Do You Really Want To Know Why?

Because it's finite.
Because it's the only way to make the voices truly stop screaming.
Because it's the only solution with no more "what-ifs."
Because these meds that you're required to take to "save your life" have side effects.
Because rehab doesn't always work.
Because the voices, even when they're not screaming, don't ever stop.
Because the pain doesn't stop.
Because it happened when you were young and it will never go away.
Because it didn't happen to YOU.
Because you don't recognize yourself.
Because you tried for so fucking long.
For so many years.
In so many incarnations.
In so many decades.
In so many fake smiles.
In so many jobs.
In so many situations.
In so many bands.
Singing so many songs.
That no one will ever hear. Because the art is medicine, but only for so long.
Because their love was not enough to fix you.
Because money or approval or fame cannot stop the darkness.
Because the drugs don't work when you aren't sick.
Because the world is just sick in a different way.
Because you don't understand.
Because you don't understand.
Because You DON'T F*cking Understand.


*Wrote this the morning of Anthony Bourdain's suicide*

The Rebirth..

Kneel before Her, For she has been All Things:

Sainted Mother, Jostled Lover, Unkempt Feral Child, Ignored Wallflower, Tattered Party Favor, Stolen Innocent, Vengeful Eve, Junkie Prophet, Starry-Eyed Soul Gazer, Scorned Wife, Masquerade Mimic, Secret Guardian, Tainted Temptress, Midnight Muse, Runaway Heartbreaker, Pedestral Goddess, Gutter Gypsy, Bonnie to your Clyde, Psychotic She-Devil, Sultry Servant Girl, The One Who Got Away, The Girl Who Broke Your Heart, The Witch Who Wouldn't Burn, The Born Under A Bad Sign Baby..

Throw roses at her feet, And ask permission To be Reborn.

On Masking and Intimacy..

Post-meditation (and guitar) thoughts:

You can't have intimacy if you're pretending on any level. If you're masking, even if it is to avoid pain or to numb a response to past trauma, you are unable to be Intimate in that moment (even if your heart/brain/ego want to argue otherwise).

This is not a criticism; as pain, fear and trauma can be very real and must be confronted if you're going to hold any hope of defeating them. No, it is simply an acknowledgement that intimacy requires courage and vulnerability, even when it causes discomfort.

Tearing off the mask is hard. I've masked for almost my entire life. I know it well. I have deep compassion for the masks I see. But, the truth remains: You cannot have intimacy if you are, in any sense, pretending.

It is f*cking painful and difficult to face the truth: both the Beauty and the Terror. As a result, I have long been the Chief Architect of my own Loneliness, building my elaborate mask to navigate and shapeshift my way through trial, discomfort, fear and upheaval.

My principle work these days is in taking a sledgehammer to those walled-up defenses and in continuing to strive to be a person who is open, receptive, available, accountable and wearing my actual face.

If someone is going to love you, me or anyone else, let it not be for any projection or affection. Let it be for The Messy. The Real. The Beauty and The Terror. It's all gotta be in there.

And believe it or not: It's the Good Stuff, y'all.

The Search For Meaning And Connection In A Postmodern World..

I can't say I'm a fan of the cynical, bleak, melancholy tone that currently permeates American culture. Few things trouble me more than the idea that we are deep into an age of disaffected irony, where "trying" and "caring" just aren't cool.

Being suspicious of effort, passion and discipline is a vicious strain of pessimistic bullshit. I understand that it may be a defense mechanism, a buffer of sorts. Some of us use this as a layer of protection against the anxiety of our potential failures, but let us not forget that reflexive naysaying tends to also stunt the dreams of others. The cynic often looks wise, but rarely has the courage to be vulnerable; and vulnerability is what can make human endeavor truly beautiful.

Some of us hesitate with every step (an admittedly stunting way to live) and have a lot of our own trauma to work through. But part of doing that work is learning not to shit on the work of others.

Nihilism is a sexy fall fashion, along with weaponized humor, but it rarely summons the courage needed to heal, to listen and to Love. It can vanquish enemies, sure, but keep your eyes open for the unintended casualties of friendly fire. Words of discouragement and mockery hurt people, even when accompanied by acerbic wit.

I guess what I am saying, as a Note To MYSELF and Others is: Try not to make people feel bad for Trying, Creating, Caring. It's not a character defect to give a shit.

A Simpler Time..

Call me a blushing sentimentalist if you will, but I like to close my eyes and reflect on a simpler time for humanity; back when we would engage in flirtation with our burgeoning crushes by using prose scrawled in dactylic hexameter on parchment (you know, instead of prefabricated, prepackaged corporate emoji speak undertaken for the purpose of reducing vulnerability and any heartfelt attempt at deep, connective language).

And back then, if our attempts at love language were not well-received and we were feeling particularly melancholic and forlorn about the situation, we wouldn't tweet rage in 140 characters or less or consult the hive mind of opinionated facebook friends who would offer simplistic cliche-ridden messages of reductionist supportive banter. No, we would tackle the problem the way it should be tackled: By attempting to gain some solid life advice by way of providing a little bit of gold, blood and hyssop to the oracle of Delphy, as she pontificated during a deeply inebriated meditative state from the miasmic fumes of the beautifully decomposing earthbody of a slain cobra sprawled out beneath her.

Those were the days. Am I right, fam?

"I Got Soul.. And I'm Super Bad."

Godfather Griot,


When we write and perform what we think is ours, we are covering you. Every singer who grunts, screams, wiggles and thrusts on a stage, trying to spit heart and soulfire into an SM57 between a broken monitor and an all night band struggling hard to sound tight owes you royalties. Every one of us continues to sample your DNA. Thank you for saving us with the love energy, the life force, the primal groove that makes your body move. We are your children, happy to be chasing your ghost.


https://youtu.be/KS8Tf0MpIps

Phil Ochs Was Right About Mississippi..

Imagine working your fingers to the bone under brutal conditions in a meat packaging facility during a hellish Mississippi summer for absolutely shit pay, your very job function being to put food on the table for people who hate your existence, and then the feds come and arrest you for that "crime." Imagine their kids who during the First Week of School came home to find Mommy or Daddy gone, arrested and caged for that "crime."

Americans who support this shit are not good humans. You can bootlickingly harrumph about "legal" and "laws" but it doesn't stop most of those same complainers from benefitting from the very sweat and labor that produces the things they love and consume. Any defense of these policies is an outright excusing of the worst kind of human brutality. There are better ways, but I suppose it wouldn't engorge your hatesticks the same way, would it?

Looking at so many of my fellow Americans, it's so easy to understand what happened in Germany. It confused me as a kid, but now I know the truth: People love authority and they will bully and brutalize the most vulnerable among us to be on the side with the most power.

Try looking at Some of these things not through a political or cultural filter, but with some semblance of compassion and humanity? Can you do that? Are you still a decent human being? Or are you Just.. an American?