Everything is bullshit, I am surrounded by bullshit. The right people aren’t the leaders and those that should be in power don’t even realize their own potential. People are starving across the globe, massacres of entire villages, the raping of women, the slaughter of children, and here I sit surrounded by people concerned with sneakers, video games, money, money, money, consumerism, cars, rims, making money, gold, shopping, buying the quintessential suburban home which is the fake American dream. I have always said, gold, silver, and diamonds and pearls only have value because humans have given them importance. In the natural world, a diamond is no more valuable then a ball of clay or a pebble in a stream. Man has given so much importance to such artificial things that really have no more value then anything else, only in the artificial system that man has indoctrinated every other man to live under. And we don’t question it. We don’t question it. Do we have a choice? So what do we live for? What do we work for?

So many public enemies. Entertainment. The purpose of entertainment is no longer simply to entertain people. It is created to control people and to control how they behave and how they spend their currency. Entertainment is created to shape the way we think. And most are blind to this. So many are blind to this. Take a group of men and women, strip them of all their clothe and jewelry, and stand them in line next to each other. What is the common theme? What are the people left with? What is the essence of being human? What is left when all the tangible bullshit is stripped off of the persona? The mind ! The human spirit ! The human heart !. Everything that we consume ourselves with has absolutely nothing to do with what is essential to being human. But the mind has been poisoned. The spirit has poisoned. The heart has been poisoned. I sometimes feel like finding the highest place on mother Earth and screaming at the top of my lungs, “STOP ! ! ! STOP !!! Listen to yourself ! Stop listening to what you are being told ! Think for yourself ! Understand yourself, understand your fellow man, take time out to feel what it really feels like to be human. Not the artificial human that society has constructed. Love is important. Concern for the suffering of all living things is important. Define yourself by yourself, not by what your currency has bought you. . . . . . “ I love volunteers, I love the peace corps, I love people who care, who cares, because I care.

The voices never stop trying to tell us how to live and how to think. The only way we can find ourselves is in silence and in conversation with each other. Real conversation. Turn off the TV, turn off FM radio, Turn off entertainment for a few hours a day. Understand its influence in your life.

Rethink what you have learned. Nothing that you learned has been a random occurrence. Everything you have learned was decided by a group of men. Do you understand how many things around you have been brought to you by a bunch of men in suites sitting around a table behind a locked door, powerpoint presentations, graphs and charts. The music you hear. Rap was the voice of the people ! Rap was the expression of the common man, it was the spoken word of an oppressed people looking for answers, questioning the system, trying to understand their situation an outlet for everyday themes, and creativity. What rap your ears hear now is decided by a group of men sitting around a glass table in a NYC sky rise. Jay-Z riding around in a Lamborghini, down south rappers driving around on 20 inch rims, diamond studded earrings, and chains. This is not the people I see in my hood. I see a people clawing at a better life. I see mothers and fathers working hard for their children. I see teenagers, some caring and some not giving a fuck. I see grandmothers and grandfathers reminiscing about how it used to be. How many of our people in the hood are driving around on 20 inch rims, how many of our people are wearing diamond studded chains? Walking around my hood, I don’t see what I see in rap videos. I don’t see girls shaking their asses in my face wearing next to nothing. I see girls pushing baby carriages, I see young girls going to school. I see Mexican and Guatemalan men racing their bicycles to make a fast food delivery only to race back to the restaurant, pick up another order and be in the apartment down the hall from the previous delivery. The time of the low-wage worker is not important. But if my boss has to look twice through a powerpoint presentation to find a reference, then someone will pay. His time is not being used efficiently. He is wasting his time and this matters. The time of the low-wage worker does not matter. His time is not as important as my bosses. How is this possible when the time we are afforded each day and night is exactly equal. My Monday was not longer or shorter then yours. We both had exactly 24 hours. I am sick of it. Rap is no longer the voice of the people. Who will bring it back?

Why are we superior? Because we can give value to some rock over another rock, then oppress, enslave, and kill our brothers and sisters for this rock. Why are we superior? Because I can write this and a monkey cannot? Because we can do these things to each other and a monkey cannot? When this writing will change nothing and is as insignificant as a malnourished African baby to the western world ? You will forget this and I will be forgotten like your own ancestors. Who were they ? What did they stand for? I am surrounded by bullshit.

It is okay to love ourselves and one another. Kids its okay to give a fuck. Its okay to want to do good in school, to excel and appear smart. Its okay to read as much as possible. Its okay to be play an instrument, to listen to jazz and classical music, to write about love, to write about grief. Its okay to study. You are intelligent. Its okay to care for each other. Men, its okay to cry ! Its okay to turn off the TV, its okay to turn off FM radio. You will not melt or disappear. You will grow and we will grow.

They build more and more prisons when we are not all born with the same opportunities and love. Rehab. Rehabilitate prisoners. No, you will not change everyone, but those that you do change and redirect are steps to changing and correcting the way things are. $36 million to renovate the WW2 battleship Intrepid, that is currently stuck in the NYC harbor. $9 million to release it from the mud its stuck in. Its FREE to volunteer and have a great positive influence in a young man or young woman’s life. Imagine what the mighty dollar could do for these people if spent in the right way. But truthfully, I hate money. I hate money. I hate how enslaved I am to it. I hate how C.ash R.ules E.verything A.round M.e, get the money, dollar dollar bill ya’ll . . . .