Fighting Poorly and Losing Greatly

I’m tired of so many things for so many reasons, but I can’t say his name, and I can’t think about what San Diego means or doesn’t mean, or what Walter Scott’s case means or doesn’t mean, or what Alton Sterling’s case means or doesn’t mean.

I can’t say Black Lives Matter because I’m too tired of making a point of asserting our right to being seen as part of humanity when I am dealing with the limitations of my own humanity, my own failings, my own need to assure myself that I’m doing more good than harm in this world, to this world.

I can’t talk about self-care because it’s become a meaningless term until the collective we of this world society community begin to clearly see the ills of this world society community—even as we make up and contribute to those ills.

I can’t talk about self-care as I look to numb myself with the numbing agents of the body, mind, and soul. No drug feels as good as avoidance; there’s no high better than denial.

I can’t talk about the ills of capitalism as we all rat race for bigger, more, and newer, for financial security, if such a thing exists. I can’t talk about the ills of patriarchy and misogyny as I continue to benefit from and support them both; as I continue to work through my own shxt around desire and need and acceptance and ego.

And I can’t continue to believe that there will be a workable world 100 years from now, because I honestly don’t think there will be one and all I can say to the future is: I’m so fxcking sorry. We failed you. This didn’t happen on our watch, but we’re the last ones that can stop it and we’re either not fighting right or losing poorly or both and we’re about to dine and dash and leave you at the table in your high chairs and that’s beyond fxcked up.

I also can’t continue to feel like this because this, too, shall pass. But I can say it while I feel it because I can’t continue to act like I don’t feel certain ways when I do, even when I know the mood will go.

While it’s here, I can say that saying I can’t is a choice and I can make better ones.

I can’t say his name right now because that’s a choice and I can’t say how the continued murder of my sons scares me because I just don’t have the words for it and that’s how terrorism works: by robbing us of language and hope and emotion and breaking us and breaking us and breaking us until we cannot function in our own lives. But we can continue to contribute to the ills of this world society community, and we can continue to lust after the drugs of capitalism and ego, and we can continue to benefit and contribute to the systems that don’t oppress us directly even if they oppress our wives and teachers and healers and sisters and we, in turn, oppress them by doing everything short of throwing our bodies into the gears of the machine.

I’m either not fighting right or losing poorly or both.

I can say that much.

And I can only hope that doing so, that saying this now, while it’s here, makes up for some of the harm that I do in this world, to this world.

We fxcked up. And I’m so fxcking sorry.

Leonardo da Vinci Flows

On the fine arts-heavy “Picasso Baby,” Jay refers to Basquiat at least three times by three names, once saying “I’m the new Jean-Michel.” He begins the song claiming, “I just want a Picasso” and ends saying “I’m the modern day Pablo Picasso, baby.” Taken linearly, it’s a mess of ego. But comprehensively, it’s all insatiable radiant child cubism — poignant signifiers of ghetto brashness juxtaposed with impressionistic images of intergenerational wealth creating the collage of an identity that’s yearning to be accepted, but unwilling to be acceptable.

Mein Kampf

I’m too much dope dealer for rap niggas/ Too much closer to every trap nigga/ I’m just preaching facts, nigga/ I’m more biased to the coke-dealing coupe drivers/ And bad bitches steered wrong by their loose mamas…

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a drug called Charlie Sheen is the Spirit of Truth

Naturally, I’m referring to this guy.

Because there’s definitely something off about both men. But there’s also something very on. And I don’t think the people who are referring to Sheen as bi-polar have the credentials to do so. And those who do are not referring to him as such because, well, that would be irresponsible. You don’t watch a 15-minute interview, listen to a few radio interviews and come up with a professional diagnosis. Not in the real world, anyway. Maybe on Lie to Me or some other procedural where they have to squeeze a story into a formula, but not here. This is the Charlie Sheen show. And it probably won’t last for long.

Queens Lost.

Stuff like this upsets me, mainly because Steve Stoute, whose creatively profitable career  has been based on getting a percentage of the profitably creative careers of musicians, should know better than most people that the people producing the Grammy show and the voting body behind the Awards themselves are entirely different entities with separate goals in mind.* He even says as much. Which makes his whole argument pretty much bullshit.