FIRST

(FIRST) spoken word. I meant to put a lot of my attempts at spoken word up on this blog (that was a large part of the "word" part of the title of this blog), but I've been a little tardy. BUT NOT ANYMORE! Introducing, my first spoken word to go on this blog. (Wooo!)

So a little bit about spoken word (since this is my first spoken word posted on this blog). So I got into spoken word earlier this year. You can find some really good examples on youtube (I suggest Def Jam and Urban World NYC Teen Poetry Slam). When you've watched a sufficient sample of good spoken word (which I have to admit, I didn't really do before I made my first spoken word) you can glean that a lot of the spoken word is about race relations and urban conditions (although maybe that is just because of the samples I am watching), two issues which I have to admit I don't have all too much first hand insight. And for that reason (and many, many, many other reasons) my spoken word is maybe a little trite and I can't pretend it's good. But I still really enjoy spoken word. Spoken word is a very diverse genre, probably multiple genres, but one defining hallmark is a structure to words, in some ways perhaps it should be called 'structured word.' Whether through a central image, or a structured syllabic pattern, or a rhyme scheme, or through connecting images, the key concept of spoken word is a structured organization. And when trying to express the abstract-ness of thoughts and words, that structure is really helpful, even as you enjoy the expressiveness of the poetic aspects of spoken word. Also, I kind of like spoken word because it is one of the very few artistic things I can even try. 

So about this poem. This was written a couple of weeks ago, when this poem pretty much summarized the entirety of a two-week stretch of thinking, which was a little frustrating, but pretty good fodder for a spoken word. It's not quite as relevant to my life anymore, but since the point of this spoken word was to start a turning point, that's pretty cool. I hope you enjoy. An approximation of the lyrics of the poem are pasted below. Before I paste the lyrics though, I had some trouble posting the video on Blogspot ('blogspot (or David) fail'), so I'm using facebook as my video hosting site. I'm not really sure how facebook links work, so hopefully this is a permanent link that works. Please let me know if the link doesn't work. 

Thanks!

Dksays

Link: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=83863510913&comments

Lyrics:

Currently, I’m selling out

Which is funny

cuz there’s not even money

But I assure you

I’m selling out

And I’m looking for an out

 

Right now,

I’m serving on a sliver platter

Whatever I think you think matters

matters is too noble a word to denote the dish

more appropriately a spoiled fish

More specifically my inner soul

Split and sautéed in a sauce that’s pooled

But I expect my auto ten percent gratuity

Estimating that this is qualifying party

But hoping you like me even more

Cash in another five percent at the door

 

But here’s how the evening was usurped

See, you’re turned off wishing you were in Europe,
Where the only thing that are tips are the extremity of an object

And I’m wishing, I’m wishing I was working on a new project

Cuz Speaking of objects, there’s more than that I’d like to see

 

See I’m still just a waiter

But I’ve waited far too long

For this obsession to abate.

So I don’t mean to hate

 

But I strongly dislike

I’d like for it to take a hike

This predilection where I constantly estimate if im liked

So no, I don’t have a resume or an alternative frame of view

But I assure you I’m looking for something new. 

Selfish

I said, "no more being selfish."

And nothing changed. 

Except my two-week old headache went away. 

Prejudice and Success

If we were to wake up some morning and find that everyone was the same race, creed and color, we would find some other cause for prejudice by noon.
  - George Aiken

Our student email homepage has a 'quote of the day' that has provided a number of interesting, pithy, humorous, sardonic (all right, not really, I just wanted a nominal reason for exercising some of the more impressive parts of my adjectival lexicon) quotations. The quotation that was on the page today, copied above, is especially interesting and to me appears to be wholly true (something that isn't that common for an art-form, quotations are definitely an artform, that emphasizes simplicity and and pithiness over truth). 

What do you think about the validity of Aiken's assessment? I guess the more interesting question in many ways, is if you believe it is true, why? If prejudice is more based on a need to discriminate than the actual forms of discrimination: race, creed, color: why do we have that need? 

In contextualizing the question, in thinking about why I might discriminate, I realized that in a strange way it might be associated with a desire to be successful. Success is often relative: it's not getting a 100 percent on a test it's getting an 85 on a test that had an average of 6 percent (tough test, perhaps it was on k-pop). And we seem to have this pressing desire to succeed, to be special, and so we need a group of people to be 'lower' be it based on race, religion, ethnicity, or test score. This of course isn't the whole reason, ignorance, fear, and other factors play a large role in many current prejudices. But I think the need to discriminate, Aiken's idea that if you removed all current prejudices we would quickly develop new ones, is in many ways based on this idea that we need to be better than others, we need to be successful. Obviously this desire to be successful, ambition, can take more benign forms even as we attempt to be better than others. But perhaps the better option is to redefine success in terms that aren't relative. I don't know, these are some pretty off-the-top-of-my-head ideas, and like most ideas thus categorized, it is probably highly idealistic, a little pretentious, and quite a bit aggrandized. But I kind of like the idea of defining success not by comparison but by internal intuition.