Cobb

Herb Doctor or Drug Dealer?

The news is that Freeway Ricky Ross is out of jail. The news behind the news is that he intends to go big and go legit. The expectation is that he will succeed. All it takes is for the current tangent of decriminalization of marijuana to continue.

I knew only that Freeway Records, on Western and King, was run by drug dealers during the 80s. There wasn't much going on South Central that wasn't cousin to that business in that crazy period. I remember the time well. It was the last gasp of my generation's battle for the hearts and minds of South Central and all of our hoodrat inheritance. It was back when Spike Lee movies mattered, when hiphop had something new to say. It was the moment of decision. Culturally, the choices seemed narrower, and for the younger me and my peers, they probably were. How could we visualize ourselves in a new class of America given where we came from? Everything was promised, nothing was guaranteed except the backdrop of black love and self-destruction. We were the New Jacks and this was our city.

The hustlers survived.

I wonder how far that old drug hustle dream has gone. Is South LA still home to it? Could the legend come back from prison and find open arms waiting to reboot the network? Can YouTube and a new domain name serve as vehicles for that same old refrain: "Where's that bad bo?" Is that the medicine the millions still crave?

I'm tempted to crack wise or speculate about the potential cultural nexus that the likes of Freeway Ricky Ross is apt to exploit. But I don't know where the heart of the old hood has gone, or why so many gave in to him in the first place so I leave it as a question. I know a hustle when I see it. The bigger question is whether or not the monkeys in Sacramento will continue their farce in licensing this retarded business. Considering what they've done with the lottery and gambling, the answer will be yes, of course.

Not with a bang, but in a purple hazed whimper.

True Independence

It is very nearly impossible... to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind. 
--James Baldwin

It will get me more exposure to entitle this essay 'A Black Man's Fourth of July'. It's something people are desirous to know, I reckon. But I am not so sure that continuing the farce serves any purpose other than a sort of disingenuous marketing. 

Long ago I thought my way out of the minority paper bag and using one device or another have managed to keep my mind, soul and heart free of the fetters of a racial worldview. Yet there has always been a basic sort of pride in my ethnic upbringing that would never let me break free of an opportunity to express it in a new, and what I considered important dimension. Every so often I would encounter a reason to write an essay or return to the theme 'The End of My Blackness' knowing I didn't ever really want it to end. And so I would find something black just above my head, jump up grip on and pull myself to another plateau. But something about the Presidency of Barack Obama and the turns the nation has taken over the past three or four years have broken that reflex in me. So here I stand on the Fourth of July thinking that there is no good reason for me to even consider Frederick Douglass' ancient rime.

At some point, all history becomes equally valuable to contemporary ears. It is the point at which all current powers are derived from those other than the actors of history, try as they might to claim cause and effect. And so as I look at the powers that be and the powers that were and I find many generations and many wars in the intervening years, I realize that lives given yesterday are of greater consequence than those sacrificed 150 years ago. The blood of the American Civil War is as dried and gone as that of the Punic Wars or ancient Rome. What history then should we study? All of it. But let us not make the error of thinking we are all a part of the same continuum. To dismiss the thoughts of bygone eras is but an academic concern, but to face today's tyranny is the true matter of courage.

That was all I could say.

So I know what I know and I do what I do. I have only the slightest purpose in decoupling myself and making American history just another un-self-interested lesson plan. That is to be free of the legacy of any imperative which mocks my independence. And though the thought comes naturally and freely as I write it here, I suspect that I will be dogged by that assertion. 

I don't think or feel that I owe it to 'America' or any ideology so much as I owe it to my own stubborn nature. I can only use those frameworks to understand where such a personality might land me. I fear too few men have bothered for me to find sufficient and ample company should push come to shove and the financial basis for our comfort fail us at the ass end of this recession. I doubt it should matter that I quote James Baldwin then. I'll be like Denzel Washington's Eli with only some religious discipline to keep me intact. In short, I suppose I rather worry about civilization and its ability to defend what I am likely to become at the end of my journey towards wisdom. 

It does me no good to apply such skepticism to America in the abstract. At some level, I have to trust that there are some who will accept and defend me on principle, and I hope that some people's patriotic ideas will dovetail with my own and that our shared culture and society will be sufficient. Absent that, I suppose we all will re-gamble as the Founders did with their pledges of life and sacred honor. That might not be such a bad idea after all. 

--

My friend Bill speaks of something just above my head called cultural evolution. I'm skeptical of it. And I'm not so sure that what has been learned can be re-learned without being re-earned. I'm not so sure, given our predicaments, that we can inherit anything properly. It all seems feudal and that with our rotten kings they are bound to grind their castles into the dust by their horrid misdeeds. We may never gain the view from their parapets. All we may ever get is the relative comfort of our station. I do not know if this hedge disqualifies me or makes me more noble. I don't know whether I have stopped looking for open doors of my own dispirited will or from wise calculation. I simply know that they are rare. Occasionally, I have my paralysis. It makes me want to live somewhere remote with a padlocked cellar full of staples.

These are the doubts that attend a Christian soul, a team player, one who recognizes the benefits of leverage, trust and coordination. At this moment from within the belly of the beast I struggle to know what true independence is other than independence of mind. And where does the independent mind go but towards isolation or reform? It's a restless predicament indeed. It is a painful state of freedom. 

I am concerned that I am tending towards the way of isolation, and perhaps it was always my destiny. Perhaps it is the ironic fate of a man who decides not to engage that thing that marks him most whose greater deeds are not obvious.  The tall man who doesn't play basketball, the voluptuous woman who doesn't flirt, the Jew who doesn't pray. We are products of a thin consideration and we must draw people in towards our true character, until we grow weary of being appealing as all old men and women eventually must. Then our individual gifts grow more meaningful as we can be nothing else but who we are. Else our individual gifts are wasted and we disappear from society. Thank God I have children. 

America is the place for the exceptional. Our view of the individual is unique and profound. It allows us to step away from or experiment with the social dynamic. It allows us the freedom to choose. It is an expensive choice and one must take care in choosing because people are as they ever were. To step away from what society would have you be and to face the consequences are the edges of the individualist's sword. They cut deeply.

Hitchens and Me Again

David Brooks writes:

It would not be a safe world if every policy writer were as literary as Hitchens. Government is mostly about administration, trade-offs and compromises. But his perspective usefully highlights psychology, context, courage and virtue — important things that are hard to talk about in policy jargon or journalese. No one will agree with, or even comprehend, all of his aversions, but his affections are easy to admire, especially his strong and growing affection for America.

Most of all, his is a memoir that should be given to high school and college students of a literary bent. In the age of the Internet and the academy, it will open up different models for how to be a thoughtful person, how to engage in political life and what sort of things one should know in order to be truly educated.

How I ended up being me has a lot to do with the fact of Hitchens by way of his best friend Martin Amis. Because if there is one writer whose entire style most affects the way I think about people, it would be Amis. I was reading Amis adamantly for many years and what most impressed me about him was the way into which he could make people whole and transparent. In reading American fiction, I always got the feeling that characters were invented for the purpose of the book and as such could only fulfill certain functions - like a cast of characters in a play or worse yet, a movie. When I started to write my first and only novel I frightened myself in my discovery that I was thinking like a movie. But I wanted to see people as they are, and this is how Amis works. His characters seemed so much more full of the jaggies other authors overemphasized or ignored altogether. Amis possessed a sort of insight into people that made their desires visible no matter how small they were. And so I came to understand what people must be by having them splayed for me by a master, and so that is the template for humanity. I don't think anyone has filled a larger canvas with the human soul.

But I, like Hitchens have my fascinations about why people emerge from their personal muck with bold claims about what others should do. I do so from the safe remove of my profession which sets up deterministic sandboxes for those disciplines which can be digitized. I once thought I was the Liberator of Bartleby, now I'm not so sure. So I attempt to recover my humanity and round myself out by writing here and exposing myself to the stream of ego and belief. 

I am in many ways late to the heavyweights of literature that might prepare me better to sort through that of moderate heftiness in the world of contemporary arts and letters. But I think I acquit myself satisfactorily, better than average at a level that was above my previous stature. I stay happy given the headroom I still have. And yet I grow worried as I grow wise and remain unconnected personally to any such colleagues as I imagine I might have had were I actually paid to do such thinking. But I am comforted that my mediocre skill feels more like a gift than a burden. Nevertheless, I remain a family man and not French and am therefore bound to such domestic concerns that restrain the sort of integrity I would need to be a more worldly sort approaching the class of writers I might seek to emulate. I don't have time to save the planet, my daughter has a sore throat.  I cannot partake in such pleasures necessary to sustain the drudgery of applying my mind to the sort of imperatives Hitchens has. I keep myself from caring and so I am consequentially dull. Stuck. So I don't need a muse so much as a wife, which I have. 

In this, you might find a false dichotomy. There are plenty of examples, I imagine, that demonstrate that a life of domesticity does not preclude one of creative production. But I have lived with that dichotomy too long, both in theory and in practice. So there it is. I'm not out to destroy every myth and draw strength from those that reinforce me so long as I can. 

Having said all that, I remain a writer. I cannot tell you what sort, it is a horrible weakness I possess. A kind of self-knowledge that has no shorthand, no way of telling you what I am, but only that which impels me to do what it is I do. In Ken Burns' Jazz part nine, the critic says that music has so many confusing genres merely because there is no language capable of describing what the music itself conveys. My language even fails to describe my use of language. Yet I know that it is as a writer that I sustain the community I need to make sense of those things I need to know, because as a reader it all goes nowhere but to my self. And I find little moral comfort in perfecting my own understanding for only that sake. It is to be a public intellectual or catalyst that I find respite from my curiosity which drags me along like a lassoed calf.

Steele Steps In It

And probably should step down for saying that Afghanistan is not our fight. What a maroon.

Bill Kristol hands him his ass hat.

What's crazy is that Afghanistan is the place I think Obama is most vulnerable to issues that matter most to me, geopolitics. And quite frankly nobody is looking to the Republican Party apparatus, much less to Michael Steele to figure out what to do and think through this bad economy. I think what can truly be said of Steele's tenure is that it has been completely overshadowed by the likes of the Tea Party activists, Glenn Beck's personality and the mendacity of Obama's rhetoric. Not one home run from Steele. Not even an RBI. Just a bunt to get on base and then maybe one steal.

He had the opportunity to demonstrate some erudition and class, but I guess he wasn't up to it after all. How he could come out so ass-backwards has me a bit baffled. Oh well. Steele goes the way of Gerald Ford. Actually, not measuring up there either. Time's up. Next.

Of course there will be no next. The GOP remains in disarray, incapable of calling Congress on the carpet, stonewalling Sotomayor, defending proper banking (or even defining it), or suppressing its half-wits. Both parties are in a state of default.

Sometimes I think that Chief Justice Roberts is the only dread pirate around.

Apple Behind Bars

Oh man. You absolutely have to love this. Apple plays the hand. Put up or shut up.

We have gone back to our labs and retested everything, and the results are the same— the iPhone 4’s wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped. For the vast majority of users who have not been troubled by this issue, this software update will only make your bars more accurate. For those who have had concerns, we apologize for any anxiety we may have caused.

As a reminder, if you are not fully satisfied, you can return your undamaged iPhone to any Apple Retail Store or the online Apple Store within 30 days of purchase for a full refund.

Yes. There are starving pirates in Somalia who would gladly take your iPhone, you spoiled brat.

UPDATE: If you want to get technical about it. Check out AnandTech.

Al Qaeda's Loompanics

I can't find the URL to the new Al Qaeda website Inspire, but if I could, I'd find it hacked. Of course. I've read about six stories about the existence of this online magazine which I'm told includes an IED tutorial. None of those stories contain a link. So after a few minutes my curiosity ran to nil.

This morning however, I read in another story that all but 3 of the 67 pages of the premier issue has been rendered unreadable. This contradicts another story which said the first three pages were unreadable. I like the second story as more true. Note that the second story said the problem was due to a computer glitch. Yeah right.

What do you think are the chances that American intelligence services would NOT hack an AQ news outlet aimed at inspiring Jihadis in America? Are you kidding me?

This all reminds me of the old Loompanics controversy, and something like Michael Pollan's report on poppies. On the Loompanics side, it wouldn't surprise me to find some of those guys in mysteriously failing health, and that goes to show us all some lesson about the short attention span theatre that is popular civil libertarian activism. By the way, are there any Americans still in Haiti, or have they all gone to Toronto by way of the oil spill? Loompanics was a used bookstore that specialized in various hackeries including explosives. But it was a prelude to the Whole Earth Catalog IIRC - an ultimate DIY resource. Kind of like a combination 1st and 2nd Amendment challenge. It left the FBI and the public in a quandary way back when in the 70s. In the end, the controversy faded from view. Nobody blew up anything until McVeigh, and it's probably a fair bet to say that a lot of the characters who got excited by Loompanics ended up working for the FBI.

Pollan wrote a story that was its own virus which was to inform people that the only legal way to grow certain species of poppy was if you were unaware that you could make opium from them. Of course if you read the story, you'd know the species - or at least be aware of what the species might be and therefore could be legally indicted if you had those in your garden. Then again, I forget the details...

How the American intelligence community deals with AQ's propaganda could take one of these two routes. It would be trivially easy for them to hack the website, or with the ascent of Akamai, duplicate out a fake one with embedded code, say from Google Analytics, that could tell them who's reading what. The question is whether or not they decide to let the original content go out or not. But then they'd be competing with every other hacker on the planet. Who wouldn't want to hack AQ's English website? It's almost stupid for AQ to even bother trying. 

So basically this is a good test to find out where the doublespeak is coming from. I cannot even think of the logic that prevents the US Government from waging cyberwar against this website. So what's interesting is how they evade the issue.

The Moor of Pelham

Michael Thelwell.

In my youth, there was a certain style of writing that worked magic on my brain. I don't know exactly how to describe it, in one way because I have abandoned a certain socioeconomic imperative, but primarily because its essence was so ineffable to begin with. But I knew it when I heard it, and perhaps you did too.

You could hear it in the spewing cadences of The Last Poets or the rambling associations of Ishmael Reed.

But the best times I ever heard it were two. One was from the fiction of Charles Wright in his fabulous novel 'The Wig'. The other was an essay I read in Gerald Early's Speech and Power a long time ago. I got so fired up about Michael Thelwell that I was... well I was very impressed.

We talked about Thelwell over at Vision Circle half a decade ago. I wonder what he's up to on Chinua Achebe. 

Just puttering around the web I found this page. There's Thelwell referenced up top. Ahh. Nostalgia.

Apple iPhone 4 Antenna: Courting Hysteria

There are two kinds of hysteria. Good hysteria and bad hysteria. Apple has had its share of the good and now it's getting some of the bad. Apple has recently put itself in the enviable position of the company its customers trust to put the latest and most fabulous technology into the hands of the most technically unsophisticated people. One of their mottos: It just works. Now it turns out that unsophisticated people who appreciate all that technology can hack it too. Is that karmic or what?

For years, like a lot of pros in the IT business, I resisted the smarmy swooning over the iPhone. I had a smartphone that could do everything it could do, plus some things it could not and still has not done. So I observed the hysteria and madness with a bit of perplexity, like watching fans swarm the Rolling Stones when you don't see what's so great about their music. Or seeing a dead Michael Jackson suddenly matter more than when he was alive. 

Like with any technology, even if it's advanced enough to pass for magic, there are always limits. And of course people try to hack those limits. There are jailbreaks and knockoffs, deliberate exploitations and there are bugs and glitches at the end of the performance envelope. Still, you can make a perfect product with imperfect technology. Hysteria helps make that leap from good to great. 

Yesterday, I was reminded that the last time there was this much public love over a product, it was the New Beetle. I got one the first year, a black turbo, and people used to stop to talk to me about it in gas stations. Kids would wave. Chicks would stare. Drivers would honk. Chicks would stare. Ahh those were the days. One time... nevermind. Anyway. The brakes on that car were great, but they would burn through pads like crazy.  But you put up with such flaws.

The opportunity to hack an iPhone or to modify your car comes from the same motivation. If this thing is so perfect, I wonder if I can change it. The video below gives the technically unsophisticated individual an opportunity to say they're smarter than Steve Jobs. It is the easiest hack in the world: just pinch it in the right position. Crippling the miraculous iPhone is like blowing up the Death Star, or solving Rubik's Cube. It gives one a sense of power and accomplishment. If Steve Jobs is so smart, why did he make this mistake, one might ask. And hey, what's up with AT&T? Everybody 'knows' that AT&T is inferior to Verizon even if only 4% of the population could even tell you what kind of cell technology lies beneath the '3G' marketing.

Now I'm an iPhone 3 guy, and I've got my hands on the new one and I like it. For me, the three most important things about the new product are the improved speed, the video camera and the high resolution screen. The improved look and feel is a nice to have, as is the battery life. Multitasking? Meh. If I'm that focused on my phone, something's wrong with me.  I've made a logical decision to hold off on purchasing, primarily because the rest of my family is on Verizon and there's marginal value in the hand me down. I've been rather surprised by the number of people lined up at the local Apple Store, and the number youth I've seen around my town with this phone already. But it's a public phenomenon and that goes beyond logical decisions.

I want Apple and Jobs to succeed. I like their approach to the entire market and I wish there were three such companies instead of one, just like I'm glad there is Mercedes, Audi and BMW. But you get the audience you deserve, and when hype can make you, hype can kill you.