Neglectful
I have been deeply neglectful of the Year of Celebration these past few days. I'd like to think it's because I've been too busy celebrating (there has been a bit, but not a lot) but mostly I've just been busy. I'm actually writing this from a break-stop on the way to Coachella - for which I don't yet have a ticket or a place to stay, but I'm trying to allow my laid-back side of me to take precedence over the neurotic, anxiety-ridden side of me. Due to various circumstances I was very late driving down to Coachella today, and Tyler didn't mention that we were driving with a member of Odd Future and he was supposed to make it to the show for 4pm. Yeah, that didn't happen. So we missed them (and Pharrell joined them on stage....daaaamn). So instead I'm just posting their vid.
Rather than update on the last few days of Celebration, I'm just going to imagine you were there with me. Wednesday night ended at 6am Thursday morning, so I was in pain for quite a lot of Thursday. I know this weekend is going to be debaucherously celebratory and I have no idea where it will take me and when I'll rest or whether I'll survive it, but at least I went down CELEBRATING.
Before I descend into less-sophisticated revelry, I'll share that it's Benjamin Zephaniah's birthday - a contemporary British-Jamaican writer/poet, who declined his Queens' Honours in protest (read his reasoning here). His modern re-telling of Rudyard Kiping's "If" is what he' best known for, and how I was introduced to him - and as I'm in a rush I'll choose to share it here:
If you can keep your money when governments about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust your neighbour when they trust not you
And they be very nosy too;
If you can await the warm delights of summer
Then summer comes and goes with sun not seen,
And pay so much for drinking water
Knowing that the water is unclean.
If you seek peace in times of war creation,
And you can see that oil merchants are to blame,
If you can meet a pimp or politician,
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you cannot bear dis-united nations
And you think this new world order is a trick,
If you've ever tried to build good race relations,
And watch bad policing mess your work up quick.
If you can make one heap of all your savings
And risk buying a small house and plot,
Then sit back and watch the economy inflating
Then have to deal with the negative equity you've got;
If you can force your mind and body to continue
When all the social services have gone,
If you struggle on when there is nothing in you,
Except the knowledge that justice can be wrong.
If you can speak the truth to common people
Or walk with Kings and Queens and live no lie,
If you can see how power can be evil
And know that every censor is a spy;
If you can fill an unforgiving lifetime
With years of working hard to make ends meet,
You may not be wealthy but I am sure you will find
That you can hold your head high as you walk the streets.
If you can keep your money when governments about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust your neighbour when they trust not you
And they be very nosy too;
If you can await the warm delights of summer
Then summer comes and goes with sun not seen,
And pay so much for drinking water
Knowing that the water is unclean.
If you seek peace in times of war creation,
And you can see that oil merchants are to blame,
If you can meet a pimp or politician,
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you cannot bear dis-united nations
And you think this new world order is a trick,
If you've ever tried to build good race relations,
And watch bad policing mess your work up quick.
If you can make one heap of all your savings
And risk buying a small house and plot,
Then sit back and watch the economy inflating
Then have to deal with the negative equity you've got;
If you can force your mind and body to continue
When all the social services have gone,
If you struggle on when there is nothing in you,
Except the knowledge that justice can be wrong.
If you can speak the truth to common people
Or walk with Kings and Queens and live no lie,
If you can see how power can be evil
And know that every censor is a spy;
If you can fill an unforgiving lifetime
With years of working hard to make ends meet,
You may not be wealthy but I am sure you will find
That you can hold your head high as you walk the streets.
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