Whatcha Learn

You know my family always used to make fun of my dad cuz he had like one or two homies. and even those guys he saw once or twice every 1-2 years. He was basically dad and thats pretty much it. All my life I had shitloads of friends. A million people knew my name and I knew probably the names of say 1/10 of em but they were still my friends. I would defend my deep friendship for them despite my pops saying things like: those guys aint yer friends.

You know, how much of that was just to spite pops? Now here I am, a pops, pretending like I am all mature all of a sudden and the weird thing is pretending is starting to imitate life and as the two threads converge from the distant points they started at i find a woven knot of bullshit and real shit makes up my life.

I was telling a cat the other day that his essays would be clean and smooth and nice to read if he just cut out the fat.

Lotsa fat people in my life. Lotsa toned steel-armed people too. I find myself shutting up a lot more. Unless of course I be doing a podcast for Chengdu Living and my colleagues ain't got shit to say. I have to pick up the slack so we don't sound like teenagers messing with their first microphone. That one goes out to Charles and Eli.

Feel me? I turn on my little hose in the morning so the water drips like a floating waterfall into my growing-less-stagnant pond. Thats a big deal for me. All morning I have been trying to figure out the best way to smash up corn for the chickens -- I don't have a proper mill. only concrete floors and a brick. so the corn goes flying, I have to sweep it up and give it to the chickens. Sloppy.

Advantage is, the sparrows swoop in and dive bomb my courtyard for kernels that i missed.

I played the sit-up game with dorian and we laughed our asses off. Lotsa fat in my life but he ain't it.

I still greet "friends" i aint seen in a while with hearty slaps on the back because I still believe in friendship as the source of all goodness. But back when my dad was trying to tell me about who it was I was hanging out with, I would run out the house and seek out the fat in the world and chew on it and wonder why it made my tummy hurt. Thats whats changed.

From Now On

Dorian turns two weeks in a little less than an hour. The following is an altered message I wrote to a friend and is the post I was trying to write all week but never really had the time or the energy to put it all down. So thanks, Melissa, for getting me to spit it out ...

there is so much to tell. first off, he is doing good. he eats regularly and A LOT and he poos yellowish green. so that's supposedly good. he sleeps pretty decently, maybe 2 hours or so between suckles and at night he gets in a good 3-5 hours. He has these little pimples, little white heads, on his forehead right between his eyes that drive me berserk. i use this salve on them and it works, they are much less than in the beginning, but they aren't gone. i know today is his second week and things go slowly, but it bothers me.

he chokes on the breastmilk sometimes and i have to burp the hell out of him, takes a while, but it usually works well and he ends up passing out on my shoulder.

he has about periods every day, just at dusk or after his bath or maybe when the noonday sun reaches in, when he is super curious and he stares about 2 inches above my head as if there were sprites teasing him there. he looks at everything and has a whole series of expressions.

his arms and legs are (abnormally?) strong, he can bust through most swaddling and i have to hold him down when he gets angry, when he wants out, when he wants to eat and when he otherwise want to kick and squirm his way into/out of something that I haven't really figured out yet.

every time he sneezes I think he has a cold. he sneezes a lot. stresses me out.

Yesterday he tried to kiss me. he leaned in real close and we looked at each other and i could feel his recognition, his appreciation his love and his inability to express it all and i felt his animalness and also the chaos beneath as all of these emotions were washed away suddenly by the flickering of lights on the wall.

my feelings for him are very simple, but hard for me to express or fathom. He is a part of it all, from now on, and that's basically it. It doesn't feel like the lightning flash some people talked about, or the One Consciousness Hippy Love that others gushed over. He just is and therefore I am ... a Father and Guardian.

There were two lil poems I wrote in the past couple of weeks and both of them were mystic and lofty. I wonder if they were the watershed moments of emotion that surround the daily burping, pooing, suckling, half-smiling, blurry-eyed reality of a two week old whose existence depends utterly on my ability to take care of him.

Beginning to feel the 安

安 means peace and is represented by a woman under a roof. I always figured this character was a bit patriarchal ... but now that i have a mama and a lil one under my roof ... i know what them old sages were talking about.

Its the 30th according to the Chinese Lunar calender, so its a new year, out with the OX in with the Tiger. All is good. here are some pics from the last few days ... from contractions to today's chill session ... Holla:


It all started with a game of Risk ...


... then the contractions started.


Got worse.


Next thing I know, me and Pops are peeping through windows.


Josh and Heather showed up with Aixi and we checked up on mama ...


Then Lil Bean aka Lil Man aka Ninja aka the Boy aka Dorian aka aka aka was in our arms




and now he's a part of everything we do ... what a trip ...

redemption is just one way of saying

my job is
to pull you back from the brink of darkness
protect you from the prince of shadows
show you the flower in all seasons
keep you fed, fat and giggling
give you a blanket when its cold
build a home for you to waltz in
shore up the foundation when it crumbles
so that i might be
the man i've always wanted to be

This shit really happens

In the Sanctuary in Oakland with my main men Big Scott and Johnny Frizzle. Today we tore the house up to try and find my passport. We all had different vague recollections of having stowed it away somewhere in the house, but it turns out I left it at a completely different sanctuary up north a bit. My mind is playing tricks on me.

I find myself feeling quite sad about a homie of mine, real old school. We had big issues earlier this year. He stabbed me in the back for a string of flimsy reasons and my crew made moves to reconcile the whole thing and it ended up that we met again and forgave each other. I suppose i had to forgive a lot more than he did. My brothers came through for me and no real damage was done to me. But now my old school homie is floating about and none of my crew wants anything really to do with him -- because he stabbed me, but also because he is a wild card. Leaves me in a weird space. I feel responsible and sad. Responsible because I made my brothers deal with this shit and sad because the shit involved an old school brother. I had hoped to merge crews and see a unification of minds. But in the end i stand alone at the bridge and I got to turn my way and do my thing. So thats that.

I had a dream last night that left me shaken. I went into a brothel to visit a girl I knew. She was in love with me and treated my visits like bright shining lights of hope in her sordid life of Johns and Pimps and otherwise bad men. In my dream, I took advantage of her love just so I could get some. We had sex and she told me it wasn't about my dick, that it went so much deeper than that. Her sadness was the old stale sorrow of a love and a life almost snuffed. I observed and catalogued this face of hers, just because it was a human experience i knew i could recall and perhaps insert into a story of mine. Three black men came into the brothel and demanded her. They wanted to inflict physical pain on this defenseless woman and at first I tried to defend her. But this was one of those dreams in which my blows glanced harmlessly off of them and they laughed at me and threw me aside.

This is where it gets brutal and horrifying. So don't read any more if you don't want to hear what really happens in brothels like these.

They took a stick and started shoving it in her anus, slamming it and jerking it and breaking it off. She started screaming in pain. I heard the screams and they were so real, so raw, so dumb and drunk with pain that it no longer was a dream, but a dimension in which Sascha the man in this world was awake and subjected to his own cowardice and his own complicity in the act. She screamed and i ran out of the brothel and i felt the stick in my chest and the screams became my own and they said

this shit really happens this shit really happens this shit really happens

to women all over the world.

I read once about a prostitute in China who had been murdered by some pimp, He killed her by ramming a toothbrush up her nose. Once, as a courier for a travel agency in Frankfurt, I delivered tickets and cash to a brothel and saw a big German beat a little Thai woman because she didn't want to work anymore. I once saw a young prostitute in China shed one big tear and whisper just inside of ear shot that she didn't want to lead this life.

Wo bu yao zhezhong shenghuo. I dont want this life.

This shit really happens.

Well well well

What Providence, What Divine Intelligence ...

so i am leaving the Wagon today and headed to a different brighter spot up the road a bit. I am looking forward to it very much and i believe its the best way to get my thing going before i head to China and begin life as a family man. Holy Jesus.

I haven't dropped any of that story on here until now, for whatever reasons i may have had, they remain mine alone and now they have become irrelevant and so it is time to letchaya'll know the deal:

Zhang Yushi is 6 months pregnant with my son and the due date is in February. It came as a surprise and it was definitely unplanned -- in a manner of speaking -- but its something i have wanted for a long time and I am excited to get this thing going.

So, sure it was unplanned. I did not want to put the cart before the horse and I assumed i would be hit by lightning before i settled down with a woman, but at the same time i have been willing this for so long -- the entire time i was in China as a matter of fact. I was given multiple chances to be a father but each one was cast aside by fear and doubt and simple fact that the future held too much suffering for me to contemplate. This time, I can see a beautiful future ahead of me and it seems so damn ordained that for me to run this time would be the end of me as a man and the completion of the devil's plan for me. I would become the demon that I have feared for so long and end up sucking the souls of others for sustenance till my ass got got by a man with morals somewhere sometime.

Thankg God that didn't happen. Instead I made the right choice and in a few short months I'll post pics of my son (or daughter, still ain't 100% yet) and then I guess this blog will be filled with those words and those inspirations ... for some time to come.

mazeltov.

If Babylon falls in my lifetime

Nicole be twitterin with Questlove these days cuz he is in P-town freezin his ass off ... i mean it aint that cold up here but for him ... used to the sun and all ...

Is the Apocalypse nigh? I met a dude in Eugene who saw 7 of the 13? crystal skulls and he and his believe deeply in the beam of light that will strike the earth in December 2012 and carry some of us away, leaving others to fend for themselves in a soulless apparition world wailing under the yoke of being "not good enough to ascend."

I feel a constricting going on. Like we're being squeezed together by galactic arms. Twitter and Facebook are the farts emitted when we get pressed nose to nose ... so if the Apocalypse is nigh, is it proceeded by a consolidation of the human race down to a single? point in space/time so when the beam hits, everyone knows, from those guys who ran from the tsunami on the Andaman Islands to a yak jerky chompin nomad to a been drunk old Russian stumblin outta his pub to a fat German woman gettin her hair cut shorter than usual to a French waif-princess with delicate features and a penchant for wild romances with the wrong man ... to Spanish Fascists sipping wine in plazas down to Moroccan sages sipping mint tea and puffin shisha in the afternoon shade through the core life force blackness of Africa where our collective heart thumps.

I don't know what will happen when the beam penetrates the broad leaves of the Congo jungle and hits a walking soul between his eyes.

I'd like to be on Twitter with that fool so when it goes down maybe he can squeeze out a few lines to warn the rest of us here in the New World about what the answers to the test might be ... noone wants to be the fool held back while his crew keeps on to the next grade. The kid who failed is forgotten unless children needs be warned bout what not to do. Then that guy gets pulled out like a Brother's Grimm tale of woe.

I am mentally ready, but my soul ... although not dogshit ... aint ready to be with God. I have been close enough reaching my fingers through the sheeting that protects my unsound mind from the realm of God and I stood right there at the precipice of the whirlpool whose galactic arms are squeezing, twisting, melting and coming for us all. I stood there and pulled my self away like waking from a bad dream ... it oozed away from me and i got it on my mind as I plot on shady deals and tea houses.

What if my family aint my Tribe and I have to walk away from them when the beam hits? Is that possible?

What if my Tribe aint my family and they have to walk away from me when the beam hits?

And if the beam does not hit. then the decision we have collectively -- and i mean my Tribe here -- made will have to sustain us. I mean, wouldn't it be too much for this generation of humanity to WILL instant gratification upon the entire planet via a beam of light prophesied by crystal skulls? It just sounds like something we would want to have happen because the alternative:

struggling through Babylon and building a temple of light from out the muck

just aint quick enough.

I come to the same conclusions daily. If Babylon falls within my lifetime, I am holding hands with everyone I won't walk away from anyone. And i'll do the same if it don't. If you know me on a personal basis, test these words daily.

I gotta go and hustle in the shade and build a house for my teas. Holla at me when the beam hits.

I take my music whereever I go

because I'm just so in love with it.

I beatbox walkin down the block a lot and sing in easy soul rhymes. My gait loses me in the funk and I must look wild to passersby. Its so easy to slip into a soulwalk in any town on any street, I flash it out like bursts of qi to anyone I meet. Sometimes i get so nervous and I falter in my funky step, cuz steppin easy aint so easy when I'm the only one.

If I could forget about it and just step on, i'm sure all them would follow, cuz I've been there before with my beatbox goin and everyone's bobbin along. Bobbin along ....

Every step of the way

I realized something very profound this morning and i am going to try and explain as best i can.

it began when i thought about this scene in a movie i watched, in which a man said to another, lets have a moment. they then looked each other in the eyes and "had a moment". One of the men could handle it, the other couldn't, so the moment slipped away. I imagined myself in that situation, because i know what the one man who did not let it slip away was trying to do. so i did this, as i lay in Mika's bed stinking up the spot.

I ... where do i start? well, i seized the moment with this man and fell away "inbetween". I almost slipped away, but he could read my mind and actually saved me, he yelled my name and i came back. i told him i loved him and we kissed. suddenly my tribe members were there and they said: So you are gay?

The man and I laughed, because this is so far beyond the concept of gayness.

I should go through the entire process, but I think that is for another time when I can clearly get the facts down, but basically every book I have ever read, every movie I have ever seen and basically every conversation I have ever had informs this profound realization.

That, namely, the devil walks with you every step of the way. As does god. The divine universe in all its beauty and horror walks with you every where you go. now, when one slips "inbetween" as I am going to call it, one faces both the devil and the god alone. without constructs. and this is a dangerous place to be, because it is also a very powerful place. It is not only where we come from but where we are going. actually it is where we are all the time. and this is the profound thing.

We make this world around us, or this world was made for us because we are so very very important to it all in such a deep way. our responsibility to the divine scheme is quite crushing. We are in training.

Imagine a web of golden threads and we are happily enmeshed within. outside the web is the unimaginable beauty of true freedom and the union of the devil and the god into the stuff dreams are made of. the beauty and happiness of this i cant imagine. anyway, our task is not to rip these threads apart and dive into the field of union, but to pass through them with a content smile. ready and trained for the meeting with the god and the devil in their space, alone, without table and chairs and food and tea to save us. just the divine will and you.

so. it is very important to be trained, because if you rip through the fabric, like i have on several occasions with and without the help of mind altering drugs, you can get lost in the space inbetween. this is madness. and the only escape is for you to die. and start over. which i suppose is not that bad. But:

Our world is filled with the messages from the dead to those who still live, in the hopes that the soul that once was will read the words of his own hand and come to the profound realization that training is needed.

So what kind of training? I believe it is necessary to find a master that knows what the hell I am talking about and has walked more steps down the path then me. That would be best. In the meantime:

we are actually with the devil and the god all the time. the space inbetween is actually the only space. our world is a protective cocoon. a barracks. so we can practice the union and see the union. observe it and know its properties; consider the split and wonder aloud what union actually means. this helps.

we can also make decisions and treat people according to what we feel the properties of union are. such as telling your people that you love them. not squashing anger, but smilingly guide it somewhere safe. when drunk, feel the demons and fight them off, or let go of your angels and put your arm around the drunkard next to you and sing. i know this might sound pretty mundane and such, but it was a profound realization for me to see that this is all just a practice session.

and the deductive process was pretty awesome. i mean i cant put it all down because it would be pages, but if anyone has seen the movie a beautiful mind and those scenes where he puts patterns together? thats what it was like. i felt parts of my brain glow.

it makes writing and a tea business much more and much less at the same time. my first choice of the day: to consider things as much more.

Opportunities

I trust myself now more than ever. I thought to myself the death of Wall Street could only be a boon for me and mine. I had a feeling there was an air of excitement building up ... i felt guilty saying it, but i did anyway.

peep this video, an Addendum to the Zeitgeist movie that tore into the 911 myth, the Jesus myth and the Fed. They bring the right message at the right time. They got me thinking about further schooling ...

By the time this crisis is over and my hair is thin and gray, my daughter's sons will ask why it took me so long.