophistication. The most important example is         A. M. Bacon’s “Conjuring and Conjure-Doctors,” published         in 1895. Bacon divided conjuration into two types, those involving charms         and those involving poisons, and argued that conjurers provided five primary         services to their clients, roughly summarized as follows: diagnosis of         afflictions caused by magic, discovery of those who had cast spells, searching         out and destroying tricks, curing those who had been conjured, and turning         spells back on those who had cast them.

      

Meanwhile, other         authors began to tentatively introduce new interpretations. For instance,         Leonora Herron, in her essay “Conjuring and Conjure-Doctors”         (not to be confused with Bacon’s article of the same title), argued         that conjure functioned as a means of redressing wrongs, for which slavery         had provided no other mechanism. In addition, Herron proposed that conjure         was not solely of African origin but had also been influenced by “association         with the white race . . . till it became a curious conglomerate of fetichism,         divination, quackery, incantation and demonology.” Despite the growing         volume and analytical rigor of such articles, few authors saw conjure         as a positive aspect of the black past. Instead, African Americans followed         the lead of whites, condemning hoodoo as a sign of backwardness. While         whites used conjure to bolster their supremacist assumptions, however,         blacks saw its supposed decline as a symbol of advancement.

      

Southerners’         attempts to build a new identity brought hoodoo to national attention.         Knowledge of conjure ceased to be the purview of southerners who had experienced         it firsthand. Instead, a growing number of books intended for popular         consumption began to treat hoodoo as an important part of black culture.         Publications reporting on the progress of the black race, such as Bruce’s         Plantation Negro as a Freedman, increasingly came to address         the backwardness of conjure. Likewise, autobiographies of ex-slaves often         pointed to antebellum conjure to demonstrate how far blacks had risen         from bondage. Such was the case with Jacob Stoyer, a former South Carolina         slave, who made much of slaves’ belief in magic, recording their         use of red pepper and salt to repel witches. Another former slave, William         Wells Brown, author of My Southern Home, used the semihumorous         character Uncle Dinkie, a conjurer, to demonstrate the “ignorant         days of slavery.” In addition to being a fraud who earned his reputation         by fortunetelling, love potions, and “medicine,” Uncle Dinkie         had learned to serve the devil instead of God “kase de white folks         don’t fear de Lord.”

      

Another class of         publication that usually addressed conjure comprised the collections of         black folklore that appeared during the years around 1900. Harris’s         Uncle Remus refers to conjure only briefly, but some of his imitators         dealt with it in greater depth. For instance, in Charles Colcock Jones         Jr.’s Gullah Folktales from the Georgia Coast, “Buh         Rabbit” must contend with conjure doctors as well as wolves and         tar babies. Two works appeared that were entirely devoted to stories of         hoodoo. The earliest of these was Mary Alicia Owen’s Voodoo         Tales as Told among the Negroes of the Southwest, first published         in 1893. As its alternate title, Old Rabbit, the Voodoo, and Other         Sorcerers, suggests, Owen’s work was a collection of animal         stories in which magic was the driving force. Rabbit, Woodpecker, and         the Bee-King appear as the animal kingdom’s principal conjurers.         Another work from the period that centers on hoodoo was Virginia Frazier         Boyle’s Devil Tales. Unlike Harris, Colcock, and Owen,         Boyle recorded stories of human hoodooists, usually locked in combat with         the devil. Nevertheless, her underlying aim was the same: glorification         of the southern past. Describing her sense of loss at the death of her         storytelling black “Mammy,” she wrote, “The swaying         form, crooning in low rich voice, like some bronze Homer blind to letters,         a weird primeval lore into the ears of future orators, is shut within         the feudal past of the old plantation days.”

      

A final group of         books that began to appear during this era were fictional works built         around the workings of African American magic. The most remarkable of         these was black author Charles W. Chesnutt’s Conjure Woman,         which recounts a series of tales told by Uncle Julius, an ex-slave, to         white Ohioan immigrants to North Carolina. Though the tales are ostensibly         a collection of conjure stories from plantation days, Chesnutt’s         Julius uses them to persuade his white acquaintances to favor him with         gifts and other considerations. For example, in the story “Po’         Sandy” he persuades the Ohioan narrator and his wife not to tear         down an old building because it had been built from a person whom a conjure         woman had changed into a tree. Shortly after, Julius himself asks for         the building, which he uses for a church. Chesnutt, who was only marginally         interested in the practice of conjure, used stories of the occult to demonstrate         the overriding power of whites. Only by preying on whites’ sense         of sentiment did Julius succeed in achieving his goals. Nevertheless,         white readers used The Conjure Woman to bolster their own version         of the pre–Civil War South, including the primitive superstitiousness         of blacks

amiri baraka and lord legba, highjohn the conqueror and an african american way

THURSDAY

hangingtough

took a couple of punches today
sometimes it seems no matter how hard i try
i just keep coming up short

it takes a village

well im certainly not fool enuf to support bill cosbys
quixotic campaign to address community dysfunction

my radical comrades already think im questionable
and i agree his analysis lacks the depth of a more
accomplished player such as myself

much too much you and not enuf we

but the old rootdoctor admire a man w/the courage of his convictions
a blackman who could kick back w/his riches

out here doing what he can - trying to make his contribution
to the condition and destiny of blackfolk - saying what he think need to be said

21st century yall, no more games, we got to do this

almost prophetic what he doing, using the media attention celebrity commands
as delivered in front of the notorious convention center in new orleans:

"It's painful, but we can't cleanse ourselves unless we look at the wound. Ladies and gentlemen, you had the highest murder rate, unto each other. You were dealing drugs to each other. You were impregnating our 13-, 12-, 11-year-old children. What kind of a village is that?'

WEDNESDAY
rickydoc in the zone

i wrote the most wonderful scene this morning

its the memphis riots of 1866 and i have this slave child who was
"apprenticed" after the end of slavery and is using the riots to try
to get to her real parents on another side of the city but she doesnt
know where they live,

she has not been allowed outside since the last attempt years ago
she doesnt know where they live and the streets are full of rioting yahoos
killing colored folk

on an apparently empty street she almost runs up on a mob
when i have this old black woman suddenly appear beckoning her to safety
basically trying to show blackfolk helping each other survive

but i had this segment elsewhere of somebody calling on harriet tubman in a ritual
and harriet herself leading a bunch of slaves to freedom suddenly doing her sleep thing

then i thought what if that beckoning oldwoman is harriet and im saying
that when she did that sleep thing she was helping some escapee on another plane

so i put them together and god it feels good - now im playing with it to make it work
and i think maybe i will have the conqueror have played a role in this
maybe setting up a crossroads moment

so now i have to make this little girl escaping a significant historical crossroads of some sort
damn im in the groove, i live for these moments

of revelation

i been bad this weekend - generally i take the weekends for rest and pay the cost,
playing academic catchup, manuscripts to be  graded/critiqued, class prep, etc

but this weekend i been bad, i been working on this impo scene (idas escape, the husharbor, the gathering/mission) and when monday came along i was unwilling to quit, if i stop now it will take fri and sat just to get my groove on again (if at all)

so i squeezed the schoolhouse, woke up early tuesday morning crunching it to get thru my tuesday class straightup and now i got to prep for thursday and got studentconferences today and should be schoolhousing but instead this morning i got right back on that scene, fuck everybody including me, i got to get this novel done

what im doing now is inputting the longhand pages i did over the weekend but thats always something of a rewrite in itself and so i was back there on my writing porch trying to hustle thru this when bam, this narrative revelation came down on me and now im off to the races and so excited i had to tell you about it (bonnie muttering i should get off the internet and get back to work)

so i got to get back on it, try to get thru it in the next couple of hours so i can get my schoolhouse work done - this spose to be my day off anyway - well actually its a prepday but closing down the semester you dont get no days off noway, its catchup catchup catchup

not only have i squeezed the schoolhouse i have also allowed some impending lifecrises to fester
got to get on those real quick - but i tell you dear surfer, a scene like the one im working on now

for that i will pay my dues without a whimper

amiri baraka was here day before yesterday, brought up by the Black Artists student organization, and i hung out with him some, that was inspirational - didnt want to come off my game, found out about it the last minute, the day of, but hey it was amiri, one of the great destinywarriors and one of my few remaining mentors in the game - im rolling today in amiris name

im outta here

rdoc


TUESDAY
crunched all weekend and still crunching
will have to pay schoolhouse dues - this gon be a catchup week
holding on by the skin of my chinny chin chin

i works for the conqueroo
hello world

spose to be working so ima just hit it real quick
set up the sermon for this week - on an african american way

i have been most of my hoodoo life a devotee of lord legba
but i also serve highjohn the conqueror

there is therefore some question in me about the conqueroo/legba relationship
i still believe i serve lord legba but i works for the conqueror now,

i believe the conqueror is an afroam manifestation
of that trickster force, some kin to legba and that i can serve them both

i dont have much choice in the matter, i do not serve the conqueror of
my own volition - i have been called

its seems that the conqueror is a specifically afroam context
an african american way

some folk question my looseness w/legbas rules and imply a retribution of sorts
but since i first devoted myself to legba i have been given a dispensation to break the rules

even legbas own

long as i do his bidding and enlarge his space
that dispensation is even more so under de conqueroo

i believe de conqueror reaching for his own
i believe its time

word by
rickydoc flowers

gullah jack and 21st century trickeration

hello world

a hoodoo way thread
on gullah jack and trickeration in the 21st century

is it still a viable power

the question was are folk like gangster rappers
tricksters in a modern context

always a question with rootsblog of
if im telling too many secrets

because im a writer i have to walk the line
much of my destinywork is underground but my mythwork entails
working in the public eye

thats what writers do, put they bidness in the street
its a fine line to walk, a writer and a destinyplayer too

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

hello all

i too am a devotee of gullah jack
& blessed w/one of papa gede nibo beys gullahjack hands

what speaks to me about gullahjack is that of all the slaverytime revolutionaries
natturner, denmarkvesey, gabrielprosser, etc - gullahjack stayed true

the others sanctified struggle thru christian imagery
gullah jack sanctified struggle thru african rites

thats my boy, and i dont think it was so much that he was shucking and jiving
as making himself look unthreatening in whatever mode was available to him

trickeration always been and will be our strongest power
we aint never moved away from trickeration

its just the nature of it evolve as we do
but trickeration got to have intent

trickeration designed to just get over aint trickeration
at least not in the sense we want to hoodoo define it

then instead of you got the demon the demon got you
and you liable to find yourself a tool used against us

trickeration should be designed to flip the script
turn the tables - hit a straight lick w/a crooked stick

as long as we weak our game got to be trickeration

many of us work for the powers that be
or trying to accumulate power in the name of the community
that bring us into strategic interaction w/the powers of this world

we spooks sitting by the door

if the true powers of this world took us serious at what we do
if they thought we had a chance of really flipping the script
they would take us out without hardly a blink it would be so easy

like they did lumumba or martin

or the sharecroppers of the delta during the voting rights struggle
who lost home, livelihood and sometimes life when they
truly challenged the statusquo

if we real about power and saving/empowering blackfolk
our only camoflauge is trickery, seeming to be less than we are

but that dont have to be buffoonery, that's a little too oldschool

its about appearing unthreatening on the surface,
apparent acceptance of the rules of the game

(i take refuge in art myself - its just fiction  - or research, or mystical fantasies -
conversation piece magic, dont take me seriously ha ha)

even better since you want to be an acknowledged player (least i do)
is appearing useful, then the game is in play

in this mediabased world you want to be a player (influential in human affairs) you got to raise your profile, but at the sametime you dont want the world knowing all your business - got to shape that metaimage, the one the world sees, maintain it, put that hoodoo traveling spirit to work

rickydoc is an edifice that i work at everyday

in the metauniverse of the web
a virtual reality power that will shape its realworld manifestation

gaming these days is trickier than it was when i was coming up
got to be comfortable in the metaverse

got to have crossover skilz, able to deal real comfortable w/two faces
your multiculti face and your blackface

and let it be done in all sincerity
in the name of the conqueror

as we move into power, that same old trickeration becomes strategy -
the key that opens all locks

i would you my people
be masters of strategy

the key that opens all locks

word by
rickydoc flowers

awaken the sleeper
protect the weak
guide the strong

hollywood and magical negroes. reverend nagin and the black belt south, medicare scams and two headed men

FRIDAY
yesterday i just took 3 hours noveltime, couldnt afford it, just took it
everyday that i see a 3 hour block laying around ima take it

that means everyday something got to suffer
but i will pay that freight

bush privatization scheme #1

to understand the snafus roiling the medicare drug rollout
you got to remember that it was designed to be a scam
like privatizing social security

it was not designed to help seniors
it was designed to let pharma/insurance companies raid, rob and plunder
the government and old folk too

instead of a clean & simple federal program
it was designed to make the fat cats richer
and actually make it harder on seniors to get drug coverage

w/doughnuts holes and other unnecessary functions
designed to look like coverage w/o actually being coverage

the tipoff is that the government is not allowed to
bargain for lower prices from big pharma

the tipoff is that the main author of the program
billy tanzin of louisiana, quit as soon as it was enacted
to become the president of big pharmas lobbying arm

the tipoff is that they misled the american people
no, forget that weak euphemism, they strategically and blatantly lied to us
tricked and bamboozled us like they did with iraq
and tried to do w/social security

remember how they told congress/the people it would only cost 400 billion
a month after it was enacted they corrected themselves, oops looks like 535 billion
turns out medicare actuarial guy knew it all along and was told he would be fired
if he told congress the real cost and now the estimated cost is a 700 billion giveaway
to the rich and powerful on the backs of the old and the sick

how can they sleep at night

and now the chickens are coming home to roost (those that can still flutter)
in the most vulnerable population we have - the old, the sick and the poor

(anyday now most of us will be clocking at least 2 out of 3, this affects us all
- and our parents too)

and now old folk sick and dying because of the bush administrations
unbelievably callous attitude toward people- use them anyway they can -
use them up

an administration that would have been happier only if the old folk
had been drugless, pensionless and social securityless too

the bush administration and its crooked congressional allies
are an abomination and ive lost my little ironic distance on this one

folk keep saying katrina been americas worst disaster to date
but far as rickydoc is concerned its been george w. bush

and his cronies in crime

what do you think

rdoc

THURSDAY
a two headed man

my boy melvin gibbs got more faces than the legal law allow

nwego's child: rootwork, the ancestral mindmeld
hoodoo-philsopher
sonic hoodoo

fractal solomon & snake 2g

excerpt from sonic hoodoo

When the universe began it began as a vibration, a throb,
"a kind of movement" Tantric philosophy says.
The technical term for this vibration is Spanda.
This throb, this "kind of movement" propagates through the universe.
It could be said that this vibration, this wave exists in different forms at
different levels of existence.
But the more correct way of viewing, Spanda, the vibratory wave is that this
wave exists as the different levels of existence.

this from hoodoo philsopher                    

rootwork today: hoodoo at the crossroads

This thing that people call hoodoo has a certain energy that powers it that has to be respected for it to work. If you try to turn it into something that it isn’t it just wont work right if it works at all.

Even if you wanted to consider rootwork folk magic (which I don’t) you’d have to admit folk magic implies a connection to a larger “folk” culture of which it’s part of and which defines it and its’ parameters. Otherwise we’d just be talking about one worldwide folk culture. The fact that rootwork/ hoodoo exists and has a definition is proof enough of what I’m talkin ‘bout. Defining African-American practices in terms of European culture and cultural values is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what the Old Skool rootworkers/hoodooists did. What they did was this: Develop and define a culture in terms of the values and technologies they and their parents carried inside of them when they got here in concert and in combination with others who shared their same cultural condition.

Whatever ingredients they used and developed were defined and incorporated for use in terms of their own culture and technology.

When they used Native American or European cultural practices they incorporated them in terms of and using African cultural practices and technology. This process of incorporating European and Native American practices and harmonizing them in terms of and to African practices is what created African-American culture.

Let me put it this way. When you hear classical music sampled on lets say, a Dr. Dre track is he using it in terms of European cultural values or the rules laid down by European musical theorists? No, he’s jackin’. He’s using it in terms of his own musical culture, the hip-hop culture and its’ own musical rules. If you took all the ingredients Dre uses to make a track and gave them to a classical composer and told to make a composition using only those ingredients you wouldn’t get a hip-hop track back. You’d get some classical music, made with classical musical rules and techniques. And conversely if took a classical orchestra to a Dr. Dre session and told Dre to make a track using only them he’d comeback with a hip-hop track and probably a hot one.

Anyone using 1920’s African-American energy manipulation techniques outside of their cultural and philosophical paradigm is spell jackin’. Placing those practices inside an alien paradigm causes the power they had to be emptied an replaced by the power of the new paradigm. They lose the power they had and become a subset of other, seemingly weaker practices. As a concrete example, I’ve seen online where people say that hoodoo is an ephemeral practice where the spells die quickly and have to be done again and again. I can guarantee you that “real” rootworkers alive today would disagree with that assessment and even a careful reading of Hyatt’s informers would contradict it as well.

Conversely spell jackin’ into the African based A-A cultural and philosophical paradigms the Essence of what rootwork/hoodoo is. This is due to the same process of reculturalization ( I think I just made a preacher word). Whatever it was becomes emptied and replaced through African- based energy manipulation techniques passed down to us today, in the same way Dr. Dre or Kanye West empty and replace musical “spells” to make their music.

                      Same crossroad, different destination.

                      Uhh, I feel another preacher word uh-huh  Comin’ on - uhh

                     Destin-A-tion! - uh - huh
                     the Power! - uhh
                     of finding your way - huh
                      yaa-suh (congregation interjects)
                     Which way will you Go !? - huh
                     When you get - uh-huh
                     To the Crossroads? - uh

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

melvins daytime gig is playing guitar
his nighttime gig im not sure, cause he a 2 headed man

spell jacking

this what he told me when i asked why 3 blogs
i have enuf trouble handling 1

"Ngewo's Chlid is an alternate energy to snake2G
snake2G is kinda confrontational
Ngewo's Child is much more sagacious and calm and has nothing to prove
Sonic Hoodoo is me talkin about what I know well "

interesting
really got to get my links updated

i like that concept - spelljacking
you gon hear more of that

in struggle

rdoc

WEDNESDAY
preach brother

my first reaction was kneejerk
nagin said what?

but once i heard the soundbites on gods positions:

"surely he doesn't approve of us being in Iraq under false pretences. but surely he is upset at black america also"

i couldnt argue with that
then him and god start indicting black men:

"we are not taking care of ourselves. we are not taking care of our women, and we are not taking care of our children when you have a community where 70% of its children are being born to one parent."

well im thinking, this is rather juicy, then come the real wingdinger:

"I don't care what people are saying uptown or wherever they are. this city will be chocolate at the end of the day. this city will be a majority african-american city. its the way god wants it to be."

o he gon take some incoming for that
and i know, like whitefolk who get caught speaking in code
he gon commence to backing up and clarifying

nonono, i didnt say what you thought you heard
chocolate he saying now is "a combination of dark chocolate and white milk"

thats kind of weak brother, you gon have to dance better than that
elections in a couple of months and folk scattered to the 4 corners
in the past hes depended on white support so he dancing on shaky ground

in spite of my own prophetic aspirations i generally dismiss folk
who got that direct connection to god

but in this case i might let it slide

cause i feel you brother nagin, i feel the frustration
and im glad to get a glimpse of where your heart is in this matter
i was concerned that you was doing the bidding of basinstreet fatcats in this matter
still am but im resting a little easier knowing you got that direct line to god

and forget that chocolate city rhetoric, much too timid,
doesnt have the solidity of "the black belt "

every other major city in the black belt south is majority black
a sisterhood of which new orleans is the mardi gra queen
im assuming new orleans gon be less black but not not black
(like some folk want, nagin aint the onliest one been talking in code)

just as im assuming we gon make a way
out of no way - like god trained us to

in struggle
rdoc

TUESDAY
the days of wine and roses are gone

well, the 1st day of school and me without a syllabus
for my tuesday class, fortunately its a class ive done often
and should have an old syllabus updated by 3

god i loved being a free man
but if you must work for a living, then teaching it is

my approaching to teaching is somewhat mystical
teaching young writers is what i do, getting paid for it is gravy

gon update rootsblogs links this week
and put two columns on rootsblog, one on each side, been wanting to do that
for awhile now, looks more professional to me, but its going to mess up
my formatting and i fear i will have to reformat 2 years worth of posts
thats not gon happen notime soon

okay a couple of quick comments and im off to the plantation
just kind of set them up, issues i want to comment on, flesh them out later

im really pulling for the iron lady of liberia, do your thing girl

has nagin lost his mind, says god is mad at neworleans, whats up with that

haitian elections coming up, born and bred in the usa, no win possible

explosion of the black blogosphere, got to update my links

okay, im feeling a little pressured here, i got to go
im schoolhouse bound

later

rdoc

MONDAY, MARTIN LUTHER KINGS BIRTHDAY
hollywood and the magical negro

hello world, i been working like a fiend
last two days of woodshed and taking no prisoners

was thinking just now about hollywood and the magical negro
some of my hoodoo colleagues are offended by hollywoods
treatment of the magical negro

all the movies where the negro with magical powers
helps some whiteperson become whole

the green mile, baggervance, ghost, the one where morgan freeman plays god, etc etc
i havent seen these pictures cause you know i just dont have the time
for hollywood interps of magical negroes - they probably offend me too

i read one review of bagger vance that said here was a magical negro in the
apartheid south and all he can find to do with his powers is
help some whiteboy with his golf game

but the trope of the magical negro im a big fan of
cause im trying to position hoodoo as the spiritual adviser of america
as the spiritual adviser of the world

reason this is potentially possible is because we are perceived as
one of the worlds magical peoples

like the jews, the nativeamericans, hindu and asians, etc
at our best african americans are perceived in the popular culture as spiritual and magical

this often leads to questionable and sensationalist interps by hollywood
and always in context of whitefolks - but what else do we expect from hollywood
the salient factor is that popular culture considers us a magical people

as do we, at our best

i want to position hoodoo as one of the worlds great spiritual/magical traditions
the worlds acknowledged spiritual advisers, reprising a role the jews have historically played
and manifested through unique mythwork and ideological achievement

to do this my primary goal is rebuilding and empowering africanamerican culture
emphasing its illumination over is equally powerful dysfunction

and a major aspect of that is shaping the worlds perception of it, accentuating the positive
eliminating the negative and hanging on to the in between

so this impression of us as a magical people is right down my alley
ima leverage that into true power

hollywoods interp is part of a cultural perception that will manifest
itself in ways both crude and profound - we just got to accentuate the positive
and leverage everything in the world as a matter of cultural empowerment

my hoodoo mantra is
awaken the sleeper protect the weak guide the strong

that role is possible precisely because the world thinks we are a magical people
and at our best, we are

rickydoc trickmaster
wouldbe prophet of the hoodoo way

speaking truth to the people and bringing down the magic: hoodoo dialogues and rituals of respect

THURSDAY
a million little lies, oprahs on my list too

i been waiting for her to choose another good loving blues

instead she choosing folk like this guy james frey
making him a millionaire instead of more deserving folk like me

turns out that his book is full of lies
that originally it was sold as fiction but nan talese over at doubleday fiddled w/it some
and marketed it as nonfiction  - then oprah fell for the con and did her thing

its now a major best seller
but smoking gun found out most of the juicy parts are still fiction
and bad overwrought fiction at that

i coulda done that if thats what she want
im willing to sell out but nobodys made me an offer

i been ignoring alito

mostly cause i think its a done deal

ever since bork, nominees have known the routine
tell the senators what they want to hear

lazarus in the la times lays out the antibork strategy

"•  Ameliorate past criticisms of popular liberal precedents, especially Roe vs. Wade, by emphasizing respect for precedent;
•  neutralize previous expressions of personal opinion on controversial issues by drawing a bright line between personal beliefs and judicial philosophy;
•  avoid an ideological battle by declining to answer problematic questions on grounds that the issues raised might be the subject of future cases;
•  and mount a public-relations campaign of your own."

the only thing that might cause some bumps in this road
are recent concerns about the presidents claims to be above the law
and alitos history of supporting government authority over everybody

but i dont think thats going to be enuf
i think its a donedeal, but we shall see
folk are really unhappy that weve apparently annointed a king
instead of electing a president

from questionable banana republic elections in florida and ohio
to his belief that he is not subject to americas laws
hes treated americans shabbily, like he some totalitarian wannabe
folk still in a state of denial when it comes to the
imperial presidency of george w. bush

hes arbitrarily stripped them of their rights whenever he could and i still dont
understand what he got against social security in an era when
companies are abandoning pensions plans at will

americans have let this fool get away with murder too many times
now he thinks hes entitled

rdoc

WEDNESDAY

the courage of my convictions &
speaking truth to the people

just when i was thinking about drafting a january rootsletter
and how to position rootsblog for influence on 2006 election

i ran across this article by joe gandleman
on why blogs werent effective in the 2004 election
summary point as follows:

"#1: Blogs in 2004 preached to the choir.
#2 Blogs are polarized.
#3: Blogs are often so partisan that unless you totally agree with them or don’t mind big doses of partisan analysis and demonization (which I actually enjoy reading) it would be hard to get a thoughtful argument that could persuade you and change your mind.

BUT: blogs do help partisans with their world view, organization, campaign information and morale
.
--Blogs are a NEW form of journalism rapidly gaining some respectability — but unless they begin to pay more attention to maintaining their CREDIBILITY by admitting mistakes and searching for even-handed TRUTH versus strictly partisan advantage they will remain marginalized…an exciting, exotic form of citizen journalism with RESTRICTED impact."

the most salient critique of his presentation (i could have done without the caps)
was that bloggers arent necessarily journalists, they are as often advocates

i guess ima advocate
im not interested in a balanced presentation so much

what i like about blogging is that i dont have to pander to nobody
i say what i want to say and how i want to say it - i love that

you have no idea how empowering i find that as a writer
i believe my words are valuable, but the industry/establishment/public
does not seem to value what i have to say - i had no forum

but on my blog i say what i please and i will let fate
and history decide if my words have value

my struggle is having the courage of my convictions
to speak what i really believe to be the truth
instead of what i think folk can handle

guess it all depends on your primary audience
are you preaching to the choir or are you preaching to the world
guess im preaching to the choir

giving my fellow travelers spiritual and strategic advice
is what i call myself doing

but i also want to appeal to sophisticated readers who enjoy the nuances of life
its complexities and its ironies - i want to generate new thought and dialogue and

new paradigms of struggle

dancing on a dime. whose got the time
the eternal search for more gears

received suheirs book, zaatar diva today, schedule it
received doreens book tropical fish today, schedule it

library books:
rethinking the world: great power strategies & international order: schedule it
the slaves rebellion: fiction, history, orature: schedule it
black chicagos first century: finish and return

rest for the weary research:
to awaken my afflicted brethren: david walker and slave resistence: schedule it
the memphis diary of ida be wells: schedule it
nat turner before the bar of judgement schedule it
keep your head to the sky: interpreting african american homeground:  schedule it
wishbone: reference and interpretation in black folk narrative: schedule it
a documentary history of gullah jack pritchard and the denmark vesey slave insurrection: schedule it
working cures: healing health and power on southern slave plantations: schedule it
a treasury of mississippi river folklore: schedule it
granny midwives and black women writers: schedule it
the trouble they seen: the story of reconstruction in the words of african americans: schedule it
the cambridge dictionary of space technology: schedule it
memphis newspapers during civilwar: (many days of microfiche, put it off)

craft:
theory of the novel: new essays: schedule it
analyzing the shortstory: schedule it, may use in class reader?)
why the novel matters: schedule it

discretionary reading:
discretionary reading for the fun of it, who got time for that
actually suheir and doreen come under reading for pleasure of it, at least skim them

manuscripts:
polite emails from bouke and christopher, have i read their manuscripts? schedule it
arrange meetings w/clarence, laura and ling about their thesis manuscripts
newren manuscripts: penda, judy, stacey, rod, sherland, chelsea, felix, mirlande, adanze

projectwork:
january rootsletter: schedule it
move the hoodoo way: schedule it
rootwork.com upgrade: schedule it

got my 1st wave of recs out yesterday, should do schoolhouse paperwork
but im feeling fey today and that energy will flourish or go bad

ima work on rest for the weary today
ima work on the hoodoo book of flowers

may start a draft of january rootsletter, been feeling that lately
gon get to the gym - that will make me feel good

god i hear that clock ticking, semester starts next week, gon be a toughrow to hoe
how can i make it work, put a tentative schedule on it:

mon  schoolhouse
tue    schoolhouse day, sculpture evening
wed   schoolhouse
thur   schoolhouse day,  mediawork evening
fri      rest for the weary
sat    rest for the weary   
sun   alternating projectwork/days off

thats really not enuf schoolhouse time, not nearly enuf class prep time
tues & thurs i teach, i got a day of prep scheduled but one day dont get it
those schoolhouse daze gon be crunch daze - gon have to be a teaching machine
on those daze

cause i got to schedule mytime
i need 2 days for rest for the weary, takes 1 day just to focus

and got to do projectwork cause well i just got to: 
thehoodoobookofflowers, the hoodoo way, rootwork.com, the hoodoo hands, newren workshop, rootsletter, strategic articles, etc etc - my ideological orchestrations are nonnegotiable - i live for the game

and thesis, i forgot about thesis, i got three, thesis work got to take prominence on project daze and everything is subject to disruption during application month  (approx 500 stories to read and assess)

ima try to schedule an hour each morning for webwandering/rootsblog (40) and home exercise (20)
ima try to schedule an hour each morning for novelwork (just enuf to keep the wheels greased)
ima try to schedule a daily hour for gymwork on 5 days im not actually teaching

3 hours a day gone already

be lucky to make this stick on schoolhouse daze, ima be crunching i know
but i tend to spend a couple of  hours webwandering every day anyway,
ima try to be more disciplined with my webwandering and split that time into useable slots

and days off have to be scheduled
otherwise i will take them anyway and feel undisciplined

this schedule doesnt give any of my obligations enuf
but until further notice i can live with it

and as you can see aint no time for socializing
all the little schoolhouse activities can do without flowers

one of the benefits of tenure is not having to shuck and jive
the student reading series is the only one ima make time for
and cursed obligatory committee work

so i will implement this schedule as of tuesday
temptation everyday will be to go off schedule but if i keep to this schedule
i can maintain my responsibilities - just barely but sometime thats the way it is

sometime all you can do is hang on by the skin of your chinny chin chin

as for today and the rest of the week up to mlks birthday - im stonewalling
strictly rest for the weary,  maybe a little hoodoo book of flowers
maybe a little project work (draft jan rootsletter?)

strickly mywork
ignoring the sratching of wolves at the door

today im hanging tough

TUESDAY

cultural dysfunction and ghetto lit

nick chiles seems to have hit a nerve with
this recent nytimes op ed on ghetto lit

ive seen passionate responses by nbwc's brenda greene
from jill nelson and patrick bass of essence and others
all decrying the commercial rise of ghetto lit

interesting

the preponderance of ghetto lit
make folk feel like we losing the cultural wars
the perennial struggle between african american illumination
and dysfunction

the commercialization of afroam literature is problematic
but not a problem

used to be afroam lit had to be serious to exist
now it will support any manner of genres, thats probably progress
a maturation of the genre - and the culture

but for those of us who live and die literature
for those of us who understand the power of culture
to shape our destiny

it hurts

mostly because it so baldly depicts an african american cultural
dysfunction that we are all fighting against

but we cant be sitting around crying about it
time marches on, and what we dont like we got to finesse

as for ghetto lit, as long as a significant part of our culture resides there
its gon be reflected in the mediaverse, literature, film, etc, im not gon let it bother me

doesnt change anything, we still got to transform the culture, empower it
symptoms of dysfunction are just an unfortunate sidegame

and as for the squeeze it puts on literary works
literature has always had to make a way

just the nature of the obstacles that change

in struggle
rdoc

big dreams and magic

i was thinking about magic
how me and sentalein brought the magic down in nairobi

and was thinking about one of my characters, angel
how she gets excited about this holyground mystery because it brings magic
into what she been perceiving as a humdrum life
samesame her attraction to the conjureman and his to her

and i have that being an issue with her, this hunger for magic in her life
and i was thinking this morning im going to play that a little harder
got to complexitize it, try to go deep in terms of character and theme
make it a problem instead of an answer

but it is precisely because its a question without an answer
that gives me room to play

help make this novel speak to everybody in the world
(esp african americans) who want a little magic in their lives

whatever that is

what angel brings into highjohns life and he in hers
how getting involved in this historical/destinical mystery transforms
her into a reality greater than her own & informs her destiny, her fa

or something like thatt

i dont even know what questions to ask at this point
not til i start playing with it

but i do know its something we all hunger for on some level
a little magic in our lives

im gon enjoy playing with this
and in doing so maybe bring a little magic
into my readers lives

cause i want this book to be a mighty spell
that annoints everybody it touches
i want this book to be rest for the weary

MONDAY
a sack full of goodies

found this most interesting site
by following incoming links
africaspeaks.com
it is just full of goodies

a group of commentators, west indian apparently
most of their commentary is west indies and south america
when i get a moment ima dig in, looks like a good meal

will put it on my links when i get that moment
got to update my links, part of 2006 spring cleaning

right now buried in recommendations
my students broke thru the wall

their deadlines coming up next week
and i been putting them off since last year
their emails starting to get a little panicky

im very fond of them, so i try to give good recs
take a couple of days, get that off my plate
havent done some paperwork i owe the dept either

stonewall is crumbling, but its fixable
still good for a the rest of the week, mlks birthday
is generally a good workday

some quickies, flesh them out later

the mighty kong
i assume thats a riff on congo

guess you know about wal mart, i was going to let it slide
cause it was just a computer glitch but still its tantalizing isnt it

apparently when customers bought the flim planet of the apes, wal marts website
asked them if they were interested in other african american themes

big stink as you can well imagine and they took it down

with wal marts rep as the 600 lb gorilla in the room 
they should have linked planet of the apes to their own homepage

would have been even cuter if they had linked afroam w/king kong
white racism dont get no more primal than king kong

the world turns

whoever would have thought we would be regret ariel sharon
leaving the israel/palestine stage

fate can be so perverse

thinking of fate

i think i will focus on fate and fa this year
little while back rudy put that on my mind cause he
had just read the african by courlander and was suddenly deep into Fa

and i remembered that had been my response to reading that book too
all of a sudden my Fa was important to me and i remember thinking
that for a book to be able to do that was deep

i have since questioned ifa folk about it, read about it, tried to live it
but you never feel like you have encompassed such a fundamentally cultural concept
and the ifa folk real twisty about giving up true fa knowledge

but ima develop me an african american interpretation of Fa

as some of you know - i been working on this divination system
and im structuring the hoodoo book of flowers as a companion text

something along the lines of the ifa corpus, the iching - my primary models for this Work
also the craft of power by rgh sui and the sacred tarot by the brotherhood of light

trying to write a hoodoo sacred text, a hoodoo holybook based on a sacred history of the blackworld

i consider this a lifework, just keep working on it until the day i die
over a 20 year period ive tried a biblic format, tried a koranic format, tried an iching format
none of them worked but less approached the luminescent

decided there are no useable models for holybooks, each one is intimately tied to its culture
an african american dvination structure influenced by sui is what im working on now

while i was in lamu i changed the 7 point structure (7 x 7) to a 9 point structure (9 x 9)
one because it gave me more movements to play with (49 vs 81) and i
had found the 7 point structure to be too restrictive 

and also because of something i read on cat yronwoods luckymojo site
she said that hoodoos were fond of the number 9 and i thought
back on my oraltrad knowledge and my hyatt reading and that resonated with me, 9 it was

shes got a lot of good material on that site
i have her book, hardback, and ive found it useful

shes one of the foremost hoodoo historians on the board
and is probably the acknowledged authority in hoodoo today

i got to move her aside

i reached out to her a couple of times, (her and rose bird)
as i identify contemporary hoodoo authorities i reach out to them

i figure the hoodoos w/21st century game should be dialoguing
or at least know each other - perhaps even become friends and colleagues

she dismissed me
treated me like a supplicant

well, thats okay, no problem
im the hoodoo future

but the problem comes if yronwood is considered the reigning authority
and she dont acknowledge me - well then she cant be the authority can she

that seem selfevident
(thats the way i feel about literary and political authorities too)

been a trend in afrospiritual traditions in the west of whitefolk, both sincere and not
coming into our traditions and because of superior organizing skills and/or resources
becoming the acknowledged authorities

then they come up with this stripped down version of the tradition that no longer
serves a cultural purpose, strictly witchery

archival hoodoo

but they become such powers folk scared to speak truth
now i acknowledge cat to be one of the sincere ones
so she can be 'an' authority, but not 'the' authority

if she the authority and she dont acknowledge me
then shes standing in my way
and if you standing in my way, you got to go
or at least move over

any hoodoo authority that dont acknowledge me got to de legitimized
thats how the game work - i will decide which seeds to nourish and which to deny

but you know on the real side if i want to engage folk in dialogue
i dont need to be making no enemies of them

i take back everything i just said
sometimes you just have to restrain
that left hand

rdoc

carrying the load

check out prometheus 6 when you get a chance
i like the quality of that brothers mackeroni

one of the things i like about him is that he
is hard to pin down politically, i admire that
when its done well

one thing we true believers have to do is not
be afraid to go against the grain

this is the 21st century and the old verities
just wont get it no more
we got to come up with brand new game

when you in contention with a stronger force
you got to outtrick em

which means you got to try brand new strategies instead
of  going along with the old strategies
and the folk with vested interest in maintaining them

i havent seen the new strategies of the 21st century yet
million folk marches, black capitalism, political power,
a lot of blackfolk whining to each other about how bad it is
and that all time loser, reparations

theyve all been tried (reparations - think affirmative action, welfare, etc)
they okay and necessary but by themselves they wont get us to the promised land

but the black neocons, some of whose ideas are valid
are clearly just political whores with questionable intent
selling themselves cheap

this brother trying to struggle thru to observations
that factor in evolving conditions of the 21st century

i dont always agree with him but he got integrity
thats all i ask

i feel the same way about debra dickerson too
i know folk gon jump on me for it but i agree with a lot of what she says

i like the issues she raises, her concern with the ethics of struggle
and blackness -she like myself is a destiny player

i dont agree with all her conclusions and some of them
i disagree with emphatically but thats the nature of the game

when you willing to step on new ground sometimes you gon stumble
but she dealing w/issues we got to deal with as we prepare for the 21st century

that said i havent read her book (just went on amazon and ordered it)
im going based on what ive read about it
and some dialogue we had, i reached out to her too
samesame prometheus

i want to dialogue with the true destiny players of my times

specially those who understand that its a new day
with new instruments of empowerment to be figured out

i want to know whats going on
im gon keep my finger on the pulse

i will reach out to anybodyi think can school me - with all due humility
some folk engage, some folk dismiss me

their loss

im outta here
i got to do these recs
got to get them off my plate

later

rdoc

i works the soul

MONDAY
i works the soul

hello world

just got back from brooklyn
had a good newren workshop
its really growing well
workshops are such a longgame thing
that sometimes you wonder

but we got some good strong writers in there
and we been working lately on preparing the next generation,
most of us now are in our 50s, oldschool warriors still hitting that lick

and we didnt have but a couple of youngsters
so we been concentrating on young talent
we 50 odds figure we got about 10 good productive years left before
we start getting shall we say tired
(hopefully 20, 30 or more, but 10 we can count on)

and im real pleased with the young folk we been
gathering, some good and true talent

got to work on structuring a strong institution to
leave them

those of you who know the history know that i was once
exec dir of the harlem writers guild, a 50 year old institution
ran into some problems with my youthful enthusiasms
and got tossed,

when they tossed me, my whole generation of writers left with me
the real writers, the ones that really cared

they bet on flowers
just couldnt leave me hanging in the wind by myself

the harlem writers guild put out an anthology recently
and didnt include me or my generation, they excommunicated us - that hurt

so me maintaining and taking newren to higher ground
this an act of redemption for me

plus that john o killens, my mentor, was a founder of the guild
i remember a delegation of us going to john and asking him if it was okay if we broke off and started a new guild and him saying okay

just maintain

i was trained to approach this workshopping thing as part of building black institutions

john tried to build into african american literature an infrastructure
that facilitates the nurturing of committed black writers and thinkers

literary visionaries
you train a strong artist/visionary and no telling what they will contribute

(samesame hoodooman, my specialty is unleashing artists - then they produce a healthy body of work and its just grows and grows)

a lot of that is passing on what each generation in the tradition learns to the next generation
i would not be who i am today if i had not been the beneficiary of john o killens life
of struggle and service - and he of the ones who passed it on to him

ive reached that point in my artistic and hoodoo life where passing it on to the next generation
is as important as getting my own work done

i cant let john o, the newren crew, or my literary tradition down
every month i trek on down to the city
finances, weather or weariness, dont nothing stop that show (unless the crick rise)

ima do whatever i got to do to take
that operation to higher ground

whenever you get hammered
when you regroup you got to regroup on higherground
then its all progress, all part of the growing process

that way adversity is transformed into strength
thats what the blues is about

i got to go, got to get todays work done
just wanted to get a post started

my hit numbers been growing since katrina
i got to maintain that

gon be interesting to see what my next phase gon be
i can feel a new level of engagement coming down
i think cause i been in the woodshed and the things i work out in
my novels i generally try to manifest in the 'realworld'

the effort of which feeds back into the authenticity of the novel

prophecy for instance
its a difficult process to explain, maybe later

today im feeling fey today like i sometimes get
dont know where this post will go this week

reason i started this post is i was back there ripping these two tapes
i found at the library:  one - violin, sing the blues for me: african american fiddlers 1926 - 1949
oldschool violin blues, im really enjoying it too

seems the violin was the instrument of choice for african american
musicians until the 1930s or so when the guitar took over

the other - clasic blues: recordings of the smithsonian collection
and im reading the liner notes, right - its been such a music education reading the liner notes
of the 1000s of cds ive listened to since i discovered the public librarys stash

and there was this quote of roosevelt sykes that spoke to me
both as a bluesman and a hoodooman (for me thats always been a paired set)

"now some people dont understand.  they think a blues player has to be worried, troubled to sing the blues.  thats wrong.  ill put it this way: theres a doctor, he has medicine.  he aint sick but he has stuff for the sick people.  so the blues player, he aint worried and bothered, but hes got something for the worried people.  doctor you can see his medicine you can see his patient.  blues you cant see the music, you cant see the patient cause its soul.  so i works the soul, and the doctor works on the body"

thats me
i works the soul

as some of you know my daddy was a prominent medical doctor in old memphis
back when being a black doctor was a big struggle and achievement

believe me, i know

id love to tell his story but im shamed to say
i just dont know it that well
does any man ever really know his father

but i do know he had this abiding sense of responsibility for the health
of the colored folk of south memphis

one of my favorite lines, i use it every chance i get
was one i heard as a child:

doctor flowers still own half the kids on the southside
cause they havent been paid for

ive always wanted to walk in his footsteps
thats what i call myself doing as a hoodoo doctor
he worked the body, i works the soul

rickydoc flowers
spiritdoctor

awaken the sleeper
protect the weak
guide the strong