i want to blame this i wanna blame that. is it procrastination? whats even the difference?

i had such a great time today driving around south central and hollywood.

i met the coolest people, thought up cool ideas. learned things. laughed.

got home and talked with my neighbor on the street in the moonlight as the summer night breeze said whaddup boys!

now ive got a great story in my phone and in my head and its time to write and i cant i wont but i must.

the clock keeps ticking. this is my life now. ive gotta get it down. i wanna get it down. 12 years ago i did these one after another and they just flowed. but now it’s harder.

do i need an assistant? do i need a muse? am i capable of fighting this alone? can i succeed?

are these even things black folks are allowed to ask? i feel like we have to have the answers and even if we dont we have to getter done. we are not allowed excuses or reasons or issues or struggles. we have to be jackie robinson and muhammed ali or obama

we just have to do it michael jordan

which is sorta nice, because chicken exits are lame.

so fine, i’ll end this whine

but its been hot girls summer and i just needed to live a little before the rocket launches

but now murphys law now ambers sick.

i was gonna take her to san dieger because the cubs are down there

but now those plans are canceled

the curse of the 619

tomorrow im being interviewed for a documentary.

these sorts of things happen all the time.

heres the catch about journalists bloggers, people who like to talk to other people

often theyre the worst interviewees

as in most thing, i’ll try not to suck.

a long time ago i was in a poetry writing class at my university

it was a trick class because the credits did not count for any requirement in letters & science

even though it was a letters & science class.

you took it because you wanted to

and that was all.

the trick though, is it was taught by the most popular writing teacher in

the mysterious college of creative studies

a place where if you could somehow get in, it would bless you with

the unimaginable gift

of no grades, no tests, no finals.

but none of us who took this class knew that.

at least i sure didnt.

none of us knew that this teacher was the key to that incredible world.

incredible, in part, because everyone in that college was super talented

in art or music or math or words.

one of the things this teacher did was she required each student to meet with her privately

twice that quarter, after class, for about an hour.

weird, but ok, whatever.

upon my first visit she asked how i liked class, and i said i liked it.

we went over some of the poems id written and after that i said

hey i have a 13 page epic love poem id like to ask you about because im having

a hard time finishing it.

and i gave it to her and we read it and the next time that we had a meeting

she was asking me if i would be interested in transferring from letters and science

to go to the college of creative studies.

little did i know it was a trick question.

because it tricked me into believing i could do it.

which i did.

one of the things i asked her that pivotal afternoon was something that i remember even now,

centuries later

i said, robyn, obviously you know a few things about creativity,

as that is the college you teach at, and also attended,

i am really afraid that the ideas will stop one day.

will they?

and she said:

nope.

and she aint never lied

About once a year i get asked to speak to college kids and it’s terribly flattering but am i really the best person for them to listen to?

If I was someone in his right mind I’d say, be as Robinson Crusoe’s dad told him to be and be as mediocre as fuck.

“[The] middle station has the fewest disasters and is not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind,” the senior Crusoe said.

Vicissitudes of course being “a change of circumstances or fortune, typically one that is unwelcome or unpleasant.”

I will be speaking to upper division storytellers and journalists, so i will remind them what i was taught at their age in the College of Creative Studies about what makes a good story:

introduce likable characters that the reader cannot help but fall in love with and then fuck them over royally and watch them overcome the disaster(s).

Therefore in good storytelling there is nothing more central than a big fat vicissitude

so how on Earth do you think you can write from experience about tragedy, misfortune, and struggle, unless you have found yourself head first into some shitty shit yourselves?

Which is why I advise all of you to ignore Mr. Crusoe’s well-intentioned instruction (if you truly want to be writers), and avoid the middle path entirely as that is where there is little reward. And if you have noticed not one person ever wrote the story about the Senior Crusoe, the first novel ever was written about his wild son and the crazy shit he experienced when he ran away from his family who wanted him to be a dumb lawyer.

Which brings us to you, I will say.

You are young, the world is out to get you. There’s global warming that half the politicians won’t even talk about. Homelessness, especially here in Southern California is crazy. Gas is over $4 a gallon. We won’t even talk about how many banks you gotta rob to buy a house here.

And the debt that you are racking up every minute, hour, and day in this college is more crippling than you know. How do I know this? Because if you really let it sink in, none of you would be smiling. You’d be angry. You’d be nervous. And for damn sure you wouldn’t be studying to be journalists — you’d be in Pre-Med or Pre-Law or Pre-420.

But you’re here, I will continue. Which means that like me, you are idealists, which means your life is forever fucked. Because you think you are the exception. You think you can change the world. You think that Robert Frost was right when he chose the road untaken.

So continue to take it.

Take it and write about every step. And if you aren’t writing every day now, start.

Let me tell you the good news and bad news about writing and creativity and aging: Right now. RIGHT NOW you are a fountain of ideas and a wellspring of good shit. The problem is very little of it fits into what adults have considered “correct” in school. And so every time you write something super interesting in class that breaks the mold or colors outside the lines, you will not get an A and anything less than an A is a ding to our egos and subconsciously tells us that we have failed somehow. Of course you didn’t write that sentence perfectly. Of course you’re rough around the edges. Most of you were born post 9/11. WTF! You’re babies.

You think it sucks when you don’t get as many likes on your Instagram as you expected? Your whole life teachers have been teaching you how to get likes and since you’ve made it into this fine institution you have figured out how to get enough of them in class, but let’s be real few of us are straight A students and to that I say Good.

We all know the key to being really successful at school: it is to give the teacher in front of you precisely what he or she wants. That, by the way, is the polar opposite of what it means to be creative, interesting, or Robinson Crusoe. Name me one book about a kid who did exactly what his teacher wanted. Now show me one person who wants to read that?  Not even my fucking Siri obeys my every wish and you know what, good for her.

For about 10 years you will be filled with all the energy and weird ideas in that beautifully developing mind that you have now and if you do not write it down, especially now that I have warned you, you are dumb. And I know you aren’t dumb because I have been in this class before and this is not the room for the dummies.

“Oh, but you say, you’re in your 50s and you seem incredible.” True! But the only reason I’m as fucking rad as I am today is because i have been writing down my insane shit forever. That’s the only way to keep that oil well working through your 40s. And trust me, it will be in your 40s that you will need it the most because if you think shit’s bad now, just wait until all the peers that you hate start making their way into Congress.

But back to youth. Think about all the great rock stars. Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, the Stones, even the rap stars like Kanye and Eminem and current stars like Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish: all their great stuff was when they were young.

I dare you to tell me that “Reputation” was better than “Fearless”. Or that “Yeezus” was better than “College Dropout.”

Prince wrote (and performed) Purple Rain when he was 25 years old. Sure he wrote some good stuff when he was 45, but it sure wasn’t Purple Rain. AND THAT’S PRINCE!

Which is weird because wouldn’t it make more sense that once you have truly mastered your instrument you would be better and better? Shouldn’t Eddie Van Halen at 64 be a better guitar player than he was in his 20s? Yes. But he’s not. Neither are the guys in Led Zeppelin. Neither is Ice Cube or Jay Z or this one that one. And these are people who practiced getting their flow out!

Age grabs you when you aren’t looking and throws you on the rocks like Robinson’s many shipwrecks and leaves you on an island of hungry hungry cannibals.

So please do not sleep through your youth, writers. This is your time. There is something about having your first kiss in your first apartment with the prettiest girl you ever saw — especially if you are also a girl. Youth is the gasoline for the bonfire of creativity and even though I am the exception to that rule too, I am telling you from my heart, it doesn’t last forever. It’s noon and I already wanna take a nap.

So promise me this. Promise me that tonight when you get home. Before you get too tired. And preferably before the sun goes down: start a blog on blogger.com. Do not tell anybody about it, make it private, and write the scariest story you have to tell.

Scary not Friday the 13th, but scary like you have not told anyone this story except maybe maybe maybe your best friend in life. Embarrassing. Or Thrilling. Or something that you might consider bragging. And then tomorrow write the second scariest story, and every day keep pushing your comfort zone. Keep digging deeper. Change your style slightly every day and write from different perspectives. Make the shit rhyme. Fill it up with ridiculous lies and unexpected details. Like Tolstoy, get into the minds of the characters and tell us what they’re thinking. And if you’re super cool, don’t tell, show.

And continue to experiment all the damn time.

You are not being graded on this. No one is reading this. But if you keep it up and at the end of this year you have 100 little stories and you’re 20 or 21 years old, I promise you that when you are 40 you will love the fact that you got these out of your head and into that private little crazy blog. These will be priceless to you. And then do it again every year of your life.

There will only be one thing stopping you. The devil is real and he lives in your head. Rent free! He tells you that you can’t write and that this story is stupid and it’s boring and you’re gonna get in trouble and blah blah blah. Put on an anti-devil hat. I am wearing mine. It’s a Cubs hat. When I put it on and I hear the devil I say, shhhh, the hat is on. STFU. You can talk when it’s off.

And then write. Even if you, too, are the exception to the rule, and even if you do this for 50 years, I bet you that the stories that you write from age 20 to 30 will be your best ones. I know this because – and there are exceptions – but that’s what history has shown us. In our youth we kick ass. Ironically it is also in our youth that teachers are paid to put a grade on our art and try to shame us and force us into the middle path of bullshit and soullessness, which is insane and criminal, but it is what it is.

My generation legalized weed, maybe yours can outlaw grades.

I have one more bit of advice on how to write when you are young: do it during the daytime. The younger you are and the further away you live from your parents’ rules, the more you should be doing anything else except homework at dark. For in the dark, when you are young, is where your stories will most likely come from. And aint nobody wanna read a novel about someone cramming for fucking finals — at a State School.

If it’s light out: study. If it’s dark out: party. Say no to drugs, don’t drink and drive. And stop listening to terrible fucking music.

I will now entertain questions.

i said the only thing i feel constantly guilty of,

shame isnt the word id call it,

is this blog.

this humble collection of zeros and ones floating around in the cyber space.

i said, i wish i spent more time on it, with it, through it,

pushing things, pulling things, stretching, revealing

i wish i was able to create some of the beginnings of magic i used to be able to spark back in the day, the years before punk broke.

there was a time i wouldnt have been happy only posting twice a day, let alone take whole days off

or two.

when i was young and dumb(er) and riding the bus every day i truly felt invincible

that because i had nothing, really nothing, what could you take from me.

so my girlfriend at the time took my hair.

shaved it right off.

put it in a bag and sold it to chokey chicken.

then my bad job took my bad job.

and then all these really good things happened. because of the sacrifice? yes. because of the growth? yes.

yes to all of it.

add some heat and funky fertilizer and water that shit every day and something new will happen.

so the question is, am i ready for new. newer than new. is this the new? is this the thing?

maybe its just the fertilizer.

maybe it’s time to bring the heat.

if you asked me a year ago if i would ever have a live-in girlfriend again i woulda honestly told you no

i felt like i was too old, too weird, too stuck in my ways, and not handsome enough to nab the type of women i had been lucky enough to be with through my Past

but it just shows to go you that i am often wrong about things, particularly matters of the heart.

which makes me wonder what else i am wrong about. God? Politics? Gravity?

i dont mind being wrong because when i am wrong it means that things are nicer than i expected

not only did i think i would be bored as someones boyfriend at this age, but worse, i thought i would be boring to someone sweet.

i never want to bore someone, especially a sweet girl who cooks and cleans and wears freaky clothes for me.

people ask when i will ever quit this blog. my first answer is never because i hate quitters, but the truth is when it gets boring.

but this will never be boring.

i may have to get amber this necklace.