Dear Charles: An Open Email to Charles Hamilton

aka The Pink Panther

aka Sonic

Everybody has to hate a man who gets to walk on clouds
Because nobody ever dreams to have their feet on solid ground
So the people trying to bring you down will only have to see
That with a change of frame they'll be up here with you and me
Rest easy, be at peace and don't look down at jeering voices
Their protests are the dying pangs of ignorance, that noise is
Just the rattled cough of all our sins, the sickness unto dying
But we are the cure, the weight will lift and all will soon be flying

True to Youth, but Young to Truth
Each nook is a studio and shower a booth
Each hour the power to get Dreams out now or
To Glare in the Mirror, to ataxic to move.

Dear Charles Hamilton,
I am writing you as a great admirer and lover of your music. Your work, your lyrics in particular, have always possessed a certain ethereal quality, of a greater weight in spirit than things other rappers may say, and your metaphors distinguish you as a man with a very unique and beautiful brain. I'm writing you because I worry about that brain, about the great potential that is about to be squandered by the career seppuku you are committing.
I remember first hearing your music, Charles Hamilton, and feeling so fucking invigorated that I shook, excited as a child with an expensive new gift. "Is this the new wave?" I thought, hoping I was seeing the fresh face that hip-hop would take, a return to the mastery of language and poesy as much in thought as in word, as much in the resonance of ideas as the assonance of syllables, that has led to the production of what are now considered "immortal" works of art. I thought you might be going in that direction, not to stand amongst the ranks of Pac and Big (no disrespect), but with Whitman, Milton, or Blake. Taking so much stock in the opinions your contemporary artists, as Ye and Em, will only frustrate you. Be content that, if you stay true to the art and the heart, you will be remembered as readily as they when America is a memory and Hip-Hop the name of a university class studying outdated forms of expression.
The world is very big, and history is very long, Charles Hamilton. And we, all of us, are very, very young. Cultivate your Thirst for knowing and skill, ignore your Hunger for fame and power, and you will be given that which you surrender. Don't take it as a slight against you that neither Mathers nor West responded-they circulate in different globes than you, as you do in relation to me. Don't try to be talked about for throwing punches above your weight-nobody would attempt to compare you to Hov at this point. Don't battle in barbershops-there is a time and place for it, and if you respect the conventions, people respect you.
Focus on your music and words, Charles Hamilton. Find a Voice that is undeniably yours but yet more than yours, that speaks from your mouth but from a larger and broader Mind, and you will see that matters of "career" are transient and irrelevant, purely incidental and without value to people as Artists.
I hope to continue hearing from you via mixtapes and singles. ("All Alone" was great, by the way) Eventually I'd love to hear you perfect and finalize an album. But I think it will take a radical change in perspective, "getting your mind right." Break out of where you're at, change some settings, meet new people, and get a library card. Yeezy's where he's at because he told himself he was the best since before anybody'd heard his name, and it took ten years, but people are beginning to agree. Will you wait ten years?
Good luck.
With the best intentions,
Your Fans

More important than what you die for is what you live for. It is not meant for us to choose the way we die, which is why most of us don't, and won't; but the way we live is ours to choose.

Every breath is an artful stroke, every death the final signature on a masterpiece, and whether we are the painters, or God, is inscrutable, irrelevant.

Maybe better than what we accomplish is what we intend, what we dream, and who we inspire.

The patience of a slave is nobler than the forbearance of a master.

EDIT: This could easily be misconstrued. I am in no way encouraging "slaves" to be patient, merely saying that their burden weighs heavier, which I suppose is kind of obvious.

The smallest particle of matter possesses despite its size a gravitational force that spans the very length of the universe. However gentle its pull, however slight or small, there is not an atom in existence that does not feel it.

Chopin and Alcohol

I am actually drunk. In many ways I pride myself on being somewhat of a psychonaut. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it basically refers to a person who explores the outermost reaches of human consciousness via whatever means they find transcendant. Emerson was a great transcendentalist, and I think had he been more informed by the good William Blake he might have been on to something of the greatest importance.

***Turns out it's very likely that Emerson did in fact read Blake. Though eloquent and intelligent, Emerson knew he was not really a poet in the way Whitman was.

It's starting as an autumn of disappointing youth
Leaves were art are matter and will be shit
You can smell, top of the throat, dry-lipped
The flutter of Black wings as dust sets
And, infected with silence, implosion
You see, can almost feel. Leaves. falling, drifting
Shadows juggled, flickered sunlight
And beat. And beat. And beat. And.
I'm not what I meant to be.
Dreams smeared away, decayed, forgotten
Present tense. Present tense past. Last.
Eyes have black hearts; minds a cruel flavor
Reminiscence cast ahead, a Fisher King's Line
I was have failed become what,
Am not success, who wants success
And who is not what is not me
Or is what who I think?
My reality hurts, the doctor said
Put Ice ON It i said I always fucking put Ice on it I don't come to a doctor if I can just fix it by fucking putting Ice on it at home and he said Put More Ice ON It and i said ok
I guess I grew up yesterday. Maybe this morning
Sometime around the swirl of the coffee
Or the coughing of cobwebs from ambient eyes
I could've sworn I was nothing a few hours ago
fairly certain existence wasn't, oblivion adrift
The encapsulated meaning of the universe
In the void outside of mind
Tiny tremendous ants on march
A slightest spark in the brightest brain
A bite caught flame and screaming
A bolt from the sky, sizzling ecstasy, and ashes
Not here.
Not now.
But I see, can almost feel.

I need to write something

It's a massive pain in the ass to have so much that you feel you need to put on paper (or on the screen as it were) and when the time comes that you get a little privacy, a chance to duck away from shit and sit in front of your computer to do some real work for once, that time comes and you can't fucking think of a single word that could come next. Who are my characters again? What the hell is going on in this story?
Writers' block. I've already got my cock blocked, and now this, too?
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
You have to hate the nature of this whole thing. Write for months, for years in poverty, starving and slaving for hours just to drudge some words into sensible order from the disparate river of alphabet soup that is the thought process, and at best all you can expect is the allotted fifteen minutes that so many spend lifetimes aspiring to.
I better get a half hour, or at least twenty minutes. Ha ha. That's a joke.
God damn it, why can't I write something real right now?
Fuck fuck fuckitty figglety fuckerrous furious fuck.

Dark Matter agaun

OK, now I'm 20 minutes in, and yes I am drunk, but for FUCK'S sake, why are we trying to define matter in something other than atoms? Gravity has been proven to function to hold together galaxies despite the matter they possess, so what is the scientific justification in inventing the matter that should be there according to previous (and probably incorrect) theories based on less scientific knowledge?
When will current discovery stop apologizing for old theory and make some new ideas of its own?
Excepting the on-a-limb-theory of dark matter, it merely seems as though our (limited) perspective on the exact nature of gravity is keeping us from viewing this dilemma at a larger perspective. What if there is more to causing gravity than a simple presence of mass?
It is simply a question posed by someone who has only passed a basic physics class in college, but according to the scientific method, this kind of question should be asked. It's all about how objective reality can connect with human consciousness and ability to record. Think about it. I'm not an idiot, I promise.

Dark matter again

I'm only sixteen minutes into the documentary.

And about six drinks deep.

So don't take what I'm saying in the least bit serious.

Just an extra disclaimer.

BUT people are asserting that dark matter comprises at least 95 percent of the universe. Between the nucleus of an atom and its electrons, there is how much empty space? I'm just saying. People are asking, "Where is this dark matter?" and I'm just saying, "Is it in THERE somewhere?"

More Dark Matter

OK, so I would expect the gravitational pull of our sun on the planets in our solar system to decrease exponentially as they got farther from the sun. That does not surprise me.

What does surprise me, if I'm not too drunk to understand this documentary, is the idea that the non-angular velocity of stars farther from the center of a galaxy in the SAME as that of stars closer to the center of the galaxy. That makes no sense to me, but only because I viewed it kind of like spokes on a wheel. It is clear that such a simplistic paradigm (or metaphor, however you want to view it) is not sufficient to understand this shit. Something weird is definitely going on, according to these fancy dancy physics peoples.

Dark Matter

I'm a few minutes and more than a few drinks into watching a documentary on dark matter.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=908866531008634459&ei=akEHTOnGEILCqAOHq8neDw&q=Most+Of+Our+Universe+Is+Missing#

At the moment (and I'm only part way in, so take this with a grain of salt) it seems as though the theory of dark matter originated simply from our discrepancies in knowledge about the nature of gravity in general. Just my thoughts so far.

What causes gravity?

Matter.

Why?

Dunno.

Is it polarity or electromagnetics?

Nope, not that shit, though we dunno why.

What about displacement of space?

Not sure, really. Check back in a few decades.
But anything weird it causes, we'll account for with this "dark matter" thing we got, and then we'll get back to you.

Diamonds at Sunset

We all make diamonds at sunset when we close our eyes it seems
As though the lives we haven't lived yet come to see us in our dreams

Aubrey Berry and Dolla

http://thecelebritycafe.com/feature/aubrey-berry-acquitted-dolla-murder-trial-05-22-2010

Seriously, what the fuck?

This is fucking ridiculous. How are you going to claim self defense when you're shooting a guy in the back as he runs away? ON FUCKING CAMERA. How does a jury acquit the guy of all charges? He's a fucking murderer.

It's as if the mainstream considers rappers' murderers to be public servants or something. Berry's not going to prison, Pac's killer is free, Biggie's killer is free (if they're not dead by now that is).

I'm facing some legal trouble myself right now. Maybe I should just go shoot a rapper, then the jury will love me and drop all charges.

At this point, it almost wouldn't be a surprise to find out that John Lennon's shooter is sitting on a beach somewhere holding a margarita that he bought with his government salary.

Foe tha Love of $

There is a very serious problem in this world. As far as I can tell, this problem extends as far back in history as human record. Greed, the most contagious pestilence to strike our species. Money is such a falsity, just a medium between work and the objects one needed to survive. But the pursuit of money has become an end in itself.

Kierkegaard: "a young man today would scarcely envy another his capacities or skill or the love of a beautiful girl or his fame, no, but he would envy him his money. Give me money, the young man will say, and I will be all right."

Money is existential and abstract; it has no value. So why is it such an obsession? Examine the distribution of wealth within the United States. You've heard the statistics, and if you haven't, then educate yourself. Some of these people, these millionaires and billionaires, just have to start giving it up. Seriously, just give your money away—you have more than you could possibly spend, more than most people could even imagine. Honestly, how much is your lifestyle going to change if you go from having $300 million to having $30 million? With $30 million, you could afford to buy a new house every year just off of the interest, and people think that they need more than that?
A hypothetical businessman has made a massive fortune of $300 million by the time he reaches the age of 40. Does he retire, leave some room for new entrepreneurs to make their way in the world? Or does he say, "I'm still young enough, why not try to double my money?"
And say he succeeds: will he be satisfied? Or will he merely want more? The pursuit of money is endless and hollow. It is like a drug, providing a momentary rush from the original profit, a rush which soon fades and leaves one craving another.
If you really have the resources, if you really have so much money, then why not invest in something that matters? Set up scholarship programs on a massive scale. Develop agriculture in starving countries. Just give money to local artists. Buy computers for inner city schools. Volunteer to supplement the income of public school teachers nationwide. Money is meaningless, but people matter. We all need to help each other make the world a better place, and we can do that through giving everyone an education and a voice.
Greece fell. Rome fell. The caliphates fell. All the greatest civilizations in history disintegrated eventually, and when that happens to the US, which is a statistical inevitability, history will remember us for our intellectual and artistic contributions to the world culture. As it stands, the one thing we are most likely to be remembered for causing is global warming. If we want to make up for that, we seriously have to educate the hell out of everyone, present as much opportunity to people as possible. We have the resources, but we don't have the will to do it.



The value of gold, before its abilities as a conductor were known, was drawn from its beauty and rarity. If you want to be valuable as a person, don't accrue ridiculous amounts of cash. Be beautiful and rare.

Deathbed Prayer

Let me keep on sinning, Lord; I swear I'll change someday
Let me do the things I do and say the things I say
'Cause don't we know that life is brief and soon to pass away?
Just let me keep on sinning, let me live another day.
I left mother drowning in her tears so I could drown in booze
Let my father die so far away I couldn't hear the news
Knocked the windows out of a church 'cause of what it made me lose
Now I'm backed into a corner where there's nothing else to choose
I'm hell bound, bell bent on saying what I meant
Though the Devil tried to stop me I'm the change that's heaven sent
And though I've done so many things I think I never could defend
I'm gonna do a little better 'fore the shit comes to an end, so
Let me keep on sinning, Lord; I swear I'll change someday
Let me do the things I do and say the things I say
'Cause don't we know that life is brief and soon to pass away?
Just let me keep on sinning, let me live another day.

Politics

There is no Republican vs. Democrat. There is only the rich versus the poor, the few powerful against the many voiceless.
Politics is a modern version of Gladiatorial combat. Two contenders, and only one emerges victorious. It is very theatrical, and very gratifying, but those in power are not foolish enough to leave their machinations in the unreliable hands of elections. It is a distraction. There is something at work transcending party and liberty—money and power.

What is your price? Would you sacrifice the freedom of your fellow man to increase your own power and influence? Human nature dictates that you would.

Do you have an alternative to human nature?

FEMA, The National Guard, and You

The primary purpose of government programs such as these is not to provide safety to the American populace, but to the American elite. Did FEMA really handle Katrina poorly? Or did they do exactly as they were trained to do: evacuate the important figures and leave the chaff to die?

Rochester Race Riots of 1964 and Nelson Rockefeller. Kent State University during the Vietnam War. You have to ask whether it is the duty of the National Guard to protect us, or to eliminate us to protect a higher order.

Time Travel is definitely NOT possible

God may open a window whenever he closes a door, but he won't allow his house to be burned to the ground.

Imagine... You travel back in time and kill your past self. This means that you die before you have the chance to travel back in time, meaning that you never kill yourself because you die before you have the chance. Meaning that nobody kills you and you DON'T die.

It's simply not possible because that is not the kind of paradox that our universe allows.

Zeno, now there's a man with a paradox.

Apokryfa

When the one true religion does emerge, it shall not spread on the internet, or television, or in a book. It will come in the sharing of the right idea from one ear to another. Truth thrives under scrutiny, and if there is One True Gospel then it has yet to be revealed. The true Word of God could fail to convert no man; every mind that grasped it would be overcome by awe and the surety that it is the truth. All the world's paradox would unite into a sensible universal organism and Life would be allowed to proceed as it was always meant to, without regard to wealth or possession but rather finding meaning in the ones you love. Someday, maybe, we will realize that Love is our true purpose, what will give us happiness, and that if we can expand the circle of people we love to encompass everyone in the world then we will be that much closer to existing in a perfect reality.

The one thing that all false religions seem to have in common is organization. I adhere to the belief that one's spirituality and relationship to God is nothing more than personal. When you start introducing systems of patriarchy and tithing then what should merely be a means of finding happiness become an enterprise of becoming wealthy and powerful simply because a lot of people believe there is some divine channel hooked up to their respective faiths.
If you want a channel to the divine, look no further than yourself. Merely experiencing love and compassion will bring you far closer to God then saying some Hail Marys or firebombing an abortion clinic. People just need to meditate on their lives and on the people of immediate importance to them, the people they love; we all need to realize that the meaning of life is to be meaningful to each other, to act in ways that foster and sustain good relationships with all of the people we are exposed to. Human nature being what it is (quite animal), the only way for us to achieve this kind of universal love is for everybody to find God within themselves, to discover the happiness and contentment that exists simply in caring for each other.
But the question is, where do we begin?
Al Ghazali wrote an "Alchemy of Happiness" a very long time ago.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/tah/index.htm

Reading Kierkegaard is like trying to weave spaghetti into a rope

Nuf Said

Working Title

“I just can’t get enough of this shit.”
I looked up at Raymond as he muttered this to himself. He was prone to fits of sarcasm, and this was one of those incidents. It got on my nerves, really, but I was willing to put up with a certain amount of Raymond’s bullshit. “What shit?”
He set down the paper he had been reading. “Nothing, just…” he made a strange gesture, more with his wrist than his limp hand, which he circulated lazily as he tried to gather his thoughts. “Some notice of a new government program. It’s garbage.” The paper had been set face down, and Raymond, lifting his beer and pulling from it long, set it down on top of the leaflet with a sneer. I noticed a distant look in his eyes as he watched the condensation gather on his glass and run down, soaking into the paper, warping it. Cheap ink began to bleed through.
“What’s the program?”
Ray glanced around the bar, noting the other patrons in the dimly lit establishment. He picked his beer back up and just before sipping it he muttered, “Tell you later.”
My brother could also be prone to fits of paranoia. In recent years, I had noticed him acting increasingly frustrated, agitated and angry at nothing at all. His posture had begun to slump, as though he had been struggling against something and was losing, the slow realization of defeat gradually creeping its way into his eyes. I wished that I could know what tortured him; all I wanted to do was help him come to terms with… whatever.
Which was why I accompanied him to the bar and drank with him. At first I thought it might be a way to get him to talk to me about what was bothering him, but we started coming to the bar more and more and he was talking less and less. He would bring newspapers and other leaflets along with him, sipping beer or whiskey and reading in silence. And I would sit with him quietly, drinking what he drank and probing, waiting to hear from him.
We used to be so close, as boys. He was my older brother, though only by two years. Often it felt more like I was the older one, the way I would look after Ray. He tended to get preoccupied. Sometimes I think he might see the whole damn world as a distraction from whatever it is that goes on in his head. I worry about my brother.
He had brought no newspaper this time, so when he broke his stare away from the leaflet he had nowhere to look but at me. He took a deep breath and held it, eyes closed, he held the breath so tightly I though his chest might burst open. Then he opened his eyes, let the breath out slow, and squarely met my gaze. “I’m frightened, Eli.”
And I became frightened, too, though of what I wasn’t sure yet. I could just see the abject fear on his face, the wet trembling in his eyes as his teeth sought out that small spot on his lip that had been scarred from years of anxious chewing. I prodded him, asked him to tell me more, begged him to tell me why it was he was so scared, but he would speak no more of it. We drank in silence until I blacked out, and the next morning he would speak no more of it.

It was another seven months, when I had almost given up, before I heard another word about it from him.

Curiouser and curiouser.

I'm constantly amazed at just how long life is. The amount of time it takes me to write this sentence is so minuscule, so fucking irrelevant. Two seconds, the breadth of time in which so little can be accomplished, but so much can be destroyed. An object can fall twenty meters, a heart could break, a bone could snap or a library catch fire. So much can be lost so quickly.
Imagine how much you can lose in five years. If life steadily declines, without improvement, for that long, then what does that mean? There is an old saying, which makes fun of an even older saying, and it goes: "Quitters never win, and winners never quit. But those who never win, AND never quit, are idiots."
I've been called a lot of things, but no one ever thought I was an idiot, not even when I did incredibly stupid things. But I've done enough of them now that I'm starting to wonder whether I have sort of unclassifiable handicap, some inexplicable form of brain damage that makes me seem perfectly intelligent and suited for real life but really leaves me bereft of any ability to function on a normal level. I'm like the opposite of Rain Man. Instead of seeming useless and being brilliant I seem quite capable but really can't fucking do anything.
How many lives were led in mediocrity that began with great ambition?
Is normal life the best I have to look forward to? Is that bad? Is there even such a thing as normal life?
I have a close friend, a true artist and classic ascetic. He renounced material society years ago, gave away all of his possessions, and has been hitchhiking across the country ever since. He eats enough to survive, sleeps enough to keep going, and makes art wherever he goes. The large part of his work will never gain recognition, because the bridges and abandoned warehouses that he uses as canvas will eventually be painted over or knocked down, but he paints anyway because he doesn't care who sees or doesn't see it, or whether it will still be there the next day. He certainly doesn't care if any of his real canvases ever sells because he has no use for the money.
I could never live like that, or so I thought. I want to have a bed, and a house to keep it in. I want to have an iPod, or an iPhone, and a Cadillac, and a yacht, and a mansion, and a football team, and a TV station and a publishing company and a record label and fucking everything else that there is for a person to have in this world. But I don't have any of these things. I'm practically homeless, broke, with no marketable skills and (obviously) a downward spiral of negative thinking. All I know is that I need to get back to writing more often, and so here I am. There is no need to hesitate at posting such ersonal thoughts here, as I don't use my real name and nobody reads this blog anyway.
I mean, shit, it never updates, now does it?