I feel like I reached some new territory with some wall work this year but the expectations I have put on myself to keep it up have left me feeling I should just enjoy the process and relax. Although I did a lot of groundwork with drawings and works on paper which is a lot of work in its own right. I always tell myself that you have to make sure I do nothing for a while, when I say nothing, I mean read, go for walks, look at art whether low or high art and try to do something out of my routine once in a while.

A friend of mine said an old artist friend may want to photograph us working on a wall and I laughed imagining being the subject of a cold scientific eye in the name of true art. I always try to use photography as a way of explaining disempowering the subject, I am obsessed with people’s ability to be disempowered in society. It isn’t that I am being negative it is more about trying to understand why people will fall into a social demographic and only think money is the way out. 

Of course, money helps people access things but I don’t think it should. I suppose I am a bit of a socialist and feel that people should have a voice without money coming into the equation. I am not saying I want meth heads reading the news on national television but I want something other than sport being the only option to be respected or some hair-brained cash-making scheme. When I see a photo of an old schoolmate sitting on a couch posing in front of thousands of dollars with sunglasses on I would rather see a poem or a really bad painting. 

For example, something cringeworthy breaks the cycle. People will think the person has lost their mind but at least he isn’t losing their mind on drugs. I almost feel the well-heeled get access to all of the cutting edge Avant-garde expression leaving the poor to shuffle in and out of the needle exchange. I say screw the elite and let them eat cake. Or as Banksy stated let them eat crack. That is the old line and you have to make sense but whatever happened to the power of DADA? A lot of people have said we need DADA now more than ever in the past eight or so years. 

I think the poor need to explore tight leotard-wearing dance or cutting-edge expressions to find a way out of the capitalist rat cage but everything requires a donor or community and the most prominent community in some suburbs is a web of drug dealers who also use gear to get high and would rob their own grandmother. What is all of the desperation really about? That in itself is culture but culture can be positive and Hip Hop culture can be interpreted in a number of ways but all culture offers standards and has ways of being distributed. When Hip Hop first started it was underground and I think that is what we need.

We need more underground efforts and ways out of the money trap, before money ruled people still made those small underground jewels and we need that more than ever. We need to keep exploring and growing. That is what I like about the parking lot cypher, a lot of underground rappers get a chance to express themselves but we need people to come together and fashion words, dance and enjoy the effort. Forget about trying to reach some kind of mountain peak. Keep your feet on the ground and create your protective bubble, keep adding to it, keep learning and learn to love yourself for who are with all of your imperfections and flaws.

I just want to see the cycle of pain, addiction and misery stop, it is all around us but hidden from view, Occasionally it explodes into view, we need creativity and acceptance, understanding and all of the knowledge that has been stomped on by elites and corporate powers.