 Welcome everybody back here at the Segal Talks at the Martini Segal Theatre Center at the Great Graduate Center CUNY here in Midtown Manhattan. It's a snow outside, a little mushy slushy already, cold gray day, a winter day, and we are before the holidays on the middle of the holidays and it's a big day today at least for us here at the Segal Center it's our final Segal Talk of the season so we are very emotional today it means so much to us it's such a meaningful series we created back in March when we felt after everything was canceled our university's doors were literally basically shut down we couldn't get in anymore we felt it is a time if art has something to say if art speaks what does it say we need to know it we need to have fewer questions even better questions and artists have been on the right side of history on the right side of social progress on the right side on the complex fight for freedom and liberty and as we are finding out since World War II this is the most difficult time for artists especially in New York City it's always been tough and hard to make art there was no money and no space but really now there is no money and there is no space and we need the artists, artists who have made New York City also what it is that made such an enormous contribution so we reached out to all our friends around the world and also here and how they are doing how are they experiencing the moment the time of corona whether that's India or South Africa whether it was Egypt, Lebanon, Chile, Australia, we went all around the world Japan, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore and and it was quite eye-opening to hear the individual experience that is so different we hear so much from politicians, ecologists, economists, virologists but the word of artists is of importance they anticipate the future they really experience the moment and it was a big honor for us today to have as the closing moment two artists if they would be on in playing basketball or on track they would be national champions these are two heavy weights there's two significant artists in the form of the theater of a spoken word where you stand up on a stage as your feet connected to the floor and you say what you have on your mind it's an important tradition a significant tradition as old as mankind and as Tanya Proguera the great Cuban artist who also was in our program said you know we take it for granted she did in in Cuba she did one day an event which was revolutionary she gave everybody had one minute to say what they want it was an open mic of course it was shut down everybody got into travel people went you know to jail and she did it in a place where normally fetal Castro speaks you know we have thousands and thousands of people there are very few people came but people said what was on their mind it was revolutionary it was also dangerous and it just shows the power of this because it became such a symbol of freedom and expression and she's experiencing actually also problems now she was detained last week by the police in Havana it's a terrible moment for artists in Cuba as it is for so many artists around the world whether it's Lebanon and Syria and in Chile so many in India Hong Kong and so to speak out what was on your mind this idea of mankind of a freedom of speech as who so said the great French philosopher who said about the importance of freedom of speech he said even if I might fight till the very end till my last breath against what you have to say I will die for your right to speak and to have there so that's what we need discussions talks exchange of ideas and the individual experience what an individual really feels and sees and hears and spoken words artists have been pioneers and they have changed our culture they have made a great contribution and with us are Reggie Gaines and Caridad de la Luz and she's also called La Bruja as a two really towering figures welcome and thank you for joining us thank you for coming good morning fantastic that you really took the time it's a big deal for us you're our closing moment and we really would like to hear what's on your mind what what you think about how you do it we know that Caridad keeps on hosting the open mics now online and Reggie is giving his workshops and his works online let me give you a little bit of context what they are doing so Reggie is an author and lyricist and actually he did something we all secretly won he has a tourney award winning a musical spring in the fun and he's in his nine years of the director of the great downtown urban theater festival in new york it's one of the festivals that makes new york what new york is it's one of the festivals actually also that you know it looks as diverse as the city is a great contribution an important one and even so they are not featured on saturday night life where they should be and you know we think highly of them and this is something where you hear the truth something real and it's something important he directed uh through the looking class for the center theater group and Rockwell's Brooklyn Quartet he is currently writing two new musicals and maybe one of them will also get another tourney we don't know we hope so it's the 88 and free and his work started on what also we are talking about a little bit of today the neorican poets cafe where he's actually was named a grand slam champion it's a big deal for those who are in that world it's something we all respect very highly so that's a very very big deal and today we also want to thank Daniel Calant from the neorican poets cafe we reached out to him he also reached out to us and we thought it would be a great way to end this it is crazy crazy 2020 with us also is Caridad Caridad de la Luz or La Bruja and she is a Bronx living legend actually she is someone who has made a major contribution just before we started also Reggie said that he had greetings for her from some of his friend great collaborators and they admire the admiration for her she's a spoken word poet also she's an actor a singer songwriter and a community activist and she's combining all that so it's a model both of them what these guys are doing is a model for us what we can learn from and she is exploring as an activist social justice and her neorican identity through poetry and music and she has received the 2021 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship the Puerto Rican Women's Legacy Award the Edgar Allan Poe Award the Bronx Historical Society gave that out the citation of the merit of the Bronx Borough President and many many others and so she is a juggernaut as the New York Times talker and she curates and hosts spoken words performances open mics and education events at the great New Rican Poets Cafe such a great institution look it up so many decades has been a center of it and also a little nesta home a high mod as we say in Germany for poets and artists and spoken word it's virtual so and she actually hosts the very popular Thursday nights online open mics so uh it's an honor to be here with you on this closing day this closing event um for your talks and to be with Reggie Gaines I love Reggie Gaines so much um I have worked with under around Reggie and um you know such a teacher and you know so much wisdom so I'm honored to be here with with you both we go way back there was a hip hop there was the the the hip hop theater festival it's a 24-hour play that Reggie wrote and he chose me to be on that team and he gave me most of the lines and I had to learn them in 24 hours I think that was the hardest thing I've ever done to date in theater and you know it was it was political it was progressive it's what we do um and and it's just um during these times for us to be together in this way it's just super super special uh I was never a slam champion slam was never my thing Reggie like like talk to me like about some slam because I think Bob Holman is watching the the famous Bob Holman yeah I think uh you know why you know why I won the reason I won I was teaching tennis when I got into the whole poetry world competitive tennis I was traveling around the country with 12, 14, 16 year old who was the best in the on the east coast and so I had this whole competitive fire in me which so when it got time to stand up in front of 200 people or 50 people and read a poem it was nothing because I had been so into this competitive really really competitive world of tennis and so the rest you know how people you know how even yourself you know how nervous and anxious you get even to this day when the time when somebody you're in the wings someone calls your name right like Michael Jordan would even say like yo if you don't feel anxious it's a nervousness you need to get out of the game and so I was a little bit beyond that because of the tennis and the competitive addict so I hardly ever felt that way and I noticed how everybody else was all shook and all nervous and anxious that kind of like fused me and like oh I'm going to destroy them but I was thinking in terms of tennis and competition and athletics not poetry and literature but I could you get your sense when someone's nervous all shook and I said oh well they're done so that kind of confidence when you step to the mic oh they're already done they don't want to do this that's why I want that's exactly why I want and I proceeded Paul Beatty and Willie Pedidomo all right people I proceeded I'm watching and learning from them in the open and they will come to the open mic and the whole thing and they would get notoriety even them but Paul Beatty and Willie Pedidomo it's like oh and you watch them you listen to them you read their work and all of a sudden it's like wait a minute they're up here what are you going to do to get up there all right so it's about work you know that better than anybody else but it's about work putting in the work like like tennis basketball football putting ballet it's meditation too it's like it's a meditation it's a zone uh it's uh submitting to yourself and to uh to that force um it is a lot of things and it does take a lot of courage and uh meditation visualization the whole nine but you you have to prepare yourself you have to be prepared all the time and I grew up in Jersey City you from the Bronx all right I'm in the Bronx now we were we were we were raised in areas where you had to be conscious of everything going on all the time back was forward to the left to the right to the north to the south that's how that's how we were raised yes the communities we were raised as well you have to watch your own back you can't watch somebody else's back if you don't even have your own so it all helps it all contributes to great art history I believe that I think I think what helped me also is that um my mom uh is a teacher she she was a teacher high school teacher and so being the best you know uh being better like you have to get an A you know if I got a 90 it was like why wasn't it a hundred if you know and I was raised with that constant of bettering myself how could I improve and you know and that stays with you no matter what so uh being a teacher's child I think Lauren Hill is a teacher's child I think Kanye West is a teacher's child you know it can it could be maddening too because that voice just never ever leaves you know so I'm always thinking okay what what can I do um that can help how can I how can I add to uh this this this this fight for justice how can I you know what can I say what hasn't been said um what needs to be said and so you know the open I started on an open mic at the New York Imports Cafe uh April 3rd 1996 you know for Wichita stands if you listen to that song it's on youtube for Wichita stands WITCH uh you know it's all there all of that is true and the New York Imports Cafe I had no idea at the time that it existed and it changed my life to know that there was this poetry culture um you know I was I was hooked I I got on the open mic I did my thing it was a bilingual poem and you know it was a lunar eclipse you know it was like magic and then I I never left and that's why to this day I still host them because I know how it transformed my life and now that I've been hosting these open mics online uh since the pandemic started we've reached more people than we ever did when we had it with live you know like we would get 75 people maybe 100 people 100 you know pushing the the the door you know the the limit that we could have but now we have people reading from India Africa Hungary Brazil like now it's become completely international and you know and even though it's under the new yorican which is Puerto Rican from New York you know that I I'm I'm born of that culture it's international it you know it has transcended anything like any box of culture or or anything like that it's universal and the message that has been coming out from these poems and from these expressions is just really one of unity like this this desperate need to connect on a humane level like away from skin away from you know gender it's just it's beautiful and um I it gives me just so much hope it's therapy for me it's therapy for for everybody that's there I mean we cry we laugh uh it's it's just it's been an amazing experience and you know this time has been difficult for artists the pandemic everything is shut down but I think that the artists that were doing that light work that were doing that activism work like it hasn't been a terrible thing for me because I had something to offer you know I had something and if it was just to hold space uh it has made a world of difference and like now we're calling ourselves a family and we're even gonna celebrate new years together so it's just yeah it's congratulations I think that for me I believe so much of what I do is related to DNA to be honest my moms my moms went to Juilliard for voice and piano right she went one year met my father fell in love got married had 10 kids 10 kids so after her first year of Juilliard the arts were done her artistic form now will be taken and raised in 10 kids so what I've learned over the years is that you cannot have ego attached to any of this and the minute you realize that you learn to get out of your own way and let that which has to come come but you have to learn to get out of your own way that's the number one thing for me in my process get out of your own way however I'm going to save you on glove it told me once at 22 years old 22 he said stay in the moment at 22 now that's all hat that's all information for the 20 year old turns around says me to stay in the moment no tricks all right no shuffling no tricks no no tricks that was his name so I've learned to get out of my way and trust myself that somebody else is going to help me with this with my interpretation of art you know so just move red get out your own way all right don't think it's about you know it's about your mom's legacy your grandmother or your father how you raise your this person this teacher you don't get out of I tell that to everybody get out of the way trust yourself to let it happen that is amazing and you know and and that really if we could apply that if people would apply that in in every aspect of their life we could transform like the the universe because ego is really uh is really uh a big big thing a really really big thing we all have ego you know but how how to make it a healthy healthy ego uh I think ego is I think you can have that but the society the society we live in now they push that you know they want you to wear ego as a badge of honor on your sleeve they want you to do that build your brand do this how many likes the entire look at what we're doing right now we got this robot controlling our lives I've got to figure out how can I have more control over this robot you know like even in workshops with little kids and trying to teach the kids to stay unmuted and to like think that the session that we're in is like jump and double dutch stay unmuted all right if you got something to say listen as closely as possible when you think the person's about to end that whatever they're saying if you think you can jump in jump in and get out it's a whole rhythm so I I start a workshop talking to kids about just a rhythm we're gonna establish fill your pulse what's your boom boom boom boom and they think it's crazy at first but then I say yo double dutch you got something to say jumping there's no etiquette online there's no etiquette in workshops online it's like you got something to say and out it's like stave it's like stage diving you know I used to do stage diving back in the day but in reverse it's like if you were on the floor and you want to dive up on the stage could you have something to say how many times have you been somewhere bruja and somebody said something in a poem or theater and you were sitting in an audience you thought oh I need to get up there I need to get up there right now I got something to say I just did that with uh with bona fide rojas we did this fundraiser and uh you know and and it was a versus you know how they're doing like that's a big thing now versus you know and so we were just going like blow for blow flow for flow poem for poem you know and and and when people wanted to find us and be like okay so you do one poem then you do one poem I was like no we're gonna do exactly that and you know depending on what he said it changed what poem I chose to say because it was being present you know like you can't really map it out if you're just gonna be yourself in the moment right there that's where the magic is actually you know that's when you know it's it's real and uh you know and it takes a vulnerability um you know to allow yourself to just sit and listen and be present and and and listen to yourself okay this is much that I could say this and without being like not listening and be like I'm gonna say this one this but no it's it's listening responding you know and being true like to the moment this is all we have is this moment it's sacred this is so so sacred you know you're right and I'm lucky because I have a background through osmosis because my pops love jazz he was connected somehow to jazz he used to get all the albums and the records before they even hit the radio then my mom's of course she played piano she's playing like Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture in the house and I'm a little I'm a baby literally and so I know all of a sudden I know Miles Davis is kind of boo better than I know James Brown's cold sweat because that's what happening in my house so when I'm out on a playground everybody else is like say it loud I'm black and I'm proud I'm riffing the Dexter Gordon solo or John Coltrane solo all right and this forms like many years later I now realize why I know so many other people's work by heart all right because I'm like I do osmosis I feel like I'm a saxophone player a piano player and if I don't know this chord progression if I don't know minor six with the bass how could I be part of the whole thing so if I don't know a Miguel Arganin poem or Audre Lorde poem by heart or Mary Baraka or Paul Beatty or La Bruja I don't know something of yours I can't find my own voice I cannot find my voice so now what's happened as the years go by I don't even step into a workshop with a I don't even do anything with a lesson plan everything is improvisation and it's based on the vibes and the feelings that it could be a word that a kid says in the workshop maybe something that somebody a question is asked but I take pride in being able to improvise workshops like the kids always ask me because I know all these hip hop rhymes you know you freestyle I said I don't freestyle verses or anything I freestyle lectures and workshops so improvisation now plays such an important part like I'm working with these kids I'm telling they can write a high-cool or rhyming couplet you don't write that down on a piece of paper you don't type that into your computer you do it in your head and you become better than the robot that's how you beat the robot and they love it effort but they're scared because they think they're so used to these these brain dead rotation devices helping them that it's a crutch it becomes a major crutch and they don't even believe you got 10th graders all right and they don't believe that they can retain a rhyming couplet or 17th syllable high cool and they can't do it just in their head they're grabbing it they're grabbing the device and like so for me improvisation has taken on a whole in the COVID time improv like you're on the screen a lot how you learned to jump through that screen all right that's the thing right now how do you jump through the screen like uh I don't have to name it a movie it's it was a movie my family used to watch it's a scary flick with some little girl jumped through the screen and jumped out of the screen they pulled her in the screen hold the guy there you go I'm trying to learn how to do that yeah well you know what has helped me is stage time I've spent so many hours on stage you can't buy that you know you can't go to class for that we learn and we cut our teeth on the stage just by doing it workshop and whatever we were writing in the moment um you know and uh and and that has changed everything like you know yeah there's these devices and people are stars on instagram but put them on a stage will they be able to win will they be able and they won't you know and uh you know like I wrote something because people have asked me why you know like why aren't you more famous and what is you know and it's because I don't give a damn about those things like I don't care about likes and numbers and you know like I'm not trying to buy followers no you know like and I wrote yesterday I was like you know if spirits could hit the like button I will break the internet because I do things for the spirit world you know I acknowledge my ancestors I acknowledge the ones that came before us that suffered lived died for us to breathe and and be right here is a privilege to be alive in this moment you know so I take into consideration those things and that's where integrity lies when you're doing you know when you're doing those those heartfelt things those those things that you know mean something when nobody is watching for no likes you know that's real to me that matters to me I was raised like that I could get an A on a report card run home Marcella Marcella that's my grandma Marcella look I got an A I got an A okay all right you're supposed to get an A you're supposed to get an A and if anybody needs to know about it they'll know about it but they don't need to know about it because that doesn't make you hey you're special but that does not make you better than anybody else I was raised like that I did something really good and positive and I'm proud about it she's like chill right there's more to do chill there's more to do so me being raised that way gives me an advantage about this whole ego thing I'm like trying to because how do you how do you make yourself valuable to other we're valuable because we're low risk investments one light one mic one voice you're you made a way in the world because you've always been not even you know thinking about it in the back you've always been a low risk investment because you're a poet standing on a stage with the single mic a single light on you and you can hold the crowds attention you can move them emotionally spiritually artistically and that becomes valuable to producers all of a sudden now because we we can't have this conversation without talking about money right well okay so I was thinking we're low risk investment but we're also I also think that I'm high risk because of the truth I speak why you know there's that balance too it's like you know um for the powers that we do not their whole their whole thing is based on non truths and beauty like Baraka would say here Mary Baraka would say how many people you know seeing God but everybody seeing the devil you know plain and simple and so they want us to be we don't they don't want us to be able to present truth and beauty to the world because that's not what they're about if you present truth and beauty to the world they can't sell milk they can't because the minute people understand what truth and beauty is a waiting minute that's got nothing to do with your bottom line your agenda yeah that agenda that's at play I know it's it's so so so um like a drug oh god yes like a drug and then how many people do you and I both know who are talented artists who have fallen off because they fell into that trap I gotta get that you know you don't pin a poem to get paid now if you do at the end of the day that's that's divine intervention or something right not you I'm gonna write this that's writing this a Pepsi commercial okay I'm gonna write a little jingle to sell some soda that's one thing I want to talk about Breonna Taylor in a poem what are you selling I'm selling truth and beauty all right righteousness the New York Times wouldn't even mention W. E. B. Du Bois's name in their paper for 17 years called the most dangerous man in America that's what we're up again and if you know like my man Harry S. Truman the only thing in this world we don't know I mean only thing new in this world is the history we don't know so every last one of it that we are not sleeping us while we're alive that we're not sleeping ourselves in the history of whatever it is you do whatever your expertise is whatever you love if you don't know the history of it from day one you're going to get lost in the sauce like so you wouldn't you know the history of your art form this is another reason why you're able to make moves and make leaps and bounds because you pay attention to that I honor it I really treasure it you could tell people hey you could tell people about about the Bronx all right the history of the Bronx like remember I say like I'm talking Yankee Stadium to you and your eyes light up like yo that's my that's my home that's my place yeah so because you're connected to that like I'm connected to you so I used to live in the Bronx 152nd Jackson Avenue I don't know how a long time ago we talked in the early 70s you know no hell was going on 152nd of Jackson you know like I actually burning but I exactly it was burning but I also saw the first installations of the linoleum on the ground cats spinning on their head all right yes people plugging their their their jacks into the light pole going into a band so you see that it's not just something you read in the book or see the documentary if you're actually there and you're like trying to make your way through the terrain it keeps in you it gets in your body so anybody says anytime anybody says anything about Bronx South Bronx North Bronx I feel connected to them right away right away because I know that I know the smells I know the sounds I know the two-step I know the clave you know I know I still a I know so that's in my soul what what I was thinking too is when when I started meditating daily it was in 2015 that I started meditating and I was listening to you know like they were telling me to find my happy place and you know a lot of people would pick a mountain or a river and I swear the place that I felt the best safest in my in my mind when I close my eyes was with one mic one light a thing that's where I felt peace I felt I don't and I don't know why but that's that that was my that's my sacred space and so that's when I made that choice too that I was gonna be even more musical on that stage and and bring invite people into that light to share it you know so it really is not about ego and and to not take yourself too seriously and to be willing to fail and to be willing to be laugh that or or you know or anything like come at me whatever you know because if you can center yourself and temper your sword no like nobody can mess with you when you know that history when you love that history when you do it for the love when you do it not for the fame or the money but you do it because you would die if you didn't do this like that's that's what you want to feel you know that's what you want to put into your words into your work into your existence every single day uh you know it's everything it's everything it's life it's healing it's it's it's it's healing it's healing and jay i'm a glocklin jazz rock guitarist he got a song on the second mahogany new orchestras um record called know you know you know it's a song that's the title you know you know and I have learned over the years that you need to know what you know then you don't have to have any fear that brings courage knowing what you don't have to know a million different things but whatever it is that you know know it like miles davis will say I want to do that could play two notes on the bass that knows them two notes and just groove on it as long as he knows them two notes let's go I think everyone who calls themselves an artist they need to know what they know stop branching off stop you ain't no flowing river that yo do what you do like even how often do you hear some you say to somebody yo why don't you read that poem I like that poem that you written I bet you said this many times in your in your life why don't you read yo hey once you get that part really like that poem of us they get they and they say oh that poem's eight months old I don't read that no more John Coltrane the last three years he was alive he started every single one of his concerts out playing my favorite thing and sometimes it turned into the whole concert all right or I did a read when Amiri once since University of Virginia and Amiri walks up to me says like you said you're starting so how what are you gonna do I don't know what I'm gonna do all right he says to me doesn't mean like well I'm still I'm gonna start my set with a poem I wrote 25 years ago and that's just a lesson now he I don't know if he was conscious he probably was conscious right you don't know what you're talking you don't know what you're gonna read I'm gonna start my set I'm already ready to go I know what I know what I'm gonna do all right and just that alone by the time I went out they had already been in my mind okay Amiri just told me I need to know what I'm gonna do and then I stepped out set it off like that so it's all these lessons how many lessons have you learned from people that at one point you were like oh I met so-and-so so was my friend now but I met so-and-so I'm so grateful for that I feel so grateful to have been born when I was born that I had Miguel Algarino now that he recently passed I had him as a mentor that's right he was the first one to take me on tour in a poetry tour around what you see ever really look at that me I was able to work with Pedro Pietri and Reverendo Tato La Vieira I've I mean John Leguizamo I did some theater work I used to grow up like like looking at his one man shows and then work with him you know so many people in music of Spike Lee all of it like you know and but I swear meditation and like really envisioning that like seeing yourself doing these things and loving it so much and loving these people so much you will you will attract these people to you you know like you will just it's like a zone you will really tap in and you get into this current and then there you are and you're learning Amiri Baraka I got to do this exactly right I was able to be with these powerhouses feel their energy and like come on Amiri Baraka was a tiny little man you know and he was huge his energy massive you know and I got to sit in a diner just sit eat talk of course you know the table like in dreams it feels like exactly like it's not it's surreal it's so surreal Miguel walks up to me I thought I might have had 20 poems to my name I read a poem in the open room he comes up to me so like oh that's pretty good you know we kind he just like what I said we kind of formed a little bond three months later I was doing a five-day residency at the University of Virginia with 30 poems to my name with Jimmy Santiago Baca Miguel Latin Empire from Bronx Amina and Amiri Baraka and what am I doing sitting on a panel with 30 poems to my name with Baraka and Baca and Miguel all right and then I'm sitting there and they would get their little sip on after all that today's activities sitting the lounge and that's when I learned the real deal listening to him talk about process and process had more than just to do with artistic they were talking about how they were going to get the next grant the next residency they were setting up their lives so they could continue to meet these artist people and I learned and so by the time I came back up for those five days the last thing I was concerned about was being published I was like Danny got in between all of sitting there they might have 30 books of poetry between them they never talk anything about submitting poetry and Baraka like oh no making own books forget them forget double day get this day like and Baraka Miguel Jimmy make your own art create your own institutions make it this where's your radio station where's your records right and so when I went back I'm not submitting nothing to nobody I'm gonna hustle up get me some money I'm gonna make my own but I wouldn't even thought that way if I wasn't blessed enough to be with those giants who just matter of factly well I'm doing sounds that they're gonna be 15,000 I'm sitting there's 15,000 I'm possibly money to get on the train somebody 15,000 to do a gig I'm like wow and all of a sudden like how do I do that then I run it to say cool so you go oh $7,500 to do out 55 minutes I'm like what and then they start breaking it down how this happened you got to make them think they need you what the hell does that mean you got to make these institutions think they need you or you got to make these institutions help think that you'll help them bring diversity into their institution that's not art that's a game the power that you're playing it's a street hustle too you know that street hustle that I like learned you know from like I'm not a drug dealer but I'm in the Bronx and you know dealing and all of that that is around you so I would think you know to myself like how am I gonna make poetry my hustle how am I gonna sling these poems for money you know and really that didn't happen until I became a mother until I had to monetize you know it was like okay I have lives now that depend on me like now this is not a game this is survival this is what I love and I have children now and that's really what like changed it for me and you know and being a woman in the industry I mean you know let's let's be a fan of it right now I mean so much sexual harassment uh I mean and I don't I can't say that it's happened in the poetry realm but it's happened to me in the theater you know it's happened in in music you know like in the hip hop you know like oh yeah well it's it's been really really difficult to maneuver through these waters um of patriarchy and like now with this hope you know like with everything that happened within the with the pandemic the government you know the president the all of that stuff it's like poets create the narrative for the world to live into with that truth and that rawness like things that no one would think to say these poets are saying it and then it's like oh okay and it plants these seeds and I really feel that that is what helped transform us to where we are today where we are closer than ever to having a woman as a president you know and uh and we're dismantling colonization patriarchy and racism really in at once because like all of those modalities are what has had us killing each other hating each other still you know uh divided and um you know and speaking of woman as president like even you know the feminist movement how to be feminist without uh I don't know like without um pandering to patriarchy is it's really really difficult so like when WAP happened you know in Cardi I was I was happy you know like for Cardi I'm happy for Cardi but at the same time I could I can't do that like I have too many young people to answer to that are confused about sexuality and bodies and what what it is they should be slinging right so I did my own WAP I took my acronyms did my own WAP did my own video did during this pandemic I've been so productive because I had to sit down be still in one place that you know it made me more creative than ever and then I had to learn to film myself light myself edit myself you know right so like just learn it all create it all and put it out there you know so like I got my WAP video on YouTube I got all I did this other thing every day feels like the other muertos like every day feels like the day of the dead because so many people are dying I just released that you know just creating and and like but still like that this in this tug of war of tide it's just so intense but at the same time I see the light at the end of the tunnel I see the transformation I'm so grateful to be alive at this moment in time you know I think of the Frida Kahlo like a Frida Kahlo um you know she didn't know that she was really the the one that would be the the icon between her and her husband and the time that she lived you know like but she had her renaissance after death um if and I think to her you know like if only she knew maybe she might have known anyway she might have actually not to live longer I think you know like but you know with most artists that most artists are visionary they're almost profits do you find that you've had to now deal with video shooting yourself lighting like he was saying do you find that that's affected the way you write do you write more cinematically now than before the pandemic and when I say cinematically more imagery than ever before more pictures because I found I have found this is not just pandemic but I recently found that these things these brain dead rotation devices this is my enemy or opposition as a writer because most of our information it comes with all these things it's really visual it's videos it's pictures all right I'm trying to create imagery and efficiency my thing now write in poetry or write anything efficiency number one imagery number two so if I'm not putting pictures in people's heads they're gonna grab hold of this what I started doing is that putting the word into the video like that's like the new trend too is like people want to read the word and then that keeps them engaged and so then they're not so much focused on the visual and I try to like I do consider the visual absolutely like I am painting picture visually with you know with what I'm wearing or with the cinematics where I am and stuff like that but you know yeah that's all like allure what I really want you to do is read those words and put them into your mind you know for all this green time that I've been doing since since February it even makes me think in terms like directing or staging cinematically can I make can I move people around the stage and make it no cuts no nothing just like dissolve so all of a sudden if I'm writing a play or I'm talking to people submitting plays to the festival and I see the stage direction I'm like listen you need to think about transitions now once it starts it can't stop you're dealing you got people sitting in the audience everybody's got one of these if you got a theater piece happening and all sudden you can't have a blackout you can't have five seconds of silence it's got to be it has to move like a movie because if it doesn't you look up on the ceiling and there's going to be a planetarium from all the light from all the phone light texting and checking their email and that how many times have you have you actually experienced that have you been on stage and also you see you wouldn't have you see a light wait a minute what they doing with the light uh oh that's the myself or they checking themselves that's the opposition that's you want to be able to control people's urges to grab their brain dead rotation device that's the new that's new theater that's new performance that's new keeping people's attention because the digital affects almost like a virus digital effects of people's ability to pay attention it destroy it breaks down attention span digital the technological advances in digital communication break down people's ability to pay attention and focus attention span they're like a and now babies they're putting they're putting tablets in front of babies now you're like babies are watching tablets and i'm like what get that baby a toy damn it that's scary it is really really frightening because it's none of my business i know but whoa are you serious that's your new babysitter all right crazy you got a digital they're robots oh this is broke and i love it because i'm doing good with the online stuff because i'm learning that i can wild out like it's almost nothing you can't do on these things if you have the courage to take a chance on it now you got to know what you know like if you have it uh a wtc poem all right you know that inside and out like if somebody snapped the fingers they're like put a camera in your face do you do your world trace in a poem you wouldn't have to think about it and i bet you you've done it and it's changed like in the moment like a word change is here you feel something in that moment because you stay open to it but because you know it is the key for so for me anybody who's trying to be an artist during this period of time the pandemic if you are not open to improvisation have something that's brilliant and it gets applause it gets response but in that particular moment i need to change this word or change this image because it's working right now and i only get that from being a big big not only a fan but just a lover of jazz and improvisational music you know and lean on that me too i expect when i go into anything i expected to be like here you're not scripted right now no i'm not scripted right now right so you and i like to do it in the band right now yes but saying something it'll put a picture in my head it'll put a piece of music in my head and i'll wait wait okay she let me in she let me in right now knock a solo okay let her back in now she can solo all right but a lot of that's what's gonna happen on these screens because we're gonna be on these screens for a minute yeah learn how to get that whole double Dutch analogy all right what you think of is that i don't really i'm not much of a fan for intermissions of intermission i'm not a fan of intermission i don't like that break i am like what you you lose them you're losing them like you want to keep that flow that current going going going you know and then leave them and then you're done then then you're ended like i really am not a fan of intermissions but that's capitalism rearing its ugly head to sell the drinks and the concessions the bigger the investment the producer's investment the longer their intermission is because now it's got to be drinks t-shirts whatever it is books blah blah blah blah so it's all it's all basic economics and capitalism and capitalism and artistic expression artistic expression is not art slash commerce we're not about that you want to get paid i want to get paid george wolf wants to be paid bob homie wants to be paid you know but you do not create anything with that in mind yes watch george wolf after we created noise funk i watched george wolf then take some of the text and some of the ideas and the way he cut it blocked it i could see that he was strategically placing marketing schemes within the framework of the piece i never watched him that he knew if this was sick like he told me one time like i wrote this uh i wrote a poem about being black and not being able to catch a cab all right it was dope everybody the company's like oh snap you nailed it you nailed it right everybody in the company then george we all liked everybody's red red george stopped everybody from clapping he said like wait a minute you that's a great poem you wrote a really great poem he said but save me on could tell that story better with his feet and you ever could with words now it's kind of hurt for like 30 seconds i was like whoa i said i was hurt for 30 seconds but then he said and then so save me on so like because saving i was the one who was bitching about i couldn't get to care that's why i was late right so because of his real his instincts about that george was right he said that reggie's poem is great but reggie's poem is an intellectual exercise so people hear the words and they gotta like stop all this machinations going in their brains but you can go bop bop bop bop bop bop bop and everyone's sitting there it's an emotional thing it's a visceral thing they don't have to think about jack they hear it they feel it then they move on it and my poem got cut deleted boo there were only the only words that went into the the number with just the word taxi and they took care of the rest of it wow talking about i understand now at this point in my life i'm a low person on the totem pole music goes first movement in a second visual cinematic goes third me as a writer i'm last because my thing is an intellectual exercise and if you the best writers are the ones who can write something that a person with a second grade education or phd can get right there that's hard that's hard you know and it's funny i look at my old work and i used to be you know a little bit embarrassed because you know as you get up in this world this becomes more world of academia and all of these big words stuff and i felt like wow my my poems are so childish or whatever but what i realized is that i was resonating with children and the children means so much to me that's it and um you know so now i'm not as you know i'm not as shy about sharing those those poems from 25 years ago or you know whatever like it's people who become great never lose that childlike quality when they're creating they never lose it that naivete that naivete i love it i love it outside of me when i host when you were talking about connecting right you know like in between you know as a host in the open mic or you have to weave between things you don't know right because it's always really all improv and i cut my team doing that too and that's where like a lot of comedy and jokes i'm able to like be outrageous and safety but it comes from the inspiration of what i just heard and then you know how i'm gonna try to flow into this next person what i know about them or you know it's it's really a lot of work and you know people think that it's easy until you have to do it you know and people think wow she's having such a good time you know and i i i am having a good time but i am working when i'm done i'm tired you know it's difficult to think fast and listen it's very difficult to think fast and listen and you got to choose in between so i know exactly what you're talking about because how do you really and this these machines these things that we're messing with it's hard that most of the stuff that i see online because i go online i take workshops and blah blah but most of the things that i see are scripted they're scripted out people stepping to the arena with a lesson plan i'm like yo this is not going to work you can't step into you can't have 23 kids in a box on a digital device right in a 10th grade and think that you're going to have some lesson plan i'm going to do this i'm gonna do that i'm gonna do you you got to engage immediately find out who wants to mess with you in that moment and then see if you can let that build but you got to find somebody to get a feel of vibe like oh i can mess with her or i can mess with him he's interested in it oh i just did a verse of a wu-tang thing this kid just he was laying like this i said he was up and i said okay now i'm gonna mess with him but it's hard to do it if you're scripted yes and so for me i am learning so how to be i'm learning to be a better improviser because of this format so much better and if we're going to make this work especially with kids because kids are going to catch i could not even imagine being in the sixth grade and having a listeners might try to teach me something across this medium i don't know how it works and then i argued with a teacher just two days ago she said you're giving them too much information such a short amount of time i said no you don't realize that they are almost robots themselves all right push them push them see how much here whatever they retain they were meant to retain it but you got to give it to them and you can't keep them yo i can't be talking about common denominators with them for 20 minutes i'll say it but what's common denominator boom somebody give me some information we roll from there if i got to go from common denominators to a rhyming couplet we got to go there right you cannot underestimate their level of being able to you can't you can't do that and you have to you have to if you want them to feel it yeah you got to be in the moment you got to be in the moment absolutely you can't be scripted when you teach one other thing you have to read the room yeah what other thing i've learned is that the younger people they are so sophisticated at having a story told to them in multiple ways you're talking about kids that can see a three-minute video where the words have nothing to do with the visuals the visuals have nothing to do with the baseline and the percussion the rhythm is a whole different thing they are so sophisticated they don't need beginning middle and end that's starting to just dissolve and disappear if you're not doing a if you're not doing you cannot do one two three four five six seven eight nine ten of these kids it's got to be one seven four six i mean you got to jump around yeah it's not linear anymore it's not like and neither is time time is not linear either that's the other thing is that you know we're if we could tap in if you could tap into that round that akashic round where the past the future the present it's all there and you just funnel it in to the moment then boom then you talking right you got something it's like yeah you really got something not launching there like but non-linear oh man and this is not a new thing it's been going on i mean i first realized what non-linear was when i studied steven sondheim's company that's when i really started to understand what that was all right even i've been doing it my whole life and i've been hearing it my whole life and nobody was doing one two three four where i grew up there was no beginning middle and end all right there's no such thing as beginning middle and end in my community all right it's like something happens all right you got to make moves and don't you can't even worry about the next move take care of it over here susan lorry park top dog underdog all right jeffie right he was in such a hurry to learn the last move he forgot to learn the first move that's your mistake and it's the first move to separate the players from the play and the first move is there ain't no winners it may look like you got a chance but the only time you pick right is when a man lets you but i ain't laughing that you man i'm just laughing susan lorry parks and that's what i learned i learned through poetry theater music these are my teachers they have been my whole life but now it's so concentrated i'm looking my brain is looking to hear a couplet looking to hear a rhyme scheme looking to hear a tiny bit of dialogue dialogue on monologue from the play this is my education today 2020 you know that's where i'm at as a student trying to learn from little snippets of things i don't need the whole ball of soup give me a spoonful i'll rhyme with it from there i still like crazy me to feel like crazy are you kidding i didn't even get it i i didn't get a degree i don't have a degree and i speak in universities all the time and what i did was uh i was i was um what do you call it registered for one year but then because i knew the campus i would sit in on lectures of classes that i wanted to learn because i was like why do i have to take all these prerequisite classes to get to what i really want to learn so i just started sitting in on lectures where they you know they wouldn't they weren't taking attendance so i got to absorb you know noir film uh you know i got to learn about like psychology and uh you know all different kinds of you know anthropology things that really interested me and it fed me mentally and informed me and i was able to take all of those things and create and create and learn and learn and create and create but again not in a linear way yeah that's kind of you know what Miguel one day called me he said hey reg i'm picking you up tomorrow you're going you're going with me to my class teach my he's to make all of us go in black history month to go teach his go do workshops in his class at rockers right and it was either the ethnic literature in the usa or the his Shakespeare stuff so he calls me when he said i'm gonna pick you up you know and then he won't pay us this is how this is your you owe me if you feel you owe me you're gonna come do this for a week but you're gonna be in my class this whole month so one day he calls me i'm picking you up tomorrow we're gonna go and i thought we'd go in the ethnic literature history of ethnic literature in the us i think that's what class i was going then he says and brush up on your Shakespeare because you're doing an election in my Shakespeare class tomorrow what and the only thing i do about i mean i know Shakespeare because there's a person who's from a public american public educational system they beat you over the head with it as irrelevant as it may be they beat you over the head with it like great english in high school out that spot why are you gonna keep try to teach me a rhyming couplet by Shakespeare when you won't teach me one by jaz all right what's the deal so that's my mind said even if you even if you don't intellectualize it's like come on man this is you telling me this is relevant but got the rap patrol on the gap patrol folks want to make sure my cast is closed beaten uh a virtue that the light of beauty lack your son-in-law is far more fair than black same structure same forms whatever he's talking about i'm with jay-z all right but i'm not getting so anyway i go to the class and i'm staying up there like Miguel what am i doing here in front of the whole class and Miguel what am i doing here we'll read some of your poetry and see if we can connect it to Shakespeare's poetry i said oh really so i started reading something and he stops and he says okay that is a rhyming couplet and he would say something about Shakespeare he said keep calling keep calling oh that can be seen as a soliloquy do you know the difference between the soliloquy that's who Miguel was and he puts you under the he puts you under the spot like like that okay do it because he knows where you're from he knows how you were raised he knows your economic situation your educational situation he takes all that into because he's he was smart like that people would think oh just they think we got Miguel with some jovial Santa Claus like type of no thank you thank you academic brilliant intellectual him but right all they were all intellectuals but they unapologetic too unapologetic and treated us like they were us and we were them yeah i can you know Baraka Baraka ain't never ever in his life been around you and try to act like he was above you no i don't know your relationship with him but i know that yep you know and that's what these men and these women are all right i'm not better than you all right but we all special i'm not better than you but we all special yeah so how are you on time frank well we are good i mean this is you know important you know um and what do you have to say it's about an hour we have there's still a bit more time if you have okay but do you feel do you feel something changed inside you is this going to be different is this a time of change now because of the pandemic yeah this year this 2020 and for me yeah what has changed and what has to change i check this out the first thing seeing other people being forced to create who don't normally create it made me realize how gifted i am because that's my routine anyway so now i got family members and friends and people i love who are calling like yo i ain't got nothing to do read a book i ain't got nothing to do i want to go out read a book listen to stevie wonder i want to go out i want to go out write a letter to a dead person who you love and they you know so they're peep normal people i don't call myself normal but normal everyday people working for a living you know whatever the they have been forced to create yes i've heard more people complaining about solitude yes complaining i can't sit in the house i'm just sitting in the house it's a question like i was in like i was in solitary confinement as an artist and this is a mindset okay everybody wants to know why do you get one of the poems it'll come slap your side your head and write it and you just it's just dope but the rest of the time sweat blood tears isolation all right so this isolation thing ain't no thing to us nothing to me nothing and yeah and i had already done my own nails and learned how to do my own hair so the salon's closing didn't do nothing from like to me but yeah it really show like our mindset is you know we love this world that we create the worlds with the realms we go into and most people are escaping but like even sitting with their thoughts because i think there's so much trauma too like to deal with trauma so they're just like i want to think about these thoughts i don't want to sit with these thoughts so let me escape here and and lose myself there and yeah this pandemic i felt that way too like i was already ahead of that you were headed a curve i was already i already was accustomed to being by myself i was already accustomed to creating and yet people that have never created didn't know what to do with themselves and that's part of the danger of putting a a thing in front of a baby a screen in front of a baby so if we're doing that now like if it's all about that screen when what happens when this is gone what are they gonna do with them so they're not even gonna know how to play create socialize like i mean i did workshops and um in the school for like it was like fifth grade girls and half of them didn't even have a doll they wanted that cell phone to play their games on and i was just like oh the digital my god this is scary to me you know so it's true that gift of creativity of how to spark creativity in others that's like i felt like my purpose i was like yes my purpose is here you know and i've been doing this my whole entire career teaching workshops and all of that stuff but it's like oh now the world needs to learn how to do something i took the tv away from my kids when the eight and 10 years old like that tv's been gone my son is 22 my daughter's 20 and they are creative beings creative creative creative and they thank me you know to this day for having done that at first it's like withdrawal but you know be be willing to be that bad guy as a parent and take this damn thing away from the kid and make them play make them go out like recently during this pandemic i heard you know i heard children playing in the street and that made me feel so warm it gave me that that nostalgia when we played red light green light one two three mother may i and you know hot peas and butter and all of that and i'm hearing children play and i was like oh god yes you know it's inspiring it's motivational it's tough i mean for me hey you know what else has happened i got friends of mine i'm known for 40 years 50 years who's hitting me up now who hit a pandemic has got them isolated right they call me and says red i think i want to write some poetry right people ain't never read the poem in a life never been to a reading never wrote anything all sudden because they know me and they kind of like poetry is attached to my name and i'm a friend of theirs we grew up together they go red i want to write some poetry what do i do you want to write some poetry what what do i do you write it now but it's just certain i said no it's not a cookbook you know what do you want to write how do you feel uh i feel lost then write about lost all right well how do i do that i said well here have you ever really been lost like you ever been in a mall with your moms you've lost a hand and next thing you know they call them your name over the security we would have you been lost and then so joe my man joe washington he's like oh yeah we went on a school trip we went to the radio city music office he's so and so and so and i got separated from blah blah blah you know and next thing i know i was in a police station all right because they couldn't find a blah blah blah and i couldn't really explain to them i was crying and casting there's your story there's your poem and i just efficiently tell that story and put some pictures at it you said they you were going to radio city music hall in new york city that's your canvas the first thing you do is just write what that look like to you what are the images of radio city music at home was it snow was it rain was it hot outside and i'm just talking to him like that for five minutes a couple of days later he hit me back i said oh snap because he wasn't confused with all the information all the lessons all the mfa craziness oh yeah the craziness all right which is all about having to make a great poem i'm like just forget about being a great poem just write it word one word after the other word like i i could never get writer's block because if i even feel blocked i'm just that's the first thing i'll write it's like i feel this today or whatever and i think of uh and frank said that because she couldn't look outside of her window uh she wrote herself a window instead and that always still needs to write yourself that window and you know i like to say uh there's nothing you can write that is wrong that's why it's called right that should be a t-shirt just write that thing down that should be a t-shirt right there that could probably sell that could probably move some units you know i mean i'm serious you know like i used to have an exercise three by five index cards sitting beside the pillow wake up middle of the night whatever whatever's mom in my head the moment i'm write it on the card it'll be a word be a sentence go back to sleep boom look at it by the end of the day turn that into something that gotta be something all right so i did a poem on deaf poetry which was a result of that exercise i never expected to be anything i want to do it on national television i don't feel like writing today but i'll write anyway because how else can i get good that's what i wrote before i went back to sleep that's what i wrote before i went back to sleep when i looked at it because you know you could have these great dreams and thoughts who who remembers their dreams who remembers fully their dreams cinematically of what color was it was black and white was a technical who remembers their dreams so i learned from not being able to remember fully the dreams i had to write these little snippets or whatever that turned into this like i mean dope poem and it wasn't anything but me getting out of the way of it all right and then remember what other people have said about where the poems come from where the brilliance come what does creativity come from and i got that from amiri saying i heard him say many times a poem once in a while poem will slap your side your head and say write me you said the rest of it it's like construction like building a building it's gotta gotta put the work in gotta put in the work and so i my niece calls me i've got a she has a young daughter who's sixth grade up then and now she got it she's home and she's asking me like oh london's going crazy what should i do blah blah blah let her go crazy a little while but get us some canvas get us some crayons yes have her paint to you what she's feeling all right don't try to intellectualize it with words get her to paint or draw what now she's a painter right was laid out allow people to have their feelings too like and like the whole space for them like you know even as a parent like even if even if it's about you and it and it ain't cute you gotta be willing to hear it and sit with it you know like whole whole space but you know i actually am one of the people i do remember my dreams very vividly but that's because i do a lot of spirit spirit you know for me it's a it's a different dimension that i actually use to to to figure things out for myself you know like i'll go into a meditation and i know i'm very conscious of like okay in this realm please bring me these answers i really want to know this that in the third and i will use it and i will receive and yeah and i it's like i i do not all the time sometimes i wake up and i know i dreamt something but i can't recall but there have been those magical dreams that i see it from beginning to end and i have a lot of celebrity dreams a lot so i i mean i had bob marley sing me an original song in my dream and i remembered it jesus yeah so what inspires you guys what what do you listen to now what do you reading what you know is you give so much what what what are you in the days and the weeks and the muscle what what feeds you what keeps you more or more the community of poets that you know we're connected to i listen to the people in my open mic people that you have never heard of that are amazing brilliant i mean i listen to them and then you know like as a matter of fact all of the the open mics are on youtube at the new year you can post cafe page you should watch the magic that comes out of these people the brilliance out in cali the the the gumption in hungary you know like things that you would never think that we're connected in that way and we are just so aligned um that inspires me i just i just listen to the people that's why i love open mic so much it's i love it i love it so much i've always been a great reader all right but since the pandemic started i've become a brilliant reader so everybody here everybody can be a great poet but everybody can be a great reader of poetry so that's my mindset like or if i'm where i'm working on musicals a couple of musicals so one of the musicals of 88 is based on tapes that my nine brothers and sisters when talking about our grandmother taking us to Broadway shows all right that so we taped there's nine there's ten of you know ten of us so we're telling these stories in my brother's studio putting it on tape all right and i'm listening to the tape we're like whoa this is there's a serious story here so when it started the first thing i did was get as much information about Michael Bennett and a chorus line as possible because i know a chorus line that would have never happened without the tape sessions so by just studying i got i've been reading to Michael Bennett uh biographies or you know and i've been wanting there's no tape on him really talking all right the people around him so you don't really get much video you can't really hear Michael Bennett's thoughts on choreography and directing and how he spliced and put this thing together so i'm stealing ideas i'm just reading about Bennett and how he constructed the chorus line how he used the tapes all right creatively and so i know more about the chorus line right now than i do about bringing the noise bring the funk all right which i wrote you know and so that's what i've been doing i don't do anything without music playing nothing i'm doing any kind of creativity if i'm reading writing i could be watching tennis visually with the sound down i'm listening to music i could be watching basketball but the sound is down and i'm listening to music i'm listening to Miles Davis's British Brew watching the NBA the Lakers play all right i don't hear none of that stuff they talking about and i'm trying to choreograph listen to the music the beats the percussion the horn blast the sampling that tail my my my sero did and coordinated with what's happening on the court you can also you see this dance happening i love basketball it's a play basketball you know it's a whole different thing now the choreography of watching them move but then listening to Miles with it and how it sinks up so often and then it made here so then i'll go back like watching Savion i hear being on stage with Savion Glover tap dancing and understanding like the value of space in between or the ability to listen that that that that that you go speak that that that i speak now that i pop pop pop pop pop i speak that but i speak speak speak so then i'll go and listen to Miles Davis it's kind of blue to think about space as a writer all right da da da da space space bop it up but out of space space bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop space bop bop bop bop bop bop space so i'm listening to Miles play so what and anytime there's a space between his trumpet all right i'll put a word in there or two words to three words you know rhythmically fit them in they ain't gotta mean anything go ahead as a question you know to round it up you know maybe what do you say to young artists now as people say i want to be a writer i want to be a composer music musician i want to be a painter in the time of corona what would you say what what should they do what is important or even our listeners if you could give some meaning you know that you already talked so much about but still so what what is that what could you tell them you know say please please take that serious awareness yeah keen sense of awareness beats everything all right you know obviously we're not out in the street roaming around you know seeing this person's face but you have to be so keen to what's happening you could be in a room by yourself all right for days you'd be in any room by yourself for days because of the pandemic don't even see another human being all right there's other things going on in that room the sound all right just the sound of the wind all right the smell of whatever you've just finished cooking all right if you're reading all of a sudden the reading becomes if you're sequestered and solitaire and you're reading the the words jump off the page they start making noises all right so if you want to write you have to do those things you have to make your word jump off the page here i tell a lot of young people write about the five senses can you make can you use words to make me smell something that's so disgusting that when i read it i go like i hold my nose can you write something down a piece of paper on your screen that when i read it i hold my nose you're telling me about a odor all right or can you describe pain in such a way that i go out when i read it i go out or can you write something down that makes me so hat that here i smile when i read it or i laugh out loud when i read it that's what i tell writers your pain sense of awareness and then latch on to any experience you have that's connected to what you're writing but it doesn't have to be real your experience your field takes touch smell that has to be real i tell a lot of writers be more creative make things up like a guy the other day in a workshop he wanted to know about writing a poem about cops shooting black kids i said well put yourself from the point of view of george floyd laying on the ground with the guy's knee on his neck and tell me how george floyd feels you ain't never been in that position have you no then there that's being creative yeah you know george floyd we've seen the video blah blah put yourself on your back with this person knee in your neck you can't even talk what are you thinking right what you're thinking down let's see what you got that that connects me to one of the things that the way that i create is uh i mean i'm very connected to the spirit world that's one of the reasons i even called myself la bruja is uh you know even when i'm alone in the room i think about a hundred years who was standing here a thousand years ago who was standing here i think of spirits and then i i allow them to speak to me whether you you know you it's a mat you could call it imagination and and if you listen something will come to you and i've been doing that for so long and i'm here in the sound view section of the Bronx and i was listening listening to spirit i started creating these indigenous gatherings here i have a garage an old garage a 1920 trucking garage my my father had hoarded 20 tons of garbage and i cleaned it out started using this space and started doing these indigenous gatherings every year and then i traveled to heidegwai and and british columbia and with these intentions of learning healing modalities you know from indigenous tribes only to come back and find out that i was on a civil annoy a civil noir child uh live here the civil noir lived here for thousands of years doing an indigenous gathering every year and i was already doing that and i had started doing that before i learned that that's what it was and it's because i listened to spirit i will sit and imagine them here so i don't ever feel alone when i'm alone uh i always feel like there's something more for me to learn i don't feel like i know everything i become a student of of life and of spirit and what what wisdom do they have to still impart in me and i listen and then i write the shit down write it down i say there's nothing that can take a picture of your thoughts only you can do that and that's by writing it and so many times you'll have a thought if you don't write it or capture it or record it or whatever you will never remember it again it'll it won't come back you know so it's so that's that's my advice and this is probably like my 75th journal of my life and you know i'm almost to the end right here and sometimes i'll write a to-do list and that feels good too what i want to do and i check it off and then on the next thing i feel best when i'm in love and though i am in love more with myself than ever before i long to be worshiped like those i've adored i just go into some some other world and and it's okay one page could be to-do the next page could be poetry the next page could be you know anything anything anything just do it's so healing yeah so they're really really really thank you this is important and you know what you sat and you know to say be in the moment read the room do some thinking while you're listening and listen while you are thinking about the space because you know it's in between give people the space kind of a jazz music as a model and leave the ego at the door and to be open to you know be perhaps also to open possibility to fail to be loved at and and i like that what you said you know don't take the image even the George Floyd what it was he's thinking what does the image really tell you but wouldn't it be we all better we know what we are thinking what we feel you know how do you feel to to to jack to to to to to to be in that time we are in and to transform it like a potter we maker takes the clay transforms something puts it into heat it might break it might not he she doesn't know how the colors come out but you transform it and that's what we have to do we can really learn lessons that you said improvise be open listen to the moment you know the idea to jump in and out the screens which we have to do now which we will do now you both and me too we will clap our computers down and then did it happen did it not but how do we go in and out of that so but there are less lessons in that that we can transform us parents and children teachers and students workplace so they are something that art you know has always done as you guys said it's nothing new for you but it's important to listen again to hear it again and also to be confident this tremendous contribution because what else can do that what you talked about the imagination and and to be there and also to be connected to the world of the spirits of the ancestors and we did many programs with Caribbean artists and so much they talk about the significance of the invisible we had the spider women theater is a we have to listen to it we have to be connected also put your finger in the earth but also you don't be aware that there's more around you and you know so i think it was a great great reminder i thank you and it was a wonderful i think session at the end of our our year so really really thank you for sharing and for talking and being honest and also as you always are and to be there for the moment you know we didn't know what will happen i said it was it was a very very good session really thank you thank you i wish you a new year i we all hope 2021 will be better and uh than this one so so i hope it was as inspiring a bit for you guys as it was fun this is what's good for me i love you Reggie thank you so and i don't mean to cut off so fast but i got another class i gotta teach love y'all go do that okay and thank you so much and thank you for the moment thank you all around all around to hosting us vj thank you yeah and everyone's andy at the senior center and do our listeners hope you will tune in next year we don't know exactly when we will stop but we will we are really thinking what we are doing or not so thank you so much and cut it out again it was a big blessing to have you with us and a great journey through the great norican poetry cafe you know this is a big testimony that you said this is where i started out on that night in the 90s and everybody could have that night so go there check out go to the live streams and congratulations on you for hosting this on all the thursday nights and in the new years you're going to help the house and open an open session right everybody can just yes for the new year we're going to you know bring in the new year together and we're going to continue this you know this uh i'm really grateful that uh we were able to to to put these things online because now we're reaching people all over all over all over the world so you know i all i have is absolute gratitude you know gratitude for the moment and for everything that we're doing and experiencing and learning together and doing together you know and always in remembrance also of the ones that we've lost you know and to make sure that these these losses these are not in vain that we make the most and and and connect yeah so thank you frank thank you so so much Caridad and thanks for our listeners to take time and to listen and to listen also careful because as Caridad and Regis said there's something that in there that could save us and that could heal the world and but also us thank you so much all the best stay safe stay tuned and have a great great new year and uh hope we all build we'll see each other again