Massive Blue Wave Next Tuesday! Please!

My friend and I voted early this weekend. It felt good. We are in the bluest of blue districts in America.  Two votes for Democrats up and down the ticket. Two tiny drops, almost infinitesimal. Seems like such a little thing. But it felt good. It felt necessary, it felt essential. The essence of democracy. I highly recommend it.

Here's hoping for a massive Blue Wave next Tuesday...

The Main Event.

I first wrote about my "Shaman Experience," here. That was the practice session. Last night was the main event, it was called "The Wild Hunt." It was performed in a church basement. A plain, friendly room. Filled with Shamans from many places, Illinois, Missouri, Virginia.

There was a cairn in the middle of the floor, a cairn built with trinkets, amulets, talismans, written prayers, various odd & ends, rocks and bones.

I was one of the musicians, there were four of us, I was a drummer, but because of my long experience meditating and conjuring images in my mind, I felt sort of like a bridge between the musicians and the Shamans. There were at least 25 Shamans. The room vibrated with expectancy and intelligence. It was extraordinary just to be in a room with these folks.

Once the hunt began I drummed and visioned. It was intense, indelible, powerful, unexplainable. I easily fell into a trance state. Yes, I went on a little journey, propelled by the drumming, everyone in the room was either drumming or shaking shakers, or spinning, or moving in some ritualistic way. We were all propelled by the music - drums, double-bass, ethereal washes of electric guitar.

Did everything go the way it was supposed to go? I suppose so. I can only speak for myself, I went deep inside, my whole body seemed to vibrate, every nerve in my body seemed to be re-lit with life and energy. I conjured up some striking, improbable, indelible images in my mind. That was pretty amazing, satisfying and intriguing.

Words Have Consequences.

Words have consequences...

Ask a poet. Or a Magus. Those folks who pray, who chant, who cast spells. If you paint the air with Hate, Hate will materialize. If you paint the air with Love, Love will materialize. I know it's sounds like Magic. It is.

Words. They are a conjuring. A prophecy. A spell. I believe in the power of words. We should all choose our words, speak our words, carefully. Always. They carry meaning, the have gravity, they create and convey energy.

"You will know what it is to have been wild, and you will know what it is to have been free." - Liam Heneghan

I am reading Liam Heneghan's extraordinary and brilliant book, "Beasts at Bedtime: Revealing the Environmental Wisdom in Children's Literature." The title is evocative, but doesn't really capture this multi-hued, multi-layered, multi-headed, many-feathered, multi-clawed & fanged, mind-expanding, beast of a book. Captivating. Enthralling.

I am only on page 128, and I am sure I will have more to say about it when I finish reading it, but so far, every page is illuminated by a charismatic, enchanting intelligence; suffused with humor & wisdom. I would have never guessed how much I would love spending time buried in this book.

Yes, children's lit, fairy tales, myths, bed-time stories, anthropological insights, philosophical star-bursts, a bit of magic and conjuring in these pages. It puts me in mind of Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces," no, not it's subject matter, just in the unexpected brilliance, the way connections and leaps are made to include everything it means to be Human. It's the kind of book that makes you think you are smarter, just by reading; every page illuminates. Reading it deepens your spirit, your heart, your head.

Anyway, I just came across this passage on page 118, the chapter about Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are," a chapter entitled: "Where the Wild Things Always Were." This paragraph literally took my breath away in it's beauty, sadness, breadth and scope. I leave it here for you dear reader...

"Yes, you, too, must leave the fireside, as humans have always done; you too must make your way in the world like the Puss in Boots that you are; you must overcome obstacles, encounter fresh wonders, fail, pick yourself up, and maybe even fall again. But you will be rewarded by the beauty of the world as you encounter it, by the love you find along your way, and, yes, by the baubles of success, fleeting though those trinkets may be. Though nature will claim you in the end, and your atoms will be scattered beneath the soil and into the winds, if you've attended well to life's necessary tasks, you will know what it is to have been wild, and you will know what it is to have been free, if only for a few moments." - Liam Heneghan - "Beasts at Bedtime"

The Calculus of Hatred.

Yes, Hyping the Hate, has it's consequences. Some crazy person/domestic terrorist is sending pipe bombs in the mail to the press and to prominent Democrats? Horrifying, but not totally surprising. There are folks who have been stoking the fires, trying hard to divide us, hyping the hate every day. I can think of one person who has been hyping the hate one tweet, one press conference, one campaign rally at a time. Words do have consequences. Speak hatred and hatred becomes a real, tangible thing. There is an inevitability in this calculus of hatred.

"Some folks are born, silver spoon in hand..." - J. Fogarty

I found this little video quite thrilling and energizing. Kind of embodies a bit of the enthusiasm, the commitment and the vision for Democrats running for office across the land. VOTE.

It's important...

Excellent song too...

"Fortunate Son"

Some folks are born made to wave the flag

Ooh, they're red, white and blue

And when the band plays "Hail to the chief"

Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord

It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no senator's son, son

It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no

Some folks are born silver spoon in hand

Lord, don't they help themselves, oh

But when the taxman comes to the door

Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yes

It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no millionaire's son, no

It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no

Yeah!

Some folks inherit star spangled eyes

Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord

And when you ask them, "How much should we give?"

Ooh, they only answer More! more! more! Yo

It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no military son, son

It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, one

It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate one, no no no

It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate son, no no no

Hyping the Hate!

We have to tune out the noise. Listening to music helps. Lately, I've been listening to lots of instrumental music. No lyrics. No words. Or if there are lyrics and/or words they are in a language I don't understand. Give my brain cells a bit of space and breathing room.

We are hurtling to the midterm elections and the noise level is just getting unbearable. Especially from the "political opposition." Yes, it's really the GOP, the Trump lick-spittles & boot-lickers that are getting hysterical, trying to whip us up by playing on racism, and any other irrational fears they can conjure up. They want to hype the hate, flood us with lies, disinformation, propaganda. Confuse and inflame their followers.

It works. Right? Emotion. It overrides intelligence.

At some point you can't engage folks riled up by unjustified, irrational fear. You have to tune those crazies out. And just go vote! It doesn't seem like enough, right?! Voting. Seems sort of like a paltry, mundane thing to do, but in our Democracy (remember, it's still a Democracy, at least in theory), voting is key, essential, the one sure way the folk can have their voices heard. Like I said, "at least in theory." Let's test the theory.  Things look grim and a bit crazy, and the loud fat man in the White House is just playing on all of our worst instincts. We can tune that ridiculous, toxic, noise out. And be smart, sensible, rational. Come on folks! We can do it!

We Need Better Lies, Better Liars!

I suppose if the people in positions of authority, in all walks of life, are going to lie to us, we should at least ask them to do a better job of lying. Lately the lies are so bald-faced, so lame, so tissue-thin, so implausible, so transparent, so insulting to our collective intelligence, that it makes one think that the people in authority no longer have any respect for the rest of us. Could it be they just don't care, and they are just rubbing our faces in it? They know, that we know, that they know, that they are lying. And they are almost daring us to do something about it. Sheesh. Come on you bald-faced liars. It's impossible to take your lies seriously. Do better?! Are you daring us to "storm the Bastille?" To vote you suckers out? To turn the tables? To knock the game board to the ground? To tilt the pinball machine? What's up, Liars?!

The Official Lies, Paper-Thin, Unbelievable.

I didn't expect the leadership of my country to support murderers. I didn't expect them to help in the coverup of a murder of a journalist. I didn't expect them to be more worried about arms sales and "business as usual," than the extinguishing of a journalist's life, (Although now that I think about it, it was almost predictable and inevitable wasn't it?), I didn't expect them to go out of their way to further blatant, easily disproven lies.

The raw brutality. It's hard to digest. The official lies, paper-thin, unbelievable. We are asked to believe the unbelievable and just move on. It is hard to do. Doesn't feel right. Doesn't seem like the kind of country I imagined I lived in. I guess I am in for a re-think. We need to be hopeful, idealistic, but pragmatic too.  This is just mind-boggling... disappointing, maddening...

From Vanity Fair... 

Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East adviser, has been urging the president to stand by Prince Mohammed, according to a person close to the White House and a former official with knowledge of the discussions.

Mr. Kushner has argued that the outrage over Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance and possible killing will pass, just as it did after other Saudi errors like the kidnapping of the prime minister of Lebanon and the killing of a busload of children in Yemen by a Saudi airstrike.

Chocolate Cake.

It wasn't mine. It was sitting on the counter. A half of a chocolate cake. Sitting in it's container, looking fresh, delicious, luxurious, a dark chocolate ganache, mini sheet cake. The label said: "moist, flavorful cake with a smooth ganache cream cheese frosting." Really? Decadent. I kept looking at that cake. It really, really looked good.

Of course, I "watch what I eat." I don't just sit down and wolf down a half of a chocolate cake. Dead Souls are calling me (see previous post), and that chocolate cake was calling me too.

"Maybe have just a little slice?"

I have incredible will-power, I really do. Until it crumbles, and then when it crumbles no will-power at all. That's kind of the addict's way, right?!

Oh man. I grabbed a knife and fork. Delicately, precisely cut out a little slice and devoured that in an instant. Pure pleasure. Right? Can't describe how perfectly that went down. Tantalizing my tastebuds, flooding my body with sweetness and goodness.

Oh hell. I cut another slice, and another, and another.  Devoured the whole thing. That whole half a cake disappeared. It was satisfying. The container fully empty. A void. Void of cake.

That's how you do it. You eat that chocolate cake. Yes, you do. Damn the torpedos.

Dead Souls - They Keep Calling Me.

The longer you live the more you are surrounded by the dead. You are alive in the midst of Dead Souls. Maybe that is really what it means to be older. You know and think about people who are dead. Some long dead. Some newly dead. The dead accumulate every day. I guess it seems a bit morbid, but on the other hand it's just the truth. You lose so many people along the way. Some you know personally, some you know from afar.

You read their books. You listen to their records. You remember their exploits. You imagine conversations with them. You have dreams where you converse with them. You are influenced by their lives, their thoughts and philosophies. The Land of the Dead is a real place, it's a land that we can visit at any time, and we do it all the time.

You don't want to become one of those human beings who only look and listen to the dead. You want to live with the living, but you can't help also living with the dead. That just the truth.

Joy Division – Dead Souls 

Someone take these dreams away,

That point me to another day,

A duel of personalities,

That stretch all true realities.

That keep calling me,

They keep calling me,

Keep on calling me,

They keep calling me.

Where figures from the past stand tall,

And mocking voices ring the halls.

Imperialistic house of prayer,

Conquistadors who took their share.

That keep calling me,

They keep calling me,

Keep on calling me,

They keep calling me.

Calling me, calling me, calling me, calling me.

They keep calling me,

Keep on calling me,

They keep calling me,

They keep calling me.

Songwriters: BERNARD SUMNER, IAN KEVIN CURTIS, 

PETER HOOK, STEPHEN PAUL DAVID MORRIS

"... the Tension Between the Angel and the Beast..." - Wayne Kramer

I just finished reading Wayne Kramer's book "The Hard Stuff." Words to describe it? Harrowing. Unflinching. Brutal. Confounding. Frustrating. Honest. It's a conjuring and a cleansing. Wayne was one of the founders of the MC5, a seminal r&r band, a politically-conscious band, a powerful r&r outfit that came to life in one of the most politically contentious times in contemporary America. Yes, they were the only band that actually played a set at the Democratic convention in 1968 Chicago. Before the police riot in Grant Park.

The Guardian describes Kramer as a "self-saboteur." That's good. Kind of captures much of the tone and explains the long cascade of missteps in his r&r life. How does a young guitar-slinger end up working full-time as a drug addict, a small-time criminal and a long-time prisoner? It's another r&r saga where a talented musician basically surrenders his life to substance abuse and deep addiction. A talented, intelligent, idealistic human being renders himself a total slave to drugs. Not much of a revolution or utopia.

Seems that credo: sex, drugs & rock and roll is a great rallying cry, but not a very good way to live an ordered, fulfilling life. The book is a record, a chronicle of a life as a series of train-wrecks; a sustained, out of control, wreck of a life. If you were looking for further proof that drugs can derail your life, well, be sure to check out Wayne's compelling testimony. Somehow, inexplicably, after decades, Kramer emerges on the other side, and decides to atone. And yes, he finds a new ethic, a road of redemption, a life of clear-eyed sobriety, a determination to live a principled life. I guess, you can say it's never too late. Wayne survives to tell the tale. That's the payoff.

No sense trying to review the book, it's a vivid story of a life, really. It's worth reading. Worth experiencing. It's the life-story of a fiercely intelligent and complicated human being.

"I still live in the tension between the angel and the beast, that is my lot as human. This struggle will continue until the day I depart. Mine has been a painful and beautiful experience, and I wouldn't change any of it, even if I could." - Wayne Kramer

The Ones Who Get in the Way!

Not feeling the love from the 1%. You know, those folks at the top of the pyramid. Those who run things all around the world. The rich getting richer. Every day. Money loves money and money + money = money.

The rest of us look up at the top of the pyramid, some of us hope to be up there too, some of us hope those at the top will show a bit of kindness and mercy for the rest of us. But really, that seems foolish.

Yes, the 99% greatly out-number the 1%. You'd think that would be in our favor. If we all got together and decided to slice the economic pie in a more progressive and fairer manner, a little creative re-distribution, we could make sure that all of us could share in the bounty and the beauty of life, that we could all live better and more productive lives.

You wonder why some of us live in pain and squalor. Why do vast swaths of the world's population live in bleak and utter poverty? And why do the 1% just look for tax havens and more elaborate tax-avoiding schemes to park and hide their money?

Sure seems like a rigged game. The 1% buy their politicians, their armies, their police forces. They buy their way into the rule-making game. They make the rules for the rest of us. Surprisingly the rules always favor that 1%.

Money sticks with money. That's the way of the world. And no one wants to share their money or power. Really. We count on the kindness and intelligence of the 1%, we look up to them, hands extended, but really we are the invisible 99%. The ones who get in the way.

Paging Through the Newspaper.

Paging through the newspaper is a bit better than surfing the web. The stories are a bit more coherent, there's a beginning, middle and end. Easier to digest. At least the form of it. Not so much the content. The content is disturbing, troubling, confounding, maddening.

Do you love life? Do you love your life? Do you love humanity? Do you love mankind? Do you love?

Paging through the newspaper it's hard to find love. Instead the pages are filled with all the maladies of life. Is it better to tune in? To tune out? To embrace, or to reject the world? What's better for your head, your soul? Your conscience? How to live with all this chaos, this madness, this uncertainty, this collective pain and suffering?

Big questions. Maybe too big. It seems freedom is under attack. Facts too. Honesty too. There are so many competing forces, competing narratives, collisions all across the newspaper. How does anything work? How do we make it? Where the hell is this all going?

You think of yourself as on the side of enlightenment and light, but often you are confused and stumbling in the dark.

Broken!

I have a friend who tells me no matter what happens, there is always a Gilmore Girls episode that was there first. Everything goes thru Gilmore Girls. I don't know if it's true. Never saw the show.

For me, there is always a Dylan song for everything... all history is reflected and highlighted, referenced and illuminated in a Dylan song. His song book is one of our great human resources. Dylan has written a lot of songs...

Everything Is Broken

WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

Broken lines, broken strings

Broken threads, broken springs

Broken idols, broken heads

People sleeping in broken beds

Ain’t no use jiving

Ain’t no use joking

Everything is broken

Broken bottles, broken plates 

Broken switches, broken gates

Broken dishes, broken parts

Streets are filled with broken hearts

Broken words never meant to be spoken

Everything is broken 

Seem like every time you stop and turn around

Something else just hit the ground 

Broken cutters, broken saws

Broken buckles, broken laws

Broken bodies, broken bones

Broken voices on broken phones

Take a deep breath, feel like you’re chokin'

Everything is broken 

Every time you leave and go off someplace

Things fall to pieces in my face 

Broken hands on broken ploughs

Broken treaties, broken vows

Broken pipes, broken tools

People bending broken rules

Hound dog howling, bullfrog croaking

Everything is broken

Copyright © 1989 by Special Rider Music

I Turn to Tom Joad.

I turn to Tom Joad in John Steinbeck's  & John Ford's "Grapes of Wrath" this morning...

Tom: Then it don’t matter. I’ll be all around in the dark – I’ll be everywhere. Wherever you can look – wherever there’s a fight, so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad. I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready, and when the people are eatin’ the stuff they raise and livin’ in the houses they build – I’ll be there, too.

Ma: I don’t understand it, Tom.

Tom: Me, neither, Ma, but – just somethin’ I been thinkin’ about.

Missing Washington Post Journalist

I do think this is a big story with huge implications and coming consequences... we shall see...

"Will you work for a murderer?"

Come for the Music, Stay for the Owls!

Our band whitewolfsonicprincess is running an Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign to help finish and promote our next release: The Alternate Boot Vols. 1&2.  We made a new music video to help promote the campaign and the album. Check it out. We need all the help, and support we can get! You can really make a difference with your $.

The video features our new song "Brown Eyes," and some live performance footage intercut with some cool imagery. Owls. Some really cool owls. We posted it on YouTube and Vimeo. Be sure to check it out. Come for the music, stay for the owls!

Not a Presidency, A Very Public Nervous Breakdown!

"A nervous breakdown." - Bob Woodward

That does explain it right? It's not really a Presidency. It's a long, drawn-out, 24/7 totally televised nervous breakdown.

Read Olivia Nuzzi's interview with Woodward and also her: "My Private Oval Office Press Conference with Donald Trump, Mike Pence, John Kelly, and Mike Pompeo."

What a freak-show. A country and an administration held hostage by a very unintelligent man in the midst of a very public nervous breakdown. And the people around him are helpless, complicit.

It's pretty ridiculous. Horrifying too. Of course.

Blood. On. Our. Hands.

A chilling headline: U.S. Knew of Saudi Plan to Seize Missing Journalist...

"U.S. intelligence services intercepted communications of Saudi officials discussing a plan to capture Saudi journalist and government critic Jamal Khashoggi, whose disappearance in Turkey last week threatens to damage the warm ties between the kingdom and Washington."

Journalists are being murdered all around the world. That is scary, anti-democratic, inhumane. That is the world we live in. We all should be horrified. The killing of journalists is an attack on truth, transparency, democracy, freedom. There are powerful people who are afraid of the truth, and they are willing to take extreme, unthinkable measures. This is unacceptable.

If it's true that the U.S. authorities knew that this Saudi Arabian Journalist was a marked man, and did nothing, our government too has blood on it's hands.  They say, "it can't happen here," how long before U.S. journalists are targeted? Who will stand up for them? This is Not Fake News, it is all too real.