Track Notes/Jackson Street Blues

There are at least 3 crack houses within rock throwing distance of the Sally and they all have been raided in the last week or so. A word to the wise being sufficient, I would advise fellow travellers on the same orbit on my rotation to stay clear if ya stridin dirty. I aintcha daddy and I aint got no bail money and if I had it then your dumbKNOWyougot warrants ass couldn't get it after you ignored this sweet advice. The Horror-scope says its time to change playgrounds and playmates if you can't change toys.

First Baptist is moving to Lee County, but will continue its First and Third Saturday Meals at it's current location on Broad across from SunTrust and Jefferson across from the Post Office 11:30 Am. If you can't act like a human being with these folks or the First Methodist Folks (5:45 pm)
every Sunday or the Christian Covenant Ministry on First and Third Sundays ( (8:30 am) or Bro Larry's people (3 times a day until further notice) or Faith Community (daily lunch 11:30) or the episcopals (tuesday and thursday) 11:30am or the presbyterians (second saturday snack packs) then keep your ass at what passes for home and stop selling your stamps to the Dope Man for fitty cents on the dollar. Ungrateful Bastards. Say what? Well, an old friend useta tell me that if you throw a rock in a pack of dogs, the one that hollers is the one that was hit. Holla.

The Dray line seems to be drying up. It's partly a slow economy and partly because all those hungry, thuggish/ruggish looking cats want to rush the trucks and your potential employers get cases of Reginald Denny complex and L A riot Flashbax. I wouldn't come through there either and I can fight and have been to the Chain Gang twice! How bought the first man there gets the first two tryouts. Number two gets the next 2. If a break needs 3 men, then the first three get to audition.. and if nothing pops off after 2 chances man number 1 slips to the back of the line and so on. When word gets out that the line is organized and user friendly, things will pick up. Until then the Line will be victim of word of mouth of scared breaks who need your services but can't risk getting car-jackd or robbed. And those of you haters who throw salt on each other. What business is it of yours or a Breaks what a man does with HIS money? Keep that salt in your pocket and stop putting it on your brother!

Peace to sister Sandra

We are the disinherited, the misfits, the poor and downtrodden. We quietly buck the social call to normalcy. Family doesn't get it. They always ask "WHY?". "She was so......" ;"He was such a ...."; "they were doing so good before....". And shake heads , cluck tongues, wring hands and lament. As if we were dead. We quit jobs because we don't feel like going anymore. And they treat us like criminals. We quit school because we were old enough to quit and made more money on the hustle than that high school graduate cousin changing grease at Church's. For every dozen of us, there are 12 stories for how we got here. At this table. On this street. We are the exceptions that disprove the rule. Good people lose homes. Eat at Soup Kitchens. Need help to get by. We run the same circuit every day. The limited number of places we can go to escape the heat or cold or rain without being captured and put on limited display at Dougherty County Jail shrinks almost daily. No loitering signs at the HOMELESS Shelter-How cruel is that? Broke-in-America is a crime waiting for a charge. We make some of them cringe. They make assumptions about our character without knowing our names. The nasty look from a lady with a fish on her tag( must be a pisces cuz she aint no christian). The man with a bumper sticker that proclaims his church's name and frowns and speeds past, afraid he'll have to make a christian decision if someone asks him for change. We draw the bile out by just living and refusing to die to make someones morning drive more pleasant or spoiling a kodak moment while going through the park. We are the test of your faith.

"How can you say you love God whom you have never seen, yet hate your brother whom you see everyday?".

Fuck you. I don't bow down to you or anybody else. I'm broke. Why do you care where the money went? Will you give me enough for shelter tonight? Why do you care why I don't have a job? Are you going to give me one? Or do I add yours to the mountain of rejections that I already have? Fuck You. I see the world you live in, the fear you drink like water and piss on those around you stinking the planet up with the stench of fright. Misery loves company and we leave you lonely. you hate to see us laugh you think we know what you do not. We make you paranoid. Why would we opt to live outside of your zoo? And collect cans and scrap iron. Work day labor and sell blood and clean houses when we could go to work like you and be too afraid to lose a job to stand up like a free human being in the face of some one's shit. Puppet. Dance Shine Dance. Run that race like a hamster in a wheel in a cage. Indulge yourself in that madness of contributing to the maintenance of a machine that is designed to kill you. Do death row inmates plait nooses for the state? No right no wrong just venting because sister Sandra is dead. We met on the track. We laughed and smiled. I liked her a lot and I will miss her.

RIP Grandma Dynamite aka Sandra Williams

peace and
Power to the people

No Time

Before he heads to the bus station to build and trap flies, my man D (Darius) drops a jewl that makes me laugh because its so true. We were snatching from the ethers downtown when a cat fresh out of jail comes to cry on our shoulders, well not on our shoulders but he did shed some real tears. He loves his woman and she loves him, but she is bi-polar and has a cyst on the brain and has had him on a roller coaster ride for the last year of the three they've been together. In jail and out of jail and back to jail again always because of her drama he says. Fucked up a job paying 1200 a week. Supporting her various habits through petty crime. Beating up men that she sends mixed signals to. Taking beatings from men she sends mixed signals to. "I just don't know what to do", he says. D just shrugs and says"leave the bitch". There's a big ass asteroid headed this way right now and aint no time for the bullshit."


Truer words have seldom been spoken. There is a big asteroid headed this way and if something doesn't happen, then we're all fittin to see whose been right or wrong. Streets made of gold, crystal cities, valhalla and endless war 70 veiled virgins and a case of viagra. whatever your idea of the afterlife is. I imagine that if one polled the nation you would see very few responses along the lines of "Oh yeah, I'm definitely going to the lake of fire" or "I'm pretty sure it's gonna be hell". No one really believes that because that would ruin the whole purpose of the threat of everlasting punishment. Hell would not be Hell if it was your destination. There is something wrong with a scenario in which a true believer sees hell coming. There are too many ways to get out of it. Too many last minute confessions of faith. Deathbed conversions .Last rites etc... Always an out. Always a trap door to escape the clutches of Justice.


If you are a true believer in a living God ( and I don't mean a regular church/temple/masjid attendee), then you have to believe that there is a payoff for not killing the lady in front of you at Harveys that brings 12 items to the 10 item express line or stealing for the helluvit, sleeping with your brothers wife etc... Why fight the instinct without the reward? Deeper Still, the payoff should be greater than pleasure/relief obtained from staying one's hand from sin. Otherwise "mere anarchy is loosed upon the world".


No Time is closing in on us. 2000 years ago John relayed the words of the Ancient of Days and they were "Surely I come quickly". Is he riding the Asteroid?

MLk day in Albany

Living in Black Southern America, at times is like witnessing the world after the "Big One" has been dropped and watching the roaches run the show. Yesterday, the Albany Civic Center charged $20 per head to attend the celebration of MLK's Birthday (a week late of course since actually celebrating his birthday would have negated a 3 day government Holiday. God knows we wouldn't want that shit to happen). I worked. I'm a working man and I don't get paid if I don't work. I'm sure Martin would understand. Hell, I work on Jesus' birthday when I can so don't get all bent out of shape. I object to the exploitation of the image of the last American-born sage manifested in the line of Ghandi, Yeshua, and Siddharta Gautama being used to make a dollar. I didn't have it to spend. Not to sit through the vocal gymnastics of an unlistenable choir or some Jack-Leg preacher relative of somebody who useta be something or other thumping a podium with a bible in one hand and a chicken wing in the other. Been there done that. Fuck that.

The state of the revolution is such that No one out there under 60 with any kind of Q rating is worthy to say anything worth listening to, except Obama and he aint even one of us. Not technically since He's an in-law, married into the fam, but with no connection to the pickers of cotton, tobacco ... but is he as Maya says the Dream and the Hope of the slave??? Where is the Dick Gregory of this Generation? Our Jeremiah? Our John the Baptist? Where is our Stokely, Our Fred? Our shining black manhood? Don't say "Old". Don't say "Dead". Remember "We don't die we multiply". YOU see groups of dangerous men on the street corners. I see revolutionaries waiting for direction. It's not as if we have any choice in the matter. The revolution is coming as surely as the seasons change. Not because I say so but because the son of man has said it will be so. When the earth turns away from the sun, darkness is sure to follow. When oppression reaches a certain level in its march toward The police state and slavery, rebellion and revolution follow most assuredly.



MLK might have been a softy with all that non-violence talk, but make no mistake about it, He was willing to call America on it's shit and do so without pulling punches (outside of his naturally cordial disposition). Whether you liked his methods or not, one cannot with a straight face say that he did not speak truth to power, which is something most so-called leaders cannot do. Why not? Because they have been bought like Mandingo on the auction block lock stock and barrel. "Open your mouth boy". " Hey Jeff, feel those thighs!". My adventures on Economic/Social Ladder have occurred simultaneously with my rise up the ladder of enlightenment. I have been blessed to witness the realities of the American pseudo-life. Rampant consumerism. Classism based on spending power. The new Sumerians( My term) for those who spend and consume without really knowing why or I should say without knowing how mass media influences their spending and consuming habits. With Global Positioning, pocket computers, cell phohes etc, people are literally being given the hard sell through most of their waking hours and like prisoners who learn to do their bits one day at a time by making the most mundane things into important things, the new Sumerians believe that choosing blue over red or ford over chevrolet or Mcdonalds over Burger King is somehow indicative of living in a free society. They've had Mcdonalds in China for years yet the government will expel you out of the communist (and only) political party if a couple has too many children(one is the limit MAYBE two) Why do I mention that? Straight math. McDonalds does NOT equal Free. The internet does not make you free. Education does not make you free. If your goal in life can be prefixed by the words "nice" or"good" (life, job, car, apartment, man. woman...) then your diploma or degree makes you an educated slave. Most of your time is spent on a paper chase to trade paper for stuff. Supreme Mathematics by extension says that if time = paper and if paper = stuff then time =stuff. Your waking hours(time) are a futile attempt to acquire stuff, most of which is disposable ( so it can be replaced and you can be sold another disposable replacement.)


The obscenity of charging for any MLK event seems to have bypassed these educated slaves in nominal authority around here. It's not because King was rich, though he was comfortable financially, but because he worked on behalf of poor people like me who would not be spending $20 on anything other than necessities. It is as if Kings death and the fear surrounding the violent nature of it made it seem acceptable to swallow the blue pill and act as if this illusion is somehow a life that the creator meant for us to live. It isn't. But don't kick yourself too hard for feeling fear and reacting badly to it. Not even the legions of Rome or Nazi Stormtroopers generated the fear that this government is capable of. Don't get it twisted. The Middle passage, slavery, jimcrow, lynching trees all over the south were all designed to instill fear and we all inherited a little fear of the fate -the noosegunbombbeating and ldumping on train trax fate- of those who buck. It is only Gods will that some of us-enough of us- have the sight that penetrates the facade, the ears that decipher the word, and the will to stand up and speak truth to power. It is nothing short of miraculous. But for those of us who have swallowed the red pill, now is the winter of our discontent. We must continue to support each other and meet this fear machine with a courage born of the knowledge that we don't die. We transform on this side and the next. What lies before us but the open grave? (add Claude Mckay to your reading list "if we must die".)We should not seek death, but rather the inheritance that our fathers have left on this earth in this space and time. Artificial boundaries are meaningless artificial class is meaningless. when I and my father are one, no man can cross me and live. It's like Brother Cleveland told me last week, when someone asked how he could walk so fearlessly through the projects at all time of night without a piece. Cleve just said "my bible says not to fear anything that can die like a man."

"Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!
And so I'm happy, tonight.
I'm not worried about anything.
I'm not fearing any man!
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!"

Personal note

As I left the Library
I saw the
Blue Goose
Parked on
Pine street and hoped it was yours
Sarah
Cindy
Hunter
Lowther
fill-in-the Blank Alias of choice
Not knowing for sure
I decided I would
Squat and wait on you like Charlie in a rice paddy
Or 'port into your passenger seat and snatch you back to my dimension
instead
I ran into the Library and searched every floor
I reached into my pocket and found a receipt for a good cup of
Coffee that I'd drank in the AM and on it wrote a note that your
redneck husband could not decipher if he found it before you
It's been almost a year to the day since we talked
A year and 2 weeks since "made love" (grunting and rutting)
A year and 2 months since we met
But only a minute since I thought of you last
Are you still rough and loud and quick to laugh
at the jokes God whispers in your ears?
"watcha laughin at"
"Ohhhh sumpin I just heard"
"when did you get the radio fixed"
"I didn't"
Do you still love to cook and Mama everyone around you?
Do you still dream of escaping to the Keys with me and your kids?
Do you still have those seizures that bring the whole thing to a grinding
Halt?
Wouldja believe that I remember your birthday? (December 7 )
and I celebrate it with cabbage soup( ugh) and frown through every drop.
Anyway, the note says

Hey Pookie
Greg
Sally

you'll know what it means

Leaving Valdosta.

8/24-25

I moved back up from Georgia this past spring. I was working in Valdosta and decided that it was time to roll out. With 14 dollars in my pocket, 2 bags of clothes and a gimpy foot I started walking north from damn near Florida up Interstate 75. After 3 months in Lowndes County, I decided to trade the plantation incorporated as the stae of Georgia for another plantation with better roads and not as many 100 degree days. Then as now, it seemed like madness to do what I did. But I woke up in the dark of the morning with a need like desert thirst to leave the chain gang state. It wasn't a logical or reasonable thingto do and I am a reasonable person. But over time I have learned a lot of things about my space in the world. When to stand. When to fight. When to chill. I've also learned to move when the universe says move. And when the Universe woke me from my sleep that Saturday morning, it was shouting MOVE! And so I did.

I'd come to Valdosta partly because my seasonal job with Sally in Albany was over and because a close friend was moving to Valdosta to enroll in nursing school at Valdosta State. She needed a friend in a strange town and I fit the bill. I kept her straight helped her find a place to live. I worked, She worked. We drifted apart. The thin line between love and hate snapped and neither of us could stand to see the other.

So there I was on the road. A good 15 miles into a journey of several hundred when I see the Firetruck red Ford Festiva that I'd come to town in a few months earlier. My ex-friend through a confluence of events including a homesickness, bad traffic, a free television set and my early morning wake-up call had put us on the same stretch of highway at the same time. Long story short, I got a ride to my destination. Was it the same force that woke me up and told me to move? Did that same force allow me to run into my former boss who needed work done and allowed me to earn my busfare to North Carolina? How could it not be?

Some would call this coincidence. Some would call the events a sign of the miraculous power of God. I don't believe in coincidence, miracles or luck. My faith is in the Law of cause and effect. The fact that I cannot explain an event does not allow me to call it supernatural. It simply reveals the state of my ignorance.

The tendency to label events as miraculous or supernatural is a holdover from the days of man's development as an intellectual being. Awareness of self. Awareness of surroundings limited by a lack of understanding of that which cannot be seen or comprehended. Hence, what we don't understand we credit (or blame as the case may be) the unseen. God.

"God is man's ideal. As man grows, his God grows". My God is the creator of the Universe. My God doesn't get angry and slay villages; nor send tsunamis out of wrath upon non-believers. My God cannot be contained by the word God. But my God is good all the time. After all God is my ideal.