Conflict

The history of the conflict in the Middle East is long and multifaceted; I do not know enough about the situation to be pro-Palestine or pro-Israel. I am pro-Palestinian people, and I’m pro-Israeli people. I am not pro-aggression or pro funding aggression.

When our brains approach complicated things, they sometimes switch from color to black and white. Unfortunately, this does not serve us well in understanding complex things.

There are no good guys and there are no bad guys. There ARE men caught in cycles of violence controlling nations, and one such man itching to get back in charge of the United States.

Governments of the developed nations are consumed with issues of violence, theft and poverty, while it’s these governments policies that have put and keep the disadvantaged there.

America has immense resources and those resources would be best used presently to aid those seeking relief from tyranny. We will not be able to take advantage of these resources under leadership of our own tyrant.

Vote.

PRIH

“Playing Robots into Heaven,” is the final and title track of James Blake’s 2023 Republic/Polydor LP release. The studio album, Blake’s seventh, is more akin to his early material but doesn’t neglect the nips and tucks that over the last few years have garnered him mainstream appeal. If you find yourself inquiring over the title, you will begin to gain a notion of its meaning upon hearing the four-minute track and then develop a fuller understanding upon seeing the official video. Directed by Thibaut Grevet, the album cover features a still from this video.

The day is hot and wearisome, and the track is waves that will lap at your toes, and with coolness take fever from the dream. In the video Blake walks as a robed monk through the wilderness with an acoustic phonograph type horn affixed to a synthesizer and directed at heaven.

To make the song, which is beatless, I’m sure Blake used the pipe organ preset on a Casio PT-100 and played it through the speakers they play the actual organ through at St. Pat’s in NYC. I’m not positive. Either way the heavens are as full or as empty as they’ve ever been, and we’ve lost our ancient channels to the divine. Robots trained to sing heaven bound praise by James Blake is a beautiful place to start.

The woods…

are dark and deep my dear and we are yet to leave them. I thought I had an idea of the grandeur of wilderness before we set out; you studied the maps. In the blazing summer mountain heat the shade provides refuge for revisiting maps but the northern hemispheres winter days shed only enough light for survival; together we look to the celestial bodies for guidance.

The destination isn’t the thing and neither is the journey; there is nowhere to go, nowhere to be but here and now. It’s a sad and beautiful world and a hand or two to hold can make the sad bits easier to traverse and the beautiful parts lovelier. As we awaken we become aware that we’ve been here before, perhaps even a billion years.

After the electrical signals in our minds stop the bleep blooping of dying batteries and our bodies are free to return to our mother, earth, let’s have the seeds of ourselves planted besides one another so that as long as the fair old sun comes up we can continue to grow side by side; I think being a tree could be as confusing as being a human, at least at first. Don’t wait for me, watch rather, because when springtime comes I’ll send you love letters perfumed with pollen on the furry knees of bees.

independence day, 2023

Today is the day some old white men not worth mentioning, declared themselves and their stolen property independent of the power of the previous perpetrators. The founders of our government went on to set a precedent of imposing archaic law in the guise of religion on all but themselves. Women, people of color, those with certain sexual preferences or atypical mental states were held accountable by ruthless men to the law of a god that seemingly appropriately murdered his own son. 247 years later, the sons of those that brought the chaos make their profit selling others your data and you pharmaceuticals. Few are free, most are imprisoned if not, figuratively literally. Figurative slavery is a choice, literal imprisonment is not. Fight for the freedom of your mind, of your time, of your energy and for those that can’t and don’t forget to stop and smell the roses. Love.

naked ape

Is it not odd that we believe evidence shows the first evolved humans existed between two and six million years ago, and the first human civilizations only came about, five thousand years ago? When not comparing them to demons, ancient white men and Christian leaders compared black men to apes. Mr. Charles Darwin, Christian seminary educated, was well versed in the wisdom of those archaic whites when in 1871 he surmised that in fact, all humans had evolved from African apes. The notion is as implausible as that of a divine being plunking it all down about 7 or 8 thousand years ago.

encomio hodie/eulogy for today

It could all be over in an instant; it will all be over in an instant. It may be global warming or global cooling or it could be a heart attack, either way, you won’t be ready when the grim reaper comes a-knocking for two reasons:

1. You’ve been busy living and though you always knew he would be coming you didn’t know when and didn’t have time to wait around.

2. It is hard to pack for a yet-to-be-disclosed location; it’s always hot in hell and gods always got the A/C running too high in heaven. Those zip-off pants from Costco would probably be the most logical option.

There’s no need to worry about death today, or any other day for that matter. As soon as St. Peter finishes polishing the pearly gates he starts over again and there are 9 rings of hell to keep Lucifer preoccupied until your arrival.

Today is the day to be alive because yesterday is gone or never existed and tomorrow hasn’t come and may not.

Do legacies outlive people, do they outlive planets? How about our ideologies, have they leached out through the ozone layer parted by our parents' hairspray?

Fear not, your pieces and parts have been here longer than you have and will continue to be long after the twinkle in your eye is once more a star in the sky’s expanse, spied now by other lovers in some other place.

The Road Not Taken

We knew before we even got started that if we were going to get to the top of the mountain there would be things to endure; valleys of hyenas and perhaps even the valley of the shadow of death itself.

There are other destinations we could have trekked to, ones closer to home and with more creature comforts; ridicule was expected, aliens in a foreign place since youth we refused to adapt, adjust or perish. If you get there, if you make it to the top of the world, you’re a king or queen and you’re lonely, while you’re attempting to get there you’re a prince or a princess or both and you’re lonely too.

The path is narrow and crooked as are the few spectators. Quiet as it can be, if you were going to take a trip with the hope of finding a comrade this is the path you would take. If you’re exhausted but can’t sit still, this is the path you take. If you’re willing to risk it all rather than endure the endless absurdity of instant gratification, this is the path you take. For every fallen soldier a flower has been planted and though the walkway is rather limited, the beauty is endless with our goal ever before us.

Once we get to the top our view will be obscured by the clouds and so before this final push let’s sit here side by side and appreciate the wonder and terror of it all.

a ghost story

Last night we were having supper and the kids were on about ghosts. Ghosts, the spirits of the dead living on in some other realm, stopping by occasionally to chew the fat or scare a wayward soul towards heaven. Ever the naysayer I proclaimed in all of the years I’ve spent with the dead as a funeral director in dark damp cold basements and at the stroke of midnight even, nothing. Feeling especially bold I began to audibly challenge any spirit or imp to visit me the following day and leave a sign of their presence, only to be quickly interrupted by the next contender for the control of the conversation, the devil in disguise.

The next morning the prior evening's conversations and my dreams are scrambled like the egg whites I should have eaten before heading to the gym. With exactly two minutes left in my cardio workout, I switch the readout on the screen in front of me, as I do every day, from distance traveled to calories burned. The number has been less since I quit the pre-workout, and today it’s 666 calories that I’ve burned, one hell of a job.

A.I.

The notion of artificial intelligence taking over the world has been in our collective consciousness, in the back of our minds like the notion of our sweet children turning into terrible teenagers, at least since the 1995 release of Kubrick/Spielberg's film A.I.. Our children are teenagers and it’s the world around them that’s become terrible.

In a country so ravaged by gun violence I think it was natural for us to assume that if/when the robots took over that it would be with guns. Not every American however decides to invite guns to bed while we all have cozied up to computers. Many moons ago when I was a teenager my father would spend his Saturdays crafting the bulletin for Sunday's church service and I would spend those afternoons folding hundreds of bulletins, after we got back from getting them printed at the local print shop. It was what my partner refers to as "Level 2 Fun", the kind that doesnt seem fun at the time but that you recall fondly after the fact. My father bulit a computer, I'm not sure how he knew how to do that without having computers to ask, and the family was promised more time with pops Saturday afternoon, thanks to the computers assistance. Before long the church bulletin was getting done in half the time, and so my father took on other church assignments that could be completed on the computer and learned to buy used books on Amazon, when that was all they sold. Out of a job I found a place in my bedroom to be a terrible teenager.

The computers may not shoot you but they may shoot down an opportunity to call a family member or friend the next time you need to know how many cups are in two litres. As a responsible gun owner keeps their firearms locked and out of reach of the babies we ought to resist the temptation to shove screens in our childrens faces. The algorithms that choose the programming aim to addict, as they have been instructed.

Dare to resist.

Statue of Death

On March 23, 1775 American politician Patrick Henry proclaimed to a crowd including Jefferson and Washington, “Give me liberty, or give me death.” 100 years later the French congratulated us the champions of liberty with a statue to commemorate the effort. Another century and a half down the road and the statue remains in the harbor tested and true unlike the ideologies it celebrated.

The United States, in its attempt to keep the rich that way has all but closed its borders to the destitute and armed its citizens to the gills. We have no lack of resources or space. Take a trip to WY, where you’re more likely to encounter a cow or a firearm than a human. Before you assume that all those guns are necessary to kill all those cows; WY has the 3rd highest rate of gun related human fatalities.

Americans have decided to embrace their guns rather than their babies and those babies have grown into adults immune to the tears of children. Let us build a tribute to commemorate ourselves and our modern freedom. With 120 firearms for every 100 citizens we have plenty to spare, let’s melt them down and in place of the Statue of Liberty erect an enormous monument, something they can see from across the border; a grave marker with the names of the children and suicide victims we have sacrificed to make America “great again.”

3%

3%. It’s a theory. Developed in practice. Evolved over time. Gradually. Not seen from one day or year to the next; only to be studied over gross periods of time. It’s a ploy, more specifically. I once read, the greatest way to reduce genius is to immediately recall what something you see reminds you of. 3%, in my canon, is a figurative term in one direction and a literal term in another. 3% is intentional. 3% is experimental. 3% is a luxury handbag laden with holes. I call them meteors. To design and truly think one can exist in a vacuum is linked to humans’ desire to exist outside the timeline of other humans. 3% is a doorstopper accent for Ikea. 3% is effective. 3% “the theory” is a perception tool against racial bias. See: the hidden assault that hides between or behind words. It’s a parting from the structures designed to inhibit or constrain. 3% gave us Picasso in his African period. In the same way that it gave us J Dilla and the hip-hop movement that raised me. It’s the black canon – a collection of ideas meant to remain just so.

3% is applicable across practices and fields, different media,eras of our history. Our future. A series of 3%’s brings the classics to modernity. Connects iconsto burgeoning talent. Original style and invention are two different things. Origin stories varybut methods are universal. It’s a cheat code. 3% is packaging, 3% is marketing. 3% is a single sneaker with Nike, executed 50 different ways. 3% is ultimately self-endowed freedom. Freedom and 3% are mutually beneficial. One fosters the other, equallyworking hand in hand to add depth to culture, society, policy. 3% is slippery.

The 3% ideology has its advantages. It recalls an eye-to-emotionconnection in the brain and adds an alternate voice. 3% expands ourworld view, without pushing our zones of comfort to the brink. We’reexposed to “new”, but not eccentric or disconcerting. What the larger ecosystem doesn’t understand is sampling theready-made to make anew. It’s a crystal sipping cup with Baccarat. A concept car with Mercedes-Benz. A deadstock flannel, screen-printed with Pyrex 23 and resoldfor an astonishing mark-up. 3% hinges on conceptual art and theoretical foundations.Something more than profound happened when a urinal was placedon a plinth. This ripple effect extends past the 4 walls of art, extendspast the age of its beginning. 3% is a shorthand phrase. It’s a canon of primitivism. See: Picasso, Donald Judd. It’s moving design forward, which sometimes means taking a stepback. Caravaggio on a hoodie. It’s the pre-rationalisation to frame post-rationalisation. Don’t be confused – 3% is situational. 3% itself is a prototype, just the beginning. 3% is continuation. 3% is change. 3% is social justice, racial equality. 3% is a new status quo.

-Virgil Abloh (Domus 1060, september 2021)

©Juergen Teller, 2018

Why Good People Become Addicts

We’re all good people, this means you reader. None more valuable than the next, we’re all made of the same stuff; scooped up from the primordial soup and given consciousness for a second before being rather quickly spit back into the broth for eternity.

Historically homo sapiens, primate, has been one of the most social animals in the kingdom. We have relied on one another for so long in fact that our species has evolved to both develop slower and live longer than most of the animals our size. We are hard wired to rely on our neighbor. What happens when a person is not able to develop those connections?

First, why aren’t these connections happening? It’s environmental and biological. There is generational trauma from past wars to blame; Vietnam and the war on drugs amongst countless others. There was the pandemic. There is the internet. There is capitalism and consumerism. There are the worlds leaders of religions and countries and corporations hunkered down in bunkers built so densely of ideology that there is no space for those that seek refuge. Institutions that historically provided us community just don’t exist currently as they once did.

Humans are able to do without the necessity of neighbor for only so long; indefinite isolation leads to death practically exclusively. Sometimes that death looks like obvious suicide but sometimes it’s a slower one, it’s failure to thrive, it’s addiction to things that make the moment more bearable and the future bleaker. Suffering is easier to bear when the end is in sight.

Incarceration isn’t a cure but warm beds and meals help. Harsher legal penalty will not solve our current crisis but kinder faces might.

The Art

The neighbor kid is lost in the sauce and can’t see the forest for the bottles, or much of anything else, now in a medically induced coma. Momma cries, she was never able to feed the boy; insatiable since birth.

As creatives we must do more than quietly bury the famished bodies; tears fallen into a tissue fall all the same. Seeing beyond ourselves individually and viewing our artistic talents as instruments we report for duty; here to feed and inform as we are able. Everyone’s hungry. At the end of the day do we want to be executive chefs serving pricey food to people that can afford it, maybe, or do we want to run a soup kitchen with the best soup on the block? A bit of both is necessary perhaps. Either way, we’ve got to remember why the people are there and that without substance they will surely not return.

Innately humans search for something to believe in, something that makes the notion of waking in the morning seem a gift from above rather than a foretaste of the realms below. Some have faced that demon of the day since their youth and have learned to embrace it. We want to be here not because we don’t see the sadness but because we do see the beauty, it’s still here and when we catch a glance we’ve got to not be greedy. Beauty feeds and so our job as creatives is to multiply and interpret, making it accessible to those who need it most, everyone.

may 11

Is it any wonder that we die; we are born after all? We are born unexpectedly to ourselves, and occasionally to a person who has had irregular periods their whole life and a wicked stomach ache for the last 9 months. Fortunately, it’s hard to remember what exactly happens those first few years of life, and if you die in America and you're white and old then you probably won’t remember the last few years either for the dementia and drugs. First grandad will die and then poppa; after that, it’s your turn. Being alive is like being an alcoholic, as long as you’re alive death like drink waits as a crouching tiger or hidden dragon, taunting and tempting, offering reprieve if not for a moment then eternity. In heaven the Christian is made perfect but I will be here on earth where I’ve always been; consumed rather than consumer now my turn about this place a piece of a puzzle back in the box never fully completed but beautiful all the same.

Don’t be afraid..

be conscious be kind be understanding be inquisitive be patient be present be around be thoughtful be aware be thorough be inclusive be wise be vulnerable be helpful be observant be brave be quiet be confident be mindful be open be available be immersed be free be sustainable be involved be healthy be grateful be fulfilled be alive

Homo sapien

…has poisoned itself and its habitat. Having not learned sustainability, humankind is meeting a preventable and painful demise. Those remaining are disconnected from their environment and one another; the tools and trades developed by ancestors and A.I. not leaving those remaining with easy access to health or wellness. The inevitable suffering is unfortunate and grotesque as the less privileged, which is most, bear the grunt while vying for the privilege of bearing the gilded coffins of the oppressor and overlord. Perhaps if Homo sapiens had learned to thrive in their natural habitat with balance and viability, the depletion of resources required to sustain life could have been avoided, perhaps we would not have forgotten about our mother the earth, our savior the forest, or the sea our freedom. Instead, the animal spread as an invasive species does; human introduced to environments, and we overpopulated and harmed. The planet will exist long after us unless we completely blow it to bits and with its greediest child, and primary pest removed it will heal or at least return to a way not known since before the first human war cry. Humans are inventive and resourceful and I think with what time we have left we would serve ourselves and this place well by focusing on holistic well-being; it’s the peace that’s been missing.

Hip-hop is

…the predictability of the next beat and the comfort of that.

…the inconsistent drum that catches you off guard like the whiff of a flower's perfume on an early spring walk.

…the bass line and the way, if you have it loud enough it envelopes like a womb.

…the highs that flit about the room, wayward and yet familiar.

…the mids and the vocals bring the soul to the party.

…the commodores with a grip on the ship.

…the sister with the story and the brother with the whale of a tale, the father whose kids are tucked in, and the mother who won't let ‘em fail.

…the glue that cements the crew.

…the song at a funeral that comforts while it encompasses and seems to explain.

…living well, every day.

…knowing giving up isn’t an option.

…on the come up.

legends lost (2018-2023)

Since its conception rap music has been misused in America to encourage misrepresentation and to create and promote division and disadvantageous stereotypes of our black and brown citizens. Rather than question the quality of character of the talented souls that tell tales, if we are legitimately interested in the wellbeing of all our citizens, we would do right to focus on why we have encouraged violence and drugs in the communities that are the most vulnerable, and the systems that have placed the people there to begin with. Rest in peace.

XXXtentacion (Jahseh Dwayne Ricardo) 06/18/2018, murdered

Nipsy Hussle (Airmiess Joseph Asghedom) 03/31/2019, murdered

Juice WRLD (Jarad Anthony Higgins) 12/08/2019, overdose

Pop Smoke (Bashar Barakah Jackson) 02/19/2020, murdered

Chynna (Chynna Marie Rogers) 04/08/2020, overdose

King Von (Dayvon Daquan Bennett) 11/06/2020, murdered

DMX (Earl Simmons) 04/09/2021, overdose

Black Rob (Robert Ross) 04/17/2021, kidney failure and heart disease; homeless before death

MF DOOM (Daniel Dumile) 10/31/2020, unknown

Young Dolph (Adolph Robert Thornton) 11/17/2021, murdered

Drakeo the Ruler (Darrell Wayne Cardwell) 12/19/2021, murdered

Lil Keed (Raquid Jevon Render) 05/13/2022, natural causes

Coolio (Artis Leon Ivey Jr.) 09/08/2022, overdose

PnB Rock (Rakim Hasheem Allen) 09/12/2022, murdered

Takeoff (Kirsnick Khari Ball) 11/01/2022, murdered

Big Scarr (Alexander Woods) 12/22/2022, overdose

Gangsta Boo (Lola Chantrelle Mitchell) 01/01/2023, overdose

jesus christ allin

Mark Laita of Soft White Underbelly recently interviewed GG Allin’s brother Merle Allin. GG (born Jesus Christ Allin) was an American punk rock phenomenon in the 1980s. His grotesque stage antics which often included things like violence and defecation came to an abrupt end in 1993 by suicide or overdose, it was both really. I’ve never been a fan per se but respect his efforts to not let punk rock become another form of corporately funded propaganda. There is a graphic display on him at the Museum of Death in Hollywood which is strategically placed to be avoided if that’s desired.

Merle and GG grew up with a strict father who though he did not practice what he preached was very insistent on his children doing so. The boys grew up isolated. Upon hearing the Beatles GG and his older brother knew what they had to do, they had to make music and they had to get famous.

This pattern is seen again and again. People who struggled to learn intimacy in their youth never stopped needing it; intimate connection is something that is required for our species to live and thrive. When we find ourselves upside down then being right side up is surely the answer. The loneliness associated with isolation must therefore to the underdeveloped spirit be remedied by the adoration of the masses. This is akin to the child of a blind parent who couldn’t drive trying to buy 100 cars so that he can drive when he’s older.

Part of being alive is doing things to stay that way; it’s why suicide is confusing. People deprived of necessities become underdeveloped but do not immediately wither away, they burn out, after living lives spent only trying to do that, stay alive.

Isolating killed COVID-19 maybe but at this point, it’s killing us too. The most vulnerable are always the greatest affected by these things. We as a culture decide who will be the most vulnerable based on what we as a collective find most valuable; we are all valuable. The disenfranchised need your smile, your neighbor needs your kindness and you need theirs.

music my love

The first album cover I recall is Thriller, it came out in 1982 eand I had come out in 1979. The first song I ever remember hearing was by a radical man and musician called Keith Green. My parents had seen him perform on his piano in Hollywood several times but I did not as he was dying in a plane crash about the same time I was hearing his songs.

The first time I heard a hip-hop bass line was about ‘91 as far as I can recall; the location was Idaho and the music was not coming from where I was but a party across the way. I was hanging out with some Mennonite kids whose folks were a few steps more conservative than mine and their house had no radio or stereo; some households had musical instruments and others banned even these. I recall that bass line wandering or stumbling drunkenly from the party and ending up in our midst. You could barely hear it but you could feel it.

The first time I ever heard hip-hop was on the radio at a friend's house in Palmdale, CA. If you didn’t happen to catch the name of a track after it played on the radio in the early ‘90s it could be hard to know what it was. Sometimes the impact of things is not realized until sometime later; it took me roughly 20 years of humming the chorus of ODB’s “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” to friends and strangers to figure it out.

The first cassette tape I bought was Pokinatcha by Christian-approved punk rock band MXPX. By 1994 I had found a double-deck tape player and Nirvana. The Keith Green tape in my Walkman at youth group outings only said Keith Green but the sounds were now Kurt on a stage in NYC sad and awkward and beautiful. The first compact disk I purchased was Motzart’s Requiem. In those days my dad would say that if you want to find Matthew, look between his headphones; in these days it’s the same though the headphones look different and my volume level is now up out of necessity more than anything.

Besides my relationship with my parents, I don’t figure I’ve had any other relationship last as long as the passion I’ve had for the music. Relationships go both ways though and so I see my music creation as a bit of a fulfillment of that. For all the nights held by her comfort and for all the days driven by her passion I make music.