manuvishu video

Shirley Ceasar and the Gospel, Rock Produced

so after a really cool weekend with the vegan, and a number of my friends, associates and kids of all sorts(bela dubby)- i sat down in my easy chair to watch the Cavs. they won, and the day was going pretty much according to plan. cat-naps, mixed in with basketball and reading. i get a text message from my old buddy Mike Pultz (pictured here with guitar) and he asks do you want to see Shirley Ceasar at the Allen Theatre? now alittle backstory - first off, as a child i was a baptist minister. yes. ok stop laughing. from age 13 - 16 i was an actual minister. i gave sermons, spoke at communions, revivals. i baptised a few babies, and did the whole thing.

 i was good at it, my parents made some money off it. i was a performing monkey- ladies fell out with the holy ghost, people got saved off shit i said. it was a trip, and the years after were just as strange for by the time i was in college, i was muslim, and here i stand at 34 yrs old believing in a higher force, but besides that nothing organized. i've come to realize that most of it is the hype that more hype produced. but hey im a big fan of singing, and nobody can rock a house like a gospel singer. no one. so i said yes, and since pultz and i have a similar sense of humor and taste in matters of aesthetic it seemed like a fun idea.

just so you can understand, here's a pic of Pastor Ceasar.

we get there about 45 mins in, and it jumping. black people(37 white folks too, i counted them.)

 of all walks of life done up in they Sunday greatest, looking fine and praising the lord. the house is rocking, and we look like we belong, kind of anyway. we hipster chic, ready to jam. the room sways, and booms like an old barn. there is spirit in the air- a sense of joy, and trembling. the opening acts are cool, they can sang, the bands are sharp, but nothing compares to the command the Shirley displays. it was like watching a sanctified James Brown. she had us in the palm of her tiny hand. amazing, and even though her voice is not what it was when she sang in The Caravans, she has the "it". that thing we marvel in when we witness greatness. of course i ran into people i knew. during a cig break, i saw my brother Lawrence's wife Bridget, and i'm like of course! my brother would marry a white lady with more soul than any of the ladies i saw! she looked like she could be on stage with Shirley- they kinda carry themselves the same way. 

a sidenote of sorts, Leon Bibb(Channel 5 News) was the MC, and the first time i won a Poets and Writers award for a book- he read my poem during the ceremony! Bibb read it with way too much vibrato in his throat, but whatever. when i tried to shake his hand after the award presentation, he walked away saying,  "alright YOUNG MAN! ALRIGHT NOW". just like that- the quiet alright, followed by the booming diss. hilarious. 

i really missed Pultz. i guess all the struggle making BLKtygr work out took its toll so we rarely see each other after almost 4 yrs of everyday. but we fell in like we never missed a beat. fell in and had that duo magic. too many memories for a man as young as me. the ghosts haunt me. i call their names sometimes in the fright of sleep- wait for them to hail me back. they do sometimes, but the regrets come more often than hellos. i wish for silence in my head, a tear is falling now, so i guess this post has done its job.

night.

photoGs

aLIVE, Jeff Dixxx, DelO FI

michael ocampo

jose luna

ghost image of js makkos

Bumpy Johnson video - BLK.fiction LP

Tape DELAY, DELAY, DEALY *(lol. delo fi for the title for this post)

2009 has started with a bang. so news and notes will be forthcoming. i was spending all day yesterday filing out grant papers, and stressing over paperwork. trying to juggle the little cash flow, with the potential of a few years hardwork. ever since i was a young boy i wanted to be an artist. now after all these years, it still feels new, and fun. the challenge to improve always at the forfront of my mind. it seems cliche, but its so true- you have to think about how you grow, or its just the same shit. i dont ever want to be to th

e point where i cannot learn anything because we all know what happens when that mindset drapes over the creative windows.

above is the cover for the BLK.fiction record. i've been going back and forth about the cover, but this is it. no words, just image, and liner notes on back sleeve. thoughts? i think its funny, and sweet and creepy. and it fits the feel of the record, but we have been so wrong before. 

the main release for CLEVELAND TAPES is LaToya Kent's SWEET OIL. a thirty minute soul/electro/beatific angel record. she sounds absolutely wonderful. i'm proud of the weighty lyrics and music. its the best beats i've ever made. 

i think its important that we put forth images of us as thinking, soulful folk. and that she puts across a real woman vibe, cuz that's what she is. none of that poor baby patriarchal sex kitten shit, but a woman with layers, and thoughts and triumphs and mistakes, and confidence, and self doubt. the everything that makes us love women. i feel like for the first time i have women around me as family, friends, and lover(l.dook) that are trying to be full- having real lives. AMAZING.  maybe they were always there, but i was too sick, and silly to see them. yeah, that feels more true.

my heart is heavy with the knowledge of my manhood, and all its fails to be. i want to be better. no DELAY, just TAPE HISS.

i will leak toy's cover soon. and a couple of her videos. 

labor song loop

the above loop is-

part of a series of 3 moving paintings i'm working on for the fact.co.london ArtMakers Fest in June. the actress in the video is my mother. she is such a ham! lol. so the idea is the paintings will be view on 24 inch flatscreens with original music soundtracks that you have the option to listen to, but they cannot be viewed/listened to at the same time. i think that impacts the viewing some with a few arbitrary rules. i participated at this fest in 2001, and i had to fly there right before 9/11. my film, "and he came before sweet Jesus" totally panned so i'm surprised they asked me back. word to the wise - you cannot make a good film by yourself, and have amateur actors too. you have to pick, one or the other cuz if you have to do all the technical jobs, you can direct the actors very well. hence the no amateur rule. 

minute minutia + why can't i pick fucker!

i've been busy the last few days. busy is not something that i actually despise per se, but this kind of busy is based on the needs of more than I. a difficult concept for the individual. when i was a boy, there was an intense lonely, not like i was left in some trailer park for dead, but just a certain aloneness that i remember was very potent. it remains my strongest memory of my childhood. hours and hours of playing alone.

hours of literally not being interacted with. free to not engage in reality, my imaginary life was rich with characters, and animated toys, stuffed animals, action figures etc. 

it wasn't until my mother got hitched again did i realize what i had actually been given. that time alone had fostered an ability to focus intensely for long periods of time on my own agenda. there was no one to share toys, or space with- by the time my siblings were born- i was a very private person. i felt that if you could not gleam what i was up to, then you were probably stupid, and did not deserve my time. i still feel that. but i'm trying to do better.

what the fuck am i trying to say? focus, damn you. the flood of what i wish to say versus the skill to say it. 

so i'm trying this new you tube feature on my sidebar. if you refresh the page a few times, it will show featured videos from my you tube channel. i cant figure out why you tube insists on looping between its own picked content and my channel- something is fucked in the coding of the application, but alas.

L dookie let me use her exercise bike, so i could petal why watching basketball. i rode it last night, excellent - i couldn't even tell i was actually exercising. watch basketball while riding stationary- it just may work. 

VERS LIBRE

*EVEN IF

you know the subject, a writer must provide herself/himself the room to not know, to discover upon careful consideration the "thing" haunting them. it is then, when combined with the individual heart, or mind song that the living poem is created. everything else is abstraction, and however well considered will not speak to the soul of the reader/listener - and therefore will burn away from page and memory after(upon) the initial sharing.

you will read it aloud. and it will vanish. the audience may remember how well(or not) it was performed. the audience may even remember lines, or memorable phrases. but it will not last in time. it will cease to exist until performed again.

QOUTE -

criticism is not a circumscription of a set of prohibitions. it provides a fixed point/s of departure. it may startle a dull reader into alertness.

lets deal with the notion of the "dull" reader-

while Ezra Pound wrote the above in 1911 - the qoute is more relevant now than ever. the advancement of technology has placed close reading at a premium. 

(just so that you are aware, the strategy call "close reading" was used by a racist and sexist academy to keep people of color, and women out.) 

we are not discussing in this essay the historic New Critics, but the absolute nature of a strict "dialogue" with a text. reading cover to cover. leaving your subjective interpretation at home with Granny's Bible, and gleaning all that you need to critique/understand a piece of writing to the actual words written. no metaphor, no allusion brought in by you- the reader.

(we could go on, but i trust you to make bridges where i cannot dear reader! dialogue!)

since schools are vastly underfunded, understaffed etc. - the miles of intellectual fabric- the stuff that made American Modernism such a force of nature was the strength/existence of the public intellectual. the schools of (wo)men who worked with their hands  being closet bibliophiles. entertainment was reading. the world wanted to be modern, and so ideas were Manna. it was that love of reading that made its way down the rabbitthole of the generati so to speak. the list, although Canonical for the most part is a world treasure, and spans the last century. when you toss in a world perspective of this list it begins to overwhelm you(today's seeker) in regards to what/who you should read.

*(bonus question - worth 50 meta-points)

who do you read first? Beckett, Borges, Joyce, or Pound? wait? Cervantes?

many hold the false notion that one must read everything "important". this is a dangerous conceit, and although there is some merit in the sentiment it is sentiment, and sets up a faux barrier for most readers, and allows for old academic definitions to play.

what happens then is -

generations of new writers(keyword NEW) come, but the new reader dwindles leaving fewer folks to sustain the new writer, who becomes jaded by the lack of readership, which breeds a lack of publishing opportunities. which keeps "old" voices in power. 

BOOM.

it always comes back to power, but that is another essay, a fight for another sun.

in the limited public imagination and destroys any potential for a new list represented by the diversity of this, a new century. of course this is the simplified argument/timeline, of course there are other concerns, but the fact of the matter is- 

the less readers, the less good writers

the less good writers, the less good writing

the less good writing, the less good and interested readers

the less readers, the less publications that publish new writing.

the less publications, a lessor public voice.

a lessor public voice, a democracy, a republic shifts

the shift brings world contempt.

greed, faux Presidents  .  .  . 

what must a new writer do?

*(bonus question answer)

depends on if you wish to have a history lesson as well.

if you reading strictly for pleasure- the choice is yours.

if you are reading in a linear fashion, i.e. historically driven - Pound, for Dear silly Ezra discover, and supported at least 15 writers on "THE CANONICAL LIST".

15!

and you can't even support one. 

shame, shame.