#the analogies we come up with for encapsulating who and what god is

[voidpacifist]

god is an author

DISCLAIMER: this is not to preach at anyone what they should or should not believe! This is purely me divulging into my thoughts about the God I grew up learning about and how I've come to terms with their existence. If that intellectual exercise is totally your thing, please enjoy :)

I've been sitting on this one for some time now, simply because I don't know very many people who study their own theology and pick it to pieces for fun, nor do I know very many people who are interested in theology in the first place. In fact, many people I've met, while not turned off to the idea of an existing and all-encompassing higher Somebody or Something, don't seem to like discussing the topic at all. And as someone who has recently come to confront the fact that their christian values may not even be considered "christian enough" anymore, I have begun to understand the discomfort with the subject matter.

But that brings me to the crux of why I began thinking about "God analogies" in the first place. See, the less I wanted to discuss the semantics about God's existence, the more my brain pushed back with different ways of looking at their existence. Namely, the way we compare them to different human archetypes - God as a father, God as a mother, God as an artist, God as a holy physician, etc. I was having trouble finding one that really and truly encompassed all the facets of their existence while also mirroring pieces of our (human beings) existence. After all, I was taught that we were made in the image of God, so what analogy was best? What analogy would set my mind at ease?

And then, of course, when I discovered the joy found present only in creating, I came a little bit closer to the "right" analogy. For a while, it was easy to think of God as simply a creator, but even that felt too simple. It didn't answer my questions about the problem of evil being allowed to exist, nor did it set my mind at ease about other philosophical and moral quandaries I'd been having. Would I be cast into damnation for allowing myself to feel about women as I did about men? Would I still be a christian if I didn't think of God as a father but rather as a genderless (or all-gendered) being? Would I lose my faith if I allowed myself to question the structure of the religion I'd grown up in? No, calling them merely a creator still left too many gaps in the analogy - a mere creator with no further pretense didn't necessarily account for anything moral, only for creativity itself.

It was a start, because humans are naturally creative creatures, and if we truly are image bearers of a higher power, then that comparison makes sense. But at this point, I was obsessed with narrowing the parallels down to something much more specific to my particular paradigm. Lo and behold, it was right around the time that I arrived at this platform of exploration that I began thinking of them as an author.

Point one: God is an author because they exist outside of the timeline.

When speaking about time as a concept, the first thing that I personally think of is the scene from season three of BBC's Doctor Who where David Tennant's incarnation of the Doctor says, "When you look at it from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly...timey wimey...stuff." And in reference to our human experience, he's incorrect in that regard. We spectate the passage of time from cause to effect to cause to effect. Rinse and repeat. Time is cyclical and linear and a progression.

And, time is entirely out of bounds as well.

Think about it with the fact in mind that the closer to the planet earth that one is, the faster the "clock moves." This is a phenomenon known as time dilation. It's seen in all sorts of scifi films, most prominently depicted in Nolan's Interstellar - time progresses at a far slower rate for the main character, and by the time he makes the return to his family, his daughter is already experiencing the final moments of her life. Decades for her have only translated to maybe two years for him.

Furthermore, if we think about the universe being in constant outward expansion, we can only assume that outside of it, past the edge of matter, there is no time. This brings to mind the concept of eternity, as well as the conundrum of how eternity can simply be. In eternity, everything has already happened and nothing has happened. The same can be said in regards to what is and what will be. How it can be all or nothing all at once is something we are incapable of understanding, because it breaks the rules of our conditions of existence. But for a being such as God? For someone or something that is in charge of all the rules and regulations of everything in the material plane? It doesn't break any rules then, because God is not governed by the rules of our existence - they are exterior to us.

How does that tie back into authorship? I'm so glad you asked.

(And if you've made it this far, thank you for sticking with me through my extremely heady tangent on the rules of time as a concept.)

It ties back into authorship, because every author exists outside of their characters' timeline(s). If time is contained within a story, then eternity is merely outside of that, with the author. James Dashner is not constrained by the events or progressions of The Maze Runner series. J.R.R. Tolkien is not contained by the end or beginning of Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings. In the same way, God did not "begin" when the universe began, because they wrote the universe into existence. If they began with the universe, that would bring up the question, "Who made God?", which would unravel with the knowledge in mind of God being all-powerful.

Points two and three: the problem of evil and the issue of free will.

Firstly, evil. The problem of the existence of good and evil is one that has left many in quite a scramble about how to justify God's existence when abhorrent things are also allowed to occur. And I'm not here to say that I have the definite answer, or that any emotions about the matter are invalid. I simply think this explanation is one that works, so I'll explain it to the best of my ability.

But before I explain, I'll have theological debater Cliffe Knechtle offer some further insight to the age old question, "Why would a loving god allow so much suffering?"

His answer is quite long, so I've condensed it to his first two points for the sake of remaining concise: the extent of God's power, and the concept of free will.

"[But] as a follower of Christ, I have to think, first point: Genesis chapter one records that when God created this, God saw that it was good. When God created that, God saw that it was good. So God did not create evil, suffering, and death. But in Genesis chapter three, we read how human beings rebelled against God, and when we told God to step off, to get lost, to remove his act elsewhere, he partially honored our request. And when God stepped back, chaos, destruction, and death entered.

"So you and I were not born into a fair world. You and I are born into an unfair world. Not because God created it that way, but because the all powerful God chose to partially limit his power by creating me free. If I hall back and slap this man and turn to you and say, 'God made me do it,' I'm a con artist, I'm a liar. God gave me a hand for the purpose of loving and respecting this man. But because I have a free will, I can roll this hand into a fist and send it crashing into this handsome face. If I have the audacity to say God made me do it, I'm a liar. I have a free will. And you and I live in a world where there's a tremendous amount of suffering, evil, and death. That's a direct result of human irresponsibility. Remember - when we human beings rebel against God, God steps back and evil, chaos, suffering and death enter the experience of humankind.

"Now, why? Why did God choose to create us with free will? Ultimately, I do not know. 'Well, come on Cliffe, it would be better if we didn't have free will. We wouldn't have evil and all this suffering and death.' Yeah, we also wouldn't have love. Because in order for it to be real, love has to be free. If it ain't free, it ain't love. If he's been dating somebody for the past two months, and she has said to him, 'I love you,' and tonight his dad calls him up and says, 'Son, I've been paying her one thousand bucks a month to date you,' he'd be royally bummed out. Why? Because you cannot manipulate or force love. And God created us to live in a love relationship with himself. You cannot force love.

"'Oh, but God's all powerful, he can do anything he wants.' No, that's not what the Bible teaches. God cannot make square circles. God cannot make two plus two equal five. And God cannot make himself exist and not exist at the same time in the same way. Impossible. When the Bible says that God is all powerful, it's means he's all powerful over his creation. But obviously, what he's chosen to do is he's chosen to limit his power and give us free will. And that's why you love, and that's why you enjoy it so much when other people love you. Because you know they don't have to love you. You know that they freely choose to love you."

Let's digress and digest.

Oftentimes, when the topic of free will comes up, it turns into a conversation of two extremes - of God as a puppeteer or of God being entirely absent. In order to address the middle ground, we need to explore a new idea: what if our ideas had their own free will? More specifically, what if the people we derive from our imaginations (original characters, imaginary friends, etc.) had a free will of their own?

Fellow authors can attest to knowing a character they've constructed so well that at some point, it becomes less about planning what the character will do, and more about understanding what the character will do. With regards to God as an author, they know us so well that though we have free will, every action we take as people still remains within God's plan, or in this case, "the plot" of our story in this existence. God, existing as they do outside of time, is the constructor of the story we're in and thus, knows us well enough to have both left nothing up to chance and given us the freedom to choose. It is by their will, but it doesn't make us robotic or mere vessels to be filled by command after command.

Which then brings us to the involvement of God when it comes to evil. Personally, I believe Cliffe encompassed this point beautifully: whereas God has limited theirself to allow us our free will, they have also therefore allowed bad things to be present in our timelines. With the further knowledge in mind that nothing is left up to chance (though everything is still up to us as human beings), this also means that evil has a purpose. For whatever reason, whether it be for demonstration or illustration, evil adds depth to the story of our existence in a way we cannot understand. If we understood it, I rather do think we'd have a glimpse into the mind of God theirself.

Point four: God is an author because they know the end.

Now, when it comes to the end, such as where we go when we die or how the world will eventually burn or freeze or result in some other disaster, we have a lot of trouble talking about it. We stress about the little details of what it's like to cease existing. Is there a blinding light before walking through the pearly gates? Is there utter darkness and then nothing, much like falling asleep? Is there a way to even conceptualize it? Do we all get expedited into a lake of fire?

It's admittedly terrifying. And also one of those things that people either preach loudly and proudly about or clam up at the thought of it. In my humble opinion, if we're all just characters with no knowledge of what happens at the end of our story, then we have no reason to be telling others where they're going either. That's up to the author and the character. All I can hope for is that the end will be satisfying, in a way that fully encapsulates the essence of each player and arc.

It brings me to my last point, which isn't a point really, but moreso a question regarding the existence of Jesus: is it God inserting theirself into our story, or have we simply been part of their story the whole time, with Jesus as our glimpse at the one who wrote us into being?

Personally, I think it's both. Because if we are the image of God, as well as created by them, then our story is both perfectly ours and perfectly God's.

[cogentranting]

Ok @magpie-trove here's some more fleshed out Creator thoughts for you.

I think the Vibes thing you were talking about is encapsulated in the two (why are there two of them??) scenes of animals accidentally blowing stuff up. The moment where the dog "fetches" the grenade and blows up the police robots and the moment where a monkey pushes a button and blows up a tank. They're both weirdly silly and so out of place, to the point that it almost made me think we were gearing up to a "we made robot animals too" twist

The other side of the Vibes thing is that fundamentally the movie wants you to view the Robots as people and therefore care when they get hurt. But also they're not totally consistent in THEIR attitude toward the robots dying and they DO often treat it as of less importance than if a human was dying. And the dog accidentally blowing up the robots is one of those moments.

The movie is weirdly negative toward people. But maybe the key is in the East vs West distinction? (Because if there is one thing this movie is more negative toward than... humanity in general, it's America). Because the movie is pretty accepting of the East where they embrace the robots. But you have the Western soldiers coming in and because they hate the robots so much they're also incredibly willing to terrorize and kill the humans. So maybe they're shooting for something like... when you hate and kill and dehumanize some, it doesn't stay limited to that one group, you lose the ability to care for even the ones you originally said you were for. Maybe.

They went ALL IN on those biblical figures. The child of the Creator who is named Alpha and Omega, and who is there as a sort of prophesied savior, and who has a sort of hypostatic union thing going on--fully man and fully... AI. Except you might expect a weird 'AI as a sort of God' thing, but instead if you look at Alphie as AI Jesus (which she is) it becomes this thing where her AI nature is analogous to Jesus's human nature, and Alphie's human nature is analogous to Jesus's divine nature (which makes sense, since the Creator is human). And I think THAT is what completely makes the themes go wonky. Because the humans are both portrayed extremely negatively, and kind of portrayed as divine. Which is why I truly don't know if they know what they're trying to say? It feels to me like a movie that stuck in some biblical figures and stopped at just saying "see the child is AI Jesus! Isn't that clever?" and didn't quite but together what they were trying to SHOW with that.

I'm frankly shocked that they didn't just call the protagonist Joseph

But also if you're not looking at themes, at just a narrative and character level I think the movie works well and is very entertaining.

And then there's the moment at the end where Joshua tells Alphie that he's going to Heaven because she made him good? That it's her goodness that saved him and not his own? That part is good. That part makes me a little insane.

It's so pretty. Such good visuals.

[i-really-should-change-my-url]

Light the World Day 2

Day 2 is to write about someone who you think encapsulates christlike love. My choice is easy.

Ferret and I met 6/7 months ago. I was bored and lonely in quarantine, so I suggested a Merlin rewatch in one of my Merlin group chats. Two people accepted my offer, and Ferret and I clicked right away. Our type of humour and comedic delivery were very similar, and I knew this person was cool. The next night, I suggested another watch, but only Ferret could make it, so we ended up watching a movie instead, switching over to DMs. You know those people that you can skip over all the small talk (my least favourite part of meeting new people) and hang out as if you were lifelong friends? Ferret was the epitome of that trope. The movie ended, it was after midnight, but neither of us wanted to end the conversation. We talked until 8 in the morning, said goodbye to sleep, and then continued talking later that day. That was 6/7 months ago. In that time, she has become my flower field swaying in the breeze, my hot tea mug on a cold morning, my Irish cottage by the shimmering sea. 

I suck at essay writing so the rest of this is going to be in bullets.

- She picks up on what I am trying to say. Even if my mind uses some weird analogy, she gets it. Even better, she turns it back on me. The rosetta stone would have trouble deciphering some of our conversations.

- Speaking of that, she takes the time to tell me if I say something in an interesting way. “The way your mind thinks is beautiful” is a common phrase from her. Growing up in the house that I did, I never heard/hear that. On the contrary, my biological family and some of my school ex-friends made me quite self conscious about my intelligence. To hear that from someone who hears the dumbest things I let out of my mouth, it’s a magical thing.

- Any compliment from her is thought out with so much care. She doesn’t waste time on superficial “you’re funny”s and “I liked your writing”s. It’s “your jokes make me laugh so hard I scare the cat”s and “WOW THE LINE YOU ADDED THERE MAKES THE PREVIOUS SCENE SO MUCH MORE EMOTIONAL YOU HAVE A WAY WITH WORDS”s. 

- She listens to me. Really listens. When I need to talk about something serious, I know I have her full attention. I know I am her first choice.

- She has the compassion of Aslan, the emotional intuition of Luna Lovegood, the loyalty of Gwaine.

- She lets me in. I have had so many toxic relationships in my life, and many that were flower/gardener one sided. I am scared to my bones that I am going to become that toxic person to someone else, and she makes sure I know I am needed in her life just the same as I need her in my life. I am allowed to hear about and help her with her problems. 

- She validates. Validates my emotions, my thoughts, my opinions. Likewise as above, validation is something I didn’t get growing up (still don’t get it from my bio family but thank the gods I got better friends). When I have a problem, no matter how insignificant it actually is, she takes a moment to validate me, before moving on to helping me with said problem. 

- She is understanding of what I need. Sometimes I need to disappear in the middle of a conversation for an hour or so when I get home/back to my room after human interaction, to have some introverted battery charge time or solo processing time after a particularly hard day. When I do have one of these problems you have been hearing so much about, she does not push me to talk about it. She knows that is not always the best course of action. The custom response for us (and all of us in Methlin) is “Do you want to talk about it or talk about something else or get funny stuff sent to you.” 

- She would avenge my death in the most creative ways possible.

- Has actually saved me from drastic self destruction.

- I talked about our code word “yellow lighting” in an earlier post, but it’s worth repeating.  “She and I have this code word “yellow lighting” when we talk late at night, which means “I’m getting tired and I might fall asleep on you but I want to keep talking” and I think it shows just how beautiful our friendship is. We want to talk to one another as long as we both have the time and the energy, but we know that our sleep needs come first. This way, nobody is staying up way past what they should to keep the other one happy, and it gives a warning for why we may stop replying for many hours in the middle of a conversation. Which anyone with anxiety/abandonment issues can tell you, is stressful for your less rational brain. Someone can yellow light, and we might keep talking for hours after that, or someone might fall asleep in two minutes.”

- I want to 100% go buy a castle or build some cottages in Ireland with her someday. Yes we have specific plans. 

- These are not isolated attributes to only our friendship. I see her being this soft and kind and chaotically loving to everyone. Also this is just part 1. I could go on for miles about how she has blessed my life.

To anyone who knows @ferretsarefurryappendagedsnakes feel free to add on to this post.

[wearevillaneve]

Killling Eve S3, E7: “Beautiful Monster.”  I See A Dark Eve Rising.

In a blindfold taste test would you be able to tell which one was a cold bowl of vanilla ice cream and the other a bowl of warm sauerkraut?  

Pretty confident I could.  There is a point to this asinine analogy.  Mine is that most of Killing Eve S3  has been one bowl after bowl of warm sauerkraut.  

Not a fan.  But wait...what is that?  What is that apparition?  Who is that Asian woman with amazing hair?  She sure looks familiar. 

This is not the Eve Polastri we’ve come to know and love over the past 23 episodes.  Outwardly, yes.  This is still her.  She dresses the same (Down).  That part is familiar, but nothing else is.

Hello, Dark Eve.

I can feel her power and God, it is glorious. And scary.  That was her first orgasm since Rome.   You go six months without coming and see how big of a smile it puts on YOUR face. Eve's face when she heard Dasha's ribs cracking was almost orgasmic. Like when Villanelle killed the mob guy. They finally are the same and I’m totally completely here 4 it.

Gimme Eve "Rib Cracker" Polastri.No fear. No mercy. Hello Dark Eve or Evil Eve or hell, call yourself whatever you want.  After all you’ve been through, you’ve earned the right.

Enjoyed your a near-kill and I’m afraid what will happen when you get your first full kill and no, Raymond does not count.   Ray was a ginger, had no soul, and goat-ass ugly kids.  Even then you only grabbed that axe to save Villanelle.  It was messy and nasty work.  But you were still full of fear at that time.   No more.  You’re not afraid of anything.  Only someone who had rid themselves of  disposed of doubt and their dread of doing bad things would go to confront a trainer of assassins without a weapon or backup. 

Dasha had no respect for Eve.  She did not see her as a threat.   Dasha has an overabundance of ego and smugness, but she’s not smart.   Eve is.   Dasha is vicious, homicidal and merciless.  Eve is too.

Not only did she almost do away with her adversary’s husband, Dasha waits until Eve arrives so she can watch Niko die.    Not only does the Russian executioner want to drive a wedge between Eve and Villanelle she wants to break her spirit as well.

Eve is unbreakable.  Don’t let the earth tone turtlenecks fool you.   This is a woman on the verge of spilling a great deal of blood and she isn’t motivated by money or even a sense of dealing out harsh justice to scumbags like Dasha.   Eve stepped on the old woman’s chest after she mocked Niko’s mustache.  But not for Niko.  Fuck him.  Eve did it because it was fun and she could.  Dasha made it personal.  All that got her was a little more pain.

Eve was going to kill Dasha because it was enjoyable.  It felt good.  It made her feel something.  Feel the pleasure that comes from dispensing pain.   Eve’s taken enough over two seasons.  Seems only fair she should start giving it back. 

Other things happened in “Beautiful Monster”  Some I care about, Most things I don’t.

Don’t care about Carolyn being a cold-hearted creep.   Don’t care about Geraldine’s even-creepier crush on the always creeping Konstantin. Gemma Whalen did look nice when she brought dinner, but with one show to go,  Geraldine is an anchor who stops the show’s momentum every second she is onscreen.  As much face time as she receives it is reasonable to presume it has to be for something other than driving Carolyn to distraction and so horny she wants to bang Konstantin. 

Unless Geraldine is revealed as Kenny’s killer or a Keeper for The Twelve there’s no reason for her to survive this season and make it to the next one .   She means nothing as she was never given anything remotely interesting to do or say. Dasha lived and so did Konstantin and Eve got to wave bye-bye to Villanelle which was nice.  Not necessarily deep or profound, just a way to remind us of how scant the amount of time Comer and Oh have spent together. My feelings were summed up by a Tweet, not written by me, but perfectly encapsulated how the penultimate episode of a maddening third season should be viewed with the last one mere hours away. we’re so excited about last episode because it felt like we were watching killing eve again. the lack of villaneve, their tension, their obsession was actually very frustrating. so no, i’m not gonna say season 3 was good just bc of 2 episodes. it should’ve always been like this.

Good things happen when episode writer Laura Neal reminds showrunner Suzanne Heathcote how Killing Eve is blessed to have two talented leads and both are deserving of having great scenes written for them.  The blonde has the fan base and the awards, but the brunette has awards, a fan base as well as a lot of receipts.  Welcome back, Sandra.   There’s a brand new model of Eve Polastri to drive around in and let us hope in the finale, Eve not only gets the girl, she wakes up next to her and gets her second confirmed kill.  

FINAL GRADE:  A  (because even at only 1:47 minutes of Dark Eve Rising this brings joy). 

[deuce-duce]

Am I...?? (Inwardly GASPS)!! Which Part...??

Today is March 2nd 2021 and I got my puter back and went to look at what I had last written on December 16th 2020. When I opened the file, it had been changed… dates had been obscured and certain things had been reworded… So… I have decided to go back through all of my previous posts to ensure the integrity of what I am writing stays that way! During this process I will be putting together a collection of my favorite quotes and post fragments. Which I will dub Rock and Roll’s Greatest Hits, if you live near me go buy airhorns Ill tell you why, When the greatest hits album comes out. What your about to read is primarily from Dec. 16th with a few changes or should I say… restorations?? Probably a little of both to be honest. Everything is still as it happened, I just add better descriptive words and fine tune the analogies so that they are easier to digest… My English teacher always told me that was what I was good at! Along with many others… who have said the same… not only do I understand it… I’m able to explain it in a way that others understand as well. ENJOY

On the seventh of December I woke up not too sure if something had occurred that night or not… as I have mentioned before they use a numbing agent that basically masks the pain until it wears off approximately 12 hours later… When I a woke on this day I was having moments of clarity and for some reason just couldn’t keep them to myself. talking to one of the staff members of the homeless shelter I expressed my destiny that I actually had one, that was going to bring me to greatness… then out of nowhere I just blurted out there is going to be a power shift!!!! And at that very moment I couldn’t believe what it was that had just come out of my mouth. I didn’t even believe it at first because the guy at the desk was like IDK… about… that… but when I went back into my room, the look on my roommate’s face said it all!! It seems as though those who pull strings and orchestrate a lot of this… put all of their eggs into one basket. I don’t know exactly what the terms of thee bet were but I’m assuming it had/has something to do with me not being able to control my compulsivity associated with my dissociation. Unfortunately for them I made a deal with God. It was while I was on quarantine and even though I was in a basement all by myself people kept F$%^&*!> with me. This is when I prayed stating that I would not falter, for my body his temple his craft and his glory. that I need to take care of myself and my destiny, for it is in his hands and I won’t let my selfishness or imperfections stop him from fulfilling his plan. Over and over again I have cried and cried about how fundamental and powerful this is all going to be. EFFIN CRAZY!! And now that I know without anyone telling me and it literally being given to me somehow is what is freaking everybody out. How do I know or how the hell did I figure it out!! I really couldn’t tell you and the only thing that is possible is that our Creator endowed me with such responsibility. Crazy!! (this was before I considered the probability of God being a woman, A mother, A Lover)

Low and behold one of my favorite artists Mr. Kid, Maniac, Rager, Wizard, Pursuer of Happiness Cudi dropped a new album entitled Man on the MOON Three. Ill have to say it’s a wonderfully made album! The album delves deep into who Scott is… I know the Fans are going to love it.

Rewind a little bit sorry for my hiatus just needed to stay focused and well as your aware have been led here not by accident and had some things that I needed to take care of before I started writing again. Not to mention I have been dealing with a lot only to know that I am who I am for a reason Rockstar Knights off MOTM3 has a lot to say concerning who I am and what I have realized as a result to my struggle. The Song is a collab with Trippie Redd and really encapsulates so much, that its hard to describe in words.

I had a very interesting conversation with my mother the other day and came to a pretty profound thought. 1st I was telling her how I was being told that I am too….!!! Smart!! Like WTF!! REALLY!! Is that even a thing?? But I didn’t let it get to me too much as it probably is the reason I face so much adversity, No matter the community I enter into. This is how I have explained it to her and a couple other people in the community as well as the Rasta Man in the PNW. The best analogy I could present is if a plant with a fire burning so big and so hot on one side of the plant, a fire so big and hot that it probably would kill most other plants, but not this plant. This plant had sooooo much drive and will to live that instead of giving up it grew in the opposite direction of the blaze. While the roots could withstand the blazing inferno becoming one with the heat and pain Upon the journey away from the fire (society) the plant developed different characteristics colors and attributes that no other plant had. Essentially that journey completely changed that plants physiology Psychology and possible its genetic makeup altogether. Now that the plant has grown so far from the fire (Society) that its all alone. Now theres a different kind of fire where he once thought was safe. But as he grows back towards the fire to escape the new blaze (tyranny) he realizes he will never be able to be the same as the fire he grew so far away from. Now the only option the plant has with death being imminent is to grow as big and bright as quickly as possible before it is engulfed on all sides.

All this taken into account along with factoring in the two major belief structures in the world one Being Creation or Evolution (The Big BANG) this plant which has defied all odds still shines brightly displaying its colors and unique characteristics no matter how dark the room may be it still continues to bloom! Is this a Divine will and plan or are we experiencing the next step of Evolution??? My honest opinion is its both! For the mere ability to adapt and change and prevail in situations others couldn’t dream of or even have nightmares about is truly remarkable and in my eyes is an act of GOD! Just as any evolutionary step would be. The crazier part is… he has no handle!! Nothing to grab on to leaving no way for anyone to grab hold and control! AYE….

I thought this all might just be me being stubborn or simply an idiot until for some reason I opened up my meme App. Something I never open or even look at and the first thing that popped up was a picture and quote saying that many told Marilyn Monroe that she was only beautiful because of the clothes and dresses she wore. It then concluded Marilyn Monroe did a photoshoot in nothing but a burlap potato sack. The photos and the message she sent were completely opposite of that which was being said by spectators. Now!! As scrolled to the second meme I was expecting something funny!! That wasn’t the case what I saw next was the upcoming alignment of the two largest planets in the solar system Jupiter and Saturn. Not only does their alignment happen only every 20 years but the proximity of this occurrence to the earth as well as the proximity to each other hasn’t been the same for close to 800 years… What does it all mean… IDK but The Christmas Star is what their calling the alignment and if your familiar with the bible is the star that the kings, from other lands followed  to bring gifts to baby JESUS! Who knows what this alignment could usher in.?

So profound thought comes to me on a daily basis now it’s so strange the way that it comes it will just be momentary thoughts that will pass through my conscience and as they go by I latch on to it delve a little deeper and experience an overwhelming amount of… IDK what to call it but it feels very powerful so much so that it brings me to tears… I don’t know exactly what the future holds but I think that is what makes this so great! I just keep my mind open Like apple IOS Systems letting everything come and go as it pleases when something goes by that strikes me, I latch on and don’t let go. Its weird how it all happens.

Steve Jobs once said that if he had never had an acid trip that he would have never of come up with the operating system for Apple and after explaining to you what I do as a spiritual and destiny seeking process I believe was his thought process as well. This in of itself is what I think they mean when they say to keep an open mind. Just so you know I didn’t come up with that little bit about the late Mr. Jobs by plan it just came to me when thinking about how to have, use and keep an open mind.

The reason I explained this to you was because this is how I Pray! After I pray I sit still with an open mind allowing multiple ideas thoughts and perspectives to pass through my brain… until like an IOS operating system, something speaks to me… when I latch on to it, focus on what it means and what it will mean… “I Get Those Goosebumps Everytime” (Goosebumps, Travis Scott, feat. Kendrick Lamar, Birds in the Trap Sing Mcknight, 2016). This is how you know! A little extra for ya, when I went to look up the info for my first Hip Hop citation it was 11:11 lol there they go again… its really a cool feeling!

Can someone tell me if that APA or MLA…?? Ya know what!! Eff IT!! None of my writing is orthodox, besides I kinda like the way I did it haha

Kid Cudi’s new video just dropped and I couldn’t be more amazed with all of the hidden messages that are in there. He is officially the man on the moon. Passion pain and demon slaying like a maniac on the pursuit of happiness. Love that DUDE!!

That’s all I got for 12-16-2020 Five More Days…

LOVE & PEACE

Songs

Heaven On Earth – Kid Cudi

Goosebumps – Travis Scott, feat. Kendrick Lamar

Dirty Heads – Sound Of Change

 Just so you know the only thing I added this time other the cleaning up what I had already written was the praying part. Although I originally remember that being the purpose as to why I wrote what I did looking at it today March 2nd 2021 it wasn’t there… have a great day everyone. Ill post this on 3/3/2021

I've added parts to the story on my business cards and will leave then random places, what you do with them is up to you but I think It would be cool for those who want to stop me to have to work extra hard just like they make me!!  

LOVE

[dailyaudiobible]

05/18/2021 DAB Transcript

1 Samuel 22:1-23:29, John 10:1-21, Psalm 115:1-18, Proverbs 15:18-19

Today is the 18th day of May welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is always a privilege, it’s always an honor for us to get together like this and have the accessibility to the Scriptures like we do and read them fresh and listen to what God is saying through the…the Bible. It is a joy every day to take the next step forward together. And, so, let’s do that. We’re reading from the English Standard Version this week. We’re still working our way through first book of Samuel. We’re pretty clear now in how David and Saul’s lives our intertwined. King Saul wants David to be dead and David is running for his life and trying to find a way to survive. And, so, let’s pick up the story. 1 Samuel, chapters 22 and 23 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we passed by a very famous portion of Scripture in the gospel of John today. And, so, we’ll talk about it and its context but let's start by just zooming in on a couple of key words here, “steal, kill, destroy.” So, if you are being said stolen from than something that belongs to you in your possession has been taken by someone who has no right. Kill, we can pretty much understand. Although for something to be killed doesn't necessarily mean you're dead. Things can die within us - dreams, hopes, desires. And then destroy is to render something that was perfectly usable, completely broken and worthless. Actually, if you want to get technical here, to destroy something is and its existence. So, like if…if your house burns down may have insurance and everything like that to rebuild another one. But the one you did live in was destroyed, its existence as it was, has ended. Steal, kill, destroy. If we look at our lives just trying to live, right, just trying to make it through another week, just trying to do our very, very best we can see that these themes are around us. Sometimes it feels very much like we’re being stolen from and its nothing we can put our fingers on. It's not physical, it’s “something is being taken.” Sometimes it feels like we can be experiencing theft, stealing, killing, and destroying like this…this is…this is happening. This is happening to me and I don’t know how to stop it. Jesus said, “the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” In other words, the opposite of what the thief's ambitions are. So, doesn't that essentially describe life among humanity. That one verse, very famous, John 10:10, very famous verse, but that really encapsulates just about everything doesn't it? And, so, how is it that we find this concise statement from the lips of Jesus? What’s He talking about? Because John 10:10, this is a quotable verse. This gets said every week. This gets that all of the time, but it's part of a conversation just like John 3:16 is a part of a conversation when Jesus says, “for God so loved the world.” He’s in the middle of a conversation with a man named Nicodemus under the cover of night. So, this famous verse, John 10:10, “the thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy” is part of a…of a conversation that Jesus is having and He's discussing shepherding. He…He's using the analogy of…of shepherding, that a flock of sheep they…they may go in and stay in a pen with many other flocks of sheep. It was a custom of the shepherds to keep the sheep together and guard them all in one place during the night, so that a predator or thief couldn’t come and take them. And then when morning comes and it’s time to go out to…out to pasture then each shepherd comes and calls its flock, and the sheep follow their shepherd because they know His voice. So, if you're a shepherd and you got 10 sheep and your sheep are in a pen with 100 sheep and they're all bleeding and they're all moving around but you come, and you call your 10 sheep that you spend your life with, that you love them and you know them by name and you would lay her life down to protect them and you call them, they hear you, they trust you, they know you. Out of the many they come running to their shepherd so that they can go out to pasture. And Jesus in this discussion is basically saying that's the way of it. Anybody who doesn't go in the sheep gate and call his sheep how isn't the shepherd. The one trying to get over the wall into the pen isn't the shepherd. Anyone who's not just going in the front door, who’s trying to get in some other way isn't the shepherd. They’re, a thief and a robber according to Jesus, but the one who just walks into the front door and calls their flock, and the sheep hear their shepherd's voice, and they follow the shepherd to pasture, that's the true shepherd. Speaking of those sheep and quoting Jesus, “a stranger they will not follow. They will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” So, this gives us some context to what Jesus is talking about. And, so, now putting our famous verse in context, Jesus said, “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know My own and My own know Me just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father. And I lay down My life for the sheep.” Okay. So, it's not too much of a stretch for us to understand the metaphor here, that we are the sheep, and He is the good shepherd. But what we should probably understand is that if we are His sheep, we know His voice, which means that we can hear His voice, which means that He's using His voice, which means that if it's not His voice and it's somebody else's voice saying that He's the shepherd we know better because we know the voice of our shepherd and we shy away from that interloper like sheep do. I mean my neighbor has sheep and a flock and, you know, they walk around and they…they bleat and do sheep things and if I walk over by the fence, and they are very observant creatures, if I walk over toward them, they're going to stop what they're doing and pay very close attention to what I'm doing. And if I continue and I say, “hi guys. Good morning beautiful sheep.” Even though I’m being nice, they don’t know my voice. They get skittish. They want to go somewhere where they feel more safe. A flock of sheep feels safe with its shepherd. They trust the shepherd. So, if we didn't already know this, there are competing voices out there that want things from us, whether they want our money or they want our allegiance or they want our vote or they want our voice. And often enough we can find ourselves following when we should slow down. We've been learning quite a bit about how we got…it doesn’t have to be a major slowdown, it's just gotta be we are intentional about not reacting. There are forces out there that want to steal, kill, and destroy. And that's a pretty sure bet if we've lost the voice of our Shepherd and have gotten isolated. If we’ll think this through. Like, if we’ll actually take some time to meditate on this today many things start making sense and it should give us a profound desire to hear the voice of the Shepherd and to know the voice of the Shepherd. And we might think, “I know…I do…I do…I’ve walked with the Lord for years. And, so, I know what that feels like within me when God is prompting or leading or speaking.” And others maybe like, “I just don't even know where to start.” Simple enough way to start is to simply become aware of your senses, which is not to say like, “oh, just follow your feelings around.” But when something feels off…isn't it weird how we can be in a situation that looks normal but something's not right, something's not right. We don't know what it is but something's not right. And, so, we have this kind of intuition. Sometimes we can figure it out sometimes we can’t. If we’re slowed down enough we can ask ourselves, “is this prompting…is this sense…like if…if I'm gonna go forward with this…this path that I'm…that I'm deciding, will this lead me into life abundant? Is my shepherd there? Like, is this gonna lead me deeper into Jesus or is this about me and my own gratification in some sort of way?” If we just get basic, then we can build a foundation and begin to mature. We can simply ask, “can…can this be done in the name of Jesus? Does this bring love? Will I be known by my love that I’m a disciple in this situation? We don't have to be rocket scientists or have a PhD in theology. My neighbor’s sheep don't. I don't even know if they know their sheep to be honest, but I do know that they know the voice of their shepherd, which in this particular story from Jesus seems to be the goal. So, it's an attainable goal. And if we learn the voice of our shepherd and follow the voice of our shepherd into pasture, well that might change our whole life. And, so, let's meditate upon that today and move in that direction today because that will lead us deeper and closer to Jesus today.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit come. We need to know Your voice. We need to know it clearly. And we confess that so often we’re confused about it, but that might be less about Your withholding from us and more about our unwillingness to cultivate, to learn, to listen, to be present. And, so, help us Holy Spirit because how we've navigated this far in so many situations without Your voice, that's…it's a miracle. It's Your kindness and Your mercy and Your patience, shepherding us when were not even listening. But the joy of listening means that we will be led into pasture and we won't be stolen or killed or destroyed. So, come Holy Spirit. Help us to hear Your voice today we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

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There is a Community section at the website. Of course, this is in the Daily Audio Bible app as well. The Prayer Wall is there in the Community section as well as different links to different social media channels that…that we’re on. So, check that out, especially the Prayer Wall is a resource to be aware of because we can always pray for one another, always and we can always ask for prayer. And, so, check that out in the Community section, the Prayer Wall.

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And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

[Singing] It only takes a spark to get a fire going and soon all those around will warm up to His glowing. That’s how it is with God’s love. Once you’ve experienced it you spread His love to everyone. You want to pass it on. I wish you for you my friend this happiness that I’ve found. You can depend on Him it matters now where you’re bound. I’ll shout it from the mountain tops. I want my world to see that the Lord of love has come to me. I want to pass it on. [End Singing] I love you my DAB family. I’m thinking of you. I’m praying for you. I want you to know that I love you so very much. I just thought that this was one of my favorite campfire songs at camp and I wanted to share it with my brothers and sisters around the Global Campfire of the DAB. I love you all. I love you Brian my brother and my sister Jill and the whole Hardin family. I am so grateful for this community. You guys are my family and I love you. Have a wonderful day and a wonderful tomorrow in Jesus’ name.

Hi DAB family this is Gigi from GVille. I wanted to share with you something today that I feel like it was the word from the Lord or for…for us and it is in Isaiah…it’s Isaiah 52 verse 2 it says shake thy self from the dust arise and sit down in a good sit Oh Jerusalem, loose thyself from the bands of thy neck oh captive daughter of Zion. And what I…I feel like the Lord is saying is that he has won the victory. He has done it, but it takes our faith, our response to Him we have to…to remove that…that band around our neck, to rise off…rise off from the floor and the dust and in the dirt and be able to, you know, sit it His authority enthroned with Him on high and to be able to move forward in His victory. We have to claim it, we have to believe that He has done it. Because the…the devil comes around like a roaring lion, but his only power is to deceive us, that the victory isn’t won, we’re still fighting, we have to work hard. And…and we fail. We don’t have the power, but God gives us the power and He has done it and in faith we respond, we receive, and the Lord has delivered us. In Jesus’ name I speak victory over you guys. You guys run the race, stand in the power of God and you will see what God has done in your life and overcome. And the world will know that He lives within you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Hello Daily Audio Bible this is Dwayne from Wisconsin. All praise and glory to our wonderful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Today is May 15th and I’m calling you with a heavy heart. My son Nathan is struggling. I got some news that he attempted to break into somebody’s shed and I got really upset about what He’s doing. So, I’m asking that you’d please lift up my son Nathan. The Lord will keep him safe, that he will find some direction. He is lost, he’s got a lot going on. So, some of you know, you have prodigal sons so you know what that’s like. So, I’m just asking that you would please lift up my son Nathan, that God will wrap him in His arms, keep him safe and that his eyes will be opened and that he gets the help that he needs. Thank you DAB. Love you all pray for you all.

Hello Eva, this is Running Bear and I want to pray for you and your family. Heavenly Father, King of Kings and Lord of Lords we pray for this family that is suffering so much as they have this court date that is coming very fast but that does not encompass who they are or all that they are working towards Father. Lord, please bring healing into each one of their hearts and lives. Bring people around them that love them and that they can see that in their eyes, they can hear that in their voices. Lord, for this young lady that has been so betrayed where she has to be wondering what words are truth. Father, we…we pray for her, we pray for healing and we pray for a heart that wants You and wants to see You in spite of all of the suffering. Lord, please bless each one of them as they go to speak the truth and to share the truth that their able to recognize the suffering within them, but also that You are the redeemer and that Your desire is to bring healing in their hearts, in their lives, in their minds, and their bodies. And Father, please bless this family with the community around them that love them dearly and every day. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

This message is for God’s Smile. This is momma ‘D’ in New Albany, Indiana. I heard your story today about how when you and Peter first got together and how you had surrendered him over to God. And I, several days ago, had called in and asked for prayer for my…I’ve been standing in faith for my marriage for 2 years now and he has divorced me, but the Lord has told me to stand, and I’ve been standing for his salvation and for the restoration of our marriage. And I was driving along, I’m…I’m just driving today, on my way out of town and I was…I guess feeling a little angry and I was saying, “you know Lord, I want him saved, I don’t even think that I want him back anymore” and just as I was feeling that I heard your story about Peter and I was reminded of a time, many years ago when my husband Jim…and I do still call him my husband…my husband Jim and I were just dating but I didn’t know if we were going to be together long-term cause he was not saved. And I remember sitting at my prayer closet one night after my children were asleep and surrendering him to God and saying “God you know, I…I, I want him saved and I want us to be together and if you will do that I will praise you all the days of my life and if you don’t do that I’m still gonna praise you all the days of my life. And within a week Jim got saved and within another week he proposed to me and I said I’m so glad you’re saved now because now I can say yes. And he’s fallen away, and he’s stepped out of our marriage for something else, but the Lord said to me, “don’t you think I could do it again?” Thank you for your encouragement God’s Smile, thank you so, so much. God used you today.

[mothmanhamlet]

A Few Angsty Haikus

Analogical, 2584 words, high school au, fluffffffff, I don’t think there are any warnings to speak of.

Roman gets Virgil to use his services to ask out his crush. Bad poetry ensues.

Roman Prince was many things. He was a jock, a self proclaimed “Matchmaking God”, and the biggest theater nerd Virgil had ever known. Most importantly, Roman would be dead if he didn’t stop begging Virgil in the next 30 seconds.

“Come onnnnnn, please,” Roman begged. They were pinning flyers for Roman’s new “business” idea to the corkboard outside of their math class. Or rather, Roman was pinning flyers, Virgil was just there for moral support. Moral support apparently included attempts at making him Roman’s first customer.

“No,” Virgil said, crossing his arms and leaning on the wall.

“Listen, it benefits both of us! I need my services to get out into the world and you happen to be the perfect candidate!” Roman reasoned, moving his hands a concerning amount for someone who was holding sharp objects.

The services in question were a complicated list of steps Roman called a “confession session”. The idea was that someone filled out the application and Roman would plan out an elaborate display of something that he promised would be spectacularly romantic.  

“No. Absolutely not.” Virgil didn’t even bother looking at Roman, his eyes were too busy scanning around the hallway. School ended not even two minutes ago, so there were still people there. He looked to see who could see him, who could see the poster. Pitifully, Logan was still there, Virgil’s super-genius crush. If Logan saw that poster, his opinion of Virgil would immediately drop. He was too good for that kind of thing.

Roman, sadly, caught Virgil looking just a little too long at Logan and got a brilliant idea. “Well I say you should get a second opinion. Oh Lo-”

Virgil’s hand practically flew to Roman’s mouth, nearly tackling him in the process. Logan, thankfully, didn’t move an inch.

“Do it and you’re dead,” Virgil whispered through gritted teeth. Against his palm, Virgil heard a muffled noise that sounded something like “But can you stop me?”. He looked back at Logan, who was still trying to fit three books and a globe into his already full backpack, and then at Roman, who was looking at Virgil with his eyebrows raised as if to say, “Your move”. At least if he let Roman do this, the embarrassment would be delayed.

“I’ll say yes if you don’t yell when I remove my hand.” Roman nodded and Virgil released his grip on his face, slight red marks where he had pressed rather aggressively. Roman pulled out his phone and started typing.

“I’m emailing you a link to the website. Fill out the form so I can make it spectacular!” Roman said, all too cheery for someone who had to blackmail him into doing it. Virgil just rolled his eyes and started walking down the hallway, trying to shake the small bits of attention that their (rather loud) conversation had gained.

****

Virgil sat down on the purple bean bag chair in his cluttered room and reached for his computer. It was a light grey color and covered in various stickers, his headphones a permanent fixture in its side. He clicked on the link and was immediately redirected to a flashy red and gold website that used hearts like they were commas and used clip art that probably hadn’t seen the light of day since the 90’s. Roman was creative, but sometimes his execution was subpar and unfortunately this was one of those times. Virgil leaned back and read over the questions.  

          1. What is your prospective boyfriend/girlfriend/datemate’s favorite love song?

          2. What type of flower best encapsulates their personality?

          3. Balloons, streamers, confetti, or all?

The rest of the questions followed suit in a similar fashion, and there were a lot. Maybe 30 or so until Virgil got to the end of the application.  

“Who the hell has a favorite kind of sprinkle?” Virgil muttered to himself, trying to work through the questions. Even more surprising than how specific the questions were, was that Virgil actually knew most of the answers. He had never really bought into the whole pining-after-someone-he’d-never-met thing (pretending he even had a choice in the matter), so obviously he had to fall for his lab partner/project partner/person he sat next to in every class. Apparently the teachers thought it was funny to pair up the kid named “Sanders” and the one named “Saunders”. It was that, or just some alphabetization. Either way, it meant they had spent a lot of time together in their first three years of high school. Logan was distant at first, but after a while they opened up to each other. Which was a little weird because Virgil was pretty much the world’s worst lab partner, always assuming so strongly what would happen and planning to mess up, which in turn tended to mess them up. Now they seemed to talk about anything and everything, Virgil’s speaking ability permitted. Logan loved tea and Sherlock and classic literature (Victorianism not Romanticism) and jam and being right and debates and space. He really loved space. Whenever anyone brought up space his eyes lit up and it practically made Virgil’s heart do backflips. He was just glad one of the questions wasn’t “what do you like about them?” because Virgil could have written an essay. What was there, however, was far worse. 

          27. Write 10-20 poems about them.

Now Virgil was an emo nightmare of a person, but he did deviate from the trend in one key factor: He couldn’t write poems. No angsty sonnets for him, no haikus about suffering, no half-baked attempts to write his own songs. Nothing.

Virgil got up from his comfortable chair and started sifting through boxes on the floor, looking for something he’d rather forget. Underneath one particularly dusty pile of biology notes, he found what he’d been looking for, a beat up composition notebook that had served as his 6th grade English notebook. He flipped through the pages, stopping when he finally found the page labeled “poetry rules”. How he remembered this page, he had no idea, but was at least partially thankful for it.  

Haikus: 3 lines. 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables. Doesn’t have to rhyme.  

Well that seemed easy enough.

****

Your eyes look really nice  

Magnified by your glasses  

Blue as the ocean   

Your hair looks fluffy  

I want to touch it sometimes  

So soft and shiny  

****  

Logan anticipated a lot of things. He anticipated his AP World History teacher to say something dull or ignorant during class. He anticipated the way his earl grey would taste every morning, bitter with hints of citrus. He even, on occasion, anticipated the perpetrator in his mystery novels, attempting to figure it out before the detective did. What Logan did not anticipate was two of his friends running towards him before he could enter school for the day.

“Logan, something absolutely delightful happened inside,” Dolos said, dressed in a peculiar combination of a suit and rubber gloves. Remus nodded vigorously next to him, munching on what seemed to be frosting in an empty deodorant bottle.

“There’s something inside your locker Nerdy Wolverine!” Remus said, making an attempt at teasing out his own curiosity while simultaneously applying a neon green fake mustache to his upper lip.

“Remus, if it is rats again, I am really not interested, especially after last time-” Logan began, thinking back to the year they had decided to share a locker.

“Of course. Because we totally put it in there,” Dolos interrupted, rolling his eyes.

“I personally think it’s a jar full of angry hornets that’s set to break when you open your locker, releasing into the school and stinging everyone but Dolos says that’s “unrealistic” because he’s no fun,” Remus said, waving his hands around to simulate a hornet infestation.

“But if you didn’t put anything there, how do you know there is something in there to begin with?” Logan asked.  

“There was a sign on your locker,” Dolos said, gesturing to the door, “But don’t worry, it’s super tasteful.” With that, the two walked off, snickering. Despite the fact that school started in 20 minutes, they walked away from school.

Logan arrived at his locker, not knowing what exactly to prepare for. What he found, was his locker covered in dark blue paper hearts, “There’s a surprise inside” written on them. It was more distinctive    than he would have liked, but it certainly wasn’t the worst thing he could have come across. The hearts managed not to cover his lock, so he could easily open his locker, however what was on the inside proved the hearts correct, for it was definitely a surprise.

His locker was covered along the walls, flowers, candy, and streamers occupying any blank space along the sides. In the back of his locker, there was blue poster paper with words Logan didn’t bother to read. On the small shelf he had in his locker, he found sugar cookies in the pattern of the Microsoft logo, littered with little blue sprinkles.  

The most interesting thing however, was on the side of the door. Around twenty pieces of paper folded into little red paper hearts stuck with string onto the inside of his locker door. What was even more intriguing was the fact that there seemed to be words written on them. Carefully, he plucked one of them and unfolded it.

You smile so bright  

Your laugh makes me want to cry  

But in a good way  

Ok, so it wasn’t a great poem, but nevertheless Logan thought it had a particular quaint authenticity to it. He pulled them off, one by one, careful not to rip them. In every heart, he found a haiku of similar quality and theme. Virgil would probably enjoy them, and for a moment Logan considered giving him something like this. Virgil seemed to have a certain affection for particularly bad poetry, and Logan had an affection for Virgil. Besides, it seemed that some of the poems were just lyrics from some of Virgil’s favorite songs, something about falling boys and chemistry.  

When he had finished reading through the poems, Logan decided to have a better look at the poster in the back of his locker. Looking at the giant words on the paper answered some of his questions, but caused even more. Logan, I like you a lot. Go out with me? - Virgil.

 It made sense, that this whole display was a confession of sorts, however what didn’t make sense was the fact that it wasn’t, well, Virgil. Virgil was a little bit extra sometimes, but from what Logan knew of him, he was far too nervous to do something like this. And if it was Virgil, then where was he? Unless he had run off somewhere-

Virgil had definitely run off somewhere. He looked at his watch. He had fifteen minutes till class started, which was probably enough time to find him.

****

Virgil was, for lack of a better phrase, freaking the hell out. He got to school really early, early enough to intercept Logan, who got to school like half an hour before he really needed to. The night before, he realized he couldn’t go through with the showy confession. Logan would probably hate it and then maybe hate him, which would of course happen after Logan rejected him so then Logan would stop talking to him because Virgil embarrassed him with it and then Roman would hate him because it didn’t work and then his life would fall apart. So instead he decided to get to school early enough to intercept Logan and confess to him before he could see the giant confession, then explain what had happened when he got rejected and got it so Logan was never surprised with whatever Roman planned. He would wait in the empty classroom Logan spent study hall in (he worked out an arrangement with the science teachers) and wait for Logan, who usually came there before his locker. He felt like such a stalker knowing that, when in reality he just asked Logan’s friend Dolos.

Which would have worked out great, except Virgil couldn’t stop freaking out. He was just staring at the clock, anxiously waiting for him to come in, all the while mentally running through every worst case scenario. He had around 13 minutes before school started, which meant Logan had to be there. It would be any minute before-

“Hello?”

Logan was there, dressed formally as always, hair slicked back with a polo shirt and tie. Virgil was there too, but he was sitting on a table, staring at the clock above the door.

“Hi Logan,” Virgil said as calmly as he could, which happened to be not calmly at all. “I have, uh, something for you.”

Virgil reached behind him for the card he had made. He painted a swirly blue sky with Logan’s favorite constellation on it. Hopefully he would like it more than the giant display.

“It’s very nice looking,” Logan commented, looking at the front. “It even has Vega on it, my favorite.”

Logan probably didn’t even know what was going on. Virgil thought he was amazing, but even he had to admit Logan was clinically oblivious. Logan opened up the card, looking a little confused and surprised. But not angry or disappointed. So that was a step in the right direction.

Logan flipped around the card to show him the inside. Logan, would you like to maybe go out with me?  “Yes? Assuming you are asking what it seems you are asking, I would love to go out with you.”

What?

Virgil wasn’t sure if he was happy or confused or surprised, the emotions blending in the pit of his stomach. But he said yes. Logan said yes.  

“Y-yes? Are you sure?”

“Yes Virgil, I’m certain.”

Virgil let out a breath. He was in a calmer place and honestly a little light-headed. Logan sat next to him on the table, looking like he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Ok. In that case, be careful when you visit your locker. There’s something in there that’s a little, uh, extra,” Virgil said, trying to be as vague as possible. Logan’s face scrunched up in confusion.

“If you’re talking about the confession you made, I have already seen it. I apologize if I ruined any surprises.”

“You- But- You saw it? And you don’t hate me now?” Virgil asked, it a bit of a frenzy.

“No, not at all. I particularly liked the poems.”

Virgil was surprised. Flabbergasted. Betrayed. He could no longer tell if he wanted to punch or hug Roman. Maybe both.

“It was actually Roman’s idea, but I’m glad you don’t hate me,” Virgil said, wringing his hands and looking at Logan. “I also don’t have too much planned for the actual, um, date. I kind of assumed you’d say no.”

“You do like jumping to conclusions. Fortunately, I am prepared. There’s a new documentary on one of Jupiter’s moons, Callisto, and it will be playing Friday at seven thirty. Does that sound enjoyable?”

Virgil simply nodded with a smile.

“Perfect, I will pick you up at seven. It is, as they say, a date.” Logan said, surprisingly well prepared for someone who didn’t know he would be asked out. Both of them slid off the table, standing back on the ground. Just as Logan began to leave, Virgil reached out and tentatively caught his hand. Logan’s eyebrows raised for a moment, then turned more relaxed.

Slowly and happily, the two walked out together, hand in hand.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Weekend Picks: 2/21-2/23

Big Head Todd and the Monsters

BY JORDAN MAINZER

There were no live picks for yesterday, but plenty for the weekend!

2/21: Objekt, Smartbar

Here’s what we wrote about Objekt’s Cocoon Crush when we named it our #6 album of 2018:

“An artist solidly known for his bold exploration of techno, Objekt now takes a plunge into a new kind of ethereal beauty on Cocoon Crush. A foray into ambient music, Objekt subverts a lot of what we have come to expect from him. The line between digital and analog is smeared. Tracks are ungrounded, punctuated still by percussion and synthesizers, but in patterns and textures that materialize in mysterious ways. And just as they appear, they stutter and morph in ways unexpected to the listener. The cold machinations of the dancefloor are still present; they are just stretched and masked in exciting and rewarding ways.”

Darwin and Flower Flood open.

2/21: Knuckle Puck, Beat Kitchen

We previewed Knuckle Puck’s set at Durty Nellie’s two years ago:

“Covering last year’s Riot Fest, I found Knuckle Puck the worst set of the festival, though I did remark that the band’s new, unreleased material had the crowd’s attention as much as their released material. As it turns out, the album versions of the songs are pretty good. Shapeshifter, released about a month later in October, was exemplary of what Knuckle Puck do best–write catchy songs with powerful melodies and hooks, enough to showcase the band’s more-than-capable instrumental prowess while avoiding the try-hard singing that plagues so many of today’s emo bands.”

Cleveland power poppers Heart Attack Man and Wilkes Barre hardcore band One Step Closer open.

Objekt; Photo by Kasia Zacharko

2/21: James McMurtry, Old Town School of Folk Music

We previewed James McMurtry’s show at FitzGerald’s two years ago:

“James McMurtry plays tonight as part of the 37th Annual American Music Festival at Fitzgerald’s, still touring strong off of Complicated Game (one of our favorite albums of 2015) like he was when it first came out. When we caught up with him last November, he said of new songs, 'I’ve jotted them down on my phone as I’ve gone along. That whole record was written on an iPhone3. Unfortunately, I dropped that phone, I don’t have the cool Notes app anymore.' Well, either he’s got a new phone or doesn’t need one, because late last year, he released 'State of the Union', a trademark jab at fascism and racism. It might not be as succinct as him telling us 'There never been a good Nazi a day on this earth dead or alive,' but at least there’s hope for more new material.”

2/21: Raphael Saadiq & Jamila Woods, Vic Theatre

Last year, Raphael Saadiq released his first album in 8 years (since the great Stone Rollin’). Jimmy Lee is named after, inspired by, and partially about his brother who died of heroin overdose after contracting HIV many years ago. As such, whether singing or inhabiting the character of his brother, Saadiq is at times uncharacteristically somber. He’s at the other end of a barrel of a gun on “Sinners Prayer”, reflecting on his wrongs, wondering whether it’s too late: “When a sinner is praying, God, will you hear it?” He wears a heavy burden on the funky, stomping “Something Keeps Calling Me”, the song’s wailing guitar solo in the bridge a mirror to his emotions. Saadiq calls out society, too, just as much as himself. “The people are mad,” he sings on “This World is Drunk”. The one-two punch of anti-mass incarceration jams “Rikers Island” and “Rikers Island Redux” presents the issue as simply as it should be put: “Too many n***as in Rikers Island / Why must it be / Set them free.” The former expresses its anger with upbeat piano and a simple refrain, the latter with spoken word over gentle guitar strums.

Best, though, are the reflections of grace that rise above the despair. On “I’m Feeling Love”, over a slower, more warbling funk, Saadiq, singing as his brother, is thankful for the little that he has. And on the skittering, rolling “Glory To The Veins”, he again distills his brother’s death to what matters: “I lost a brother to AIDS / Still, he laughed every day.” We’re lucky that as he gets older, reflecting on his life, and playing live reflecting on his career in Tony! Toni! Toné! and all the legendary artists like D’Angelo and Solange that he’s produced, Saadiq is willing to impart his wisdom.

Jamila Woods’ LEGACY! LEGACY! was one of our favorite albums of last year:

“Yes, Jamila Woods’ stunning LEGACY! LEGACY! is a tribute to important artists of color. What makes it stand out among other tributes, however, is the remarkable way Woods is able to present how each figure has guided her. Take opener 'BETTY', about funk artist Betty Davis, a woman married to a far more famous jazz trumpeter who gets his own song later on. Woods explores the gender and power dynamic in the relationship and uses it to make a personal and universal plea: 'Let me be, I’m trying to fly.' Fly, she does. On 'ZORA', over a hip hop beat, Woods succinctly declares in an all-time line, 'My weaponry is my energy', the drive and desire the catalyst in the noble goal to make her mark on the world as a black woman as opposed to while being a black woman. In various interviews surrounding the album release, Woods spoke about being inspired by black artists who perform and make art truly for themselves independent and often in spite of the race of the end consumers. 'Motherfuckers won’t shut up,' beings 'MUDDY', referencing Muddy Waters adoption of electric guitar because white audiences would talk over his sets; 'Shut up, motherfucker,' she sings inversely on 'MILES', 'I don’t take requests.' But the percussive, jazzy 'EARTHA' best encapsulates her aims of self-love and ultimate pride. 'I used to be afraid of myself,' Woods admits before stating, 'I don’t wanna compromise.' Ultimately, the refrain of, 'Who’s gonna share my love for me with me?' is the mindset by which Woods approaches relationships throughout the record and then life itself. You can be a part of it, but she comes first.”

DJ Duggz also opens.

2/21: The Wailers, SPACE

We previewed The Wailers’ set at Old Town School of Folk Music last year:

“Bob Marley might not be around, but his original band, containing many of the original members and their children, continues to play his songs. Seeing them in a venue as small as this is rare.”

Tonight at SPACE--an even smaller venue--they play two shows, an early and late one.

Joe Henry

2/22: Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Vic Theatre

We previewed Big Head Todd & The Monsters’ show at the Vic Theatre two years ago:

“The Colorado jam band that saw mainstream success in the 90′s is touring fresh off of last year’s heavy New World Arisin’. In 2016, as Big Head Blues Club (the band’s project with a wide array of blues legends like Cedric Burnside and Charlie Musselwhite), they released Way Down Inside. But for the full potential of Big Head Todd and the Monsters, go a few years back and try 2014′s Black Beehive, a rawer, more diverse blues record than you’d expect from the band who recorded 'Bittersweet'. What’s for sure is that live, they’ll lean heavily on the new material while not forgoing their more beloved classics.”

They haven’t released a new album since then but have released a new song every month as part of a series. They should play some of these live, including gospel piano ballad “Hard Times Come No More” and the funky, rollicking “Train of Storms”.

Nashville band Los Colognes open.

2/22: Todd Barry, Thalia Hall

We previewed Todd Barry’s sets at SPACE two years ago:

“So, this isn’t exactly music, but deadpan comedian Todd Barry is performing 2 stand-up sets in one night at SPACE. Commemorating his 30 years of being a comedian, he’s going on another crowd work-only tour like the one documented in his 2014 special Todd Barry: The Crowd Work Tour. From watching that and his most recent Netflix special Spicy Honey, Barry’s dry observational humor is effortlessly tailored to specific crowds and cities, making this one of the must-see comedy events of the year.”

Even if tonight isn’t crowd work-only, he should do some of his specialty.

Chicago-based stand-up comic Chelsea Hood opens.

Hot Snakes

2/22: Joe Henry, Old Town School of Folk Music

Since we last saw Joe Henry five years ago, he’s done quite a bit of production work and released two albums, 2017′s Thrum, and last year’s The Gospel According to Water. In between the two, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer; considering that, the latter takes on weight. It’s, first and foremost, raw, from the guitar playing on “Famine Walk” to the title track. But Gospel sports moments of beauty, too, as on the woodwind of “Mule” and rich vocal harmonies of “In Time For Tomorrow” and “The Fact of Love”.

Americana duo Birds of Chicago open.

Pissed Jeans; Photo by Ebru Yildiz

2/22: Tim and Eric, Chicago Theatre

Who knows what Tim and Eric will bring to their Chicago stop of their Mandatory Attendance tour, other than their purported "brand new spoofs, goofs and insanity” and “special surprises.” The last time I saw them, Dr. Steve Brule showed up and almost married Jan Skylar!

2/22: Hot Snakes, Pissed Jeans, & HIDE, Empty Bottle

Music Frozen Dancing is upon us again, with suggested donations benefiting the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless! Go and donate!

We last listened to Hot Snakes from the medical tent at September’s Riot Fest. Since then, they’ve released the first two of four seasonal 7-inch singles leading up to the next LP: the burner “Checkmate” and wonderfully plodding laziness anthem “I Shall Be Free”. (The latter’s 7-inch has “A Place in the Sun” as an exclusive.)

Hot Snakes also play Sunday night at the Bottle with an opening set from post punk band Pink Avalanche.

Allentown hardcore band Pissed Jeans haven’t released anything since 2017′s Why Love Now, but they’re thankfully back to warm your pants before Hot Snakes. Maybe they’ll have some new songs to play?

Local industrial duo HIDE (artist Heather Gabel and percussionist Seth Sher) released their second album last year, the raw, disgusting Hell is Here. The drum programming and screaming is just as cringingly visceral as the recorded sounds of vomit hitting a toilet that end opening track “Chainsaw”.

Synth band Crash Course in Science, arty The Hecks, and local punk band Hitter also open.

[ogygia]

Hello, what resources do you have on Chinese spirituality and folklore/magic? Where should I look for these resources?

Hi! Sorry if you’ve been waiting forever for an answer – never know how to check my asks inbox, but here we are now. 

I’ll answer those three things as three separate categories – if only because to me they are three distinct things, even though the lines do blur – but not in that order …

1. Magic

Resources for Chinese magic in English are scarce, by and large, primarily because it is shrouded in a lot of secrecy; traditionally Chinese magic is practised in initiated lineages, although given its age and the Chinese obsession for writing everything down, there is a fair amount of information in the public domain. But then there’s a second problem: the language is often impenetrable even to a native speaker, so translating the material is a deeply difficult task. The third problem is that Chinese magic is a broad church, given its age and its diversity, so how useful a resource is will depend on what you’re looking for: there’s internal alchemy (the closest analog would be yoga, but especially pranayama), ritual/ceremonial magic and also fu (or talisman) magic, among an assortment of other things. 

That said, it’s not all hopeless. One day, when I have a bit of money, I will splurge on all of Professor Jerry Alan Johnson’s books, but for now my main port of call would without question be Benebell Wen’s fantastic The Tao of Craft, which is about the most comprehensive, authentic and accessible resource you will find on the subject. Benebell herself learnt her craft by way of a lineage, if I’m not mistaken, so that puts her way above me in terms of authority for a start, but being Taiwanese-American she’s also deeply engaged with the contemporary occult community, and is very good at explaining Chinese magical concepts in Western terms. She backs up everything she asserts with both primary and secondary sources, so it’s easy to construct your own reading list of sorts from her book with just a tiny bit of effort.

A book that comes up a lot when you look into the subject is Richard Herne’s Magick, Shamanism & Taoism. I’m reluctant to recommend this book, as it often feels like a slightly bastardised, inauthentic approximation of Taoist magic, blended with other slightly out-of-place elements from various magical practices – or stuff that simply seems made up. The suggested rituals feel very limited in their scope, there isn’t quite enough theory to form a confident basis to build your practice on and Herne feels a little too eager to connect Taoism and Taoist magic with Thelema. On the other hand, it occasionally covers ground that Benebell doesn’t cover which is authentic enough to be useful, so my suggestion is to only pick it up once you’re au fait with Benebell’s book and have a little bit more confidence in your knowledge to weed out what’s bullshit and what’s not.

Outside of these books, the next best resource would be academic texts relating to the subject. JSTOR, Google and a little bit of discernment should take you a long way, even if you don’t read Chinese. That’s the lucky thing about being interested in a deeply literate culture that has been studied by Western academia for centuries.

P.S. AVOID TIN YAT DRAGON – THE BLOG, THE YOUTUBE VIDEOS – LIKE THE PLAGUE. There are numerous testimonies across the Internet that the proprietor is a fraud, possibly an outright sexual predator. The fact that he spends a lot of his videos attacking and poo-poohing tradition and claiming the supremacy of his own practice is a massive red flag.

2. Spirituality

Chinese magic is a varying blend of Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism and folk practice, as is Chinese spiritual thought for that matter, and so it’s hard to really pin down such a thing as ‘Chinese spirituality’. My own world-view was handed down to me by my parents and through my contact with Chinese-language culture and society. But if you want to get an idea of what that world-view looks like – again, I am being deceptively simplistic here with that term – your best bet would be to explore the key body of texts that form the basis of the major Chinese philosophies. 

I’m not going to try and cover everything here, but for Taoism there is no better place to start than the Tao Teh Ching. Legge’s translations are classic but don’t limit yourself; classical Chinese philosophical texts, especially in Taoism, are notorious for being slightly vague and obscure and – others might disagree! – there is some value in searching for a translation that speaks to you most on a deep, poetic/spiritual level. I’m personally keen to read Red Pine’s version, with selected commentaries. You can then move on to Chuang Tzu. 

You should almost definitely study the I Ching: it’s a lifetime task to begin with, but you wouldn’t go wrong with reading even just a primer on it. I would personally highly recommend Deng Ming Dao’s The Living I Ching. Spend some time using the system, and get to grips with the eight basic trigrams. I’m still working on that myself.

I’m not at all the best source for anything Buddhist so my suggestion is to pick up a primer or introduction of some sort – even the Wikipedia page will do – and then proceed from there. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to pick up a sutra – the Diamond Sutra, Lotus Sutra and Heart Sutra are among the most well-known – as they are ultimately intended to be profound expressions of Buddhist spirituality to meditate upon. I have an affection for the Heart Sutra myself.

3. Folklore

Chinese folklore is – in my experience – something so variegated and embedded in the culture and language that it’s hard to encapsulate in a book, so it’s always worth keeping that in mind when reading up on this subject. That said, something like Teach Yourself’s Understand Chinese Mythology wouldn’t be a bad place to start (and it also covers a bit about spirituality as well). The great literary classics like Journey to the West – even if it is technically a novel – are also a fantastic way to get a sense of how the contemporary Chinese perceive their deities. You could almost argue that these fictional texts have influenced how we think about the gods, rather than the other way around.

One of the most important classics that explore the gods in detail is Investiture of the Gods, but as far as I’m aware no authoritative translation of this text has ever been produced. There does appear to be a collection of adapted extracts called Tales of the Teahouse but I have yet to read it. I intend to at some point, however!

Might be a bit of a niche academic resource, but I’ve been reading Richard von Glahn’s The Sinister Way. It’s a fantastic exploration of how spirits are perceived and classified in Chinese folk cosmology. Man, we really are a weird bunch of people.

Hopefully that should be enough to get you started. I will no doubt have left out a lot of stuff (e.g. Mantak Chia, which I’m not nearly familiar enough with to have any opinion on), but that’s the joy of a subject as wide-ranging as this. My only caveat when reading up on this stuff is to be wary of anyone who has something to sell (even though it may not always necessarily be a red flag).

[bradywade55]

Cabin in the Where?

  Cabin in the Woods is a very unique film to say the least. It’s not like most of the other movies circulated through the category of horror films. Cabin in the Woods takes a wildly different approach towards the procurement of fear from its viewer. In a bold yet successful attempt to break boundaries of horror never even touched by classical and contemporary horror films, the director of the movie Drew Goddard, decided he was going to orchestrate a film that encapsulated every possible dark and demented likeness he and his producers could dream up. Goddard really opened up a can of worms with this film as he secured a personal cameo for a countless amount of horror archetypes. Directing various other famous movies including Cloverfield, World War Z, and even the TV Series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Drew had plenty of experience concocting creatures that fit into the various categories monster archetypes that ruled the horror realm. However, never before had Goddard, let alone any other horror movie director, attempted to collectively capture all of these archetypes with in one platform

The Film, Cabin in the Woods, does an excellent job of showcasing the countless Horrific beings and persona in which have proliferated through the ages of Horror. For the past handful of decades, the various cultural fears and anxieties that our species has possessed, have given birth to an unprecedented quantity of grotesque and un-earthly beings that have secured they own dark crevices in the minds of people, in which they have hide. Referring back to the film, it appears that Drew Goddard has given these creatures their own personal battle ground in which they may now wage war on their creators.

At first glance, this film appears to take on the same plot, setting, and what have you, of any other horror film previous put out into the industry. What the viewer soon come to realize is that this movie is no “Cookie Cutter” horror film, but rather a film that uses the same typical stereotypes and tropes of the Science Fiction Genre to open up a brand new outlet for the fewer to face their demons. We see some of the popular character’s archetypes in this film such as the Jock, the young provocative female, the blitzed out stoner, the young lady that appears overly cautious but she’s secretly bad ass …. yeah…basically all of the stereotypes you would expect in a movie encompassing a group of quirky teenagers. We are also met with the same tacky foreshadowed storyline line in which us, as the audience know pretty much everything that is going to happen to the characters before they do, keeping the us engaged in the narrative while constantly forcing us to question the character’s cringe worthy choices of action. What makes this movie stand apart from other horror movies begins with the obscure approach the director seems to take in the delivery of the premise. Instead of simply having the events unfold in an orthodox fashion, the director decides to appropriately adapt the concept of his film to a “Business-like” setting in which the unruly events witnessed by the audience, and experienced by the characters, are actually overseen by a team of executives working under “Higher-Authority”.

What us as the audience know, but the characters are blatantly unaware of is that these individuals are behind the scenes, controlling and monitoring their demise, from a safe and secure location. This organized group of officials are responsible for performing any and all appropriate measures in order to ensure this group of un-suspecting teen are provoked into choosing the outlet in which they will die. In the film, the teens are lured by their curious natures into the basement where they are exposed to a series of artifacts that are secretly tied to various certainly unfavorable fashions in which they would meet their maker. Ultimately, the teens end up focusing their attention to a dark and demented journal kept by a young girl who met her untimely death whilst fulfilling the practices and beliefs of her sick and sadistic family. To make a long story short, these cats had exercised their curiosity…and you know how the rest of the analogy plays out. Of course, the events that unfold after words are far from ordinary yet quite comical from the audience’s perspectives.

I could continue to share the events that are to follow the “un-canning of the uncanny” …see what I did there…but I would hate to spoil the hard work of such a brilliant director. If you were looking for spoilers, you might have better luck on YouTube. Rather, what is more important is that we all have a mutual understanding about the purpose of Goddard’s bizarre approach towards the encompassment of the supernatural in contemporary film structure. The greatest question pertaining to the sums of all his efforts is why was Goddard so adamant in making his movie into a platform in which all of these horror archetypes can clash? Better yet, why did he choose to portray this series of events in such a modern setting opposed to adhering to a more gothic or medieval setting where many of this archetypes are indicative of. Why not adapt a more “post-apocalyptic “setting for this storyline, in which it could be more easily processed by the human imagination? I believe the answer lies in one of the earlier scenes in the film when one of the directors of the modern “Ritual” refers to the gods they serve as “The Ancient Ones”. The Ancient ones, as the organization workers explain, were a race of superior beings predating the existence of humans on earth. These all powerful beings subsided from the surface long before the rule of humans on the face of the planet, although the require annual rituals involving blood sacrifice. Provided their demands are not met by the inferior species, these beings would them commission an army of monsters, all remnants of the old world, to punish the infertile humans. As long as this underground organization, being one of many globally, is able to successfully enact their sacrificial ceremony, the gods will remain below them and the earth will remain undisturbed.

I believe that the narrative of this film is made to be impractical apart from the usual approaches previous taken in horror films, primarily for the purpose to make the viewer unremarkably uncomfortable. The film uses a lot of foreshadowing to give the viewer the impression that the film is interactive, however, this attribute of the film on proves to annoy the viewer as the characters make text book mistakes all throughout the storyline. The shift from a fantasy world to the “real world” serves to throw off the audience as the train of events quickly transitions from understandable to un-comprehensible. This movie doesn’t just focus on one cultural anxiety, but rather tackles the concept of the human race having to face the lump-sum of shameful fears we have fed into for as long as we can remember. It is even more interesting when you evaluate the film using the smaller details to generate a bigger picture. If you look at it through the perspective of the characters chosen as the martyrs of this unofficial capital punishment, these were merely innocent mortals, chosen from a pool of billions, sentenced to death under the crimes and shortcomings of a whole race. To them, their fate seemed to be unethical, however when we observe at the attitudes of the so-called “faculty” running Lucifer’s operation, the deaths of these young teens appear marginal in comparison to the fate of mankind. Therefore, with exception of the five teens punished in the ceremony, every seems legitimately un-phased by the events they were orchestrating for some thousands of years. Quite like in the reality exhibited in our actual real-world society, people participate in organizations, projects, and initiatives that seem ethical at first glance, however hold impartial consequences to others who stand in the way. Regardless or the bigger purpose of some of these organizations, the participants fail to realize the harmful consequences subjected upon others whilst blinded by the benefits of their own fruitions

[doomedandstoned]

Swedish Sci-Fi Fuzz Freaks Skraeckoedlan Drop Third Single Ahead of ‘Earth’

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

Hot damn! This put me in a really good mood today. It's so good to hear new tunes from SKRAECKOEDLAN, the fuzz-drenched progressive stoner-doom outfit from Norrköping -- a city nestled in northeastern Sweden, about an hour-and-a-half's drive from Stockholm. Heavily rooted in the distinctives of their native soil, this three-piece sings entirely in Swedish, presenting a bit of a challenge to English-speakers, but no less an adventure in uncovering the backstory and interpretation of their songs...for nothing is at it seems.

A longtime favorite of Doomed & Stoned readers, the band has been wowing us with some of the most exciting songwriting on God's green earth since 2009. Now, a decade of dedication to anything is an accomplishment, but for a band with talents so laser-focused on their craft as Robert Lamu (guitar, vocals), Henrik Grüttner (guitars, vocals), and Martin Larsson (drums), it's a god damned milestone. The band, aptly named after an enormous prehistoric monster, has treated us to a pair of hefty long-plays already and now they brace for their third, 'Eorþe' (2019) on the esteemed Fuzzorama Records label.

The new record is a dense Lovecraftian tale by science fiction author Nils Håkansson, which he in fact wrote with the intention of having Skraeckoedlan bring to life over the course of these eight songs. It's a remarkable collaboration that is not only literary and musical, but visual, as well. The band worked once again with longtime artist Johan Leion to aid us in unlocking these mysteries of the faded past.

Today, Doomed & Stoned gives you a first listen to "Tentakler & Betar," which catches the narrative of Eorþe as it is nearing its end. The song is characterized by urgent beats, soaring vocal harmonies, weird effects, arpeggios that crawl like agitated spiders, and spirited riffs that fly and sing like the fowls of the air. Let me not fail to mention, too, that the sound is absolutely brilliant. The band tells us this about the number:

"This, the penultimate track of the album, takes us down into the darkness of the earth, as well as the mind. It explores what is left at journey's end and what to do when ambitions have been reached. Standing face to face with your obsessions, where do you go? As the cosmic clock relentlessly ticks, nothing will remain but tentacles and tusks."

February 15th is the date to watch for Skraeckoedlan's triumphant new album. It can be pre-ordered on some delicious looking vinyl variants here.

Give ear...

Some Buzz

Heavy riff power trio Skraeckoedlan are telling tales draped in metaphor. Fuzzy stories buried in melody are cloned into a one of a kind copy of an otherwise eradicated species. Previously found only in Sweden, this cold blooded lizard have once again started to walk the planet that we know as earth. The extinct is no longer a part of the past. Skraeckoedlan is the best living biological attraction, made so astounding that they capture the imagination of the entire planet.

The dinosaurs are believed to have made their first footprints on our earthen floor some 240 million years ago, during what is now known as the Triassic period. Indisputable behemoths and apex predators amongst them, they wandered freely and soared sovereign, ever evolving as the impending Jurassic and Cretaceous eras unfolded. Then, 65 million years ago, it stopped. Be it by asteroid or volcano, the dinosaurs’ fate became one shared with most species ever to inhabit our pale blue dot, extinction.

While Skraeckoedlan translates into something like dinosaur, an analogy better drawn is perhaps one to the great lizards’ descendants, the birds. In their flight there is a, quite literal, escapism to be found. A vital ingredient, encapsulating the bands very being. Although escape, it should be said, not necessarily in the sense of shying away but rather as a recipe for observation and introspection. A kind of fleeing of everyday worries in benefit of larger and hopefully more profound queries A bird’s-eye view, if you will.

"A prelude to the end. The moments of bliss before the imminent doom. We have journeyed to the place where it all unfolds, where the unseen rests and the secrets of the past lay buried. Here we too will become shrouded in mystery, riddles to be solved by those not yet granted a time and place in existence. Whatever the answers, one naked truth stands absolute. None shall leave the Ivory Halls."

Quite a few million years later than their reptilian namesakes, Skraeckoedlan is leaving their own footprints in earth’s soil, albeit not as physically grand. Their self-proclaimed fuzz-science fiction rock is an homage to the riff, vehemently echoing throughout the ages like that of a gargantuan Brachiosaurus striding freely. Equal in weight to the deafening heaviness of a Skraeckoedlan melody, these long-necked colossals further possess in their very defining feature the weapon needed for a complete experience of such melodies. Although strong neck or not, once in concert heads will, regardless of intent, be moving along.

Through their natively sung lyrics Skraeckoedlan invites us to partake in a world of cosmic awe inhabited by mythological beings and prehistoric beasts, like the immense havoc wreaking reptilian awakening from its slumber in the polar ice caps, featured on the debut full-length Äppelträdet (The Apple Tree), or the reclusive great ape Gigantos, solemnly wandering his mountain as one of several entities on the follow-up, Sagor (Tales). Against backdrops like these, underlying themes of the aforementioned big picture-nature are being explored, much in the spirit of, and hugely inspired by, great minds such as Alan Watts and Carl Sagan, fantastic creatures in their own respective rights.

"This song is, more than a part of the concept that is Eorþe, a story about life and the feelings of utter hopelessness our seeming oddity of an existence can often give rise to. It is a song about letting go and leaving behind. It’s about shattering the societal mirror and its reflection of illusionary demands and expectations, leaving your unhindered gaze looking ahead, to where your true calling lies. In short, it is a song about becoming truly free."

Formed in the city of Norrköping in 2009, Skraeckoedlan -- a reference to ‘Godzilla’ in Swedish -- are one of the most ambitious, original and multidimensional bands to emerge from Scandinavia in recent years.

Live shows with the likes of Orange Goblin, Kylesa, Greenleaf and other giants of the genre followed in the wake of Äppelträdet’s success and in 2015, with production underway on their follow-up album Sagor (Translated; ‘Tales’) Skraeckoedlan worked with a number of acclaimed producers including Niklas Berglöf (Ghost, Den Svenska Björnstammen) and Daniel Bergstrand (Meshuggah, In Flames, El Caco).

It wasn’t however until they met producer and technician Erik Berglund that they really found what was missing. Lifting the band to entirely new levels of musicianship, under his tutelage the creative process for Sagor not only left the band with an album they were immensely proud of, but one that sat deservedly at number two in the national Swedish vinyl sales chart in August of 2015.

"This song depicts the now submerged Doggerland as seen from the perspective of one of the mammoths who the continent used to house. In fact, we see through the eyes of Doggerland’s very last mammoth as its time amongst the living draws to a close. We occupy its head as thoughts of death and liberation mixes in a flurry of emotion and contemplation. Its destiny shared with the land upon which it walks, our traveler of tusk and wool journeys towards its final resting place while the North Sea rises ever higher, soon to swallow it all."

Like Galactus-in-reverse, their talent for constructing new worlds from the building blocks of heavy psychedelia and progressive rock is simply awe inspiring, and this February will see the release of their most accomplished vision yet: Eorþe (translated, "Earth").

In collaboration with sci-fi author Nils Håkansson who wrote the story behind the album specifically for Skraeckoedlan, Eorþe is set in the 1920s amid a mystery heavy with Lovecraftian influence and philosophical nuances. As the band explains, “This is by far our most ambitious work of art yet. It’s been a real challenge to do someone else’s story justice whilst making the songs cohesive as well as standing strong on their own. It took a lot of effort, but we’ve done just that.”

Having loyally served as heralds to Nordic folklore and science fiction since their inception, following the release of their early EPs in 2010 the band gained the kind of attention that could only lead on to the creation of a much-admired debut album in Äppelträdet (2011, translated; ‘The Apple Tree’) produced by Oskar Cedermalm from the legendary fuzz band Truckfighters.

Earth by Skraekoedlan

Heading into 2019 with the help of Fuzzorama Records, Skraeckoedlan steer a course to Eorþe, their first album in over three years and undoubtedly their most progressive. With the big metal riffs of ‘Kung Mammut’ riding shotgun alongside the more introspective and explorative moments of songs like ‘Mammutkungens Barn’ and ‘Angra Mainyu’, the trio have cut a definitive and spellbinding record of light and dark.

In addition to the CD and standard vinyl editions, Eorþe will also come in a limited-edition box set which sees the album split across two gatefold vinyl records: Earth: Above and Earth: Below. The set will come packed with pieces of merchandise that revolve around the story and feature alternative artwork.

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[the-infamous-mister-gates]

The Fury of Mother Bangkok

          There’s a reason why you dream what you dream. It’s something you hope for, but know that you’ll never get it. It will never happen. I learned a long time ago that it wasn’t about capturing a dream…

          It was about chasing it.

         There was one dream I had, where I would be laying in a wide-open wheat field looking up at the orange twilight of the engulfing dusk.  A spacious blue sky littered with pink clouds shaped like mythic beings: dragons, slithering in the crisp air; a mighty phoenix, its wings spread over the horizon; angel eyes made of fire, burning with intense love and mystery. The poetic existence of all these mesmerizing creatures broke into obscurity in the wake of the night.

         There was nothing to chase in a peaceful dream like that. I could find books detailing symbolism, analogies, and possible meanings, but in a way that would spoil what I already have: A vivid realm different from my life that I could escape to.

.   .   .   .

         There were poets and dancers. There were male escorts and silver tongue pimps. There was the underbelly that smelled of cheap cigars, body spray fragrances, and ammonia. Neon lights reflected in marble polished columns and chrome bar counters. A jugular of festive business men stroking the legs of servers, who brought mixed refreshments poured in glittering glasses.   Entertainers were situated in the center of the abyssal ballroom where masked men and women copulated in a pit of velvet ambrosia.

         Many people came here to witness the cross-cultured display of feverous engorge; the execrable wonders of snakes molesting women in a pool of cloudy water.  Spotlights and stage lights spraying the bodies with a gleam of patronage, unwilling to remove their ethereal stare like a perverted God in the absence of an unforgiving way of life. Off-duty cops and underage girls drinking in leather booths where stains of blood and cum reside under their feet.

         I stand between it all, the lone American among the locals of a foreign city, with scars on my body hidden from sight until the audience is worthy to see them.  I don’t know what year this is or what day of the week it could be, let alone the month.  I did not exist for those things.  I lived in the now. Not the past or the future.  I traded a moment for a moment with brutality and blackouts; the occasional companion and the mornings after.

Excess, no less

Pushing fingers into flesh

Zealous, Jealous

Devil woman tell us

       Heavy synth music matches my pulse as I gaze over the occupants.  Some were laughing and talking, others motioning some to go under the tables and unbutton their pants.  Disco ball lights and shining stars reflecting in the glass frames of an elder gentleman petting a young man with cold sores on his lips and bruises on his face.

         My eyes see the truth in the complex feeding off of Mother Bangkok, the place where we go to die and be reborn in a stew of depravity. If I could cut open all these people and spill their guts, all there would be is sludge and gunk within. These incestuous machines eating and throwing up one another over candle lit tables, calling it love and nurturing, filling their wombs with worms and digesting fluids from oozing statuettes.

         I can see the show in the middle conclude.  A wave of applause scatters around as the horny little masked performers walk off the center stage. The custodian boys run quickly to clean the stage for the next act. I turn my head to the main bar.  The man there looks at me and raises his hand displaying five fingers to remind me of the time I have left until show time. I nod to him subtlety.  I walked away from the main scene to the bathrooms. I approached the urinal and relieved myself. I noticed graffiti on the rustic green wall:

Mother Superior sucked me off twice

And Daddy Vader put me in a vice

And so it all goes

Long live the show

It’s a maze and we’re the mice

         I flushed the urinal and walked up to the restroom sink.  My senses begin to absorb the surrounding nuances in the restroom:  The flickering of the half-broken florescent bulb above my head; the buzzing of the mating flies in the top corner window; the boosted bass of the outside bar music; the vacant reflection looking back at me in the fractured mirror.

   I crack my neck and my back loudly. I wash my hands thoroughly. I pull out some paper towels and dry my hands completely. I look at myself in the mirror.  I flex my arms and raise them in front of my asymmetrical face. I crack my fingers and my back again. I roll my shoulders and slap my face. I smack the paper towel dispenser and walk out. I go through the back dressing rooms. The blind masseur was loosening the muscles of the performers as I walk past the dark rooms where questionable things happen all the time.

   Before I walk out into the main stage, I look to my right and see her: a slim young woman in a blood red dress and dark make-up.  Her southeastern Asian complexion glossed with natural shine. She looked at me worrisomely.  I stared back and winked.  She forced a small smile in return. At that moment, ear-encapsulating electronica music summoned my presence into the small area of the central stage where just previously, seven people were fucking each other for a hundred people to see. As I walked out, cheers and hollers of praise could be heard, accompanied with an equal amount of boos and detestable rants. I removed my suit jacket and shirt when I walked into the middle stage. The spotlight beamed down on my body like an alien ship. I rolled my head and loosened my body, revealing the gratuitous scars over my muscular definition and vascularity, inflicted from past fights and brawls.

         My opponent was a massive South Korean thug for a local black market operation. He sat in a chair, infuriated and tense like some savage giant.  The bartender walks into the middle and calls for us to enter the center.  My opponent stands up. He’s tall, I’ll give him that, but there is no way he’s fast.

   The barkeep says his name is Dae-Su. As the fight is approved, Dae-Su lunges forward and tries to grab me with both his arms. Stupid first move.  I saw that coming a mile away.  I duck and swoop around, planting my hard knuckles into his side.  He swings around; I duck again.  He grabs a chair and hurls it towards me.  I raise my arms up and try to block the shattering wood.  I fall over, anyone would.  Dae-Su kicks me in the chest.  I can hear the cheering over the booming music. You would think this happens so fast, but to me, it’s like fighting on the moon.  I feel weightless and serene.  The sound is muffled over the vacuum of space.  Everything moves in slow motion: the blood, the fists, and the crowd; it’s beautiful.

         I grab a beer bottle and break it over Dae-Su’s fat head.  I see some blood fly as he yells in pain, trying to cover his face.  I raise my arm up and punch him right in the left temple.  He goes down but gets back up.  Dae-Su stumbles like a hippo with Down syndrome.  I thrust my knuckles into the side of his face and watch as a patch of skin is ripped open by the sheer velocity of my strength.  I knock him to the floor. The crowd demands I finish him.  They want me to fuel their bloodlust.

   I was their vicarious avatar for relentless rage. They didn’t see some goon getting beat up.  They saw their bosses, their daughter’s boyfriend, their wives, their school rivals, their wives’ lovers, their father, their mother, their church pastor. They even saw God there being pulverized and beaten to a pulp by me.  By the time I’m done, Dae-Su’s face looks like the inside of a cherry pie.

   I stand up from Dae-Su’s body. The cheering pencil-pushers and government officials soon begin to really look at what I’ve done.  The voices cease into an eerie silence that welcomes the feuding guilt to twist their stomachs.  Noticing the change in atmosphere, the club music of Mother Bangkok turns back on as a couple of guys take Dae-Su’s body to the back.  I look over the silent faces, all blinking and coming to terms with what they just experienced and how they felt about it: They enjoyed it.  They would be back for more no matter how appalled they might feel or how drunk they are.

Meretricious and vicious

Her lips so delicious

Crimson red, silky bed

Sins welcoming the dead

               I pull a towel from the back room and head upstairs.  I live in one of the many apartments above Mother Bangkok.  In my room waiting is my little diva singer.  Her red dress hung over my desk chair. She’s waiting for me on my bed.  She helps me in and puts me to sleep, watching me and cleaning my wounds.

   This place hidden from the all-seeing eyes, but seen from those with all views of humanity, my iron-crafted home where fury bludgeons the underground dwellers and profiteers as souls, deplete and run dry like a desert thirst.

   Among Elephant Kings and She-male prostitutes, I’m a wanderer and deserter with no dreams that can soothe the painful embrace of such a hell.  The diva’s touch keeps the wrath of the begging dragon at bay, but the dreams I pursue nourish my longing.

   How simple a dream is to obtain when it’s the sky of your home far away.  The voices of Mother Bangkok tempt and revitalize, never letting go, but infuriating my sole purpose to fight, to please and satisfy.  The Diva and I, both are children to a Dragon and a Fury that birthed the cataclysmic endeavor of lost dreams and never-ending brawls.

   My dream has been captured, and I go on chasing it and the ones that have claimed it.

[trashthebreadburnthecircus-blog]

002. Better Progressive Living via Content (?)

Let's look at three options for how we can consume content and what, if any, effect it might have out in the real world:

1. You consume content, and other than possibly provoking some thought or discussion, you interact with it purely on a consumption level.

2. Content presents a progressive worldview which acts as a precursor to action in the real world.

3. Conversely to #2, Content can be used to subtly reinforce the most base kind of idiotic thinking, which is then used in the real world to do harm.

And of course there are more than these three options for people's interactions with The Lord Thy God Content. I'm using a few points to try and figure out if there are some larger conclusions to be had! So get off your high horse and stop being so goddamn judge-y. In this post, I'll address those first two items, because the third one needs a bit more unpacking (also, I've thought about item #3 more. I hope my rigorous and consistent methodology keeps you coming back).

---

Let's start with option #1, which is how entertainment has mostly been framed since television was called “the idiot box.” This simplistic analysis isn't totally without merit though, right? I mean, how many times have you been out in the world with people just sitting there transfixed to their phones? How many times have you yourself been at home transfixed to your phone (or your tablet or computer or whatever)? As previously mentioned, the house of worship for the religion of Content is wherever you can access it.

The knockoff effect that I'm putting forth is simply this: that ease of access makes us lazy, and it reduces our empathy to boot (MUCH more about that in a future post). What's more fun and entertaining? Watching people fight for what's right in a make-believe-though-it's-about-current-politics-wink-wink scenario where the chances are they will succeed after 13 episodes? Or going out and fighting for what's right in the real world, for some indeterminate amount of time, in which you may or may not win, and on top of that your boss is being an asshole and your partner is probably thinking about breaking up with you and how much longer are your savings going to allow you to keep fighting the good fight and oh fuck why is the dog barking?

Depress people's wages, make them more stressed out, make the need to escape ever-increasing, and then give them 500+ options of shit to watch that will cover the gamut of their emotions. Boom, done. The God Content has got you covered. Just sit back, because consumption is the only action needed.

---

But can it be that Content can actually get people up off their ass? Instead of keeping us planted in our seats, is it possible Content might do the flip? Some examples are instructive in this regard.

The first and main example that comes to mind was actually the impetus for this post. Specifically, I was thinking about The Handmaid's Tale. The show and the book are almost two different takes – the show could be considered an expanded universe that was originally set up in the book. And throughout the show, as you watch it, you can see that “oh, this is an analog to what could happen (or is beginning to happen) in the near future based on what is happening now” type thing. Because now, we have women dressed as handmaids popping up in real life, protesting legislation that would further reduce the already marginalized rights of women.

Which got me to thinking – were these women already going to protest? Has protesting become some version of FOMO in these modern times, in which a person can feel like they are missing out on social action as much as they are missing out on the never-ending vacation of their favorite IG celebrity? (And if it is: GOOD!). Did the show encourage their activism? (And a devils' advocate question: has anyone changed their belief system after watching THT that wasn't onboard with those politics in the first place?) Because here's the thing – by the simple act of doing a handmaid cosplay, these women are able to convey a whole system of complex thoughts regarding the potential subjugation of women and the current (and possible future) effects of the patriarchy.

Another example, slightly further back, is Anonymous. It seems like a real long time ago, but it's just been over a decade. The Guy Fawkes V for Vendetta mask became a symbol of a fight against a totally, very chill, this-is-definitely-not-a-business “religion” named Scientology, which, from all accounts, treats anyone who wants to leave in a exceedingly respectful manner that isn't at all unhinged or dangerous or scary in any kind of way. Again, a singular object from popular entertainment is transformed into something else, a shorthand script that can encapsulate larger ideas and communicate them immediately between like minds.

And while those two examples are of a type of cosplay used in direct action (and I'm not using that terminology to denigrate it – if that's what gets people going to fight against what Colin of Slice Harvester would call our Sick Fuckin Society, hell, cosplay it up), there's a whole other discussion of using media (or more precisely, a media delivery service) for the good, and that is in organizing. From the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter to the current protests in Hong Kong, there is proof, time and again, that social media networks, as fucked up and myopic and self-serving as they can be, have the potential to be used to marshal people for the forces of progress.

And I don't mean to shortchange any of those examples of mass protest, but they have been written about and dissected by many others in much deeper and thorough ways. I bring all the examples up to return to option #2 – there are ways in which popular entertainment and social networks, whether they mean to or not, can and have given people the power or the courage or whatever they need to stand up against the bullshit. Will this happen more in the future? There's so much wrong with the world. If Content can push someone in a positive direction, do we accept that, hoping that it's the beginning of a person's awakening?

And what happens when or if Content pushes them in the other direction? You'll have to wait until the next post to find out–

[holdencaulf1eld]

Ex nihilo nihil fit

Ex nihilo nihil fit

July 12, 20xx

Dear Froggy,

I fear that I have turned into a ghost. My hands have stopped working the way they’re supposed to. Now, they’re always shaking and fidgeting as if looking for something that cannot be found or cannot be held. I don’t notice it but sometimes my nails dig into the palms of my hand. Now there are tiny scars that form to showcase my anxiety. My words escape my mouth, tumbling over each other in an attempt to make sense of things.  I feel like I am only half submerged in the tides of this life. I am almost certain that I am slipping into oblivion.

xx

July 19, 20xx

Dear Froggy,

I think I am jealous. By jealous I actually mean there is this giant green-eyed monster that is twisting and turning in its uncomfortable cradle inside of me. (also, by cradle I mean prison) Maybe, I’m taking things a little too far by calling it a monster but what difference does it make, really? 

We’ve all got monsters inside of us anyway. 

But I am getting ahead of myself with that one. 

What I really mean to say is, I am jealous.

Hold on.

Perhaps jealous is not the right term for it. It just doesn’t seem to cut it. I think maybe, I am full of resentment. There, that’s the word. Resentment. It is malevolent, vindictive, and unforgiving enough to encapsulate what I feel. But what’s new? I always have been the epitome of those words after all.

But this entry isn’t about me. It is about her. Wow, and here I thought no word could sound worse than “shit” or “moist” even “phlegm” (man, those are some really gross words) and then comes the word Her. Look at how the word drips with spiteful undercurrents and promises of tequila shots on Friday nights.

I won’t say her name because my tongue fills up with gunpowder waiting to explode.

xx

August 29, 20xx

Dear Froggy,

She says she never wants to grow up.

I guess we have that in common.

I’m sure I don’t want to grow up. But only because I’m still waiting for my bubblegum pink walls and a mother to sing me lullabies to calm the monsters in the closet.

xx

September 13, 20xx

Dear Froggy,

I wonder if her father calls her his little princess, tucks her in at night in her canopy bed as he promises her he would catch all the stars for her if she wanted and put them in a mason jar right beside her bed.

I wonder if my father thinks twice about which hand he uses to strike me.

I wonder if he looks at the marks on my face and the red rings that circle my arms and regrets every bit of it.

xx

September 24, 20xx

Dear Froggy,

There is a boy a few hundred miles away that helps with the shaking.

But he loved her first.

He loved her first.

He loved her first.

He loved her first.

xx

September 25, 20xx

Dear Froggy,

He says he doesn’t love her anymore and swears that he’s moved on.

I don’t believe a single word of it.

You can blow out a match but you can’t tame a forest fire.

xx

October 30, 20xx

Dear Froggy,  

It’s funny because whenever he describes his ideal girl he doesn’t use adjectives. Instead he whispers a name. 

Gunpowder, again. 

xx

November 12, 20xx

Dear Froggy,

They say that the most broken people are also the most beautiful.

If that is true then why is it that I feel like a thousand natural disasters

every time I compare myself to her?

xx

November 20, 20xx

Dear Froggy,

I think my palms have formed tiny nail shaped constellations.

The marks are still pinkish and in the threshold of bleeding.

xx

November 28, 20xx

Dear Froggy,

I can count the number of times my mother has uttered the words “I love you” to me in one hand. Because of this, I don’t think I ever really learned what the phrase should sound like. But what I do know is, the way she said it to me and to my father was not it. I don’t know whether it was her intonation or her pronunciation or maybe it is the way her voice sounded weary and unsure as if she was making a promise she already knew she could not keep.

I bet she knows just the way an “I love you” should sound like.

I bet they were hand picked and delivered right at her doorstep by the most careful of hands.

I bet she probably has a string of those words tapered across her bedroom wall for all the world to see.

I bet she’ll never have to live a day worrying about the sincerity of those words because she is foreign to the possibility of an unsafe “I love you”

I bet all the times my mother said I love you to me that she will always have an “I love you” waiting for her at the end of the day. But that’s a wager that isn’t worth much.

xx

December 1, 20xx

Dear Froggy,

She——-

Nope, not even gonna bother with this one.

xx

December 15, 20xx

Dear Froggy,

Today someone called me beautiful.

A little boy the age of about 4-5 asked me if I was a fairy straight from a Disney classic because he swore he saw me leave a trail of fairy dust in my wake and that he’s never seen someone who looked like they always belonged somewhere else. Somewhere better.

Today someone called me beautiful.

Yea, I’m just as confused as you are 

xx

December 17 , 20xx

Dear Froggy,

Steady. Steady. Steady.

My hands are slowly learning the art of steadiness.

xx

December 29, 20xx

Dear Froggy,

I am sitting in P’s front seat watching the pitter-patter of raindrops on his window. The scars on the insides of my hands have begun disappearing; little by little the indentations have lightened.

I turn to P and crumble at the sight of him, smiling eyes and crooked teeth.

I burst out crying, floodgates of all my uncertainties gushing out. I tell him all about the girl, my father and mother. He takes my hand and asks me to describe the color gold without saying the color itself.

I tried and laughed at the futility of it all.

He tells me that’s what its like to have me in his life, a constant battle to describe his favorite color without words.

Apparently, I am his golden girl.

He tells me I am like those crazy Friday nights and cozy Sunday mornings all rolled into one.

He tells me I am Tokyo when cherry blossoms bloom and Santorini in the summer when the sun kisses the clear blue water and docks welcome back fishermen to their wistful wives.

He told me the first time he heard me cry was the first time he understood what heartbreak felt like.

I turn away because of the utter stupidity of all his stupid analogies (and yes, i’m aware i’ve used stupid one too many times today) so I gaze out through the windowpane. He laughs, I melt into the folds of his familiarity.

He drives away, across the freeway and into the fog. I fall asleep.

Heart on my sleeves bleeding gold and blue.

December 31, 20xx

Dear Froggy,

I guess its okay that I’m a little shattered. 

I guess I have come to terms that there are people like her and then there are people like me. Relish in the dichotomy of it all. 

I guess its fine that he loved her first. After all, If P can see me this way I’m sure he can too.

I guess the world will just have to make space for a thousand separate graves because I fully intend to leave this life this fragmented.

I guess I’ll just have to face my wonderful God, resplendent in all His glory and say to him “I am nothing now. I have given every part of me away to those who needed it. This is me, stripped and bare. To dust I have returned.”

ex nihilo nihil fit

xx

[areyoueallyreadingthisright-blog]

**Dear Gun Violence**

(A satirical pen-pal letter to Gun Violence)

Dear Gun Violence,

How the hell are you, you son of a bitch?

I thought we talked about this already, you can’t just keep showing up and ruining the mood all the time. You're being a total square GV. We strictly wanted either one of the two situations to unfold; something involving an organized crime shoot-out or some act of terrorism involving the use of the 2nd Amendment to justify racially charged acts of “Pre-emptive protection,” since it seems like that’s the stuff that you and your pals are so infatuated with nowadays.

Anyway, I just wanted to send this letter to check-up on you; I hope things have been going well since, like the beginning of time since guns were invented. No foul intention mind you; Life is a beast and you just have to handle the beast sometimes, we get it.

But the truth behind this is that there's a collection of scenes, a collection of emotions and ideals that are coupled with unbridled anger either in the form of fear “inferiority” or malicious intent like “perceived superiority.” But where does this anger stem? And is it even anger in some cases? I think that’s the biggest question that we’ve been tackling lately with relation to firearms in general.

In my opinion we treat firearms the same way that we treat monster trucks. At face value they both are impressive pieces of machinery in their own right. Both very capable of harboring destruction when used in tandem with initiative. So why am I trying to make this an analogy you might ask? Think about it, monster trucks themselves are pretty cool; and yeah, maybe their purpose for carnal entertainment is sometimes a bit overrated. But what is fascinating about those kinds of places? And one of the reasons why live music is so encapsulating to so many people. Ontological Design; a device used to recreate mystical and almost magical moments. A place or places “where things happen” that transcend all things and creates its own matter and gravitational force to supplement its existence. Like live music and monster trucks and firearms, they all evoke a rare facet of sometimes perturbing but also very real ideas that we inherit or subconsciously recognize simply based on the association that we have with that particular object. Many times it's by way of feelings that we have carried and stuck with throughout our lives. Memories or some asphyxiation of the real world that grants the phantom memories of those histories.

Or I suppose in other cases, we are persuaded with a very well presented "story" of how , for some apparently *God-granted* reason we are supposed to follow in the footsteps of someone we've never met, and in order to be successful in the after-life, we need to carry-out these acts of "religious freedom" against people who are  identified as a “perceived threat” (see retribution) based on pure speculation. Speculation that stems from uncertainty, irrational fear, or even some hocus-pocus tradition that has insinuated some level of aggression or distaste to an individual group of people for no reason other than to maintain conventionalism.

So all these things considered, many of the conflicts that arise from these "ontological awakenings" typically tend to evoke combat or confrontation, often in the form of a battle with words, maybe sometimes staged as acts of pride under the guise of fear. Mind you, this is still very much a perception of my own understanding of how the presence of firearms has influenced and molded our history and society.

And yet one of the things that I've thought about lately in relation to firearms is this "evoking initiative" sensation that people experience when they are situated in these positions of "perceived-power." What is it about being at a live performance or attending a monster truck show that makes them so captivating. For example, most people would be fairly neutral about monster trucks in general, simply because their level of engagement with monster trucks is fairly low on the scale of "things I interact with on a daily basis." But let's say you get VIP Tickets to the monster show and are offered the chance to ride in a monster truck with a professional. What say your response? (Most would answer Yes! Because when's the next time this will be an opportunity?) So what happens after the professional sit-in with a monster truck driver? You might feel totally different; whether the outcome was positive or negative, since you are eventually exposed to that mentality of "carnage and destruction," a very basic yet powerful level of subconscious influence, especially if you're not aware of it to begin with. You get that dosage of "fulfillment" or "rush." Like the phenomenon "runner's high," which is a big release of endorphins (chemicals in your body similar to morphine) that give runners a very euphoric "feel-good" feeling after long runs.

That's how I feel we think about firearms in the United States. With that same reverence, that same deep respect. But where does the line begin to blur? At what point do we undermine the importance of emphasizing civility at the cost of perpetuating our conventionalism? If conventionalism is similar to tradition then why are some of us so unwilling to pass our traditions aside for the sake of saving innocent lives?

I guess it really just boils down to how much individuals respect others and what the cost of a life is to them. Maybe many of those individuals who prefer to live in exclusivity value the life of another individual less, since they would typically have less human interaction (not always the case, but a heavy generalization) compared to someone who lived in a populated urban area. If that's the case - do these individuals get to offer the same level of opinion as others do? Despite them being a product of their own design.

And that's really when we step into various theories of gun control and the presence of firearms in society today. We are too inundated with pursuing so many agendas related to firearms that we sort of just let the river run under the bridge; totally disregarding that the river is running red with blood. So where does this "evoking initiative" narrative come into play? When people are often found in "the zone," what's the last thing that they're thinking about? Literally anything else beside whatever it is that they're occupied with. So if we take any of the most recent events related to school shootings within the past 20 years, there's somehow this very common thread of why these individuals felt compelled to proceed how they did. (Lack of social connection, victim of bullying, mental health issues gone unaddressed, etc).  Pair that with the mysticism and sheer level of “perceived-power” of a firearm, and you can imagine why so many of these tragic incidents are occurring where they are.

                We look at how the structure of the American Education system has evolved throughout the past couple decades, and we find an environment that has dramatically shifted from embracing an ideal of community in schools and instead has been substituted (almost like a vacuum) with social media. The tolerance of instant gratification has raised alarmingly fast. My age-bracket being at the very cusp of that start. Yet this idealization of instant gratification has left teachers with pop quizzes and paper text-books to compete with their attention? It’s no wonder the United States suffered a deficit of public educators, school teachers, or mentors. So how does the attention of social media influence the proverbial “playground” in the public education system in today’s world?

At times (especially in schools) I think that social media becomes this poisonous medium of public humiliation, self-inflicted isolation, and a reinforcement of fabricated realities where we are defeated and choose to fill in the gaps of others’ lives so that we want to make what seems like a great story/life just perfect.

And of course another result of immersion into instant gratification is this idea of PCT (problem centric thinking). This framework of thinking that is devoid of highlighting the successes or goals in your day-to-day, but instead grinds you for the mistakes or failures that you’ve run into. It’s a combination of pessimism and cynicism rolled up and presented in a way that made me think, “This is normally how people feel everyday.” I couldn’t have been further from the truth. The whole “no pain, no gain” mantra sort of resonates when I find myself falling into the problem centric thinking. This idea that suffering needs to take place before growth can ensue. Sufferance is a very powerful emotion, but I don’t think its part of the recipe for growth.

On top of everything else, its this thought of how unlikely it seems to use weapons against others with whom you share no past. While there is definitely a correlation based on the level of isolation someone may be feeling or who they attribute as a catalyst in their life up until this point; but why is there such a commitment with firearms that we see a split between victims that either had significant relations with or absolutely no relation with? At this point the genesis of motivation is less of a cause and more of a symptom. We are so quick to place accusations based on very generalized or reinforced ideas of why the perpetrator did what they did. And yet we see that these individuals are willing to carry-out violence or aggression in environments they have little to no past or association with.

But who I am to say any of this isn’t difficult for you, Gun Violence? The invention of the firearm was inevitable. But I think the excuse for “ensuring protection” and “keeping the peace” or better yet, offering our “thoughts and prayers” as solace has turned this whole get-up into some “down-range” demonstration of potentially religious, racist, and emotional acts of violence at the cost of I honestly don’t know how many lives have been lost. The thought that even in as much of this text that I’ve written, the names of the victims alone would vastly outweigh my character limit for, I don’t know, the next couple pages most likely is haunting.

And it sickens me to know this is something I have to live with every day.

But really Gun Violence (GV), I understand you have to get out those really juvenile urges, so it’s important that you express yourself in ways that make you, you. I know you’re not a very popular pick amongst the majority, so maybe its best if you pursue a career that fits you more appropriately. Like for example, I would probably suggest attending and/or ruining events for Water Guns fights. Or if you’re feeling more PG-13, maybe even show up to Nerf Gun fights at 12-year olds parties if you really want to act like the sick fuck you are. All-in-all, we love to see you go [forever] and get really disappointed and annoyed when I have to see you on TV again. Like almost as disappointed and annoyed at the frequency of how many times I feel like Amber Alerts need to be matched to the same intensity for a Tweet onslaught by our POTUS. Like, I need to know that I should be preparing myself for what’s to come, you know? I can’t casually receive Critical Updates about our Government through a social media platform only designed for 140 characters (honestly feel like the only reason they upped the limit is because of Donald Trump).

But, go take care of yourself GV, okay? You could always try going after laser tag, ya know? You tried that back in 80s, 1979 to be exact. Didn’t really work out for you, huh? Couldn’t really make a career out of it, shame.  Are you still disappointed that laser tag isn’t a full contact sport? Or is it that Star Wars made super unrealistic expectations about lasers and blasters?

You know, you know what, you don’t need to be doing this GV. We had some good times. Some really really great times. And they were usually always when you weren’t around. And by “we” I mean literally everyone else. I know you have your enemies out there; like gun control or fingerprint-enabled security. I get it, you're just not the one we’re looking for when we’re trying to make change. We have a system in place for that, sort of.

What I don’t understand is that we are constantly being told by a system that we believe is “protecting us” (or at least it should be). So why are you pushing so hard to get people to remember who you are, Gun Violence? The real question is when we are we going to be focusing on the other factor playing into this mess? Stop trying to make Gun Violence a thing, it’s never going to be a thing. Considering your age I can understand why you’re so reluctant to go away. But stop making appearances at the drop of a hat; you’re not a reality that I want to engage with. There are guns, and then there’s violence. They can occur together but that does not justify your existence to continually propagate the idea that guns are inherently violent.  

Also, stop this nonsense like you are always innocent in the face of these tragedies. You berate these people who feel compelled to take action with firearms, and then try to completely disregard that you were an accomplice in the whole situation. It’s as if to spite them for being victims of a nihilistic world that you made. You keep trying to hide behind this idea that there are other people/things to blame for this uprising. And you’re right. It’s hard to overtake a castle with a super-fortress and an army of people. But if you take away the fortress, you only get the people. That’s the point I’m trying to get across; that’s what all these letters have been about. I know you enjoy being recognized because that’s the only thing that we can seem to keep trending in the United States in this era, but I refuse to remain silent while you continue to exist openly.

Your coming-to-be was both unwarranted and unwelcome simultaneously. Like making a gurnt (which I’ve been told is just a loud excessive queef made from a woman sitting on an exercise ball) while lying face-down on a massage table. That’s all I really wanted to say to you after all this time, GV. Sometimes you don’t want to deal with a woman farting profusely on an exercise ball; but someone is gonna have to face the music and tell her that vaginal flatulence on a public piece of equipment is gross and uncivil. Shit, even if it was her own exercise ball, that’s still gross.

If a restraining order could be filed against intangible concepts that are used to further push an unnecessary divide you know we fucking would,

The Internetional Fireworks Association (IFA)*

* = Actually the International Fireworks Association

[theartofwarword]

Bill White -profile

All rights reserved © 2018, –author, USTAKNOW (alias)

(In 3 Part Harmony –part 1 of 3; all three below)

Until they throw dirt in your face, let them throw dirt… that’s what I say. What do you say?   – Thud, thud, thud…, anyone listening?

I met this guy about a year ago or so on FAWM (FAWM.org), – performer, singer, songwriter, architect of all things visual and audio and mapped to the brain via heart. Interesting, aye? It seems we all gotta little bit of this guy in us and what may all, connect us.

Tell me, who wouldn’t want to read a story about integrity of life, acute politics, high-life nights out, and tastefully refined debauchery?   – Read on.

Yes, it’s about MUSIC. Music and a 50 year in the making craftsman from Seattle Washington, USA, now a Peruvian exile to finally fresh air and great coffee! We should all be so lucky to live in an old Peach Orchard! It’s true. However, like Harlem, NY, it may not be what you think by mere words, – Harlem started as a Dutch outpost, became farmland, then a resort town, then a commuter town,  and it is what it is today… like Bill’s Peach Orchard. Paradise to him because there grows well, his wife, daughter, music and global Internet friend—ships. Here’s one launching now, again.

So, it’s funny how folks across history, lump labels of people, – like, keeping with the old “dirt analogy” attributed to “Farmers” (musicians?) for centuries (of Harlem and Peach Orchards), – “Oh, he’s just a dirt farmer… ”. Like musicians?, easy to forget until some life event you then want a “little music” to go with it. Farmers, – yeah, not important while the A&P is well stocked, – until it’s not.

  – Like the very generic current mainstream corporate music industry of Break-beat re-runs, midi-delic samples from what era sampled?, 1970 – ironic!, (well, if when then from). Then, that silly dirt farmer-musician becomes esteemed genius, warrior of manipulation from the hand of God for food, music and soulful fulfillment, – musician-warrior.

Ah yes, music…, that is what we’re talking about here?, – who can’t listen to music on a full stomach?

Bill White –profile:  (Part 2 of 3)

Consider Bill White, native of (yet again), Washington State, Seattle, USA. Oh my God…, it must be all of the great unending rain watering of all these musicated bands of people like in Alice in Chains, Foo Fighters, Heart, Hendrix –Experience, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, SoundGarden, and even before them Bing Crosby and still plucking strings Carol Kaye, et al! (Not all “great”, but from Washington State and arguably influential musicators.) Within our time line of music encapsulating Bill’s mainstream antithesis, we in brief see that the ‘60’s resolved the '50’s, influencing the '70’s which then moved bands of musicians forward which landed in the '90’s, –after commercial boundaries of the '80’s caged originality. Within that mix too, was Bill White, –doing his thing. Nirvana, Pearl Jam peaked from under the corporate music rubble with others of a different voice yet, like Alice in Chains. Black Sabbath becoming cliché yielding to –aggression of posture within music. Kurt Cobain’s kinda dark became loved, while monolithic riff monsters fell off the radar for real performing songwriting sung to a not yet commercialized audience laughing at the “devils triad” now ~“Beat” to death by corporate formulations. Within that mix too, was Bill White, –doing his thing. Depression, Disillusionment, Spiritual R&B Folk Grunge, (what the hell is grunge anyway?), had many players, and Bill White was one of them…, down in the “dirt of choice” to do their music as they saw fit, just like they brushed their teeth, and bathed themselves each night, –they did their music.  

  –Not for sale, unless taken as-is in the paradigm of which this all started down in the Delta, and American Slave Fields before all that birthed in the 1970’s “Rock Band Era” that bridge over to today’s now, – in peril music. 

Independent musicians are the new forever, suicide tide of music and Bill White was there 50 years ago, and still here TODAY and will be tomorrow until they are throwing fine Peruvian soil on his road worn “music factory”, temple of his music souled body, –birthed so many years ago from his parents love. – “Mom, said, never let the Blues leave your music.“ (Bill White, 2017)  

Bill White –profile: (Part 3 of 3)

Bill White was recently asked ”what do performing songwriters talk about" when they get together? Bill said, in summary, –nothing. He explains across a number of comments that, “they play songs to each other”, or as he said, they share an occasional Snickers Bar if found on he floor of the car they’re riding in, next to the soap.

I can only guess Tom Waits, part of this coming story comment, –was living out of his car at the time. Nice poetic license! However, Waits was actually living at the West HolLywood Tropicana Motel, Santa Monica Blvd. (click to follow link), and I understand this may be the car of which we speak, Tom Waits Lincoln (click to follow link). –Nice visual frame of reference for the rest below

So then, proceeding, Bill comments: “what does one talk about with Tom Waits? Barber shops, the statues of horse jockeys on the lawns of Beverly Hills mansions, – seldom about songwriting unless it is a question of what to name your female characters. The more you try to define something, the smaller cage you make for it.” Bill continued with: “Songwriters don’t so much talk about songwriting, as play each other the songs they have written and then talk about them specifically. Waits, played me a song once he was excited about because it sounded like a Springsteen song. Several years later there it was, –on a Springsteen album, ‘Jersey Girl’. Then he said he wasn’t going to make any more Jazz albums because, the company didn’t promote them.” Bill then explains: “when I started out on music, the people who were famous were famous because they were better than everyone else. In those days, my work was inferior to almost everything you would hear on the radio. Of course in those days we didn’t have the resources to approximate the quality of the top recordings. If you wanted to get the Clapton or the Hendrix sound, you had to work hard to figure out how they did it. Today you just push a button on your pod and you can sound like anybody you want. So at first there was no question of fame. It just was never going to happen. But then, after keeping at it for over a decade, the industry started to show interest in me.” Then Bill says something I personally have heard many times, and at risk of inserting myself here will say I did that too, in preface to the below comment, 

  –he ran. 

Bill explains: “I was a peer to my peers. although never successful in the songwriting business, I made more money at being a failure than 99% of the wannabes who fumbled around the streets of Hollywood with a cassette demo in their shirt pocket. Then a manager who was tiring of the monotonous fame of the super-group he managed showed an interest in developing my band, and I fled!!! The last thing I wanted was to sound like the shit I heard, and hated on the radio. On my own without a band, I had my good years and my bad years.” From what I hear from Bill, even beyond this one of many conversations with him over the past year is what I’ve observed within myself and as Bill says “there are100,000 other Bill Whites in the world”, – us all … : “I was so far outside what was happening that my stuff never really connected with the local scene in Boston, which is to where I fled. But then came along New England folk music revival. And while some kids were flocking to Seattle in hopes of becoming the new Eddie Vedder, hordes of songwriters were showing up in Harvard Square with dreams of becoming th next Tracy Chapman. With new venues opening for original acoustic music, I was finally able to stabilize myself musically and develop a fanbase. That went on for several productive years until…, bingo! I met Brett Anderson, Lead-singer for the London band "Suede”, and Rock and Roll reclaimed me again. When that scene passed, I moved to the South [southern USA states] where I was befriended by James Blood Ulmer, the most innovative Blues Guitarist since Hendrix. And I was back in the Blues, from where I started so long ago. I then went back to Seattle, worked at borders where I met some 20-something musicians, and became a Lead-guitar player for the first time in my life. Now, stepping away from the Mic and just playing whatever I wanted to play without having to worry if it was going over well with the audience. Finally, I teamed up with Toni Talia Marcus, who had played with Van Morrison from ‘79 to ‘80 and soon had my own band. I was writing new songs again. I always had decent sized audiences, but never built up a real, true fan base. I never stayed in the same location or state of music to be able to do that.” [Toni Marcus , –on the album, “Into the Music” (1979) Van Morrison, played violin, –entire album.] 

So, let me pause here to inject that,      –as I was reviewing the dialog Bill and I had over the past year (you should really read the Forum Posts after FAWM, 50/90 ends), I wondered what I could possibly write about him, worthy of both him and the reader, you-all. I feel anyone who “gets” this narrative will really “get” the state of music today and why it may well be one of the greatest times to be in the “music making” world. 

Bill responded to me when I asked him, –“what am I doing here with all this great real life music history of yours, ours, all of us?”: Bill said,    –“I think the hook in my story was caught by you on a few occasions, and that is…, there are 100,000 Bill Whites in the world. It is a universal story. We 100,000 Bill Whites who have endured, have produced a far greater body of work than the 10,000 successful pop stars who came and went.” –Arguably, the present state of musicators today! It’s why I personally refer to “us-all” as warrior-musicians. 

Bill continues within other comments: “For me, we could start with my archive, [https://billwhite.bandcamp.com].

   – The reasoning behind putting out 50 albums in 6 months, is the current emergence of the Arts, –now that the industry of art is collapsing. Moreover, is my home town state of Seattleists with no interest in becoming famous, and those who did become famous were destroyed by it, in one way or another. I managed to create 59 years worth of music that never stopped evolving because I was never trapped into repeating myself through deadend careerism. There are probably 100,000 Bill Whites in the world, people who have created bodies of work just as immense, diverse, and assured as the discographies of the most famous. There is enough unheard high quality material out there to fill radio play-lists for the next 100 years.” Bill continues: “why post 50 albums of songs I have written over the last 50 years. One reason is that whenever I give my opinion on something, I am asked what I have ever done that I would dare criticize the work of someone well known and loved. Well, now I can point them to the archive and say here, this is what I have done, I've been doing this shit my whole life and have the right to say whatever I want to say about it. Music is a language. Anyone can learn it, but like any other language, the important thing is what you say with it. Had I accepted the route of fame when it was offered me in 1981, I would never have written the songs I ended up writing. I would have had a brief career, and after that, nobody would have wanted to hear anything from me again. “He is so ‘80’s” they would say, and they would confine me there. Worse, I would probably be dead, along with most of the other People from Seattle that went down with the sucker punch of fame. In my life, I have managed to reach thousands of people with my music, and without ever becoming known!!! Now, how many people in their lives even manage to communicate what is inside them to even a dozen people? Not many people I would suspect. But every artist, no matter how obscure, reaches many many people, most of whom he will never know heard him.”

Well that’s true of well know famous, infamous, long time past writers, artists of our ancient past! However, Bill is on a cusp of almost famous, could be famous, should be famous, –one may only wonder. How many artist of any kind never knew their effect, e.g., –Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”, (which is for me two dimensional music), is a global staple, yet he never knew what was to come of his legacy. [https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/the-starry-night/bgEuwDxel93-Pg?hl=en (click link to view)]

It’s interesting to me that we don’t often think about our beginnings until we actually arrive somewhere from which we may look back from and see well what we’ve done. Bill explains: “I started taking songwriting seriously when I traded my trumpet for a guitar in 1970. For several years the results were not very good. I wrote three songs a week to play at the open Mic, and never got much response. I was told my harmonic experiments were interesting, but my lyrics were overly influenced by the poetic theories of Robert Graves, and few people had much idea what I was singing about. Besides, the competition was so strong in those days that my primitive meanderings had no chance in the market. 

It wasn’t until Punk Rock opened peoples ears that I began to connect with the public. I wrote some pretty good stuff from ‘78 to ‘82 and had a decent following for my bands. Then I moved from Seattle to Boston, where nobody knew me. So I languished until ‘86, when I met Tracy Chapman, and a host of others in the New England songwriters revival. I recorded an album, but was dissatisfied with it and used it as a demo. That put me on the Folk circuit for the next five years. 

I also got involved in theater and wrote the scores for two plays that toured Russia. Then Brit-pop hit and I went back to Rock music. So I then moved back to Seattle and started a band with an old friend who had been Soundgarden’s drum tech, now out of work because the band broke up. We recorded an EP, which was enthusiastically received, but there was to much conflict in everybody’s lives so that’s when, [commented above], I headed South, where I was befriended by {James Blood Ulmer who led me into the world of harmolodic Blues. Click link for further} [–Add’l:  Ulmer’s album “Birthright” won Blues Album of the Year, “DownBeat’s” ‘05 Readers Poll. Click link for further.]

I stayed there until I was able to create my own style out of it, and made some 4-track recordings that I liked. However, that self production indie musician quality of that era could not be marketed commercially back then [unlike today’s tech]. So, eventually I returned to Seattle yet again, and wrote music for a young poet I had met. 

We started a band with him as singer and me as guitarist, and had a pretty good run until he got married and disappeared. It was then I teamed up with ex Van Morrison side-woman, violinist Toni Marcus [commented above], and returned to writing for and fronting a band. And as well then, joining a group called “Songwriters in Seattle” spurred me to new creativity in writing. However then [concerning Bills big move to Peru], for many reasons, to many to engage here in this narrative, other than the best one which I am glad to comment, – I then left the country to marry the love of my life, a girl from Peru. Here in Peru is where I discovered FAWM [http://fawm.org/fawmers/billwhite51/, 2014]. 

Now, generally speaking, I only write songs during the month of February, which gives a new cohesion to each group of songs. An exception was made last year, when I participated in 50/90 [http://fiftyninety.fawmers.org/user/billwhite51, 2017]     –which I used primarily as a vehicle to review my output, as well as write over 50 new songs and engaged a few dozen collaborations! 

When that was over, I spent the rest of the year putting together a career spanning 45 albums for Bandcamp [https://billwhite.bandcamp.com, 2018]. This year, 2018, is my fifth FAWM.”

So, Bill, –let’s revisit the above question which is what this discussion was anchored on, “what do performing songwriters talk about” when they get together?” To complete that comment started by Bill above, he provided several anecdotal examples:  

“I was at a wedding with Peter Gabriel, for several hours we hid behind the Crudite Table and said nothing to each other. On another occasion, in the back seat driving down Hollywood Boulevard with Tom Waits in the driver seat, I asked him if I could have the Snickers Bar I found on the floor, he said no, but the bar of soap was mine if I wanted it. Hanging out with Tim Hardin, all I did was look out for him when he was stoned. Another time, I was side by side with Elvis Costello on three occasions, and neither of us spoke a word to each other, as we had not been introduced. I made small talk with Jon Bon Jovi for half an hour backstage, thinking he was a roadie. Another time, I offered a part in a play I had written to Dar Williams, never knowing she was a songwriter, and a brilliant one at that. I asked Marianne Faithful if she would ever do another project with Mick Jagger and she laughed. I asked Rickie Lee Jones when Tom [Waits] would be getting home. I spoke with Lou Reed about the sequencing of the songs on Ecstasy and asked if he had stolen the idea for the cover from a certain unnameable Andy Warhol film. Brett Anderson and I talked for hours about the composition of the songs on Dog Man Star. And so, in brief, with songwriters, the matter of songwriting seldom came up.”

No, it seems we, artists, want to be heard, we want to play our songs and hear others, –it’s how we communicate best. Bill explains his experience with songwriting and feedback from peers: “In my early days of songwriting, I had an extended group of friends in real time and space, and we would talk [unlike on line today] and play and write all day and night, staying up for days sometimes, and always giving each other hell, –no sensitivity training then. But when one of us wrote something good, the praise would fall like rain. Otherwise, we were tough on each other, and each of us had a good idea of where we fit in the grand scheme of things. And we got better and better at what we did. Not because of the praise but because of the criticism. When somebody did something unusual they had to explain it. Now some of those same people are the touchiest creatures on earth. But it took them many years to get to that point where they feel they are beyond criticism. For all you who are new to the art of songwriting, this is no time to be touchy. Ask for the harshest criticism and toughen your skin and improve your craft. Study the odes and practice the forms. I aways like discussing songwriting, but am usually to busy writing songs to spend a lot of time on it, –just discussing it. However, I am glad to have friends here, though [on-line], who bring up the questions that are worth taking the time to ponder.

I spent ten years writing about music for a daily newspaper in a major US city, and my biggest challenge was interviewing inarticulate musicians and then writing an article that made them sound intelligent.” 

In the course of our conversations, mine and Bills, and skimming through the hours of tracks, albums Bill is archiving of his work I asked him about a “favorites” or “greatest hits” compilation, so to speak: “I have considered a greatest hits collection, but could never make the choices myself. But, if I were honest about it I could make a compilation of the songs that have been the most well received. 

That compilation would surely include “Junk” (from Manicure), “Sleepless dreamers” (from Tales From the Forsaken Art House), “White Boy” (from the Dimes), “Smoky Edge” (from Ravenna), “Five Seconds to Midnight” (from King and Country), “Pink Lipstick” (from Older Master Cute), “Esmeralda” (from Legends) and “A Billion Women” (from Rain City Blues). Thats six. There are probably another four in stuff I have not gotten to yet. So, maybe once I have ten I’ll take your advice and do a “greatest hits collection”.” 

Bill continues, explaining: “The worst thing is when a novelty song catches on. I wrote a satire on new age music called Walt Disney on Ice, and every where I played, there were requests for it. When I started refusing to play it, lots of people stopped coming to my shows. “Five Seconds to Midnight” (from King and Country) spent three years in the top ten of Neil Young’s “Songs of War Video Chart”, – twenty years after I recorded it! So those longevity things are pretty reliable. What people respond to on any given night should not be taken too seriously. Oh, with the exception of concerning my wife, – who first contacted me through Myspace after playing my song “A Billion Women” 100 times in a row! I checked the stats, –she had!” 

A good way to conclude this is with advice from “Mom”: “My mama used to warn me not to ever let the Blues go out of my music, for then my soul would be lost. There’s Blues in most of my songs and many are pure Blues. I’m currently putting together a “best of album” for Bandcamp to be called “20 Years of the Blues”.”

Look for it folks, Bill does Blues, –well. 

– Folks, if you read to here, thank you. We do hope you enjoyed it! (If all the “100,000 Bill Whites out there” bought each others songs, just one, how nice would that be!)

USTAKNOW, 2018