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Isaiah Jones versus the Sea (A 21st Century Odyssey)

Pygmies Can’t Dunk

-Death Pixel

“When you can take the pebble from my hand, it will be time for you to leave.” -Master Kan

May 23, 2022, 0200 hours / Caribbean Sea

Isaiah sat at the helm of the Exodus, the dog Starbuck curled at his feet, as the 44-foot sloop sliced through the Caribbean’s crystal-clear water in the darkness, the seas finally calm after last night’s storm. Naomi looked at the map once more before she headed down the companionway, leaving the young captain alone topside as they sailed west toward Havana.

If the 15 knots winds kept up, at this speed, the time they lost because of the storm would only add an extra day to their voyage to Cuba. She could barely feel any pain from the bullet wound in her left side; it was healing pretty well, considering she had been stitched up by a 16-year-old math nerd and was taking antibiotics given to him by a vet while he was in Key West, given to him in case the dog got sick. It worked; there was no sign of infection, no pus, no swelling or odd discolorations around the bullet hole, no rotten smell, and she had no fever.

In fact, other than the dull ache of the wound healing, she felt surprisingly good. When she had been shot in Afghanistan, the army medic pumped her full of Fentanyl then stitched her up on the spot in the middle of the firefight. That stopped her from bleeding out until they could call in the chopper to medivac her back to the MASH unit. The new name was Combat Support Hospital, but the old guard, like her, still just called them MASH. They didn’t mind; they stitched us up good just the same. They pulled 4 bullets out of my guts that time, two the next, along with a chunk of IED shrapnel.

Naomi knew she was lucky; she healed up good. She had always been a fast healer. It was after the second time she had been wounded when things got weird…she didn’t want to think about it now. Not tonight, when she couldn’t drink because of the antibiotics. Naomi decided to warm up some of Isaiah’s leftover marinara sauce and have some pasta before bed. Besides, having something on her stomach would keep the antibiotics from making her nauseous.

While she waited for the water to boil, she scrolled through Isaiah’s playlist on the PC it was the songs he liked to listen to when he was on night watch when she saw a song titled “Pygmies Can’t Dunk” by a band she had also never heard of before called ‘Death Pixel’ she read the notes it was a punk band Isaiah and his friends recorded 3 years ago. She laughed. He would have only been 13 his freshman year of college when this was recorded. Interesting, she laughed, unable to imagine what kind of music a math nerd from Dallas, Texas would sound like… it listed Aeon Zavala as lead vocalist, his little Afro Dominican Pinoy girlfriend, she read the rest of the album’s liner notes as she hit play and sat down to listen to the track written by Isaiah titled…

‘Pygmies Can’t Dunk’

“We can break bread together

at a restaurant, but

You ain’t invited to the Bar B Que,

You can gossip all you want

But I won’t waste my time

trying to engage with you.

I don’t hate your people

just how you fake the truth.

Just cause I don’t want you at my table

don’t mean I don’t want you to eat your food.”

Ima do me and we gone be cool.

Next time I see you, it will be a wedding or a funeral

They got you out here dancing a jig

A boo, shuckin and jiven for them, you know whose

You keep on simpn for them fool

Go ahead get a head given head stack your paper boo

yo hands outta push us down,

my hands outta lift you up,

long as we trapped here,

we ain’t never know who to trust

am I lying, at least I’m tryn’

all is well, I know you hope we fail.

Preach:

Each one, teach one

this is physic kung fu and I study the masters:

Kendrick said

“Don’t tell no lies about me,

I won’t tell no truth about you.”

When you countn’ spots you got to know when it’s a trap and adapt

Couse all money ain’t good money.

Count now and get slapped.

You got to remember who play what keep your head in the game

just cause it’s out there do’nt mean it’s time to claim.

If you ain’t played big six then I’m locking you out.

Wash them dishes nigga get some Palmolive

it softens yo hands while you busten them suds soft like ya ass

You the king of the u no who,

I’m the prince of watch cha gonna do?

you want me to pay attention,

I am otherwise occupied staying on mission,

you hustle culture Hotep

watch your step who think you pimping

All your kind do is criticize

show me your and I show you mine

all you ever do is just complain and blame

but you never seeks solutions you tryna compromise

I’m all about revolution

We gone get on our right to return

sit on the beach in Ghana

and just watch the west burn

Understand it’s all about the Motherland

I’m tryna blaze a trail you tryna blaze a spliff

You tryna make amends I’m tryna nation build

I don’t call our women hoes or bitches on a beat

Just to get liked shared and memed

I n eye on Africa west coast my visons blessed

You in a burning house jigging with the rest

In peace nigga, I wish you well,

I got my own story time for me to bounce, boogie, bail.

I wish you the best go ahead try your luck

But everybody knows Pygmies can’t dunk.

Small minds talk about people.

Average minds talk about current events.

And the greats we all idealist.

You might call this elitist

But no matter how swoll you get

You small minded fuck

You can’t reach me, couse Pygmies can’t dunk.

I don’t even hoop

I’m outta here.

“You may now leave the temple.”

-Wu Tang

Lyrics by Izzy Jones

Liner Notes:

“I am not African because I was born in Africa, but because Africa was born in me.”

– Kwame Nkrumah

“Death Pixel” members are:

Aeon Gabriella Zavala – Lead vocalist. The afro puffs, cat eye glasses, the Dominican/Filipino is the heart of the group. A powerful voice an athletic build the frustrated cheerleader [she hated not being able to be captian of the cheerleading squad] she uses her entire body as she scream howls wails and moans leaping about the stage as they perform in an amazing display of stage craft this is not a strike a pose and shriek into the mic lead vocalist this is Moulin Rouge! meets American Hardcore absurdist theatre entertainment at its finest.

Trenton de Angelo – Lead Guitarist and founder of the band, and star of his own YouTube channel. The dreadlocked lead guitarist wears his hair in dreads and dresses like his hero, Lenny Kravitz.

Adira Zimmerman-Teller – Drummer. The Fuchsia mohawk wearing Caucasian, pansexual, both of her moms are Jewish, but they send her to the same private catholic school the rest of the band members attend, except Aeon and Izzy.

Rafael Jesus Martinez – Bass, the portly Chicano boy, is the best friend of Trenton, the band’s founder, and, like everyone else in the band, has a crush on Aeon. He is the most “normal” member of the group of idiosyncratic suburban nerds. He is also the visual artist of the group who painted the mural featured in the background of the band’s CD cover.

Izzy Jones – keyboards and rhythm guitar. He joined the band after their first practice only because Aeon asked him. After listening to their rehearsal video, she told the rest of the members of the band that the sound was thin and that they should get Isaiah to join because he played keyboards [they all do] as well as guitar. Aeon thought they needed a fuller, richer sound. She was right, they all agreed that once Izzy joined the band, they sounded better, the songs sounded bigger.

The song rivalry between Trenton and Izzy began even before he joined the band. Trenton saw Izzy as a threat to his control of the band. Isaiah and Aeon were more politically militant in their lyrics, influenced by Public Enemy, Sista Soldier, and KRS One. Trenton was more about entertainment than education; he didn’t care about their woke lyrics, only good lyrics. Everyone wrote, but the majority of Death Pixels’ lyrics were written by Izzy and Trenton, with Aeon in a close third.

They practiced together for a few months, and a year later, by the time they were all 13, they met at Trenton’s pool house turned studio, where he filmed his Guy Richie fanboy YouTube show. It was a two-story two-car garage that had been converted into an apartment on the second floor. The album was recorded live in one take over the spring break long weekend when they were all 13 years old. While some of the music would later be videotaped, they only have a few videos of the band performing and rehearsing in the garage turned studio.

Aeon and Izzy, being home-schooled, we all read books that are not in the public-school libraries or a part of the average teacher’s curriculum. Not having to move at the pace of the slowest kid meant we finished grades fast. Izzy is already a freshman at SMU, and Aeon is right behind him next year, going to the University of San Diego. Everyone in the band either goes to prep or catholic schools; no one goes to public school. Those places are a wasteland. Those kids can’t even do basic math; they have to use calculators to do their homework because they don’t really know algebra, calculus, or trig.

When you read their writing, you can tell that they don’t read anything worth knowing. They can’t even think of enough ways to spell a word to look it up in a real paper dictionary. I don’t think we’re all that smart; we just spend our time differently. Our friends can’t even read a real paper map. Without GPS, they are completely lost. Our parents have a long history of political activism, most have served in the military, and after their discharge, join civilian political organizations from the NAACP to the Black Panther Party.

We were taught to view the diaspora as part of a worldwide phenomenon of European colonialist capitalism. We do not fall for the myth of the rugged individual, as black people, for us, that is death. The reality is that those who oppressed us did so by working collectively, and in order to be free, we must also work collectively. We grew up studying ‘Let My People Go’ by Albert Luthuli, Freedom in Our Lifetime: The Collected Writings of Anton Muziwakhe Lembede’ edited by Robert R. Edgar and Luyanda ka Msumza, “The Wretched of the Earth” the works of Frantz Fanon, Stephen Biko, Sam Nujoma, Robert Mugabe, Samora Machel, Kenneth Kaunda, Haile Selassie, Seretse Khama, Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Jomo Kenyatta. We never take offence at being called nerds.

[Note 1.]

[The New York Amsterdam News, founded in 1909, is the oldest and largest Black newspaper in New York City and one of the oldest ethnic papers in the Country Amsterdam News

2340 Frederick Douglass Blvd.

New York, NY 10027

Phone: 212-932-7400 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: ‘I fear I am integrating my people into a burning house’ As the nation prepares to observe Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy this upcoming Monday, a closer look is taken at his fearless freedom struggles.

Born Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta, he followed in his father’s footsteps as a devout church-going leader in his community.

After being spotlighted in the Montgomery Bus Boycott during 1955/56, the young Baptist minister motivated hundreds of thousands nationwide to protest peacefully against the overt racism that has been so prevalent in this country since its inception.

He continued utilizing non-violence as a means when he led the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Aug. 28, 1963, and continued being an advocate of non-violence until his April 4, 1968 assassination in Memphis, Tenn.

However, during the later stages of his life, the peaceful preacher began to incorporate other strategies to attain the same measures.

“Urban riots must now be recognized as durable social phenomena,” King suggested during his “Role of the Behavioral Scientist in the Civil Rights Movement” dissertation at the American Psychology Associations’ annual convention in Washington, D.C, on Sept. 1, 1967. “They may be deplored, but they are there and should be understood. Urban riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the [Caucasian] community. They are a distorted form of social protest. The looting, which is their principal feature, serves many functions.”

He added, “Let us say boldly that if the violations of law by the [Caucasian] man in the slums over the years were calculated and compared with the law-breaking of a few days of riots, the hardened criminal would be the [Caucasian] man. These are often difficult things to say, but I have come to see more and more that it is necessary to utter the truth in order to deal with the great problems that we face in our society.”

Actor/activist, Harry Belafonte, shared a similar moment about his friend. “Midway through the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. realized that the struggle for integration would ultimately become a struggle for economic rights,” Belafonte reflected. “I remember the last time we were together, at my home, shortly before he was murdered. He seemed quite agitated and preoccupied, and I asked him what the problem was?”

According to Belafonte, King responded, “I’ve come upon something that disturbs me deeply. We have fought hard and long for integration, as I believe we should have, and I know we will win, but I have come to believe that we are integrating into a burning house. I’m afraid that America has lost the moral vision she may have had, and I’m afraid that even as we integrate, we are walking into a place that does not understand that this nation needs to be deeply concerned with the plight of the poor and disenfranchised. Until we commit ourselves to ensuring that the underclass is given justice and opportunity, we will continue to perpetuate the anger and violence that tears the soul of this nation. I fear I am integrating my people into a burning house.”

Belafonte added, “That statement took me aback. It was the last thing I would have expected to hear, considering the nature of our struggle.”

Belafonte said he asked King, “What should we do?” and King replied that we should, “become the firemen.” King said, “Let us not stand by and let the house burn.”

Five decades later, and the burning house, America, is still engulfed in flames, and millions of its unwitting victims are in dire need of first aid treatment.]

“The Black Consciousness Reader’ by Baldwin Ndaba, Therese Owen, Masego Panyane, Rabbie Serumula and Janet Smith

This book was published in the year of the 40th anniversary of Stephen Bantu Biko’s murder. The book is an essential collection of history, interviews and opinions about Black Consciousness. It examines how the proper acknowledgement of Blackness brings a greater love, a broader sweep of heroes and a wider understanding of intellectual and political influences. The book shines a spotlight on other significant Black Consciousness personalities such as Vuyelwa Mashalaba, Assata Shakur, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Onkgopotse Tiro, to name but a few. It is a perfect reading companion for both I Write What I Like and The Testimony of Steve Biko.”

[How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective’ by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor]

“[R]evolution is not a one-time event. It is becoming always vigilant for the smallest opportunity to make a genuine change in established and outgrown responses. For instance, it is learning to address each other’s difference with respect.” -Aundre Lorde]

As Naomi listened to the music and ate her pasta she decided she liked the band and would search for more Afro Punk bands.

-About the author

JD Cloudy’s poetry has disappeared in the literary journals: Fatfizz, Mad Swirl, Texas Beat Anthology, Danse Macabre, Du Jour, and Death List Five. He has won no literary awards, entered no slam competitions, and never completed college. He lives to write in Dallas, TX.