Thoughts on Tour...Pittsburgh, PA

It's been another six months, so i figured i'd write another blog...



It's tough when you love living life, you're own way of course, but then try to find time to do things like this. Write about experience. The experience of writing. I love writing, moreso lyrics than details of the everyday. Moreso poems than the purposes. There is a difference.



Do you take pictures with your soul, or with a contraption?

Do you document trials with words or with scars?

Do you spread seeds to make a living or to leave a legacy?

There is a difference.



My selfish nature is something i grapple with daily, seeking a balance in the polarities of life, in the decisions that define my finite experiences here - whether i like it or not. Sitting in Joy Ike's dining room, I'm enjoying fine o.j. she has purchased, using Adam's computer, eating food that i have helped to purchase, wearing my brothers shorts and underwear he bought for me for Christmas. The only things in this picture that i possess are the shirt that i wear and the body beneath it. Possession can be such a fickle thing; if it wasn't for the people that love me, i might not even be in possession of my own body, as well as the life i live and the things that surround it. I am dependant, and i know it.



Such an idea of independence, or lack thereof, was something that fueled my fire. I was driven by proving the world that i was capable of not needing anyone. On the outside, making decisions that would perpetuate myself worthy of noone else, on the inside seeing the ends of such a lifestyle and the death that would surely follow. The longer you live life, the more you see the divinity in the fact that we are social beings, generations of peoples building upon the experiences of the last, an evolution of sorts, an exponential growth that could tower to infinity, seemingly. We need each other, if only to know how to eat with a fork, but especially if we want to examine the stars - and what you've found is what i'll gain.



As well, i found that i WANT to be dependent, i WANT to be around others, i WANT to experience the touch of another, i WANT to be Wanted. Yeah. And i have allowed that Want to be perverted, to turn into lust, to turn into desire, to transform my dependence to dependancy. I've fiended for the riches of this world, to be the obsession of another, to be depended on - only to fail miserably. Desire is such a tricky thing. One minute you've stumbled upon the pretty face of another, had a meaningful conversation, touched hands, and the next thing you know, all you can think of is that person - BOOM, desire has turned fatal!!! BOOM, your desire to know God has somehow turned into a Tower of Babel.



I've depended on writing, of all things; at one time, calling it my only friend. I could open up to the notepad, place the pen on any page, and whatever came out was accepted. I found that i needed that same exact line of communication from people. Matter of fact, i had an epiphany while writing, that if the people around me weren't willing to listen to my innermost demons, to help me in exorcising the past to embrace the now, then i wasn't willing to worry whether that person was in my life or night. I found a piece of freedom that night that emanates still from my fingertips in each keystroke at this moment. I also found that i could love people without condition because there were going to be things in this world that i could DEPEND on - if only my pen and pad.



Six years later, I have friends, I have family, I have purpose, I have o.j. and turkey burgers, and pretty cool pair of shorts. Thank God.

Mo' later!!

wow, it has been awhile...if anyone reads this, i apologize...actually, no i don't

i'm sorry to anyone who has been caught in the crossfire of my attempts to understand this life, but what has become clear is that mine, maybe not yours but definitely mine, will always be hectic

i'm sitting in the "lab" right now, mad scientist that i am, working on mixing a few songs for the upcoming "Kings of Tragedy" project, sippin' on a lil' something, eating some pretzels, and writing to this bangin' beat that MC Till and i made a few days ago...i'm writing about a various dream sequence that i may have on any given night, and relating it to the positions we put ourselves in - in the conscious world...a lot of times, they are like dreams

round and round we go, where the hectic"ism" stops, nobody knows

here, let me explain

"have-not and has-been

every night i wake up gaspin'

cause i'm trying to climb everest, but ain't been to aspen

knowing anything that i could grasp ain't everlastin'

matter of fact, it's bound to lapse

now i'm lappin'

round the track, fasten the belt, now i'm off

round and back, circle the block cause i'm lost

and how 'bout that, think i'm coming down with a cough

a pound, some dap, 

they lookin' at me like i'm sloth

excuse me brother, 

don't mean to be a choosey lover

but i'm woozy, think i need a woolie, brother

so can i have a nickel, a dime, a smoke, a puff or

drag to ease me and my unruly slumber

it's sad

how never knowing my dad

could put myself in this predicament and plug in the stat

as another number

victim

under 

system

wonder how this world had once loved him, missed him

numbered

victim

under 

God

wonder how this world that once loved him got

lost..."

dreamin...i had a dream...and forgot it when i woke :)

that's it for now...sweet dreams

wonder brown

It's 9:41 in the PM.  Fresno.  California.  

I'm listening to hip hop music, A Tribe Called Quest as a matter of fact, with Sean Little and Adam Hayden...Transcend and MC Till as a matter of fact.

Three things I love very much.  I'm happy.  And, as a part of my nature, wonder why I'm exactly happy.  Should I be happy with what I have, or don't have for that matter, despite the reasons I'm happy?

We're on tour right now, on the road, and I have rapped with these two men seven times in five days.  With more to come.

And I have nothing to really poignant to say, except that if you're reading this, stop, and go do what you want to do with your life.

In a Fog?

Poetry is a passion of mine...like coca-cola, like music, like women, like life, like Jesus. Poetic.

Which brings up a question in my wandering, wondering mind...where do we find the line that defines where words are just words, and where words are alive?  What gives a person the right to say that their words are worth reading?  Worth hearing?  And not just hearing, but listening to and comprehending?

Aaaah, I don't know?  So, nevertheless, i write them, and hope that you read them, and think about them, and that those seeds grow into your own ideals that you'll water and prune.

I want to share a poem with you, one that i recently wrote, and found that it really spoke to me.  See, poems are like inkblots for my everyday sanity.  I can write words, and find meaning in them later.  I believe that most writers actually experience this in some form or fashion: like God's way of getting across to someone who is too busy thinking to listen to Him.  I've seen where psychologists will have people just write and write, and eventually what you find is that what is hidden, behind the surface, is what will come out through writing.  

"San Francisco"

Something was gone
With the rolling of the fog
And the wisp of the warmth
And the lips of my dear
Amidst my long and winding clock
Every tick and to-do
Mistaken for stock
For what was lost
Was what was wrong and what would cost 

The most;
She could not see...
And I could not stop.

I am praying and growing in Christ everyday, and I hope in some form or fashion, that you are doing the same...I love ya'll.  And I will not stop.

Lonesome Dove

it's been a minute since i left you without a dope beat to step to, so i do apologize...is it too late to apologize...tooooo laaaaaaate?

i have to be honest ya'll...i'm in a dark place...it's kinda where i've been in and out of for the last 30 years, and i've found that my road has been, is, and always will be tough...and a lot of times dark...i pray for a lot of patience, a lot of grace, a light at the end of the tunnel, a sign that shows me just what i need to see, a feeling of fulfillment and contentment, a touch from someone or something that lets me know i'm loved...and i get them, all of them, at some point in time, in some fashion, down the line...down this road...and i am grateful, but also still in need

i was thinking or feeling the other day that the act of touching is so underrated in my world...and i lay victim to this perception/misconception...i want touch...moreso, i NEED touch...i think that i have been duped into perverting touch, making it a lustful act, a selfish act, a destructive act, an emptying act...but i have also touched and been touched in ways that have unexplainably affected me and will continue to affect me through infinity

some things are inexplicable...so much so that when we fail to explain, understand or fathom such inexplicables, we give up, or we write them off...i have been guilty of such things...but there is one thing that i have yet been able to explain, but is so magnetic that i MUST have it, that i keep falling and picking myself up for seemingly more failure...that is LOVE...and moreso than LOVE is TOUCH...i feel devoid of it, a victim of the perversion of it - both of my own doing and of the world's fears - and it saddens me

but i pick myself up, to go another go-round...

i am a single man, in love with this life...in love with lives within this life, some moreso than others, but nevertheless, in love...life is worth living for...life is worth dying for...and no one will ever be able to tell me different...that is what i believe...life is a word, though, that means much more than just a body, or an existence...it means desire, it means discipline, it means struggle, it means want, it means need...it is true and it demands perfection...it knows that its demands will not be met, but it demands those demands anyway...it is worth more than our drama...worth more than our wallows...worth more.....YOU ARE A LIFE...worth more

it needs us...life needs us, and our wonder...it needs OUR WONDER...our amazement, our adoration, our public declaration, our closet confession, our sense of style, our lack of answers, our wants for more, our needs for less, our search for balance...it is the fabric of our lives...and we need to touch it...we need to learn how to touch it, to share our experience, to freely give our wisdom, and to know that what we share and freely give are only the beginning

i'm in the midst of recording my first full-length lp entitled "Just Another Wonderful Life"...i could be here for hours describing its intricacies, its meanings, its nuances, but really i want it to be wonderful, just as i think life is...just as i think love is,..just as i think touch is

this is the beginning

Just Getting Started

Just Getting Started has got to start somewhere, huh?

Yes,...yes it can.
So why here, why now, and why, actually at all?

Good question. With the idea of wisdom telling us that the more we know, the less we know, I'll cut the extra mustard that is "I have no actual idea of the who's, what's, when's, where's, how's, and sometimes why's; because God has a master plan and the crumbs get eaten by something, somewhere down the line." and, run-on sentence, actually try to answer the unanswerable. Deep philosophical thought for a second, I would argue that life is so fragile, that in-and-of-itself is unanswerable, like how do we get away with passing twinkies through our bowels or why are we truly here,...those type answers will be answered here.

Wow, this is some ballsy stuff!

I know.

Oh yeah, why here? Simply because, deep down inside, I, as a poet who likes to use a LOT of commas and free from English-ruled thoughts, think I have something to say and that it is worth saying. I had a professor that once told me, personally to my face, tiny particles of her saliva floating through space and coming in contact with my face, that I was full of a male cow's dung if I thought that I only wrote or thought for the sake of my own sanity. In other, shorter words, phrases and such, that I have been "given something that the world deserves to hear." THIS, my web wanderers, from a self-proclaimed believer of nothing; you know, dust after dawn, in the wind to someday settle in someone else's house to cause sniffling, sneezing and asthma attacks - atheist. I believed her, and started shouting out loud, singing not only in the shower and car but in the middle of the mall and at the grocery check-out line, writing everyday since then. She empowered me like no other before. She believed in me, and I thank God for her, and dedicate, among others, everything I write to her. So, for now, we are here because IT is here, and I am allowed. Side philosophical note, the word "allowed," it's essence, is that this is a privilege, that always starts with a circle (of friends, confidants, neighbors or patrons at your local wi-fi spot), but ends at a point in the center. Yeah, wrapping my head around that right now.

We'll ride on camels through needles.

One hump or two hump?

Not sure...whichever one conserves water better.


Why now is another wonderful question, with so much to say. My friend wrote a song called "so much to say," calling it so basically because he said that in one of the first lines of his flow (a tight one at that - i don't really use "tight" so don't thing you caught me in some kind of hip hop faux pas) and exclaimed at one point "just live another day!" And it really is that simple, when I just stop and listen. Today is THE day. Easy to say, but infinitely harder to practice, and although I feel a little stretched trying to bridge the gap, I'm all about trying and believing in the impossible. Someone also said, congruent to my "so much to say" friend, "blessed are those that have not seen, and yet have believed." Yep, trying to wrap my head around that lettuce.

Which kind of answers the last question as well, a two-fer, if you know what I'm sayin?

OH NO, not so fast homie...you ain't getting away with that on this spot!

Life, I've found in my short stint, privileged in some respects, is an open book. I CAN say, no matter who you are or what you've been through or what kind of weapon you're holding at me, that YOUR life should be an open book. Yeah, YOU!!! I guess I'm preaching, but that's how we pass wisdom and understanding on this planet. We pass it around at campfires, in wigwams, or for those of us caught up in the concrete cheese chase, we blog it. Like my man Till said "if you think you got the answers, what's up then?" He's down to listen. I should probably learn from that...but for now, my life is an open book because I'm down to learn from "that." Feel me. That's why this right here, right now, is "why, actually, at all."

I'm inviting you in.

You know...honestly, I'm not sure if I want to come in.

I feel you...me neither...but it's tough getting back through that needle's eye. If you don't want to come in, maybe you'll spare some thread or yarn?