Idea Man

I've always been into the idea of a Renaissance Man. As the consummate answer to the double consciousness, my mother very aptly coupled our lesson of the Italian Renaissance with lessons on the Harlem Renaissance. As a result, I've always had it in my mind somewhere that as a black man, it's my responsibility to also be a Renaissance Man. In fact, I get a mental image of da Vinci chipping away at a marble block while whistling Ellington's A-Train...

And I'm rapt.

I can't keep my hands to myself. I'm everywhere at once. I can't get enough of creating.
It's patently obvious, but the polar opposite to living destructively is living creatively.
And if Satan destroys, then God creates. If demoniacs destroy, then Christians create.
Those not yet openly allied are simply flitting aimlessly somewhere inbetween.

Yesterday I pitched a book to a publisher and today I've gotten word that they're interested.
It's non-fiction and, truth be told, I intended to word the pitch so that they'd be more interested in the subject of the book and not me. It's a book about a person and his work. I happen to know this person, and I was really pitching as if to say:
"Hey, you guys should really offer this guy a deal because he has an incredible story to tell..."
I suppose that kind of thing is unheard of, and they assumed that I wanted to write the book...and they don't mind.

The funny thing is that, as with most of my brilliant ideas, the 'subject' of the book is oblivious to the fact that any of this is going on. So I have a semi-ethical dilemma on my hands. I could legitimately write this book, and do a bloody good job at it and nobody except you would be the wiser, or I could call the guy up and let him know that if he's interested in writing a book that he's already got someone salivating. If I write it, I can't see any way to do that short of moving to Philadelphia to do it documentary style (and then why not actually SHOOT a doc while I'm at it??). This of course flies in the face of my plans to move to Hollywood. And I want to move to L.A. (This is where the second part of the dilemma should go.) But there is no real downside to having dude write his own book. That was the original idea after all. But now that I've had a chance to mull it over in my brain, I've kind of decided how it should look, and the format it should take. Maybe he'll let me consult. It'd be quite an exciting book, and the beauty part is that it has a quite dronish (at times) built-in audience who'd suck it up, not to mention the publisher's own commercial ubiquity.

But that's the spirit of the Renaissance...What's wrong with giving birth to ideas? I don't have to tell you that there are those automatons who have scoffed at me for not delving 100% into one craft. I dare you to box me in...boxes are so laughable. When I was doing spoken word I had a pretty dope (pretty short--5 lines) poem about being boxed in. I've always liked jacks better than kings anyway. It's not that I haven't delved into one craft 100%, it's that I've delved into MORE THAN ONE craft 100%...and somehow some people find that profane. It's my finger on the shutter/pen/key/e-string/hammer/teat/focus ring/ isn't it?

*steupse*

I didn't mean to get so worked up. Look sharp. The written word just saved you someone else's vicarious tounge-lashing.


I am/
no regards for the box...
paper chains/
CAN'T
HAVE
LOCKS!

as featured in one of my very primitive audio projects "Paper Chains" copyfreakinright Temple University 2004