I Think I Am, Therefore,

One Philosopher Has Rightly Said That Property Is Theft. But I'd Like To Use My Future Ownership Of Property To Give Something Back.

There Was About A Two-year Period At The End Of The '60s, When I Realized I Was In The Wrong Place And Entertaining The Wrong People With The Wrong Material And That I Was Not Being True To Myself. I Went Through A Metamorphosis Into Something More Authentic For Me, A More Authentic Stage Voice And Writing Voice.

To Me, Smoking Pot Meant Sitting With A Newspaper On My Legs, Rolling The Seeds Down, Pulling The Twigs Out And Finally Producing A Perfectly Cylindrical, Absolutely Wonderful Joint That You Either Locked At Both Ends Or Pinched Off, Or Pinched At One End And Left Open At The Other.

An Outsider Longing To Be On The Inside Is The Same As The Soloist Longing To Work In An Ensemble. I Get Great Satisfaction In Being A Part Of The Proper - For Me - Community. I'm Uncomfortable With Various Social Groupings And Clusterings. But When I'm In The Right Group, Doing The Right Thing, I Get As Much Satisfaction Out Of That As Anyone Who Does It All The Time.

It's Depressing To See Blacks Wanting To Dive Into The Mainstream Of American Commercial Life. They Come From A Magnificent African Culture Based On Aesthetics, And They All Want To Become Fort Builders Like The Vicious People Who Originally Enslaved Them.