Welp, here we are again. I'm not sure what to really say except, damn, attitudes and habits live in your body much longer than the time it takes to extract them out of your blood stream with a pocket knife and an eye dropper.
Still, I think it's worth examining if the real or perceived threat to myself is legitimate enough to continue being a sociopathic serial killer of hopes and dreams. I really don't know.
I have relapsed once a few times too many which leads me to believe that this may be the pattern I will just have to learn to make a part of myself. What really matters, anyway? Who gets to measure my integrity?
I know the sinking feeling is near and will avoid it to all costs, any and all costs, right now. I don't know. I see the promised land approaching and from my point of view, it's just a mirage.
Maybe this is the part of the story where I disappear for a few years and come back to society as a polished enigma of whatever the fuck it was I was trying to be 3 years ago. Every day I make decisions that only clarify the unclarifiable.
When my dopamine levels even out I'll let ya know if it was all worth it. The way I've been living my life right now it doesn't even seem to matter in the slightest. Sigh.
It's May 2020. We've been in quarantine for over two months now. I somehow got through my second semester of my second year of grad school. It was without miracles and amphetamines, just pure human wills and won'ts. Racism is as rampant as ever. Police still killin unarmed black people. Donald Trump calls COVID-19 a China flu. White supremacy is still the rule of the land. We fight back with education and enlightenment, awareness and alcohol, riots and riots and riots. The heart can only take so much. I'm coping with lists and schedules, select interactions, calling in and calling out when necessary, blocking and unfriending, weed and love. I've been on medication for a solid two years now. It's part of my chemistry now and probably the reason why I'm still fighting. My birthday this year was a close call of falling back into death traps. I did not want to be alive and, well, I somehow got through that too. The weight of the world is still on my shoulders, but I've learned to manage its heaviness and I know it's okay to put it down for as long as I need to before picking it back up again.
Music is the only constant, but sometimes, it isn't. When the music doesn't give me what I need, the question then becomes, what does it give me? It doesn't have to be absolutely transformative every time. How exhausting. Music has become, I guess, just another tool in my toolbox, but it's my favorite one. It's the one with the worn down edges that make it fit juuuuuust right. When it's not my refuge, it's my dragging anchor. When it's not my power source, it's my Vick's vapor rub. I have learned how to balance my relationship with music and my life so that it's healthy, not... needy and relentless. The music never lies, but sometimes it does.
The best thing about my life is the love and self-respect that I have for myself. I did that without the music carrying me, like I'm a parasite grasping on for dear life. I did that shit by myself and I have no regrets. That's why I don't write in this thing as often as I used to- I simply don't need to anymore.
It's been a pretty good run, I'd say. I've been level-headed and exceeding expectations. I've got a bright future that I'm grateful to have and hone. I haven't been too stressed out because, well, there's a level of cockiness that hasn't faded, that I'm riding 'til the end. I'm doing alright. The energy is positive.
Still, my heart does tricks on my brain, or the other way around sometimes. The patterns are all the same, but the reactions are different, which I guess could be a sign for growth. I lose my focus and I trip and fall- sometimes try to save myself- but the truth is, I was the one who set myself up for perpetual downfall, because feeling this good just feels so damn GOOD.
Perhaps it's just another form of addiction. Do all people feel this good when they feel good? Why is it so addicting? And do I even want it? For real? Or is it just a nice thing to have something sweet when you wanna indulge once in a while? Will anything really ever compare to real love?
Post-tonal theory has always interested me. It's fascinating that composers were so bored with music sounding good that they found functional serialism and atonality at the beginning of the 20th century to turn music into numbers, creating atonal systems called pitch class sets, cells, and tone rows instead of melodies, harmonies, and what the classically-trained ear would consider "beautiful."
"Birds Singing Atonal Music" by Charles Moulton
Arnold Schoenberg (1874 - 1951) is to blame for this brilliant atrocity of musical innovation. He created a 12-tone system that was born directly from late-German Romanticism, eliminating the hierarchy of chords and demolishing the need for a tonal center by using all 12 notes in some sort of order that could change at any given moment in musical time. Apparently, writing music in a key was overrated; Schoenberg called the lack of a tonal center the "emancipation of dissonance," using chromatic melodies and chromatic harmonies in a way that these clusters of notes did not need to resolve. Never had emancipation sounded so painful. Nonetheless, he wrote many pieces, including piano and orchestral opuses. Perhaps his best known work was Pierrot lunaire, an atonal German 21-song cycle for soprano voice and a five piece chamber orchestra. As a pioneer in Expressionism, Schoenberg dealt with emotions of a modern human being in pre- and post- war: fear, confusion, rage, unsettling anxiety, a poor grip on stability, tension, and all the elemental and irrational drives of the subconscious. Not surprisingly, his buddy was Freud.
Schoenberg's music was an angry rebellion against the status quo, and he loved it. So did a bunch of other German white guys, including Alban Berg and Anton Webern. Berg (1885 - 1935) somehow made a 12-tone row sound... good, tonal, familiar, with his musical choices using tone rows that might suggest chords and melodies found in traditional Western harmony. This is made evident in his atonal opera, Wozzeck, about a poor soldier who was so messed up in life that he eventually murdered all of his friends before committing suicide. The opera contains leitmotifs, pitch class sets that are identified with the main characters, and movements with orchestral music in sonata, rondo, and even fugue forms. Webern (1883 - 1945), on the other hand, stuck to Schoenberg's tradition of constructing cringy, cannibalistic-like earworms, using serial technique in thorough-composed pieces with vast instrumentation; he also created actual pointillism in the music as tiny, wispy points of sound. His pieces were not very long because of that- once he used all of the pitch class sets he wanted, he ended the piece.
The Second Viennese School sounded like a hot mess. However, Schoenberg and his cronies did something that revolutionized how we listen to music: they made us actually LISTEN. Because there isn't a steady beat to tap our foot to or a catchy, sing-songy melody that'll get stuck in our heads, what else is there to realize? Well, what's left is a focus on all the other stuff: dynamics. Instrumentation. Articulation. Timbre. Register. The actual environment of performance. The performer himself (women still didn't have free access, even to the New Viennese School #metoo). Ironically, these are all of the elements that music therapists have to pay attention to while using music in their practices. Without Schoenberg, there would not have been the landmark styles of Messaien, Penderecki, Reich, John Cage, Oliveros, Skrillex. If Schoenberg were alive in 2018, I think he'd probably be a gender-fluid, colorblind quantum physics teacher creating tone rows out of cohorts of didgeridoos used as the music to lure small atonal-singing children to ice cream trucks.
Can you believe it's been 9 years of The September Project? A friendly reminder that I have been emo for almost a decade?
What started as an escape has become my life's work, at least in this edition of the story. The lessons learned, the music made, the love had and lost, all wove together to create a platform on which I stand in this very moment. I've accomplished my goal of getting into grad school- a goal 10 years in the making- and now I understand that it had to take that long for me to be in the position that my heart, soul, and ear can navigate through what promises to be a tough, but enlightening three years ahead.
Getting fired from amplifi, though it may not have been the most graceful exit, was a blessing in disguise. The knots in my heart knowing that this company's best interests laid first and foremost in profit without providing the right tools or resources for their instructors, has now dissipated. I still think about and care for all the students of mine who have come and gone, and hope to keep ties with the ones who want me to be a bigger part of their artistic journey. In a way, we are going through this together, and if I've learned anything, it is that I am not alone, nor do I intend for them to ever feel that way, if I can help it. Nonetheless, a bright future lies ahead and I feel more open to the possibilities of it than ever before in my 32 years of life.
It didn't happen without sacrifice. I've had to learn how to create boundaries with people, addictions, habits, and my own Self- my former Self- a Self that I had to mourn and make room for a new, improved, better, stronger, more productive Self. I've lost friends on the way, but have more room for ones that actually serve me, in turn, serve the world; I've lost familiarity with substances that numbed pain from inner and outer sources; I've had to push myself out of bad habits and force my brain to not fall into the traps of easy ways out, for what is growth if the foundations crumble in chaos? If conflict is inevitable, then my suit of armour has to be made of gold.
Still, music remains my constant, traveling through time, before, after, through me in a way over which I finally realize I have little control. To quote my very first post in TSP:
Love is not an energy that just comes and goes.. it's a chameleon; that energy transforms itself into other forms and there must be some organization to its growth when manifested into art. The repression of that passion, whether formulated by circumstance or happenstance, is what pulls the spirit down into a place not easy to crawl out of, and can only be rescued by the willpower to hone the thing that flows so naturally from the tips of your fingers. Mine is music.
I'd like to take that quote further: The repression of passion can only be rescued by the willpower to hone the thing that flows so naturally from the tips of your fingers... and for me, also has an intentional value to implicate change for the betterment of humanity. That is music.
Happy September 1st, my friends.
Here is a little improvisational ditty of two other classmates and me exploring the Dorian mode in a practice room on a piano, a 10-note xylophone, and a hand drum. It's a Side A Track 1 of what's to come.
or does it thrive on the system on which it was born?
The music business hate me 'cause the industry ain't make me
Hustlers and boosters embrace me and the music I be making
I dumb down for my audience and double my dollars
They criticize me for it yet they all yell "Holla"
If skills sold truth be told
I'd probably be lyrically Talib Kweli
Truthfully I want to rhyme like Common Sense (But I did five Mil)
I ain't been rhyming like Common since
When your sense got that much in common
And you been hustling since, your inception, fuck perception
Go with what makes sense
Since I know what I'm up against
We as rappers must decide what's most important
And I can't help the poor if I'm one of them
So I got rich and gave back to me that's the win, win
The next time you see the homie and his rims spin
Just know my mind is working just like them (The rims that is)
is this responsibility I feel a debt to the society I'm inherently bitch-faced to?
is it quite selfish or simply humanitarian to strive for the idea of what is the betterment of our society
which entails relationships we build with each other
which entails also a necessary destruction of what is already there?
i mean bro
the real question is this
who the fuck are you, someone who is not oppressed,
to even have a valid opinion about the progression of art in this genre
of the oppressed?
personally, i want to hear what you have to say
but in no absolute
NO way
NO shape
NO form
does that validate it at all.
and it doesn't mean that you got away with ruining all the colours
Nowadays my only desires involve being by myself.
I force myself into social situations to balance out my worlds:
The real reality, the one I almost lost because of trying to be someone I'm not.
I love my therapist; she's the only one who gets me, I think.
Before I fall in love with someone, like really press the play button, I tend to tell them I think I'm fucking crazy. Usually their response will determine how long we're together.
The longest relationship I've been in was with someone who was a raging alcoholic.
Just like my birth father. Haha, first I wrote bitch father.
He's dying, maybe. He's hooked up to an oxygen tank and a dialysis machine.
I keep thinking maybe I should say something to him, like I forgive him or I hope he's okay.
Those statements are only half true.
I don't give a lot of myself to anyone but the kids.
I call out people who can't get their shit straight, or I treat them like kids.
They should not be getting paid the same rate as me. Call it Aldrin justice.
I'm sick of sitting back and letting things happen that are unfair or unjust and really, I can usually get what I want by calling white people out on their shit.
That's probably the only good thing about living in Boston.
The only good thing.
I am the face of diversity, the only one who will play their games and play it well.
In the end, the kids are the ones who matter the most anyway.
There are so many of them who won't ever get a chance to tell someone they might love that they're fucking crazy.
When I graduate, I'm getting outta here. I'm gonna be international. I don't care how hard it is or how long it takes.
I used to have this image of the future.
It's gone now.
The only thing left is me, in a foreign land, doing work that I like, work that is meaningful, work that will change lives maybe. The most important part of that is work that I like.
It is all about me now.
And it's about damn time.
It is so natural for me to alienate myself from the world that when I actually have a friendly connection with a human being, it consumes me to the point of paranoia about all the ways that they will hurt, disappoint, and leave me. It's a blacked-out cave with prehistoric hieroglyphics deciphering the self-hatred it took to get me here in the fist place. Add on the molotov cocktails of procrastination, anxiety, amphetamines, and this secret life of inevitable failure and voila! All the love is once again sucked outta my veins, but this time I'm just too damn old to feel sad about it. I haven't had a suicidal thought in a long time, a long, long, time. I can taste the prejaculation of glory with these thoughts of dying, my own blood on my hands. I wonder if anyone would even miss me. In a way, I hope they never find out.
Reading this fascinating article about how deep-brain stimulation failed or did not fail in its surgical attempts to cure depression, I realized most of mine was manageable once I remove myself from this world, the industry's world, the phone world, the internet world, fueled by narcissism and an excessive need to "connect" without fitting the proper puzzle pieces, impulsively "express" without the due diligence of definition, and "document," almost like a serial killer returning to the scene of the crime to relive the slaughter over and over again because he can't get his dick up in real life, kill after kill, post after post, tweet after tweet.
Escape, do I; find refuge in the flaws of man, once admitted; crave for the poetry of the Pastoral, perhaps more gothic, twice removed; I remain, I retreat, curiously, in that which I was repressed- artistically, historically, religiously. May I remain, may I retreat, may I reject repression while the world spins in its meaningless meaning, may I find the harmonic convergence in atonal tintinnabulation. It is the key to make all of this fathomable, holding fast to hope.
i saw him at the molé festival in pilsen. he looked awkward and lost, like he didn't know it was possible he could gentrify anything. my friends and i went to the bar afterwards, simone's. he showed up. i was drunk and said hello, my name is corrine. with a certain kind of accent he introduced himself and then joined us. my friends and i went to a house party in logan square. i invited him. we got more drunk. he heard me sing and play guitar. he said he'd pay to see me live. we went back to judy and danelle's house, did a bunch of blow. my radical queer lesbian friends are radical and queer. he was the only straight guy there but we had a connection. it was some sort of magneticism. we made out all night in the nooks and crannies of their apartment. then my friend put him in a cab. i should have gone. i wanted to. but they're lesbians and they're my best friends and i guess they know what's best for me? no, they really don't. so i left with two gay guys to get cigarettes. i don't smoke cigarettes. i smoked a whole pack of cigarettes that night.
i woke up in dirty sheets that weren't mine and i woke up feeling flemmy and gross and i woke up with a stick and poke tattoo of a sharp sign that looks like a hashtag and i woke up with a bloody finger and bloody pants and bloody lips and a 5 page poem i wrote in sharpie and tag calligraphy about nonsensical loneliness. i texted my ex-girlfriend at 6:30 am some weird poetry shit. i still love her. i'll always love her. and i think the aussie was the closest one to kissing like her. he was a great kisser. and he wasn't weird and try to like feel up on me and shit. it was straight up makin out. it wasn't terrible, and i think we could have had a lot of fun. when he left, he said goodbye, and i said cheers, cunt. cuz in australia apparently cunts are your mates.
Puedes matarme si quieres,
mi amor no lo matarás,
tengo la esperanza puesta
en volverte a conquistar,
que una vez te diste entera,
nunca lo podré olvidar,
amor.
Puedes quitarme el aire
que preciso pa' vivir
pero no podrás quitarme
la fuerza que nació en mí
cuando mujer, cuerpo y alma
me diste en el mes de abril,
amor.
Quítame la cordillera,
quítame también el mar,
pero no podrás quitarme
que te quiera siempre más:
lo que entre dos se ha sembrado
entre dos se ha de cuidar,
amor.
You can kill me if you want to,
but my love
you will not kill,
I have my hope put
on
win you over again,
that once you gave yourself whole,
I could never forget it,
Love.
You can take away from me
the air that
I need for living,
but you can't take away
the force that was born in me
when woman,
body and soul
You gave me in the month of April,
love.
Take away from me the mountain range,
take away also the sea,
but you can't take away from me
that I will always love you more:
what between two
has been sown
between two
has to be taking care of,
love.
I've finally applied to grad school. Perhaps I will be a music therapist in 3 years. Took damn long enough.
I've been making trap beats on Garage Band. I got an iMac recently which is timely since my laptop only works half of the time if it wants. Trap beats. It's the easiest shit I've ever made. It's also probably the most fun I've ever had making music for the sake of making music.
I teach music six out of the seven days of the week. Today I did not go to work because I did not have the capacity to pretend. Not all days are like that. Today was.
I thought that leaving Chicago was the hardest thing I've done. I was wrong. Being successful at being sober is harder. I have better vision now. I can process things more clearly. My anxiety does not dictate my lack of productivity. But. I feel like a part of me is gone. Perhaps it wasn't part of my DNA like I thought.
Which is scary for me, I guess. As I enter a new era in my life, I'm discovering parts of my identity that I didn't even know were there. And while there's space to mix and match and be colorful, I also have to say goodbye to part of myself to make room for the rest of me. I think I tried to do that the first two years of living in Boston, but it was a cop-out. It was a shortcut. It was what I thought I had to do, not what I really wanted to do.
Well, here I am today. I'm getting paid to do something I'm not only good at, but I'm passionate about. I'm more confident in myself, though sometimes I still have doubts. I try to make the most of every day, most days, though I still have days where I don't go to work because I can't pretend. I'm not tortured, but I'm also not super elated about my present condition. I am grateful to have love, but I fear I'm not doing enough to hone and keep it alive.
I can't seem to think in metaphors anymore.... but I see the world in front of me and it's right there. It's real. It's more real than I've ever known it could be.
I think that gives me peace.
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
My objectives really are as follows
to be stimulated
to do good
to reach potential
to do it all in a classy way
to not run away
to resist from temptation
to keep my heart open
to find perspective
In Rainbows came out 10 years ago today. 10 years.
Years ago, on 1101 S. State Street in the South Loop of Chicago, I had people over for a late-night-night-cap. It was probably 2008 or 2009. At one point, a group of us were sitting with our legs crossed on the floor of my bedroom, passing around a mini-bong that was not mine but eventually became mine, filled with half water-half Jameson. Megan Tucker was thumbing through my CD collection, because cell phones were not everything yet. She pulled out this album, decorated in its recycled-paper, darkly colorful and unconventionally folded case, looked at me, and asked, "who ACTUALLY owns this CD?" I responded, "Me. It's my favorite." That statement is still true. It's the one that means the most to me.
Many die-hard Radiohead fans who are the butt of ironic internet satire when it comes to pretentious Generation-X douchebags have said that it's the "most accessible." It probably is. It doesn't mean that other albums aren't- and in a way, I guess they are literally correct. The way this album was consumed was the most accessible- before the Beyonce's and the Chance's and the other big-time record releases with no record store release dates became the thing, there was In Rainbows. But these die-hard fans usually aren't talking about method of listening as much as they are about aesthetic. Singable melodies, un-confusing lyrics, danceable rhythms, a molotov cocktail of emotion, so meticulously balanced as to not cross the land mines of utterly depressive, completely obvious, and corny-ass sadness: it was track after track of perfection for someone who was questioning what "perfect" even meant.
The catalytic flavors of these songs contain sharp hints of the most important memories of my life, the ones that I go back to, time and time again, the ones that represent my first renaissance, clinging onto an identity that was never the same. Me, quite actually, In Rainbows, with colors representing the different layers of my life, wondering if there could be a sort of Keep in inevitable Growth- at the time, I couldn't separate the light enough to realize the inevitability of growth meant change, and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. But as I sit here, in the house I "grew up" in, writing this explanation that won't ever fully be able to scope exactly how much this record means to me, I wonder if I ever really understood... and if my growth, inevitably, will separate me from what home is, like ripples on a blank shore. As I get sink deeper, the more I expand, until it's too big to see each individual ripple- they become part of the shore, the water, reflecting the person I have chosen to be.
Hopefully, and I mean that- full of hope, I continue to strive for that whole-hearted esoteric understanding- like the "secret rhythm" of "Videotape," like the downbeat of each measure of "Reckoner," like Jigsaws slowly but surely falling into place. But the difference now is that I control the tempo of their fall. I'm the one who calls tetris- and I'm the one who determines how it affects my life, how my big ideas can actually happen. I think that's okay for now.
Here's to the next 10 years of 10-track perfections.
I listened to Caspian all day, but didn't feel inspired until I learned that Jay-Z declined a Superbowl performance this year. As I low-key boycott the NFL this season, which brings much sadness but ultimately balances out my soul, I feel okay about this decision. I can't keep preaching "living your truth" if I don't do it myself. It's caused some breaks and separation with people close to my heart, but they'll always have a rock in my heart pond. Just can't keep giving energy to those who don't share the same definitions of love.
Which brings me to this famous interview with Jigga's Mom, revealing her true self in a conversation that inspired the song, "Smile," the third track from his 2017 release, 4:44. While people compare and contrast it to Lemonade and A Seat At the Table, I choose to separate it from the elevator with glass ceilings. Also, it doesn't deserve to be there- not his best flows, not the most profound lyrics, though they may be the most true to his life- which I can respect I guess.
Gloria Carter talks about the dangers of "living in the shadows," a concept that hits home a little too hard for me. She wrote the poem on an airplane with Jay, and he sampled it as a transition between tracks. I'm glad he kept the integrity of her words and cadence. There's something so wise and so inspiring about her tone and message. I can probably talk about the implications of this grande reveal, the manner in which Sean Carter uses it to enhance his album and shed light on a topic he's never dealt face-on, the rise of black excellence and the entrepreneurship of legacy, how it's nice to have a rap album come out in 2017 that didn't have one trap track, Tidal.
But I am exhausted from teaching seven classes and reading about the four dimensions and possible pathways of influence that cause mental disorders in abnormal psychology. So I'll leave with this:
"Love who you love, because life isn't guaranteed. Smile."
It's baffling to me that I started this blog eight years ago as a way to balance being a leader in a grassroots activist LGBTQ organization in Chicago and not losing sight of myself or my passions, as my steady introduction to "being woke" left me confused, depressed, angry, and tired. Since then, it's been a chronicle of the times I almost didn't think I was going to make it- through heartbreak, depression, substance abuse, shame, and self-loathing- as well as a transformation of, dare I say, maturation, of my ideals, self-systems, and lazy analysis of my favorite songs. In this way, music has literally saved my life.
While I'm fortunate nowadays to be working a job that not only requires the skills I learned and ignored in Keyboard Harmony II in undergrad (yikes!), but challenges me to directly transfer my musical knowledge and humanity to another person every time I'm in a classroom, I realize that life never stopped being about balance. That we are complex humans with many masks, but I mean, in words of Future, fuck it. Mask off. My writing has gotten less metaphorical and romantic and more succinct and to the point- I think it's because I know the answers to the questions I've posed in musical form for many, many years- and for the first time probably ever, I'm confident, not only in my understanding, but my ability to succeed in the goals I set for myself.
But it didn't come without sacrifice. I don't do the things I used to do that made me happy, though perhaps that happiness was not real in the first place. It was a band-aid covering up these deep wounds I didn't even know were there because I was too scared to look at my body. At my own self. I did not know what brave meant. Despite the stigmas of oversharing, the need for validation, and the temporary here-today-gone-in-a-few-minutes design of social media, the act of opening up not only your thoughts, but your heart, your true, true love, your passion, your essence, and part of your soul for other people to see and critique, is part of the chemical... arrangement... of what makes an artist at large.
Never did I think that in August, 2017, I would be finding ways to fight neo-Nazis of the so-called "alt-right" with my gifts and my influence. But hey, this is the nature of how this blog originated: from conflict. We don't stop creating, we don't stop writing, we don't stop sharing, and we don't stop being examples of the real struggle- the inner, the outer, the micro, the macro- until the oppression stops.
So. Shall we continue?
****
Some music ages well; it's the kind that addresses issues concerning the intricacies of human psyche that are rooted in what is widely considered basic truth, correct? Love, heartache, struggle, success, loss, friendship, relationships, body movements, etc. Perhaps its function is educational: to teach younger generations the 26 letters of the alphabet, or how to tie their shoes, or a method of improving language skills so prevalent in the early years of human development and then locked up in the back of your brain with easy access. Based on your unique experiences, some songs may be memorable, but not relatable to your life (I don't think I would necessarily be surfin' like Californ-i-a if I had an ocean across the USA, no matter how much I respect Brian Wilson). Some may bring nostalgia and take you back to those angsty teenage dark moments in the past, but don't hold the same weight in your present (Max Bemis, you are no longer my hero). But in my opinion, the best songs are the ones that come back to you when you least expect them and somehow still apply to the reality of life outside of yourself.
Last week I tweeted that Beggars is still a solid album in 2017, in which my long-time mixtape-making buddy Rob agreed after giving it another listen for the first time in a number of years. With songs that address the madness of the world, human greed, suffering, the power of love, the redemption in faith, and lyrics that bring to light: "All you great men of power, you who boast of your feats / politicians and entrepreneurs / can you safeguard your breath in the night while you sleep / keep your heart beating steady and sure?" It's hard to listen to the title track and NOT think of the demise of the United States after Trump, though it was released in 2009. Perhaps theology and philosophy go a longer way than we think. This song cycle flows so smoothly, "thematically cohesive," in Rob's words, and is timeless because of, well, the times. Because of conflict. Because in a way, good music is good when its creators critique the world at large while conveying the harsh reality that if shit doesn't change, we're all fucked.
Someone once told me that artists are always talking to each other. It may have been my 12th grade AP English teacher, Brother Tom. Yeah, I went to Catholic school. It was fucking awful. Coincidentally, A Crow Left of the Murder and all its proverbial plays on words came out the last semester of my senior year of high school. It was the soundtrack of my short walk into the town square today to get sushi. Immediately, a sharp wind of nostalgia swept through me- Incubus was that band I had posted on my bedroom walls before moving out of the suburbs, and though I didn't follow them much after this album, I still know every lyric, vocal nuance, jazzy guitar solo, drum break. In a way, I guess the timelessness of "Talk Shows on Mute" is twofold: one, originating from the ideas of Orwell and Philip K Dick, so literally... channelled... in the animal farm that is this music video; the other, in Brandon Boyd's exposition of how the entertainment industry is ruining society and its inability to decipher reality from reality television. And as Number 45 continues this long-ass four-year episode of the Apprentice, the prophecies layered in this song have followed the exact course of events edging us toward the flame.
Why have I chosen bands with cis-white front men to illustrate the timelessness of the systemic demise of humanity? Because frankly, it has to be them who are speaking up now. Now. Today. Tomorrow. In this CIVIL WAR. It has to be those who live on the upper shelves of social construct to stand up and battle the psychopathic, entitled lunatics who have no sense of empathy beyond themselves. De-colonizing the standard is part of it, yes, but come on son, there are straight up racist rallies being supported by the government disguised as freedom of speech protests, and truth be told, it is not the minorities who are justifying their cause. I can sit here and make you a playlist of one-hundred songs that will spread the message of beauty in diversity; it will not stop white supremacists from marching through educational establishments holding fuckin tiki torches and driving cars into crowds of people with the intention of killing them. I can alter the goals of my lesson plans to include more songs of resistance; I can hope to empower and guide my students to owning their creativity; I can continue to tweet throwback alternative rock songs that have aged well throughout the years... but timelessness is not the goal. I don't want to be living in a life where "we are beggars all." I don't want human actualization to be "electric sheep dreaming up our fate." Let's write our own lyrics, accented with accents. Let's preserve integrity by composing melodies of social and human justice won. Let's be models of fierce warriors, citizens of the world, so our future generations can listen to Thrice and Incubus and think, "damn, that was a fucked up era in history." It's time to stop swinging in the hammocks of oppression misconstrued as "how things are" and stand up.
Got back from my short summer vacation in NYC yesterday. It was my second time in New York in all of 2017. It was alright. I got the privilege of seeing Aviva in three different musical settings within three hours. Once, solo in Rockwood Music Hall in Manhattan. The second time in Raia Was at this weird seafare/Korean themed venue called Baby's Allright in Williamsburg. The third in Arthur Moon at the same venue. Those moments were the best part. The worst part was probably my anxiety.
The newest Vic Mensa makes me miss Chicago a lot, but in very spastic ways. This is because I've only heard the album in short ADD-like listens. I don't think he and Chance have anything in common musically, at all, other than they can rap and don't choose to all the time. Aesthetically, I dig Vic more than Chance 3. I'm in this thing, I think, where I can't reconcile my life decisions with my every day breathing. I get nostalgia a lot. It transcends into my artistic choices, including what I'm putting into my ears and brain.
Everything Now is not as bad as everyone is saying it is, but it's pretty bad. I honestly never LOVED Arcade Fire, not like the way I love Radiohead or Lauryn Hill or Stay Down by the Smoking Popes or Kendrick Lamar or cellos. I think they lack subtlety and I don't like that.
I don't go to many shows anymore, despite my show-filled Sunday in New York City last weekend. Perhaps that is one effect of my feeling of un-inspiration. I'm also not impressed by much these days. I don't know if it's just a consequence of growing up with my kind of imagination or if it's a dry spell, in all its denotations.
I am forcing myself to write this so I don't fall deeper into this rude depression.
