riptide

“A man who is not afraid of the sea will soon be drownded, for he shall be going out on a day when he shouldn’t.  But we do be afraid of the sea, and we do only be drownded now and again.”

-John Millington Synge (1871-1909)

Joshua Clark Orkin

0

comedown sunrise sickness

There was a decade when I only saw
the dawn (that livid blue sky those
pastel pinks and yellows that searing
fresh white sunlight) when I had
been a bad boy; when the drugs
had run their course and anxiety
had spread her wings to rise in full,
to whip and rule the comedown. Those
were bad nights, bad mornings, bad
signs in the maze of that wreckage.

Born blue-eyed and squinting,
I’d always been by nature
a sunset colors kind of boy —
a moon and stars, a fading out,
a darkening down to crispness,
starry night relief kind of boy.

Now that I’m sober I’m not quite
the night owl I was but neither
am I getting up early.  It’s hard to tell
when exactly it is that I live.  I know
it’s better; that I live without excuses
and without hangovers, with less guilt,
less waste, without comedowns —
But for all its saddening sickness, all
its anxiety and loathing,

I never see the sunrise anymore.

And guilty now I miss coming sick
out of the darkness on some empty
rooftop with fear on my mind, confusion
on my lips, throwing skinny arms wide
(fingers shaking in the spreading light)
in pain and rage and sudden stillness,
to embrace the fact of my life.

0

it was the nature of things

“His mind was freshly inclined toward sorrow; toward the fact that the world was full of sorrow; that everyone labored under some burden of sorrow; that all were suffering; that whatever one took in this world, one must try to remember that all were suffering (none content; all wronged, neglected, overlooked, misunderstood), and therefore one must do what one could to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact; that his current state of sorrow was not uniquely his, not at all, but, rather, its like had been felt, would yet be felt, by scores of others, in all times, in every time, and must not be prolonged or exaggerated, because, in this state, he could be no help to anyone and, given that his position in the world situated him to be either of great help or great harm, it would not do to stay low, if he could help it.

All were in sorrow, or had been, or would be.

It was the nature of things.

Though on the surface it seemed every person was different, this was not true.

At the core of each lay our suffering; our eventual end, the many losses we must experience on the way to that end.

We must try to see one another in this way.

As suffering, limited beings —

Perennially outmatched by circumstance, inadequately endowed with compensatory graces.

His sympathy extended to all in this instant, blundering, in its strict logic, across all divides.”

–George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo

a Townes Van Zandt song

0

cheree

Ever wondered where LCD Soundsystem got their… sound… system?

Alan Vega: sculptor, painter, musician — artist.

Have yourself a little Suicide:

0

metamorphosis

“From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back.  

That is the point that must be reached.”

–Franz Kafka, The Zürau Aphorisms

3

birds of a feather

Vulfpeck could very easily have been promoted as an Antwaun Stanley vehicle, pitched as the background faces in his travelling band. That’s where the studio execs would say the money is, and honestly he’s that god damn good. Watch Jack’s face (he’s the one playing pancakes) after that little improvised vocal riff at 4:02. It’s perfect — Antwaun really is the truth. I’m sure there’s a conference room full of suits somewhere that has suggested he be the face, repeatedly, and as far as packaging for profit potential, well, they wouldn’t be wrong.

BUT, Vulfpeck is decidedly NOT just an Antwaun vehicle. Instead, he remains one of a number of continually-invited guests, and the stars of the show remain the four kids who created it at music school. And really, as composer and ringleader, Vulfpeck is Jack Stratton’s baby, despite being by far the least virtuosic of all the players. It’s about his compositions, and Joe’s bass, and Woody’s keys, and Theo’s vocals, guitar, and drums. Unlike so many of their contemporaries, this world-famous band’s sound and image are in no way the brainchild of a PR team. It’s the result of a bunch of music nerds in Ann Arbor who were studying music, then making music, just for the joy of it. The product is pure and sweet and potent: kids who have retained their smiles while attaining master-status skill in their art. Hell, just look at the people who want to play with them. Their giggling enthusiasm is infectious.

In this day and age of making art to make money to have power to make money to have money to make power to have power to make money, Vulfpeck is a magic portal into pure music nerd wet dreams. They’re already becoming a legend in the making in their own time. So many artists compromise the purity of their vision in an attempt to cultivate appeal, and there is nothing sadder than someone who has done that and still failed. If you compromise for the wrong reasons you’re lost, even if you win, because what you’ve won isn’t what you actually wanted.

What gives me heart as an artist in the venal wasteland that is our current corporate century is that selling yourself bald isn’t the only way to win. Once in while an artist makes a pile of money doing only and exactly what they wanted to do, and for Vulfpeck that’s sit around the basement and make music with their friends. That’s literally what all of their music videos look like. Everything they produce is handled with care, curated for maximum irreverent beauty, and executed with an auteur’s flourish. Even the comment sections on their videos are bright and warm and delightful. How refreshing is that? They knew who they were, and what they wanted, and now they are who they wanted to be.

“And I’m
Learning the hard way
To be true…”

1

it touched and passed through

When I think back on Tanzania
(on us and you and me and that)
it grips me again the old feeling;
all my ribs crush inward, I feel
the pain squeeze tight and biting.

But I don’t live in that feeling
anymore I learned I had to pry
myself away or die of disfunction
and I’ve grown so far and fast
it’s been a reincarnation; I don’t live
in that feeling, not anymore,
but I can — all it takes is reaching
back for it, because it’s there.

I know it’s a myth, I know that;
and the pain was so fucking hard
to let go, it was everything
I had left. Now most days
are calm struggles, peaceful
strain, you know? Familiar.
Most days are good days;
yet the pain is always there,
when and if I reach for it,

and I do — Because, because,

Because although this love thing
is a myth it’s only actually a myth
in the specific in that now it’s gone
and gripping it was gripping death.

But love? Sweet sentimental love
is not at all a myth itself — once
it was not even a myth for me;
it was once a self-evident truth, real
as the soil is real as real as anything
has ever been real altering everything
it touched and passed through.

If I take the pain out now and then
you’ll have to forgive me, because
though I and everything have changed,
though you and everything are dust,
though our myth itself became death,
before that death it was joy and after
joy it was love and after that love
itself had faded to myth it became
this sweet old bite of pain again.

And I suppose I’m sentimental
(and more than a little self-destructive)
but every once in a while I take it out
and set it on the floor of my mind
and stretch my hand out towards it —

— and when it bites me how I smile,
just happy that it lives.

0

woman

I’m real sweet on Angel Olsen. She got her start as a hand-picked backup singer to the Duke of Darkness himself, Will Oldham (aka Bonnie “Prince” Billy), and you can see it in her eyes and hear it in her moans.  Her band are all super reserved professional studio hands who add no more than is absolutely necessary to serve her incredible voice, and who use just the right amount of pressure to build these shattering vocal crescendos out of nowhere. She may or may not be a closeted lesbian, singing gorgeous lesbian heartbreak songs.

Me, I’m just another cis-normative, mostly-straight white male, who enjoys the hell out of identifying with gorgeous lesbian heartbreak songs.

Yeah, I’m real sweet on Angel Olsen.

Love, and the tragedy of love, are universal constants.  

“What makes me a…”

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Dear Sweet Intern

Dear Joshua,

Thank you for taking the time to contact my office regarding the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) ruling on internet regulations. I appreciate hearing from you and I care about your thoughts. […]

We care about keeping the internet open and free. Since its inception, the internet has played a vital role in driving innovation, commerce, economic opportunity and job creation. It has provided an accessible space for small business owners and entrepreneurs to compete in the market. That is why this Congress has rolled back harmful and overreaching regulations that were enacted by the Obama Administration. […]

As this debate continues in Congress, I will keep your comments in mind to ensure a free and open Internet. 

Sincerely,

Tom Reed
Member of Congress

Thank you, dear Intern, for writing this vacant, pro-forma e-mail for your boss.

Senator Reed (who I’m beginning to suspect may not have read my letter) either has an understanding of Net Neutrality that’s so flawed as to be ironic, or, he is baldly promoting the interests of the multi-national corporations who stand to benefit from its dismantling — in direct opposition to the interests of his constituents.

Constituents like me.

Yes, hi.

Look, I have lots of respect for honest intellectual conservatism, and I understand and share the fear of giant, non-transparent governments.  I’m no fan of fascism, authoritarianism, or really any kind of autocratic government that isn’t The Philosopher King’s Benevolent Monarchy.  I believe the absolute freedom of the individual is our most fundamental modern right, and anything infringing on it requires overwhelmingly demonstrable proof of its necessity.

That being said, I have only hatred in my heart for the corpocracy that rules this country.  We could just as easily be talking about private prisons, or industrial weapons and war profiteering, or health care “insurance” that ranks citizens in access tiers and puts profit-makers between patients and doctors — we could be talking about a great many things, and this fact would remain:

Protecting the freedom of corporations to restrict the freedom of our citizens is an irony of astounding myopia.

Your boss, dear Intern, is either willfully ignorant, willfully corrupt, complacently stupid, or some absurd combination of the three —  NONE OF THESE OPTIONS ARE DEFENSIBLE.

This man and his ilk should — and God willing, someday will — be stripped of their titles and their dignity and made to walk home to their constituents, barefoot and crying.

Sorry, Intern, but — Congressman Reed,  it is my belief that you are a rank asshole.

Listen:

A free market REQUIRES REGULATION TO OPERATE.  The game-theory incentives of a truly free market are for the top players to collude, force out competition, then drive up prices.  ALL unrestricted markets devolve into MONOPOLY, ALWAYS.  If you stand to benefit from that system, as Congressman Reed does, and your principles are only skin-deep, self-serving lip service, as Congressman Reed’s are, then hey, who cares?

But if you care about justice, or kindness, or the collective human trust that is placed in the hands of a public SERVANT, then you care. And what’s more, you are growing increasingly ANGRY at being talked to like a child.

As I’m sure you can tell, this is not just about New Neutrality.  This is about an entire civilization’s tipping point of no return.  It’s about what we could be, versus what we are, and what we are becoming.  Intern, forgive me, but your boss IS the servant of someone, and it isn’t the public; worse, they see the public as something bovine, undeserving of empathy, something to harvest.  But as that public grows more educated, as knowledge is further democratized and disseminated, it’s possible the day of their disgrace is coming.  For their sake, for all our sake’s, if that day comes I hope our species has outgrown the guillotine.

For today, though, for this sorry day in a string of sorry days, the slap in the face that was your pro-forma response has simply cost him a vote he never had.  And so he laughs, and returns to his life.  Hell, he probably won’t even have to face the minor discomfort of reading this letter.

Forgive me my malice, Mr. Reed, but on the off-chance this does make it to your desk, I hope you choke on your next ill-gotten check as it’s crammed down your insatiable, still-slurping throat.  The choking would not stop the slurping, I’m sure.

You are beyond saving.

But for you, Intern, all I can say is question everything.  Nobody has a premium on absolute truth, not your boss, not your boss’ boss, and certainly not me.  It’s up to you to bring the servant back to public servant.  Someone has to be the seed.  If the corporations aren’t pried off the head of our democracy soon, they will devour the host; and this 200-year experiment of by the people, for the people, will fall finally to its ruin.  If you aspire to a place of rulership in the new aristocracy of that old world order, then goodbye sweet Intern, and God save your soul.

But if you aspire to a better world, one constructed in the very face of the supra-national powers that rule us — If you aspire to preserving and fulfilling the promises of actual freedom and self-government made at the signing of our incredible constitution, well, you have my email address.

I’ll be here, swallowing my vomit, husbanding the last of my compassion, cupping my calloused hands around the flickering, fading light that was the birth of this beautiful republic.

By the people, For the people,

With love,

Joshua.

0

porko rosso, or: that one time i got way too stoned

Muscle memory from a misspent youth has gotten me into trouble an embarrassing amount as an adult.  At some point in my late-twenties I had returned home, to scrape together some money and lick my wounds, and there was a Hayao Miazaki / Studio Ghibli run going on at the Cornell Cinema.  So I met up with some friends to go see Princess Mononoke, and they were, of course, packing a bowl.

This scene was both routinely normal and highly unusual for me at that point, as I had quit smoking weed some three years earlier, while living in Taipei.  I had been a habitual, unquestioning stoner for many years, but for whatever reason of change or perspective, it had started to slowly dawn on me there that the worm had turned.

When I first started smoking it was a joyous discovery, mesmerizing in its ability to get me outside of myself and away from my anxieties:  Touching, tasting, listening to music, watching a cool breeze run through the grass and ripple the blades, feeling its chill wash across my skin in a wave of goosebumps — Seeing the world not from the hazed depths of myself, but from a lifted vantage up and out, through a giggling kaleidoscope of vibrating color and sensation.

Somehow though, in a twist of actual irony, it began to take me not out, but straight down and in.  I would smoke weed with people, and then immediately become not just self-conscious, but self-critical.  It was terrible, pure paralytic self-loathing anxiety.  Eventually I reached a point of deciding to only smoke alone at home, as I had convinced myself I needed it to sleep.  Then of course, I just started having these downward spiraling anxiety attacks by myself, alone in my rooftop apartment in Taipei.

Eventually, in what would become one of my first real moments of maturity, I decided to stop.  I realized I was paying money — and in Taiwan, it cost kind of a lot of money — to be unhappy.  So I stopped.  And it turned out I didn’t need it to sleep at all; it was just like having a fan, or the humming of a fish tank in the room — it was simply something I had gotten used to, and it took a surprisingly short time to get used to its absence.  Of course drinking then took off in a major way and became its own spiral, requiring its own epiphany, but that’s another story.

Anyways, I was at my friend’s place, before the Miazaki film, and they were packing a bowl, and I figured heck, if ever there was a time to get stoned again, it was before sitting in a dark theater and watching a beautiful animated movie that I had already seen and loved.  So we were talking, and I took the bowl, and I took a hit, and I passed it, and it came back, and I took a hit and passed it, and so on.  Muscle memory took over completely, and I was taking massive “get-fucked-up” pulls on this thing, repeatedly, as I had once done on the regular, every day.  Unfortunately I did not have the tolerance of my youth.  I got WAY too stoned.

So we drive up there, and I’m in the back seat fidgeting uncomfortably.  And we’re sitting in the theater, and I’m super conscious of how my legs are crossed, where my hands are falling on the arm rests, wondering whether I’m taking up too much of my neighbor’s arm rest, feeling the eyes of everyone on me, feeling like I don’t know how to arrange my face, feeling like I don’t like my face, feeling like the world is closing in one me, like everything is raw unbearable discomfort, spiraling downwards all over again, feeling like…

and then I noticed there was a piano on the stage.

The Cornell Cinema is actually a beautiful theatrical space, with a big red velvet curtain, and there was a piano on the stage in front of the curtain, and a young asian woman walked out and sat down.  As the hum of people continued around me, the scope of my focus narrowed suddenly to a tiny circle of light:  Her sitting down, her opening sheet music, her opening the piano and adjusting her seat, her laying fingers on the keys, her closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.  Her beginning to play.

She played the opening music to Princess Mononoke, live, on a grand piano before a red velvet curtain, and I was suddenly exactly as stoned as I was supposed to be.

Never before or since have I had such a movie-going experience.  She played the whole thing, then got up, bowed briefly, and walked off stage.  The curtains opened, the lights dimmed and the movie began.  If you aren’t familiar with studio Ghibli, I strongly suggest you acquaint yourself.  Miazaki can be a wandering storyteller, but his films are rich, vibrant, heartfelt, and gorgeous.  And the music?  Well, have a listen to the ending credits of Porko Rosso — one of his earliest and least known works.  Miazaki and his composer Joe Hisaishi’s meeting was a glorious accident of fate, and their constant collaboration has been a thing of shining wonder, spanning countless projects, characters, childhoods, decades.

I don’t smoke weed anymore, and honestly I far prefer my life this way.  But if you feel like having a joint, for old-time’s-sake, I can say with some authority that there is still a place in this world for the reckless choices of childhood.  Sometimes, even still, way too stoned turns out to be just right.

composed by Joe Hisaishi
for Studio Ghibli / Hayao Miazaki

2

luv(sic) pt. 3

When Seba Jun’s body was pulled from the mutilated wreckage of his car, the instrumental demo for part six of his “luv(sic)” series was found in his pocket, surviving on his somehow still-intact phone.  I enjoy that story, and that clever emoticon-age song title, very much.  And though I didn’t like him at first, Shing02’s flow has really grown on me over the years.  He’s an acceptable rapper, has something to contribute that isn’t murder-cash-bitches, and does an acceptable job on this track.  The real shine though, that same hypnotic, melancholic lushness that permeated the Samurai Champloo OST, has nothing to do with the words.

The real star of this show went out one night on a Tokyo highway.

Nujabes’ beats were magic.

0

the last time i saw richard

‘The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in ’68
And he told me all romantics meet the same fate
Someday cynical and drunk and boring
Someone in some dark café.
“You laugh,” he said, “you think you’re immune
Go look at your eyes they’re full of moon
You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you
All those pretty lies, pretty lies
When you gonna realize they’re only pretty lies
Only pretty lies, just pretty lies.”

He put a quarter in the Wurlitzer and he pushed
Three buttons and the thing began to whir
And a bar maid came by
In fishnet stockings and a bow tie
And she said “Drink up now
it’s getting on time to close.”
“Richard, you haven’t really changed,” I said,
“It’s just that now you’re romanticizing
Some pain that’s in your head
You got tombs in your eyes
but the songs you punched are dreaming
Listen, they sing of love so sweet, love so sweet
When you gonna get yourself back on your feet?
Oh and love can be so sweet, love so sweet.”

Richard got married to a figure skater
And he bought her a dishwasher and
A coffee percolator and he drinks at home
Now most nights with the TV on
And all the house lights left up bright.
I’m gonna blow this damn candle out
I don’t want nobody comin’ over to my table
I got nothing to talk to anybody about
All good dreamers pass this way some day
Hidin’ behind bottles in dark cafes dark cafes
Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings
And fly away — Only a phase, these dark café days.’

0

dear broken friend

Publicly fund your elections.  Alpha children wear grey.  Publicly fund your elections.  They work much harder than we do, because they’re so frightfully clever.  Publicly fund your elections.  I’m awfully glad I’m a Beta, because I don’t work so hard.  Publicly fund your elections.  Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and never consider revolution.  Publicly fund your elections.  Think different.  Publicly your elections fund.  What’s in your wallet?  Wait, hold on.  And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas.  Elections your publicly fund.  Gammas are stupid.  Publicly your fund elections.  Oh no, I don’t want to play with Delta children.   Your elections publicly fund.  It melts in your mouth.  Epsilons are still worse.  Not in your hand.  Your fund publicly fund.  One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.  Have it your way.  Fund publicly your fund.  Can you hear me now?  Elections fund elections.  A diamond is forever.  Don’t leave home without it.  Fund your fund.  Fair and balanced.  Like a good neighbor.  Wait.  All the news that’s fit to print.  Impossible is nothing.  Don’t be evil.  Please wait.  No more tears.  The best a man can get.  I’m sorry.  I’m loving it.  It’s everywhere you want to be.  Just do it.

0

palestine / amy

“If you’re gonna write a hit song,
make it a short one.”
-Willie Nelson

Years ago, I saw Yann Tierson perform live on my birthday in Brighton, England.  Between “comptine d’un autre été,” “j’y suis jamais allé,” and this Takeaway Show of new material, I was super excited.  During a break in the music, all disconcerting takes on songs I had never heard, someone yelled out, “Play Amelie!” and he gave the crowd the most disgusting sneer I’ve ever seen from a performer.

“I don’t play songs I don’t like,” he said.

Then he played a really crap experimental version of Palestine.

I mean, yes, be an artist; make art, not money — and I do totally get hating those songs after playing them and playing them and playing them.  I do.  But don’t forget in your success that you have money because people paid you.  They didn’t pay you for existing — they paid you because they were enlivened, enriched, entertained by the art.  Arrogance is an ugly and unfortunate thing.

Art isn’t about you, Yann.  Once you take it out of your basement, once you perform it for profit, then art is about bringing beauty and solace to the lives of the people who took hours of their lives, turned them into money, and then gave that money to you.  A working artist has an obligation to their audience, not the other way around.

When I’m rich and successful, please remind me of this:  No matter how sick you are of playing to the common denominator, it’s not okay to forget there are people here who chose to spend their birthday with you.  I don’t care how French and Famous you are, it’s never okay to be a spoiled, self-centered dick.

Huh.

Well.

That’s not at all what I sat down to write.  After some reflection, I think I either believe what I’ve written here, or the complete opposite.  The truth, I suspect, is somehow both.

Anyways, enjoy the Takeaway Show.  What I do believe for sure is that what matters is the art, not the artist.  Whether Yann Tierson is a poor tortured soul, ground down by profiteering capitalist pressures, or an obnoxious piece of shit, made vain and obscene by fame, is fundamentally irrelevant.

What matters is the art — and this art is fantastic.

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