It’s one of those sleepy stumbles on to the subway, you know? I don’t quite remember the walk from my apartment into the station. It all happened so quickly, like a blur, or so slowly that nobody could possibly remember things when you have so much time to process what’s happening in front of you. When the doors opened I forgot what day it was. I didn’t understand where I was going or how I made it to this moment in time—just that there was an ideal seat and life might be better if I had it. I sat down with my earphones in and then took them off. I took my eyes off my visual magnet and deposited it in my backpack where it would stay for an eternity. Thirty minutes or something? I don’t like to call myself pathetic, but it did dawn on me that I had made it to a point where I had to train myself to remember, remember being the key word, to give my eyes their freedom back and my ears their space. I had listened to my own soundtrack for too long. Why not take in the music of someone else’s? I had read other peoples books for too long. Why not watch my own unfold? An odd contrast, there. Listen for others, ignore my own sound. Ignore others scriptures, learn my own words.
The only problem is the listening of other people is so sweet that it often transforms me to slumber. Heavy eyes drifting from consciousness to ring-dropped, aware and yet not really at all. I could have been hijacked and pick pocketed without so much as a reflex. Mickey in the water. Chris Washington in the deep.
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I never was good at memorizing rap lyrics. I didn’t have the knack for it. In fact, I’m notorious for butchering them altogether. Lately, though, certain lines that I have retained have been popping up every once in a while in the steady stream of cerebellum traffic. The last one of note being, “I got a million ways to get it…choose one” by Swizz Beatz on Jay-Z’s track “On to the Next One.” This is my first day really being back in NY with my focus on the days ahead. Catering on the horizon with its inconsistencies in tow, promising to offer a buck or two. I heard Postmates offers jobs as a walking courier. Exercise and money? Ok ok.
A million ways to get what, though? Money? An in? What is the what?
I watched a Mos Def interview on YouTube a couple of weeks ago thinking that it was recent and not quite caring when I found out it wasn’t. He was talking about the way in which we make money and how we spend it. How there is a tendency for people that find jobs they don’t quite like that pays them a lot of money to spend it foolishly because there is no real, genuine attachment to the job they are working. I wonder about this sometimes. Is the gritty, sometimes constant-struggle pursuit of someone’s dreams worth it when it stands next to the boring, uninspiring job that will pay for whatever you need?
Another rap lyric that emerged in this journey to find the above answer is, “N***** with no money act like money isn’t everything.” This line was spoken into existence by Aubrey Graham. He has a lot of money. He seems happy.
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I saw a movie called “A Quiet Place” last night. I heard it was good. The trailer looked good. So I saw it. I was pretty locked in after the first few minutes after the movie decided to do something that horror movies don’t typically do (ask me what that is after you see the movie or if you don’t want to see it, ask me if you REALLY care). The conceit of this film was in the title. This stranded family had to move around their world in silence because the monsters living around them responded to sound. Ok, I thought. This could get interesting. Half-way through I was fully engaged, but to tell you the truth it never really got anywhere. There were several thrilling scenes, suspenseful out the yin-yang, but ultimately it was a strong attempt that fell at the wayside. Nowadays if I get the sense that a movie abandons it’s track in order to set up for a sequel, then fuck it. With respect to this one, it kind of had a fuck-it ending anyway regardless if there will be a sequel or not. I used my movie pass, so my distaste was tempered a little bit. The trailers before the trailers featured a promotional screen advertising four movies: Mission Impossible 974, Infinite Infinity War sequel, Jurassic World 456, and some other sequel.
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Kanye West went on a twitter rant and I decided I’d have a look. In his tweets, he mentioned:
“As a creative, your ideas are your strongest form of currency. You have to protect your ability to create at all cost.”
“When you wake up, don’t hop right on the phone or the internet or even speak to anyone for even up to an hour if possible. Just be still and enjoy your own imagination. It’s better than any movie.”
He said a lot of other things two, but those were two of his messages that struck me the most. The idea of protecting your creative freedom and the idea of distancing yourself from the distraction in order to keep that creative freedom alive.
Someone else also said that Kanye only tweets when he wants to sell something.
There’s a lot to decipher nowadays, good and bad, for better or worse.
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With a million and one different factors trying to alter your perspective, throw you off guard, sway you, contain you, I’m just another person trying to find out who I am, what I want, and what I ought to be doing.