The Kellikan Brief

Stop the bullshit that you be livin'!

2007-10-02T12:18:00.000-07:00

Be live and believe in the fathers who be leavin', the mothers who be raisin', the sons be misbehavin' with the daughters who be chasin'-paper-dolls.

Hydroplane

2007-10-02T11:59:00.000-07:00

"I can't do this." It was throbbing in his mind as he sat silent in the backseat. His sweaty forehead rested on the window, squeaking against it. He kept his gaze fastened to the yellow center line as the car pierced through the darkness.

He knew that he could not follow through with the plan. The cold steel weapon felt heavy and foreign in his soft hands. It rested, concealed in his jeans, pressed firmly against his pelvis. The men that he rolled with were baby gangsters. They had nothing. It was the thirst for fortune that possessed them. That was the reason they had no resignation, and no hesitation to up the anty.

Robert knew that he couldn't do it. He felt that once they crossed that line there was no coming back. He sat paralyzed as the whip propelled him closer and closer towards the edge.

Black man with a flat tire

2007-10-02T11:14:00.000-07:00

He crept up behind the couple. They were staring into each other's eyes and didn't notice him approaching. It was frighteningly dark, but they seemed to be the only other people in the parking lot. Maybe he should call to them now, so as not to scare them too much if he got too close. He should probably keep his distance anyways. He reached down inside himself to bring forth the whitest voice he could muster up. "Excuse me." It came out perfectly snow white, but too soft for them to hear.

orientation

2007-09-17T17:45:00.000-07:00

i wanted to begin my first blogs with a few words that will orient my readers towards my perspective on this day and age. before you can really begin to take seriously my body of work, it is important to know my perspective on the times. i give thanks to the gifted and honorable minister louis farrakahn for putting it so clearly: "time dictates agenda." farrakahn reminded us that if you do not know what time it is, you might end up doing the right thing at the wrong time. with these words of wisdom in mind, i will not allow you to take serious the agenda that I advocate without first agreeing with me on what time it is.

my first novel is the story of an artist growing up as a young man in these times. when i speak of these times i am speaking of the current era, circa the year 2000 on the Ethiopian Calendar. it is a time that can be defined as the climax of cultural absurdity. a time whose current events highlight the blunders of the last few millennia of human history, all of which can be summed up in a simple one liner "get money, fuck bitches."

i will not have you believe that this culture of materialism is new to the human race. get money. the history of this obsession with the material is certainly as old as humanity itself. fuck bitches. similarly, our efforts to subjugate the role of the woman within culture and society are almost as old. what is different about the culture of today? what makes these times any more absurd than the preceding era?

the irony lies in the identity of those that have settled for accepting this as their culture. the vanguard that was seen as the least likely to succumb to a cultural dumbing down have now become the poster children of "get money, fuck bitches." this vanguard that i speak of is none other than our artists. "get money, fuck bitches" has been at the forefront of one of the most significant and widespread arts movements in human history, the hip hop culture. it is the artists, and those that have control of dissemination of art, that have become the thought police, confining us to a narrowing view of what we can attain as human beings. the shackles that bind our dreams are being applied by artists. and in the familiar mantra upheld by all policemen they have told us that we are being served and protected by their brutality.

just as the police that colonize our communities hide behind the blue shield, the police that have taken over our ipods and televisions boxes are hiding behind a code that they call freedom of speech. i refer to them as thought police because these so-called "artists" have told us to value freedom of speech over freedom of knowledge. and now we are faced with an entire generation of people that are fighting for the right to speak before they think.

since time immemorial, as artists, we have been fighting for the right to speak truth into the world. we have wanted nothing more than to create a landscape where all beings can express their highest selves. somehow along the way we were hoodwinked. now we are fighting against common sense for the right to speak ignorance into the world. the ancient art of thinking before you speak is threatened by extinction. at some point while we were celebrating freestyle, we lost site of the responsibility of the artform to advocate freedom of style. we failed to notice that the art of improvisation has been reduced to an art of incognizance.

the protagonist of my novel develops as an artist in these times. he will discover himself in relation to these times. his journey parallels the struggle of all of the artists that i roll with. all artists of these times are confronted with a very specific duty: depict the absurdity of these times to the cultures that are being consumed by them. secondly, and arguably more importantly, we must provide within our art a roadmap to a cultural safe haven, a space of refuge in which our culture can survive. as a generation that is hip hop at its core, we must decide how we will evolve post-hip-hop. what culture will we create and pass on to our children?

my brother-in-lore, whom i affectionately call chief, once told me that the artist must speak with the voice of an ancestor. with our descendants in mind we must record the absurdity of these times in a way that acts as a warning to all of the generations that follow. we must never let them forget what WE learned about the SACRED role of the artist. these are the times and what they demand of us.

i swear i'm a writer

2007-09-04T01:52:00.000-07:00

I've decided that I must dig this old blog out of retirement. I wrote two entries on the damn thing a year ago and it started collecting dust. It was a failed attempt last year to chronicle my life so that my mere thoughts may be studied for generations to come. Artists are so egocentric, aren't we? We really believe that there is something that we have to say that the whole world needs to hear. A year of silence has past and I guess it is time for me to resume inviting people into my artistic life. It's time to start blogging.

Well, even if the whole world sleeps on this blog and ignores the absolutely critical information that it contains, my friends and family may benefit because they have been asking me to show some evidence to them that I am actually a writer. They want to know why I've been locked inside my room for a year and haven't produced for them a single writing sample. Being a stingy artist, and extremely overprotective of my work I've finally realized (after breaking one hundred promises) that excerpts of the novel will not be dispersed to anyone before they are complete. Even to the closest of friends. So I guess this blog is just my way of giving you beautiful people a consolation prize. I can't give you the novel at this point, but I am fully prepared to divulge my commentaries on some of the most important sources of inspiration for my writing. This means that first I'll be commenting on various youtube videos!

Remembering Katrina

2006-08-29T23:52:00.000-07:00

A year ago today the levees broke. The levees broke and unleashed a wave of terror that washed away the lives of thousands in one of the most impoverished regions in America. A year later thousands are still displaced and swarms of businessmen are implementing a genocidal gentrification project. Last November I was one of the hundreds of volunteers in the Gulf Coast region dedicating their time to serving the survivors of natural disaster and governmental negligence. In memory of the hundreds of men and women that lost their lives, and in solidarity with the thousands of survivors that were displaced here are a few of the words and prayers I wrote upon my return from this mission...

It hurt to be there when emotions were so high. When the stench was still in the air. When you get there you can't help but wonder...Why am I here? Why am I here when even they themselves are not here. Thousands have abandoned this Gulf Coast and I am here to give it life again? I am here to resurrect it? Or through my actions do I come here to mourn the dead? I must be here to pour libation for the souls that were dead before they died. Praying with my cautious steps, I tiptoe on battlegrounds of fallen soldiers that died for nothing. Their lives taken only for the reason; that we must cry for them.

We must make them symbols. Their loss must be a symbol of our struggle. But we won't dare to minimalize the reality of his life in turning him into an archetype. We cannot forget that he is flesh that toiled and suffered in this world with us. His feet stomped and his fists pounded and made contact with things of this world. He pulled and pushed on the matter of this planet. If he wrapped his arms around my body I would feel his hands on my back and feel our heartbeats touch and collide. And let us not forget that she is spirit and not just some story for our history books - not just some character. Remember that she dreamed of people like us. She gave birth to our cousins.

So this shows us what our symbols have to hold. The symbol has to hold within it their REALITY and not just their reflection. It has to hold all that they are - flesh and spirit. The symbol of our struggle IS what they were and IS what they are. In the words that we speak there are millions of deceased women that are speaking them. Who will speak for them? Our words breathe everlasting life into our ancestors. So we must be mindful of our actions. Because our actions are the method by which fallen soldiers now breathe.

change for a dollar (continued)

2006-08-29T13:08:00.000-07:00

Dollar bills burn much faster than I thought they would. I guess I overestimated the fight that they would put up to sustain their existence. Watching the flame consume it gave me an amazing high. It was the satisfaction of completing a chapter of my life. There are many beginnings and endings that punctuate our growth. The various transitions are always marked by some memory that most represented it. As I watched the rest of the bill incinerating in the wooden bowl I knew that I would never forget burning my first dollar.

I had some kind of subconscious assumption that burning dollars is illegal. For some reason I have recollection of hearing this fact at some point. After the dollar bill had been reduced to a bowl full of dust on my bedroom floor, I checked on the internet for any U.S. laws that criminalized my actions. In fact, there is absolutely no law prohibiting destroying your own money as long as you don’t try to spend it again. I guess creating a law in itself would suggest that burning one’s own money is behavior that is conceivable. In a world where money is God and God is misoverstood the desire to chase paper is a given. I guess a fear of a lifetime in monetary hell (poverty) keeps us from defying the norm more than any law could do.

One of the most important items on the dollar bill are the words “In God we trust.” If money is your God, then trust is certainly the bottom line. The dollar can only have power if we trust and believe in it. I sat on my bedroom floor stirring the residue of the disintegrated bill with my fingers. I tried to visualize a world where a few of us could fully escape this reliance on materialism. How will we live outside of the system when it has invaded every cubic centimeter of the air that we breathe? This unknown places a layer of fear on the surface of my heart. If the greedy are in heaven and the needy are in hell then what will happen to the nonbelievers?

change for a dollar

2006-08-29T13:05:00.000-07:00

I burnt my first dollar today. I set it on fire and watched the green crumble and turn to black. I guess it's hard to anticipate how it feels to do such a radical thing until you just man up and put the flame to it.

I woke up this morning with the idea on my mind. I lied there excited by the image of blazing green. This vision had been one of my dreams last night. My dreams have been more vivid lately and I have interpreted that clarity as reason to pay more attention to them. So I rose from bed this morning on a mission to burn just one dollar.

The flame from the gas stove would have done the job but I wanted to use something more hands on. I wasn’t about to search among the unpacked boxes that are still scattered around my new house for a lighter. So I decided to ride to the gas station to apprehend the tool.

I asked the man behind the counter for a lighter and gave him a dollar. He stared at me annoyed and told me that it cost $1.45. I gave him another one and took my change.

I sat crouched on the floor of my bedroom with the lighter and a bowl for the ashes. The dollar I chose was the most crisp one left in my wallet. As I sat there contemplating the act of insurgency, an instinct of urgency started throbbing in my chest. I began to wonder why I wanted it so bad. I questioned “Is burning this dollar bill in the privacy of my own home a legitimate form of protest?”

I turned over the bill to see the Great Seal of the United States; a pyramid topped with an all seeing eye, encircled by a caption inscribed in Latin. The depravity in those words is why I wanted to see the bill torched. “Annuit Coeptis. Novus Ordo Seclorum.” This morally corrupt declaration of power can be loosely translated to “He (God) has favored our Undertakings. A new order of the ages.” Upset by the audacity of the declaration I concluded that my dreams to watch these symbols burn were sensible. I began to look at it like a ceremony instead of a protest. It was a personal reminder that for those of us that are escaping from this New World Order a dollar bill is still just a piece of paper.