Full Spectrum!

The highs are high and the lows are low. I guess you can't really expect more or anything less than that. A full spectrum!

A Little Movie About Essential Things

We re-watched one of our favorite films last night.  "Donnie Darko," is a strange little movie about essential things.  It's a small movie about the big things in our lives. And brings up questions such as: What is a good life? What is our purpose on earth? Does every living thing die alone?

You might think this film is just a teen comedy, or a movie about a paranoid schizophrenic... but it's not, or if it is, it is also so much more.  It also features one of the all-time great soundtracks...

And the movie makes me go back to definitions of atheist, theist, agnostic... 

And I reaffirm my own commitment to mysticism... - 

A belief in the existence of realities beyond perceptual or intellectual apprehension that are central to being and directly accessible by subjective experience. 3. Vague, groundless speculation.

Music is a Branch of Magic

Hell, yes, I have glimpsed Hell, or no, really, not just glimpsed, I  have spent a good amount of time in my own personal Hell.  But unlike Dante's version, it was a temporary state.  I wasn't condemned to be there forever.  At least not yet.

So yes, I found life after Hell.  And ended up in some kind of Utopia.  Yesterday, I found myself in a different room, a clean, well-lighted place.  Nice hardwood floor, white walls, with a great sounding P.A. system and a full drum-kit.

And 4 dedicated players.  A singer, a guitarist, a drummer and a violinist. Never had this combo of players together before. And we ran through a set of songs. Some old, some new. And everyone was together, in the moment, creating something bigger than ourselves.

There was such passion, and love. It all came out in waves of sound. It overwhelmed us, enveloped us. We were together. Not alone, not trapped in the past, or pining for some unknown future, just in the moment of creation.  Lost, lost in the vibe. It's an amazing state. It is a little Utopia that is just kind of conjured up by a group of human beings giving their all to something else.

And music is such a healing power.  It really is, even though it is sometimes devalued, it is so ubiquitous, taken for granted, music and music-making are branches of magic. I believe.  And just why do I believe? Because I have touched it. I have experienced it, I have lived it. And it has changed me. Healed me. Yes, really, the process, renews the spirit, feeds the soul, it's kind of a religious, ritualistic thing, it's own sort of magic. Yes.

That's Hell!

Dante spent lots of time describing hell and all the levels of hell.  Levels and rings.  9 levels.  Lots of rings. It's a very complex place.

My idea of hell is lots simpler.  Hell is a room. And in this room you are strapped to a chair. And you are forced to watch a movie (your eyelids are pinned back like in A Clockwork Orange). The movie is a highlight reel of all your bad decisions, accidents, fuck-ups, wrong turns, failed ventures.  Everything is beautifully edited by some expert, tormenting video genius.

So all the scenes of your humiliation come flying by and you live and die with every moment.  It's all so real, and still so fresh. And you really re-live these moments.  And there are two phrases running through your brain as you watch these images.

1. "I have no one to blame but myself."
2. "I will get what I deserve."

That's hell.

Coveting is Bad For You

The Ten Commandments? I can't list them.  I once knew them. Had to memorize them. I'm not Googling them now.  I don't really care.  I do know "thou shalt not kill," but then it became clear that there were so many exceptions (chicken & livestock, insects) and loopholes (war, self-defense, act of passion) that even that one seemed pretty lame.

"Don't covet thy neighbor's wife." That's another one.  Coveting is probably not a good idea. But our society is pretty much driven by coveting other people's stuff - wives, Cadillacs, diamonds.  I mean isn't coveting basically the driver of our economy?

I think for awhile I did covet Brad Pitt's girlfriend, but then I remembered that she also used to date Billy Bob Thornton and that pretty much killed my coveting urge. Anyway, I found myself in a major coveting situation a day or two ago.  I was over at a client's house and I noticed an old guitar case sitting in the corner.

I opened it up. It was kind of like that scene in Pulp Fiction, the glowing suitcase. This was the glowing guitar case.  There it was, an amazing, beautiful-looking old acoustic guitar. I could tell it was something special. Old wood, custom neck, extra-wide fret-board.  I picked it up. I could tell it hadn't been played in long time. I tuned it up and strummed.

Took my breath away.  I own two nice acoustic guitars, and I realized that this was a completely different kind of instrument. Mellow, powerful, rich, complex.  Old wood. Old spruce.  That kind of wood no longer exists.  Anywhere on the planet. Anyway, I found out the background on that guitar, it's one of a kind. And my neighbor ain't giving it up.

So I had a day or two of coveting. And then well, I have to forget it. I put it back in it's case and put it out of my mind. I just had to block out the whole episode.  I went back to my guitars and convinced myself that they sounded just fine. They were perfect for my uses. I actually need a cheap guitar, I do. It's better for me. I convinced myself. Sort of...I mean, hell coveting is bad for you, right? I'm fine. Really. Guitar, what guitar?

We Should All Be Ashamed!

Charles Pierce pretty much says all that can be said about Bush's Debacle - The Iraq War 10 years later... it was a horrible, shameful episode. And we were all demeaned and damaged by it.  A crime against humanity...

Charles Pierce: "This is the one event on which the country's chronic historical amnesia cannot be allowed to bring itself into play. The country was lied into a war by a raft of criminals, greedheads, and geopolitical fantasts. These latter were enabled by a cowardly political opposition and a largely supine elite press. Hans Blix was right. Paul Wolfowitz was wrong. Robert Fisk was right. David Frum was wrong. The McClatchy guys were right. The late Tim Russert was wrong. Eric Shinseki was right, and Anthony Zinni was right, and Joe Wilson was right, and George Packer, Michael O'Hanlon, and Richard Perle were all wrong. George H.W. Bush was right (in 1989) and his useless son was stupid and wrong. There is no absolution available to any of the people who helped the country down into this epic political and military disaster no matter how lachrymose their apologies or how slick their arguments. 

George W. Bush should spend the rest of his days dogged by regiments of wounded veterans. Richard Cheney should be afflicted at all hours by the howls of widows and of mothers who have lost sons and daughters. Colin Powell — and his pal, MSNBC star Lawrence Wilkerson — should shut the hell up about how sorry they are and go off to a monastery somewhere to do penance for what they didn't have the balls to try and stop. This catastrophe killed more actual people than it killed the careers of the people who planned it and cheered it on. We should all be ashamed. And we're not."

Snow. That was the day...

Some days of course it doesn't matter what kind of glasses you are wearing. Rose-colored or not.  Doesn't matter.  We had a slow-motion blizzard here yesterday. And I was in the middle of it.  All day.  Slogging here. Slogging there.  Slogging through the white stuff. If Samuel Beckett had written a little existential play about snow, and the slogging through it, I was in that play yesterday.  And Godot was nowhere to be found.

There was a beauty in the whiteness as it swirled around my head.  Made me dizzy.  Almost drove me mad.  And just why was I slogging? Don't ask.  As Van Morrison once sang, "There ain't no why!" Or maybe there is a long cascading avalanche of "whys," but to get to the bottom of it all, is well beyond me. I am all about self-reflection, self-examination, but really how do you explain your existence to yourself?

I guess you can fudge it, make up some grand theories, or project some great payoff in the land of angels. But when you are skating on the thin ice of the day, dancing with the snowflakes, shoveling great accumulations of the stuff, well, utopias and far-off pay-offs seem like the stuff of dreams. And sometimes those dreams just can't find a home in your over-whelmed little noggin.

Snow. Lots of it. That was the day...

Rose-Colored Glasses

Heard this NPR radio story yesterday.  Seems we over-estimate positive results and under-estimate negative results.  Hell that seems to be my whole life imperative.  Yes, I see life through rose-colored glasses.  I think it's probably the only way to get out of bed, to give anything a try.  

Now this may not be "realistic," but that kind of realism seems like a buzz-kill.  Yes there are risks, yes, there are negative outcomes in the future, yes, I may be setting myself up for disappointment and disillusionment.  But that's OK. I just have to re-adjust those rose-colored glasses every once in awhile. 

I mean, I think we need to try to see things clearly, but nothing wrong with a tint of rose...

 That's life baby.  It's beautiful, right?

And it Was Good

Last night we floated around in a hot tub, water temp at 104 degrees.  The temperature was in the teens outside the tub; the air around us was cold, it was a brittle and clear March evening.  We could actually see stars up there in the black sky. The Big Dipper, the Little Dipper.  Always seeing patterns everywhere we turn.

And we talked about music, and vibrations, and creative collaborations, and how strange and ephemeral life seems to be. We felt pretty happy and content in that little tub, at least for awhile, but our conversation was all about how happiness and contentment were very unstable states and how everything can change in a blink of an eye.

So we were in the moment and outside the moment simultaneously.  That's kind of how it goes. Still there's no denying those hot jets of water did their thing. And it was good.

Chuck - "Don't Try."

 

I came across Charles Bukowski at a very impressionable time. I was young lad trying to be a writer.  Bukowski's poetry, his personal history made such a huge impact on me.  Influenced my writing, influenced my drinking habits.  It wasn't all for the good.  There were those "Jack Daniels" days that kind of sent me off on a weird tangent.  Some crazy adventures and lots of stupid stuff too.  I look back now and think how lucky I was to come out of that madness fairly unscathed.

But it was just part of living.  And maybe that was the most powerful inspiration I got from Bukowski.  He lived a hard life. A brutal life. And he made poetry out of all that hardness.  He did it with clarity and humor.  And no bullshit. And sometimes his poems and short stories just knocked me out.

"Don't try," is on his tombstone.  It's sort of a motto, I guess. Sort of a way to live.  You don't try, you don't over-think it, you just do it. You carry on, and all those hard times are just part of what you use. And that's clean, and pure, and it is what it is.

The Big Show

It's LIFE itself that's the amazing, enthralling, confounding, and mysterious thing.  It's so big and rambling, always morphing, seems as if it goes on forever, and manifests itself in infinite forms.

We have a slice of it, we embody it, but our paltry little share is just a tiny, microscopic piece of such a grand, incomprehensible thing.  It's easy to miss it, even as it looms and throbs and animates all around us.

Maybe we have to turn away.  We have to consciously forget.  Just to be able to carry on.  We dazzle ourselves with other entertainments.  The the big show is LIFE... but it's just so damn big, it's over-stuffed with all that "needing, wanting, grasping," and we arrive well after the beginning, and exit well before the end...

Still we are here now. And we do have piece of the grand thing... we are free to do, what we can, with what we have...

Eaten Even as We Eat!

Pop, Capitalism and Junk Food.  

Three phenomena that go hand in hand.  They are voracious. They swallow everything. They feed us, and they make us fat.  They absorb us. They suck all the oxygen out of the air. They fill us. They fill our heads, our pockets, our bellies.  They deplete us too.  We are just fodder for the engine. We are mulch.  We are eaten even as we eat.

We have created these three perpetual motion machines.  And they never pause, never stop... it's hard for a human being to keep up. But we try!

B52's? Oh Yeah!

I forgot how much I love this band... they are everything Pop/Rock should be... funny, exuberant, fun. Super cool too... and man, does that song stick in your head, and bring a smile to your lips? Yes, it does...

Whatever Happened to Self-Deprecating Humor?

The best comment I heard about Seth McFarlane's performance as host of the Oscars came from one of my close friends...

"If you are so in love with yourself... well, F^%CK You!"

The Paradox of Pop Culture!

We went into an Oscar induced tail-spin.  Sunday evening we had jumped into the Pop Culture pool with both feet, and totally submerged ourselves in the spectacle. And really, despite, and because of, all the glitz and glamour, and gushing, and Gucci... it was truly gruesome.

Pop Culture is a grand leveler.  It's kind of like a monster guillotine.  It elevates and chops down simultaneously. No one gets out unscathed.  You can't argue with Pop.  It just is, kind of like a mountain, or a hurricane, or the air we breathe.

But it is sometimes totally oppressive. Yes, the image is all.  Everything is reduced to what you can see.  It gives you the false idea that everything is material.  All can be reduced to what the eye can consume. It's deadening.  A killer.  Even as Pop shouts at you with words such as "hope" and "dreams" and "magic" and "beauty" and "creativity" it's all a hustle baby!

There are few souls who seem to keep their heads.  But of course, it's hard to tell who or what is genuine and who or what is just a seamless fabrication.  Lots of acting and simulating, and sublimating. What a weird display.  How invalidating, even as it is supposedly honoring and validating.  Paradoxical!

The Smarm is Too Smarmy!

Yes, we watched that ridiculous, over-blown show where well-dressed people get up on stage and hand each other little gold statues.  It's a pretty demeaning little spectacle.  These human specimens are pumped up and primped and then everyone kind of goes into a weird hate-on...

Stephen Marche sums it all up quite nicely: "The smarm is too smarmy and the hate is too ferocious to fill the same stage."  

That's entertainment!

A Lover's Quarrel

You try to imagine how a lover's quarrel could go so wildly out of control, could devolve so badly, and horribly, that it results in a beautiful young girl, dead on the bathroom floor, with 3 bullets in her body.  You imagine yourself as a fly on the wall.

You can imagine the shouting. A Valentine's Day argument running off the rails.  Two lovers saying things in the heat of the moment that maybe they'd later regret.  Hurling threats.  Verbal daggers. Insults. It would have to be pretty bad.  I mean, really, it would have to be so super-bad, to go so awfully wrong.  Or maybe, it would be something not said, that really took it all to another level...

The Man, in a mad fury, asks "And what does he have that I don't have?"

The Woman, behind the door, matching his fury... "Well... I can think of at least... two... things..."

4 shots ring out! 

Scene.

The Improbable Saga of the Blade Runner

The saga of the Blade Runner.  You couldn't make it up.  Sometimes reality really is stranger and more complicated than fiction.  If you did make this one up, no one would believe it.

Infant born without the fibula bone.  Legs amputated at the age of one.  Grows up to become a world-class runner using carbon-fiber blades.

Shoots his girlfriend on Valentine's Day.  He claims it was fear (sounds improbable) that sent him into a shooting frenzy. The police claim it was anger (seems more plausible).  Beautiful model-girlfriend sitting on the toilet, locked in the bathroom, ends up dead with three bullets in her body.

The shooter is young, rich, handsome, a hero, a celebrity.  And he walks out on bail.  Something just doesn't seem right about that.  A normal person, or a poor person, the Average Joe, you just know that kind of guy would be rotting in a jail cell waiting for his day in court.

Blade Runner sobs uncontrollably in court.  The tears are probably real.  Even if he did shoot in anger, you think in the cold light of day, the dude would like those bullets back.  People are forgiving.  Guns and bullets are not.  We have a dead girl.  And a shooter.  A simple case. An improbable saga.

More Banksy!

More Banksy... (here's a nice profile)  so inspiring... cool and subversive too... ART trumps all!

Love Banksy!

I love, love, love Banksy....