Here’s the latest page from my book of 100,000 Drawing Prompts (for more info, see the previous image):
Sir or Madam,
O you diaries are all the same: all you want is more confessions; and you don’t care how well or poorly they’re written – you favor quantity over quality. You drive the person who’s writing in you to despair, because you don’t pay your author; you offer zero feedback; and there’s no reward, social or economic, for continuing to fill your pages. Yet we good-for-nothing-else writers keep returning to you. We must enjoy humiliation and punishing overwork.
I call us keepers of diaries “good-for-nothing-else” cuz if we were able to participate in any other activity, we’d surely be doing so, instead of writing in our diary. Diary-ing is the nadir of the daily doom-funnel. It’s the thing that you do when all other opportunities are exhausted. For consider: Have you ever read a diary entry written by someone who was at that moment performing any gallant deed? No, not even once. Because you can’t scribble confessions and save a child from drowning at the same time. And you’ll never read a diary entry that starts out: “I am, this instant, in bed with three gorgeous angels.” Why would your hand desist from caressing flesh to seek out a quill and scrawl this news!? Therefore we can conclude that EVERY particle of intelligence which is reported in ANY diary has expired in reality and then been sieved thru a mind that is lonesome.
So, while I frolic in the ocean with this team of dolphins here, I’ll try to relay the conversation that my boss afflicted upon me yesternoon. At noontime of yester, on the dot, I met with my boss, as we do every Saturday, and we discussed the progress that’s been made on the Auto Tax Info Transfer App that my boss is prostituting his talents to build for the Middleman Corporation. Then my boss pounded his gavel and barked “Meeting adjourned.” Then he ignited his marijuana cigarette, signifying that the objective had shifted from business to pleasure.
So what does my boss want to talk about for pleasure? SLAVERY. Apparently some 21st-century celebrity uttered a controversial soundbite about this subject recently which found its way to a so-called news show that my boss half watched – my own disclaimer is that I neither know the celeb nor what the celeb said, except what came out of my boss’s mouth when he gossiped it at me. So my boss says:
“Can you believe how everyone’s in a tizzy about how Mr. Famous spoke four words? Mr. Famous said, ‘Slavery was a choice.’ That’s all he said, and everyone’s in a tizzy!”
And I said, “Well, what was the context? Why would he say that?”
And my boss said, “I mean, think about it: he’s right: slavery WAS a choice!”
And I said, “I don’t understand where either of you are coming from.”
And my boss said, “Look. If you’re a slave, you CHOOSE to be a slave; because, if you don’t like being a slave, you could always kill yourself. But you CHOOSE to live as a slave rather than die. That’s all Mr. Famous was saying.”
And I said, “Well I still wish I knew the context of the original remark, because it’s hard for me to imagine why anyone would ever say what you say that Mr. Eff said. But if it’s true that he made that remark, and if it’s true that he meant what you say that he meant, then the whole topic strikes me as ridiculous: for if we’re to say that no soul is ever coerced or forced to do anything against its own will, but instead we all can be said to have CHOSEN whatever atrocious conditions ensnare us simply because we refuse to commit self-slaughter, this makes a mockery of the very concept of CHOICE: as if any merchant who’s ever been robbed at gunpoint actually CHOSE to donate their cash to The Armed Thievery Fund.”
But why do people do this? Why do they even waste time remarking like so? (I guess I’m speaking about my boss, not Mr. Eff, because I must assume that the above mis-reportage is mostly my boss’s warped view.) I mean: Why split hairs over what portion of the blame for an ugly crime like enslavement is due to the victim? Why not simply condemn the institution of slavery altogether, and work to end it forever, so that it cannot spring up anywhere on the earth; and eradicate all its sneaky synonyms, such as jails and sweat shops. In short: Oust capitalism.
This book that I’m reading now, called The New Human Rights Movement by Peter Joseph, has an entire subchapter dedicated to this subject: “Debt Bondage”. Here’s one excerpt:
Of course, most First World cultures today see debt slavery as a relic of the past, along with abject or chattel slavery. Unfortunately, the obscured reality is quite different. First, I would argue that the only real reason we do not have debtor prisons anymore is that people in prison are not generating any value. Unless it is a slave-labor prison, there is no real point since the creditors gain nothing. And the reason we have very little abject slavery anymore, meaning the complete ownership and control of people, is that time has eroded its feasibility and necessity.
Further ahead in the text, Joseph uses the phrase “Malthusian Trap”—here’s part of the book’s own glossary entry on that term: “Named after the nineteenth-century political economist Thomas Malthus, this denotes the idea that population can or will outgrow its means to feed itself, as described by Malthus’s populations theories.” Now, back to slavery:
. . . once the Malthusian Trap broke upon the Industrial Revolution, things started to change rapidly. Most countries moved to abolish chattel slavery in the early nineteenth century, starting with the British in 1833 and the United States in 1863. There is a seldom-talked-about correlation between applied mechanization in production and the reduction of abject slavery. With the rise of technology in farming and the slow shift from land to factory work, the nature of labor itself has changed, becoming more and more interactive with efficiency-improving technology. [ . . . ] From there, the ever-looming moral quandary grew more compelling to resolve, with each country further incorporating low-wage “free labor” upon the rise of modern industrial capitalism.
(I think it’s fitting that the phrase “free labor” be surrounded by quotation marks, by the way.)
There is a long-standing economic myth that “free labor” proved to be more efficient than slave labor and the transition away was economically practical.* This is untrue and appears to be mere hopeful dogma; essentially, it’s an attempt to avoid the reality that slavery is inherent in the true roots of capitalism.
(Here I shout amen loudly.)
There is no empirical or statistical evidence that paid labor on its own was or is more profitable or productive than slave labor. [ . . . ] While it may superficially seem that “free labor” was more efficient than slave labor due to the increase in productivity, once the Malthusian Trap broke, it was actually the cultivation of technology that set this trend. This trend very slowly eased stress on low-status labor roles, as machines assisted tasks, increasing efficiency.
That being noted, the main evolutionary link between modern capitalism and abject slavery rests with the practice of debt slavery, something still with us to this day. After the American Civil War, millions of slaves were suddenly free in the South. Quickly, a troubling yet not unexpected practice termed convict leasing arose. With the white Southern population in economic disarray, a very deliberate method of arresting and charging former black slaves with bogus crimes became common. Vague vagrancy laws and other fraudulent means to conduct an arrest sent enormous numbers into the courts. When inevitably found guilty, they would usually be charged a fine. They could either pay that fine, get a bondsman to pay the fine, or go to jail—except it wasn’t jail. It was forced labor, then still legally allowed for criminal punishment by the Constitution.
[Douglas A. Blackmon’s book Slavery by Another Name is cited here (Basic Books, 2014), 53.] Now I’ll skip ahead in the text—I know that this is an enormous amount to quote, but it is of make-or-break-the-human-race importance:
Convict leasing, which was an extremely violent, racially targeted practice to enrich the corporations of the postbellum South, is just a variation on the common theme of labor exploitation by whatever means businesses can get away with. Modern private prisons making money off of inmates, along with prisoners working for corporations, are principally the same thing. This pursuit of cost-efficiency is what notably defines market efficiency and hence profitability. This is simply the nature of capitalist logic, and the still-common idea that the rise of capitalism was somehow instrumental in the general ending of abject slavery on the structural level is little more than denialism.
That noted, what I find most interesting about debt slavery as a through-line of labor exploitation and coercion is how almost all the prior forms of its use—going back 5,000 years—still exist on Earth to one degree or another. As recognized by the United Nations, for two decades now, it has been estimated that there are roughly 27 million slaves in the world, more in absolute terms than ever before in human history.* However, these numbers have recently been challenged. In 2016, an organization called the Walk Free Foundation released new estimates, finding a startling total of 46 million slaves.* [ . . . ] As expected, the areas where people are most vulnerable to this exploitation are in extreme poverty. In the words of Kevin Bales [Disposable People (University of California Press, 1999), 11] “The question isn’t ‘Are they the right color to be slaves?’ but ‘Are they vulnerable enough to be enslaved?’ The criteria of enslavement today do not concern color, tribe, or religion; they focus on weakness, gullibility, and deprivation.” Debt bondage is so strong in some areas today it can still actually be passed through generations, with children literally being born into slavery due to a parent’s debt. [Ibid., 11., 16–17.]
My point in quoting all this at length, horror after horror, is to show that we needn’t waste time speculating about whether certain individuals of the past willfully accepted their enslavement, for we can simply go poll the multiple millions in slavery today, and ask them sincerely “Why did you CHOOSE this lifestyle?”
§
Now I ask you, diary, and I ask you, reader, and I ask you, self: Where should we go from here? After quoting so much depressing information, how should the entry continue? Or should it just end?
In the days before the invention of so-called mass media—prior to the birth of newspapers, radio, TV, the Internet, etc.—the average villager could see only his immediate neighbors, I mean those families who live closest by: he had no idea what was happening in the next town over, let alone across the globe; therefore he could be happy in his private existence, so long as his neighbors were healthy. In contrast, we poor fools of the 21st century witness daily tidings of starvation, disease, brutal warfare, and spine-chilling facts like those above about rampant slavery. What are we to do with this knowledge? How can you continue to pursue your career, raise your children, wash your car or paint your house, when you’ve been briefed on the outrages of Contemporaneous Elsewhere? It seems equally silly to bring your whole life to a halt – quit your job, etc. – in order to “put an end to global slavery” (swap the crime of your choice for that last term), as if you yourself, one single fool, can make any sort of difference. But it seems equally silly – or rather cruel, rather callous – to keep pursuing your little career, etc., after learning these ugly truths. So both options are quixotic: You either quixotically abandon your modern life to battle overarching evils in faraway lands; or you quixotically drudge through your daily chores, pat your children on the head and polish your automobile, as if those evils don’t really exist—like you’re in a play, playing a part of a mild-mannered businessperson who lives in a carefree world; and your outlook becomes increasingly ill, as you attempt to interpret the atrocities that are broadcast to you (all the above: wars, famines, homelessness, slavery) as if THEY are the play, as if the news images are as much of a pageant as Hollywood movies – real blood, fake blood: there is no difference.
Mere knowledge, in this way, is an affront on one’s will. If you thought you were a “free artist” of yourself, you were mistaken: it’s as if you’re painting a self-portrait, but some demon is secretly painting the background of that portrait; so you can give yourself a look of composure, but such a look has an effect upon the spectator which you the artist did not intend: it’s now perceived as occupying the foreground of a scene of souls wailing and thrashing in torment. This brings to mind Hamlet’s famous lines:
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.
I feel like Noah, the character from the biblical story, except the flood ain’t comin’. The idea is that Noah warned the people of his generation “There’s a cataclysmic flood in the offing that will destroy all life on earth, beware!” and the people laughed at him and called him a madman; but then the flood arrived, and all the scoffers died, while Noah’s family alone was saved in his ark. When you know the end of the story, it’s hard not to envy Noah—his actions seem heroic, even. But think about the months and years preceding the flood: the self-doubt that must’ve infested his being, as he waited, dry day after dry day, with that giant boat on his tarmac. And then think what it would feel like to begin to enter old age, and the flood hasn’t come: and there’s no sign of rain on the forecast. You’re in your mid-forties, and you begin to think: Even if the flood comes tomorrow, there’ll be at least a year of living on the ocean, which won’t be easy, and then if the waters recede and I’m able to return to land-life, by that time I’ll be pushing fifty – how many more decent-quality years do I still have to live? Will I be able to enjoy toiling among this handful of survivors on a desolate planet? – And, I stress, these are the thoughts you might have if the flood is late in coming; yet, what if the flood fails to come at all? Will you regret spending all that time building your big bad boat? Or will you look back on the effort as worth it, even despite its ultimate absurdity? This is how I predict my life will play out: I will regret everything, and it shall not feel luxurious. Whatever the equivalent of the flood is, in my existence—I guarantee that it ain’t happenin’; and I’m pissed about this. So, in addition to feeling like Noah, I’m also just like Jonah – here’s two crucial verses (3:10–4:1) from the biblical book that bears his name:
God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do; and he did it not. This displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
But ark-building is a gamble, and I knew that I was playing for high stakes when I dedicated my life to it: I knew that I’d either win big or lose big – now the more I whine, the more I besmirch my decision: for there’s a certain dignity in the choice itself, regardless of the outcome; and I should aim for a confident failure. No one faults Don Quixote for his deviltries; we only fault him for renouncing them on his deathbed.
That’s why I love all the religions, as long as I don’t have to practice them. The other thing that my boss talked about during our post-work leisure time is a documentary that he watched about Scientology. My boss became very animated, describing the “stupid beliefs” of those “stupid people”. I stopped him and said: Any HARM that they’re causing to anyone, I condemn it; but that should go without saying. Regarding the belief itself, I don’t know much about it, but what you and others call stupid, wacky, and illogical, I call super-interesting. In fact, I even say, the “stupider” the better. If I may take the belief as an artwork, I love it. The problem is that this artwork, when it’s employed as a code or a law or dogmatic religion, requires humans to enter into protocol as a group; and any group of humans, religious or otherwise, has a tendency to become abusive. The abuse is the ugliness, the abuse is the problem; but this abuse is a natural effect of groups—ANY group—it’s not necessarily inherent in what we call religion. In fact, if you take all religions simply as poems, it drastically reduces the potential for abuse and may even eradicate it. So, with this being my mindset, I can say that I respect Scientology… Mormonism… Seventh-day Adventism… Christian Science… Jehovah’s Witnesses… even modern Baptists and other familiar branches of Pauline Xianity: Protestants and Catholics.
Just to make sure I was spelling the above names properly, I typed them into a search engine, and, in the process, websites claiming to represent each one appeared among the results, and the assertions that each made by way of self-introduction caught my eye. Out of curiosity, I’ll copy down a few – it intrigues me to hear believers explain themselves, label themselves, arrange their own words to advertise themselves (note, by the way, how many are lapdogs of the Bible):
Scientology is a religion that offers a precise path leading to a complete and certain understanding of one’s true spiritual nature and one’s relationship to self, family, groups, Mankind, all life forms, the material universe, the spiritual universe and the Supreme Being.
*
Seventh-day Adventists accept the Bible as the only source of our beliefs. We consider our movement to be the result of the Protestant conviction Sola Scriptura—the Bible as the only standard of faith and practice for Christians. Seventh-day Adventist beliefs are meant to permeate your whole life. Growing out of scriptures that paint a compelling portrait of God, you are invited to explore, experience and know the One who desires to make us whole.
*
Jehovah’s Witnesses—Who Are We? We come from hundreds of ethnic and language backgrounds, yet we are united by common goals. Above all, we want to honor Jehovah, the God of the Bible and the Creator of all things. We do our best to imitate Jesus Christ and are proud to be called Christians. Each of us regularly spends time helping people learn about the Bible and God’s Kingdom. Because we witness, or talk, about Jehovah God and his Kingdom, we are known as Jehovah’s Witnesses.
*
The Book of Mormon is the word of God, like the Bible. It is holy scripture, with form and content similar to that of the Bible. The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven.
*
The heart of Christian Science is Love. Christian Science is about feeling and understanding God’s goodness. Christian Science is based on the Bible and is explained in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures and other writings by Mary Baker Eddy.
Eddy, who discovered and founded Christian Science, defined it as “the law of God, the law of good . . . ” (Rudimental Divine Science, p. 1). In Christian Science, God is understood to be infinite Love, and so invariably good that a clear glimpse of this through prayer has power to heal, redeem, and restore anyone.
Because their beliefs are already all-too-familiar to me, I leave out the Baptists, Protestants and Catholics. Plus it’s hard to find an official website for these bigger shams. And I continue to treat Baptists as though they’re distinct from Protestants, because the people at the Baptist church that I used to attend always adamantly denied that the two sects shared a root: they claimed that they, the Baptists, descended directly from the original followers of Jesus, whereas the various flavors of Protestantism can all be traced back via Luther to the Catholic Church, which, according to the Baptists, was always a false bad evil wrong trick of Satan the Devil.
Here’s what I think: To be mortal is to be at least slightly less than infinitely strong and perfect. Therefore, as mortals, we all have moments of weakness: we all need help sometimes. There’s nothing shameful about needing help, whether it’s physical or mental. That’s why I read poetry: I’m in constant need of spiritual bolstering. That’s why I read Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and William Blake’s Marriage of Heaven & Hell and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and all the writings of Franz Kafka. Not to mention my hero-idols Emerson and Montaigne. And Emily Dickinson. Shakespeare and the Bible. Now I want to make a statement that I know will sound harsh, but I stress that I don’t mean it insultingly—it’ll come off as more unkind than I intend: just please bear with me. Although I think it’s common and not at all shameful to turn to various texts for strength, I think it’s a sign of serious illness to subscribe to any religion. Because a poem is a reaction to life, whereas a religion—in the sense of an organized cult or church—is not a direct reaction to life but rather an interpretation of some other text’s reaction. The priestly, organized aspect of religion is thus twice-removed from real life. (Or maybe change twice to thrice or more.) Now I call the act of subscribing to a religion “evidence of serious illness” because, instead of simply turning one’s attention to a text to give one strength, one opts to shut off entirely one’s imaginative faculty and hand it over to a priest. It’s like saying: Dear religious overseers, I give up – tho there’s zero shame in feeling weak as a mortal, nevertheless I’m so thoroughly drained of creative care that I’d rather surrender the ownership of my imagination to your clever scheme for safekeeping: I want nothing to do with thought, with mind; so, here, take my spiritual autonomy, and just leave me the physical. Guide me around thru this life remotely, via doctrine. Let your codification of poetic tales be my shepherd. For I am too sick to go on, and I blame my own fiery imagination and not the true culprit STIFFNECKED HARDHEARTEDNESS (a vengeful and unforgiving attitude).
If what I just said doesn’t convince you, let me try to draw you into my flock another way. Imagine the Baptists are right after all, and we all do really end up, after our death, in a literal City in the Sky; with golden arches on all of its bridges, and fast food everywhere.
OK, so now we are cherubs, or something like cherubs, walking around on the streets of gold, in heaven. And God’s over there, on the throne—you can actually SEE him (yes, he’s male, it’s obvious), and you can stroke his arm and sing to him. So everything’s perfect.
Now what do we do with our time? We play games: there’s a volleyball court. We appreciate the flowers: they never wilt, and they all smell like peppermint. We dine and drink: for, as I said, there’s fast food everywhere; plus the LORD God told us that we can eat freely of every tree in Paradise, except for the one at Bryan’s house. And, of course, chief of the pleasures of heavenly life is the conversation that surges unremittingly throughout its harmonious populace.
But imagine how off it would sound if, amid this delight, one saint were to approach and join in the town-talk, yet instead of remarking how beautiful the birds are, or how dazzlingly the crystal rivers sparkle, or how nice God is, this saint were to begin to preach about religion – say that Bryan says: “Give ear, y’all; it’s easy to see that this is a fine place to live, here in heaven, in the afterlife, but listen to me: If even the events that haven’t yet happened leave us apprehensive because nothing is impossible, then think how much MORE fearful we should be about those things that have already occurred! What I’m talking about is our existing abode: If we’ve already lived once, and died once, and wound up here; then what’s stopping an after-afterlife to flash after this afterlife?”
And one of the milder saints whom God clearly favors over Bryan says to Bryan, “You dear, dear simpleton. You forget that we are all immortal here. If we worshipped an invisible God on earth, it was only because we possessed mortality there, and we were thus prone to die, yet we were similarly prone to resurrect into this afterlife, as we all have done: but now, look, God is with us: we can see him with our eyes: we can touch his left arm and sing to him for eons—why should we, the ever-living, fear death and an afterlife beyond the present? And why should we who have the true God living among us in the flesh turn our thoughts toward some unknown God-to-come?”
And I answer, “But that’s the same line of reasoning that caused you, back in the good old days on earth, to reject the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. He said (to paraphrase Emerson), ‘I am divine. Through me, God acts and speaks. Would you see God, see me; or, see thee, when thou also thinkest as I now think.’ But you said to Jesus, ‘No. God ONLY speaks thru THEE, not me or others, ever. God may not live or act in existing beings, especially not mortal humans.’ And that attitude is what ended us all up here, in this low bliss. Now the lesson is reversed: we must look past the obvious God – shoot past the stars, aim for the outermost darkness. Don’t settle for less than the best; and the best is within us.”
Then the saints all murmur, “You and your inwardness.”
So I shout, “Just you wait!” and I stomp away madly. – But this is where the Noah-fate comes to haunt me, because not only does the Ineffable never appear; not only are we stuck with this dull God of Heaven; but eternity is a long time to wait for an end-of-time event. Plus, being immortal, I can’t even die. So my humiliation is total. My only consolation is this tree that grows in front of my mansion: Any saint who partakes of it falls into a deep sleep and has a bad dream. During which, I unzip their chest & rummage around their inwards. I choose my favorite organ, & then close up the flesh instead thereof; and I’m able to use this extraction as the nub of a new creation: I craft myself a companion. And I delete all knowledge of good & evil from their central processor, thus leaving them wise like lambs – in this fashion I have assembled a sizeable harem, the members of which, instead of worshipping my adversary, CHOOSE to serve me.
P.S.
Here’s the latest full rap demo that I pulled from the waste bin where I store them. It’s titled Searching Thru Record Crates because, to make the beats, I followed the ancient hip-hop tradition of extracting and looping samples of existing music. Sinfully simple!
And its alternate title is The Tape I Made While I Was Building My Deck because I recorded this album during the time when our townhome association forced me to replace the deck of my apartment. I didn’t have the money to pay a contractor, so I had to check out library books and do it myself. And while doing it, I made this rap tape to keep my insanity.
Those are the original images of the CD case, front, spine & back. (I made a new cover for this present release.) Now I’ll embed the audio and paste the lyrics below.
At YouTube:
At Bandcamp:
Searching Thru Record Crates,
or: The Tape I Made While I Was Building My Deck
by Bryan Ray (MCB)
LYRICS:
1.
The Time I Bought Generic Soap
So anyway I use the Dial Soap
Antibacterial awesome, bro
It is colored translucent orange
But don’t dare eat it though it’s not like corn
Now I pump my soap dispenser
But nothing globs onto my member
So I conclude that the bottle’s empty
Now I’m at Walmart making my entry
I find the section that sells the soap
Antibacterial awesome, bro
I find the Dial Soap on the shelf
And the price is four twelve
Oh my goodness I start to holler
But then I see a sign for three dollars
It is the Walmart brand of soap
Sitting next to the Dial Soap
And it’s cheaper because it’s generic brand
And it’s not orange, it’s tan
So I finally make my decision
And buy the generic brand and end my mission
[chorus x 2:]
Soap
2.
MCB We Love You, G
I’m so happy that I am rapping
Rapping is fun it’s very challenging
I am MCB the rapper
Driving around inside my tractor
With the dope skill super dope rap style
When I rap it’s like vomiting black bile
Cuz all the words come out all syrupy
But then I get up and rap more cheerily
And now my rap is dope full of hope
And really long like rope
When I lasso you with my rap song
You’ll probably never believe it’s that long
Cuz I never do stop
I always go till I reach the top
And then I stop and look back at what I did
And now I’m even more famous than Euclid
3.
To My Ex-Girlfriend
Hip hop and you don’t stop
I’m like casting off at the boat launch
With a mummy chug rapping on the boat prow
With a butcher knife chopping that mullet cow
I’m back on the track with a rap that’s wack
MCB with tan slacks
I’m here to show how rap is done
First you need to go pack a gun
Now just throw on a beat that’s funky
Then all you do is count your money
MCB the mammoth
Causing a famine eating everyone’s sandwich
Now I’m back with two hands to clap
Legs that walk fast while my mouth raps
Throwing candy out to the crowd
Floating around in my bloody blouse
To my ex-girlfriend from me MCB
I still love thee
This is a rap I wrote straight for you
To remind you how much I still love you
4.
Brace Yourself
Everybody brace yourself for another funky rap
Cuz look who opened the door MCB is back
MCB, go, go!
You are awesome I like the way you flow
And plus you are very romantic
I must mention your boots are gigantic
They have thick tread plus they’re black
And the soles are waterproof Aqua Man
MCB wears boots and you better believe me
I saw him with my 3-D
Goggles hanging out at the park where
Playing my make-believe after dark when
Suddenly oh no help me please
Giant knees of MCB
Down attached down further still
The super large super ill
Massive large black boots
Smoking and tripping is all you do
MCB my name is Bryan
I can’t help you my boots are giant
Everybody brace yourself for another funky rap
Cuz look who opened the door MCB is back
Watch out my hair grows down to my ankles
And I executively produced the Bangles
But they never paid me so now I’m here
With a chain connecting my nose to my ear
Did you ever notice this one thing though
Britney Spears always copies my clothes
It’s not a coincidence it’s totally obvious
She even copies my totally throbbing chest
And crooning vocals look at the locals
They are carving my face in totem poles out of focus
Now I cold set my watch to the right time
Cuz it was one full hour behind
Now I gotta go dang that was fast
Now I’m late for my ballet class
Everybody brace yourself for another funky rap
Cuz look who opened the door MCB is back
Oh boy another funky beat
I’m MCB and this is quite a treat
To be rapping for you so here I go
MCB with a tight new flow
I’m surfing like crazy riding the waves, G
Now I’m on the beach and I’m talking to ladies
Hi ladies I’m MCB
Do you hear me rapping this funky beat
Oh MCB we sure do we heard you
And plus your shirt’s blue
Oh do you like my shirt because it’s blue now, ladies
Yes we do it cold drives us crazy
Oh now I’m happy cuz before I came
I was thinking this blue shirt was totally lame
Oh no MCB that shirt is cool
Precisely because that shirt is blue
And it really looks fair with your real long hair
That is down to your ankles way down there
Thanks for the compliment, ladies
Now I must leave and ride the waves, G
Cuz you know that I’m surfing crazy
Bye MCB we love you, baby
Everybody brace yourself for another funky rap
Cuz look who opened the door MCB is back
5.
Rock Hard / In
Once when I woke up inside of a pond
I was noticing both of my arms were gone
Then when I scraped off the blood and soot
I had noticed a bear trap was on my foot
So I chewed my leg off and then I left
When I came to some quicksand up to my neck
But I have no arms so my means of escape
Are considerably diminished wouldn’t you say
Just then I feel a tug on my hair
And suddenly I’m pulled up out of there
And here is my trusty horse pulling me out
My trusty horse saved me with his snout
Now I’m kissing and thanking him and spitting out sand
And I’m trying to pet him but I have no hands
MCB rock hard
MCB in
6.
On the Mike MCB
One time I almost destroyed a rollercoaster
By constantly ramming its foundation with a stroller
Hello y’all my name’s MCB
I’m the one in the forest with enormous feet
Now I’m chilling with the yogis playing some soccer
I don’t drink wine cuz wine is a mocker
I’m a heroin guy cuz heroin rules
All the girls are talking to me and thinking I’m cool
Cuz I’m eating a baloney and heroin sandwich
Everything I say sounds suspiciously Spanish
So I’ll stop now OK I can’t
I’m addicted to rap because I’m totally wack
One time there was a mouse who looked like Martin Buber
But I hooked it up into my supercomputer
So now I’m out surfing the waves with roller skates
And then a seagull came pecking my pate
Brooklyn home of the thieves and the knaves
I’m MCB with a laser ray
When I crawl from the soil and grip my tombstone
You will then know I’m ready to groove slow
Mmm pump the beat like that
Alien spaceship stole my cat
Now I’ll tell you a story here
That is twice as awesome and twice as weird
Once I was in the army
Then I heard a sound that was total alarming
So I ran all around flailing my arms
Then I noticed I’m on a farm
So when I tried to milk the cow
It cold stands up and kicks me, pow
That was no cow, that was my boss
Now I’m using some dental floss
And bleeding so bad I die of cancer
MCB with massive antlers
On the mike MCB
Voodoo doctor the caveman petting an octopus with my
hair uncombed
Now I think someone’s trying to call me
Hello hello? Hi I’m your dolly
OK I’ll meet you on the corner of Skiff
Where it intersects Schermerhorn south of Cliff
Somebody cut all my dreadlocks off
Dang Bry these are some red hot socks
Although it looks like a bathing trough
It’s really a urinal oh my gosh
Check out a style that’s dope for you
When I stick out my tongue while poking you
I’m action man driving my action van
Waving an action fan
Putting some action sand in my action pan
That is my action plan to action stand in action land
On the mike MCB
Voodoo doctor the caveman petting an octopus with my
hair uncombed
Animating bass rotating cheese grating
MCB three times a lady
Back with a purple mike and google eyes
Plaid colored book bag and super-size fries
Fun F-U-N that spells awesome
Back with my class action paroxetine lawsuit
On the cut what
Driving my action truck covered in action smut
And everybody knows that my hair is permed
Cuz otherwise how could it breed such worms
Yeah good rapper blacker than dark matter
Putting cream on crackers
Alright now let me ask a question to everybody on the left
Do you all wanna party? And now everyone says yes
Alright now let me ask a question to everybody on the right
Do you all wanna party? But they shoot me and now I die
On the mike MCB
Voodoo doctor the caveman petting an octopus with my
hair uncombed
7.
Who’s that Man with the Grabbing Hands
Here I am the man
With the hands that come grabbing at
I got hands that really grab
I have seventeen vials of crack
When I rap I like rapping slow
There I told you so now you know
Now I’m out here in knee-deep snow
Wearing a mask but no clothes
I hate music so I make rap
I have seventeen vials of crack
I got hands that really grab
Try to avoid them if you can
You can’t avoid them they keep grabbing
Now I’m acting really sassy
Wearing strange elastic masking
Coming towards you and I’m clasping
Who’s that man with the grabbing hands
Now that I got you in my grip
Here let me show you something quick
Come here closer listen to this
I am pregnant with someone’s fish
Now I chain you upon the wall
Then I start to breathe hard and loud
Now you hear a squishy sound
Now there’s a fish head sticking out
Who’s that man with the grabbing hands
8.
Who is Fresh, Who is Dope
MCB above the law
Holding the microphone in my paw
Combing my bald spot gargling suds
Filling my gumball machine with drugs
OK I think I’ve told you enough
My retainer case looks like a hockey puck
And this isn’t even my real face
My real face is a plastic bag
Who is fresh now I’m asking y’all
I could rhyme with doll I could rhyme with mall
I could stop this tape right here if I need to
C3PO R2D2
Who is dope now I’m telling you
I could rhyme with blue I could rhyme with shoe
I could stop this tape right here if I want
Arthur Schopenhauer Immanuel Kant
I joined Sasquatch to watch for snatch
But I found too much and had to put some back
I’m MCB totally neat
And every single night I need a new bed sheet
I built a gigantic robot camel
That I had to dismantle cuz it ate my sandal
Don’t stop now do not stop
Yeah MCB is reaching the top
And if you try to stop him you’ll get hurt
Cuz he’s going so fast he will rip your shirt
Who is fresh now I’m asking y’all
I could rhyme with doll I could rhyme with mall
I could stop this tape right here if I need to
C3PO R2D2
Who is dope now I’m telling you
I could rhyme with blue I could rhyme with shoe
I could stop this tape right here if I want
Arthur Schopenhauer Immanuel Kant
9.
MCB the Dane
What’s my name I’m telling you plain
My name is MCB the Dane
Yeah you heard right I’m the king of Denmark
I’m out joyriding Kierkegaard’s car
Oh no MCB you’re insane
How you dare claim you’re the Dane
What who dares claim I’ll have them slain
I’m circling the city with a siege by train
MCB although it pains us greatly
We have to arrest you for acting so crazy
You can’t arrest me and here’s the reason
I’m MCB the Dane and that’s treason
A NOTE FROM THE RAPPER: I Bryan do hereby pledge to continue uploading my old rap demos at Bandcamp & YouTube (I still have a half-empty dustbin of cassettes that I need to archive), because I understand that my artistic output constitutes important evidence, which shall aid futurity’s alien historians in determining what went wrong with humankind.
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