You Don't Kiss Me Anymore

MP3

You pull me into you like a drowning soul
And there you hold me close, there you lose control
But you don't kiss me anymore.

One night you said to me, "we will never part."
That's what you said to me, talking from the start
But you don't kiss me anymore.

Don't turn this wine back into water
Don't turn water into sand
It's time for you to wake up, you don't know what it's for
And you don't kiss me anymore
No you don't kiss me anymore, anymore, anymore...

Push and pull, yes and no
Let me in, let me go
I know that you don't mean to start this game
But it still hurts me just the same.

You're giving me bread when all I want is a stone.
(Why don't you kiss me anymore?)
Do it again and leave it alone.
(Why don't you kiss me anymore?)
Now I can't leave but you won't stay.
(Why don't you kiss me anymore?)
Do you really want to live this way?
Why don't you kiss me anymore?

Allergic To The Medication

MP3

What do I need, what do I know, what's my voice saying?
My human brain is such a limited game, one I keep on playing
We fight and we'd rather be right, but is the yelling winning?
While these answers, supposed Answers, undo the underpinning
I tried again and I lost from it, this trust is broken
If something's handed to me then I'll give it right back because there's too much left unspoken

Chorus:
So our sequiters and our summaries
Generate an even worse disease
We interfere and then we hesitate
The urgency has come a day too late:
Allergic to the medication
Allergic to the medication
Allergic to the medication
You need a new vocation.

There is no "they" there is only "we"
And we're the ones who will not let us leave
The enemies are invented, the surgeon heals us using dirty hands
The facts are just opinions, the well-intentioned do not understand

Chorus:
So now we're hearing things that aren't there
And we miss the sounds that should be clear
If I could say the words that were in my head
Then I could truly be awake instead:
Allergic to the medication
Allergic to the medication
Allergic to the medication
You need a new vocation.

Future Shock

MP3

The opposite is true and we accept it
Deposit what you knew and then expect it
She'll copy and she'll paste just like they taught her
Pace it and she pays you for the water
Billionaires, journalists, followers, overstock
Metaphors, multiples, narratives, future shock
Trauma after trauma after trauma after trauma
And a break from any worse could only follow with a comma
Propaganda, propaganda, propaganda, propaganda.

Chorus:
We're gonna flock to a future shock - gonna give it tonight, tonight.
We're gonna flame to a future shame - gonna live it tonight, tonight.

The arts could be replaced with the didactic
A DOS attack has been a tactic
The bad news you knew has now become worse
But you are still caught up in the first verse.
You have the excess, you need the access. So all I ask is: collect the taxes.
Excess access, Texas Taxes. Excess access, Texas Taxes.
Clone it, drone it, phone your opponent
Propaganda, propaganda, propaganda, propaganda.

Chorus:
We're gonna flock to a future shock - gonna give it tonight, tonight.
We're gonna flame to a future shame - gonna live it tonight, tonight.

future shock
n. A condition of distress and disorientation brought on by the inability to cope with rapid societal and technological change.

You Gotta Have Schmaltz!

This is some jibber jabber in defense of Beauty. I don't know where we went wrong (where I went wrong) but Beauty seems really dopey and noise, abrasion and toxins seem a-ok. We equate the venting of toxins as a purging of toxins but somehow they never go away. We're unable to be consoled and the toxins continue unabated.

At some point, the things that disgust you become the things you focus on and then you become them. Democrats fixate on Republicans and pacifists become obsessed with war. If NWA really hated things so much, hated the violence and the gunfire and the poison, wouldn't NWA try to write music that is soothing and pacifying so as to neutralize the violence and the gunfire and the poison? Nope.

I'm here to speak to myself today about Beauty. Love, gentleness, beauty, and all thing related. Harmony instead of shouting. Rainbows instead of black t-shirts, even though they are slimming.

I was listening to music over the weekend that was around when I between the ages of three and seven or so. Back when I felt emotion and I was soft and I wasn't so armored and walled-in and so mean. I wasn't so angry, I was a little cutey-bear. I heard this music and I felt that way
all over again. I like feeling that way. It was a moment in music history and it was a moment in Brian's history and it feels pretty good. It reminded me that you don't have to be such a grump all the time. I didn't used to be a grump. I built these walls around myself to protect my inner soft center and in the process I lost my soft center. F that.

I know it's fun to dwell on the negatives of life but there's other options. I want a Roe v Wade for my good nature. I want to have the choice to be a cute little bear cub. I want to let my inner Polyphonic Spree shine!

What's happened to life? How did we get to a point where everything is so negative and bad is good and sincerity is stupid? I miss sincere art. Schmaltz. Genuine emotion seems so dumb. If it's not ironic than people have no time for it. Good should be good, happy should bring happiness. Is that really beyond our conventional wisdom? Is happiness really so newsworthy?

Venezuelan Jennings

MP3

I'm born a man but I was raised a child.
My faith and hope's replaced with photographs.
I used the parking brake to steer me farther.
It's like the cat who's still allergic to cats.
I've bought you gifts using money you've lent me.
My actions all reduced to adjective.
My questions match my disappointed answers.
The things I have are all inherited.

My love and hate move in the same direction.
Sarcasm shields me in the places I fear.
My years of hope were lost in minutes of failure.
I have a lust I couldn't trust even here.
I'm a gypsy that has gotten nowhere.
My world's the one that's trapped beneath the floor.
I hid from me what I'm revealing to you.
This is a fun that isn't fun anymore.

Chorus:
I've never found a way to live this lifetime
I see that now from where you are
I've never fixed what I had broken
Like nobody washes a rental car.

My fantasies of life were pure until they,
until they came upon reality.
I believe in what the saints revealed us.
But I lack what causes serendipity.
Equality is just a celebration
of a silver medal no one wants.
If life is killing you from repetition
may death awake you with it's final taunts.

Stapling Wood With An Airplane

I hate the phrase "the music business." No wonder no one listens to music anymore. If the Artists are providing that kind of shorthand, no wonder nobody trusts them. If someone talks in shorthand and in cliches like "the music business" avoid everything they produce. It gives the same shiver that the name "Bob Guccione" creates. It's a visceral shiver.

Nobody says 'the Spiritual Business.' No one shorthands it with 'the God business' or 'the civil rights business.' Everyone knows that it's crass and everyone knows that bullshit people go into business. They don't care what they're selling and if they can make money of feces, they'd try. So why pool in with them?

Nobody who listens to music thinks about it as a business, why push your toxins their way? Why transmit your poison? No wonder nobody communicates with the listener anymore. They're damaged, and nobody can hear what's being said. Shorthand is a symptom of the ailment and shorthand is also the cause of stomach illness. When I hear abbreviations and in-the-know 'knowwhatimean?' I am immediately wary.

Stop throwing in with the business people. Leave the money on the table. Connect with your listeners again, they miss you. Take the financial loss. Lose earth and gain heaven. Stop doing music for money, that's like eating the Eucharist as an afternoon snack. Stop using money for music it's like riding a sled to open walnuts. Music may get you money but money won't get you music. You're plowing the farmland with a Rubik's cube, no wonder no crops are growing.

The Zidane Principle

I was watching the World Cup finals this year, just like everyone else, and I saw what happened. I know the deal.

With like two minutes left in the whole game Zinedine Zidane head butted a guy on the Italian team and the Italian guy went down and Zidane got thrown out of the game. We all know this, I probably only have to recount this to Americans.

After the viewing audience got a realization of what was going on, the referees were at it and the teams were at it and the commentators were at it. I immediately got very agitated because I knew what was up. I got very pissy because I knew what was going to come next.

It's common in sports, but it's common in our existence as well. The Commentator. Some disembodied voice who talks over the action and frames the movements and helps us to make sense of what is happening on the playing field. We've all become very used to it. Even in life there are these disembodied voices that define what is happening. They provide wisdom and analysis and the like.

But unfortunately this Voice dovetails too strongly into the Pelvis Principle: "The more I learn the dumber I am."

In the midst of all the World Cup hubbub, I knew what was going to happen. The announcers were going to narrow the bandwidth of the incident, take it out of context, offer no context, and turn Zidane into a monster. "Zidane Snaps" "Froggy Soccer Player Assaults Innocent Civilian" "Freedom Fried Midfielder Attacks!"

I knew right away. These voices of reason were going to dumb down the incident and get the whole thing wrong. I saw the whole script ahead of me. Dumb it down, narrow the context, villify, make him one-dimensional, attack attack attack. I don't know why, I just know that it was to be.

For some reason, people love to get it wrong and invariably those same people are in positions of influence, ready to dumb down everyone in their path of influence. Newspaper editors, authors, etc etc. They may or may not do it to themselves, but they definetely love leading everyone else down the wrong road. They seek to cement their opinion in our head before we've had a chance to formulate something on our own.

There was no context to be found, no speculation on what would make a man in his last match do something so dumb, no rewinding of the tape to see what was really going on before he snapped, no understanding of the fact that something really crazy must have been happening prior to make him snap. Instead he was a one-dimensional monster who had to rational reasoning for what he did.

Look around at the public discourse and see it for yourself. Look at the lack of research and the lack of context. It's become a game of Concentration where you only see what's beneath two tiles at a time. No history, only events in their isolated form. We jump from one isolated event to another isolated event and so real understanding is allowed to occur. And we fall for it. We aren't superhuman. If you hear the message enough times you fall for it. Snap shot, snap shot, snap shot. How do these things keep happening, oh my goodness gracious.

That's where the Pelvis Principle kicks in. The more we learn, the dumber we get. If we could just take in the information alone perhaps we could digest it better. But no, someone feels the need to edit and parse and ration and analyze the information before you get to it. And so you're dumber than you were before you tried to get smarter. Watch for it...

The Biggest Smile In The Room

When the artists have become cynical, that's when you know the world is screwed.

The whole point of art is to create worlds. Not just wallow in the limitations of this world, but transcend it. When the artists stop looking forwards, what are the rest of us to do?

It kind of reminds me of those cartoons where the main character (usually a elephant or a talking bicycle or something) draws an invisible square in midair and then that square turns into a portal or a time machine and then the bike escapes to another place or another dimension or something. It's not mere escapism, it's a genuine way out.


When the Artist loses his way, loses the path to a way out, we're all in trouble. If he can't see a way out, how are we expected to? And right now, our artists don't seem focused on a way out. Maybe I can only speak on my own behalf but we've hit a glass ceiling where we complain about the human condition and yearn for a way out or get mad at our math teacher. "I want to get out of here" or "I think I'm dumb" is not quite the combination to the masterlock that keeps us imprisoned...

The Artist can go beyond "describe" and go towards "prescribe." He goes beyond map-reading and becomes the map-making. He doesn't complain about the darkness, he's too busy being the candle-maker. The artist is the biggest optimist in the room. He's the most joyous. He smelts the iron that creates the swords that will kill him some dragons/thieving politicians. The Artist knows something the rest of us do not. Find the biggest weirdo in the room with the biggest smile and ask him what his secret is. Ask him what he knows...

Like Background Music

MP3

I: Art As Decoration
I am not here just to match your curtains
I'm not a sentence on your resume
I wasn't sent to try and supplement you
I'm not the busy work along your way
I'm the money where you see a wallet
Not these enemies you've made your friends
I'm not a monkey for your dinner party
And not the means to just another ends.

Chorus
I don't want to be like background music for you
I don't want to throw my diamonds on the ground
You build up your home to face the sunset you see
It doesn't turn the other way around.

II: Smart Is Dumb
Your sense of beauty has become your blemish
Your friends have now become your enemies
Your treasures occupy the dusty corners
They've brought you nothing anybody sees
When God himself has now been sent away and
Our chain-of-being falls in broken hands:
What's the rest of us to compensate with
And how would anybody understand?

Chorus
I don't want to be like background music for you
I don't want to lose my diamonds in the the haze
For seventeen years I worked to write you this book
And you've forgotten it in seventeen days.

III: Not Porn Enough
Once I stopped to watch this midnight movie
This woman stopped to show us everything
But it was not enough to stay enamored
'Too much' was still not worth remembering
Reminded me of a politician
Who whored himself but not enough to win
He had 'something' but he wanted 'everything' so he got 'nothing'
I hope I haven't learned the same from him.

Chorus
I don't want to be like background music for you
I don't want to throw my diamonds to the sea
There isn't an honor in coming in last
When there's no honor in the victory.

What Is Music?

This could be very elementary but it also could be a good starting point.

What is music?

I ask this because of my dissatisfaction with what we're calling music these days. "These Days" meaning the past 40 to 400 years.

I don't like art. I don't like avant guarde. I don't like self-expression. I don't like product. I don't like merchandise. I don't like fun.

This may not be universal but I'm ok with that, I'm trying to collect my own thoughts here. Nevermind trying to get it right for a whole collective of people.

Music is a powerful thing. I would go so far as to say it could be the most transcendent medium we as humans possess. Therefore it qualifies as "a powerful thing." Not that it's a contest, but no other human action can transcend quite as well as music. "Transcend" being the greatest thing you can achieve. All other mediums either get in their own way or don't even take on the task of transcendence. So that's my point: transcendence is the greatest of human possibilities and music is the way to achieve transcendence.

To me, the way we utilize music these days makes a Dave Chappelle paraphrase come to mind: I don't like people playin' on my phone. We make cute little songs about love and we experiment with little sounds and we like rhymes and sounds and we feel able to express ourselves. But that isn't what music can fully achieve. All that is like using a souped-up muscle car to go back and forth from the house to the grocery store and back: a waste of potential. Woo woo! Look at me, I'm expressing myself! I have the conch! I have the conch and I have no real message to utilize it for! Woo woo!

So within the question what is music? I say that music is the medium by which we transcend our limits and communicate with God. (When you transcend your limits, they aren't limits anymore...) With the right head and heart you can focus that sound and turn it into a kind of portal. I know God is anathema within human discourse these days but I'm going to verbalize anyway. There's me and there's God and music is the language that can cross the divide.

This really isn't all that revolutionary. Up until Vatican II coincidentally, none of this would be so foreign to people. I'm trying to broaden my head beyond the narrow straits that have been placed upon me. What is music? It's a portal. It isn't art or self-expression, that sounds like talking into a phone that doesn't have somebody on the other end of the line. Music is a portal to God. Now who is doing that music? Whom?

A Thousand Years

MP3

I'm walking through my contradictions
to where my knowledge bends
I've gone beyond a scope
I comprehend.
I've seen the different sublimations
I've seen the fluid forms
But you must leave yourself
to keep these visions warm.

You'll know it in a different language,
in the different styles
A thousand years and a thousand miles.

The wrong questions made us claustrophobic
with half the spectrum drained
Old metaphors continued
unexplained.
Blank messages were too repeated
and pulled the ceilings near
The present called too loud
for us to hear.

But you'll feel it in a different knowledge,
in a little while
A thousand years and a thousand miles.

(key change)

There are places with a second meaning,
other ways and times
Wider mirrors showing
deeper hills to climb.
There's another that has never seen this
but they'll know us well
Their horizons leave
an endless trail to tell.

And you'll hear it in a different feeling,
from the current trials
A thousand years and a thousand miles.

I Don't Believe You

It's weird. I'm looking for some new music to stretch my brain out with, after all that's what music is for, and I can't find anything to stimulate me. I have all of recorded music history in front of me, thanks to the internet, and I'm having trouble finding artists who stimulate me. Nobody's reaching out to the seventeenth dimension.

I think we're under a glass ceiling. You can see it in how we talk and what we see and what we write about. Politics and my best friend's girlfriend and sniffing glue are leaving me cold. It's nobody's fault but I think our artists are under that glass ceiling. Nobody's gonna read this so I'm entitles to my opinion but I think they are. Call it atheism, call it hyperactive materialism, call it myopia if you want. But I think music is too locked into the material world. Yeah that's right.

I want to find artists that believe in, and are stretching out into, the seventeenth dimension. Whatever you call it I want to hear artists that are stretching out into it and exploring it. I'm fatigued by punk rock that exists in the material world and I'm fatigued by jazz that has song titles like "Two Boots, A Lucky Chain And A Song" or "Avenue H Jump" or "Gravy Potatoes." It seems like too high of a high powered engine to have under the hood of a car that's used for errands.

Now I know there are artists out there who are stretching and I know that I am talking in broad strokes. I am seeking out those artists now. I'm even trying to become one of those artists. If no one's doing it for you, you have to do it for yourself. I'm trying. I guess Bach is a good place to begin...

Sleep

I am always trying to conquer sleep. It seems the default mode in this world is sleep. Even for the brothers who are trying to stay awake it's hard, imagine how hard it is to stay awake for those who aren't trying.

I see the world like you're looking into a microscope. You focus in on a certain plain and you see certain things clearly. You keep dialing in and you see other things that were not there prior. There's different things happening on different plains. Ooh I see a mosquito in the amber. Oppp, now I dial in deeper and I see something else I hadn't seen before. Maybe we're dialed into one plain, let's dial in a little deeper for a while.

You know people are telling you lies, mostly when they show they are lying to you. And what's scary is that one man can lie, and his lie can be anesthesia for an entire world. You CAN fool an entire species. (The following isn't political, it goes deeper than such a framework.) For example, and this is the prime example, George Bush tells us one dictator is an evil despot and must be taken out of power and his country invaded. And we agree. Then he tells us one dictator is worthy of a State welcome, with military honors and billions of US dollars invested into his country and factories. And we agree. One is Iraq, one is China. The point here is that our leader sets forth what is reality and we accept it, even if the two versions of reality are contradictory. When we let a man pick what is reality for us, that's what we get. We have more faith in a man than we do in Truth. That is a source of Sleep and that also produces more Sleep.

I hate that I fall for it. I hate that my reality is not locked in with Reality. I'm trying. By putting a name to the things that make me sleep, maybe I can become just a little more immune to them. I want to become a better listener...

Givens Versus Givens

Keeping in the spirit that no one's gonna read this, I'mma say whatever it is I want to say. Whatever will keep my mind buoyant. This is an affirmation, I affirm that I will keep my head afloat.

1) The biggest problem with communication is the underlying givens that kick in prior to a conversation. Over the past few months the band has done photoshoots, filmed a video, done some interviews. All of them have filled me with anxiety. I abdicate leadership to people who's givens may be different from mine and so the end result isn't what it could be, even though it was. The danger of lesser results was there.

You know what I like? Spending the first 30 minutes of a meeting of the minds laying down the foundations. Mostly I'd like to just go on about my own givens, see where the common ground is. Something like this:

"Given that the Velvet Underground were trying to reach the heavens and under the assumption that The Strokes are just a good time, I now see why people don't like The Strokes. They see what could be."

"I believe in 'A' while you believe the opposite, '-A." Therefore who leads here and who follows?"

"If it is the current government's goal to win the war in Iraq, then they are failing. If their goal is to create havoc so as to reach a larger, unannounced purpose, then they are succeeding and you must judge them in a different light."

A misunderstanding of assumed givens could be problematic. You assume the person you are speaking with shares a common language with you and you filter everything they are saying through that. Here are common assumptions of today:

-Rock'n'roll is fun, recreation, a good time, a chance for bar owners to make money off you.
-Rock'n'roll is past it's prime.
-There are three dimensions.
-Don't be so serious. Music is there to create a party atmosphere.
-There is no more original art, nor will there be anytime soon. Don't try.
-People are not unique and will be judged accordingly.

Those givens are a tough burden to face. In relation to that it's not really worth gettiing up in the morning, except the tread the path already cut by other, older, dustier people. Perhaps that explains the lack of spring in people's steps. I'd feel like crap too if I felt that way.

Well, to help speed along the communication process, these are my givens, this is my preface. Subject to human error of course:

-Truth is absolute. That's why it's called "Truth."
-There is a 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th dimension.
-I believe that new art is possible. "New Art" is inherently redundant. I'm open hearted to the idea that assumptions can be smashed and the cheap suit of assumptions can be unstitched.
-I believe in being difficult, in being intellectually rigorous, in skeptical. Not cynical, but skeptical. In an effort to avoid cliche, codification, and expectations, it's important to be oppositional. Being difficult should be rewarded, not discouraged.

In our current world where everybody is more and more lock-stepped with each other, a strange thing occurs. We're all so up to date on conventional wisdom that when someone comes in with a fresh idea, it sounds REALLY dissonant. There's this word "Noosphere" and it describes human thought as collective and as a sort of environment. But I believe it is a pejorative term, or at least it should be. It leads to cliche and conventional wisdom and what some dude calls "stinkin' thinkin'." I know I suffer from it and I'm doing all I can to get away from it.

So now I've prefaced myself. When you talk to me you now know some of my starting point, some of my foundation. It feels a little like a game of King Of The Jungle and I guess what I'm doing here is making my Givens heard and therefore dominant. Prominent and thereby dominant. It sure beats the opposite where other assumptions may be lesser and take precedence. Maybe that's another Given of mine I'm realizing. I guess I assume other Frameworks to be more limited and finite. I will say that I hope I'm wrong. It's better when I'm wrong...

Cry, Cry, Cry

MP3

It's never been so sad or so silent
There's something going on and I can't believe
The quiet and the calm are returning but my lungs are burning
I can't even breathe.
And so I see the pain that is coming
I'm looking through a universal eye
I used to do my best to forget it, now I won't let it
And I just want to cry.

Cry, cry, cry
I think I'm gonna cry, cry, cry
I cannot hold the reins any longer, the rain's getting stronger
Cry, cry, cry, cry, cry.

It started down the road very slowly
The water turned to stone when I did not try
But I won't let another ocean dry out and so I have to cry out
Why, why, why, why, why?
Why, why, why?

If you wanna make money play the people's fears
Take away their hearts, steal their tears
Give them the disease then sell the cure
That's what the pain is for
And that's why my heart's so poor.

Cry, cry, cry
I think I'm gonna cry, cry, cry
It's time to let the storm stop the silence and start up the violence
Cry, cry, cry, cry, cry.

'Cause I don't wanna drown any lower
And I will not pretend that it's time to die
It's gonna rain at once in the end, then rain again
Let the waters cry.

Cry, cry, cry
Cry, cry, cry
You'll never see a man go unspoken once he's been broken
Cry, cry, cry, cry, cry.

woman get me a beer, beer get me a woman

MP3

he's voted almost every day now
and The Smiths win every time
he reads The Nation page to page now
even that can be a climb
he knows what's right - it doesn't take a modem
he's the Village Voice detective
he knows what consequences actions always bring
in his college introspective.

but ALL he wants is a t-shirt to say:

"woman get me a beer, beer get me a woman"

she spent a week in kosovo once
after Jennings, Tom, and Rather
taking time behind the war fronts
for the stories she could gather
perhaps a poet, perhaps a correspondent
she knows the myths in all she's seeing
she hears the music like an asian mob
with lyrics of a european

but ALL she wants is a t-shirt to say:

"woman get me a beer, beer get me a woman"

keep your populism off my pop music
keep your Karl Marx off my Richard Marx
this is my guilty pleasure
this is my guilty pleasure

woman get me a beer, beer get me a woman

Active Good Vs Passive Evil (Not A Mash-Up)

The good people are too defeatist these days. See that, even saying that is defeatist. Damn!

It seems to me the good people are on their heels, spending too much time analyzing and critisizing all the evil in the world. Instead of creating active goodness, they're dwelling on, and therefore becoming, passive evil.

We all do it. Let's read about how bad things are in Washington DC, in Pakistan, in Palestine, in Texas, in New York City. We've become a hybrid of Howard Dean and Ice T in his song "Momma's Gotta Die Tonight."

It's almost as if we think we can do something by being informed. "If I seem concerned then I'm doing my part..." As if seeming concerned can actually do anything. It's like being in an airplane that's about to crash, seeing another airplane that's about to crash, and being so completely worried about those other people. As if your worry could somehow help them. And you've focused so much on them you can't even help yourself now...

I see it in the music world. People bitching about how rotten music is. As if they were powerless to do anything about it. But music is quite egalitarian, and instead of complaining about everything, you can write your own songs and neutralize the crap that's out there. You can't complain about music, because you can always fix things. You should be able to say "music is the best it's ever been because I'm writing the stuff to make it so."

Active goodness sure beats passive evil. Too many good people are enamored with the international intrigue of all the bad news out there. It's good to be concerned, but I would say that the evil out there is potentially being doubled by the fact that it a) happens and then b) captures the attention of good people and paralyzes them from going about their life.

I'm not sure if I'm verbalizing this that well, maybe if I spoke from my own experience it would make more sense. It's fun the read the news everyday and hear about how bad things are. I could waste eight hours a day getting in-depth analysis of how bad everything is. I'd probably even get a little cynical from it, I'd feel all powerless and whatnot. In my self-analysis, maybe that's the point. Paralysis of the good people. Instead of living my life, I'm watching the world's soap opera. And it IS one or the other, there's only 24 hours in a day.

It almost seems like if you ignore what is going on in the world and focus on doing (and on doing good) then that will make up for the appearance of apathy. Like "sorry I'm not concerned about how bad things are in _____, I'm too busy doing good things here." I don't think the paralysis of concern translates into the "I've Done Good" column. I'm working on this one...

Are You The Car Or Are You The Road

MP3

are you the car or are you the road?
will you slow down or will you explode?

be smart, be fast, be first and stay uncomfortable
a bubble of nitrogen to keep their stories full.
if you are not the hand, you're just a glove for it
and this would be your ass in someone else's shit.

are you the car or are you the road?
will you slow down or will you explode?

are you building walls on a mother's womb?
and are you a passenger in someone else's tomb?
undermine the clash, question the ramones.
criticize the beatles and deny the stones.

if the pipes are right then your water's new
but if your water's old then the pipes are too.
there is no reward when a man behaves
because lincoln's not the one who freed the slaves.

are you the car or are you the road?
will you slow down or will you explode?

I AM A RADIO

I think what's been bothering me is the myopia of the 20th and 21st centuries. I'm malnourished from my blindness, two metaphors in one.

Whether myopia pertains to distance or to panorama, I've got it. We've got it. (Heck, he she they have it.) We've got it and it's made everything ring so hollow. Everything. We could have been attuning ourselves to heaven all this time and all we've been doing is tidying up the waiting room. We've been trying to improve our lot here, toward it's own end. The humanism of it all, the materialism of it all is so stunted. We've turned antennas into pieces of sculpture. The sculpture is beautiful but it's not transmitting anything.

Music isn't just entertainment, education isn't just job training, human rights and freedom aren't just end unto themselves. You can do something with them. A radio is just a paperweight if it's not transmitting anything. Music is just busywork if it's not receiving and sending out any signal. A radio is still a radio if the power is turned off, yes. But a radio is fulfilling it's essence when it's powered up, receiving and sending something beyond it. The same can be said for everything here.

To extend the metaphor, I think my malaise has come from all the radios we've built that aren't transmitting a signal. Every victory has been hollow. We've built up humanity but towards no end but itself. We've worked for education and freedom and human rights - but then we've stopped there. Metaphorically, we've obsessed over building the best radios we can but without turning the power on, without them transmitting anything.

I think my malnourishment comes from the material humanism of it all. The catholic church is focused on 'gonadal politics,' our form of government has moved away from the social contract and towards a check cashing place for rich people, the universities are now just a glorified Apex Tech. Our universe is geocentric all over again.

It's all so material, as if things can only exist in three dimensions, not the four to seventeen dimensions originally intended for us. Heck, we occupy two dimensions a good 89% of the time. Music is about feeling good, record sales, chasing the blues away. It's like a handi-wipe you take out of a package when you have mexican food on your fingers. The material world is bringing me down.

Listen, Don't Speak. Ask, Don't Answer.

(PREFACE: Most of what I say probably ultimately reflects my own inner world than something out there in the outer world. So when I say things like "rock'n'roll is stunted" then what I probably mean is "the version of rock'n'roll languishing in my head is stunted." FYI)

Rock'n'roll is stunted. At it's very foundation it has taken a right turn away from anything purposefully transcendent and towards the Material, the Limited, the Transitory, towards the Finite. Atheists can't make four dimensional music and so there's gonna be a problem. "Four dimensional" and "music" are ultimately redundant.

When you move away from r'n'r in time and in space you realize how stunted it is or at least has been. When you see the music of elsewhere and of other times, you get A) the full panorama of what has been done elsewhere and where it can reach and B) the perspective of low limited r'n'r is and has been.

A steady diet of rock'n'roll is delicious. There's no reason to listen to anything else and you're full anyway from the r'n'r food you're eating as it is. But like those IMAX movies that start all small and then burst forth onto the full IMAX screen for maximum effect, when something in your brain clicks ("click") then something in your brain explodes (herefore known as "explodes").

To somebody reading this, this may all seem so elementary, but nobody's gonna read this so I don't have to answer to you anymore. Just be quiet and pretend like I'm a little baby, seeing and doing things for the firts time. Oh look how cute, baby's breathing oxygen! Oh look, baby's invented the wheel! Cute little baby!

Rock'n'roll took the sounds of gospel ('spiritual music') and added secular themes ('secular music.') Spiritual love become human love. Instead of a communion with and of saints we've gotten to the point where R Kelly doesn't see anything wrong with a little bump and grind. Nothing! Bump. Grind. R will tolerate it.

If you live in a three dimensional world this is probably a-ok. But if "four dimensional" and "music" are redundant, then you see the problem. R'n'R is stunted. Music is a portal, an antennae. It feels a little strange sitting here at a computer getting all up in it but hell, a computer is a portal too. Literally. When I say "a computer is a portal" you would agree. When I say "music can be a portal" it's the same. I mean literally too, not even metaphorically. Music is literally a portal.

Maybe I'll leave the fourth dimension out of this for now. We're talking about three dimensions right now. Ray Charles is my arch-nemesis. His secular humanism has set us back, Jack. He is largely credited with taking Gospel music and talking about low down dirty human love with it. People got all mad at him. He turned it profane. Not to pick on him, he seemed nice, but alls I'm saying is that the atomic clock on rock'n'roll music started right then. (Either it's atomic clock or it's carbon half-life, I can never remember which is which. But I don't have to, no one will hold my feet to the coals on this one.) It's my opinion that such a severed music is a doomed music.

Now all we hear about is record sales and third quarter earnings, and fame and drugs. Actually drugs has suffered the same fate. Instead of being for mind expansion, drugs have become recreational fun for frat boys. It's almost like eating Eucharist as a healthy snack between meals. Hell, food has suffered the same fate, instead of being a form of nourishment and medicine it too has become a mere snack between meals...

So all these things have been cut off from their spiritual echo. The shadows of the kabuki theater are living without their source. By being too close to something for too long, we've forgotten their essense. (I've forgotten.) So a form of the Ugly American has sprung alive again, and the myopia of humanism and materialism has allowed for this. We've become near-sighted and all we can see are ourselves. But other times and other places have seen some stuff and we need to get those glasses...

A Love Undiagnosed

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Your shoulders hurt, your fingers have withered away
Your movements fade, your circulation has strayed
It's not what you meant but now the damage is permanent
Oh you've lost what matters most
Oh it's a love undiagnosed

You atrophied, you've lost the skin from your toes
Your body feels the only symptom it knows
You didn't know but what you hide still has to show
Oh you waited for a ghost
Oh it's a love undiagnosed

you hid from what you couldn't have
but you hid too long
now all you have are just the scars

You used to think that we were able to fly
We lost that gift so you let the possible die:
To understand, to feel a touch from someone's hand
Oh and now it's done what it's supposed
Oh it's a love undiagnosed

Seventeen Minutes Please

Is jazz a sound or a concept? (And when I say jazz for God's sakes I don't mean the sound. I don't really like the sound of jazz just yet.) Is it possible to be a jazz band in concept without people getting confused? Is the linguistics of things messing up what it's pointing towards?

If I said "we're a jazz band" can't I be allowed to mean that conceptually? The desire to improvise, not the desire to move my hands back and forth, aka 'jazz hands.' The desire for 17 minute songs, the desire to subvert expectations, whatever the tones created.

(For some people this may be such a elementary concept and conversation, but you know what, I'm tired of apologizing for having to play catch-up. In a quest to catch-up to everybody else you skip over the fundamentals, you skip over your foundations, you skip over playing the blues scales and then you have nothing. When you skip over the blues scales, you don't even have the blues scales in you repetoire. You have to go THROUGH something in order to get past it.)

So anyway, being way behind schedule aside, I want what I want. My eyes are being opened to what music is supposed to do here on the planet, and I would like to do my part to help that along. I understand it better, and now I'd like to execute it better...

Prisoner To President

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This colony has gotten colonized again
We abdicated every day
Our parasites have now become our hosts
But there has been a different way

There's the man they called Mandela, Pimpernel
Sent away for being right
But the People brought him from this imprisonment
Brought him back to be their fight

Our dreams forgotten still can be restored
For the "bottom 99%"
Just like the man who turned it once before
From a prisoner to a president
From a prisoner to a president

How can we make it happen again?

the moments we don't allow - the mp3

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Want you to call me someone else's name
Show me your secrets until I do the same
Too much then so much more
Give me the moments we don't allow
I want it completely, I want it right now

I want you to be me so I can be you
And do all the things I want you to do
Give me unconciousness
I don't ask why and I don't ask how
I want it completely, I want it right now

'Cause I don't need (No I don't need)
My good intents
And I don't need (No I don't need)
My intelligence
And I don't need (No I don't need)
My empathy
And I don't need (No I don't need)
My 4th degree

I want you to let go and let them hear the noise
I want you to tell me about the other boys
Give me what's bad for me
Give me the moments we don't allow...

you get so uncomfortable when you're uncomfortable

MP3

Was mid-September in a London bar
We're at Artrocker for the Chinese Stars
Another country but a frequent face:
A crowd of people there to stand in place...
But something's different when the band goes on
We get permission to be something wrong
The singer's bringin' so I take his lead
Let go my shoulders let my muscles bleed.

He's strange and strangled and he's just a mess
So I get strange and I become a mess
He fucks with us and so I fuck with him
I'm asking questions and I start to spin...
But something's different that was not allowed
I'm now alone inside this London crowd
The people turn around to turn away
The singer doesn't have a song to say.

You get so, You get so,
You get so uncomfortable when you're uncomfortable
You think there's something wrong, I think it's wonderful
You're under broken glass, it's like you're wearing wool
So uncomfortable when you're uncomfortable

Permission granted now is something wrong
The band and crowd begin another song
They built me up and I believed their tales
Until this visit from the Queen of Wales...
They brought the spirits that were not to haunt
They saw a mirror that they didn't want
I am a monster from my master's hand
I am a monster that they never planned.

You get so, You get so,
You get so uncomfortable when you're uncomfortable
You think there's something wrong, I think it's wonderful
You're under broken glass, it's like you're wearing wool
So uncomfortable when you're uncomfortable

America Is A Miracle - The MP3

America is A Miracle - The MP3

*america is a miracle* (lord)

fighting crime and crime have now become the same
we've built computers working now there to take the blame
we cage the things we worship like a lazy mennonite
america kills all it's enemies like a bone that didn't heal right

america is a miracle
the flesh is weak but it's eyes are full
it's the best that you can do if you're trying

we win games 80-0 and we sell the things we steal
your photos of abuse and torture are faked - our photos are real
the starving masses got fat while the elite pay to get thin
but when you're running out the building - america is running in

america is a miracle
the flesh is weak but it's eyes are full
it's the best that you can do if you're trying

we got wall street, wallmart, a ford taurus for the tourists
and we're always making room for another greek chorus
we ran for 26 miles but we forgot the last .2
be afraid of america because america's afraid of you

america is a miracle
the flesh is weak but it's eyes are full
it's the best that you can do if you're trying

we filter the water, we pass on the right,
the news trucks are the news.
it's free to get in, you have to pay to get out,
the more we gain the more we lose.
we're mercurial, we're ephemeral,
the art is just a lithograph.
half the poor are put to work
to antagonize the other half.