The Return of the Beat Generation (Beatnicks of the Information Age)

Whether it's Occupy Wall Street, Banksy graffiti murals, the return of psychedelic drugs, the re-ignited interest in the Beat generation of the 40's, 50's, and 60's as well as the whole counterculture hippy movement, or the widespread urge to simply break out of the niche that has been dictatorially carved for us by people we will probably never meet... it seems like the intelligent youth of today have reached a precipice.

For those of us who have studied past movements in freedom, we always note that they eventually either fetter out and die, or simply become co-opted (like a majority of the counterculture of the 1960's... hippy, Beat, or otherwise). This truth, whether we like to admit it or not, intimidates us, and makes us question our own potential as fully-functioning human beings.

Both roads lain in front of us present numerous ups-and-downs. The only difference is that one makes the established order happy, and the other causes it to writhe in discomfort as you romp around semi-independent of its anchor and chain. One resides within everyone's comfort zone.. while the other resides in a constant state of adventure, and hence, a constant transition between comfort and discomfort. A poetic and beautiful sort of transience. What some find quite disconcerting, however, is the fact that the road of freedom requires us to fully awaken and carve our own path, whereas the road of social expectation, although still challenging, is ready to carry you like an on-rails shooter to where it decides you need to be.

I had a realization a few weeks back, and have continued to have the same realization over and over again since.

It happened like this:

It's around 11:36 PM on a Friday night. I'm on-air doing my live radio show with my 2 co-hosts and a guest of ours. We're all freestyle rapping, save for Christian who feels more comfortable sitting back and listening. The poetry is spouting from our mouths like God himself is simultaneously manifesting himself within all of us, coaxing out the universe in our words. Then we stop for a moment and decide to talk about religion, philosophy, and life. Right in the middle of our conversation, I cut someone off because I feel like I can't not say what's on my mind..

"Sorry, Anton.. I didn't mean to interrupt. I just noted something absolutely incredible."

"Alright, cool. Let's hear it." 

"I just realized.. this is the kind of moment people live for. Moments like these are why people feel the faint motivation, no matter how drawl their life may be, to get up and out of bed to go to work at their minimum wage jobs for 8 and a half hours. They feel like they're working to earn moments like this."

"Interesting. Continue though, you've intrigued me."

"This is a Holy Moment. A true and honest Holy Moment. And not only are we living it.. we're living it while we're entirely aware we're living it, and it hasn't caused it to disperse. This is the Promise Land. Moments like this are what the Sages and Priests secretly and allegorically mean about the Kingdom of God that is within each of us. We are no longer experiencing a dissonance between us and the true workings of the Universe. Right now.. all there is, is us. And we know this moment won't last forever; but what the fuck does that matter? We have no goal in mind. We are doing what we're doing, simply because we're doing it. There are thousands of intellectual justifications we could label it with.. but why would we? Moments like this not only justify existence.. moments like this prove how absolutely incredible this is."

"I'm fuckin' loving what you're saying, dude. I can see the fire in your eyes. You're absolutely alive right now."

"I am, dude! I can feel the whole of all of it pulsing through me! This is it! Moments like this are what each of us live for, yet most of us lose sight of even their slight potential to exist in full form after years of simply going through the motions of societal expectation- go to high-school; get a job. Work your ass off. Go back to school. Make sure you're going back, however, for something that is economically applicable so you can continue to work towards moments like these. People don't fucking realize it! People are too afraid to realize it! The Promise Land is right fucking now! What you've been searching for, laboring for, crying over the lack of is right under your nose. Most of us are just too Goddamn afraid to reach out and grab it, because it's too surreal to think it's that easy. We realize how easy it is in our childhoods, and usually continue to hold this truth close to us into our teens. But our parents tell us we're wrong. We have to get up off our asses and get jobs, go to school, make ends meet... follow in their footsteps in one way or another. Us teenagers try to show them that it's all right here, and it doesn't need to be earned or worked for. Our parents.. and the rest of the older generations.. refuse to believe us because then all of their hard work and pain would have been in vain. All of their hours.. days.. months.. years.. spent climbing the social and labor ladder would be in vain. Most of them refuse to believe it could have been that easy all the way along. And this refusal to believe is psychologically backed by the rest of our mainstream society."

In essence.. I believe it's absolutely insane to live life any other way.. because these moments are right now.
I would rather live a full life and die at 50, then live an empty life full of work and economically-centered goal making with occasional release here and there and die at 100. 

Regardless.. I am still battling myself over which road to choose. 

I think I wish to follow both, and simply switch back and forth as I see fit.

The trap lies in believing you're trapped. 

"Don't chase your dreams, because they're right in front of you. You're just too afraid to reach for them."

A Follow-Up to "The Past Few Weeks."

So, I haven't been indulging in my original hip-hop productions as much as I was the week prior... but I have, luckily, started getting more hours at A&W. I worked an 8 and a half hour shift on Saturday, after having only 5 hours of sleep following my late-running radio show the night before.

It's always worth it; trust me.
As well, work was actually enjoyable, surprisingly enough. I get along quite well with everyone there.

Some insane aftermath drama occurred last night as well, with a friend of mine working as a pipeline between my ex and I. Let's just say... she read what I wrote, as well as read another post in which she is alluded to on my Tumblr blog.
I probably should have learned some lesson by now about how unwise it is to post such in-depth personal posts relating to others.. as I have taken it overboard in the past, and admitted to it being a mistakes, therefore deleting whatever post it was.. but I'm not going to let her make me feel like the bad guy in this situation.

I realized I tend to beat myself up in the wake of break-ups or other negative occurrences involving mistakes I've made, and last night, I realized I really take that negative stream of thought too far. I believe I'm slightly gullible in the sense of letting others.. especially ex girlfriends.. walk all over me with blame for what occurred. They almost always successfully make me feel like the bad-guy, and I probably wouldn't have caught my flawed stream of thought had it not been for my brain going through the motions of everything I'd done wrong, and then hitting a brick-wall when I remembered exactly what she did to me. All of a sudden.. I realized the trap I was falling into. She was stomping all over me like I was the one to blame. Yes.. I made mistakes, but she made the fatal mistakes, and the fatal decisions in this case. Perhaps I could have reacted with a bit more grace, but I most certainly had the right to react the way I did.

And sure.. no one likes to see what they did wrong get plastered all over the internet.. but blogs are personal. Blogs are designed for rants of all shapes and forms. This just so happened to be what was on my mind. And I wasn't about to be polite and considerate regarding her feelings when she went about doing what she did completely inconsiderate of my feelings or thoughts on the matter.

You are free to make choices, but you are not free from the consequences of those choices. My post.. sadly.. is a consequence to the choice she made. And she has decided she wants nothing to do with me as a result.. this being the consequence of the choice I made to post it in the first place.

She also.. understandably enough in one sense, and kind of egocentric in another.. interpreted everything I wrote on my Tumblr post as relating to her. Sure, some of it was most certainly related to her and what had occurred between us.. but the vast majority of it had nothing to do with her. It was simply my outlooks on relationships I've had in the time prior to adulthood, and all the lessons I'd learned from them as such. (The post can be viewed here, for those interested in context, or in learning from my successes and mistakes regarding past lovers).

She also believed from my previous post that I was badmouthing and slandering her to all of my family and friends, and the community at large. The honest truth is, I said nothing to slander or bad mouth her. People asked what happened while I was in Victoria, and I wasn't about to hold back the part of the story that really broke my heart. All I did was tell them exactly what had occurred, and they each reacted to it in there own ways. Most took it as a negative occurrence, and totally unfair on her part. Which is my eyes, it was. A couple others said it didn't really matter, and I didn't work to convince them otherwise. However.. if my being honest on what she did to me is an insult to her, she should probably take that to heart and realize that, regardless of all the excuses and justifications she can come up with to support her side of the story to the very end, she made a painful mistake. And if I could ask for anything else regarding this catastrophic situation, it would be for her to simply admit that. I would easily be able to forgive her if she did so.

I don't really want her to become 'somebody that I used to know' (obvious Gotye reference), but what she did truly was hurtful and unfair. And honestly.. I'm not angry about any of it anymore. I'm just angry at how she refuses to see that what she did was unfair and hurtful in regards to me. I'm not asking her to go back on anything she's done. My bitterness arises from her lack of consideration, and her simple carelessness in simply dropping me like a dead trend.

She could have been honest about it all and simply said she no longer loved me, and moved on from there. Sure, it would have hurt finding out she was with someone else, but at least there wouldn't be my moment of going.. 'wait.. what the hell?? That means she lied about not being able to function in a relationship!' and the anger that arose from knowing I'd been not only lied to, and not only had my heart broken.. but had my heart broken, tossed on the hard concrete, and stomped all over. Whether she intended to do so or not, that's what it feels like.

However.. that's all I have to say on this fine Monday afternoon.

Peace out, blue planet; thanks for listening.

The Past Few Weeks

So, the last time I gave the world a 'quick update' was over 2 weeks ago from a friend of mines dorm at the University of Victoria. I have since returned home, and a lot has happened in all regards since.

As I was telling in my previous post, my ex and I parted ways. The night we did was quite an emotional festivity of tears, acceptance, mistakes, regrets, and tragedy, but for the sake of brevity... lets just say all of that has been rendered practically null and void.

The night after our emotional parting, she went to a party with a couple good friends of hers and fucked a random guy. I have since heard that they are now practically dating (without all of the 'official commitment' sides of the story).
I'm honestly not jealous or angry at all. I am annoyed at her rather pathetic and careless transience, and the fact that she said our romance was ending because she felt like she couldn't healthily function in a relationship at this point in her life, but her.. well, questionable actions.. have made it much easier to get over her as she has now revealed her true colors.
I probably should have seen such a transience coming, as prior to being with me, she had a thing with a good friend of mine, quickly moved on to a drunk encounter with another good friend, and then ended up with me. All within the same 2 month time-span.

Sure.. her and I dated for 6 months, and it was a fantastic relationship while it lasted. I really did love her a lot. But in light of everything that has happened in the last month, I really do think I've fallen entirely out of love with her as she did everything I assumed she would never ever do immediately following such a beautiful and close-knit romance.

I've described what happened to practically everyone I know without slandering her in any way, shape, or form, and all of them have been absolutely shocked and disgusted. My parents, having met her on a few occasions, couldn't believe she did something like that. My mom went so far as to call her some less-than appropriate words that probably aren't really good to share about an ex-lover over the internet. My brother and all of my best friends, just as shocked, said they really didn't expect her to do something of that nature and that she's lost a lot of their respect. I didn't even debate sharing this with the internet because in my mind, I'm not insulting her in the slightest.

I'm simply being honest.

This blog post isn't even me venting my frustrations, as my frustrations ran their course pretty quick as soon as I realized she wasn't worth the concern. And I really do wish her the best, and hope she is happy. Judging by the last time I heard about her, she seems to be doing well. I just hope it's all worth what has occurred, as she's really made a name for herself back here in my hometown.

I don't mind her being with someone else. I was just confused and annoyed about how absolutely sudden it all was, and how she lied in saying she felt like she couldn't function healthily in a relationship right now. To give her the benefit of the doubt, she really isn't in what one might consider a 'normal' mind-state as of late.

However.. that's the in-depth regarding my love life at the moment. And I will admit, I feel incredibly good about everything again. One thing I do need to credit her with is making getting over her a lot easier than I expected.

I've got a few girls flirting with me here and there, and I have made out with one girl since... but I don't really think I'm ready.. regardless of how over it all I am.. to jump back into any sort of relationship. Although I wouldn't be against a one-night stand if it honestly occurred.. I can't say seeking one out in any way, shape, or form in my small hometown is something I really want to do. I'll probably keep attempts at one-night stands to trips out of town.

Love can wait until whenever. I usually wait at least a month after any break-up before I decide to even think about dating again. As well, I enjoy being single just as much as I enjoy being in a relationship. So it really doesn't make that much of a difference. I'll most certainly love again.. and I'll most certainly find my soul-mate at some point in the future. There's absolutely no rush.

Other then all of that, I've been working on a lot of original hip-hop (as can be seen in previous posts from this month), and also looking for more substantial and enjoyable full-time work. Right now I am working at the local A&W fast-food restaurant, and I'm lucky if I get 4 days of 4 hour shifts a week. As long as I can find more work before April 20th when all of the college and university students return to town, I'm good.

Life without Facebook, although strange at times, is quite a nice change. I read a lot more, get out a lot more, write a lot more, and pursue more general creative endeavors than I would otherwise. However, I find that I'm on the computer just about as often as I was with Facebook.. but I now kill time on more meaningful internet escapades such as Tumblr and Stumbleupon, rather than simply whittling time away scrolling up and down my news-feed. I'm also getting back into my old habit of 'internet intellectual binges,' in which I research whatever I want for whatever reason for the simple love of learning. Lately, I've been doing in-depth research into psychedelic drugs and a form of adventurous exploration known as 'psychonautics.'  

With all of my newly-found time in the absence of the Facebook void, I plan on also exploring my hometown with a depth I've never really indulged in before. That means numerous hikes into the backwoods, aimlessly wandering interesting-looking trails and roads both out north and out south, and.. when it gets warmer.. kayaking around different lakes and ocean areas, as well as visiting some of the Gulf Islands right outside my doorstep whose existences I have managed to take for granted during my life here in Powell River.

Like they say.. you've gotta know home before you know the world.            

"Epistemology of the One Man Cast" (Kay P. Kay original)

A brand-new original rap. Could potentially be the album title should I make 7 to 10 more songs...
Perhaps I'll start with a simple mix-tape. Potentially send it to prospective labels and see what they think of it.

Been practicing rapping everyday, however! And I'm definitely improving. Practice makes perfect... and I'm lookin' to get the virtuoso 10,000 hours.

The lyrics are as follows:


I work the syllables like I'm shifting the dirt,
The girth is broken, so I talk to the widow who flirts with death
Intentional mention, pursuit of prevention to tension in slacked-off
Cords of control
Felt the car start to roll as I felt what foretold the old prophecy
Woah is me
Keep me sleeping, keep me beat
I've got feet that reek of monotony
Can't keep the thought of lost love from feeling steeped
In a darkly lit room where the broom broke the brittle back
Of the old deities, saw that I schivied back to square one
Where the drug said 'you're done with the fun,'
Get back to psychoanalytics before you realize the true
Potential of irrelevant elephants in the room
Keeping us occupied till we hit the red light at our tomb,


Now I will remember the old mans laugh
As I watched him write his own epitaph
And I will remember your hand in mine
And Kahlil Gibran lead me back to infinite


Reality, 
Contracting me like I own the saddled heave of sanity
My saddned heave of air unbreathed 
The oxygen I have retrieved from the Kleenex
of text messages vexed in premeditation to check the wreck of connection.


Mention elections and the fences will fall with the fancy
I'm dancing, the sanction imposed on Iran in a slam dunk capacity
In which I ate the last of the unrenewables to vulnerable to the words of old.


Now I fold the page in origami
Born not of vanity but a kind sort of profanity
We foretold the coming of which is simply a glitch 
Up in this bitch we call cultural kids. 


The skids. 


Wait for a day to die, that day is now,
Kung fu ka-pow oh wow I feel the sweat on my brow,
Did you smell that?
Shock indoctrination in my felt hat,
I felt that,
Got the bat who dresses like a man
And flies around defeating crime
The grime
Old slime, I rhyme on time to mine own beats and try to slide like soap in the sky,
Oh my.


Kiss the capo,
It's got the quarter quarter to keep with its musical note beats,
Creeps got me keeping locks on my socks to remain in tact 
Like a fact
Tracked dirt into the room, didn't mean to spoon the old irrelevant events
of the Big Bang, Big Crunch, small breakfast, big lunch.
I caught a case of the mumps when a hunch told me you were sinching the last of civility out of me,
A real MC I suppose
But I don't wish to impose my ego
On top of your sea-going vessel 
A ship in the harbor is safe but the ship was designed to explore
To gain more, to get sore, to feel fact and fiction 
Collide.


Now I will remember the old mans laugh
As I watched him write his own epitaph.

I am now absent from Facebook until further notice.

At least a month, and at most.. well, forever.
But I’ll most likely be back once I get over my addiction to it. I’m also flat out of minutes on my phone, and I don’t plan on buying any for, once again, at least a month. Although I’m sure I’ll end up purchasing more of those sooner than I’ll end up being back on Facebook.

Time to go experience life more intimately.

Tumblr and Blogspot will be my last significant internet presences. I will also retain Skype and, obviously, my email. Beyond that, I’m going to attempt to get away from the computer more often in a general sense, create more music, write more poetry, short stories, philosophical rants, and political discourse, read more often, and.. yes.. watch more (good) movies. As well as either be physically spending time with people, or remain in proper and realistic solitude without the arms-length clause of Facebook. It’s either someone will make a genuine attempt to get a hold of me, or they will not get a hold of me at all.

Catch all y’all on the flip side.

"The Catcher in the Rye" (Kay P. Kay feat. Baths) Original Rap

Hey world!
So, above is my new and original rap titled The Catcher in the Rye. The beat is the song "Animals" by the electronic group known as Baths. All credit and copyright goes to them and whatever the hell label they're signed to.

Actually, it just goes to them. Fuck their money sucking label.

Beyond my anti-corporate sentiments.. the lyrics are as follows:


Why so serial?
You make your frown imperial,
Gangsta rap about venereal..
Pleasures of the skin,
They always work to win
Propogate a spin of the planetary axis
During a late night taxi ride
Watching the city lights
Float by like the tide
I do confide to the driver like
The Catcher in the Rye
Staring at the specs of dirt as they plexiglass 
the window like the window is the sky
You make me feel like
Free chai tea lattes.


I bounce forthright with the thought of 
simplicity
Ad-hoc advocation by synchronicity 
I feel the electricity work its elascticity 
Take a sip of Scroobius Pip
Tongue in cheek, lip to lip
As I let the road slip 
off my tongue


The stream of thought is never done
Working the brain like its got some game
to play and it always lays awake while the
body takes its place among
The land of the living
What chivalry drives me to seek the streak 
of creative peak potential
Reach the monumental pique of essential
pshychology
Word etymology as if I somehow saught to 
see 
The bank foreclosures or the morbid show of green-machine posers
Sordid sorority soundtracks
Sitting alone in my home;
Thinking about Augustus in Mussolini's version of ancient Rome.


The nihilists annihilate the point of it all,
And to halt this faulty malt liquor I default
Because I've always got the Colt .45 
In my figurative hand
Strapped to my palm with an elastic band
No crimes complete without the sleet ripping of the cardboard sheet 
To reveal the neatly-folded 
Header of Reddit
The words lost so I get it
Like surrealist editing 
Did he get I was questioning him?

Sim sinner,
Trim thinner
Disc scratch,
Dispatch,
And a one hitter.


First base is love,
Last base is hate.


Most of us realize this far too late.

"I've Learned"

I've learned that you cannot make someone love you.
All you can do is be someone who can be loved.
The rest is up to them.

I've learned that no matter how much I care, some people just don't care back.
And it's not the end of the world.

I've learned that it takes years to build up trust,and only seconds to destroy it.

I've learned that it's not what you have in your life, but who you have in your life that counts.

I've learned that you can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes.
After that, you'd better know something.

I've learned that you shouldn't compare yourself to the best others can do, but to the best you can do.

I've learned that it's not what happens to people,
It's what they do about it.

I've learned that no matter how thin you slice it, there are always two sides.

I've learned that you should always leave loved ones with loving words.
It may be the last time you see them.

I've learned that you can keep going long after you think you can't.

I've learned that heroes are the people who do what has to be done when it needs to be done regardless of the consequences.

I've learned that there are people who love you dearly, but just don't know how to show it.

I've learned that sometimes when I'm angry I have the right to be angry, but that doesn't give me the right to be cruel.
I've learned that true friendship continues to grow even over the longest distance.
Same goes for true love.

I've learned that just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.

I've learned that no matter how good a friend is, they're going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.

I've learned that it isn't always enough to be forgiven by others.
Sometimes you have to learn to forgive yourself.

I've learned that no matter how bad your heart is broken, the world doesn't stop for your grief.

I've learned that our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become.

I've learned that just because two people argue, it doesn't mean that they don't love each other.
And just because they don't argue, it doesn't mean they do.

I've learned that sometimes you have to put the individual ahead of their actions.

I've learned that two people can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different.

I've learned that no matter the consequences, those who are honest with themselves get farther in life.

I've learned that your life can be changed in a matter of hours by people who don't even know you.

I've learned that even when you think you have no more to give, when a friend cries out to you, you will find the strength to help.

I've learned that writing, as well as talking, can ease emotional pains.

I've learned that the people you care most about in life are taken from you too soon.

I've learned that it's hard to determine where to draw the line between being nice and not hurting people's feelings and standing up for what you believe.

I've learned to love and be loved.

I've learned...

Written by Omer B. Washington.
Yet it feels like every word could have been written by me.

A Quick Update

So!
I am in the city of Victoria.

To make a long story short, I decided to follow my impulse and improvise my way down here with nothing more than $130 in my bank account. I caught a ferry from Powell River to Courtenay, and from there, having been lent money by my aunt in order to discourage me from hitch-hiking, I caught a Greyhound bus from Courtenay to Nanaimo, and in Nanaimo I met up with an old friend whose been living down there for the past few months who wanted to tag along with me on my hitch-hike Jack Kerouac style adventure.
So, the next morning, her and I were given a ride out to the southbound exit of the city, where we had our thumbs out for no longer than 20 minutes before someone pulled to the side of the road.

Our plan had been to make it at least as far as Duncan within 4 hours. Luck was more than on our side this time around, however, and the driver told us so when he said he was going all the way to Victoria and we were welcome to ride along.
He was a strange man. At first, the whole fear culture surrounding the neo-taboo of hitch-hiking almost got the better of my friend and I, especially when we noted he seemed to be in his 50's, listened to German heavy metal and Avenged Sevenfold, and, for some strange reason, kept a condom in the cup holder next to me.

Despite all these suspicious eccentricities, he turned out to be quite a decent man who transported us safely to our destination 2 hours before we had even planned to be in Duncan.

The adventure in Victoria since has been an incredibly mixed one, filled with lost love, painful drama, existential conversation, philosophical discourse, weed, and a sad, somewhat painfully hopeful melancholy.
All of this drama, in my case, was created out of a strange, bungled-up and confusing situation between me and my former sweetheart, who I am indeed having issues coming to terms with the fact that it's over between us. However, it's the same on her side of the coin as well. We've been simply complicating things even further for the both of us by making attempts and being 'friends in love' and the like, as well as continuing in our professing our love for one another, causing our first time physically seeing each other in just over a month (the last time being the beginning of February, when things, although at times heavy, seemed beautiful and happy) to be painfully confusing.

It's hard to get into a large amount of details for a few reasons; one of the most prominent being the fact that so much (if not all) of it, cannot be properly understood unless you are one of the two people who are experiencing it in their own little shared universe/ reality. Another reason is a simpler one: it's simply too personal to really announce, in deep detail, to the internet.

All I can say is I'm hurting quite a bit, but I'm riding the emotions out, knowing they're all necessary on the road to healing. What will happen, and what is happening between her and I is a great big question mark at the moment. Neither of us know at all what we want from any of this. I think it's wise to keep with space and time for now in order to make sure we're not acting on nothing but raw emotion, and instead have time to let all of this process properly, and have some wounds heal in the meantime.

Love is seriously one of the hardest games to play. I miss her so much.

On the other end of things, it's about quarter after 11 in the morning, and I'm sitting in one of my best friends dorms, all alone, typing out this quick recap of what has been occurring in my life for the past couple of days.
I would go grab breakfast at the University cafeteria, but I kind of want a friend who actually attends the University to tag along, and all of them are preoccupied with other matters at the moment.
My friend whose dorm it is in particular is currently visiting with his girlfriend, and has been visiting with her since last night. The both of them dropped by for about 20 minutes at around midnight, but they then disappeared to a party for the rest of the night.

I'm not complaining, as I got to sleep on his bed instead of a few cushions laid out on the floor.

I'm going to go figure out what I'm doing today, however, so peace out, Blue Planet.
We will speak again soon.