Less nervy this time, showing up and plugging in. No worries of doing cover songs for which I have disdain that smacks of unadmitted musical judgment. She has demos on her laptop recorded with a synth, like larva waiting to explode the chrysalis in glory, and my hands stretch into chords, coaxing out reverb-drenched riffs, bending strings, fingers gliding up and down the frets.
I love that it's not just verse-chorus-verse that there are pieces and parts and interludes. Having to keep time and remember how all these go together is a new thing compared with Peter-Hooking basslines to try to make pedestrian suburban punk sound more interesting. Maybe I'm more of a prog-head than I'll admit, but I love that I have the freedom to let out my inner J. Mascis that it's more than three chords. No vocals yet but hopefully those will be forthcoming and something beautiful. I'm more into catharsis than aggression these days, and if this all falls through the ability to string chords together and maybe pair those with some verbiage seems like a less mysterious art now that it's been tried.
We are still shaping, trying to figure out the sonics, turning notes into chords, and I'm scrawling out chord progressions, codes of letters and numbers on pieces of notebook paper, adding minor chords, attempting to flesh out these skeletal ideas into something I hope I can say I love as much as what I've heard others do. I'd love to do something this beautiful.
I saw this band open for Agalloch earlier this year and wasn't expecting something so incredibly beautiful with a name like that, which is probably the point. Really should have bought the album then, but there's a new record coming out, and I fell in love with the cathartic crunch and shimmer of guitars and sinuous basslines and I'll make good I promise this time.
I guess one never knows how these will work out, but the act of stepping out and getting over the nervousness to see what happens has been liberating in itself, and gives me another thing to look forward to after sitting at a desk and pushing papers, ivory tower style, negotiating the tricky terrain of a world of grownups who still jockey for position in the pecking order, whose words and demeanor belie an ultimate dishonesty and embarrassing insecurity.
My circle has always been open to some extent to those with some degree of compassion and a lack of pretension, as I try not to judge others based on tastes or initial appearance, but when someone wants to join the Order of St. Drogo, someone who's denoted other compadres as being "weird"(if you think that about him, than I'm sure you're saying it about me) and seems more interested in gleaning workplace gossip and being in good with the Powers That Be, I'm not inclined to extend the invitation. It's not the economics or the upper echelon with which I take issue, but the lack of trust. Besides, this is the coffee pot of Peonage not the water cooler, no juicy gossip, just the indulgence of lifelong geekery for the stranger side of all things. And, of course, that's just too weird.
More and more I find myself putting up walls, weighing each word so carefully, smiling wide to distract from my narrowed eyes, because I know that if I don't care for someone, it's really hard to hide. I don't know how to truly be dishonest.
And I sit in the halls of power, listening to the conversations of those above, as wording is shifted and the dialogue is not born out of genuine feeling but a constant mental calculation, and I see the masks drop enough to recognize them as such, finding what is underneath so distasteful that the coverings seem like they make sense.
Showing posts with label life's important questions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life's important questions. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
nonstarters
Once upon a time there was a boy and a girl. They knew each other for a very long time, because when they were seven, the girl splashed him during a game of Marco Polo at a pool party and he dunked her most unchivalrously, which made her cry. But she kind of deserved it. He doesn't remember this at all.
Ten years later they meet again, part of a group of pretty good kids who did pretty good kid stuff like parent induced social activities for their betterment as good Christian kids although the girl smuggled in a tube of hair mascara and Alice in Chains cassettes and dyed everyone's hair green, and his best friend had a stash of Slayer CDs in his closet, despite his parents views on Lavey affiliated hard rockers the Eagles. Later their group of friends would do good kid things like laser tagging or ice cream at Friendly's and getting kicked out of the Southland strip mall by security for drinking half gallons of ghetto tea in the Giant Eagle parking lot or hang out in someone's basement or bedroom drinking pop and complaining about their parents.
They liked some of the same bands and didn't like some of the same bands and he was partially responsible for her transition from fledgling metalhead to the punkier side of things by loaning her lots of CDs. He also dated her best friend, broke up with her, and they lost touch.
Five years later, they meet once more, and find out they have a lot in common, and like to do similar things, but don't have anyone else to do them with. So they start hanging out, because he has a car and she doesn't, and they go see shows together on an almost weekly basis. His dad thinks they're dating, but they're not, because besides liking most of the same bands, they really have nothing else to talk about and he likes girls who are more girly. She's cynical but he's even moreso, neither for reasons that are terribly concrete besides being mad at "The System" and when not working he maintains a constant state of entertainment immersion that kind of freaks her out because while she finds Mystery Science Theater funny too, she doesn't want to watch it all the time and needs some time to be quiet and existential.
He moves away to another state, and she realizes she doesn't miss him all that much. There was nothing besides a love of good music, which only goes so far, despite what any hipster love song about mixtapes would say. She can talk about bands and guitars as good as any record store clerk, but finds herself less and less motivated to as she has less to prove. She gets a slot on college radio, still goes and sees her favorite bands and sings along to all the songs she knows, but it doesn't mean as much as it once did.
She doesn't want a compadre for the mosh pit anymore, because she's too old to mosh. She doesn't want someone who likes some obscure scene in some random town, she wants to talk about God and books and history without always coming up with concrete answers. The love of tuneage becomes a springboard to other things deeper rather than the end of the pool that seems deep compared to the baby pool, but is only maybe three feet or so.
And she still doesn't know what this all means.
Ten years later they meet again, part of a group of pretty good kids who did pretty good kid stuff like parent induced social activities for their betterment as good Christian kids although the girl smuggled in a tube of hair mascara and Alice in Chains cassettes and dyed everyone's hair green, and his best friend had a stash of Slayer CDs in his closet, despite his parents views on Lavey affiliated hard rockers the Eagles. Later their group of friends would do good kid things like laser tagging or ice cream at Friendly's and getting kicked out of the Southland strip mall by security for drinking half gallons of ghetto tea in the Giant Eagle parking lot or hang out in someone's basement or bedroom drinking pop and complaining about their parents.
They liked some of the same bands and didn't like some of the same bands and he was partially responsible for her transition from fledgling metalhead to the punkier side of things by loaning her lots of CDs. He also dated her best friend, broke up with her, and they lost touch.
Five years later, they meet once more, and find out they have a lot in common, and like to do similar things, but don't have anyone else to do them with. So they start hanging out, because he has a car and she doesn't, and they go see shows together on an almost weekly basis. His dad thinks they're dating, but they're not, because besides liking most of the same bands, they really have nothing else to talk about and he likes girls who are more girly. She's cynical but he's even moreso, neither for reasons that are terribly concrete besides being mad at "The System" and when not working he maintains a constant state of entertainment immersion that kind of freaks her out because while she finds Mystery Science Theater funny too, she doesn't want to watch it all the time and needs some time to be quiet and existential.
He moves away to another state, and she realizes she doesn't miss him all that much. There was nothing besides a love of good music, which only goes so far, despite what any hipster love song about mixtapes would say. She can talk about bands and guitars as good as any record store clerk, but finds herself less and less motivated to as she has less to prove. She gets a slot on college radio, still goes and sees her favorite bands and sings along to all the songs she knows, but it doesn't mean as much as it once did.
She doesn't want a compadre for the mosh pit anymore, because she's too old to mosh. She doesn't want someone who likes some obscure scene in some random town, she wants to talk about God and books and history without always coming up with concrete answers. The love of tuneage becomes a springboard to other things deeper rather than the end of the pool that seems deep compared to the baby pool, but is only maybe three feet or so.
And she still doesn't know what this all means.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
slow suicide's no way to go
A routine morning at the family leads to finding out that one relative has a week to live, that another one much closer is veering closer and closer to a total collapse and there's nothing any of us can do. I don't know what to say, and leave, not knowing what to do.
But it's so beautiful out, and how many more days like this will there be, so I go to the nature preserve that's open twice a year, take my camera and shoot pictures of leaves and trees, of reeds taller than me, of spiderwebs and deadwood, basking in the sun filtering through the green and the first red colors of fall, having awkward small talk with senior citizen birdwatchers, walking ahead so I can be alone with God and immerse myself in the sound of crickets and cicadas.
I want more green and flowers, but the botanical garden has some big event so I wander through the art museum looking at photos of the midwest and its broken dreams, ancient sculptures from Persia and Greece and Byzantium, the bright colors of oil paintings. I know that this is only temporary solace, but it is solace nonetheless.
I need sleep, need so many intangible things and wish for things that will never happen in this all too short life. I don't know what to say, what to do to make anything better. I don't know if any of us really does.
But it's so beautiful out, and how many more days like this will there be, so I go to the nature preserve that's open twice a year, take my camera and shoot pictures of leaves and trees, of reeds taller than me, of spiderwebs and deadwood, basking in the sun filtering through the green and the first red colors of fall, having awkward small talk with senior citizen birdwatchers, walking ahead so I can be alone with God and immerse myself in the sound of crickets and cicadas.
I want more green and flowers, but the botanical garden has some big event so I wander through the art museum looking at photos of the midwest and its broken dreams, ancient sculptures from Persia and Greece and Byzantium, the bright colors of oil paintings. I know that this is only temporary solace, but it is solace nonetheless.
I need sleep, need so many intangible things and wish for things that will never happen in this all too short life. I don't know what to say, what to do to make anything better. I don't know if any of us really does.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
de-punked
Is it a shift of opinion or the sharpening of age, the dissolution of the idealism once held dear, the deepening of a spiritual understanding of the darkness of the human heart.
It's hard for me to be thrilled about change when the more history I read, the more I see, it seems like a constant cycle of rise and fall rise and fall, just a new face in charge who talks a good game sometimes while the same games of power are played. Nothing new under the sun as long as this sun lights the earth and keeps it in inertia. Those who lust for power will say what they need to say and trample who they need to trample.
I've been going through old newspaper clippings at work, seeing that the same Powers That Be that rob us now were doing so as long as I've been alive if not longer, or carrying on the proud tradition of sweet talk and stealing in a suit, knowing that name recognition and party line go a long way to further rank incompetence.
I don't know where I fit on the spectrum anymore as I can't believe in either party line. You can talk all you want about saving babies or helping those in poverty, but since neither vote or donate big money to political campaigns, you don't care that much. We talk about cutting the budget, but no one wants to touch the amount of money we use to fight how many wars, how many proxy wars, how many people on the other side of the world that get killed to make us feel safer and secure. I don't believe anything's secure in this world, but then again I live in the almost-hood and divine intervention so I don't lose sleep over terrorists or much else unless I hear gunfire down the street and it wakes me up. That's kind of different.
I heard a song by Sublime on the radio on the way home from work that reminded me of parties in college and everyone singing the line about killing cops even though we were all way too young to really understand riots in Los Angeles or Rodney King. Riot on the streets, a teen-age riot, a riot of my own, and so on so romanticized. Nowell's singing about looting a store for its furniture, stealing guitars and sound equipment because the cops suck. Ironic that the the protesters in Egypt look at the Londoners acting a fool and asking why everyone's setting fires and stealing stuff if it's really about the unfairness. One man's greed enacted in a time of opportunism comes from the same root as the corporations one rails against.
The logic here is ridiculous, and I think about all the struggling store owners who lose when things like this happen, especially in communities of immigrants who often get hit the hardest because suddenly xenophobia has an outlet. If you're going to fight capitalism, there's other battles that don't hurt the average schmuck nearly as much.
As the threads of an already dysfunctional society unravel, the glamour of the masses rising up is replaced with a sense of something not quite acquiescence or fear, maybe a deeper suspicion of the motivations of not just the Powers That Be, but the people on the streets as well. Watching the way that fights break out in the middle of the street over nothing, seeing the melee on St. Patrick's Day, and knowing that this is nothing, since there are no weapons, no guns shot or clubs pounding either by the police or the rest of the people. I don't try to find a moral high ground, I just try to get through the mess to a place of peace.
I don't know what the answer is, but I don't like the answers that I'm being given. To do nothing is easy to do and often wrong, but often how good or beneficial is it to do something just because it's something to do?
It's hard for me to be thrilled about change when the more history I read, the more I see, it seems like a constant cycle of rise and fall rise and fall, just a new face in charge who talks a good game sometimes while the same games of power are played. Nothing new under the sun as long as this sun lights the earth and keeps it in inertia. Those who lust for power will say what they need to say and trample who they need to trample.
I've been going through old newspaper clippings at work, seeing that the same Powers That Be that rob us now were doing so as long as I've been alive if not longer, or carrying on the proud tradition of sweet talk and stealing in a suit, knowing that name recognition and party line go a long way to further rank incompetence.
I don't know where I fit on the spectrum anymore as I can't believe in either party line. You can talk all you want about saving babies or helping those in poverty, but since neither vote or donate big money to political campaigns, you don't care that much. We talk about cutting the budget, but no one wants to touch the amount of money we use to fight how many wars, how many proxy wars, how many people on the other side of the world that get killed to make us feel safer and secure. I don't believe anything's secure in this world, but then again I live in the almost-hood and divine intervention so I don't lose sleep over terrorists or much else unless I hear gunfire down the street and it wakes me up. That's kind of different.
I heard a song by Sublime on the radio on the way home from work that reminded me of parties in college and everyone singing the line about killing cops even though we were all way too young to really understand riots in Los Angeles or Rodney King. Riot on the streets, a teen-age riot, a riot of my own, and so on so romanticized. Nowell's singing about looting a store for its furniture, stealing guitars and sound equipment because the cops suck. Ironic that the the protesters in Egypt look at the Londoners acting a fool and asking why everyone's setting fires and stealing stuff if it's really about the unfairness. One man's greed enacted in a time of opportunism comes from the same root as the corporations one rails against.
The logic here is ridiculous, and I think about all the struggling store owners who lose when things like this happen, especially in communities of immigrants who often get hit the hardest because suddenly xenophobia has an outlet. If you're going to fight capitalism, there's other battles that don't hurt the average schmuck nearly as much.
As the threads of an already dysfunctional society unravel, the glamour of the masses rising up is replaced with a sense of something not quite acquiescence or fear, maybe a deeper suspicion of the motivations of not just the Powers That Be, but the people on the streets as well. Watching the way that fights break out in the middle of the street over nothing, seeing the melee on St. Patrick's Day, and knowing that this is nothing, since there are no weapons, no guns shot or clubs pounding either by the police or the rest of the people. I don't try to find a moral high ground, I just try to get through the mess to a place of peace.
I don't know what the answer is, but I don't like the answers that I'm being given. To do nothing is easy to do and often wrong, but often how good or beneficial is it to do something just because it's something to do?
Saturday, August 6, 2011
transitionals
Housesitting the Awesome Kitties and the Jungle Puppy tonight and the cats have already made a great escape, sliding open the screen door with their claws while I was outside with the dog and sliding under the fence into the neighbor's garden. The quietness of the house made me suspicious especially after the clink of food in the bowls elicited no response and then the guy across the street came over to tell me that the cats were out running around.
Of course the little punks were sitting on the patio when I came back as if they'd been minding their own business all this time, giving me withering looks as I shooed one inside and the dog chased in the other. Cats have no conscience after all, and there's no way to make them feel guilty.
It's been almost a month straight of dog-walking and cat watching, which is nice for the change of scenery and thankfully I was able to escape to the lake for the day to read, nap under trees with the sound of the waves, and sing songs to my nephew when he cries because that's all he can do to express himself "I'm TEN WEEKS! and I don't know what I want...! He doubles in size every time I see him and it astounds me to see life grow like that, since I'm so used to seeing the decline rather than the ascent.
My little sister called me last night to see if I wanted to hang out, which never happens as our ideas of what's awesome to do on a weekend are a bit different, but she had a lot on her mind because one of her friends got murdered a couple weeks ago and her friends are moving to Portland and there's been other small frustrations that she needed to vent about over coffee in Coventry and a long Cleveland drive which I was more than happy to oblige because it's been awhile since I've done one, leaving Sonic Youth on repeat as we drove from west to east and back.
We ended the night at the Arabica I once haunted in my teens and early twenties when like most coffee establishments was full of subcultural souls and usually the guy working the counter was someone from your art class or something. It's now overrun with 14-year-olds who watch too much Jersey Shorechasing each other up the sidewalk, boys with cracking voices and girls in the shortest shorts I've ever seen tottering in high heels.
The motherly instincts I didn't know I had wanted to ask what they were doing out so late and why were they wearing that and where are their parents, but mostly for all the crazy that comes with knowing more of the world, I'm glad I'm not that age anymore, even though my Friday nights at that age involved trying to learn Soundgarden riffs and disappearing into my bedroom with a pile of CDs from the library and a stack of art supplies. It reminded me of the first weekend in Kent when fresh-faced freshman girls would go down to their first fraternity row college party and come back drunk with half their clothes gone. It probably starts earlier I guess, and with most things I seem to exemplify the exception rather than the rule.
And still, it's a Saturday night and I'm enjoying the solitude. It's been needed.
Of course the little punks were sitting on the patio when I came back as if they'd been minding their own business all this time, giving me withering looks as I shooed one inside and the dog chased in the other. Cats have no conscience after all, and there's no way to make them feel guilty.
It's been almost a month straight of dog-walking and cat watching, which is nice for the change of scenery and thankfully I was able to escape to the lake for the day to read, nap under trees with the sound of the waves, and sing songs to my nephew when he cries because that's all he can do to express himself "I'm TEN WEEKS! and I don't know what I want...! He doubles in size every time I see him and it astounds me to see life grow like that, since I'm so used to seeing the decline rather than the ascent.
My little sister called me last night to see if I wanted to hang out, which never happens as our ideas of what's awesome to do on a weekend are a bit different, but she had a lot on her mind because one of her friends got murdered a couple weeks ago and her friends are moving to Portland and there's been other small frustrations that she needed to vent about over coffee in Coventry and a long Cleveland drive which I was more than happy to oblige because it's been awhile since I've done one, leaving Sonic Youth on repeat as we drove from west to east and back.
We ended the night at the Arabica I once haunted in my teens and early twenties when like most coffee establishments was full of subcultural souls and usually the guy working the counter was someone from your art class or something. It's now overrun with 14-year-olds who watch too much Jersey Shorechasing each other up the sidewalk, boys with cracking voices and girls in the shortest shorts I've ever seen tottering in high heels.
The motherly instincts I didn't know I had wanted to ask what they were doing out so late and why were they wearing that and where are their parents, but mostly for all the crazy that comes with knowing more of the world, I'm glad I'm not that age anymore, even though my Friday nights at that age involved trying to learn Soundgarden riffs and disappearing into my bedroom with a pile of CDs from the library and a stack of art supplies. It reminded me of the first weekend in Kent when fresh-faced freshman girls would go down to their first fraternity row college party and come back drunk with half their clothes gone. It probably starts earlier I guess, and with most things I seem to exemplify the exception rather than the rule.
And still, it's a Saturday night and I'm enjoying the solitude. It's been needed.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
sappy and sapped
Too tired and uninspired to make anything of beauty, falling asleep on the couch, in the hot apartment, waking up sleepy, ignoring the ringing phone, because as much as I enjoy company on my sojourns through the city, I don't like the ambiguity of that particular companionship.
It wasn't easier when we were younger, as we were all more awkward and sometimes more obnoxious, but as we head towards our thirties, "just hanging out" gets more complicated, because we're all starting to wonder what the future holds and those interactions become more rare because everyone starts pairing off, and we're less likely to bother if we don't think it's going anywhere.
My platonic friendships have brought more joy and enrichment to my life than any time I've dated someone, which has never really gone well, and also why I don't like that scene, because it seems like a terrible way to get to know someone. These attempts usually dissolved quietly with a mutual understanding. We both knew by the end of a meal or the end of the first week that we weren't going to call each other, that there would ultimately be irreconcilable differences, we really didn't click and it was pointless to try and make something work that wasn't and found that as we got to know each other, we really didn't like each other very much.
Sometimes it seems easier to be just friends with those with for whatever reason you know that nothing will happen with because then nothing's going to happen and you worry less about looking stupid because you're laughing too hard or doing things together that you already enjoy doing by yourself.
And there are times I wish that things were more codified, because how was I supposed to know it was a date when I didn't bother to pretty up, got there by myself and paid for my own food and we just talked about music the whole time? Does us going to see a band together mean something more to him than it does to me? What did I say or do that made it look like I was interested when I wasn't? Do we just see what we want to see when it comes to our interactions with others? Are any chances of connection as remote and unrealistic as peace in the Middle East? It feels like it.
I feel the brain drain acutely as I put my roots down further, when I see the ones with promise migrating to bigger and brighter places full of doubtless beautiful Bright Young Things, when the social circles don't get any wider as many places as I go, and to be honest, there just aren't a whole lot of other likeminded souls, period, who crave the spiritual in a way that's neither halfhearted or dippy nor sanctimoniously dogmatic, care a lot but haven't forgotten how to laugh, and have a healthy curiosity about everything and an appreciation for beauty.
So many times in church culture it seemed like there was all these lectures about how to be a good woman, but there was always less about men being men, so I see either a weakness that's irritating and pushoverish or a Type A manly manliness that can't handle someone with a strong mind who has a hard time shutting up, and I can't respect either.
So many of the amazing girls I know settle for less and try to justify it, and that's just not the way I do things. I'm content most of the time, because I get to do a lot of stuff I enjoy doing, but to be honest, I'm not sure if I want it to be like this forever.
It wasn't easier when we were younger, as we were all more awkward and sometimes more obnoxious, but as we head towards our thirties, "just hanging out" gets more complicated, because we're all starting to wonder what the future holds and those interactions become more rare because everyone starts pairing off, and we're less likely to bother if we don't think it's going anywhere.
My platonic friendships have brought more joy and enrichment to my life than any time I've dated someone, which has never really gone well, and also why I don't like that scene, because it seems like a terrible way to get to know someone. These attempts usually dissolved quietly with a mutual understanding. We both knew by the end of a meal or the end of the first week that we weren't going to call each other, that there would ultimately be irreconcilable differences, we really didn't click and it was pointless to try and make something work that wasn't and found that as we got to know each other, we really didn't like each other very much.
Sometimes it seems easier to be just friends with those with for whatever reason you know that nothing will happen with because then nothing's going to happen and you worry less about looking stupid because you're laughing too hard or doing things together that you already enjoy doing by yourself.
And there are times I wish that things were more codified, because how was I supposed to know it was a date when I didn't bother to pretty up, got there by myself and paid for my own food and we just talked about music the whole time? Does us going to see a band together mean something more to him than it does to me? What did I say or do that made it look like I was interested when I wasn't? Do we just see what we want to see when it comes to our interactions with others? Are any chances of connection as remote and unrealistic as peace in the Middle East? It feels like it.
I feel the brain drain acutely as I put my roots down further, when I see the ones with promise migrating to bigger and brighter places full of doubtless beautiful Bright Young Things, when the social circles don't get any wider as many places as I go, and to be honest, there just aren't a whole lot of other likeminded souls, period, who crave the spiritual in a way that's neither halfhearted or dippy nor sanctimoniously dogmatic, care a lot but haven't forgotten how to laugh, and have a healthy curiosity about everything and an appreciation for beauty.
So many times in church culture it seemed like there was all these lectures about how to be a good woman, but there was always less about men being men, so I see either a weakness that's irritating and pushoverish or a Type A manly manliness that can't handle someone with a strong mind who has a hard time shutting up, and I can't respect either.
So many of the amazing girls I know settle for less and try to justify it, and that's just not the way I do things. I'm content most of the time, because I get to do a lot of stuff I enjoy doing, but to be honest, I'm not sure if I want it to be like this forever.
Monday, February 28, 2011
it's all blueprint, it must be easy...
I was in line at the bank this weekend listening to old men talk about how it sucks that people are revolting in Libya because that means their gas prices are going up. "I'm for freedom fighters and all, but I gotta fill my gas tank too."
I couldn't shake the depression this weekend, forcing myself to not be alone with my unproductive thoughts, not wanting to explain and articulate because my jaw is sore and I wonder if I'm just adding to the noise, if I've been doing it wrong, if what seems to make sense now will be something I will regret later.
Because I can't play these games of ladder climbing and career hopping and what people call love but usually ends up being a total mess full of regret. I'm just not interested in dealing with that. I can't compete and it doesn't look fun or fulfilling. I've got no debt, I can sustain myself and have enough to share, I've got creative outlets and spiritual sustenance. I wonder if I'm crazy for not trying harder, if I'm just another slacker wasting my life like all the burnouts I used to hang with, or if this kind of race is even the one I should bother running.
"I'm not playing with you / I clean forgot how to play....we'll draw a blueprint, it must be easy, it's just a matter of knowing when to say no or yes. frustrating, frustrating, always waiting for the bigger axe to fall.
a patient game that i can't find my way to play. never mind what's been selling, it's what you're buying and receiving undefiled..."
I couldn't shake the depression this weekend, forcing myself to not be alone with my unproductive thoughts, not wanting to explain and articulate because my jaw is sore and I wonder if I'm just adding to the noise, if I've been doing it wrong, if what seems to make sense now will be something I will regret later.
Because I can't play these games of ladder climbing and career hopping and what people call love but usually ends up being a total mess full of regret. I'm just not interested in dealing with that. I can't compete and it doesn't look fun or fulfilling. I've got no debt, I can sustain myself and have enough to share, I've got creative outlets and spiritual sustenance. I wonder if I'm crazy for not trying harder, if I'm just another slacker wasting my life like all the burnouts I used to hang with, or if this kind of race is even the one I should bother running.
"I'm not playing with you / I clean forgot how to play....we'll draw a blueprint, it must be easy, it's just a matter of knowing when to say no or yes. frustrating, frustrating, always waiting for the bigger axe to fall.
a patient game that i can't find my way to play. never mind what's been selling, it's what you're buying and receiving undefiled..."
Thursday, December 2, 2010
frail children of dust...
It seems like every other parish church is boarded up now, and from what I hear, it's very hard to buy them. I think about St. John's Byzantine in the heart of the east side, with its beautiful murals and the light streaming through its missing windows. There is still a peace there even in the ruins. It makes me sad to see these places fade from the memory of their neighborhoods as the reverberations of white flight and lost faith continue to manifest themselves.
Every ethnic group had to have their own building and when most of those ethnic groups cleared out, they left so many places behind. It might have been "one holy Catholic church" but my Irish side of the family couldn't get baptized at the neighborhood Slovak parish back in the day.
I listened to people talk this week about new congregations and new communities and new directions forming in different neighborhoods and I was frustrated because as beautiful as something like this is, I still felt like I was being sold something. I get squeamish when I hear about five-year-plans and growth projections and recruiting charismatic individuals who will be catalysts in their communities.
It seems too business-like, too franchise-ish. The best people are not always the ones who know how to shake hands and kiss babies. I don't trust a lot of charismatic people because it seems so often that people are so easily blinded by their light and that they themselves can't always see beyond their own halo.
Maybe it's just that my weirdo artistic mind doesn't work that way and I'm being a bit harsh. If I read these words as true that we all say are true, we can do planting and watering all we want, but only God can make anything grow. Somehow that gets lost in the conversation.
Conversely, I don't know how I feel about churches that are trying so hard to be different and not like the often graceless sociopolitical force that came out of our parents' radios, but it ends up being just a bunch of social services where God is a spice rather than the sustenance of our existence. It's easy to feed the body in this society with so much excess but our souls are starving.
It all seems like a business enterprise or a "We Are the World" endeavor rather than something that has a whole lot to do with the Divine. We seem to make so many plans but God with His infinitely strange and fascinating sense of humor seems to turn them back around constantly because it's all about Him and not us.
Somehow it seems like we stopped talking about God and started talking about us talking about God along the way. We act like our stories and sufferings are so damn unique and important, that our generation "gets it," and is going to "change things" but as I look back and listen to those older than me talk, look at movements throughout history, and it's the same things and same cycles with different haircuts and pet causes.
He continues to do His work through so many reluctant ones, people who made bad decisions and made excuses and ran away and got profoundly depressed. It wasn't the best and the brightest and the coolest. I love that. There's a humanity in the scriptures that just resonates with me because these weren't perfect people being awesome all the time, they were just as messed up as anyone I know.
They get mad at God, they question Him, doubt Him, and praise Him, and get fed up with the messed-up-ness of the world and repeat that cycle over and over again.It resonates so deeply because I understand those feelings more and more.
There is nothing that I read that says to blindly follow, to believe everything someone says. It's loving God and others with heart, soul, mind, and strength. It's the difficult path of an intellectual engagement with something that empirically unprovable and yet deeper than I ever dreamed even if I doubt I'll ever have all the answers I want or be able to comprehend everything I see in front of me, but to know that others have been there is so beautiful and reassuring even as it seems like the world grows more cold and everyone around me falls away.
Every ethnic group had to have their own building and when most of those ethnic groups cleared out, they left so many places behind. It might have been "one holy Catholic church" but my Irish side of the family couldn't get baptized at the neighborhood Slovak parish back in the day.
I listened to people talk this week about new congregations and new communities and new directions forming in different neighborhoods and I was frustrated because as beautiful as something like this is, I still felt like I was being sold something. I get squeamish when I hear about five-year-plans and growth projections and recruiting charismatic individuals who will be catalysts in their communities.
It seems too business-like, too franchise-ish. The best people are not always the ones who know how to shake hands and kiss babies. I don't trust a lot of charismatic people because it seems so often that people are so easily blinded by their light and that they themselves can't always see beyond their own halo.
Maybe it's just that my weirdo artistic mind doesn't work that way and I'm being a bit harsh. If I read these words as true that we all say are true, we can do planting and watering all we want, but only God can make anything grow. Somehow that gets lost in the conversation.
Conversely, I don't know how I feel about churches that are trying so hard to be different and not like the often graceless sociopolitical force that came out of our parents' radios, but it ends up being just a bunch of social services where God is a spice rather than the sustenance of our existence. It's easy to feed the body in this society with so much excess but our souls are starving.
It all seems like a business enterprise or a "We Are the World" endeavor rather than something that has a whole lot to do with the Divine. We seem to make so many plans but God with His infinitely strange and fascinating sense of humor seems to turn them back around constantly because it's all about Him and not us.
Somehow it seems like we stopped talking about God and started talking about us talking about God along the way. We act like our stories and sufferings are so damn unique and important, that our generation "gets it," and is going to "change things" but as I look back and listen to those older than me talk, look at movements throughout history, and it's the same things and same cycles with different haircuts and pet causes.
He continues to do His work through so many reluctant ones, people who made bad decisions and made excuses and ran away and got profoundly depressed. It wasn't the best and the brightest and the coolest. I love that. There's a humanity in the scriptures that just resonates with me because these weren't perfect people being awesome all the time, they were just as messed up as anyone I know.
They get mad at God, they question Him, doubt Him, and praise Him, and get fed up with the messed-up-ness of the world and repeat that cycle over and over again.It resonates so deeply because I understand those feelings more and more.
There is nothing that I read that says to blindly follow, to believe everything someone says. It's loving God and others with heart, soul, mind, and strength. It's the difficult path of an intellectual engagement with something that empirically unprovable and yet deeper than I ever dreamed even if I doubt I'll ever have all the answers I want or be able to comprehend everything I see in front of me, but to know that others have been there is so beautiful and reassuring even as it seems like the world grows more cold and everyone around me falls away.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
that's me in the corner
"Oh no I've said too much / I haven't said enough..."
If I could sum up most of my dealings in life, it would be with those two lines.
There have been so many times when I should have said something, and so many times I should have just shut up.
It's hard to know which one is the right one to do in any given situation.
I have said so many things I regret so intensely when good intentions get tied up with strong emotions and everything comes out in a jumble of salty language and half-baked arguments. And I have not spoken up so many times when I needed to, when I needed to tell the truth, be honest, stand up for someone. I'm getting better at speaking out without getting overly emotional, but there's times I wonder if my honesty will be the death of me.
It's hard when I see something that is very very wrong, not to say something.
I know that there have been times when others saw things in my life that I didn't see and cared enough to point them out to me. I remember being mad at first and then as time went on realizing, "Damn, they're right" and being thankful that they were willing to risk my good graces to be honest because they cared.
But that's just me. I'm open to the possibility that I might be wrong but I'm realizing more and more that others would rather exist in the world of their own creation rather than face the truth.
I just wonder if it does any good sometimes to say it.
If I could sum up most of my dealings in life, it would be with those two lines.
There have been so many times when I should have said something, and so many times I should have just shut up.
It's hard to know which one is the right one to do in any given situation.
I have said so many things I regret so intensely when good intentions get tied up with strong emotions and everything comes out in a jumble of salty language and half-baked arguments. And I have not spoken up so many times when I needed to, when I needed to tell the truth, be honest, stand up for someone. I'm getting better at speaking out without getting overly emotional, but there's times I wonder if my honesty will be the death of me.
It's hard when I see something that is very very wrong, not to say something.
I know that there have been times when others saw things in my life that I didn't see and cared enough to point them out to me. I remember being mad at first and then as time went on realizing, "Damn, they're right" and being thankful that they were willing to risk my good graces to be honest because they cared.
But that's just me. I'm open to the possibility that I might be wrong but I'm realizing more and more that others would rather exist in the world of their own creation rather than face the truth.
I just wonder if it does any good sometimes to say it.
Friday, August 20, 2010
things that don't mean much to me.
"Why aren't you married?"
"Don't you want to 'move up?''
"You could've been anything you wanted, and you chose to do this?"
"You've got this degree and you deserve more."
"You don't want to buy a house?"
"Don't you want to get another degree? You know, there's other fields out there where the money is."
"You should be hanging out with different people, ones that are going somewhere."
Everybody's got their own ideas about how one is supposed to live their life. Usually this corresponds to what they did, and what they value, and how they measure the worth of others.
Some of these life decisions are beyond my control. Others are things that don't mean much to me. To get married involves having someone around worth getting married to, buying a house means work and responsibility that I can't handle myself and the prospect of being stuck with crazy neighbors and not being able to get away from them.
If I was into making money and moving up, I wouldn't be living here. I would have gone to law school or med school or some prestigious place to get a PhD in something rather than going to library school at a state university. I would have moved to a bigger city with richer people and honestly that's not my bent.
I have friends who've left, who've looked down on those who stay as provincial and backward, who talk about how I need to expand my world and be somewhere that's more interesting and diverse. And I would love to see other places someday, but looking at what they do and who they hang out with, it's exclusively with other white upwardly mobile professional people who live in the same neighborhood who maybe like ethnic food or something.
I'd rather stay in my peon status because for me it means freedom. It means that I bring no work home with me, that I have enough to pay my rent and my bills and have a little fun once in awhile. It's given me time and opportunity to enroll in art classes without the pressure of grades or academic politics, to learn how to take pictures and play the drums and learn Swahili and hang out with people who inspire me and whose company I enjoy.
I don't pick my friends based on social class or what connections they have. The people I hang out with and make an effort to see are the ones I enjoy. My job is a means to these ends, I enjoy it and even find it meaningful, but it's not what I define myself by.
And until I can see some other parts of the world, the world has come to me. I can dance to bhangra, Lebanese pop, Americana, salsa, hip-hop, or Jamaican dancehall when I want to, share meals and drinks with neighbors from all over the world, hit up any number of street festivals, art openings or live music venues if I want my "culture," and hang out with my great crew of people that I've found since I moved back here.
I don't know what this weekend holds, if I'll hang out with my roommate and her people tonight or end up at Compound Fest or check out someplace new... it's so weird to have so many options.
"Don't you want to 'move up?''
"You could've been anything you wanted, and you chose to do this?"
"You've got this degree and you deserve more."
"You don't want to buy a house?"
"Don't you want to get another degree? You know, there's other fields out there where the money is."
"You should be hanging out with different people, ones that are going somewhere."
Everybody's got their own ideas about how one is supposed to live their life. Usually this corresponds to what they did, and what they value, and how they measure the worth of others.
Some of these life decisions are beyond my control. Others are things that don't mean much to me. To get married involves having someone around worth getting married to, buying a house means work and responsibility that I can't handle myself and the prospect of being stuck with crazy neighbors and not being able to get away from them.
If I was into making money and moving up, I wouldn't be living here. I would have gone to law school or med school or some prestigious place to get a PhD in something rather than going to library school at a state university. I would have moved to a bigger city with richer people and honestly that's not my bent.
I have friends who've left, who've looked down on those who stay as provincial and backward, who talk about how I need to expand my world and be somewhere that's more interesting and diverse. And I would love to see other places someday, but looking at what they do and who they hang out with, it's exclusively with other white upwardly mobile professional people who live in the same neighborhood who maybe like ethnic food or something.
I'd rather stay in my peon status because for me it means freedom. It means that I bring no work home with me, that I have enough to pay my rent and my bills and have a little fun once in awhile. It's given me time and opportunity to enroll in art classes without the pressure of grades or academic politics, to learn how to take pictures and play the drums and learn Swahili and hang out with people who inspire me and whose company I enjoy.
I don't pick my friends based on social class or what connections they have. The people I hang out with and make an effort to see are the ones I enjoy. My job is a means to these ends, I enjoy it and even find it meaningful, but it's not what I define myself by.
And until I can see some other parts of the world, the world has come to me. I can dance to bhangra, Lebanese pop, Americana, salsa, hip-hop, or Jamaican dancehall when I want to, share meals and drinks with neighbors from all over the world, hit up any number of street festivals, art openings or live music venues if I want my "culture," and hang out with my great crew of people that I've found since I moved back here.
I don't know what this weekend holds, if I'll hang out with my roommate and her people tonight or end up at Compound Fest or check out someplace new... it's so weird to have so many options.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
things I want
So there are two things that I fell in love with this weekend.
a stray cat.
an upright bass.
The cat is more feasible economically but we fear that our current feline will not be able to deal with another one. It took her a year to get used to ME and I feed her sometimes. but this one is so sweet and needs a home, currently living in my mom's neighbor's sunroom.
I stopped at Timeless Guitars because my dad said he saw an upright bass there. The one in the front room was a vintage Ampeg electric solid body upright but as it turned out, Clyde had about six acoustic uprights in the back room because he's awesome like that. Most music stores don't even carry them because they're so damn big and expensive but he's got several to choose from.
I love that place. Best guitar shop ever.
So I play an Engelhardt that runs about $850. It's nice and I love the way it feels. Then I try an old German one that's old and oh man do I feel like the greatest musician on earth like I could be jamming with John Coltrane or something. It just resonated and sang. I've been playing electric bass for about 10 years so it came easier than I thought it would.
Potential issues
#1 Too Damn Big
Neither of these will fit in my Toyota Corolla
#2 Amazing Upright bass is $2500, about what I paid for my first car.
What to do?
a stray cat.
an upright bass.
The cat is more feasible economically but we fear that our current feline will not be able to deal with another one. It took her a year to get used to ME and I feed her sometimes. but this one is so sweet and needs a home, currently living in my mom's neighbor's sunroom.
I stopped at Timeless Guitars because my dad said he saw an upright bass there. The one in the front room was a vintage Ampeg electric solid body upright but as it turned out, Clyde had about six acoustic uprights in the back room because he's awesome like that. Most music stores don't even carry them because they're so damn big and expensive but he's got several to choose from.
I love that place. Best guitar shop ever.
So I play an Engelhardt that runs about $850. It's nice and I love the way it feels. Then I try an old German one that's old and oh man do I feel like the greatest musician on earth like I could be jamming with John Coltrane or something. It just resonated and sang. I've been playing electric bass for about 10 years so it came easier than I thought it would.
Potential issues
#1 Too Damn Big
Neither of these will fit in my Toyota Corolla
#2 Amazing Upright bass is $2500, about what I paid for my first car.
What to do?
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