Cheesy Rat Blues

I am speaking for myself and for many others, none of whom have given me permission. Get your own blog and type with your own cat sitting next to you.  ******* Some of us were raised to believe that keeping your head down was the best way to make it to another day. That making it to another day was that hard, and it was that important, and it was all one could do when it was all you had within you.  Some of us grew up knowing those before us struggled mightily and often by sliding through cracks in the door and found the toe-holds in the wall to push off from and chart a path. That we did not have to find those toe-holds, but put in the effort and be grateful, thankful, blessed to have a path towards survival if not a path towards thriving (so long as that meant buying it all). We grew up not as much with struggle as with the ethos built from the struggle: work hard, find the cracks, keep your head down. Some of us learned, saw, experienced, or otherwise were hipped to the kno...

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live. We live entirely by the impression of a narrative line upon disparate images, the shifting phantasmagoria, which is our actual experience.” -Joan Didion "The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something." -Kurt Vonnegut "White supremacy has taught him that all people of color are threats irrespective of their behavior. Capitalism has taught him that, at all costs, his property can and must be protected. Patriarchy has taught him that his masculinity has to be proved by the willingness to conquer fear through aggression; that it would be unmanly to ask questions before taking action....

  What are you reading or listening to these days? Me? Well, until they ban us from learning how to read or start censoring music, I'm glad you asked: Reading Notes and Tones: Musician-to-Musician Interviews, by Art Taylor Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black America, 1945-2006 (3rd edition), by Manning Marable Kafka (graphic novel), by Nishioka Kyodai Hyperdimensional You: Surfing the Shift Toward Mastery, by Bob Cochran Listening The Roost Session (1990 Remastered Version) - Bud Powell Monkeyman - Kurious / Cut Beetlez My Foolish Heart - Keith Jarrett Black Bastards - KMD Newest bottle of sip Wild Turkey 8 year 70th Anniversary Release 2009 15 year Signatory "Secret" Speyside Cask Strength Scotch (probably Macallan) - refill Oleroso Sherry Puncheon cask Go pour something, play some music, read, and do something they don't like. Like thinking about action steps. Or just looking dope as fuck and expressing your creativity. 

  Back in my college days (the baggy 90's) the state of California unleashed a campaign of anti-Latino and anti-brown people propositions, evidently because we had taken up too much space at public universities, too much tax funded resources, and too much education curriculum. Proposition 187 (not to be confused with the original version of the Dr. Dre song Deep Cover, called "187", or the producer Dr. Dre ripped off the g-funk sound from, Cold 187um) was governor candidate Pete Wilson's way of making immigrants and Latinos the body snatchers invading our state coming for your kids, their money, their safety, and more. Proposition 209 was Wardell Connerly's way of making sure if you were not white, you were reminded as such and stayed out of college. And a software millionare named Ron Unz decided he knew more about how humans learn language and promoted proposition 227, which smacked kids across the hands with a ruler whenever they didn't speak English. Over ...

  So now what? The pendulum of bullshit has swung again, powered by 400 years of our own special brand of disconnect and myth. What I'm calling the election of Whites and Wallets. Joe Strummer time? Nah, more like Charles Mingus meets Chester Himes meets Worf, with a cultural bat'leth. But first we commune. We are still allowed to read and swing. We shall!