The Weird Turn Pro: A Playlist

10 Mar

Yo La Tengo I heard You Looking

Funkadelic Cosmic Slop

Captain Murphy Between Friends

Black Star Respiration

DJ Spooky Peace in Zaire

Tuned Mabaadu Viva Disco

Sunny Risky & The Vitamin Explosions Atak Mfat Eyen

Femi Kuti Truth Don Die

Hotline Can You Do it? 

Extra T’s (Corn Flakes) I Like it

Al Hudson and the Partners You can do it

Aleke Kanonu Keep New York Clean

Beverley’s All Stars Be Yours

The Soul Survivors Mama Soul

The Equatics Merry Go Round

Ray Barretto Acid

George Darko Akoo Te Brofo

Giorgio Moroder Munich Machine Party Light

Sebastian Tellier, Mr. Oizo& Sebastian Chivers as a Female

Its a Fine Line Woman

Mann Parrish Hip Hop Be Bop

Cold Crush Live in ’81

 

 

 

 

More Than U Know

26 Feb

Dropped this one down last night.

 

BM

Geeking Out on CBGB

17 Feb

Sometimes it just feels right.

Prophets

10 Feb

 

submarcoshorse

 

 

“Wind Below”

Flip this capital eclipse
Tha vocal tone has got ’em sweatin’ their own apocalypse
Yes, rebel of tha grains stand masterless
Tha masked ones cap one
NAFTA comin’ with tha new disaster
And yes we in wit tha wind an tha plan de Ayala kin
Are comin’ back around again
Tha slave driver saliva, one night power turns
Them devils mouths dry, now Mexico burns
So here they come one by one them killers of the new frontier
Occupy, causin’ fear, come on
Wit the wind
belowWe in wit the wind below
Wit the windFlip this capital eclipse
Them bury life wit IMF shifts, and poison lips
Yo they talk it, while slicin’ our veins yo so mark it
From the FINCAS overseers, to them vultures playin’ markets
She ain’t got nothin’ but weapon and shawl
She is Chol, Tzotzil, Tojolobal, Tzeltal
The tools are her tools, Ejidos and ovaries
She once suffocated, now through a barrel she breathes
She is the wind below
The wind
She is the wind below

And all the shareholders gonna flex, and try ta annex the truth
While the new trust is gonna flex, and cast their image in you
Yeah all the shareholders gonna flex, and try ta annex the truth
And while the new trust tries ta flex, and cast their image in you
And GE is gonna flex and try and annex the truth
And NBC is gonna flex and cast their image in you
And Disney bought the fantasies and piles of eyes
And ABC’s new thrill rides of trials and lies
And while the gut eaters strain to pull the mud from their mouths
They force our ears to go deaf to the screams in the south
Yeah!
But we in wit the wind below!
But we in wit the wind below!
But we in wit the wind below!

~Zack De La Rocha

Forty

25 Jan

My first weekend post birthday was nearly over

by the time I realized my new age.

Los Angeles? More like Lost Angeles

Sitting in the McDonald’s drive thru

trying to figure out the best way to get to the airport.

 

By my calculations, I was nearly 60 in white people years.

Cuantos tienes anos meeester?

Old enough to know better.

 

Every day just got sweeter

knowing we are never guaranteed  to

see another set of birthday candles to extinguish.

 

The existing barbarism  woven deep

within our society’s fabric

has been lying low and dormant,

a fact that we forgot about not because it was hiding,

but rather because we refused to acknowledge it

until it became too obvious to ignore–

Kinda like when someone’s urethra stops itching

only to give way to a  burning sensation.

 

Time to flip the script (again).

The board has changed

and what I’ve suspected and feared for 17 years 

is finally coming to fruition.

I’ve been right all along but didn’t want to believe it.

 

Shifting from apathy to anger, from disbelief to resignation

it was hard to muster up enough grief to feel sad for us.

We were getting what we deserved.

But there was no reason to ever be afraid again

because the worst case scenario was indeed happening.

 

 

Even those fortunate enough to survive the next 4 years

would be leaving something behind that they may never get back.

 

 

The drive thru cashier handed me my coffee

and pointed me in the direction of the airport.

 

I pulled out of the parking lot and took a right on La Brea Avenue

and drove back towards the direction I came from.

 

I wasn’t sure where I was going to end up

or how I was going to get there,

but I had a pretty good idea of where I should start.

 

 

~Edward Austin Robertson

 

 

 

 

Mexico City Revisited and Other Thoughts

3 Jan

My visit to Mexico was a very educational one. I do believe I saw the future of the United States hidden somewhere down there. The wealth disparity between rich and poor, educated and uneducated hints at what is to come here in the states. I remember reading back in the year 2000 that the election of Bush (among other lame brain decisions) signaled a decline within the middle class. 15 years later we are seeing the effects, including the anger and frustration for middle to lower class whites that resulted in the election of Donald Trump.

You can check out my photos from my trip here on Flikr.

  • Mexico is an interesting and massive country (imagine if California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and Texas were still owned by them). There is so much to see.
  • Christmas in Oaxaca was a very festive one. The parade and fireworks showed me a side to the holidays that I’d never associated with this time of year. I really dug it.
  • Colima  was pretty awesome and very beautiful. Mountains and fresh air were the most memorable parts for me.
  • The food in Mexico City paled in comparison to the Oaxacan and Colima cuisine. As a matter of fact, I doubt I will ever go back to the old D.F. A lot of people like it, but I’m cool on Mexico City. Too big. It reminded me of all the worst parts of Manhattan, my least favorite borough in New York City.
  • I may have seen exactly four black people the whole time I was in Mexico. When I was flying out to Oaxaca out of Benito Juarez Airport I was into a guy in a Yankees hat. WE were in line for Starbucks and once we figured out the other spoke English, we had a great conversation. “Ease back bruv, I’m from London.” He told me when I struggled to engage him en Espanol.  Anyway he said he had been living in Mexico City for 2 years and had seen MAYBE 25 black people in that time period. He also said that every interaction pretty much mirrored the one we had at the airport. On an unrelated note, he had a pretty cute Paraguayan girlfriend (totally my type too) that he was going out of town with. She was really friendly and made me consider how long I plan to be single (and consequently celibate).
  • Seeing so much of Mexico these past 2 years makes me want to see what the deal is with Spain. I’m especially interested in the Moorish architecture in Spain. The Spaniards were some bad mufuckas back in the day, and everyone felt their presence back when they reigned. I need to see what is up out there. From what I hear though they do not care for people of my complexion. Will they run me out like they did the Moors and Jews? Stay Tuned….

 

2016 was a super rough year for a lot of people. In the midst of all the chaos I somehow let myself go. Over the break I looked into the mirror and saw a shirtless flabby middle aged dude who at best would be rated a 6 on a 1-10 scale. When I graduated high school I was a 9 (in my mind), trim and confident. 20 years can’t feel any further away.

The bar has been set low enough that 2017 HAS to be a better year. I gotta lose weight and get back in shape. In addition to that I’ve got enough unfinished projects to keep me awake for the next six months. In a way the current political and social climate has given me a better perspective because now I really am forced to live every day as if it could be my last.

It makes sense that Buddhism was such a popular philosophy back when the life expectancy was so low. Today we have enough modern day conveniences to distract us from just how flimsy life is. Back then you couldn’t ignore it. People could be more barbaric without consequence, diseases were less treatable and there was very little escape from the elements.

We might be at that place in our society again. It doesn’t mean we should be capricious and irresponsible, in fact; just the opposite. I plan to live each and every day with attention and intention. Small goals will signal daily wins, and if I’m lucky enough to be standing at the end of the year, I will celebrate like I won an NBA championship. Perhaps life has always been this fragile, but for better or worse, it is a fact that is impossible to ignore today.

 

BM

1995

3 Jan

Some of the best days of my youth

were spent lounging at my buddy Ricky’s house

after school; watching videos on Rap City,

reading Boondocks strip and the Unsigned Hype column from the Source Magazine and

eating tortillas and homemade salsa.

Talking Wu-Tang Clan, girls, Cypress Hill, baseball and girls.

Things were never easier than being alive back then.

 

~Edward Austin Robertson

 

Moment of Truth

15 Dec

America is finally being honest about what it wants. White Supremacist are making their power play as the nation prepares for Donald Trump’s inauguration. Coded language; once a necessity, is no longer needed in this new regime of open racism.  This “new” reality has come as a shock for many self-described “liberals”, but for most black and brown people, all of this is old hat.

People can lament the direction this country is going in, but the truth is that nothing has changed at all. The only difference between this era and past eras here in America is that there are more camera phones to film the onslaught of racial slurs, civilian attacks and police brutality. Despite the increasing number of racially motivated attacks on minorities, many people are still in denial about what is happening in this country.

Unfortunately, black Americans cannot afford to be in denial right now. It is time for us to stop wasting our energy on protests (marching,kneeling etc.), town hall meetings, and think pieces about the “race problem” in America. Blacks need to stop trying to elicit sympathy from whites and start preparing for this new regime.

As I see it, blacks have 3 options: 1) We can arm ourselves to the teeth and prepare for the impending race war coming down the pipeline  2) Get our passports ready, make an appeal to the UN about this country’s systematic human rights violations, pool our resources together as a block, and find countries that will allow us to apply for refugee status with their governments.3) Continue to do nothing and hope that we can survive the next 4-8 year wave of rampant White Supremacist backlash.

Many intellectuals believe that the key to black progress is to work within the system; by becoming lawyers and policeman and judges, but perhaps it is time for us to consider something that many people are thinking, but no one wants to openly admit–that this country was never meant for us. The constitution was not written with us in mind, and though we are quick to stand up to honor the flag during the national anthem, the song’s lyrics are questionable at best.

For centuries, we’ve been humiliated , punished, assaulted, tortured and murdered while the judicial system not only turns a blind eye to this treatment, the courts actually encourage and enable this denigration that is occurring on a massive level. If we stop to consider how the law is enacted unevenly towards whites and blacks in this country (war on drugs, death penalty, racist policing tactics), then it is hard to not at least wonder if the system is not indeed against us.

While some non-minorities wear safety pins and claim to be in our corner, there are still far too many who conveniently ignore the reality that blacks and other minorities are facing in this new age of open racism. Maybe it is just time for us blacks to GTFOH. We can no longer fool ourselves in this political climate.  We have to stop identifying as Americans citizens and face up to the fact that (unless you weren’t born here) we are really Prisoners of War in this country.

Coming from a fairly assimilated family background, I thought racism was a regional thing that could be escaped once I moved out of the south. Although I’d never let the social construct of race define my personal worth or what I could and could not do, I was forced to understand that it affected others perception of how I should behave and think.

Dissatisfied with what Texas had to offer, I spent my post-college years trying to find an environment for a black man to raise a family. Though some states and cities are safer than others, my biggest lesson as an adult has been that there is no place free from racism. Cities like San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, and Austin can fly their liberal flags, but it is pretty easy to make these claims when the majority of your populace is white.

At best you can say these are racially tolerant cities, but there is a huge difference between feeling safe and accepted, and feeling tolerated. The safest American city to live as a minority might be New York City, and that is a rapidly gentrifying city that only recently rescinded their racist “Stop and Frisk” campaign of brown people.

Race has been an issue in this country since the end of the Civil War, and I can’t figure out why we insist on living in a country where we are not welcome. My suggestion to blacks is to research your family tree as far back as you can trace it, and take a DNA test. honor your ancestors and go back home. Next year about this time, this country will be facing a recession and if the United States is not at war, it will be preparing for some sort of major conflict overseas. I wouldn’t recommend any minority to go and fight for a country that continually fails to recognize their basic human rights.

Private prisons are on the rise. Weapons defense stocks shot up the minute news that Donald Trump won the 2016 election. Trump has promised to get tougher on crime in the “African-American” community which means more police in black neighborhoods. Known White Supremacists have been appointed to various cabinet positions inside the White House, and Trump even suggested that his regime will require Muslims to sign into a registry. This is a very precarious time period.

Generations of families have been destroyed by the prison system, the education system and  the sabotage of any economic success within the black community. With an astonishing number of African American’s warrior class dead or behind bars, this generation of youth is highly vulnerable to the social dangers that await young people with little to no guidance. We are a banana peel away from slipping into ethnic cleansing.

White Supremacist will continue to kill more minorities with impunity while white liberals only pretend to care or look away. Blacks rights will be slowly stripped away in the courts while their lives are being take in the streets. What has been for some time an oligarchy is soon becoming fascism.

Blacks will be the first manner of business on the right-wing agenda. All the blacks who are not imprisoned (and thus enslaved) will be killed, deported, or sent to war. Once that is achieved you will see all the dissenting intellectuals and artists imprisoned or killed. Then everyone who doesn’t fit in with the plans to advance the white Germanic (heterosexual) race will be disposed of systematically as the White Supremacist makes one final push to destroy civilization, and bring about another Dark Age.

We can sit around and pray to a God that they pushed upon us Black people. We can cry into cameras and make hashtags for each additional tragedy that befalls us. We can continue to have silly, symbolic gestures to show our dissatisfaction with a White Supremacist system that has kept us under its thumb since the very first time we met Europeans.

Our pleas for sympathy and humanity have been heard, and America gave us our response in the form of the 2016 presidential election. No one is going to help us. We must help ourselves. This country is facing a grim reality, and whatever happens the next  four years people will look to do what is best for themselves and their family.

Blacks have tried everything to get along with whites here in the United States. When we built our own towns and economic base, angry whites came along and found an excuse to sabotage or burn it down. When blacks were allowed to live and go to school with whites, whites fled the cities for the suburbs,  but then came back to the cities once more blacks found access to the better schools and environments for their children out in those suburbs.

It is time to acknowledge that this integration experiment just isn’t working. I know it is scary to think about, but we have no choice. What do we have to lost this point? We can choose to stay here as prey while we get picked off one by one, then hauled off in mass towards an unsavory demise, or we can take our chances across the ocean where the unknown awaits us (the randomness of dying in a terrorist attack doesn’t sting as much as to me as a targeted execution by a White Supremacist). If death or imprisonment is imminent, I’d rather be buried on the home soil of my ancestors than in a massive grave built by my oppressors.

BM

 

 

 profile pic b mick  Bobby Mickey is the alter ego of writer and poet Edward Austin Robertson. When he isn’t involved in some basketball related activity, actively looking for parties to deejay or venues to perform comedy, he can be found recording podcasts with Craig Stein at FullsassStudios. Follow him on twitter @clickpicka79. For booking inquiries, send contact info to thisagoodassgame@gmail.com

 

 

Geeking Out On Fidel Castro

12 Dec

Professor James Small brings up an alternative view point to the death and legacy of Fidel Castro. tumblr_nmrirmloaz1t2yuz0o1_12801

Review of the New Tribe Album

25 Nov

Low(er) End Theory