I was the first reporter to arrive on the scene of hip hop. The culture had already been fully created by middle school kids entering high school in the late 1970s. Hip hop peaked in the South Bronx before any realization reached the media in Manhattan.
There’s a lot of key figures that haven’t got their due, like Grandmaster Caz. I wrote the story of how he got ripped off by his former manager Hank back when I published the first history of hip hop in 1984, a book called Hip Hop, at a time that phrase wasn’t even in wide usage yet. I also had a movie deal with Orion that year, as I sold a script based on my three years of research, a script I titled “Looking for the Perfect Beat” in homage to Bambaataa, but it later became known as Beat Street. There’s actually another Beat Street tribute taking place downtown tonight, free to attend. Who knows, I might even make an appearance, although I prefer to remain more of a ghost on the scene.
Today Caz announced a law suit to finally get credit for much of the lyrics in “Rapper’s Delight.” When the song came out, half the Bronx assumed it was Caz rappin’, after all, the song used a lot of his signature raps and included his name at one point. Hank had done the usual sketchy move and pushed the real creative talent out of the way, playing like the material was really his? At the time Caz was really the poly-talent who could do it all: deejay, rap, b-boy, draw. But mostly, he invented the craziest and funniest rap lyrics you ever heard. And he had that golden voice of authority. He can easily stand up in a rap battle against anyone to this day.
I hope these real pioneers get their due some day, people like Caz, Phase 2, Coke La Rock, Sa-sa, and most especially Afrika Bambaataa, who really had the vision to unite all the elements as a cultural movement.
And here’s hoping Caz wins his lawsuit…..or at least gets the respect from the Rock’n’roll Hall of Fame he deserves….
In Praise of Pete Carroll
Aside from Phil Jackson, Pete Carroll is my new favorite coach. He worked his way up from nothing and weighed 110 pounds when he entered high school. He had to get a doctor’s permission to even try-out for the football team because he was under the minimum weight. Everyone said he was too small and too scrawny to play football, but he became an outstanding quarterback.
Since we’re both born in 1951, and since Carroll has spent most of his life on the West Coast, it’s safe to say he was touched by the counterculture revolution, which explains why he remains a Grateful Dead fan to this day, leading to the possibility he may even be a secret stoner. I always thought Jackson allowed his players to smoke pot as long as they kept it concealed. In fact, Kareem later reportedly told someone he used cannabis to ward off migraine headaches and often took a toke before a game strictly for medicinal purposes. I know that info has never appeared in the media, but I believe it comes from a solid source.
Everyone is making a big deal about the “Stoner Bowl” because Washington and Colorado are the two legal marijuana states. But since this game is being played in New Jersey, one of the least pot-friendly places in the country, I don’t find that tag very appropriate. I could understand if the game was in a legal state, in which case I’m sure the stands would be filled with vapers, which would have been an amazing sight, although the networks will likely put the kabosh on showing that reality when it does surface in the future.
So this game really should be called “Skeptics Bowl,” or something similar. Anything but the “9/11 Truth” Bowl, since I hate that term and believe intel invented it as a means to bash the researchers. But then I also believe intel invented the term “conspiracy research” as part of a similar op because those two words are code for “nut-case” in the media.
Since Pete Carroll is one of the few people who have put their careers on the line to speak the truth, expect him to be treated very savagely in the press over the next few days for his political beliefs. But that’s just the way it goes in America. When you act like a real patriot and protect the Constitution instead of the Pentagon, the media turns against you.
Farewell to Stephen Gaskin
I first heard about Stephen Gaskin the third time I visited the Bay Area around 1969. The people I was crashing with in Oakland were avid attendees at the Sunrise Sunday Morning Services in Golden Gate Park. They tried to lure me the week I was there but unfortunately, I overslept and missed it. But I understood something meaningful was collecting around Stephen.
In some ways, he was an accidental guru. His trajectory happen to coincide with the rise of the hippie movement and among his primary interests were science fiction and Eastern mysticism. His creative writing class at San Francisco State morphed into a spiritual community that stayed with him almost until the end, and one that built the most successful counterculture community in the world. It took me a lifetime to figure this out, but Stephen’s greatest talent was his ability to read an audience, absorb its vibrational energies and then improvise a sermon that touched that audience in deep and meaningful ways. He could take the most complex concepts of Eastern mysticism and translate them into Jimmy Stewart-like homespun English. Stephen had the abilities of a psychic, but used those talents only to help people remember their own forgotten wisdom.
After I started the Cannabis Cup, I felt obligated to investigate the history of the spiritual use of cannabis, and part of that investigation involved going to The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee, to finally meet Stephen in person. When I arrived, he’d just discovered not only was I the editor of High Times, but also the author of a glowing review of The Farm’s free ambulance service in the South Bronx in the New York Daily News in 1981. For me, arriving at The Farm was a holy moment. I hadn’t realized Stephen’s plans for a global hippie Peace Corps. had been scuttled by an internal coup against him. It was a testament to his level of enlightenment and serenity that Stephen stayed in the community after that coup, although he was strangely forced to vacate his house recently in order to have contact with his eldest son.
I ransacked Stephen’s best writings on spirituality to put together a book called Cannabis Spirituality, which eventually became a classic, although it’s very hard to find today. Living on the Farm led to some major revelations on my part. Mostly I became aware of the incredible amount of trash my lifestyle entailed, while Stephen and Ina May produced none. Their food came from Ina May’s vegetable garden, and all liquid was drawn from Stephen’s well. I had my glass beer bottles and aluminum coke cans as well as all sorts of plastic and paper garbage collecting around me constantly. The only trash can was a little bucket outside the front door that I could fill up easily before lunch. It made me understand how much more spiritual their lives really were.
I’d grown up with the Merry Pranksters as my primary guide, and was mostly surfing the fun vibe, but Stephen’s trail was absolute love. There were some minor tensions between some of the various tribes from ’60s, with many gurus to choose from, although none higher than Stephen. I always looked upon Tim Leary as more entertainer than enlightened being. Leary was a brilliant mind, but he was also a martini-drinking meat eater who often showed bad judgment, while Stephen never wavered from his core principles. I may have helped bridge some gaps between the Pranksters and Stephen through my events like WHEE! and the Cannabis Cup because I brought both sides together in ceremony, and bridging gaps is what most ceremonies are about. Most of what I know about ceremonies, I learned from Stephen, but he also never prescribed a single ceremony to me, but told me just to let them manifest on their own. It took me a long time to figure out how to do that.
Saint Stephen passed over to the unknown dimensions on July 1, 2014.
Does Bitcoin represent a ceiling on globalization?
Over the last fifty years, there’s been an increasing flow of wealth and power gushing towards the tippy-top of the pyramid, a strata known in popular mythology as the Illuminati, the key-holders on the centers of energy on banking, oil, military and politics. So much so that I think pressures are pushing back.
If I’m right, the Illuminati can step aside because there’s a new game in town based on peer-to-peer cryptography, one that allows everyone in the world to bypass the central banking cartels.
We are just at the very beginning of a Bitcoin Revolution, so just remember where and when you first realized the revolution was going on. The media has done nothing but confuse people and has been playing the “bubble” card constantly.
A savvy dude is creating Bitcoin 2.0 (even though Bitcoin is around .8 and still in Beta), which will aid Bitcoin contracts, stocks and derivatives. The genius of Bitcoin is the founder discovered a way for a decentralized network to protect itself against hackers by running a cryptographic race no hacker can keep up with. And after five years of shake-down, I’d say Bitcoin can come out of Beta soon.
There’s so many advantages to Bitcoin over fiat currency, but most important, you can program it. It’s the first smart money and it will do to money what smart phones did to dumb phones. If you don’t “get” Bitcoin, maybe that analogy will help you, because it’s spot on.
The genius behind Bitcoin 2.0 describes it this way: Dumb money is like a nice Chevy. Smart money is like having your own private roads that go anywhere the internet goes. Oh, and your car is faster than anything else in the world. And there are no tolls and no speed limits on any of your roads. Does that sound like something you might be interested in?
You can forget about investing in the stock market now. Pretty soon, the intelligent companies will be funding with smart money and won’t be putting layers of middle-men, brokers, banks and lawyers in charge. Bitcoin represents the release of immense pressure from trying to cram too much too fast into a tiny funnel at the top of the food chain.
It is a great time to be alive. This is a magical story unfolding before our eyes, and the possible slaying of some dark wizards by a Jedi Knight named Satoshi.
Remembering Amiri Baraka
We always knew him as LeRoi Jones, member of the Greenwich Village beat scene, who inherited the mantle of Malcolm X after Malcolm was assassinated.
Echo boomers today have little concept of what life was like in the 1960s, when the FBI was murdering the best voices in the land in an attempt to keep the war economy on track. The beats were the heart and soul of the anti-war movement, and their passion for peace infected the next generation, who became known as the hippies.
I was super disappointed when LeRoi changed his name to Baraka and declared himself a Black Nationalist. The whole point of the counterculture was that everyone was invited to the party, and then he spun off and began writing anti-white propaganda. I lost interest in his work for a while, but there’s no denying he became the leading radical spokesperson for the black community, and he always had a knack for puncturing hypocrisy wherever he found it.
A few years ago Baraka was given a cushy gig making $10,000 a year as Poet Laurette of New Jersey. But shortly after capturing the honor, he read a poem about 9/11 called “Who Blew Up America?” in which he referenced foreknowledge of the Jewish community in New York City. New Jersey quickly fired him as their official state poet and then eliminated the position because they didn’t want any more rouge poets sprouting revolutionary rhetoric. Since we’re at the beginning of awareness of what happened that day, anyone in official positions who speaks out will be swiftly excommunicated from the power structure, just like Baraka was. This is happening in every industry and university. So any intelligent person understands that they can petition for a real investigation and lose their career, or keep quiet and have a comfortable life. The difference today is most echo boomers opt for the comfortable life, although I wonder if that might not start to feel empty later on down the road.
Baraka took on a most spiritual name when he threw off his slave name, and he played a major role in getting blacks to build their own local businesses as well as name their children with African names. He obviously had a high awareness of the magic involved with names as he changed his three times over the course of his life. “Barakah” in Sufi culture is the word for the great spirit that flows through all things. Certain things, however, can become much more highly charged with barakah: artists, poets, mystics, shamans, for example, as well as the tools they work with.
While I applauded Baraka’s speaking out on 9/11, I was saddened he supported the hoax that thousands of Jewish workers didn’t show up that day. I’m sure at least one CEO was told, but there’s no evidence thousands of Jews suspiciously avoided work. I always thought that meme was floated by spooks to discredit the 9/11 researchers. The guy who didn’t show up for work and lived is Howard Lutnik and his company seemed to have a lot of activity moving money around right before the buildings went down, not to mention his floor was the real ground zero. And then he cashed in with a book about 9/11.
As one of the most significant artists of his time, it will take time to sort out Baraka’s legacy. But it’s always sad to lose someone so filled with the spirit that flows through all things.
Alien chemtrails exposed!!!!!!!!!!
I went outside last night and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Suddenly I saw an alien space craft appear on the horizon. Then, without warning, this cloud formation appeared.
While all the airplanes are spraying toxic chemicals to kill us, they only do so in thin white lines, while this chemtrail is more like a chemmonster and will obviously kill a lot more people. One wonders who are these aliens who make these white monsters appear in the sky and why do they want to hurt me?
I took a sample of some water from my rain barrel the next day. Even though it hadn’t rained and the barrel was frozen over, I detected a thin scum of unknown origin. I’m contacting the Smithsonian to see if they would like to study it. I call it Chem-Skum and I’m convinced this is the key to the chemtrail mysteries.
While I was walking home, I bumped into Elvis, who remains in witness protection and he assured me we never landed on the moon and most of us are dead already from fall-out from Japan we just don’t realize we are zombies yet. And by the way, the Illuminati worship Aleister Crowley and the only reason Hollywood makes movies is so they can embed secret messages about how the Illuminati plan to kill us all before 2140. Why 2140? That’s the date the last bitcoin will be mined and the Illuminati plan to snatch all the coins after they kill off the world. I guess these alien cloud formations have something to do with that.
If you want to stop the world takeover or just send a message to Elvis, just contact me. I accept donations in bitcoin and will be happy to lead you around is circles if you believe any of this shit. And if you passed this on, without even getting to the end, well, that just proves you will believe just about anything, won’t you?
The Bitcoin Revolution
I didn’t know what to think about Bitcoin, mostly because the mainstream media has been so contemptuous about this new cryptographic alternative to currency. Thank goodness I don’t trust the mainstream media because once I started poking around the Bitcoin universe, I got super impressed really fast. Smart people got into Bitcoin over a year ago, and some of them are already bitcoin millionaires as a result. So why is the press so relentlessly against Bitcoin?
The mainstream wants you to believe there’s nothing wrong with our financial system, when, in fact, just the opposite is true. Bitcoin has come along in the nick of time to save us from the predatory banking monopoly that rules the world. It’s a revolution in finance and already having a powerful impact.
Ever since I became a devotee of this Bitcoin Revolution, people have been picking arguments with me on facebook about how they “don’t need bitcoin.”
“I can transfer money to any bank account for around 5 euros,” says Allan. “Why do I need bitcoin?” Forget the reality that bitcoin transfers only cost around $0.0008, a considerable savings off bank transfers, and the savings is even greater if you have to use Western Union, which has been the mechanism of choice for people without bank accounts for a century. Bitcoin transfers are peer-to-peer, which mean no financial institution can track your trade or charge an outrageous fee to process it.
Lots of people talk about how they’d like to see some reforms in the banking industry, but few of these people seem to have woken up to the reality that Bitcoin is that reform taking place right before their eyes.
To topple the central banking monopoly, just Occupy Bitcoin
I made a foray down to Zuccotti Park and enjoyed the Rainbow Family vibes of the encampment, but I always suspected the movement was penetrated by spooks early on since the ad campaign that launched the movement was initially funded by a Wall Street insider.
You probably haven’t heard much about the Occupy Movement lately, and winter often has a way of damping down outdoor demonstrations, but I can fill you in on the latest big developments: There’s an active branch of the movement called Occupy the SEC, who are attempting to influence the Securities and Exchange Commission, the agency created after the Stock Market Crash of 1929 to regulate the stock market. Since Occupy the SEC is well covered in the CIA-run Washington Post, one wonders if it might be a case of a controlled opposition leading the charge against the establishment? Certainly their professional website shows zero evidence of counterculture leanings. I really shouldn’t mouth off about the group, however, since I’ve done zero research and it could be a group of well-intentioned lawyers, but just the fact they can afford to mount serious litigation and have it covered glowingly in the Post leaves me wondering.
Here’s the other big news: for $42 you can order a giant poster of the Zuccotti Park encampment in its prime from Walmart. Here’s how Walmart describes it on their website: “Occupy Wall Street at Zuccotti Park, Lower Manhattan, Manhattan, New York City, New York State, USA is a licensed reproduction that was printed on Premium Heavy Stock Paper which captures all of the vivid colors and details of the original. The image size is 27 x 9 inches. This print is ready for hanging or framing and would make a great addition to your home or office.”
I’ve joined a different movement, one I actually think has a good chance of success. Strange how few activists are promoting bitcoin, although I’m seriously investing in this new frontier as a way to stick it to the man. I wanted to get in much earlier, but didn’t have the loose cash available, or I’d already likely be a bitcoin millionaire by now.
But what really sealed the deal is the way the media kept attacking this new money system. All the high-powered economists and major newspapers were predicting a quick demise after it shot from $200 to $1,200 in one month, and then fell back down to $500 when China’s banks stopped trades until further notice. One website posted diagrams of the Dutch tulip bubble next to the bitcoin bubble and claimed they were tracking identical paths.
So I started buying when they were selling for $540. It’s been on a rocky road ever since, and thanks to the hacks of a number of exchanges, price now hovers between $300 and $400.
But in five years, I expect that to be much higher.
Only 21 million bitcoins can be produced and around half have already been mined and the codes grow increasingly complex and the coins are harder to mine as we go on. After all 21 million coins are in circulation, their value mint skyrocket to some ridiculous figure, but you won’t live to see that day.
In 2014, I wrote this book to promote Bitcoin, and although the figures are out-of-date, the philosophy behind why we should support it is not.