In order for a society to survive, it must generate a sufficient level of physical production both to meet its current needs, and to produce a surplus for upgrading its productive powers.
So far as the economic condition of society and the general mode of living and thinking were concerned, I might claim to have lived in the time of the American Revolution.
As with the onset of sudden celebrity, for the newly rich, the world often becomes a darker, narrower, less generous place; a paradox that elicits scant sympathy, but is nonetheless true.
Social networking technology didn't really exist until 2004-2005. I had the idea to use this technology to bridge this gap between a general interest in addressing social issues and the practical action.
We have the new greatest generation. We don't need as large a military due to the technology we have, the equipment we have outfitting our personnel. They really are storm troopers.
General David Petraeus was so successful at getting on covers of magazines, having journalists fall in love with him, that in fact he was able to use that power to go around the normal chain of command.
More and more the world is growing to love a lover, and one has only to read the newspapers to see how sympathetic are the times to any generous and adventurous display of the passions.
A lot of actors, and artists in general, never feel secure in love. They always feel everything's going to be taken away from them, professionally and personally; they're extremely emotional and volatile.
Try paying the bills with love. The idea I am trying to espouse is that you can have both love and money, and be rich and generous.
The nature of music is mysterious and so much so that it generates strong emotions within us. It moves along passages that reach the most intimate areas of our psyche without being tried by prejudices or influences of any kind.
I mean, in the course of an evening, people will take a solo here and there, but generally it's all about the rhythm of that music. Dealing with the rhythm with everything. That's essentially at least my concept of what that group is.
I've always loved hip-hop, since I was a kid, that's the music that I loved. I think everyone of our generation kind of fantasized about hip-hop in some ways.
I have a very strange relationship in general with women around my music. There's some that understand it and some that think there should be a law against it.
I make the music my ears want to hear, I wear the clothes my body wants to wear and the ones boys call me back for, and I generally make the songs that my feet dance to.
Everybody's not going to like jazz, let's just be honest about it. Everybody doesn't like everything. There's a disconnect in generations and some people just aren't going to feel that music.
I didn't have a philosophical understanding of music until I came to New York. I didn't understand how it applied to my kind and my generation. I thought it was just old people talking.
I generally blog between 5:30 A.M. and 7 A.M. I will from time to time add something during the day, but for the most part blogging is an early morning activity for me.
So far as I know, anything worth hearing is not usually uttered at seven o'clock in the morning; and if it is, it will generally be repeated at a more reasonable hour for a larger and more wakeful audience.
Most African Americans, especially the men and women from my generation, would accept the nationalist gambit that says only European Americans can be racists, which is an interesting gambit.
Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.
While farmers generally allow one rooster for ten hens, ten men are scarcely sufficient to service one woman.
