with a hey, ho, the wind & the rain

best living artist visits best dead artist

Two movies worth seeing: Bobby, and Notes on a Scandal

Spent the afternoon/evening with Jeremy and Trudi. They're both awesome.

Scott Weiland's solo cd is really good, especially the somg "Barbarella", which I've had on repeat for about 20 minutes.

First Night doesn't really affect me. The years of my life are measured by my birthdays, the days by my work schedule, the months by the moon. Otherwise, real time doesn't hold my attention much. Besides, I don't party and usually retire to my room well before midnight.

I don't really have any "New Year's resolutions". Merely the lifetime resolutions I've developed as I've grown. One resolution I've really come a long way with is acceptance and appreciation of life, though I've still a long way to go.

Well, now. I began typing this at around quarter to twelve, and now my computer says it's midnight. And the drunks next door are now singing. Guess I'll go have my first Lucky Strike of 2007, as though that means a damn thing.

Peace out

An inside joke between Jeremy and me born of this Layne Staley clip: http://youtube.com/watch?v=26zhXzz6Crg

Anyway, here are a few pictures taken on adventures north of Boston with Jeremy:
( Read more... ) The



Posting some pictures cause I promised to. More later.

Oh and a mister "Erwin Rommel" called asking for me today... what a creep. I cant imagine how talking to this guy face-to-face would go.

Tool was amazing, surreal. Blue, purple, green, red and yellow lights; trippy and meaningful visuals on the large videoscreens beneath a clear, star-spangled navy sky uptowards which the perfect music rose--it all made for an experience that was beautiful and spiritual and rocking all at once.

But, honestly, there's something pressing stronger on my mind.

This a rare polemic and lashing out on my part, but I can't sit here passively while everyone who hates Bush creams themselves over Bill Clinton's highly sensationalized interview. Bill Clinton is no worse and certianly no better than any Republican US president. He lied in that interview. First, his administration DID know about Al-Queda and Osama Bin-Laden, just as the current one did. The interviewer brought that up, but the fact was dodged. Secondly, and more importantly, Bill Clinton does and did not "care about human life" to much extent. I'm going to transcribe one q&a from 1999. This is David Barsamian interviewing Noam Chomsky, pages 33-34 of Propaganda and the Public Mind. Really, I could quote a large part of this book. If you have the time and the interest, I reccommend taking a look at it:

( To get back to Clinton, in his newsletter 'Left Business Observer', Doug Henwood writes, 'the worst thing about the Lewinsky affair is that it's interfered with the proper hatred of Bill Clinton. He's been indicted...but for all the wrong crimes' What might your articles of impeachment include? )
A small excerpt, but telling and I don't think out of context. Also, I feel that his words are worth taking and not deliberately misleading and that I know enough to make that judgement.

Clinton-worship coming from seemingly the entire US Democratic party and similar parties deeply bothers me. Even the "1 & 10" radio hosts were raving about him last night. ("1 & 10" is a weekly Sunday night radio show that discusses social issues with a focus on gay/lesbian issues on 101.7 WFNX) I was horrified. It's not suprising, as I consider why very few know or truely care about this sort of stuff...But that doesn't make me feel better. Nor does this pervasive feeling of frustration of helplessness and complacency...

//rant

And the angel of the lord came unto me, snatching me up from my place of slumber. And took me on high, and higher still until we moved to the spaces betwixt the air itself. And he brought me into a vast farmlands of our own midwest. And as we descended, cries of impending doom rose from the soil. One thousand, nay a million voices full of fear. And terror possesed me then. And I begged, "Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams?" And the angel said unto me, "These are the cries of the carrots, the cries of the carrots! You see, Reverend Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day and to them it is the holocaust." And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat like the tears of one million terrified brothers and roared, "Hear me now, I have seen the light! They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers!" Can I get an amen? Can I get a hallelujah? Thank you Jesus.

::sheep bleating noises::


This part of Disgustipated, the last track on Tool's Undertow album, is reminiscent of something I've been thinking about a lot since beginning to delve into the nuances of spirituality and connections and stuff like that.

Self righteous vegetarians and vegans seem hypocritical to me. The type who are all like, "meat is murder, I'd never support killing a living creature for food, etc". The ancient natural order of the food chain aside, plants are living things too. Plants give their lives to provide the soy products that many people feel so righteous and moralistic about eating. You'd be suprised ((or maybe not)) how many of the same people who won't eat a cute bovine don't think twice about stepping on spiders. My point is that, as this track states, life feeds on life. It's a perfect circulation of giving and taking life between all living things. I can't take anyone giving me shit for eating meat seriously because theirs is a flawed arguement. If you want to argue that farm animals are treated badly, I'll agree with that but I must add that most of the plants we feed off of are hurt by pesticides and other harmful stuff. Though it might not be exactly the same as raising chickens in their own shit, it's still some pretty cruel stuff. I don't know what to tell you; shit happens, but I need to eat. The problem with humans, I think, is that as a whole we are too greedy and that we terribly abuse what the earth offers to give us. But that's another rant for another entry.

I love how Tool is able to creatively satire many things in a way that makes me think. I can't wait for their new album to come out on May 2nd; it's gonna be the first new cd I will have bothered to purchase in years.

"One of the most essentialized graphic depictions of the enlightened state is the Zen brush stroke of the perfect circle."

Very interesting...that adds a new dimension to A Perfect Circle's music, especially the song "Orestes", for me. I think it's great when works have so many layers that one can continue to discover new meanings in them after having listened to/read/looked at them hundreds of times. That happens to me a lot.

My literature professor taught me that the Greeks used to judge the validity of ideas by the number of ways in which they could be expressed. Building off of that, I think that great pieces of music/writing/art are ones that can be interpreted in infinate ways.

Take music for example. One doesn't need to know what the song is supposed to mean in order to thoroughly enjoy it; that a song sounds good and or touches you in a certian way can be reason enough, even if it's not what the musician(s) were thinking when writing the song. Someone asked Layne Staley once what some of AIC's songs are supposed to mean and Layne replied, "they mean whatever you want them to mean!" I agree.

I know I said that I'd tell the story of walking into the hobby shop/art store, but it doesn't seem that important anymore. Heh, if I wait long enough almost nothing seems worth posting. Basically it was an instance where my feelings/intuition guided me in the right direction. More and more I've been relying on my feelings to direct me, and they almost never dissapoint.

I'm in the process of reading The Mission of Art by Alex Grey. A lot of you are probably familiar with his work, he's the guy who drew Tool's Lateralus art. It's really thought provoking and puts a lot of Tool's music, especially Lateralus, and some of A Perfect Circle into perspective (sidenote-I recently discovered that "Mer De Noms" is French for "Sea of Names", which I find neat). The book draws on philosophy, many modes of spirituality, history and some other interesting stuff to talk about what Alex Grey believes the artist and the viewers should be able to get out of art/expression. Whether or not you agree with his beliefs/ideas, the book really makes you think and that's why I reccomend it to anyone. I also bought Sacred Mirrors and Transfigurations, two books that talk a little more in depth about the man's art and influences and include many of Alex Grey's artworks. I haven't read much of the text in those yet, but I've taken a good look at his paintings and I think they are amazing.

I'm a little more than halfway through The Mission of Art and even if the rest of the book is crappy, which I think is doubtful, the first half is so loaded that I think the book is worth purchasing from what I've read so far.

This computer seems to be terminally ill...it keeps shutting down randomly and about 70% of the time won't even turn on. So I might not be online as much until it gets properly fixed, but I'll still read/post/comment when I can.