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?

A Kind Of Holy Perfection..

In a room in a dirty second floor apartment, decorated with more local punk rock flyers than seemed rational or commensurate with defensible taste, we divided up our tabs of acid as Husker Du sang about how we've got to Keep Hanging On and time mysteriously carried us forward by some unknown and rarely considered mechanism.

After the dividing ritual, we got in the kind of car owned by teenagers who work car wash or record store jobs and drove on the highway toward Lone Pine canyon, arms out open windows, as an immaculate night sky quietly hummed above us like a withheld explosion.

We chased LSD with swigs of Gatorade and talked about aliens, sex, secret doorways and the holy hierarchy of guitar solos.

As the sun disappeared over the hills, It kicked in; and the three of us wandered deep into a forest now teeming with consciousness; tree limbs leaped out of the darkness and proclaimed greetings in a solidarity of living things, touchingly extended to us mere human teenagers, an unexpected grace.

Our provisions were three bottles of water, a joint and a bag of apples. I found the skull of a small mammal long dead and wore it like a crown, unaware of course that I'd just inhabited my life's most pagan moment; the fact that we can't perceive all of time at once may be the greatest of the many tender mercies extended to us.

After what could have been minutes or centuries, the golden sun came around to kiss our skin again and the field we ambled through burst into a sea of purple.

Down in the vast distance of the ancient valley below, a train undulated across the earth like a snake.

It was a kind of holy perfection I might never see again.

My Magic City..

It's like when a murky line in a song you've been listening to and digging your entire life suddenly makes perfect sense; when the clouds part, the dirt washes off the windows and all you see is a garden pathway illuminated by the sun.

Somewhere between the revolving art galleries, the tent cities, the dive bars and the taco trucks rests the unobscured unredacted truth of our city; which is both shamefully ugly and crushingly beautiful, like the ornate and the austere violently colliding to make some kind of deadly, new and righteous dualistic vision.

L.A. is Raymond Chandler, David Hockney and Arthur Lee doin' it nasty up in the park (and you know which park). Sometimes, I still can't process the brutal and near perfect sweetness of it. It's a dirty, fetid city, full of haunted sidewalks and carnival barkers, scabrous neon wonderlands and dangerous alleyways, but it'll always be Magic to me.

Damn, I'm gonna miss this place someday.

Don't Be That Guy..

We are all trapped in our meatsuits on this beautifully strange spinning rock together, and pain and heartache are an inevitable part of the ride/journey/mystery. That being said, allowing this peculiar predicament to infect you in such a way that you become a naysaying cynic or vicious critic at every brush with beauty, artistic expression or mystery, is a rather dark road to travel.

I'm not advocating a position of reverence or even adherence, but if nothing else, maybe we could at least try to never be the reason why someone who loved to sing, doesn’t any more. Or the reason why someone who dressed so uniquely has decided to sheepishly conform to societal norms. Let's not be the deciding factor in someone who has always spoken of their dreams so boldly and wildly suddenly learning that it's better to remain silent about them. Try your best not to be the reason someone gives up on an integral part of themselves because you were demotivating, vocally non-appreciative or mercilessly sarcastic about it.

Creativity, art, self-expression, dreams, goals, life paths - These are sacred things. So let's not trample them with our own fears, insecurities or disapproving conditioning. And if you just can't be supportive, maybe try finding a little more "shut the fuck up about it" in your heart.

Happy Thursday, y'all. 😊