origins vol 8...sound's like a whisper...

i'm that nigga you love to hate...

i'm a 36 year-old fair-haired, blue-eyed white boy. A.K.A. the Devil with bonus shaved head to denote nazi. Everything is my fault and i'm living off the fat of that land. All the problems of the world can be boiled to down to what me and my fellow white boys are up to. i get a white boy check every week. i deposit it my white boy bank so i can pay for my white boy food and clothes. When i'm not spending my time pillaging from the less fortunate, i'm playing it cool in the White Boy's Social Club—members only. When i die i will be buried in the white boy cemetery and my estate and effects will be offered to my fellow white boys...

those of you who know me know that's some bullshit...

i'm Slavic-Celtic-Caucasoid from lower-middle class upbringings. i went to public school, i wore hand me downs and my family had to live the guerrilla life until the time i went to college. i worked most of my teenage years to help support myself and to make up what i was consuming from the household—that is when i wasn't occupied with nuclear waste. i am receiving a check weekly, for now, but its no white boy check, and at some point check is going to stop coming...

but peep this. Because this is not about that, at least not on the surface...

when i was in P.S. 33, as young tyke, graffiti and break-dancing were the rage. i did both, neither very well, but when called into duty i can bust out some fresh footwork and a windmill. In the end i left the graffiti to a kid named Jason Stone—i'm sure he had a tag-name like js-one or j-rock or something but i can't remember. Good natured kid who minded his own business for the most part. i remembered he took the early bus since he lived pretty far away from the school. He actually lived closer to 135, it never made any sense, but I met him in 2nd grade and i would have considered us good friends for a stretch back then. He was the graffiti guy. His work was good for a prepubescent. Great letters and even better characters. He carried around a sketch book, filled with his pieces always willing to let a brother take a look. As i would go through them, he would peer over my shoulder while i perused his work. He was like a new father showing pictures of his newborn. He described the inspiration, his style and the difficulties or ease with which each piece was crafted. He also would be quick to point out pieces he felt were 'throw-ups'. They were not to be confused with his elite work. A 'throw-up' is a piece done on a moments notice, no planning, no real basis from which to start with, a celestial inspiration—just the artist with his marker...

i never carried sketchbooks for my graffiti. The best thing that can be said for my graffiti is that it didn't hurt anyone. As a writer, i didn't carry any special special vessel for random thoughts and asides. Nothing for serious writing either, i used whatever i had on me, spiral notebook, looseleaf, receipts, and countless other scraps of paper, pocketed amongst the lint. it wasn't until '97 or '98 that i picked up my first sketchbook and started using that uniform medium for my ideas. Sure, i've continued to litter my waking thoughts and story ideas any place a pencil or pen will mark—i've used ten-pass LIRR tickets to store thoughts, even the inside of cigarette boxes, but when its something substantial, or at least the attempt at something profound or sublime, i use the sketchbook. I'm up to volume 5. When i leaf through the volumes i am always struck by the absolute schlock i have the ability to create. i once wrote a screenplay called The Hit, partly during my breaks at Tower and also in my Biology class. i failed the class, i was arrogant enough to think i wouldn't have to pay attention to the curriculum and still pass the course. No dice. Recently i read it some of it and i realized failing that class wasn't that bad, the epic fail was this screenplay. There are sheets of ridiculous lyrics, alternately spitting venom at my latest enemy and laying rose petals at the feet of unrequited love. While those opus are an atlas of the suffering, apprehension and introverted journey that was my teens and early 20's by no means are they worthy of human eyes, including mine. Even the some of the work i did on a major idea of mine back when i was doing day shifts on metropolitan make me cringe. But you know where this is going...

going through the volumes i've found some throw ups worth revisiting. Quick lyrics, a short dialogue, a rambling tale about a man, a hurricane and his home. All throw ups, in one way or another—hidden gems, waiting to be shined up and put on display...

here's one—

'you say that someday its got to get better, someday its got to be real,

something to put it all together, something with mass appeal,

you can stand on high upon your stool with your elders, or sit on the floor with the kids,

but i can tell you that life is very seldom there to massage your id'

'i can tell you that life is very seldom here to massage you id'...

Your ego, lose it, its a problem. You are going to die, i promise, and when you do everything in your pockets is going to go to your wife, your child, parent, or the dude working the night shift at Potter's Field. That's it. Your ego is going to argue with you and make you think there's some old man in the sky waiting to give a pack of Camels, a fifth of Sauza Tres Generaciones and a free pass to the great gig in the sky. Keep thinking that, is it working for ya'? 'Cause that kind of attitude is pretty selfish, and you're not special enough to be selfish...

see, its the ego that makes you think you need Puff the Magic Dragon to blame the worst parts of your life on. Its your ego that drives you to excess, collect those things, put that guy down, do that chick, watch that dreck, and, more or less, avoid the life you never want to admit you live. Ego is what appalled you when you read the word 'nigga' atop this piece. People, racism is so 1987, haven't you heard, terrorism is the new racism. Fear and hate make you forget that you have strings tethered to your back, i mean; you ever get the feeling that your future has already been written?...

you see, life is very seldom there to massage your id...

at 36 years old i'm am part of the great and holy Generation X. i say i'm part of a forgotten generation. A small, late part of that generation segment, that doesn't quite fit. i'm old enough to remember the gas lines, but only to understand them in retrospect. Old enough to remember Iran Contra, and Black Monday, but not yet be of age to have a voice worth listening to. Desert Storm, and legislative stand-offs i was of body and mind but without experience. When the eastern air was bereft of defense i stood on the promenade deck of Arthur Ashe Stadium when i watched the buildings burn and then disappear into the haze of smoke, panic and death. i was helpless, but we all were...

these days we stand before a precipice of something epic. This is not just about a recession, or a war, or the Real Housewives of Atlanta. This is about the way we are going to live our lives over the next decade and beyond. These last 8 years have been trying, full of turmoil, sure. Yes, our jobs are gone, our factories along with our creativity long disappeared, soon our moxie, then our soul. We are consumers. We are thought to be worthless drones whose only use is to make someone else rich. We're feeding the machine and this country, us, we, are quickly becoming a Pink Floyd album...

do we turn to our government? How? They put us here. Spouting the magic word—democracy. Its democracy feigned. At its root the error in democracy is as simple as the difference in the wants and needs between Queens Village and Forest Hills. Forest Hills and New York City. New York City and Sullivan County. Sullivan County and New York State—New York State and Nebraska. Our government is fractured by design, and through those cracks come the lobbies, pork bellies and the corruption. At the end of the day our government is really only there to serve its master and if you are reading this then chances are you have strings tethered your back. my are made of hemp, you know, for the environment...

its the mechanism, its been here for years. Masons, Illuminati, Templar—please, ghost stories at best—Keyser Sose in the modern age. The men who stand behind the men. Keeping the rich, rich and the elite, elite—the secrets, secret. Making sure the rest of us are checking out the new season of Mad Men, or what that cartoon Glen Beck is screaming about. Shiny lights in the sky, the hand is quicker than the eye—ooo, Sportsnation is on, that Colin Cowherd sure is a card...

white, black, yellow, brown and from the boogie down, this is a call to all. Leave your ego at the door, its of no use—just like my white boy check. We are not without power. As consumers we have demands, what if our demands change? What if we wake up from our Henry Ford induced coma and demand change? Individually we can't demand a bagel. The machine wants us to fuss and fight, wants us to be happy in our TV trance, listening to the Jonas Brothers suck each other off. The machine wants us distracted so we lull ourselves, to sleep resting our egos, and let them get about the business of ruling the world...

times don't change in a flash. Times change incrementally and leave marks. And if not for your fellow man, or yourself, how about the kids—the motherfucking kids! For lamb sakes, there are new ones popping up all over, so if you're not going to stop fucking then you have a responsibility to them, and to those of us who haven't littered the world with our seed so haphazardly, to make sure those kids get a fighting chance and don't become the illiterate undead. Let them know that their future doesn't have to be pre-screened, that they can write their own, just like you did...

life is very seldom there to massage your id. Neither am i. I don't care about what you think of me, this is my good turn daily, my volunteer work. This is my chance to right the wrongs i never had the opportunity to fight against. This is street philosophy, take it or leave it. It'll be no harm to me either way. I live my life on a blade, it cuts a lot, but i don't mind. Its what it takes to remain unsold...

don't you know?...talkin' bout a revolution