Fate Amenable to Change

2012-02-07T14:55:00.002-05:00

One of the principle functions of a friend is to suffer the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies. --Aldous Huxley

2011-10-05T14:00:00.009-04:00

Last week, I was selected from a pool of 1.2 million LinkedIn users to attend a Town Hall meeting with President Obama. It was a strange and awesome experience, the full reasoning for which I can only estimate. What follows is my attempt at explaining.

On Monday, September 19 I received an email from a LinkedIn employee announcing that they were hosting a panel discussion on “economic opportunity” and asking if I would like to join. They were interested in me particularly because they saw that in recent years I had switched careers from a field that was shrinking (journalism) to one that was expanding (market research). If I was interested in attending, I was asked to briefly summarize my career history as well as my perspective on the current employment crisis. I did so.

The following day, LinkedIn reached out to me saying that they liked my responses and that they had some exciting news. The panel discussion to which they were inviting me was in fact a town hall meeting with President Obama. They asked if I was available the following Monday, September 26, and if so, what question I would ask the President.

At this point I was in a state of disbelief, but on the off chance it might be real—and might be the opportunity of a lifetime—I composed a question based on my experience shifting careers. I am of the mindset that education is the key to discovering new job opportunities—not only in the academic sense of learning new skills—but also in educating oneself on the opportunities available and how one can reconfigure their skill set to match. The original question went something like this:

What can federal government do in conjunction with US citizens to provide or promote education amongst adults interested in shifting careers? Is there something that can be done to raise awareness of the opportunities available to adults who are facing career changes?

Later that day, a lady from LinkedIn wrote to me and asked if we could talk on the phone. I was in the short list of people selected to ask the President a question. We chatted a little bit about this and that—mostly I think to verify that I wasn’t a nut case—and then she asked for some more personal information. Since I was in the running to be in the same room as the President, she needed to do a background check, see if I had a criminal history, verify my legal standing, etc. Wow, I thought, this is getting pretty serious. But she seemed nice and very sincere. I checked the whole thing out online and various sources confirmed that the President was supposed to be holding a town hall meeting in Palo Alto the following Monday in conjunction with LinkedIn. So I complied.

Two days later, I opened my email and quiver of fear/anxiety/excitement ran through my spine. I had been selected to attend the event! My question was in the top 6 of 8 to be asked.

I arrived at the Four Seasons Palo Alto Sunday evening half expecting someone to pop out from around the corner with a video camera saying that the whole thing had been a practical joke--but that never happened. Instead I met with a group of equally shocked/jazzed participants flown in from all over the country. Some were out of work, some were underemployed, some were veterans looking for career training, and some had successfully made a transition to a new career, like myself. We chatted together in a state of shocked disbelief. The LinkedIn team then helped us rehearse our questions for the President. After some revisions and a suggestion to add a little personal history to give my question context, I ended up with this:

Good Morning, Mr. President. Three years ago, I found myself out of work. Being unable to find gainful employment in my chosen field, which was journalism, I sought and landed a job in a field about which I knew little previously, but for which my skills and training were well suited—market research.

I have great faith in the American people’s ability to adapt—as long as we are empowered with the knowledge of burgeoning opportunities and career fields.

Is there a way the federal government can provide or promote education for adults looking to change careers—especially those who find the fields they’ve been trained for are either saturated or evaporating?

The morning of September 26, we were shuttled to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. After going through airport-level security, we were admitted to an auditorium filled with LinkedIn employees, LinkedIn members such as myself, and a few random Silicon Valley luminaries (including this guy, who apparently was one of the original employees at Google). The head of the Secret Service for the event gave us a briefing.

“You can stand and sit as much as you want,” he said, “but do not leave your seat. I repeat—do not leave your seat. If you forget, someone will be there to remind you.”

Once we were all seated and locked in, the nerves really kicked in. The anticipation was palpable. Background music was playing over the PA system and between each song there were long, pregnant pauses when the entire crowd involuntarily silenced. The collective bated breath of 100 people generated a crazy energy in the crowd. It was almost as though someone had set a spell on everyone, and all we could do was look at each other incredulously and shake our heads. The spell would finally be broken when someone dropped a camera or the next song started or whathaveyou, and we giggled at our own nervousness.

After a good hour of waiting in our seats, the CEO of LinkedIn came in, gave his speech, and introduced the President. The erupted in cheers—partially because we were glad to see the guest of honor and partially because the tension of his arrival had finally been released.

Seeing Obama in person is extraordinary. He is a fantastic performer. Poised, well spoken, unflappable—in addition to handsome and very well dressed—Obama made a fantastic impression. It was one of the best performances I’ve ever seen, in or out of a theater. He is a commanding orator, and when he speaks, its difficult not to stop everything and listen. It’s no wonder he’s the President—he’s a very, very likable person. When you think about it—that’s what politics is, really. People have problems of all sizes. They have questions, worries, concerns, fears. What’s going to happen to my family? What’s going to happen to my town, my job, my health, my country? The President is someone who is trained to answer all those questions—and Obama does it with style. You walk away feeling like, “everything’s going to be fine. He’s in charge.” Needless to say, I was impressed.

In the end, I didn’t get to ask my question. They told us from the start that depending on the length of the President’s answers, he might not get to all of us. Nevertheless, while answering someone else’s question, he did address my topic. He stated that Americans need to adapt to the present job climate, and that there were education opportunities the government would be endorsing. He promoted the American Jobs Act, which he recently put to Congress, which (if passed) includes mandates for “innovative job training” and incentives for companies to hire long-term unemployed workers, amongst a host of other statutes.

I might not have had the chance to “speak” with the President directly, but I was at least in the same room with him. That was enough for me. It was an amazing experience and one I’ll never forget.

2011-02-20T20:30:00.015-05:00

Here's a photographic journey of a bike ride I've been doing lately--from downtown SF, through the panhandle and Golden Gate park to the beach.

bison living in Golden Gate Park!

2011-01-25T10:45:00.007-05:00

MODERN MYTHOLOGY

Humans are meaning seeking creatures. It is an undeniable human characteristic. Against all the chaotic and depressing evidence to the contrary, we seek out meaning and are on personal quests to fill our lives with some degree of purpose. It may seem foolish sometimes, but it is an unquestionably human drive. One of the key ways that this impulse is manifested is through mythology.

Mythology isn’t something that happened in the past; some ancient, misaligned quasi-religious belief. Mythology may be based in the past, and many times is based on a historical event or figure, but what defines a functional, relevant myth is that it is something that we are experiencing over and over again in our daily lives. It’s an occurrence that has been liberated from a particular time period and has been brought into our contemporary lives.

Take for example Jesus. Jesus was a historical figure that lived and was killed around 30 c.e. He had devotees and influence over a set number of people who believe that he died and rose from the dead. This is historical fact. But it wasn’t until years after his death that people like St. Paul began to mythologize the figure of Jesus. St. Paul had very little concern for the particulars of Jesus’ teachings or the events of his life—at least, he mentions them very little in his writings. Rather, he was concerned with the mystery of Jesus—especially regarding his death and resurrection. Paul wanted to bring this character out of the past and into the present. He succeeded, and Jesus has become an enduring mythological figure, someone that Christians experience on a daily basis now, in the 21^st century. They experience him through both ritual (studying scripture, going to church, taking the Eurcharist) and through action (leading a life according to Jesus’ teachings). Thus, Jesus has become a spiritual reality. His death and resurrection happened once, and now, it happens over and over again.

In the past, things were no different. Myths allowed our ancestors to relate to their surroundings, and to the forces that they believed sacred. It allowed them to experience divinity. The gods were all around them and they saw their handiwork daily. To them, the gods were inseparable from love, passion, anger, storms, the sea, and the quiet beauty of nature. Myths lifted them out of this mundane existence and gave them the ability to see the world with new eyes. Myths addressed timeless truths, fears, desires, and pointed them in the direction of a life more richly endowed.

Freud and Jung had an interesting take on Roman and Greek mythology. They looked at these gods and likened them to facets of our personalities. They proposed that these characters were archetypes from the collective unconscious, and the tales they existed within embodied universal truths that were universally relatable. Freud and Jung then went one step further and posed the question—could not these gods be the emotions and feelings that we experience on a daily basis? Perhaps Mars, the god of war was simply another way of understanding aggression, and so when the Romans spoke of him, they simply referred to a person being consumed with rage. Perhaps by personifying this emotion, it helped the ancient Greeks understand themselves and how they related to the universe around them, just as the mythology of Jesus helps modern Christians participate in the divine.

Can it not be said that a human is a microcosm of the entire universe, composed of the same basic stuff in different quantities? As above, so below.

2011-01-17T19:41:00.002-05:00

The Dream Wilderness

After the plane crashed, we roamed the land, looking for signs of life, but the Earth held no clues as to the inhabitants of that far off land. We gathered in the fading light that first night and built a fire. We knew not the name of hunger. Its presence among us was to be a cold dead shadow.

When we awoke the next morning, he had arrived, the Man Without a Name. He didn’t need one. He had smooth black pants that shone like the skin of a salamander. Around his neck was a wreath of dandelions and ribbons of red. He took us down to the river and showed Susie a wound that she didn’t remember getting, and he cleaned it and dressed it. Then he caught a fish with a long staff, and brought it back to the fire, where the Spirits had assembled. There were every manner of spirit there, the good ones and the evil ones, all there for a grand meeting of the minds.

“Are we all in?” the Man Without a Name said. “Let the Ceremony begin.” He threw the fish, still struggling with life, onto the fire. It cooked, and soon the fish stopped squirming. An old man threw a bush onto the raging fire and the strong scent of sage and burnt fish scales wafted over the crowd. The smoke became thicker and thicker, and soon it became difficult to see. I reached out for Susie’s hand, but she wasn’t there anymore. I called out her name to the wild wind, again and again and waited… and off in the distance I could hear her, but her voice was very faint. She sounded small and scared.

I was lost and lonely for a moment, so I called out her name again, and this time Susie did not respond. Then the wind whipped up and the smoke began to clear.

I found myself alone on the top of a mountain. I could see a hawk in the distance, but it looked very small. There was a purr, like that of a kittenbird, and I turned to see a panther not far from me on a lower landing. The panther was black and sleek and it scared me to be close to it, though I knew it could not get to me from where it was--the rock face was too steep to climb.

Then I heard the crunching of rock under foot and saw the Man Without a Name approaching.

“I need you to help me,” I said to him. “There’s a panther down there and it’s hungry. But I need to get down to the bottom of the mountain.”

“I cannot help you,” he said. “You must help yourself, alone. Run now. Run through the emerald forest. If you can get to other side by morning, the panther will never be able to touch you again. Never.”

Then he held out his hand and into my palm dropped a blue translucent stone. I knew then that the stone held my soul. So I turned and I ran. I ran down the length of the mountain and through the emerald forest. I ran and at times I could see the panther approaching me with the smell of my blood in its nostrils. I could see the panther deeply desired blood. It wanted to slice into my thigh and drink red ribbons running freely from the neck of the Manbeast Without a Name.

A few times I turned around while running through the emerald forest. I turned and what I saw confused me. Sometimes, it was a panther, and other times, it was a man painted sleek black with grease and tar, moving through the shadows with grace and speed and salamander pants.

When the morning broke, I saw the edge of the forest, which was enclosed by a stream. I saw the Man Without a Name on the opposite side. He motioned to me and I dove into the icy water. I swam to the other side and turned to see the panther standing at the rocks, watching me. I nodded to it, then got out and followed the Man to the fire.

The Man was molding clay. He put the clay into the fire, then in a few moments removed it and gave it to me. It was a small statue of myself. The breeze cooled the sculpture, and as it cooled, it grew in size until it was a life size replica. The Man Without a Name motioned to me, urging me to join with it. I stepped into the statue and felt it become part of me. I tuned into the feeling and melted into it. Before long, you couldn’t distinguish one from the other.

The End

2011-01-08T11:59:00.003-05:00

James Allen and Willy Wonka

Happy New Year! After a recent reading of James Allen’s short but powerful treatise, “As a Man Thinketh” I watched the 1971 version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and discovered a striking resemblance. Simply put, the fictional character Willy Wonka (both in Roald Dahl’s original book and as Wonka was personified by Gene Wilder in ‘71) lives by a life philosophy that very much mirrors that of James Allen’s. Take for example the lyrics to Willy Wonka’s first song in the film:

If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and do it
Anything you want, just do it
Want to change the world…
There’s nothing to it.

There is no life I know
That compares with pure imagination
Living there, you’ll be free
If you truly wish to be.

What a marvelous way to view the world. What a magnificent and open minded sentiment—to believe that nothing truly holds us down, nothing holds us back from what we wish to achieve aside from our own minds. This is precisely what James Allen writes about in “As a Man Thinketh.” And so it is.

A woman is nothing more and nothing less than the whole summation of her thoughts. While she cannot always control the events that occupy her mind, she can control the way she reacts to them. A person’s circumstances reveal the true nature of their thoughts and is an immediate manifestation of his or her thoughts.

“Men think that thought can be kept secret,” James Allen writes, “but it can not. Thought quickly crystallizes into habit, which materializes as circumstance... Bestial thoughts crystallize into wanton drunkenness and sensuality…[while] thoughts of courage, self-reliance and decision crystallize into circumstances of success, plenty, and freedom.”

Does this not make perfect sense? We are attracted to that which we dream, and will always move toward that dream until we manifests our destiny. We MUST become our dreams. We must. It is our destiny—just as long as we remember that it is not easy, and that failure is a necessary station on the road to success. We must not be discouraged by disappointment, by cynical thoughts, or by the doubts and fears that invade us at every turn. These types of thoughts must be rigorously excluded for they serve no need whatsoever.

So why then does the world seem so full of doubts and fears? Indeed, at every stop along the tour of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, nay sayers jump at him with cynical thoughts and aspersions, claiming that their own eyes deceived them somehow. It was only through an immense feat of will power that Wonka was able to achieve all that he dreamed. Perhaps the finest manifestion of this idea is the final utterance of the movie.

You know what happened to the boy who got everything he ever wished for, don’t you, Charlie? He lived happily ever after.

So few movies are imbued with such a palpable sense of magic, of possibility, of wonder. So few actually foster that sense that anything could happen if you wish for it badly enough; if you truly believe it can happen and that you are capable of it.

And what a wonderful thing to inspire! I wish there were more messages like that in the world. God knows there are more than enough messages to the contrary, telling us we’re not good enough, we’re not smart enough, we’re not thin enough, or pretty enough, or lucky enough to achieve the things we hold so dearly in our hearts.

"Cherish your visions, cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts. For out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built."

Could not these very lines be spoken by James Allen or Willy Wonka?

2010-10-20T22:05:00.003-04:00

Go Shatner GO!

And of course we can't forget this classic moment.

2010-10-07T10:27:00.004-04:00

I just discovered this amazing movie called Feherlofia. The whole thing's on YouTube. It's an Eastern European folktale that's been given a magical, super psychedelic treatment... This is the first of 8 parts. Enjoy!

2010-08-10T22:04:00.001-04:00

“Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of all things. That is the real world behind this one, and everything we see here is like a shadow of that world… It was this vision that gave him his great power, for when he went into a fight, he had only to think of that world to be in it again, so that he could go through anything and not be hurt.” –Black Elk Speaks, transcribed by John G. Neihardt

“A really excellent narcissist would be a really powerful tool for saving the planet. If everyone was a perfect narcissist, there would be nothing to worry about because we’d automatically fix everything and our purchases would be so begnign. It’s not self-absorbed, it’s just knowing what’s good for self… as we perfect our narcissism, it comes around where you’re actually doing things that feel like sharing, that feel like connected behavior.” --Alex Bogusky in this Fast Company article

Each of us is the whole and total definition of our capacities. We are the authorities of how our lives will play out. We are the dreamers of dreams, the masters of our own destinies. It is our responsibility to ourselves and to the universe at large to live out our fantasies... to the Nth degree… in grossest detail.

2010-05-12T20:19:00.003-04:00

Juice Fasting

I recently read a book on juice fasting (Juice Fasting and Detoxification by Steve Meyerowitz). It’s a well-written book, very well researched and has a fun, casual tone that makes it a breeze to read. It was fascinating, not only for the facts and figures about fasting, but also about the benefits of drinking juices and all the wonderful things they do for your body. It’s amazing when you realize how Mother Nature is so well suited for humans, and how she sustains us so perfectly with all her health giving fruits and vegetables. These truly are the gems of the Earth, and they make us feel magnificent if only we let them do their thing and consume them regularly.

Though this fast was a short one, it was certainly educational. I made a few mistakes along the way, and what better way to learn something than by making a mistake? The key thing I learned (and learned the hard way) was about the state of our digestive systems. Under normal circumstances, our bodies are coated in a thin layer of food residue and bacteria. This bacteria is both good and bad. It’s good because it helps the digestive process occur. It also protects our bodies from harmful fried foods and tequila shots and other bad things we put in our bodies sometimes. However, when that layer gets to be too thick, we don’t get all the nutrients from our food that we should. Food just sort of slips in and out of our systems, and we only extract a small percentage of the vitamins and minerals. This also leads to overeating and feeling bloated, as well as unhealthy weight gain. This is where fasting comes into play.

After about 24 hours without food, depending on the speed of your metabolism, much of that food matter and good bacteria gets eaten digested and eliminated. This is good. You are eliminating food matter that may have been chilling in your digestive tract for months—years even. Flushing that stuff out is a necessary thing to do, for sure. Once that layer is gone though, your body still needs energy, and so it starts tapping other parts of the body. You start digesting some of the fat you may have built up, and even some of the diseased or sick areas of the body. This is why they say fasting is an especially good idea for sick people.

When you are finished fasting, whether it be 24 hours or 24 days later, your digestive tract is in a VERY sensitive state. That whole protective layer of food and good bacteria is long gone. It may take as long as the time you fasted or even longer to build up that protective layer again. Once you start eating again, man are you hungry! That hunger comes on fast, and you feel like you could eat anything and everything, just as if the fast never happened. Well, let me tell you something brother—no matter what your stomach may tell you, you are NOT ready for full on food. Steer clear of any sort of meat or fried food for at least a week. It is a bad idea. If you eat any of that unnatural stuff before you are fully ready, you are going to experience a whopper of a stomach ache. Ohhh! It’s not good. Believe me.

In closing, fast for your health, it will make you feel and look great—but when returning to food, be PATIENT. That’s the most dangerous part of the fast and where everyone messes up. Good luck.

2010-05-01T09:09:00.004-04:00

Terrence the Terrible Roommate

Oh my God—you want to hear a story about that guy?

His name is Terrence. OK, I used to live with him, like, for a semester when I was studying in London. It wasn’t my choice—I wanted to live with these two guys I knew, but the school stuck us together because he didn’t know anyone on the trip. Whatever. So we lived together. We actually had to share a room, which was fine for the most part. He pretty much kept to himself; didn’t really hang with us too much. Once in a while he would smoke a joint with us or something, but that was it. I mean, he was a nerd, but I guess he was pretty cool. He really liked to read comics…

Oh my god--you’ve heard about that thing with him and the goat, right? Oh man. Different story. In a nutshell, Terrence went to India with these two kids I know, and like, they went into this village and there was this really poor family, and they had this goat, and that dude, like, killed the goat. I don’t know. It’s fucked up. I think maybe he was on anti-depressants, or maybe he stopped taking them. Alls I know is he killed the goat. Yeah.

Anyway, back to London. So this one night my friends Billy and James and I go out to this bar, Ricky Tiks. We liked to go there on Thursday nights because we had a short day of classes on Friday, and we would either sleep through it or go to the pool hall at UCL and get caned or something. So we saw Terrence out at Ricky Tiks this one night and he looked pretty wasted. He was hanging around with these American girls we went to school with. They were losers. So we leave that place—it used to get overcrowded with Yanks by like 10:30pm—and go home.

I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I know, I wake up on the couch, Billy and James are gone, and Terrence is walking in with some chick. They come in and sit down in the living room and start chatting just like we’re all old friends and we do this all the time. So I’m half asleep, just trying to get my bearings, and I notice this girl is kind of… like, a little weird. She was this Asian chick and… she was kind of cute, but also like… kind of busted.

So we’re talking, she’s from out of town, just visiting some friends or something… seems pretty keen. And I’m like, hey this is cool, this dude is about to score. So we keep on talking, and then all of a sudden I’m thinking, “wait a second... he and I share a bedroom.” But then I was like, “oh, it’s cool. I’m sure if anything goes down, it’ll be out here in the living room.”

So we’re talking and talking… and as the conversation goes on, I start to realize something’s… a little off. I mean, I was half asleep, but even in that state of mind, I could tell that this girl should not be with this guy. Something was weird. Like, she was wearing this really strange Marilyn Manson t-shirt, and a really short skirt… and he’s like sitting there with tortoise shell glasses. It’s takes me a minute to put two and two together, but once I do, I’m like, “shit, I got to go to bed. I don’t want any part of this.”

So I say good night and go to bed. As soon as my head hits the pillow I’m thinking, “Crap, I hope I didn’t leave nothing out there.” Like my wallet or phone or something. God only knows what those two were up to.

So I fell asleep, and it must have been about an hour later, I wake up, and guess who comes sneaking into the room with the hoe in toe. Oh my GOD. I was thinking, “WTF is wrong with you, bro?” I mean, for the first 5, 10 minutes I was like, “this is not happening.” I was in a serious state of denial. I mean, she must have not even known I was in there because she was saying all this shit to him, giving him a little strip tease… Dude, I don’t even remember, but shit was getting gnarly for a second. They were getting ready for the deed.

So finally, I had to put my foot down. I just said out loud, “Yo, this shit is not cool!”

Dude. She freaked the fuck out. She like, jumped 10 feet off the bed! And he was just like, “uhh, OK,” and walked out, just leaving her in there with me. I mean, I felt bad, but… what the fuck do you say? “Yo, sorry my roommate’s an asshole…” You know? It’s funny in retrospect, but that shit’s just rude.

2010-03-26T10:15:00.001-04:00

Let's save our planet together!

2010-03-24T10:31:00.001-04:00

Just saw William Friedkin's "Sorcerer." Great suspense movie with an amazing soundtrack by Tangerine Dream. I think this edit from YouTube captures the feeling of the film perfectly.

2010-01-31T10:27:00.002-05:00

I STAND STOCK STILL AT THIS MORAL IMPASSE
FROZEN WITH THE WEIGHT OF MY OWN CHOICES

DO I DARE DISTURB THE UNIVERSE?

2010-01-13T10:54:00.001-05:00

This is our "Music from A Bachelors Den"
the sound of loneliness turned up to ten.
A horror soundtrack from a stagnant waterbed
And it sounds just like this:

This is the sound of someone losing the plot -
making out that they're okay when they're not.
You're gonna like it… but not a lot
and the chorus goes like this:

Oh baby,
here comes the Fear again.
The end is near again.
That monkey's built a house on your back
You can't get anyone to come in the sack
and here comes another Panic attack
Oh here we go again.

So now you know the words to our song,
pretty soon you'll all be singing along.
When you're sad, when you're lonely
and it all turns out wrong.
When you've got the Fear.

And when you're no longer searching
for beauty or love -
just some kind of life
with the edges taken off.
When you can't even define what it is that you're frightened of
this song will be here.

Oh baby,
here comes the Fear gain.
The end is near again.
If you ever get that chimp off your back.
If you ever find the thing that you lack
but you know you're only having a laugh
and here we go again.

Until the end.

2010-01-06T10:33:00.001-05:00

sigourney weaver rules.

so does bill paxton!

2009-12-20T14:34:00.003-05:00

2009-12-16T13:50:00.003-05:00

IF the prospect of happiness is illusion, then why go on living? If you know you will never actually be fulfilled; that you will never get to a point where you find life enjoyable or interesting, then why continue living it? Since life is such a long, hard road that has nothing but suffering and pain and unhappiness surrounding it, why keep on living? Why not just end it all? Is it fear that keeps you in the same place? Is it fear that keeps you from changing… or ending it?

On the other hand, since life has no meaning, why not have fun? Go absolutely crazy? Have a blast every single day? Chase down your heart’s every last desire? Live a self-indulgent life, a glutinous life, a life filled with every single pleasure the planet has to offer me, me, ME!

Both these points of view are extreme and kind of ridiculous. I guess there has to be a balance somewhere. But do we ever achieve it, or is that another illusion?

2009-12-06T19:36:00.004-05:00

PARTY HARD

I used to try very hard to make friends with everyone on the planet.
I've seen you havin' it, havin' it yeah
but now you've just had it.
Entertainment can sometimes be hard
when the thing that you love
is the same thing that's holding you down.

This man is dangerous,
he just shed his load on your best party frock.
Before you enter the palace of wisdom you have to decide:
are you ready to rock?
Oh, can you party with me?
Can you show me a good time?
Do you even know what one looks like?
I don't need to hear your stories again -
just get on the floor and show me what you're made of...
Just what exactly are you made of?

Why do we have to half kill ourselves just to prove we're alive?
I'm here whenever you need me
and whenever you need me
I won't be here.
And have you ever stopped to ask yourself--
if you didn't come to party, then why did you come here?
And do you really want to know
just how come you turned out so dumb?

2009-11-29T14:23:00.002-05:00

"If you're so funny
then why are you on your own tonight?
And if you're so clever
why are you on your own tonight?
If you're so very entertaining...
If you're so terribly good looking...
Then why do you sleep alone tonight?
Because tonight is like any other night
That's why you're on your own tonight
With your triumphs and your charms
While they are in each others arms..."

photo

2009-11-18T00:41:00.003-05:00

“Life is essentially a cheat. The most redeeming parts are not happiness and pleasure, but rather the deeper satisfaction that comes out of struggle.”

--F. Scott Fitzgerald

2009-08-27T12:17:00.005-04:00

It's been an unusually musical August for me. In Austin I saw Best Fwends. Cool, fun group that performs indie rock to an iPod, no instruments. They are really funny, almost like a stand-up act. Their ridiculous antics sort of reminided me of Tim and Eric Awesome Show.

Then two nights ago, in New York I saw Patrick Cleandenim and Boy Crisis. The first was a smoothe, polished singer-songwriter with a lot of class and loads of style. His music sounded like disco from the 50s... like Hall & Oates meets Kraftwerk. Super cool dude.

Boy Crisis followed, who felt like watching a budget version of MGMT. Their show was electric and had a groovy element to it, but with so many people in shiny, gold tights, Amazonian female dancers covered in mud, and instruments on stage, there was bound to be some awkward, non-cohesive moments. It was fun though, and I especially enjoyed their cover of Phil Collins "Coming in the Air Tonight."

2009-08-15T15:06:00.004-04:00

Hey kids!

I have a new blog dedicated exclusively to my fiction! It's called PJ's in the Dark. I just posted a story that had been rumbling around for months. I can no longer hold on to it--IT MUST BE SET FREE!!!

Enjoy, and don't forget to make love on the high seas, should you ever get the chance.

2009-08-05T11:06:00.003-04:00

Beastie Boys dropped out of All Points West last week, and Jay-Z filled in as the headliner at the last minute. I just saw he did a pretty cool tribute as his first song, though... haha. Classy guy. Sorry for the crap audio.

2009-08-04T01:26:00.005-04:00

I can understand why John Squire won't make anymore music, and why he refuses to reunite with the Stone Roses. Yes, he was one of the most influential guitarists of his era, and left an indelible mark on the course of British pop. But after the band broke up, and he had little success of his own in solo efforts and side projects (The Seahorses, The Shining, etc.), I guess he saw the writing on the wall. No one wants to hear you beat a dead horse, and in a recent interview on his website he says quite plainly, "music is a young man's game." Hmm, don't tell Mick Jagger that.

It's kind of sad, though. The fact is, musicians don't make music in a vacuum. Well, maybe some of them do, but the very best shine brightest when collaborating with others. I guess at this point, it's kind of pointless to wish Squire would reunite with the Roses, but I think there are still years left for him. I really think he could put out solo compositions that might be excellent, even without lyrics. I may be alone in that sentiment, but I doubt it.

Anyway, his modern art is just not doing it for me. The Jackson Pollock pieces were pretty cool in the era the Roses were playing, but his current stuff is doing nothing for his rep. Yawn.

Well, until he decides to pick up that axe of his again, Roses obsessed freaks such as myself will just have to satisfy ourselves pouring over his past work. My favorite recent find is The Squire Files, a very comprehensive exploration of the guitarists effects set up and techniques. If only this existed 15 years ago!

2009-07-28T01:50:00.003-04:00

I DON'T WANNA BE A SOLDIER MAMA, I DON'T WANNA DIE.

2009-04-14T10:54:00.001-04:00

Modern Day Alchemists

“The challenge of our age is to become alchemists, transmuting the energy of insight and wisdom into practical living and thus to manifest the divine on earth.” --Jack Schwartz, Voluntary Controls

2009-04-14T10:25:00.003-04:00

Gurus

Education is a creative act, not an act of imitation. When on the path of self-realization, sometimes it’s easy to look up to our teachers as people to ape. We admire their station in life, so that is a natural impulse. What we don’t realize is that teachers are our peers, not gods. We should think of them as handing us maps. Look at the map and see where you are on it. Are you where you thought you were? Do you want to be somewhere else? Do you want to be where your teacher is? What’s the best way to get there for you and your life?

Each of us makes his/her own pathway to the Truth. You are not the only one to envision the world in a certain way, but the world that you perceive is unique to you alone. There is only one Truth, but there are infinite ways to experience it.

The one and only true teacher resides within each of us. It is our decision whether or not to pay attention to what that teacher says.

No one has ever taught us anything. They have only revealed truths which we already knew.

2009-04-01T23:00:00.004-04:00

Accessing Your Section of the Cosmic Library

Locked within the inner chambers of our beings are our fears, desires, and anxieties, but also our inherent potentials for courage, self-growth, and knowledge. These potentials are so great, they are just about unimaginable to our conscious mind. Most potentials remain unrealized because we can't find ways to apply them creatively. Others we don't use because we are controlled by a group consciousness, and can't operate individually. At times it seems our sense of identity seems to rely entirely on our memberships...

We must re-evolve. We must learn to hear and follow a most clear seeing and powerful leader: the knowingness within each one of us...

It is only through meditation that we can tap into the universal source of all knowledge... a pool of wisdom so deep and so wide that all the information on this microscopically small planet, the Earth, would only be that which laps upon its shores. We must tap into this wisdom if we are to move mountains and live up to our full potentials.

All experiences go into this pool of wisdom, the universal archives from which we can draw whatever we wish. But you are your own library card; your mind the only entrance key you possess. However, you can not see all the books. Your mind vibrates on a certain frequency, and therefore you are only able to access the section of the library that has books that pertain to your particular experience, the level on which you are now existing. You can always read the books on the lower levels of development, but you will never be able to access the books from the higher levels of consciousness... not until your mind begins to vibrate there.

If you wish to read more books in the cosmic library, start evolving so that you can gain access to the more highly developed books... meditation is a crucial part of this evolution.

inspired / stolen from "the path of action" by jack schwartz

2009-03-31T10:44:00.002-04:00

Balanced Dying

From Human Energy Systems by Jack Schwartz

“An important part of balanced living is balanced dying. As we take time out to eat and rest, we must also take out time to die—to encourage the progressive transition of ourselves through the stages of life. This is how I think of meditation. Meditation is the basic initiator of all action.”

2009-03-31T10:39:00.001-04:00

Resonating Frequencies

From Human Energy Systems by Jack Schwartz

“It is inevitable that heightened self-awareness will influence the body and will effect important changes on a physical level… If we keep the body as radiant as possible, our higher consciousness will attract energy at that same high level, and so we will avoid diseases…

“If we radiate out with a certain frequency of energy and with a certain amplitude, this will produce resonance with similar energies in the environment… just as if I strike a G note on a violin, a piano’s G string with vibrate sympathetically… (so too do we resonate with our environments and vice versa)… Remember too that all the particles of your body are also contained in the environment. Every particle has the capacity to produce energetic outflow, and to resonate or vibrate sympathetically."

2009-01-23T02:34:00.002-05:00

Fleet foxes. Try listening to this song just once. It will creep into your consciousness like spiraling limbs of ivy... you'll find yourself going back to it again and again. Beautiful.

2009-01-08T18:03:00.007-05:00

My friend's cousin makes these Playmobile Rave scenes... love it! Reminds me of the old days...

He calls it the Mega Lego Club. There's even a funny little video on there. Check it out: http://genx.shutterfly.com/

2008-11-13T13:31:00.003-05:00

Halloween came and went, and I'm happy to have spent it at Danbro Studios. My favorite act of the night was DMBQ, these insane Japanese rockers who crowd surf like maniacs. They actually closed the show with the drummer floating the whole drum set on TOP of the crowd, and then he played. Oh yeah... a sight to behold.

Check out the pics on Brooklyn Vegan!

2008-11-12T17:38:00.002-05:00

This music is so bad, I have to share it. I like how no one in these videos looks excited about making music. It's like, they're just hanging out, and some instruments happen to be laying around, so they play them. It's almost a chore. I mean, the singer in "Reminiscing" actually looks bored.

Robbie Dupree looks like a tall, strange bird in a toothpaste colored sweater. But his conga player's killing it!

2008-11-11T17:00:00.000-05:00

Dance moves!

2008-11-10T21:46:00.003-05:00

Paul Rudd.... I love the man. He's just hilarious to me. I love this interview with him that was in The Onion recently. Dude, please keep making movies.

2008-10-23T08:42:00.004-04:00

Happy Endings

Just imagine, it’s a film and you’re the star
And pretty soon we’re coming to the part
Where you realize that you should give your heart,
Oh give your heart to me.

And now the orchestra begins to make a sound…
It goes round and round and round…
And round and round and round…. round and round again
We kiss to violins…

Some sad people might believe in that, I guess.
But we know better—don’t we?—we know all about the mess
The aftermath of our affair is lying all around,
And I can’t clear it away.

And do you think it’s so easy to find?
Somebody who is just your kind?
Oh it might take you a little time…
But I’m gonna have to try, oh yeah, I’m gonna try…

And I know no one can ever know which way to head
Don’t you remember that you once said
That you liked happy endings...?

And no one can ever know if it’s gonna work.
But if you try, if you try,
Then you might get your happy ending.

--jarvis cocker

2008-10-19T11:37:00.006-04:00

walking in, i'm not myself
another plane of resonating frequencies
cinnabar dreams
the harmonic equivalent of quicksilver and philosophical mercury
mixed in equal parts
an unholy matrimony
forged in the mind of the magi
exploring cavyrns of consciousness
sinking deeper into undiscovered trenches
an abyss of uncovered emotion
sublime, oppressive, frightening
delirious fever dreams

experience the antipodes of mind at
La Monte Young's Dream House

275 Church Street between Franklin St & White St

New York, NY 10013

2008-10-16T12:56:00.003-04:00

There's a great article by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker this week about geniuses, old and young. It's called "Late Bloomers." Very interesting... Great illustration of Cezanne and Picasso, too!

2008-10-04T19:06:00.004-04:00

The Grand Canyon is one of those places that is just so expansive, so majestic, that it's rare when a photographer can do it justice with their lens.

My friend Becca did one of the best jobs I've ever seen. Witness it here.

2008-09-15T22:43:00.008-04:00

Awesomest. Movie. Ever.

In 1976, when the Sidney Lumet-directed film was released, aside from sweeping the Academy Awards for acting that year, Network was critically acclaimed as a scathing satire of what the communications industry COULD become.

Today, the film might as well be a documentary.

There's not much I can say about Network that hasn't already been said, so I'm going to strictly confine myself to singing the praises of the scriptwriter. Paddy Chayefsky did a marvelous job weaving the tale of the most heartless, soul-sucking TV executives ever to walk the earth and how they make a fortune marketing the 6:00 news as an entertainment hour stripped of all information. The reporters are all replaced by psychics and freaks. The most ironic thing is that the main attraction of the show is the lead anchor, who goes off on leftist rants every night, decrying the evils of television--the very artifice that allows him to enter people's homes; the very power structure that makes money from him yelling about how much everyone hates it. Pure genius.

Even if you haven't seen the film, you've probably heard its most famous line ("I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"). That's commonplace by now. We've already consumed it into the mass unconscious. What I was more impressed by seeing it again this past weekend, was the second major monologue of the film--when the big Network executive chastises lead anchor, Howard Beale, for publicizing the fact that the Network was just sold to an Arab corporation. It is a fantastic piece of writing, and certainly bears reprinting.

For your reading pleasure, here is Paddy Chayefsky's manifesto:

"You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it, is that clear?! You think you have merely stopped a business deal - that is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity, it is ecological balance.

"You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations! There are no peoples! There are no Russians! There are no Arabs! There are no Third Worlds! There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars! Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds and shekels! It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic, and subatomic and galactic structure of things today. And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone!

"Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?

"You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon - those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state - Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories and mini-max solutions and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business.

"The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime, and our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused..."

Brilliant... and terrifying. This is what we should be teaching in grammar school. Forget American history. Forget world history. This is the way things are--for better or worse.

I don't know if I should laugh at it or cry.

2008-09-08T22:38:00.002-04:00

Long Haired Sally

Do you know Sally? Sally--that girl with reaaaalllly long hair? If you met her, you’d remember. She’s got, like, the longest hair of anyone I know. Whatever. So Sally has not had the best of luck with men. Like most of us, she’s had a pretty rough time in New York. Big surprise, eh? But anyway, she met this guy Steve a while ago, and… well, you wouldn’t think there was anything else to talk about. Oh, Steve this, Steve that, Steve, Steve, Steve. I haven’t even met the guy—none of us have—but she won’t shut up about him. Apparently they went to high school together in Jersey, and Steve was voted most handsome. Ha, ha. Yeah. But they didn’t hang out together back then. I think she knew him but… yeah.

So Sally goes up to Maine this summer—her parents live in Kennebunkport—so she goes up to see them this summer, and who does she run into? Steve’s a forest ranger. He, like, tests the pH balance in the water or something? I don’t know. But of course… Mr. Handsome, Class of ’95… and the sparks fly.

But now he’s in Maine, so he’s like, this bearded, you know, like, mountain hunk… and she can’t stop talking about him, and things… you know, have gotten a little out of hand. Every time you go out for a drink with her, out comes Steve. I mean, something eventually had to be said. We were at Alec’s birthday dinner last week, Sally came. And it was like, “come on!” It’s like, “we are not even here for you, Sally, you are a guest at Alec’s birthday. None of us even know Steve!” So finally, Greg said something… I mean, not in those words, but he was just like, “yeah, OK, enough, Sally.”

Well. She starts crying. Right there at the dinner table! I mean, Sally’s an emotional girl, but come on, girl. Get a grip!

So that’s why Greg had to go out with her for drinks tonight. Kind of “I’m sorry,” sort of thing. Isn’t that funny? Yeah, well, now I wanna meet Steve.

2008-08-02T12:50:00.002-04:00

“People long to be eternal, but they die with every day that passes. When you meet them, they’re not what you last met. In any hour, they’ll kill some part of themselves. They change, they deny, they contradict—and they call it growth. At the end, there’s nothing left, nothing unreversed or unbetrayed; as if there had never been an entity, only a succession of adjectives fading in and out of an unformed mass.” -Ayn Rand

2008-08-02T10:45:00.002-04:00

New photos up from my trip to Berlin and London! Horray!

2008-05-27T23:05:00.001-04:00

Auguries of Innocence

Every Night and every Morn
Some to Misery are Born
Every Morn and every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to Endless Night

2008-05-06T17:50:00.006-04:00

Towards the End...

Over the past few days I've been thinking a lot about evolution and the place humans occupy in it. Repeatedly, I have come back to the fact that my last post may have ignored the one distinguishing feature that sets us apart from other species—our minds.

Historically, the very first homo sapiens came on the scene during the Ice Age. As they moved away from their ancestral home on the African savanna, they faced glacial sheets, much like the one that covers Greenland today, advancing and retreating with the seasons. Each time the sheets advanced, the humans were forced south; when the sheets receded, the humans moved north to find abundant hunting grounds in their wake.

During this period, the selective process for better brains must have been intense. Only those humans with bigger, more developed brains would be able to reproduce among the perils of new lands and harsher climates.

As evolution progressed, this trend continued. Those humans with the greatest mental capacity survived the longest. Those who used their brains in the most effective ways succeeded. Today, things have changed a bit and arguments could be made about modern medicine allowing the human genetic pool to become polluted with disease, infirmity and handicaps that would have been wiped out in earlier ages—their carriers simply would not have survived long enough to reproduce. However, it could also be argued that the sympathy—the humanity—we express through our mastery of technology and medicine are hallmarks of our evolution away from the beasts and toward something greater.

Either way, the MIND is the key. Consciousness. It is clear to me now that this truly is the central drama and purpose behind all these billions of years of evolution. Consciousness is what life has been heading for all this time. And it has manifested in us!

Can you grasp the power of that?

Think about it like this:

• 3.5 billion years ago… life on this planet began.
• 2 million years ago… apes evolved into the homo genus.
• In a single century… we've discovered and traced the evolutionary forces at work.
• In a few short decades… we've revealed the very basis of life: DNA.

It seems we are fast approaching an Omega Point, where the consciousness of all mankind works together for some grander purpose. Call me an idealist, but no one—human or alien—can doubt that our species will lead this planet and all its inhabitants into a whole new and final unification…or to its ultimate destruction.

I don't know about you but the point of all this can't just be fast cars and rock stars and bank accounts and MTV. Though our current cultural conditioning certainly seems to be pointed that way, if you have any sort of feeling beyond the basest impulses for food and self preservation, you must realize that there is more—and I'm not talking about religion per se.

I think Daniel Pinchbeck says it best:

"The possibility of establishing a radically new understanding of the psyche… threatens the underpinnings of a culture obsessed with acquiring goods, wealth, and status. If we were to discover that other aspects of reality deserved serious consideration, we would have to reconsider the thrust of our current civilization: entire lives and enormous expulsions of energy would seem misdirected or even wasted…"

Consciousness is the key. We have to avail ourselves to the possibilities life offers, whether they seem profitable or not. We must listen to our inner impulses and follow them faithfully, even if we don’t fully understand where they bringing us. What else do we have to go on?

2008-05-02T14:34:00.001-04:00

In the beginning…

In the beginning, the Earth was cold and the seas as barren as deep space. The primordial tides rose and fell against small, lonely patches of wasteland. The oceans stretched on and on and on, and there was no sound save for the thresh of the wind and the omnipresent roll of thunder rattling in the distance…two billion years before an ear existed to hear them.

And then one day—a day like any before it, a day that seemed almost stupid with its regularity—a very peculiar thing happened. It wasn't an unheard of event exactly, it had happened in other places on other worlds, but this was the first day it happened on this planet. On that day, not far from the surface of the ocean, a microscopic single-celled organism gained the miraculous (?) ability to divide and reproduce itself. Not long after that, another single-celled organism gained the same ability. Then another, and another, and another… The conditions were perfect to permit it. Time passed, and the single-celled organisms became soft, multiple-celled organisms. These, in turn, joined with others to become larger, more complex organisms, eventually leading to the formation of primitive water-dwelling invertebrates.

These creatures were well adapted to the ancient seas, and they flourished. Over a short period of time—perhaps 1 million years or so—they multiplied so many times that hosts of mutations inevitably occurred. The most successful mutations adapted to their environment and blossomed in that place. The creatures mutated further, and again, the most successful lived on, eventually becoming a class of creatures we might today call fish. This was about 365 million years ago.

Mutation and selection worked its magic, and the fish eventually developed better fins for swimming and better jaws for catching prey. The ones we call crossopterygians developed a primitive lung in addition to their gills. By pure chance, some of these crossopterygians were born with mutated legs, which allowed them to waddle onto the land formed by the receding seas, opening up for them a whole new habitat. These creatures existed on the tiny insects flying at the edge of the water. Time passed, and they mutated further into antediluvian amphibians.

So it went that the fish begat the amphibian, the amphibian begat the reptile, the reptile begat the mammal, and from small, ambiguous mammals came the primates, from the primitive primates came the apes and monkeys, from the apes came australopithecus, homo erectus, homo habilis, the Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon man, and finally homo sapiens: The modern man was born.

Half a billion years of evolution… and at every step of the way, mutation and selection flowed through life like water through rock, carving away the useless, the inadaptable, the weak. Creatures that were not strong or ruthless enough to thrive did not get a chance to reproduce.

And now, to the surprise of many, modern man has escaped evolution. Survival of the fittest no longer applies to our species, at least not in the manner that it has in the past. Physical mutations no longer affect the carrying on of our genes to the next generation. We now have the choice of whether to reproduce or not. Sex is a leisure activity; children a financial decision. Neither hold the instinctual/survival obligation they once did.

When seen on a scale like this, the worries of our everyday life seem utterly insignificant. Who really cares if this or that project gets done today, next week, or next century? Does it even matter? In the space of 70 years—a human lifetime; a micro-blink of the evolutionary eye—what real meaning could anyone’s life really hold? Who really cares if I do or don’t have children, go to work today or stay home, pay my bills or set fire to my credit cards, live, die, kill, be killed… do anything at all? Does it really matter?

Religion, too, takes on a strange, artificial pallor when seen through the evolutionary lens. Where is there a place for God if life is purely mutation and selection, a set of coincidental circumstances occurring with scientific regularity when the conditions permit?

I’m not the first to ponder these issues, and I’m sure I won’t be the last either. Anyone? Is anyone else out there?

2008-04-15T11:59:00.002-04:00

The MGMT are a great band from I don't know where, but I love their sound. They have the emotional intensity of Arcade Fire, blended with the gritty, electronic buzz of Fischerspooner. Enjoy!

2008-04-09T21:46:00.003-04:00

Not many men will say what I'm about to reveal to the world right now. It's a confession of sorts, but I can't hold it in any more.

I LOVE AIMEE MANN!

There, I said it, OK? I feel so much better.

The soundtrack to Magnolia rules, as does her 2002 album, Lost in Space. But lately, my fave song of hers is right here. Bad video quality, but the content is classic 80s.

(BTW The guy in the vid is super familiar looking. I think he might have been a regular in 80s videos...)

Enjoy.

2008-03-29T10:25:00.003-04:00

I recently found this rad website that has an awesome interactive program which allows you to make really cool snowflake patterns, then spin them around in three-dimensional space. I know that sounds kind of dumb, but try it--it takes 2 seconds and you will be totally absorbed!