vocab poem

We’re so convoluted I’m thinking most turn away with a grit in their mouth that makes them petulant. You and I crawled those vacant streets in a muse that philosophers wish they could coalesce their minds into. Remember when we filled the gutters with putrid ideas and the intellects still ate them with mirth? Why do they act so rapacious towards our heads? Our choices were so impetuous and iniquitous Charles Manson could probably see them from his cell. We were such swindlers.

Convoluted-adv- complicated

Petulant-noun- crabby/moody

Muse-verb- dream

Coalesce- verb- the blend/join

Putrid- adj- rotten

Mirth-noun- great joy

Rapacious- adj- to plunder

Impetuous- adv- acting without thinking

Iniquitous- adj- unjust

Swindlers- noun- con artists

Music Essay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW3-sex3_Vs - DIFFERNT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PITNYQtZWFE- Slow Down Ghandi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV3kVSCMiFY- Hey Bobby (Example of Spoken Word poetry)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdzFhBtxW0A - Makeshift Patriot



Being white, vegetarian, and a straight edge (no drugs, no alcohol) Sage Francis seems like an unlikely character for revitalizing an underground hip-hop movement yet his poetic, metaphorical style has made him a staple in underground rap.

Sage Francis has been rapping since he was eight years old, often hiding in his closet from his mom rapping into an old tape recorder. He was heavily influence by Run DMC yet his mother never took him to a show because she thought it would poison him. Sage would have a silent nerdy persona through his youth due to the fear of having his rap music taken away by his mother, but when he entered college he quickly took on the underground rap scene by storm.

In 1996 Sage recorded his first demo-tape with little success but would later team up with the band Art-Official-Intelligence and put out 12” recorded under the name Non-Prophets. Sage style was different, he was a master of poetry who often did spoken word and talked about himself in an introspective way that criticized himself and his surroundings. He did not focus on the drugs or the guns that other rappers were tied up with. With his special niche he would gain respect and be dubbed the creator of “emo rap” which he still refutes. Sage would gain popularity through winning the Super bowl MC Battle in Boston and winning the Scribble Jam in Cincinnati, which is considered the highest honor in underground hip-hop. Sage’s popularity was rather limited though due to his DYI style that had an undertone of the punk movement, but when Sage Francis released “Makeshift Patriot” on October 11th 2001 one month after the attacks on the world trade center Sage had entered a whole new realm of rap. He gained some media attention for dropping such controversial lines like

"Who's gonna to make that call to increase an unknown death toll?
It's the one we rally behind He's got a megaphone...and he's promising to make heads roll.
We cheer him on, but asbestos is affecting our breath control.
The lesser we know...the more they fabricate...the easier it is to sell souls"

(Man talking) -"There is a new price on freedom, so buy into it while supplies last. Changes need to be made; No more curbside baggage, Seven pm curfew, Racial profiling will continue with less bitching. We've unified over who to kill, so until I find more relevant scripture to quote, Remember, our god is bigger, stronger, smarter, and much wealthier. So wave those flags with pride, especially the white part."

This one song opened Sage up for a new voice that would make him one of the loudest rappers in the underground scene by shifting criticism from himself onto others and then back on himself. He was described as a “truthist” who had no problem stating the facts regardless of their nature. As Marrisa Brown of All Music guide calls him- “The merciless battle rapper and renowned spoken word poet was now the most outspoken artist in a sea of tight-lipped, scared-$hitless citizens.”

By being true to hip-hop roots that utilizes simple bass lines and rythmatic delivery Sage Francis came about with his own voice that would essentially make a new genre. By talking about his flaws and political wrongs Sage started to mass an audience that was often much different than the ordinary hip-hop listener. When Francis became the first hip-hop artist to sign with the prestigious punk label Epitaph in 2004 he instantly reached a new audience that had not considered rap before. When his song Sun vs. Moon appearing on the computation album Punk-O-Rama 10 the punk community suddenly realized a bridge was being formed between rap and punk. Sun vs. Moon was confusing attack on religion by stating at one point that God is a bitch, and then coming back at the end of the song saying God can make your day brighter. Regardless of the confusing message Sage offered an insight that the punk community was unaccustomed to. Generally Sage Francis was talking about everything a punk band would talk about like political activism and questioning authority but he did it over beats instead of power chords. There was initial distrust because his genre roots but with songs like “Different” but Sage was sure to clear it up.

"I may be getting too big for my britchesbut I paid my dues when the cost was climbing
If I burn too many bridges I'll never get off of this awful island
As long as I've been rhyming, they only started listening
Because for a while they didn't like how I wouldn't smoke the pot that I was pissin' in
Plus I had no dead homies to honor while pouring out the liquor I don't drink
You can flash your shiny objects in front of my eyes and I won't blink
Ohhhh Soooo Different"


I personally think that the connection Sage Francis can make to the punk community is based on his ability to switch the topic to political wrongs and possibly his secret love for metal music. Sage occasionally puts out songs under his metal alter ego Xual Zan. He has little trust in authority which might explain his advocacy group called knowmore.org which provides consumers with information about big businesses abuse and political contributions they make. The websites slogan is “Know more Democrats, Know more Republicans” which is an obvious play on words by Sage.

Sage Francis is a well voiced artist that has an array of messages. Despite his not so secret stalker crush on Natalie Portman that is border line misogynistic I personally feel Sages promotion of a morality is something saints would have a hard time upholding. I say this because the typical Sage Francis song covers topics like breaking crack pipes, avoiding meat, questioning war, protecting minorities, and questioning his manhood/ sexuality (in his song Escape Artist he joking questions his sexual orientation). With such a plethora of messages it has become hard for others to imitate him successfully. Sage does have a few other similar artists like Slug and Atmosphere that will cover the negative sides of themselves and also talk about political wrongs but none of them embrace the straight edge style Sage has. This idea of clean living is rather foreign to the rap community so Sage Francis has become the outsider of the already displaced genre of underground hip-hop.


Overall I would call Sage Francis the black sheep of rap music. The simple fact that he is white makes him rather rare but team that up with a straight edge lifestyle and an unbelievable ability to poeticly psychoanalyze himself and the mainstream public makes him “D for Different, In a Different Way”. Most individuals who are accustom to the gangsta rap that is full of complex bass lines and synthetic voices might not appreciate Sage Francis but those who are more interested in his poetic appeal might find him as a breath of fresh air. I personally do not have much draw to the glam and “bitches and hoes” mentality of popular rap music so when I heard the more simplistic spoken word style of Sage Francis he quickly caught my attention.

I would not call Sage the band-aid the world needs but rather the band-aid the punk community needs. When the power chords and screams of NOFX and Operation Ivy have worn you out a shift towards Sages style becomes quick and painless. The same raw emotion is still there but it’s just presented in a whole new way. Despite whether or not the mainstream public appreciates his message or his old school delivery there is a no doubt that the man is loud and ready to be heard, and when he gets your attention he’ll take advantage of every second he has by packing it full of metaphors and play on words.







Sources: http://www.starpulse.com/Music/Francis,_Sage/Biography/
http://www.epitaph.com/artists/artist/138/

Follow your threads

The message of the video is to realize that you are not the only person in the world and you are part of a massive spider web that moves when you move. I felt the phrase "follow you threads" would be appropriate for this little propaganda piece because it not only suggests that you should see where your clothes are coming from but also see how you are effecting other people that you might not actually be in touch with, i.e the sweat shop laborer or the cash crop farmer in Asia. American sympathy for others is comparable to other nations but it seems that caring isn't enough, we must educate and examine how we contribute to such situations. The other little message that this slide show squeezes in is that despite our concern for others our narcissistic views of ourselves can harm and even kill.

My reply is no

It’s like “to be or not to be”
It twas a simple question
Standing at the edge of a cliff shaking violently and leaving me guessing

I have no rope tied to me and the fall looks mediocre
This will never work
Ask it to be my chauffer

Shaking it up and guzzling its answers
It’s affecting my breath control
It’s freeing my soul
No more choices
A roll of the dice

“As I see it Yes”
“As I see it No”
No one to consider when it’s “Decidedly so”

I used it once in a bind and now I’m using it for every step I take
Left or Right
All my choices, it negates.

Control Freak that I love
Tell me I’m imperfect and falling like a dove
Small and Round with a number eight
The answer “Yes” is why I wait.

So I’ll Jump, but before I do who are your sources?
Telling you “Yes”
Telling you “No”
Who is the one that truly makes all my choices?

Who is the one that gives a clean slate?
Is it me?
Or is it Fate?

Will I survive this fall?
“Out look not so good”
You’re worthless
I should have never questioned you at all.

Oh I’m trapped between easy decisions
And complicated liven

Yes and No’s were so easy without the gray
Just Black and White with no more dreams of Mandalay
Wings would be nice at this moment
I would get up and fly away from my problems
Get up and fly away
Have someone else solve em’

Responsibilities a joke that grabs you with a tight grip
Puts you in a choke hold that fills you with flem and till you can’t spit

That’s why I use my magic eight ball
Making my decisions without waiting for my conscious to call

Now I’ll shake you one last time
So you can give me a life with some flowing lines

Allusion Paragraph

Cass Mastern is Jacks "Cassandra" through their almost parallel lives. Cass sacrifices his friend for the woman he loves only to have her turn against him. Jack is bestowed with knowledge and a respectable heart but is still on a journey for truth and enlightenment. In Jacks quest for discovering his real father Jack replicates the life of Telemachous due to the disbelief in his real father. Judge Irwin has always been portrayed as the fatherly type to Jack, but such a relationship was never confirmed. In retrospect though it is obvious that the Judge suggests his true relationship with Jack as recently as the dinner party where Jack still is oblivious to the situation. When Jack does come to the realization of his father there is utter denial and disbelief because of the now illuminated past of the Judge. Though Jack looked at the Judge as a father figure all his life with such admiration as to say “…I took the Judge as a hero…” Jack feels a new distance and embarrassment by the Judge who still treats him as a son rather than another respectable man. This consistent childness towards Jack coupled with a recently illuminated past peppered with corruption makes Judge Irwin seem like less of a hero and puts Jack in a similar position of Telemachous, where his moral ground is shaken.

A minor THREAT

I had forgotten the reason that I had told Anne the facts,
The reason I had given her those confidential Photostats.
I was a summoned servant of the state, and probably could run ten more like it.
I bullied the bullies- coped the cops- I was wonderful.
I gave the utmost sacrifice

Before more damage could be done they took my life
From once healthy and disinterested
To deader than a mackerel

Now my arms hung slightly and the bones in my neck crackle
There I hanged from the gallows, feeling the scorns and the sneers
As the oxygen starts to dwindle I just smile and hear the cheers

For this is what a hero gets
An ever lasting nap
They better take me away in a big black Cadillac.

Setting and Paradox

SETTING In a home that has so much pain and suffering one would hope that there would be someone holding a light, but in O’Neill’s despondent setting of a home that always is having the lights turned off there is no illumination to be found. James Tyrone is a cheapskate and he feels that the only way to live the American dream is by shutting off his lights to save money and essentially his family, but in doing so he lives in a masked and fake world. The darkness that James Tyrone promotes is what is eating away at his family. No one has a clear vision of the damage that has been done to one another and they having harder time repairing each other because the dark setting gives them all preconceived notions that are false and blind.

PARADOX The craftsmanship of Eugene O’Neill is prominent in his ability to weave in a multiple paradoxes through out his play. Every action that one character takes towards a healthier lifestyle is somehow negated by either one of their family members or himself. When Edmund tries to ease up on the consumption Jamie and James both continue to drink with him, even though they both “love” him. The aspect of paradox is even more prominent when James offers Edmund up to a sanitarium, but it is actually a cheap and rather meaningless operation. His choices are futile. Edmund then is insulted but does little for himself to change his predicament. He feels like he can change for the better and find a meaningful life but he takes almost no initiative to discover it. He wants an interesting and successful life dropped into his lap, which is exactly how you don’t achieve a respectable and meaningful life. The characters of the play talk and act in circles that only spiral down towards a life of decay.

UT, Rollins, BC college Essay

“To some degree it matters who's in office, but it matters more how much pressure they're under from the public. “-Noam Chomsky

Social apathy has consumed our nation. We rarely see large and organized protests in the streets anymore. Mass demonstrations were something from the sixties with only a few instances since then. When America’s confidence in itself is at an all time low, one would think that we would be called to action, not simply absorbing the lies American media throws at us. With the political arena pretty much dominating the television these days with talks of hope, change, economic growth, Texas tea, and war, America must first wake up and smell those expensive fumes we love. This is a nation for the People, by the People. Our government should work for us, and we should work for them by supporting each other. No more of this meek approach where we get led like a blind cow to the slaughter house. These next four years we need to demand answers for every action. Why are we still in Iraq? Why are we leaving? Why are we giving billions to oil companies who are making record profits? Are you sure you want someone who’s always steadfast in his decisions running our country? I think I would prefer someone who is a little unsure some of the time. Even Abraham Lincoln was questioning himself when he abolished slavery. It might seem like an obvious answer now, but we must think through everything and read the evidence because well informed decisions just reduce the marginal error.

Overall I would call myself a big believer in humanity, but when I turn on the news, my faith shakes a little bit. People fall for anything these days; it’s disgusting. I think America just got tired of asking, “Why?” After 9/11 this whole country got thrown off-kilter and now we are having a hard time picking ourselves back up. We figured out that Osama was the culprit quickly, but then in our blind loyalty to the state, we let the government put every bad guy on the planet on one deck of cards and set them up as targets. We drew such a hard line between good and bad that all of the sudden the war against terrorism basically became poor Christian boys versus poor Islamic boys. I’m all for justice and freedom, and I’m willing to go die for it, but someone please remind me what we’re fighting for because I’m sick of seeing Isaac and Ishmael killing each other.

My fellow Americans in these next four years lets never stop asking questions. Never let anyone tell you the word “why” is a threat to our good nation, even when you might be facing the majority. Most might disagree, but to an extent there is definitely some truth in Howard Zinn’s quote:
“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”

L.D.J.I.N mini research

Jealousy, Regret and strikingly similar personalities provide a catalyst for family conflict in Eugene O’Neil’s play Long Day’s Journey into Night. The sons of the family, Jamie and Edmund, both live despicable lives that cause their parents great angst only to instigate more conflict between father and sons. While Edmund has a glimmer of hope ahead of him due to his more educated view of the world, Jamie and his father James bicker and dismantle each others self worth because they are almost mirror images of one another. James’s life was full of promise but his quest for the easiest path has led him to become a selfish cheapskate who has little interest in legitimate and long lasting solutions to the problems that engulf his life. The same can be said for his son Jamie who too looks for easy ways out and has no regard for his future by spending every night drunk with his friends and living like a leech in his parent’s home. The father and son duo of James and Jamie are a destructive force in the Tyrone household, one that will feed off itself perpetuating the pain and regret for the rest of the family.

Jamie was once a prominent actor who sold out for an easy living. Jamie was similar in the fact that, despite his lack of talents, he still looks for the easy way out. One example of his cheapness is when he lives out his destructive drunken lifestyle at the brothels where he sleeps with the fat women. He says he does it out of the kindness of his own heart but one can suspect that he does it because they are the easiest and cheapness to get a hold of, something his cheap father might be proud of. The largess parallel one can draw between Jamie and his father James is their odd and hypocritical relationships with their brother/son Edmund. They both state that they love Edmund, and at some points in the play they both show a caring side while at other points they promote Edmunds consumption. For James and Jamie Edmund is just as much a comfort tool as a weapon and the disturbing part is they both know it.

James: “…I’ll be waiting to welcome you with that “my old pal stuff”, and give you a glad hand, and at the first good chance I get stab you in the back.”

The parallels between father and son are so obvious, especially when James and Jamie fight at the end of the play. James complains to Edmund stating

“A sweet spectacle for me! My first-born, who I hoped would bear my name in honor and dignity, who showed such brilliant promise!”

James too showed great promise but he failed just like Jamie has. But the realization of the likeness of Father and Son strikes James hard when Jamie quotes Rossetti. “Look at my face. My name is Might-Have-Been; I am also called No More, Too Late, Farewell.”

And James replies, “I’m well aware of that, and God knows I don’t want to look at it.”

Jamie has become such a mirror image of James that James refuses to acknowledge it. The same can be said about Jamie who calls James Gaspard, which helps in separating him from his father due to their closeness in name.

“He answers with vicious mockery by naming a play that highlights Tyrone's barren philosophy. To read this only as a dig at Tyrone's tightness with money is to miss the other part of the joke suggesting that Erckmann-Chatrain's old French melodrama (made famous in English by Henry Irving) is the root of Tyrone's wisdom. Albert Wertheim points out that Jamie calls Tyrone Gaspard seven times in the act, although only once to his face. Along with period reasons for bringing in "The Bells," and Tyrone's obvious cheapness, he suggests that it is a crack about how far the father has come from his days playing Shakespeare, and I think he is right.”


The two have become one in the same, where each of their problems can equally be blamed on one another as themselves. They both live as actors in the realm of life and reality only to yell and berate one another as if they have forgotten their lines and positions. They find comfort in the short escape of alcohol and the goodness Edmund brought to the family, but then use both family and drink as weapons to destroy one another. At the end of the play the relationship has essentially gone nowhere and the two despise each other, while hating themselves for it.

head for the border

Kick start the engine and head for the border
Petal to the floor to advoid law and order.
Babe I'm heading for Mexico
Where security and safety are the first to go.
At the line I'm met by Police
I'm thrown in th car for disturbing to peace.
Walk in, sit down, it's an 8 by 8 cell.
Shut up, held up, welcome to hell.
I make my one phone call to your voicemail
But you don't pick up so I'm stuck here in jail.

I'm sitting on the bench, then hit in the head
Waking up days later thinking I'm dead.
Day's go by and I don't know why I'm here
All of the sudden there go the years.
Execution is the only way out
I'm getting the noose without a doubt.
But they take me to a room and strap me in a chair.
Sit Down, Shut Up, Wet my hair.
I should have screamed or filed a complaint
But someones got the brunt of society's angst.