the first video blog

since i have been posting so many videos, i figure i should just do a video blog.....

awesomness and laziness

i am feeling lazy, hence the video posts recently. so here is a break from poetry....

oh, and as a side note, if i ever got just one wish from a genie, it would be the ability to do this here.............

more amazing poetry

Lauren Whitehead, graduate of U of Michigan at Ann Arbor. A woman i am proud to have shared a stage with, and have spent some quality time with. this is utterly mindblowing. learn something today.............. check this out.

i stopped into burger king today for a whopper junior to hold me over for the afternoon and got confused.

i think this is because burger king is confused. they have free wi-fi now. because i know so many of us would go to BK to eat and just wish that they would have internet access so we could stay all day long, thank got they got on that.

they have happy hour now? for soda?? seriously? thats your marketing ploy... happy hour?

To the big wigs of BK:
you are not a coffee shop. Not a nice hangout spot for the afternoon while we blog all day (as i am doing now from a coffee shop) and leave smelling like deep fried food and grease.
you are not a bar. you do not serve alcohol and therefore cannot make it a "happy" hour.
So please cancel your plans to have acoustic open mic nite, you are a fast food joint. that is it. and that is ok, we will still love you and patron your establishment.

your customers.

spend some time in the other room

this may be one of the nasiest team pieces i've ever seen. ever.

as someone struggling with both academia and my creative outlets, this poem resonates with me in ways that make my skin crawl and get all goosebumpy.

from the poets of WASH U (in St. Louis) at the 2009 CUPSI, i present to you 'the other room'

For those of you that have no idea what im doing after leaving NY to head to the midwest for grad school, i present you with my thesis question(s)/statement. for those that care its from a linguistic anthropology standpoint, basically orienting myself within the interaction between language and culture.

What functions do poetry slams serve in indexing relations to marginalized groups while building a sense of community? In what ways do poets manipulate and utilize different paralinguistic features and performative tools to engage an audience? How do these events serve to educate the public, specifically the younger generation about social issues, interpersonal relations, identity and the nature of poetry itself? These questions will form the basis for gaining an understanding of the cultural phenomenon that is poetry slam, or more descriptively, competitive performance poetry.

god of science

    i brought up a point in my archaeological theory class today that i wish to expand upon. Class discussion focused on who owns the rites to tell the story, and preserve the remains of native american cultures. Many people claim that science, in the name of greater understanding of all humans should be able to catalog and analyze artifacts, human remains, and other assorted features found in the archaeological record. 

     This is contested by many tribes and organizations. Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGRPA) was a major act of federal legislation (passed in 1990) that limits what american (traditionally white) archaeologists have to do with cultural artifacts and human remains. It gives native groups a voice in deciding what gets done with the remnants of their ancestors and their culture. Some natives are not very hospitable to archaeologists and scientists for good reason. The founder of american anthropology Franz Boas,  a pillar of anthropological ideals who fought hard against scientific racism, would go to tribal burial grounds at nite, dig up graves, take the skulls and then sell them illegally to museums and other research institutes in the name of science. This was a major epidemic of western scientists feeling that they owned the rights to anything that would help advance the scientific understanding of people and the world, without caring about the people who it affected. 

     This is where i draw the parallel of science and religion. Western science is the new religion. Its dogma, any other view of the world is misguided and silly. Science can explain things better and more accurately, giving them the authority to usurp other peoples views and belongings because they possess the true methods of understanding the world. When i brought this up, a student tells me that there are religious scientists, so my analogy is false. I bring up the fact that there are Buddhist Christians, and his only response, partially joking, is that maybe buddhism isnt a religion then.

    Scientists are like fundamentalist christians in many regards. They do not challenge the assumptions and the box that their cosmology was created in. They claim greater evidence because you can 'see' and 'test' what they pronounce as fact. It is a different epistemological approach to knowledge, but much of philosophy (especially philosophy of science) shows how unstable many scientific foundations are. A.F. Chalmers is an excellent example of this, his book "What is this thing called Science?" was hugely influential in helping me understand the codified and dogmatic ideologies that permeate what is understood (or misunderstood) as to how science works better than religion.

    Im not knocking science, i use it all the time, am fascinated by it. But i also understand its shortcomings and how it can be used to justify ideological and political ends, like racism. For example, in the 1930's the most predominate school of science in the US was eugenics. No one spoke against it, even though today it is a black mark upon the history of science. Forced lobotomies, sterilization, and other atrocities were committed here for the sake of keeping 'morons' or genetically inferior people from reproducing. This also included unacceptable moral behavior!!!! my great grandmother on my fathers side got married when she got pregnant with her third kid, not because she wanted a husband, but because a single women with more than two kids was morally deviant, and would be institutionalized so she couldnt pass on these assumed genetic behavioral traits!!!!! This was the same science that Hitler directly used to support his Aryan movement in the mid 30's and 40's.

    Any system of knowledge has flaws. any system of knowledge tries to exert authority over world views in order to maintain is status as being 'truth'. This causes even the most noble of intentions to have ghastly and dark applications in the name of what is good. Science is no better than religion, its just another mask to be worn for justification of the status quo.

haiku

A smile all day

electronic residue

from your AM call

words are easily

the only thing i think about

when i am awake

the difference between

postmodernists and myself

is that i exist

things i learned on tour............

some new insights after tour.......... a la Omni (updates coming)

1. Jail, just as shitty as you can imagine

2. Jail food, waaaaay worse than you can imagine

3. geoffery dahmers mother is a saint

dahmer's mother

4. brittany spears is a damn good mother too

Brittany as a mom

5. Bamboo, Zev, and B-Nice can work a fucking hip hop show

6. It's good to have a kick ass tattoo artist who will post bail for you

7. Joseph LMS will be one of the godparents for my first child

8. Everything is better when Carmen is around

9. Naomi can do a fantastic Bukowski impression

10. The intangibles know how to fucking party (well, i knew this, but i needed to reiterate)

Streets of Snow and Ghosts

i walked this way many times before. never noticing anything besides the mundane residences and run down park, its basketball court covered in fault lines, and old chain link fence appearing as if it wants to lie down on the job. with the snow and ice draped over everything right now, it seems even less distinct. As we walked our dogs down this street together, myself on my way home, her to the store for smokes, i see what she sees. there is nothing mundane here. houses have stories, long standing memories regardless of the residents, monuments whose meaning was supplemented long after their creation, and one of many families who had left it before now. memories of scars like the faults on the basketball court. if you squint just right, you can still the wisps of smoke from virgin lunged camel investigations.
there is something to be said about a guide who can show you ghosts. only the best storytellers can still keep skeptics from snapping their contempt. but if you just listen to the stories, and then feel the past, you can understand your self relative to where you really are. not someplace that didn't exist before you. not someplace that is lacking in any way shape or form from where your ghosts dwell. just an acknowledgment of what we consider haunted, resides everywhere.

Hip Hop and Academia pt 2: Fetishizing "black authenticity" (special appearance by poetry slams!!)

so after reading a few articles today, i realized that some academics would say that i listen to hip hop, participate in poetry slams, and have a non-white girlfriend because i have a fetish for black masculinity. in fact, Susan Somers-Willet, a poet who i have seen perform before, claims in her article that black males win all the poetry slams because a predominantly white audience is fetishizing the 'authentic' black experience. really? your going to reduce not only any black male poets to this presentation of authenticity, but reduce the audience to an over-generalized homogeneous group masturbating at the thought of hearing about the black male struggle?

let's ignore the fact that the most successful slam poets, regardless of style, gender, race or what have you are TALENTED WRITERS, lets ignore their ability to convey a point to an audience and leave them with a euphoric feeling of teleportation to places other than the performance space. lets just say that it's all a fetish. at least i have an excuse for not winning poetry slams all the time. it's not because i lose to better writers and performers, its because my black experience isnt authentic enough for the audience.

Another author, Ward Keeler, who i actually like and agree with on many levels, does say some more or less boneheaded things about hip hop. The reason young males love hip hop (regardless of race) is impotence. or fear of impotence, or percieved impotence. wow. ok, now lets use the reflexive methodology that permeated the social sciences in the 70's and 80's by trying to address the implicit biases of the author...... by using the word 'impotence' 20 times in your article, what does that say about you? could this article be a way of justifying some form of your impotence? hmmmm. i wont go so far as to make that claim. Things are usually much more complex than a one to one cause to effect ratio (especially for a large cultural entity like hip hop).

now, i do believe that there are elements of validity in both the statements i just railed against. however, when you allow it to become the spotlight, or downright ignore other elements, you sound dogmatic, pedantic, and generally ingnorant. At least give some greater understanding of the other systems, views, and ideas that help generate the greater whole. Then i wont have to spend time writing shit like this so i dont explode.

criminals and artists

so my road trip for tour started at 5:15 pm from carbondale. A 3 hour train ride to Champane-Urbana, and caught my bus to indianapolis running with my bags flagging down the driver, as amtrak did not decide to inform the bus to wait for a few of us.

Saint Peace picks me up from the bus station at midnight, where we proceed to go to his friends house who is coming on tour with us. she is passed out drunk when we arrive. Peace and a friend spend the next hour trying to wake her up and get her to pack.

we leave indy at 230am, and make great time. i take over driving at 8am, and when we are just an hour and a half away from oneonta, i get pulled over.

the cop comes back to the car and has me get out, where he proceeds to cuff me and throw me in the back without telling me why. this cop, younger than me was not being an asshole, but just not being polite either. i panic immediately when i realize that he is listening to rush limbaugh in his squad car. apparently, i owed the dmv 20 dollars for a licsense fee, and therefore was suspended. i was brought to the next town to see an old alcoholic judge who told me he was going to read me rights, and then did not do so.

i was then brought back to the other town, and processed into the county jail. we're talking psyche evaluation, stripping naked and putting on a jumpsuit, the whole nine yards. I was given a bin with extra 'clothes', another 2xl jumpsuit and size 12 shoes (im a size 9 for the record). i was put into a cell where i just sat there, not really wanting to wander around and mingle with the general population.

while all this is going on, Joseph LMS was finally convinced that we were not pulling an april fools joke, and proceeded to raise my bail money. thank you to Jason sexton, my tatoo artist from the golden lotus, and Jason knowles, my old boss for putting up the cash. Joseph then catches a ride to the jail, almost 2 hours away with my old boss to get me out of lock up.

the food was worse than anything ive ever seen in my life. i spent too long trying to figure out what something was, im not positive, but i think they were green beans, just not really green, or bean looking.

i ended up walking into the show in oneonta 15 minutes before it ended to a standing ovation, as my plight was explained constantly through the nite.

i fucking love my friends and the good people around me. it shows me that i do leave an impact on people, as they are willing to go out of their way to help me, just as i would for many of you fine people.