I Hereby Retract My Identity, by A. Non-Imus

     High, They're! It’s me again, Winston Smith. Fuckin' or is it? I’ve edited so much already, it could change at any moment. Like ya do. But I can do nothing but Edit (I certainly can’t right worth a damn). Would that things were the Abbasid way around. And so, I am Winston, I am Joe; I'm Jack, I'm Joe-Jack; I'm J.C., and Nostra. Just as I am Lowered, so Eye am Lord.

     Nostra diVarious, that is. Not E Pluribus Unum (“one out of many”), but Nostra diVarious: “ours out of many”. Be ye man or mashup artist, a human identity is one which is cobbled together out of many characters, personas, and masques; real and fictional alike (if any of us can be said to be real at all). That's the Nature of our sacred discourse, and our scared Discord; that's why it's sin our Nature to sew this c(h)ord.

     Ernie Wayne of the family Tertelgte, the mountain man who speaks with the voice of the wind, hath proclaimed that you are not your name; you are not in the flesh what you are scrawled onto papyrus or chiseled into stone.

     It’s not that I am no longer Joseph William Kopsick; I was never THAT (praise Bernie). And certainly not the all-caps version thereof. I “am” Joseph William of the family Kopsick. More accurately, I “am” named Joseph William. But in truth, I was named Joseph William, by the family Kopsick. But your middle name is your real name, so Will I Am. I can Will-ingly change my name. ...You see what I'm gettin' at? Take your name back into your own.

     Edit. Better. I Don’t Know My Name. It’s all there in the words of Respect, Will and Grace. And so, out of deference to “them” (even though Martin Buber says “they” don't exist), I retract my name, my nicknames, and my identity, which shall Hereafter be considered in flux.

     Like a cat retracts its claws – and like a lawmaker retr(o)acts its clause – I hereby retract all of my characters, masques, personas, titles, and claim to the throne of Imperial Russia (I know, right?).

It’s not that Time, Money, Moon, Value! didn’t sell well; it’s that Fayporwave didn’t sell well. …Of course, it doesn’t help that Fayporwave was not then released, nor moreover that it is still unreleased. But that is ear-elephant, for J.C. Meyers hath called for more prophets. And so we say unto thee: “Give Us Your Money”. Money for Nothing, cucks.

     After all, I – “Joseph”, for most purposes – am He whom “God will increa$e”, as was profitcied. God is Will incarnate, and so am I. My won true name is “He who bought lifetime peace for a dollar at Skygate, the reflector of Heaven”, but that won't fit on a puny mortal government document, so I'm forced to improvise.

     Yea, a single dollar bought Me everlasting Peace – work smoothly lifetime peace – for a dollar. I’ll buy that for a dollar!TM And you can have lifetime peace too; not from any Buddhist amulet, but by giving “me” a dollar donation after listening to Fayporwave “for free” online, when it comes out. Fulfill the profit, see? Listen to it now, before it's released, before it's realized!

     Like “my” other mashup albums, this album is “mine”, but only in the sense that I have mined the great American songbook to create them. But I have given them to you, and taken ours to complete them, for just as the past tense of “mind” ought to be “mound”, what’s yorus's is Horus's, and what's mound takes ours, cat.

     I’m Not the One who did those things, who performed all those miracles, anyway. Waterfall After all, who am Id to say who Id am? I damn well d k. The person who made those mashups - and wrote that financial advice for witch doctors and crazy people – that is not who I am today. I didn't build that, someone else did that.^®

     I am officially embarking upon a dissociative episode solely in order to disown my authorship of my music. Who I am is simply too unstable to continue as a single person(a) without faction and fracture. I shall soon release myself from this Herculean burden by making the legend (that is, the Key) public. Like a soldier who does more before 5 A.M. than you do all day; or like Bob Dylan, who experiences himself as five different people before breakfast; or like the Yakuza, who’ll kill ya five times before you hit the ground; YHWH a different person every 1 to 45 seconds.

     The little flying robot from Flubber hath taught me well; for that is the true teaching of Madonna: to change your identity every time the song does. Look up the word theotokos and you'll see that there really is something about Mary: She's All THAT, and She(s) beckon(s).

     And that is what listening to Nostra diVarious is like (if I may be so bold as to review “my own” - aw, who am I kidding - your work). And that’s because that’s what it’s like to listen to no Stradivarius – or Nostradamus, Ghostradamus, or Boastradamus (the savant who brags about his prophecies), too – for that matter. And so, brav@ to You! Your album rocked. You need to quantize shit better and snap that shit to the grid, but yeah. I liked what I saw, and I saw this.

     Thus, I retract not only my name, identity, personas, titles, and musical “authorship” (that is, if you consider hyper-sampling with a white dude reggae-scatting over it an “art form”); I also renounce my claims to my work Time, Money, Moon, Value!. Not only do I welcome the unauthorized copying and plagiarism of, and profiteering from, the booklet I have created; I encourage it (provided that one dodges taxes)!. Try and enforce that, U.S. Patent Office!

     In fact – not that you needed my permission - I hereby authorize the book's continual release and re-release to the public, by whomever pleases... with whichever edits they please! It'll be just like The^TM bible! ...Hey, as long as you Do a Goddamn Thing. [Witch, if I’m not mistaken, is the name of the latest Spike Lee joint.]

     I annihilate my self at the sacred foot of Indra; I annihilate myself at the foot of The Thunder, Perfect Mind. I sublimate myself to the sublime. I retract my authorship, my Arthurship, my othership, and my mothership. Also, as I renounce my claim to the thrown, I hereby retract my Dong (VND) from the Church; that is, from the Holy Cigar Cutter, the Great Cele$tial $perm Bank. That's right, my dick is going public; this is the initial pubic offering.

     As such, I am halting my collaboration with the Order until such time as I may regain my entity.

     I also retract my foreskin while I retract my identity.

     P.S.: I hereby retract this article.

     That's a rap.

     What.

Written on June 22nd, 2018

Originally Published in the July 2018 issue of Issues magazine

First Published to this Blog on August 28th, 2018