Pohoda festival 2009

Patti Smith saw it coming
Strong woman amplified
Will we stand or start running?
Be the future or hide?

When The Ting Tings said We Walk
Late that first night
Yeah when The Ting Tings said We Walk
They were exactly right

A little bit of rain
A darkening sky
When the fatal gust came
That day at 2:59

Travis, LAMB, Ms. Torrini
Now entirely reduced
By a breathless blond on TV
Thousands walking in wet shoes

The sea of toxic faces
The flood of worried friends
The airborne event erases
What will never be again

But if something has a value
Does it also have a price?
I'd bow my head in sadness
Then stand into the night

To the sad void of security
From the freedom of the rain
Wish they all were listening
To what Patti Smith was saying

Michael Jackson's death: an American metaphor

The death of Michael Jackson is a perfect symbol for America in 2009.  Like America itself, he was a man who lived a lavish, yet tasteless lifestyle while taking on massive debt.  Despite pissing away all the fame and fortune one could possibly hope for, he didn't even have much fun in the process. 

He was, indeed, one of the great Americans -- clearly a product of the culture which produced him.  Like Michael Jackson, America too will one day choke on its own pain-killers while TV personalities tell us how nobody could have seen it coming.  But we all saw it coming and, deep down, we all know why.

I'm sad that the man who clearly possessed so much beauty in his heart, and was able to (at times) let us all see it...allowed the ugliness of shallow materialism and the corporate control of his life to ultimately end it. 

New video for my song Strangled Into Gray

You start to get a sense that a song means something to people when they feel compelled to not just listen to it, but reference it, analyze it, or use it in a derivative work. 

This video was taken from a short film created by an American film student whom I've not met.  One day I was searching YouTube and came across it, then asked him if I could use the footage to create a proper music video.  This wouldn't have been possible if I hadn't licensed my music under "Creative Commons", whereby anyone can do whatever they want with it.  In fact, this is precisely what I had hoped for when I freed my music into the public domain.

On a side note, I found another attempt by someone out there to create a video for this song.  This video is kind of cute and takes the song very literally.

Happiness isn't a right

It isn't uncommon to hear a friend express sentiments like, "everyone deserves to be happy" or, "one day the right person, the right job, or the right opportunity will come along and everything will work out."  The unfortunate reality is that things don't work that way.

Perhaps it is true that excitement can "come along", pain "comes along"...as does tragedy, bliss, and moments of beauty.  But happiness and contentment are different...more elusive because a certain amount of skill and work is required.  Happiness implies an ability to hold onto an ongoing state that lasts from day-to-day, week-to-week, even year-to-year.  The state of happiness can only be achieved after a certain amount of work, skill, and determination is applied to the chance situation of something "coming along".

In order to find happiness in a career, it is necessary to spend years in training, complete a degree, put in years of hard work to get experience, and then find the strength to get up each morning to do what you have to do.  Without putting in the necessary work upfront, there is no way for anyone to stumble into a job or career which is rewarding and satisfying.  There is a process, as imperfect and unfair as it might be.

The same is true in love.  While common knowledge makes us believe that we ought to do nothing but wait for "the right person" to "come along"...happiness can never be found in love without first opening our hearts and minds so that we might learn the skills, put in the work, and do what needs to be done each day to maintain the relationship: becoming more sensitive, solving problems, communicating, and growing.  Most people haven't found long-term happiness in love either because they don't have a long-term relationship or because, without the right approach, the long-term relationship isn't working.  Indeed, a truly satisfying, rewarding, happy long-term relationship or marriage is as rare and elusive as a satisfying and rewarding career.  Friendship is no different.

I am in no way saying that the only way to be happy and content is to find a long-term relationship and a great career.  I've known plenty of people who have been happy without either.  But, even in these cases, a certain amount of wisdom, skill, and work goes into negotiating that life of happiness and contentment.

The founders of the United States, in the Declaration of Independence, did not guarantee happiness; rather, the right to the pursuit of happiness.  All human beings should have the opportunity to get the education and experience necessary to succeed.  All human beings should have the right to love whomever they choose...and to pursue any kind of relationship they want with any other person.  In that sense, we all have the opportunity to find happiness...as elusive as it may, indeed be in the day-to-day reality of our lives.

The end of isolation

I remember a time, before chat, MySpace, and Facebook when true loneliness and isolation was a part of life.  The structure of our society left us feeling disconnected from others.  Our deepest thoughts remained trapped inside of our heads.  If we were lucky, we had that one true love by our side or that one good friend with whom we could open up; but it was too risky or inappropriate to do so with colleagues or family.  So many of us felt deeply misunderstood and alone.

But today, the only excuse we have for feeling isolated is that we stubbornly choose to be.  Anyone can easily communicate with anyone else about anything at any time and from any place.  If we don't have "real-life" friends we can trust, we can open up to and form a relationship with a like-minded stranger.  What was once precious -- that feeling of being heard and of being understood -- has become common. 

Our lives are being made so much richer.  We are emotionally and intellectually evolving rather than stagnating in isolation.  But feelings of isolation, the frustrations of being misunderstood, were also a great source of artistic inspiration and life motivation.  Many of us would turn to writing, to music, or to art as an outlet.  Others would subconsciously pour that frustration into other ambitions: an education, a career.

The Church, oppressive governments, and greedy corporations all understood that people were more valuable to them, more dependent upon them, and more loyal when they were kept isolated, unhappy, and unfulfilled.  The Church invented the structure of marriage to limit our social interaction, oppressive governments make us afraid to share controversial opinions, and corporations want to keep us reliant upon them for subsistence, for information, entertainment, and for all of our material needs.  Institutions have kept us in isolation by design.  When starved of the satisfaction and the authentic fulfillment of deep, intimate, honest human connections...we are nothing other than loyal, obedient, eager subjects. 

So there is a flip side to this new social order.  Today, students are so often distracted from their studies because communicating with friends on-line is more compelling.  Employees are doing the same.  The end of isolation has left us not as motivated, not as hungry, and not as desperate as we were just a decade ago.  We have become more evolved socially, our thoughts are not controlled by institutions, and we are rejecting their rigid, inhuman ways. 

Enormous changes are coming.

Moments

I was listening to Leonard Cohen this weekend...I mean really listening. Consider the lyrics to a verse in the song "Suzanne":

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she's half crazy
But that's why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you've touched her perfect body with your mind.

This song was written probably more than 40 years ago. Perhaps it was written about a moment that actually happened to him. There was probably no real future for him and Suzanne. But to hear it sung takes you right there, makes that moment real, important, and immortal.  When we are really listening, the best songs remind us of the importance of the moment in our lives.

We are so caught in our plans, our fears, our goals, society's rules and arbitrary morality...that most people don't understand the importance of a moment. Yet when you listen to this song, lying in a sunny room on a Sunday afternoon, it overtakes all of those other things.  The idea of a moment becomes big and important.

And what if Leonard Cohen had been afraid or too busy to go down to that river? We would never have that song...that moment never would have been.

I suppose I have a slightly different take on this theme in my song "Insecurities".  It isn't as effective as Leonard's because I'm not describing a single moment..but it makes the point of this post.

I know you've got those plans and all
I want to take you from this mall
Ride bikes far from this urban sprawl
Lie side-by-side in leaves beneath a tree so tall

You want this lifestyle to last forever
When you can't even stand today
You see fears where I see colors
Don't live a life a day away

Sungod Abscondo play live

I posted a few videos on YouTube from our Sungod Abscondo concert last night in Presov. The song A System is posted here, and several more are available here. 

Tuesday morning advice

I don't know if people like us ever feel content. I don't think people were designed to feel content. Where did we get the idea that we should? We are only products of evolution. Everything we are, everything we think, everything we feel is only a function of evolution. If a creature is content, it will only lay in the sun and get eaten.

The trick is to use that discontent, that angst, that desire, in a way that makes us more fit to survive and thrive in this cruel world. Modern societies make us live so far from nature. I suppose it started with the oppression of the Church those hundreds or thousands of years ago...and carries on to the way we've constructed our societies.

We are taught that we should be happy and content.
We are taught that we should be disciplined and under control.
We are taught that pleasure is dangerous and a sign of weakness.
We are taught to feel guilt about our truest, deepest feelings.
We are taught that women are second to men, when you are the truly intelligent ones...your deepest intuition is what our species needs most.

The only thing I've ever found that resembles peace, if only for a moment, comes when I listen to those thoughts and feelings inside of me.  It comes when I block out the judgments of the world and, instead, use the judgments of nature that come from inside. When I have found other people to co-exist in the same way....that is the only true peace I've found...the only true validation of my existence. To exist or to coexist with the knowledge that what is human, dirty, and imperfect is exactly what is perfect. To understand that this sick society -- with it's medicines, vices, experts, and psychotherapists -- is the sickness (not what's inside of me).

To know this is to understand that life, as lived on the outside, to the outside world, is merely a game. These aren't really things we should fight. We should try to live in accordance with those unavoidable factors (the ridiculous creation of money, property, morality, and arbitrary rules), but we should never look at those things as anything other than a game.

Your feelings are perfectly healthy and perfectly attractive. Your doubts are only the cancer of society seeping through your skin. Your questions are only nature itself living through you.

You are as you are. What is just is. Your uniqueness is the reason for your life. This is true for you and it is true for all of us.

So go out and play the game, but know what is truly valuable. Don't let the world punish you with its judgments or expectations. Take what you want, but don't let those things dull you.  Try not to harm anyone or anything.  Find peace in beauty and the strength to face the ugliness of the next day.

Just some thoughts on a sunny Tuesday morning...

Stages reviewed on a UK blog

The album is so new that not many reviews have come forth yet, but I wanted to share this review from a UK blog:

"I reviewed the first Abscondo album a while ago, and actually still listen to it a fair bit. So I was actually quite nervous about downloading the second one in case it didn’t live up to my expectations. Thankfully Stages builds on Midnight Snow, whilst at the same time not deviating too much from the style that made the first album so enthralling. It’s mainly all about the lyrics, which make me think a lot, and which are both political and personal without making me feel uncomfortable. There are also a couple of melodies that stick in my head like glue, which makes me think I’ll be dipping in to this album over and over again.

It’s availabe for free from Jamendo, and from the artist’s website, and available to buy from iTunes."

Stages song lyrics posted on Jamendo

Just click on the song links here for the lyrics.