Somebody publish this guy.

Ataraxia says:
Alright, so, I’ve been thinking about writing something for a long time now, and i’m pondering this as I wait for the train. I’m wearing my glasses, and without my short-sightedness to help me judge distances, everything looks like a cardboard diorama about three feet away. I hop the train after a while and ride it thinking about how my fucking cat died in the most horrific pain the night before
and how Chelle is taking it.
Papa Sharp says:
sorry about the cat
Ataraxia says:
I get into town, and immediately there is a protest. It’s a protest of about nine people, chanting “STOP VIOLENCE NOW! STOP VIOLENCE NOW!” flanked by police.
And i’m thinking that old cliche, “What, are they going to fucking march past someone, Literally in the act of stabbing someone and he’s going to look sheepishly at the fucking ground and drop his knife and fucking join the march? Is that Actually what is going to happen?”
and i’m depressed over the fucking lower-class “Oh my god dead babby” mentallity it displays. Where the fuck is the “Stop fucking killing people with bombs our taxes pay for” protest today? No. Some kid got knifed so of course the correct solution is to march like it’s some fucking  raindance that is going to stop people wanting to see blood flow or something.
Papa Sharp says:
If it were Montreal the city would riot.
Ataraxia says:
You know some politician, who is currently mayor of london, once said in the Spectator that it is kind of pathetic how the people in Liverpool treat a tragedy as a place for a “public outpouring of grief”.
There’s a joke, too. “How many scousers does it take to change a lightbulb?” “The lot of them. One to change it, the rest to sign the fucking book of condolences and have a floral tribute for the old one.”
Anyway, I don’t Openly take the piss like I tried to shout down the last street preacher I saw because I see the people flagging in the back, tearful, older, a space between them that should be a child.
But I want to write. I want to write bad. I walk past the “traditional stationers.” it’s closed. That shop is fucked up. It bills itself as a “traditional stationers” but the window is usually full of circles of yellow and green and pink card and gold rollerpens.
Anyway, i’m hungry. I want breakfast. I consider McDonalds but I think you know what? Fuck the machine and fight the man or whatever so I go to a burger stand and have a hot dog, and as I chew that shitty god damn excuse for meat doused in about three parts vinegar to one part mustard I think yeah, fuck you society
Anyway, the stationery box is closed, so now i’m fit to burst, desperate to take notes or write or whatever, so I end up busting into this kid’s bookstore and accidentally buying a math notebook and a purple gel pen. I’ve been making notes with it all day.
I sit down on a fashionable street to write down everything that’s occured to me today before I forget it all, and I realise this pen makes a really fucking awful noise as I drag it over the paper, squeaky as fuck, so I look up to think, and I see a guy bounding down the street in boxframe glasses and a crowded, unprofessional band tshirt.
It says “Leftover crack” with umlauts
I fucking THRUST my pen at him in an accusory fucking way.
and scream “I FUCKING KNOW THAT BAND!”
he looks at me like “what the fuck!?”
and I hold my hand out and grin like a prick for a high five.
he goes “uhh *lol* good for you!” and passes. D;
Well, bitch got outhipstered.
he’s obviously wounded.
So I walk further down the street and this fat meth bitch and her sister is gawping across the street somewhere and screaming “DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD! DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD! CMERE! DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!”
In my mind I place them in front of the Christian bookstore I passed two minutes before and smugly decide that when I write the day’s events i’ll make some weird point of their weird shrill fatassed drugaddled bellowing.
Anyway, I walk further towards the mental home I work at, and pass a beautiful house that has been cut into bits for apartments and I think about the politics of jealousy a bit, and decide that if “greed is good” then by that very same token surely Envy is “good” too.
See a lot of beautiful cars and think about my own admiration for cars and how I never want to drive them and what that means. I think it means they should just gut cars and put them on pedestals for me to look at because honestly I don’t give a shit about what’s under the hood. I just want to lick aston martins until I come
Futher up the road I see a very put-together Harry Potter pass me. Same hair but smarter, round glasses but frameless. Subdued scarf in the gryffindor colours, black peacoat.
I keep goin. Shoot the shit with my collegue about me shaving my head and him growing a beard. Joke that I gave him my hair to keep to another collegue.
Anyway work: uneventful. Know why?
The one guy who does anything is in jail for grabbing the manager I confided my dark thoughts in, getting her in a headlock
and trying to set her head on fire with a lighter.
So after that one guy got sectioned for hoarding a knife and threatening arson
there’s now two guys, the guy who’s mom used to dress him as a girl who eventually tried to rape her, and the aspie shutin kid.
Had a disgusting sandwich for dinner, saw a black girl cuss out an ethnic iranian in arabic, and then laugh at him for not being able to speak arabic.
got off work early at nine and immediately went to the fly in the loaf to drink some belgians. Feel like shit for enjoying beautiful pub alone.
Wander down to McDonalds and have a large meal for the coke glass that comes with it. Shoot shit with cashier. Get on train
and then literally actually piss myself.
Like urinate
actual urine
into my actual pants
like near my stop D: I do not know what the fuck.
I actually just really genuinely fucking pissed myself in person.
in public.
I wasn’t even embarrised, just confounded.
anyway, that’s my day.
So how are you doing?

We can make rock and roll

Early morning, 2am – 6am, I have a discourse with society’s malcontents, the drug addicts, alcoholics and existential madmen who admitted they had loose screws by committing themselves to the page. Sometimes I’m high or a little drunk, depending on how my evening went. I’ve fallen into the trap of substitution: I’ve given up my mornings and a bit of my afternoon, and now I just substitute daytime activities with nighttime ones, then for the part of my day that would correlate to an average schedule where one would do nighttime activities, like get high or drunk, for instance, it’s too late and the world has wound down, so I do some relatively inoffensive activities like writing letters or reading books.

Cytosine and I wander the Kitchener streets like ghosts. We are like ghosts of people past, incorporeally haunting a world that seems very wrong. My feet are on the concrete like a specter’s on the floor of an old wood house, and we would share that same frustration of familiarity and distance; part of you is there like a memory, but you feel you can only watch it, impossible to change the outcome like a scene on television. There, but never really there.

He carries a glass pipe that he calls Mr. Burns, adorned with the face of the Simpson’s character, and he uses it to smoke fairly dank hydro. In the low-light school yard he delicately fills the pipe, raises it to his lips, hovers the flame above the bowl like a police helicopter, pulls in until the smoke fills every crevice of his lungs, then exhales a large, playful cloud that floats off into the sky. Then he passes the pipe to me and I repeat the ritual.

None of my friends are sane, I don’t think. A girl I know, a close friend, even suggested that I’m the sanest of the lot. “Fuck,” I said in response while we were walking down the foggy train tracks. She’d been having a hard time, and was telling me about it while I balanced on the train rail, arms out like a wobbly Christ. We agreed on a lot of things that we were learning about the world:

The world is a big, scary place. The stupidest of us are on a mad rush for power, the insecure want fame, the neglected want fortune, the good want to fuck you as bad as the terrible, scores of us are mediocre in everything we do, everyone thinks they are an artist, poets are Spring dandelions smiling through pesticides and rendered bad for even wine, the streets are lined with crazies and we’re all ashamed of it, those that believe in good are marginalized because nobody wants to be reminded that they’re the bad guys, too, and life is killing every one of us but not before it plucks each wing from our backs with oversized tweezers.

Yeah, I said. Sucks, don’t it? Let’s quit and start a band.

Dear Die-ary…mood: apathetic

I don’t know what it is as of late, but I find myself feeling very indifferent to a lot of things. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there hasn’t been a lot of fun in my life the past few days. Maybe that’s part of it, I don’t know. You’d think I would be used to it by now, spending 6 days out of the week at home alone more often than not. Even things I find to be entertaining, today specifically, have given me pretty much no enjoyment. I can’t say what it is, but it needs to stop and go away. I don’t like coming off like some fucking emo, because i’m not.

I know things like these come and go, and that for the most part they’re inevitable…doesn’t make them any less bothersome.

Meh.

M@KP Sleeping Lessons

Is it wrong to distance yourself from people out of mistrust? I don’t think I do that, but I’m beginning to think I should.

What is it that resides in people that makes then so easily turn on those they claim to trust and care for? I think of it as a virus, as simple as that sounds. It sits in their stomach; it jumps out and screams “mine!,” when it has the chance, to take and take and take and take and take and grab.

Go without,
Till the need seeps in
You low animal.
Collect your novel petals for the stem

It’s like you are just amazing enough to make me give you some bit of trust, some amount of love, and then you rip it away from me in a hypocritical daze. Maybe it’s hypocritical of me to say the same virus doesn’t rest in my stomach, making me want to throw you under the bus instead of me, making me want to grab and kick and bite and gnaw to get what you got. It’s not that way though, is it? Am I that way?

And glow, glow, melt and flow,
Eviscerate your fragile frame,
And spill it out on ragged floor!
A thousand different versions of yourself

You don’t think I’ll stand up for myself? You don’t think I know exactly what you’re doing and why you’re doing it? I know because you’re like me, but your virus has taken you over. Your virus sits in there, and it vents and howls for action. It wants more more more, always more, more than you already get, greed seeping out like sweat on your forehead as you interrogate me.

With one breath you talk endlessly about socialism, about altruism, about donations and charity and ecological concerns for humanity, about caring for everyone and thing that breathes like you. With another breath your virus it screams more more more more more. I want it to shut up.

They got nothing left on which you depend,
So enlist every ounce of your bright blood,
And off with their heads

I catch you and I see it all over your skin, and in your eyes. You act so guilty, you must hate the virus but I have a sad confession to make.

The virus is you. You lend yourself to it, you listen to it, you are hypocrisy and contradiction. You lost your convictions for it, for more materials and more items and more food and fuel. You are no longer alive when it seeps through and takes control, and it’s all I see in you. It’s all I can see.

You’re not obliged to swallow anything you despise
See, those unrepenting buzzards want your life,
And they got no right–
As sure as you have eyes,
They got no right.

I really wanted you to be there for me and maybe that’s why this offends so much. Maybe that’s why I push my own virus back for you, and I keep it quiet and I help you as much as I can. I always have. Maybe that’s why I can’t look the other way while you toss me out this time, even though I’ve done it so many times to this point. I’m sorry for this.

Just put yourself in my new shoes,
And see that I do what I do,
Because the old guard still offends,
Their pudgy hearts and slimy hands!
They got nothing left on which we depend.
So enlist every ounce
Of your bright blood,
And off with their heads.

Jump from the hook,
You’re not obliged to swallow anything you despise

But the virus is in me. I have something that you’re incapable of having at this point in your naive life. I have a vaccine, and I’d love to share it with you. But you’re not ready, and I can’t swallow your virus and suffer myself. But I still care.

You despise.

Politicking: Kno’s note to MF Doom (worth reposting)

From the QN5 blog, about 14 days late, but whatever.

Dear Daniel Dumile a.k.a. MF Doom a.k.a. Zev Love X a.k.a. King Geedorah a.k.a. Metal Fingers a.k.a. Viktor Vaughn a.k.a. Ducktor Doom a.k.a. Victor von Doom a.k.a. Mr. Soft Taco a.k.a. Mr. 78′ Cutlass a.k.a. “That Guy Who Enjoys Fingerpainting.”

I’m writing this as a concerned artist, business-owner and generally even-keeled loather of all things douche-like.

It came to my attention in late 2007 that you pulled a series of no-shows and Super Dave-esque stunt double lip-syncing fiascos in Pomona, San Diego, San Francisco, Rock The Bells in San Bernardino and then in Atlanta. The latter saw the crowd throwing beer at your body double, who subsequently exited the stage only to steal all the merch money and door receipts, insuring noone would be granted a refund for your clone’s piss-poor Milli Vanilli routine. Classy.

The whole thing was shrug-inducing because I’m not a huge fan of your body of work, so pardon my inability to completely connect with the disdain of someone paying $25 dollars to see a slightly rotund, middle aged man in a dirty Gladiator mask stand around onstage and talk into a microphone only to be duped into watching a presumably younger, slightly-less rotund man in a dirty Gladiator mask stand around onstage and pretend to talk into a microphone. As the old folks say, “buyer beware”.

It was shrug-inducing, that is, until someone passed me a link to a discussion in which a talent buyer for a well-known Cali venue clearly states;

“…needless to say, hiphop will not be taking place at the venue again (we will still book alternative artists like sage, atmosphere, subtle, all through legit agencies that we regularly do business with).”

Ok, now wait a minute.

You pissing on your most dedicated fans by cheating them out of their hard-earned cash, while being completely foul, was ultimately no business of mine. At worst it might create a small conundrum for Doom fans torn between investing money in your possibly fraudulent live show or using that loot to re-up on another sack of Northern Lights kush. Not a tough call, I’d assume.

But on the flipside, seeing talent buyers publically saying they’ll only book “alternative artists” like Sage and Atmosphere (Holy awkward racial undertones, Batman) in the future because of your method of handling business? Now I have an issue.

See, people don’t buy much music anymore. Touring is what allows artists who aren’t supervillainous children of Latverian gypsies bent on world domination to meet our fans, fuel our art and put money into our projects and pockets. As part of an “indie” act that operates in the same ever-narrowing circles as you, I can definitely say the ability to book proper gigs with reputable promoters and venue operators is becoming more and more scarce by the month, especially with the poor reputation live hip-hop has for professionalism and punctuality as well as the economic woes of many venues and agencies. The recession is a sumbitch.

So, if any artist pisses off these promoters, fans or venue owners then ultimately they are fucking with my money.

I thought about discussing this last fall, but I decided against it in an attempt to stay away from negative energy. Fast-forward to August 9th 2008, and apparently “you” (I use the term loosely at this point) were at it again, having been re-booked at Rock The Bells in San Bernardino (How does that even happen?) and subsequently getting booed. Again.

Now, surely there is some type of explanation for all of this. Although it isn’t an excuse to be deceptive, some said you were dangerously ill. Personal health is no joke. Your label denied it, though, and continued pushing your tour dates and new remixes of your old product. Some people, like the only man to ever lie to our fans about our involvement in a live show just to sell tickets, one Mr. Jason Swartz (who also happens to be your booking agent) claimed in the Village Voice that this fuckery was a breath of fresh air and “just [your] style”. Yes, the same Mr. Swartz that intentionally misled our fans, the local promoters and operators of The Fox Theatre in Boulder back in 2005 in order to put a couple extra dollars in his pocket. Hmm, sounds familiar.

But I digress. Maybe you had a string of family emergencies. Maybe you developed consistent, unshakable Traveler’s Diarrhea. Maybe you were fed up with curly-haired, New Era-wearing snowboarders asking you to sign their $300 Doom SB Dunks. Maybe you simply got tired of the smell inside of that mask. Who knows.

Yeah, you’re the “villain” or whatever gimmick you use to sell records. I’ve even seen a couple people calling this fiasco “brilliant”. Oh, the sweet Rap Snack™-flavored irony of anti-mainstream types letting this slide by deeming it “genius marketing”. Genius marketing? Beanie Babies, Hannah Montana, Girls Gone Wild. Those are examples of genius marketing. This looks like a lazy or medically incapacitated individual duping his most dedicated fans repeatedly to the tune of a few thousand dollars while those that also stand to profit (read: labels, friends and booking agents) scuttle around attempting to make excuses for him before the loot dries up.

Whatever the case may be, I implore you and anyone involved in this to stop screwing your fans and your peers and get your ducks in a row. Don’t make me throw on some blue stretch leotards and put out a solo record.

Your Friend In Jesus,
Kno of CunninLynguists

There is a (the) light in hip-hop, and it features Club Dub on the remix.
Click to listen to “The Light (featuring Club Dub)” by CunninLynguists

Good morning

The pale light through my curtains is alien and almost narcotic, bathing everything in such a way that every object appears new. My one dominant eye is glued to the bastketball pants hanging on the back of my door, with the baby blue stripe, the fabric shimmering with light, then to the ring attached to the teacup on my dresser, the object seems deliberate and complete like a Zen circle. There are strange open books on every surface, masks hanging from the bookshelf, a three foot tall Voltron toy in the corner, a large blue ceramic mug beside my head that seems to embody some Alice in Wonderland proportions. My mother opens the door to remind me that I wanted to wake up and sees me examining things squint-eyed. “You’re in shock,” she laughs. Lying on my bed, I remind myself to keep my eyes open because I can’t go back to sleep.  It must be before 8. I reach across myself for my cell phone and see it’s charging on top of a large, orange hardcover of Rumi’s poetry. What a veritable ocean of human poetry pouring forth from a surface crack. The phone says 7:38 AM. Do I want a cigarette or need a cigarette? I roll to the other side of bed, hanging over the edge of the mattress for a moment, staring at the floor:Betting on the Muse by Bukowski is creased open in front of my face.  I pull myself up into nakedness and think that I must be a very strange person.

Dance of the Gods

Time to load onto the deck, Yuriko and I begin our journey home up along the ramp. The night is quite muggy despite the slight breeze along the ocean waves. The engines begin to rumble; settling into a smooth drumming beat…

The ferry casts off and breeze picks up as Yuriko and I head out to the plateau; The sky gives off a warm bronze glow. As if on cue the sky flares to life with what could’ve been only have been performance directed by Mother Nature; a dance of the gods.

Every strike of their feet landing brought flashes of light down into the earth; With such emotion every spin and slide rolled and glided the warm reflective glow playfully across the heavens.

Despite the grand display their dance continues in silence to the beat of the thrumming engines. Even the mighty Luna seemed timid of such an act that she cowered within the clouds; occasionally peeking from behind waiting for the end. Yuriko and I gazed in awe, I don’t think that the simple mortals behind us could have even comprehended the beauty of the site before us on this heated summer eve.

As the hum of the engines began to slow and the boat lands upon the dock; the dance also faded just as mysterious as it began. Yuriko and I walk down the ramp still gazing the glow of the sky. Never in our lives shall we ever see a more beautiful performance produced by the universe.

“This house it has its politics, that’s my room, and that’s my sister”

Papa Sharp says:
Every night my sister comes home from work in her friend, D’s, car (which my sister bought for her while her own family starved).  They park outside the apartment building and speak to each other in solemn whispers and pray, upward to two hours.  They are equals in madness and stupidity – their only brilliance can be seen in justifying their own actions in some long outdated Hebrew passages.

The French Prince of Bel-Air says:
you need a cobra.
You need to get her into serpent handling
or Christian Science.
something potentially fatal.

Papa Sharp says:
Last week (I was not home, instead I was getting pleasantly drunk with my chums on spirits and weed), D. came into our home with Rose riding a high horse.  She spoke frantically, and was shaking with ferver, a real passion had possessed as she lectured my mother.  Her home, and her family’s home, were built on the foundation of the Word.

The French Prince of Bel-Air says:
seriously my mom’s away for three weeks, you can stay here, I’m a borderline alcoholic, there’s booze.
there’s always booze
even when there isn’t

Papa Sharp says:
Since it flowed through her, she could see that our home did not have the same structure, for if it did my mother would not be sleeping on the couch – there would be respect for her position of authority, and of course, more respect for the supreme authority, His authority.  In a way similar to one of her idols (the beloved Martin Luther, one and the same) she listed off our family’s sins.
My mother sat, rather still, and asked Diann as she reached her pontificating climax if she was finished, because she was tired and had to work the next day.
D. left, and my sister carried her four Bibles into her room (after making herself a rather large midnight snack) where she spent the night presumably praying that we would somehow be redeemed against all odds.
I don’t know if I have mentioned this before, but when I was 13 I was beaten rather severely by two guys in middle-school, tearing my ACL tendon in my leg.  This caused a bit of a chain reaction in my body, being unable to walk upright I limped to offset the weight.  How I walked caused the discs in my lower back to rub together, effectively crippling me for two years.
Because I’m a badass motherfucker, I let that motivate me.  I spent a lot of time reading and training myself physically, so I could develop the muscle in my back to hold me into position and lose the weight I’d put on because of my injury (and a bit that I’d had before), and in no time at all (two years of eternity) I could walk, skip and run as gayly as a child high on psychedelic mushrooms.This has, however, had one lasting impression.  If I don’t regularly sleep on a good bed, I start to experience lower-back pressure and white shooting pains.

The French Prince of Bel-Air says:
So that’s why you have the bed.

Papa Sharp says:
Now, I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, my mother moved in with me when I moved to Kitchener.  We have a really good, healthy household where we give each other space, joke, drink, and share books.  We treat each other very much as adults, each taking a portion of the work to keep it maintained and never argue.

The French Prince of Bel-Air says:
That’s not very Christian of you Sharp.

Papa Sharp says:
When my sister went mad, my mom couldn’t bare seeing her completely incapable and on her own, so we moved into a larger place to accommodate Rose.  Rose slept on the couch for about a month, before she wanted to share mom’s bed.  Mom found Marie’s sleeping habits (eating in bed, staying up weird hours, and blanket hogging) difficult to live with so she moved out onto the couch.

The French Prince of Bel-Air says:
those jokes better be about faggots, that drink better be decaffinated, those books better be the bible, your mother shouldn’t do any of the work, her job is to stone you.

Papa Sharp says:
In this fashion, my sister effectively commandeered my mother’s room.  Since I live odd hours, I’ve opted to share my bed with my mother.  She has it until around 3 or 4 am, when I get tired and turn in.
Rose doesn’t do shit all in the house.  She works and gives all of her money to D. and the church.  Granted, she buys her own food (which we can’t eat), but she also eats ours.  She’s moody, preachy, and disrespectful of us most of the time.
And somehow D. finds it in her heart to enlighten our household, with the highest hopes that we will follow their shining examples.
Typical.
I mention this because I see them out the window of our basement apartment, sitting in the red car that Rose bought D., and they look very solemn and religious, and it pisses me off. I closed the curtains.

Dust and needles of a lover

I love road trips. I’m goin’ Southwest. Fuck yes.

So I’m going to drive with my windows down and the hills rolling beneath the wheels, and we’re gonna sing and sleep and laugh and look. I’m gonna see the other side of the country that I didn’t see before.

I loved it here, then I hated it here. I feel like I’m destined to feel that way about everywhere but Tucson for the rest of my life, even if I leave it all the time in search of something more. It’s like the lover you think might not really be as good as he is for you sometimes, but you always return happily. Something about the desert owns me.

I haven’t seen it in months, after 22 years straight, and it’s still in me silently. I have flown over nearly every landscape in the country over and over, but I haven’t seen the desert and found myself bored with ice and mountain and hill and grass and water and city. I found myself looking out for something specific and being unable to find it.

So I’m going Southwest.

Thinking through Coldplay and Pumpkin

Those who are dead are not dead they’re just living in my head

I sat with Pumpkin last night and told her all the things in retrospect, and it all made sense to me. I can still feel it though, but it’s all reversed from how it really was.

There’s something about this friendship that I feel lasting.

Time is so short and I’m sure there must be something more

I thought of a conversation I had with him once. In another time and place, we were lying on top of cool grass, and everything was freezing. Our arms touched and you could see the heat rising in the frigid air, as waves and colors of soft pink and yellow. We just stared. It’s like reality instead of a distant hope.

And I thought of Hook, and the things we did that were so similar but off. They happened in this time and place, but when I think back it’s more like a dream than reality. The moon doesn’t really do that, the water wasn’t six miles from my fingertips.
You thought you might be a ghost!

I thought of all the human mistakes I’ve made and how it still haunts me. I’m not sure if it’s the mistakes that haunt me, or the h u m a n in me.

You didn’t get to heaven but you made it close
Then I thought of all the things I can do with my life and how amazing it will be. I have the power to c h a n g e and that’s such a rare talent for a human to have.

Pumpkin might not have got it. I still love her.