Well, in case I had any doubts as to the verity of your asshole nature last night, all I had to do upon waking this afternoon was to look in the mirror and see the huge hickey you left for my me, right in the middle of my neck. Thank you. I’m sure my students will appreciate this visual lesson in western culture. If you truly are a writer, at least you can be assured you have the asshole part of it down. After all, whoever heard of a nice writer?
i don’t know what i became
but every day it felt the same
and every time my legs went lame
the only voice i heard was blame
shame had got me leaning over
puking out my guts a boulder
at my back to push it up a lonely hill
sisyphus don’t make a fist
just push it to the top and spill
my drink upon the burning bush
then drag my boy aloft to kill
a sacrifice to vengeful gods
or angry priests at heads of mobs
and in the corner jesus sobs,
“lob your stones in my direction”
none believe since his rejection
of the fiction of human condition
wishing in one hand and shitting
in the other jesus, brother
i’ll sit down compose and grieve
wipe your nose upon my sleeve
and you can have another
jesus christ you best believe
that you can have another
Begin here if you have the time to see it through. You will not be disappointed. Lester Bangs was a journalist third, a writer second, and an artist first. His work is what finally convinced me that criticism is in fact a viable art form, despite its tertiary existence on the backs of its subjects. I’ve got little patience for the Pitchforks of the world, the great taste-makers who glory in the tear-down, making money on the sneering dismissals of people’s dreams. We love to rubber-neck, and someone exposing themselves and their bedroom creations to ridicule is great sport. But I wouldn’t attend a public execution, and I don’t want to read that shit.
What I care to read, what Lester Bangs ultimately wrote, are love songs. His review of Astral Weeks is an ode to Van Morrison, and more than that, it is a mustering of all the art he had at his disposal, through the manic slurring mix of uppers and downers, in a bedroom act of bravery all his own, to say thank you. He was grateful. Well me too, Lester. And I agree, Astral Weeks is a beauty wrought in a fire Morrison never even tried to touch again. Not even close. If you don’t have time for the review, forgive me, but I’m skipping to the end:
“On the other hand, it might also be pointed out that desolation, hurt, and anguish are hardly the only things in life, or in Astral Weeks. They’re just the things, perhaps, that we can most easily grasp and explicate, which I suppose shows about what level our souls have evolved to. I said I wouldn’t reduce the other songs on this album by trying to explain them, and I won’t. But that doesn’t mean that, all thing considered, a juxtaposition of poets might not be in order.
If I ventured in the slipstream Between the viaducts of your dreams Where the mobile steel rims crack And the ditch and the backroads stop Could you find me Would you kiss my eyes And lay me down In silence easy To be born again Van Morrison
– My heart of silk is filled with lights, with lost bells, with lilies and bees. I will go very far, farther than those hills, farther than the seas, close to the stars, to beg Christ the Lord to give back the soul I had of old, when I was a child, ripened with legends, with a feathered cap and a wooden sword. Federico Garcia Lorca”
Open relationships and polyamory… My, oh my. Always it starts out in this perfectly reasonable theoretical realm, a logic without reproach, and always also it seems to end with at least one partner crying in the fetal position. I wish it weren’t so, but that’s been my observational experience. Jealousy is this biologically hard-wired drive, a competitive evolutionary advantage, passed down and built upon by our successful ancestors. It exists, no denying it.
But one can also argue that monogamy itself is suspect, that friction fades and sex changes over time in a relationship, that expecting one person to fulfill every important role in your life (to be the consummate lover, your best friend, your intellectual equal, to share your sense of humor, hobbies, tastes, everything) is both unrealistic and an unfair standard to hold a human being up to. We set ourselves up for disappointment, and our partners up for failure, when we compare our lives to the unfinished happy endings of movies. Most happy endings are simply stories that didn’t go on long enough. If you watched past the credits you’d eventually see a fight over dinner about habits, mundane garbage, toenail clippings. Half of all marriages end in divorce, and that doesn’t mean the people who stay coupled together are optimally happy that way–or even happy at all.
And yet, to move beyond monogamy to a pluralistic, monogamish approach to modern sexuality, one had better prepare to stare down jealousy. It’s in us, at a genetic level, and our evolution hasn’t yet caught up to our capacity for abstract reasoning. It does seem to vary, person to person, and insecurity has its greasy fingers in there, but in every case I’ve seen, it’s eventually become a big-ball-of-pain type problem. I know success stories exist; I haven’t met them.
All I’ve got in closing is a shrug, and an apology if it seems I’ve tried to speak for anyone, or offered any judgement. For all my misgivings, all the pain I’ve seen it cause, the reward is potentially worth the risk. I guess the only wisdom I have to pass on, from my observations to any brave explorers, is be open and honest with yourself and your partners, and take your lumps as they come. Because they will come. Good luck to you all, my earnest and intrepid sexual adventurers. I hope it works out. I really do.
And if you do find yourself crying in the fetal position, I’ll be right here, with music. You’re always welcome to curl up and join me.
Samuel Herring is my very favorite live performer. The man is an unabashed entertainer, but not as you might imagine entertainment; he’s a gut-wrenching, heartbroken, operatic performer looking to include his audience in his desperate attempts to heal. The man cares, a lot, and he isn’t afraid of looking stupid, or sounding stupid, or putting himself out there in his songs. He just sings and dances and does his operatic thing, while his tight-as-fuck backing band of keys and kit and bass drop amazing synth lines behind him. That is how you feed your broken heart to living art: throw yourself off the cliff with no fear, no safety net, and soar.
Balance
“And I can sit and talk Because I was just like you So arrogant and brave Impetuous and blue
But trust me as a friend And I’ll do all that I can do And I’d do anything for you Because I want to see you through”
Vireo’s Eye
“Our love was not lost in style You were strong, I was a child
We… we’re not kings here We’re not kings here We’re just strangers”
As I wander deeper into the world of producers and the products of modern music-making technology, I’m gaining more and more respect for the folks who work this craft. The best of them are audiophiles, true, but they’re also full on musicians, making their own sounds and capable of playing their songs at shows with live bands. These sounds can be anything, from classical piano notes, to a drumstick on a desk, to the sound of hands rustling grass. It’s a musicality that’s fundamentally nerdy as all hell, and like anything good and geeky, has many subtle moving pieces when you zoom in close. Back away though, and the layers begin to blur into a sum greater than its fading parts. For being such absolute nerd-faces, Emancipator and his ilk’s hip-hop for acid heads is not nerdy at all.
The Throne of the Third Heaven’s Millennium Assembly, largely ignored by the music world at large, was for me, a revelation. The album works as a whole — rare as that is — sliding deftly from picking strings over a description of depressive despair, to Abraham and Isaac doing devotion on the mountaintop, to the end of the world outside a car. They sing in rounds, there’s a banjo, and one of the band members is listed as playing “computer.” Are you not intrigued? Like no other band, I give you, once again, Le Loup.
Ah, The Knife. No matter where I am or what I’m doing, they make me want to drop it all and do a weird dance. Like an I’m-still-alive-in-all-my-fucked-up-glory dance. Like a dance so weird it becomes a celebration. This video, with its Hedwig and the Angry Inch vibe, is a beautiful example of what The Knife were all about. In a way they were themselves a sort of strange dance. I like it very, very much.
This has long been a litmus test of mine. I generally enjoy people in the individual, really enjoy them. We’re so earnest and complicated and interesting. In the aggregate, though, we exhibit the traits of a cancer, or a terminal virus. Like a creeping blight we advance across this verdant planet, grinding it up to feed the machine, until one day we’ll reach the end and look back on a lifeless nightmare of our own making, where our last descendants will die deaths of quiet resignation, and our final tottering edifices will gasp and fall to dust and be forgotten. So once I get into a conversation, really get into it, and start wondering who this person actually is that I’ve been sitting here talking to, I’ll drop that:
“Fuck people.”
A fair few react with alarm and a kind of horror that one could even think such a thing. That shock is usually followed pretty closely by pity. Then there is a second, smaller but still significant group, who cock their head and look me in the eye. Yeah, I think. There it is. There is also a third group, with a single lone member: the cab driver in Portland, who when I yelled it at him all wasted and obnoxious from the back of his cab, took a long moment to consider, then gravely asked a follow-up question: “You mean, like, the verb?”
it didn’t work out because
venus once had a climate
like ours because the sun
is dying and all will tend
to an isolated heat death
because we all die alone
and afraid in the end
because we got too heavy
into drugs because a bottle
by the bed and a bump
for breakfast meant sober
days waiting and fighting
because freak weather
events are occurring now
with increasing regularity
because cells that divide
too often will eventually
mutate and consume
us all in the end because
you didn’t love me enough
to be unhappy anymore.
This video is a tiny slice of hundreds of hours, back and forth between Dar es Salaam and Vikindu. We made this trip over, and over, and over, and over again, the soundtrack to Drive on heavy rotation via headphones for a good chunk of it. As substance abuse and my relationship spiraled simultaneously out of control, existence in Tanzania took on an increasingly surreal and cinematic aspect. You’re getting an authentic taste here: Me and Philipo, coming back from work. We only ever spent time together like this, in transit for money, me speaking to the back of his nervous head. In hindsight he was one of my best friends.
I came across Nosaj Thing a number of years ago via the illustrious Ruby Chang, when he was the author of an excellent little EP, Views/Octopus. It was so excellent in fact, that two of the songs remained in playlist rotation forever after. Last week I discovered that despite my inattentiveness he’s actually been a prolific and successful artist all these intervening years, with three full albums to his name and guest spots by famous rappers and singers. I dove in excited, floodlights seeking on high, expecting a treasure trove of new yoga beats. To my surprise it was instead a very pretty melancholia.
Something about this song reminds me of Yann Tierson and the music from Amelie, which then makes me nostalgic and sad for something I had once and lost. Then eventually I warm to the fullness of that feeling, and I’m glad. I’m glad to have had and to have lost and to have fallen and to be here to savor it all, glad just to be moved. You and I are the sensitive fingertips of a blind universe exploring its own face, this is why we exist: to taste and touch and sense and smell, to fear and fuck and love and loathe, to sigh and long and laugh and feel. Smell whatever is on the air, lick your lovely fingers, listen to life around you, touch the texture of your desk, your dog, yourself. Feel happy or sad or tired or bad, whatever. You’re here and alive and it’s happening, this wild ride, this human thing, and you’re doing it just right. “Keep up the good work,” the universe is saying to itself.
Girl Band are a noise band. Their music is often grating and discordant, their moments of coherent lucidity few, far between, and difficult to discern.
As the soundtrack to this pocket movie they are perfect.
Drunk as shit on rotgut whiskey on my rooftop in Taipei. Drunk as shit and heartbroken and unable to cry. Mired in dark things, doing dark things, being a bad person because I could, because it was available to me, hurting people who didn’t deserve it just to see how it felt. Crying would’ve been such a relief. Instead I recorded poems.
“Remember how long thou hast been putting off these things, and how often thou hast received an opportunity from the gods, and yet dost not use it. Thou must now at last perceive of what universe thou art a part, and of what administrator of the universe thy existence is an efflux, and that a limit of time is fixed for thee, which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind, it will go and thou wilt go, and it will never return.”
You thought three songs in one post was enough Vulfpeck? No. No, no, lord no. They play like a live jazz band, setting a theme and then letting Mr. Dart and his magical funky bass wizard wand walk on it for a while, until eventually they all come back for a joyous musical reunion. Then sometimes they add a special extra piece, like vocals, or a… well, you’ll see. Goodness me. They really are something. I’ll close here with the immortal words of my new favorite Youtube commenter:
“Bass guitarist has the moves
of a rooster with plenty of food
at his feet, but he aint hungry,
just leaving it for his hen’s.
so tight.”
the little demons dance
their writhing orgiastic bodies
beating dark insistent drums
they rub their little bellies
sway suggestive little hips
faces red and ruddy in the flame
i made a flame
the wisps drifting tendrils
floating black and airy
light and airy banshees ever
screaming nightgowns
trailing skin of plaster
mouths a rictus screaming
screaming silent screaming
i made a scream
the fire is enormous
built of bone and love
and hope and fear
and death and pain
and lung and heart
and love and love
they exhort me, “jump”
they chant and, “jump”
they cry and, “jump”
it is my chant i made
a chant i smear the paint
i raise my spear i set my mouth
inhale and face my fear inhale
and i am brave and i am brave i run
and run i run and run and leap
lifting trailing streamers
clearing barely clearing flame
licking at my legs and landing
heaving burnt and smoking
still the other side alive
i made a hurt
and in silence then they wait
they wait for me to tend my burns
they wait for me to wrap my cuts
they wait in patience as i feed
the fire banking it still higher
until the smallest demon starts
again i see him mouthing,
“jump,”
he mouths and
“jump,” they say and
“jump,” i catch my breath
they beat the drums i roar
the fire roars my blisters
burn i am not ready
i try my little rituals
again i paint my face
slap my chest i try
and yet this time
it isn’t in me
and i just
stop
and look
it is no longer
night a warming light
has crept across the horizon
looking down i feel the grass
soft beneath bare feet
i wiggle my toes
i put down my spear
and a big demon comes
with a bucket of water i wash
the war paint slowly
deliberately
from my beaten body
and scarred and hardened
strong and melted somehow
inside i turn to the wisps
who silent grin at me
and the demons
they part for me to pass
and the fire of my 20s
settles into smoking ash
sending tendrils drifting
curling up into a pink
and orange morning
Every once in a while I find an artist in the basement of the internet who hooks me with their titles. I’ve got a fetish for excellent titles, in whatever context they’re found, and– though it’s not a fool-proof method– the makers of such things tend to also be excellent artists, regardless of medium. Dr. Toast is one such fellow. I came for a handful of words, but stayed for the music. Enjoy the Book of Ingenious Devices.
(It’s also a banging song to do yoga to, if, you know, you’re into that kind of thing).
it’s been over a year now
and i’ve had many lovers
since then that all together
can’t quite still the resonance
the severed synapses firing
memories blindly into blank
brain space echoes i thought
i was free but it came again
towards morning last night
it simply appeared
like the most natural thing
on a train in transit rushing
of course rushing but we found
time it was us we made time
to lean against each other
and though rushing as ever
we had time just to feel
our heads touching
so tender so sad you anxious
feeling trapped we understood
that it should not be here
anymore in my dreams
Somehow, some years back, I became the guy who people came to and said, “Hey, I found this amazing art. It’s super, super dark. You’ll love it.” And I do, and I did. But it’s got me thinking, what is it about that beautiful chaotic darkness that fascinates me so much? In some ways I like to think it has to do with a veneration of truth, of a scientific approach to life where the outcome of experiments, the ways in which you test your hypotheses are not dependent on what you want. People so often see what they want to see, and yet the reality of existence, the real glory of humanity, is in our duality.
We are ourselves heaven and hell, entwined and incarnate, Beethoven’s symphonies and Hitler’s gas chambers. We embody both ends of the bell curve, whether we like it or not. And without that darkness, without the stretching of that darkness to the point of last light, we could never have the moments of shattering beauty that make life worth living. I’d like to think that’s why it fascinates me. When all is utterly lost, when my chest feels like it’s going to burst in rage or shame or frustration or despair–there–in that darkness, lives the flicker of something divine.
Thus Totoro, remixed and lovely. When Miyazaki made “Grave of the Fireflies,” his bleakest, starkest work, his distributors thought it was too dark to move by itself. So they bundled it with Totoro, where death is a lovable, invisible, childhood friend. I thought I’d do the same here for you. Enjoy him, death, and his beautiful song. He’s not the enemy. Not really.
There’s a constant buzz in the back of my brain, combing through countless instrumentals, compiling playlists, hearing everything with fresh ears as a backing for yoga. So many themes, paces, poses; the possibilities, the permutations are endless. There is an art form here, to be approached as an artist. After the music, I’ll start adding the writing. It all fits. Something is coming.
After years of listless factotum jobs, starting over each time at the bottom rung of work and wage, being alternately bored, under-utilized, and shit on for money, I taught a group of middle-aged women yoga this morning. And it was good. It’s not the end of anything, I will still and probably always struggle to scrape my pennies together, but it’s a starting point, a destination. For so long I’ve sat here with rocket parts and no reason to assemble them. Now, in health and sobriety, regardless of whether it explodes on the launching pad, or sputters out in space, or veers off into the sun, I will put this thing together. I have the parts; I always had the parts– what I lacked was clear skies and a destination. It’s time to find out what this thing can really do.
This is for my hippie kids, the ones who were so nice that at first it was suspicious. This is for the ones who found the lost and lonely child in my woods and brought him home, the kids who somehow sloughed off their brushes with darkness and cynicism, who stopped, then simply stepped around that doomed fist-fight we fought with life, who shrugged off gender roles and expectations, who live truly, without apology, in empathy and compassion and hope.
This is for you, my hippie kids, if you ever find yourselves here and reading this, may you know who you are. Thank you for bringing me back, for being a reminder of the light. If you’d come any later, I might have missed it entirely.
I went to Kripalu to find refinement in solitude: To train to teach yoga, and to deepen my personal practice. Instead I spent the entire time blissed out in one long love-hug after another, sober as sin for 26 days, smiling like an idiot child. So much love, so much acceptance, so much kindness. Being home, in the vacuum of all that love, is very disorienting. As the hand heads for wine, as the thoughts stray to dark, real refinement begins.
In solitude, in absence, in the haunts of old habits,
handkerchief tied to stick 