sunday songs & the inaugural podcast

(photos from joshua tree. september)

a cold but sunny morning. i awake and head to the grocery store, to quench a dying thirst for orange juice. i eat breakfast, and contemplate the day. for some time now, i have had the goal of writing and recording a song every sunday, something i have been successful with. strangely enough, i have found myself quite happy with nearly all of the songwriting, which is perhaps a testament to many things. needless to say, through this process i have noticed that a good many of the songs fall clearly under the same lyrical theme, and tone for that matter. (many of them are instrumental, but that's a different story) anyway, last night, after mixing some of the work of kings (the above the orange trees record that is really fucking good, and really unfinished, but getting really close) i shared some of these sunday songs with christian kiefer and proposed another split record, and idea which he not only agreed to, but was really enthusiastic about. i'm not going to disclose the subject matter yet, but soon perhaps. soon.

i also keep meaning to tell you folks, that i have finally set up a myspace account where i will be posting new material each month, taken from these aforementioned, sunday recordings.

sunday it is. am i procrastinating?

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lastly, i have begun the attempts at podcasting. i say "attempts," because we (keri and i...or really i should just say keri) has run into a great number of seemingly insurmountable walls in getting it working. so, while the mp3 is indeed here on the site for you to ingest, we're having quite a bit of trouble getting it to work with either the podcasting site, or itunes. therefore, you may listen here if you wish, and i will let you know when and how to "subscribe," just as soon as keri fights the technical demons. this inaugural show, is simply stolen from the interview i did with christian about the inexplicable falling (split record we did together) with an intro and outro i recorded yesterday. enjoy.
podcast

buy nothing day.

we awake to rain. the drops hang from the bare arms of trees, the light outside, grey. i wish that instead of shopping, all of those millions of people were going for hikes out in the woods today. could you imagine? people lining up at 5am to hike the sierras. cars trailing down from the berkeley hills into the flats, as people await the opening of tilden park. sometimes, it all seems so bloody hopeless, people fighting in the various wallmart stores over items that they do not need. i hope you'll all excuse the hipocracy in our purchasing of gasoline to get home, and food shared wiuth mike today. somehow, i don't think these things count. then again, in my perfect world gasoline wouldn't be something we ever purchase, so i am certainly the outsider. perhaps we could atr least help to spread the word. imagine all of those people out walking together, sharing stories and moments of their lives.

buy nothing day

goodbye, farewell.

chris whitley. photo taken from website

chris whitley died of lung cancer on sunday night. i never really know how to write about death (does anyone?) but it upset me quite a bit. in some sense we are always distanced from someone who dies, and the degree to which we are distanced greatly impacts our sadness, sorrow, compassion, etc. in this case, i really only knew this man through his music, some of which is just amazing, but also because christian kiefer was friend's with him. there is a download on chris' site of one of his last live performances at cafe du nord in san francisco, where he thanks christian for opening the evening. needless to say, as death does, especially the passing of someone who is at least a touch closer to my life, it begs of me to live.

so last night, keri and i turned up "dirt floor," my favorite record of his, drank wine, and cuddled on the couch. in some way, whenever someone else dies, i feel like my job is to be present and appreciate this life as much as i can. the goal i suppose, is to try to live with that much awareness all of the time.

anyway, keri and i presently prepare to head up to my folk's for thanksgiving, and enjoy the simple fact that indeed we are all here and all healthy. we will again listen to dirt floor, and we will sing along. the fourth track on the record, "wild country," happens to be one of my favorite songs of all time to sing along with. this, dear reader, is truly beautiful. so, i recommend to all of you, that you go to his website and download one of the shows. or buy a disc. turn it up, and hit the road. or dance. or do whatever it is that you do. what a gift he left.

and, while i might feel absurd adding this to the end of a post in which anyone else has died, it somehow seems fitting: christian has begun a podcast, and four of them consist of he and i talking about my half of a split record we did called "the inexplicable falling." the podcasts are labeled thusly: Crowtown Podcast Episode 2A (11-11-05) and the discussion carries on through episode 2D. you can find them here. perhaps mr. whitley would like to listen in to two other guys (one old friend) talk about how much they love music. who knows?

the american dream and the continued failure of education

(photo from one year ago, driving across the country)

Upon arrival in the office, I am told that I will be with a young boy named Donell. I am told not to touch him as he has ringworm something fierce. His head covered in scabs. I then proceeded to attempt to work on the alphabet with him for three hours, while he rose from his chair every four seconds or so. He could hardly pronounce the words, not due to a speech impediment of any sort, but rather because his parents have just had him sitting around the house not doing anything for years. He is ten. Later that afternoon, it is a roomful of 7th graders, who will not be quiet. They will not sit in their seats, they will not watch the movie, they will not stop passing notes. I send two of them to the office. Nothing changes. I give up and read. Next day. “In house detention” they call it. One child tells me that both his brother and sister are in prison. i feel for him, and wonder why the teachers don't seem to acknowledge this. were it me, i would assign him work dealing with this exact issue. i would ask him why. i would teach him about the oppression in america that leads to so many young black males incacerated.

Another will not do anything. I don’t mean he is uncooperative, I mean he won’t do anything. Not a fucking thing. I ask him to do the one assignment he has, which is to write in bullet form a list of facts about the 1930’s. From 8 am until 3:18pm, he wrote in big chicken scratch letters on the page, “the 1930’s sucked. Stupid. Shit.” that's it. i would have had to use physical force to get him to do anything else. i sent him to the office, and they sent him back. The others in the room, just sat there the whole period. They wouldn’t read, they wouldn’t draw, they wouldn’t write, and they didn’t want to listen to me talk about anything.

The apathy is staggeringly depressing to me. I fail to understand. The boy who didn’t like the 30’s is fourteen, and does not suffer from any mental illness they say. Then again, they (being the administrators at the school) put these poor kids in there with nothing to do. No assignments, no guidance, no nothing. Just a sub, who would prefer to be teaching, not enforcing rules upon children who are failing because the system is failing them. Or reading. Or writing. Or playing music. And so on.

Then, to make matters worse, some other teacher opened the door and said in a condescending fashion, “Uh, who are you?” to which I replied, “Do you mean, what is my name?” ( I find it nearly impossible to be cordial to people who treat me with such immediate disrespect) He replies, “Well, I’m just wondering what’s going on in here. Who’s in charge?” I state my name, and tell him that I am a substitute. As he walks away, he says, “well, the kids are being too loud,” to which I reply, “I know.” Moments later, a woman from the office has asked me to step outside and speak with her for a moment. I am then told that

1. it is not acceptable to sit with my feet on the chair, nor is it acceptable to sit on top of the desk itself.
2. I need to present the image of a teacher better. (and just what IS that image? I wonder?)
3. I need to keep the kids “on task” and “quiet.” Perhaps if you idiots gave them some goddamn work, or listened to the reasons why the don’t want to do their work, and put a bit more effort into the reason why they’re failing, maybe they would remain on task better.
4. “while there isn’t a dress code like an office, we like to present a certain image.” In other words, we don’t like your tattoos, your hair, your earrings, your scruffy face, etc.

it took much restraint for me to keep my mouth shut. I did though inform her that I am a great teacher, and if she wishes to discuss these problems further, by all means, I’m ready for the principal, the school board. I’m still pissed about it. and I was just going to write about the ringworm. At this point, no symptoms. I touched him anyway. I thought about how selfish so many of us are, myself included. How does someone like Mother Theresa
(most known example) come into being? How did she do what she did? Today, I feel so humbled. I couldn’t even get the kids to be quiet, much less love them. Give them my heart.

yesterday, i finished reading an interview in The Sun with an activist named Hector Aristizabal that was amazing. he begins by quoting an african saying, "the blessing is close to the wound," and continues from that theme. i light of recent words on mine and keri's sites, i quote from the middle of the interview. "for me, the american dream belongs to the people who are crossing the border as we speak. i don't see a lot of people who were born here who still honor the dream. there's so much unhappiness along with all the comforts. the inner wilderness, where we live in anguiush because our connections are broken, comes in many forms. for many americans, maybe it's the isolation chamber of privelege, the emptiness we try to fill by buying things."

well put. so keri and i had an idea for those who share our sentiments. (regarding the ads on blogs) check it out. and don't buy too many things this weekend.

art vs. advertising

i had intended to write about the trip to utah and new york. about mike standing out in some cold, dusty, field along the roadside, clutching his cramping leg with the drool beginning it's course. three hours later, we were fighting for space on the bathroom floor, bare feet on the cold tile, hands on porcelain, trying to avoid my diahhrea that had missed the bowl.

vomiting is such violent business.

and then there was lannie and erin and addison. then new york. walking central park, the upper west-side on a sunny november day. reid, singing stevie wonder songs. the beginning of a new film. but then i arrive home to this debate on my wife's website, and feel as though i must weigh in. so here goes. (i suggest you read her posts and at least some of the comments before continuing on)

what bothers me most, is to discover that so many of her readers say that the rampant advertising in our culture (and namely on blogs in this case) doesn't really bother them. i find this apathy to be frightening and sad, for this is in my opinion at the root of many western problems, and the decline of true democracy in the united states. it is precisely this disconnect, greed, and selfishness that leads to the loss of our freedoms.

(actually, i think the easiest way, will be if i mention briefly the issue, and then list my thoughts on the matter.) so it turns out that many people are accepting advertisements on their blogs from corporations. my wife began discussing why she is not okay with this, and an interesting (or sad if you ask me) debate has ensued.

1. integrity. the integrity of any artist/magazine/newspaper/television show etc., is inherently compromised when they gain funding from advertising. period.

2. there is a vast sea of difference between "endorsing" a product of your own freewill, and being paid to do so. i shouldn't have to explain this, so i won't. selling things that you have created and advertising products from multinational corporations are extremely different things.

3. what began as a free medium for art and communication (the blog) will potentially become a place where commerce resides? a place where corporate america is free to play? bullshit. not on my blog. i feel that the instant i let corporations peddle their wares in my house, it is no longer my house.

you know what, screw it. i just read more of the comments on keri's site and i'm out. winded. i just fail to comprehend how so many people comment that it doesn't matter. that us, especially the artists of the world, shouldn't care about corporate involvement in our art. it's criminal. should we let the government in too? perhaps picasso shouldn't have painted guernica, for why should he have cared? (perhaps that's too disconnected)

i guess at the root of all this is the simple fact that i don't like advertising. aside from all of the socio-political implications, i find that it is ugly, distracting, and just plain annoying. i frankly cannot think of a single instance of advertising, or more succinctly, a new form of, or place in which advertising has begun to rear its head in the last decade that i am happy with. personally, i wish all of it would go away. the billboards, the ads in the men's room, on the conveyer belt dividers at the grocery store, in the airport, etc., etc., etc.....why if i despise this thing so much, would i want to contribute to it? while some have criticized my wife for "thinking she's better than others," because she doesn't believe in this, frankly isn't relevant. it has nothing to do with that. it is a simple fact of fighting that which one believes to be a negative force in the art world.

ultimately, i feel that we are in a really dangerous place historically speaking. perhaps that's silly, for i can only imagine that the people of every generation have felt the same thing, that they had their own battles to fight. but in this case, i feel as though i have an obligation here. i have an obligation to stand up for what i believe in and attempt to take back some of this world that is being so rapidly taken by corporate america. while i have little to no control over when and where coca-cola advertises, i can certainly keep them out of my art. and this all comes from a guy who wants so badly to make a living with his art, but will be leaving his house in a matter of minutes to go substitute a 7th grade science class, incessantly telling them to shut up.

so i leave you with a thought for those who say that this doesn't effect them. about three years ago, in the front of an ADBUSTERS issue, there was a page full of corporate logos. it asked the reader to identify how many he/she could. on the next page, there were photos of plants and trees, and it asked the same of the reader. it then showed the statistics of how many people could name most if not all of the logos and almost none of the trees. sadly, though i knew many of the trees, i certainly knew more of the logos...and this comes from a man who doesn't buy or subscribe to any "corporate magazines" (adbusters and the sun don't count as neither of them have ads) and who doesn't watch television (and hasn't for fifteen years or so). contrast this with the moment when i showed my grandfather the two pages. he knew 90% of the trees and 10% of the logos.

in the end, you could ask yourself a question: if your favorite artists and writers had blogs, would they allow corporate advertising on them, so that they could sit home all day and make art? a brief list below. what do you think? (i vote no on all of them)

jim harrison.
gabriel garcia marquez.
pablo neruda.
egon schiele.
thom yorke.
glen gould.
pablo picasso.
ernest hemingway.
tom robbins.
georgia o'keefe.

you get the point. perhaps this would have come out more eloquently if i had more time to write. i could sit around reaping the rewards from my ads, writing all day. drinking coke.