NARRATOR: “Brave New World” is a study of the world as it may be unless we are extremely careful. It depicts a society in which Man has replaced Nature with science, morality with drugs, individuality with total conformity. It is a hideous prospect, yet we seem to be determined to follow this path of self-destruction. When I sing these songs; I mean, when I spit these poems; I mean, when I take this time on this stage to talk over these beats speaking crazy thoughts, try to follow me, cause honestly, my rhymes can help your mind think. I'm like a drug: I advise you to try Z. Our life's looking like “Brave New World” but I'd like to make it more like “Island” or “Into The Wild,” finally. NARRATOR: The choice, after all, is always in our own hands. The choice is always in our own hands. We can't ignore that. We can't hold back. It's Zack with Catacomb kid, listen up here - about to turn these girls and boys into grown men and women. Let's focus on the moment that we're in. Everything we're holding onto is gonna fade within a minute like smoke. Life is not a joke, don't choke on it. It's not a blunt, don't blow it. Your ego is not a rowboat so don't stroke on it. Don't worry, I am always honest. My audience is open-minded so I won't be modest; that real talk, y'all, you know I'm on it, and y'all should get behind it. I used to drop bombs like “Fight Music” but I really wanna teach so I write prudent now like a Rhodes scholar - not a globe trotter - that local land-based living, I been sold on it. “Rewild Or Die,” yeah, that was the album. Now I'm going “Into The Wild” to find that wild life I been about and bring it out, and give it out, cause education is the only way we're ever gonna see our freedom found. It's all good; now that we've acknowledged the problem as Babylon we can bring it down, or walk away, and I ain't gonna say which. I mean, I would, but I ain't got a stake in it. I'm just gonna stay living and maintain. Yeah, I'm gonna raise children and stay sane, cause I've had enough of the struggle. I gotta get out the big house; I wanna wander around, wander around, and y'all can come if you wanna get out before the walls start tumbling down.

If I'd have known when I was young that being woken up would lead me to going nuts I never would have ever even started smoking blunts. I would have just clung to my slumber. Never would have read Jensen's “Endgame,” straight up. I'd have said Daniel Quinn's damn book sucks - nobody gonna listen to a monkey. I'd pop a blue pill cause the red pill got me feeling ugly. I would give my left brain if I could abstain from having these feeling that I'm stuck with but no matter how numb I make myself, I can't escape myself. I'm dealing with this culture's fucked-up-edness. I'm getting rusty, sitting by the river doing nothing, or else I'm in the city doing dumb shit. All the courage I can muster doesn't cut the mustard - we need to pick it up on the double. I dropped the album, and everybody around me was proud of me like I finally come out with something that sounds okay, but I'm the only one who knows what comes out of me comes from out of me. You're hearing God talking through my mouth, I mean. I'm just a vessel for the message; I'm actually getting fed up with it but I could never stop, I could never give up. I'm saying what's been said before, it's just math but it makes sense to make it a metaphor for life when on I'm on stage gripping the mic, kicking the rhymes I’ve written, I've been convinced that it's right. I bring the light to the dark like a torch does, spitting out the fire like it's poison - I'm just a voice with an intricate mind combined with evidence. Scientific studies have been published and I have read them. I'm talking about re-evaluating everything. How long till we all gonna come around like a wedding ring? We need love and trust; we need empathy. It's about us. This is not about history. We can't judge who we're meant to be; maybe if our family tree was diseased we've got the remedy. The members of this generation could be the medicine that the earth needed for recovery - then, we would be the answers to the questions that we're asking. We could be the clues to the mystery. If action is louder than activism, I can't attack with this rap - I let my effort speak, and if we have to get out of the trap we're in, no rest till we get our freedom. But we go crazy holding up the weight of the world - that's a great way to turn old friends into enemies, like I can't tell the difference... maybe I've gotten trapped in the big picture like that chick in “The Witches,” and I can't snap out of it. I've gone mad and I can't back down from it. I'm so sad that I can't laugh out of it - flat on my back on the mat and I can't tap out of it. But real recognize real, right? If you wanna help, ask, “What can I give? Like, how can I live in a way that's gonna heal life?” We gonna fix up the mess that's been left in our hands, for sure. If it's a gift or a curse we've been given, I don't know. Am I a jerk, or have I got a vision, or both? I'm tryna figure out this mission and then give it a go and put in work till I give up the ghost. Whoa.... Here I stand at the precipice. “Life's difficult; it's not effortless,” Peck said it. But I'll be damned if I ever quit; got my fist lifted to the heavens till I never take a breath again. It's for the bottom of the pyramid, represent. It's for my ancestors. I'm an anarchist. It's the truth, it should be self-evident, but check out the television, we are not relevant, so, y'all should turn the box off quick. They gon brainwash y'all, make my stomach feel nauseous. That's why I try to not watch it; let 'em go ahead with the program. I ain't gotta know how it ends. I already know what it is, so I ain't gotta know how it ends. Y'all should turn the box off quick. They gon brainwash y'all, make my stomach feel nauseous. That's why I try to not watch it; that's how you know you getting programmed. You know what it is.

When you take a minute in the middle of the day that you're in to just chill? Those are the breaks. And when you're risking your neck for a race you could never win? Remember, throw on the brakes. And what's in between the beats and the bass, again? Oh, yes, those are the breaks. Yeah, it sucks when everything sucks but you know what? Yup, those are the breaks. Nobody's perfect, but nothing on planet Earth is so stop searching. I'm not worried bout that, already buried that hatchet, but I've not forgot the lesson that I learned from it. I'll be about the Tao if it's the last thing I ever figure out how to do, it's all worth it. Follow Jah word with it: flow like the water in the riverbed, grow like the herbs in the nursery - getting up. Enough of this worthlessness, I'm coming back with strong workmanship that's on point like a pencil or Zerzan is: it's just words but it forces y'all to think, don't it? What I said? Everything gets better, get it in your head. Never forget it. Remember it until the day that you're dead. Contentment ain't complacency. We can get free and still dream sweet when we lay in the bed. Peace within is common among winners of wars, so I remain calm in the middle of storms. And it's not like I never lost nothing, on the contrary. I'm just not focused on keeping scores. CHORUS: Because we've all got problems, and sobbing ain't gon' stop 'em; those are the breaks. This is for the optimists in all of us. Consider this the words of the gospel: those are the breaks. It's like you're playing pool: the frustration gon' make you want to change the rules, but you always gotta keep your cool, even if you just sank the 8-ball when you had aimed for the cue. It's a shame, true, but it's all a game, dude; you look like a fool but who could you complain to? You can only blame yourself, which is just as well. Trace the anger. It never leads to somebody else, but misery wants company, so sometimes we might pick a fight with another just to make up, because we all need comforting - but what we done to deserve this? Nothing, that's the way that it goes. I just shrug when the cookies crumble, cause it all had to happen how it happened, man, what you think you gon' do? I ain't a fatalist, but I'd say that fate exists. I only fear God and try to stay humble. CHORUS Yeah, it sucks when everything sucks but you know what? Yup, those are the breaks. So if you're stuck in a rut and about to give up, just throw on the breaks.

I had nothing to do with the production of this track, but having this song at the end of this tape carries me away very nicely and may provide some space for the listener to process all that I've said over the years. This is the first instrumental track I've included on a project. I think it's a beautiful song, and it didn't seem to be begging for lyrics. I'm thinking about the echoes of an era - it sounds like we're hearing The Beach Boys through a broken transistor, solar-powered, maybe, found and retuned by our great-great-grandchildren.