I tried to influence events, at my job,
to influence the zeitgeist, have an affect on how people thought about things, but
I saw that I could not persuade anyone, all I could do was be an example, and then
I saw that I could not influence a publisher or a literary agent, a book reviewer
or a literary critic, all I could do was do the best I could and let go of the results.
This was when I came up with the saying "Is you is or is you ain't an existentialist?"
This was also when I began posting a book a month online at The Daily Bugle.
That was something I could do.
* * *
Just as now I am posting OLD FOLKS AT HOME at The Daily Bulletin.
It's something I can do.
What happens to it happens.
What happens
is almost out of my hands.
You have to let go of the outcome.
* * *
I thought, about the first two parts, "This is good shit, I want to
tell somebody, show somebody," but then I thought, "The important thing
is not to get excited. Stay cool."
You can't impress anyone showing
them bebop when what they want to see is hiphop.
I trained myself to be a
bebop artist in a hiphop world.
"Elmo's World," as Ella says.
She has an Elmo doll and makes up her own world about him, with a little help from
Sesame Street.
I am trying to be a swinette picker in a world that
wants the movies 8 Mile and Be Cool.
Or books, I don't know
what kind of books they want. Just not my kind.
But someone wants
them.
My coterie of steadfast readers want them.
I have found my
niche, my audience, it just took longer than I thought it would and it's smaller
than I expected it to be.
Old Folks's World.
The darkeys didn't long
for the plantation, they longed for the old folks at home on the plantation, one,
and two, nobody who works for a living ever owned a plantation, they're flogging
the wrong horse, on purpose, for a reason, I can't stop them, but I can throw light
on their reasons, their methods, I can show the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain,
run, Toto, run.
Books is where to put it, not television, and if you can't
put it in books, put it on the worldwide web.
Then forget about it.