This piece is about my process of criminalization and the effect it had on my sense of goodness because of the various weight the law culturally carries depending on whether one is acting inside the law or outside of it at any particular moment. This valued sense of goodness comes from the idea that as black people in this country, if goodness is a value, we begin in the hole, and for the sake of self sustainability, attempt to work our way back before we work our way above. The work I had done to avoid this was lost with this process and led to a reevaluation of what goodness, criminality, abuse and addiction truly is. The urgency stems from the hardship of dealing within my shattered world as I am one more mistake from prison time.
1 am
Once again, I am at peace. I am beginning to fall in love with this time of the day. When all the day is behind me and I am just free to feel good and dream. I know part of it today was not only meditation, coffee, tea, dark chocolate(?) but also the midday rest, the talk with my brother and the process of making music in solitude. The music sets me free in a way I can’t explain. When I have created something I enjoy, anything seems possible.
Talking to my southern sweetheart was good for me too. She is my angel it appears and I haven’t been the best to her. I appreciate her though and will try my best to reciprocate in some form.
Excited about the piece now. Once the music and blocking gets solidified I think we will have a strong excerpt. I don’t even know if Bamu will know how dope it is until its performed. I’m beginning to see it though. And that’s the first step.
B said the name of my play for the first time today and for the first time, it rolled off someone’s tongue the way I hoped for..
What a day. After an incredibly peaceful night, I woke up in a horrible state. Had a dream that I was watching the bitch we do not speak of having sex with the spitting stutterer on some love seat. Once she saw that I was watching she asked him to cum inside of her. So fucked up. Nastier stuff happened but now that I am making this journal public, I feel like I would be betraying my subconscious if I fully disclosed. But the peace that I had last night was so strange and strangely, I was beginning to feel the headache right now that I felt last night that seemed to phenomenally catapult me into a state of peaceful disconnectedness. I saw everything as trivial and I was fine…with everything. I felt very close to that tonight as I was on the roof of Adriel and Nico’s apartment. I was relaxed and focused and carefree. This however was not attained without a violent internal war that at its climax led me to deep despair.
On the way from Philly to New York to interview for the DTW artist-in-residency program (I did good by the way, but I wasn’t feeling the love…), I met a girl who grew up with a mile or two from where I did. I found this out only because she sat next to me and I was starving. I asked for her other half of the sandwich she was eating and she was more than happy to give it to me. We seemed to have a good start, but I got the sense she wasn’t interested or had a boyfriend , and then I got quiet. I wanted to stay true to my resolutions of not risking my heart in this vulnerable state. I thought at first that this was the answer to my loneliness. She was cute. But that would have been too easy. Thinking of it now, I should have just gave her my card. Maybe she’s on facebook though. Her name was Natasha I believe. She went to Drexel. Couldn’t have been no coincidence. And if there was nothing else to it, maybe it was God just saying, I’m here…again. And Lord knows I need that…
Bamu and I had a good talk about this piece today. Start discussing the second act of play, which begins deconstructing the language used to defend the criminality of drugs in the law. The sole use of the word “abuse”, we exchanged, excluded very necessary and relevant words that might make that argument less convincing. These words are “absorption”, “indulgence” and “addiction”. The work of the second act will be to bring out the grays between drug abuse and drug abstinence. There’s so much to do but he seems to be riding with me. I feel him. It’s not close to being there despite the fact that I have put so much of what I can do into it already. I hear him – even in what he’s not saying. But it’s like he’s my echo. Doesn’t need to tell me it’s hot but feels it. Pushes me to greater and greater and has no doubt that no matter how absent my full potential may be right now, it will eventually show up. That’s what I hear in what he says and how he acts. I love that. I want to pull it together for him. Even though everyday may be a new struggle in getting over Cruella, in dealing with the lowest point of loneliness, and trying to not be overwhelmed by how much work must be done to bring this project to life in a timely manner, if I can reach this point of peace every night, I will push through for that. I love these glimpses and I pray for more of it.
My residency with Bamuthi has begun. I don’t know if he likes it as is but I believe he does. He is suggesting a lot of work though – which I’m down for. It’s just right now, the coffee has exited my body and the depression is re-entering. I told that intimate stranger over text message that I wouldn’t be talking to her again because of the promise she broke and the coldness she suddenly enacted upon me. I am struggling to imagine me never talking to her again and finding peace without ever knowing if she feels truly bad for the bond she forced me to sever irreparably. I am struggling to imagine myself trusting another women – and maybe even – another person with anything. And then I struggle with imagining how much loneliness that will force me to endure. I can only POSSIBLY trust myself and maybe my mom, my dad and my brother (Yonatan as well) so I feel like that must be with my circle as I attempt to heal. I know this could get boring very quick so then I am overwhelmed with imagining how I will manage. I wonder if I will stay true to my resolutions. Can I give up my search for a loving partner the way I have given up weed and alcohol? At what point will my boredom break me? When I get to the point when I am not so filled with rage and hurt towards this alien I once was in love with, how long will I have to go until I’m not curious if she thinks about it and/or regrets her decision? When will my need for companionship overwhelm my need to not be vulnerable to seemingly worthy candidates? Will I find my love? Or will I settle like settled for this alien; where I ignore her inhumane features for convenience sake. Will I get to the point again where this is just good for now? I am scared.
Bamuthi just asked, “It’s hard huh?” It is. I re-enter this process having done so much work only to find out that there is way more to do. I know all I have to do is make it through this moment simply with the acknowledgement that all I will have to ever do is make it through moments. They won’t happen all at once like they are in my head. I guess I just want to make it through today. Keep it real, I wish a month would go by already so I can build some confidence to rest my doubt upon. I’m just dealing with so many unknowns right now. Again…who am I?
And we’re back. Along with a cast of superstars comprised of Brook Yung (HBO’s Brave New Voices), Daveed Diggs (The GetBack), Mike Turner (Phresh Pham), I will be performing in Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s breakthrough play Word Becomes Flesh tomorrow and Saturday at the Painted Bride in Philadelphia.
It’s going to be dope.
Don’t believe me? Check this out! (Just found this on Vimeo!!!)
We dropped this YESTERDAY. But for the same reason that we impulsively dropped the music video we’ve been holding onto for so long, I forgot to post it.
Directed by iLL-Literacy & Karen Lum • Edited by Mandel Lum
http://www.youtube.com/user/shiaproductions • http://shiaproductions.com
Insofar as the irony of “retro-futurist 80s rebel pop” was too overwhelming to recreate in sound or iconography, the band known as iLL-Literacy has either speciously or insightfully (maybe both) opted for sample-inspired, bass-driven electric gospel funk in the form of their new single, “Gentleman’s Kool-Aid.” The soymilkbuttasmooth lead track is both a reflection on the warped and often glennbeckianized historical narratives of what it means to be a “gentleman”, and perhaps a confession of the fragile ecology of male ego. Let’s call it pollution of the Egology, otherwise known as “drinking thine own Kool-Aid.”
whatever slaps.
whatever makes the ass move.
whoever screams the nastiest
obscenities at you.
Yes, you bitch
talking that “i know he ain’t talking to me”
but yes you do
cuz you do
exactly as i tell you to…
and somehow
you don’t feel small
when i call you lil’ mama
or ‘shawty’
or when I tell you to get low
get lower
I said bitch bend over
for me.
of course.
so coarse.
This is the generation hip-hop.
And i KNOW you like it rough.
you seen dame dash pouring champagne
on some chick
and then r. kelly piss out the same color on another
this hip-hop
and ain’t nothing wrong
with a lil’ bumping
and grinding.
As long as the condom on
no wonder it ain’t as raw.
i mean
generation hip-hop
we must love it.
dressing up
to go clubbing
every weekend
looking for someone
who could freak them
like the music cumming
from the speakers.
you know it’s hard
pumping
loud
banging
fast
but ultimate-ly
nothing that last.
this is the lasting legacy
of generation hip-hop.
where calling you baby
sounds bitch-like
and calling you bitch
sounds like baby
no more baby making music
but still we making babies to it
wayne call baby dad
and your baby dad think he wayne
you think he gonna act like a father
he was just stunting like a daddy.
He told you to call him big poppa
Not no father
this is the cult-ure
of one night stands
promoted by
one hit wonders
hit once
and never wonder
what she look like
who she be
whats the
number
what’s the number?
let me think
let me think
Oh yeah that’s right
it’s the loneliest one you will ever sing
he tryin to get to you AND that booty
like it’s two different things.
cuz who needs a cute face
I mean, cum on
You know
just a fat ass
for comfort
to provide comfort
against the roughness
the shaking
the pain
the degradation
that for some reason
feels so good
it feels so exhilarating.
Cuz you know
Chris brown still making hits
I mean, he still making slaps
I mean, you know, that shit is making it bump
I mean, you know, It’s just something bout that
Beat
It’s something bout that beat
It’s something about that beat, you know
Generation hip-hop
what’s
gotten into these
kids
this jungle music
jungle fever
the beast screams
for something harder
something faster
something rougher
something nastier
nothing deeper.
A more fitting description would be an “entertaining complainer”. Like a poet, however, I am very precise with my words; shaping every sentence to maximize its sonic and content value. It was disheartening, then, when I would be asked to speak the words I had so carefully joined together only to be told that some of the words are BAD and that I should not say them. It would be especially upsetting being told this five minutes before I’m set to perform at a step show where some Black Greeks would be skirting off the stage to the Ying Yang’s “Whisper” song. It would be especially upsetting when I would have to re-imagine my entire poem two minutes before I’m being introduced to a group of East Oakland high school students murmuring, “who the fuck is this nigga on stage?”
I wondered who had deemed these particular combination of letters so detrimental that regardless of context, purpose, or intention, it was absolutely necessary that they be hidden from our youth and only uttered in private? Who had exiled these words from the English language?
All I knew and all I ever knew is that this is how it was and apparently how it would always be. Nobody questioned or challenged it. This was law. No, wait, it was even bigger than that. This was scripture.
Except it wasn’t.
It was something that was just kind of added in. You know, like, Jesus had blue eyes or that God looks like Santa Clause.
I say we stop lying to our kids. I say we stop mixing arbitrary law with purposeful law. I say arbitrary law should not be accepted in a society where only purposeful law is needed. I say we stop demonizing what we will abuse to punish ourselves and others with when we are most destructive. I say we judge the harmfulness of language by the expressed meaning and not by the inclusion or exclusion of a set of prejudged words. And most of all I say fuck, shit, ass, damn, and bitch when I need to say it. Because sometimes I need to say it. Just like I would need to say any other word that would help to capture this world from my very particular perspective.
