I just have to write!
It's the most beautiful first real day of a season that I have seen in such a long time. The temperature has fallen to chilly, the sky is patchy grey white and low, the air is blowing softly and there's a smell of pine and water in it. I can taste the seasons moving through us, I can feel the energy and electricity that once brimmed up my body with life and vigor. I can taste the nighttime stars so clear in my mouth, like a frozen icicle or blowing powder snow. Stepping through the colours, tossing my short hair afrow, singing to my spirit there truly are Gods living in the wild world, between the breezes and beneath the rocky hills!
Last night I drove home from Heather's house with a fever in my spine for driving..sometihng told me to leave, to turn right at the highway. I imagined a future that changed my path, driving into the deep night and never turning back. I pictured leaving and heading East, the terrible magnificent Eastward journey I have waited too long to pursue..I imagined moving through the night with two flashlights attached to my hood, turning round the mountain bends like a ghost in a tunnel of trees. I imagined driving beyond the California borders and into the wild beyond, fantasizing about my future as a traveler and vagabond with only patched-up car and a head of hair to guide him. I dreamed as I drove, about Utah and Colorado, about New Mexico and the hundreds of thousands of miles I've never seen beyond.
As I approached Echo Summit, the lights of Lake Tahoe twinkled into view. I burrowed down the windy road that takes you down into the valleys. I saw signs for 89, turning South: "Markleeville 29 miles" a black cavernous drive leading away from my Eastward route. I passed the legendary Chevron at the Crossroads, our pit-stopping point between snowboarding days of ancient past.
Eventually I stopped, pulling over in the pitch black star sparkling night. Turning off the engine, I could hear only the wind rushing through canyons, sweeping along rocky peaks. I stepped out and opened my eyes to the sky and noticed with great power the fresh frozen scent of Mountain Air. There is no oxygen like the cold air of the high mountains. Even in summer, when the snow is water and the trees full of green, the air is that same clean and flowing scent of frozen icicles on woody pine. Standing there in that quiet, blowing air I felt a familiar terrifying vastness that I've known since I was young. Standing under the starlit peaks, silhouettes of a monstrous breed black on a blacker horizon, I could hear the distance that never ends, I could feel the creatures in the forest wandering and taste the storms and blizzards, the lonely and lost men of the past, the drifting glaciers and rising peaks carving these mountains and valleys for all the time that had come before then. I can sense it all, and it made me fearful. The only true fear of God, which is the natural world around us that we turn our eyes away from, the world that our bodies are interconnected with, but our minds ignore. This is that world, an empty, wild, merciless and beautiful place. As I run around, the world remains without me.
Getting back into my vehicle, I knew I needed to go no further. So I cranked over the engine, blinked on my flashlights and pulled away to head back West the way I'd come. It wasn't time for me quite yet, to drive indefinitely East. I still have my own life to attend to, and I'm not one to run away from things. So much.
As I walked to the coffee shop through the grey and blowing morning, I realized that I have almost zero complaints about the town that I call home. Everything, to me, makes it a real and desirable place. You have your city and your country, you mountains and fields, tourism and locals, music and art and industry too. There's so much, but yet still not seemingly enough for me. As I perch to leave, I wonder what I'm doing with the rest of my life. I wonder what John Muir was doing, as he left Yosemite, as he left Mt Rainier, Alaska, or any of the National (Natural) Parks that he knew so well. What drove him to leave, and did he ever want to?
I'll leave that question open. What drives you to leave the places you call home?
What's the true reason?
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Super Mario Beatty
Here we have Mario, out on a ledge
surrounded by deep blackness, losing
his footing and catching his breath
Here's Mario, trying to laugh with his eyebrows
all crinkled in concentrated fear for
the grey Castle he's just entered
Up ahead looms a monster with fire
for breath and wings on his ribcage
walls wreaking of death
the ceiling is falling so slowly
and coated in spikes, Mario
must waste no time! So he dives
over one wide hole with a leap
landing tough on the concrete and
grounding his feet again- DODGEing in
quickness an arrow of fire, but
not fast enough as a turtle shell
flails towards his legs, he jumps UP
but too late, and is shrunk to a pint-sized
half-hero....so sad so pathetic
but ready to fight Bowser nevertheless (i guess.)
Options looking slimmer
our little Mario follows the path
through the dark dungeon tunnel
avoiding the fireballs, dodging the
ball and chains spinning...above shines a question mark!
floating in awe! Our tiny hero he leaps
the block pings! what's he get?
just one penny, one coin for his pocket
nothing to suit him up stronger against
the monster of scales breathing fire
ahead behind the tunnels of black
Still little red Mario takes his approach
hardly prepared in his mustache and overalls
waves of hot flames licking up to his hat
Here our Mario scrunches his eyebrows in tune
with the chimes of a conquerable but impending doom...
surrounded by deep blackness, losing
his footing and catching his breath
Here's Mario, trying to laugh with his eyebrows
all crinkled in concentrated fear for
the grey Castle he's just entered
Up ahead looms a monster with fire
for breath and wings on his ribcage
walls wreaking of death
the ceiling is falling so slowly
and coated in spikes, Mario
must waste no time! So he dives
over one wide hole with a leap
landing tough on the concrete and
grounding his feet again- DODGEing in
quickness an arrow of fire, but
not fast enough as a turtle shell
flails towards his legs, he jumps UP
but too late, and is shrunk to a pint-sized
half-hero....so sad so pathetic
but ready to fight Bowser nevertheless (i guess.)
Options looking slimmer
our little Mario follows the path
through the dark dungeon tunnel
avoiding the fireballs, dodging the
ball and chains spinning...above shines a question mark!
floating in awe! Our tiny hero he leaps
the block pings! what's he get?
just one penny, one coin for his pocket
nothing to suit him up stronger against
the monster of scales breathing fire
ahead behind the tunnels of black
Still little red Mario takes his approach
hardly prepared in his mustache and overalls
waves of hot flames licking up to his hat
Here our Mario scrunches his eyebrows in tune
with the chimes of a conquerable but impending doom...
Thursday, September 24, 2009
nobody's answering their telephones
A typical night for the Beatty's. No phones are answered, and I know there's a get together somewhere that I was forgotten to be invited to. Phil, you and me shall rue the day!
In other news, The Office is getting se-rious yo.
It's thursday night. I want to be living in LA comfortably. I don't want to worry about other people anymore. According to Trevor its time for me to finally mature into my manhood. Maybe it's not too late. I know it's not. In fact, I'm like a fine cheese, aging and becoming more valuable by the year. Or good wine. Or any other kind of food that we celebrate in its rotting or fermentation.
Honestly, I am starting to feel more manly and like Myself by the day, by the second. There's supposed to be a trip to Los Angeles coming up this weekend, where I will supposedly be renting a place with Dan Beckner and Candice Fox and myself for us to live. I happily have no job, no job prospects, no school, and a soon-to-be loan payment to look forward to. But the nice thing is? I'm free to do whatever I want. Because I love my life. and I'm on a MISSION.
Peace out yo's. I sound like a boy tied to a chair in a straight jacket trying to think his way out of it. Maybe I have a very very powerful mind. If only Justin or Daniel would move with me.. then I wouldn't feel so much like I'm leaving all my lifelines behind
I just decided, I'm gonna play Doom on Dad's computer. Good idea.
Peace
In other news, The Office is getting se-rious yo.
It's thursday night. I want to be living in LA comfortably. I don't want to worry about other people anymore. According to Trevor its time for me to finally mature into my manhood. Maybe it's not too late. I know it's not. In fact, I'm like a fine cheese, aging and becoming more valuable by the year. Or good wine. Or any other kind of food that we celebrate in its rotting or fermentation.
Honestly, I am starting to feel more manly and like Myself by the day, by the second. There's supposed to be a trip to Los Angeles coming up this weekend, where I will supposedly be renting a place with Dan Beckner and Candice Fox and myself for us to live. I happily have no job, no job prospects, no school, and a soon-to-be loan payment to look forward to. But the nice thing is? I'm free to do whatever I want. Because I love my life. and I'm on a MISSION.
Peace out yo's. I sound like a boy tied to a chair in a straight jacket trying to think his way out of it. Maybe I have a very very powerful mind. If only Justin or Daniel would move with me.. then I wouldn't feel so much like I'm leaving all my lifelines behind
I just decided, I'm gonna play Doom on Dad's computer. Good idea.
Peace
Monday, September 21, 2009
The Sugary Collapse
We hear them all the time. Sitting in a local coffee shop, strolling through Wal-mart, flipping through channels on the radio, in the office building, from tiny stages with shoddy equipment, at free concerts, between hip-hop verses, in operatic esteem at your mother's house, drumming into your brain over and over and over again the monotony of the one-hit, timelessly reproduceable and forever subpar Cover Song.
When bands cover songs, I guess they do them for one of three reasons:
First, and likely most common, the players are still learning the craft of their instruments and need something familiar to rehearse with.
Second, the players have not come up with enough original ideas to deviate from their rehearsal songs,
and
Third, the musician actually believes that his or her rendition of the song is better than the original version.
Surely there's more reasons than this, but I'm not here to do an anthropological study of Cover Songs. I'm not here to analyze the limitations that cover songs slather upon their musicians. I don't with to disclose any opinions about the matter either, about how independently reproducing a cover song or sample in order to make one's own sum of money from the original idea is a rook and rob and disrespect to the creator and what they deserve. I don't want to tell you how an industry of entertainment (cover songs/cover films/ cover shows/cover of cover of covers) is spinning itself into a whirlpool of banal, waxless candle wicks. I don't believe it's necessary to point out that 5 Harry Potter films is 4 unnecessary Harry Potter Films, or that an entire hip-hop generation is grounded in samples of songs that existed as classics before many of the creators, were even born, or that Brave New World and 1984 will never be read by future generations because there are too many slightly-more-relevant-but-exactly-the-same storylines littering the shelves of bookstore and movie theaters.
I don't want to do any hating on who I believe to be the true Haters: the copiers. Or better yet, the thieves. These dark robin hoods who have stolen something that once was beautiful and successful and copied and pasted it into a mish-mash, modernized, slapped-together mess.. a sculpture built from cheap ice cream. With new labels but unoriginal ideas, these candy-coated ideas will melt so quickly and everybody involved who only have a taste for sweet will fail early, while the rest of us continue to remember the truths of the past and build longevity and not suffer under the temporary sugars of an evaporating dreams.
But we all copy..don't we? yes. Every day we copy. Since we were babies. But as children we also learn that no two circumstances are exactly the same, no matter what science likes to tell us. No two people will have the same interests, no twins ever match. As children we learn to copy with grace, we steal words and attempt to use them when the circumstances are fit. Often we'll fail and have our hands slapped. As children we steal movements and show our friends..and eventually incorporate them into everyday life or toss them from our repertoires entirely. As children, we learn what others Love or find Beautiful and why, and wonder at what Love and Beauty is or if it even exists. We copy, as children. And the routine begins to get very complex...so that by the time we are young adults every impulse and action, stir of our legs is the culmination of billions of little reflexes of mimicry from times past. Our original intentions are lost in the myst of living, the first time you sipped alcohol, the first time you kissed your lover, the first time you heard a song that made tears come to your eyes and why that is. We lose sight of what we copied, and why it was ever important, and with integrated efficiency all those mimicked movements and subtleties have slopped together into the organic soup of a human soul - and we live through that soul's eyes every day of our lives.
But as children, we stole every one of those impulses from a place of total curiosity. We looked up to our elders as teachers, we looked to society as teachers, we looked to the television and the radio and the movie screens and the actors and the authors and friends and parents all as teachers, and we learned and tried and failed and got hurt, and got back up and tried again until we were tired.
Human entertainment, something I LOVE the idea of so much, is stuck in its tweens. It's copying and pasting ideas permanently, because the creators are so fickle and disorganized. There's little originality to look to for inspiration except the ideas of the generations past. Creators today have dwindled in their abilities to create New things, and instead only rehash old ideas again and again. It's like 35-year-old surfer who still dresses in baggy clothes and tilted hats - so heavily invested in good times of his specific youth that he forgot to look in the mirror and see who he was becoming all these years.
Social entertainment needs to look in the biggestest, brilliantest, most silverist Mirror of all Time. We're not 16 anymore, and we can't keep neglecting our run-down car or it'll finally burst its head gasket.
If there's anything new for us to make, let's look for it.
When bands cover songs, I guess they do them for one of three reasons:
First, and likely most common, the players are still learning the craft of their instruments and need something familiar to rehearse with.
Second, the players have not come up with enough original ideas to deviate from their rehearsal songs,
and
Third, the musician actually believes that his or her rendition of the song is better than the original version.
Surely there's more reasons than this, but I'm not here to do an anthropological study of Cover Songs. I'm not here to analyze the limitations that cover songs slather upon their musicians. I don't with to disclose any opinions about the matter either, about how independently reproducing a cover song or sample in order to make one's own sum of money from the original idea is a rook and rob and disrespect to the creator and what they deserve. I don't want to tell you how an industry of entertainment (cover songs/cover films/ cover shows/cover of cover of covers) is spinning itself into a whirlpool of banal, waxless candle wicks. I don't believe it's necessary to point out that 5 Harry Potter films is 4 unnecessary Harry Potter Films, or that an entire hip-hop generation is grounded in samples of songs that existed as classics before many of the creators, were even born, or that Brave New World and 1984 will never be read by future generations because there are too many slightly-more-relevant-but-exactly-the-same storylines littering the shelves of bookstore and movie theaters.
I don't want to do any hating on who I believe to be the true Haters: the copiers. Or better yet, the thieves. These dark robin hoods who have stolen something that once was beautiful and successful and copied and pasted it into a mish-mash, modernized, slapped-together mess.. a sculpture built from cheap ice cream. With new labels but unoriginal ideas, these candy-coated ideas will melt so quickly and everybody involved who only have a taste for sweet will fail early, while the rest of us continue to remember the truths of the past and build longevity and not suffer under the temporary sugars of an evaporating dreams.
But we all copy..don't we? yes. Every day we copy. Since we were babies. But as children we also learn that no two circumstances are exactly the same, no matter what science likes to tell us. No two people will have the same interests, no twins ever match. As children we learn to copy with grace, we steal words and attempt to use them when the circumstances are fit. Often we'll fail and have our hands slapped. As children we steal movements and show our friends..and eventually incorporate them into everyday life or toss them from our repertoires entirely. As children, we learn what others Love or find Beautiful and why, and wonder at what Love and Beauty is or if it even exists. We copy, as children. And the routine begins to get very complex...so that by the time we are young adults every impulse and action, stir of our legs is the culmination of billions of little reflexes of mimicry from times past. Our original intentions are lost in the myst of living, the first time you sipped alcohol, the first time you kissed your lover, the first time you heard a song that made tears come to your eyes and why that is. We lose sight of what we copied, and why it was ever important, and with integrated efficiency all those mimicked movements and subtleties have slopped together into the organic soup of a human soul - and we live through that soul's eyes every day of our lives.
But as children, we stole every one of those impulses from a place of total curiosity. We looked up to our elders as teachers, we looked to society as teachers, we looked to the television and the radio and the movie screens and the actors and the authors and friends and parents all as teachers, and we learned and tried and failed and got hurt, and got back up and tried again until we were tired.
Human entertainment, something I LOVE the idea of so much, is stuck in its tweens. It's copying and pasting ideas permanently, because the creators are so fickle and disorganized. There's little originality to look to for inspiration except the ideas of the generations past. Creators today have dwindled in their abilities to create New things, and instead only rehash old ideas again and again. It's like 35-year-old surfer who still dresses in baggy clothes and tilted hats - so heavily invested in good times of his specific youth that he forgot to look in the mirror and see who he was becoming all these years.
Social entertainment needs to look in the biggestest, brilliantest, most silverist Mirror of all Time. We're not 16 anymore, and we can't keep neglecting our run-down car or it'll finally burst its head gasket.
If there's anything new for us to make, let's look for it.
Friday, September 18, 2009
dare I say
The buzz of whipping cutters hum along
the foreign boys and ladies' language song
In sunny shadow sitting sallow I
reflect upon an earlier summer's sky:
When fairy whispers freckled up with dew
parted my squeezing eyelashes in two,
the wet and frosty morning fret with gold
delivered me to rivers' current bulge.
When high over the hues of purple lay
I humming silently about the day
imagine love affairs with fairy nymphs
while staring down upon the cliffed rims
When walking through thick heated humid breath
the skies alight in frolick Godly mess,
and fearing pleasure, full of food and life
I tore down heated waterfalls at night.
Now sitting waiting to enjoy a stroll
I wonder back beyond, and smile full.
the foreign boys and ladies' language song
In sunny shadow sitting sallow I
reflect upon an earlier summer's sky:
When fairy whispers freckled up with dew
parted my squeezing eyelashes in two,
the wet and frosty morning fret with gold
delivered me to rivers' current bulge.
When high over the hues of purple lay
I humming silently about the day
imagine love affairs with fairy nymphs
while staring down upon the cliffed rims
When walking through thick heated humid breath
the skies alight in frolick Godly mess,
and fearing pleasure, full of food and life
I tore down heated waterfalls at night.
Now sitting waiting to enjoy a stroll
I wonder back beyond, and smile full.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
narcissism at the beach!
and the winner is.....
I call this one: Solohomoeroticismic. AKA: Self-gay
the end
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Hoping and dreaming
To jump up a ladder? Impossible.
by Mikie Beatty. Written July 29th, 2006
You hope, and you dream, but you never believe that something's gonna happen for you.
Not like it does in the movies.
And when it actually happens, you expect it to feel more visceral, more real.
-The Beach (Leo's character)
Hoping and dreaming is never believing. You have to know, not hope. Because when you know, you don't need to doubt - because in knowing you realize the truth and realities of a dream. A dream is a perfect fantasy, where every piece of the pretty world is under your control, in your mind. To hope is to long for that perfect world you've materialized into your "dream" (be it consciously or no). But to know, you take that dream and apply it to the reality of your life.
What's incredible to me is how much hoping and knowing cross paths based on the choices we make. But only based on those choices. What doesn't surprise me is when hoping vs. knowing rarely-to-never cross paths when the circumstances are left up to chance and luck. Because honestly, luck exists not in this world. To get what we want, we have to get what we want. We can't live our lives waiting for a hand to feed us our dreams - the hope and dream of it all is only the prologue into the first of many long steps towards happiness. I have had my share, my damn lot share of hopes and dreams. And you know when I finally have felt like I'm getting anywhere in my life? When I've gave up on them, on those hopes I've had. As my yearnings drifted away, my conscious self (having been trained by Me since a child to always keep manipulation and control in the back of one's mind) allowed the reality of things to take over. And once I realized my true path, and the true true truth behind where I might actually stand in light of those hopes, I knew two things: 1 - that if I ever wanted to really get on top of my dreams and realize them it was going to be a lot of bloody exhausting "smiling" difficult work, and 2 - that I actually for the first time in my life see a windy twisty treacherous pathway on which I might really have a chance to get what I've hoped for. Like the bastard says, "and glut my pleasure that till now has starved."
To be frank, I don't know exactly what I'm talking about here. But I guess what has brought these things to my mind is that I've been living for the past 2 years in and around people who have hopes, dreams, and a lot less discipline than anyone I knew even back home. It's funny how college can either make or break a person, and in the end it really shows as to who's the dreamers and who's the makers. Well I gave up on dreaming, because you know what? All my dreams are right in front of my face - there's no other dream than the sweet real life we're all living every day. So what we get bitch measly parts in our shows? It's because in order to be the best, you have to start out knowing you're the bloody worst. There's no way to jump up a ladder; you have to climb and climb, especially if that ladder is filled with people all sharing your hopes and dreams. It's a meticulous road, and graceful art, to be Honest in this world. And if there's one best possible tool to ever accomplishing anything - most notably, to ever achieve any sort of goal, dream, hope or otherwise in our lives - it's the majestic powerful demonic tool of Honesty. It will get you your dreams, tear up your lives, and sew a sweet precious unshaking future for all of us.
Happy Saturday all,
Live, love and be honest. Here's to you hopes, dreams, and realities.
*mikie
by Mikie Beatty. Written July 29th, 2006
You hope, and you dream, but you never believe that something's gonna happen for you.
Not like it does in the movies.
And when it actually happens, you expect it to feel more visceral, more real.
-The Beach (Leo's character)
Hoping and dreaming is never believing. You have to know, not hope. Because when you know, you don't need to doubt - because in knowing you realize the truth and realities of a dream. A dream is a perfect fantasy, where every piece of the pretty world is under your control, in your mind. To hope is to long for that perfect world you've materialized into your "dream" (be it consciously or no). But to know, you take that dream and apply it to the reality of your life.
What's incredible to me is how much hoping and knowing cross paths based on the choices we make. But only based on those choices. What doesn't surprise me is when hoping vs. knowing rarely-to-never cross paths when the circumstances are left up to chance and luck. Because honestly, luck exists not in this world. To get what we want, we have to get what we want. We can't live our lives waiting for a hand to feed us our dreams - the hope and dream of it all is only the prologue into the first of many long steps towards happiness. I have had my share, my damn lot share of hopes and dreams. And you know when I finally have felt like I'm getting anywhere in my life? When I've gave up on them, on those hopes I've had. As my yearnings drifted away, my conscious self (having been trained by Me since a child to always keep manipulation and control in the back of one's mind) allowed the reality of things to take over. And once I realized my true path, and the true true truth behind where I might actually stand in light of those hopes, I knew two things: 1 - that if I ever wanted to really get on top of my dreams and realize them it was going to be a lot of bloody exhausting "smiling" difficult work, and 2 - that I actually for the first time in my life see a windy twisty treacherous pathway on which I might really have a chance to get what I've hoped for. Like the bastard says, "and glut my pleasure that till now has starved."
To be frank, I don't know exactly what I'm talking about here. But I guess what has brought these things to my mind is that I've been living for the past 2 years in and around people who have hopes, dreams, and a lot less discipline than anyone I knew even back home. It's funny how college can either make or break a person, and in the end it really shows as to who's the dreamers and who's the makers. Well I gave up on dreaming, because you know what? All my dreams are right in front of my face - there's no other dream than the sweet real life we're all living every day. So what we get bitch measly parts in our shows? It's because in order to be the best, you have to start out knowing you're the bloody worst. There's no way to jump up a ladder; you have to climb and climb, especially if that ladder is filled with people all sharing your hopes and dreams. It's a meticulous road, and graceful art, to be Honest in this world. And if there's one best possible tool to ever accomplishing anything - most notably, to ever achieve any sort of goal, dream, hope or otherwise in our lives - it's the majestic powerful demonic tool of Honesty. It will get you your dreams, tear up your lives, and sew a sweet precious unshaking future for all of us.
Happy Saturday all,
Live, love and be honest. Here's to you hopes, dreams, and realities.
*mikie
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Whatsit
In its dull reddish glow the coffee sits
alongside light white marble rectangles.
My dad walks in, a smiling happy sight
and takes me from my wiley angst and slump
I was about to write a thoughtful tune
regarding all the pompous poop and doom
that littering my poor unfortunate soul
has taken me to th'deepest dark despair.
Well fortunately my father's sweet voice
brings into light the darker side of me
surrounded by a random older bunch
of coffee drinkers, friends and employees.
Now on his telephone, I sit and wait
within my thoughts of plain and simple, gross
and skinny, dry and salty sweet, the thoughts
that prick against my heart and sour me.
alongside light white marble rectangles.
My dad walks in, a smiling happy sight
and takes me from my wiley angst and slump
I was about to write a thoughtful tune
regarding all the pompous poop and doom
that littering my poor unfortunate soul
has taken me to th'deepest dark despair.
Well fortunately my father's sweet voice
brings into light the darker side of me
surrounded by a random older bunch
of coffee drinkers, friends and employees.
Now on his telephone, I sit and wait
within my thoughts of plain and simple, gross
and skinny, dry and salty sweet, the thoughts
that prick against my heart and sour me.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
some people leave and other people stay
I keep finding myself at a crossroads.
Yesterday was an important day for me. It marked the "last" day of the rafting season for 2009 at River Runners. The staff was a skeleton crew of Peter, Fred, Myself and the Lulla's who visited. The rafters/customers were a wonderful couple of groups: some from LA with a bunch of singing, happy youth and an additional brave couple from San Jose (on my boat) who were married and seeking a little thrill before the fall begins to drop its coloured petals. The day was important because it rang with such honesty through every beating vein of my existence. The cool autumn air and empty river bends spoke to me of all the quiet and eerie realities that hide behind any location sans human interaction. At night, when the camp is at a usual bustle of voices and campfires, there were only Peter and Fred and myselfcleaning the last of the dishes and turning off the awning bulbs before the dark. There was a moment where Peter and Fred had both left, and our camp was mostly vacant under the stars and the glowing moon. I looked around in the early at the dark fire pit, the empty benches, the black kitchen, and a sadness swept over me that I've felt before.
When I was 16, my brother Matt left to attend BYU in Utah. I lived at home, with my parents and Joey, having my own room in the back. I remember one fall morning Matt was packing to leave in his Renegade truck to take the journey across the states to Utah for his career as a student at BYU. He gathered all his things, packed his truck, and with my two parents and myself standing on the edge of the driveway Matt waved goodbye and drove away down the steep hill Roosevelt Street. Mom and Dad walked back into the house, but I jogged out to the center of the street to look after him. I saw as his truck reached the stop sign, turned on its left blinker, and in seconds veered left and disappeared from my sight.
That night at the camp, I realized a similar experience: I was alone. Everyone I loved so much was gone. The adventures of the summer, the excitement and the warmth and the sweet freedom, was over. And as that fireplace lay in it's black ashes with the benches waiting quietly under the clouded yellow moon, I felt alone again.
Two months ago I was sitting in an outhouse along the riverbank of the Tuolomne River. Looking around while doing my business, I could see old rolls of toilet paper and scratched up cement walls. I had this thought about how this particular outhouse, a place I had never seen until that very moment, had been waiting alone through all the storms, winds and howling wilderness for the day that it would finally make itself my very temporary home. The outhouse had been right there, on the bank of this wild river, at the bottom of that steep cannyon, all alone. It had seen every night, every storm, every early morning that I had seen this last year. And, like me, that outhouse had withstood it all too. It had weathered the storms, slept through the nights, braced against every wind on every day that I too was weathering, bracing and sleeping through. And in a moment, I could see that all across the world, every rock and every single other thing is similarly alone.
Watching my brother's truck turn the corner filled me with a sadness that I hadn't felt yet in my life until that moment. My chest began to clench with a welling loneliness, knowing that as Matt, a brother I admired and looked up to so much in my life, was leaving and I was going to stay. I felt the sadness of difference, knowing that I could not bring back the love and lessons and experiences that we had had together and that he was going to simply be gone and I was going to simply be staying. I, in Placerville, alone. And he, on the road to Utah, alone. The difference between us was that he had a goal he was searching to achieve, and I had nothing but the silent home that stood, empty, behind me.
The River Runners camp is my home. And 3/4 of the year it is quiet and empty. Beaten by the freezing winds and pouring rain and swelling river. That Outhouse by the Tuolomne is also my home. It stands firm against the treacherous wild in its lonley hole by the river. Santa Cruz is my home, and as soon as college was over it was a place that was as empty and as lonely as the street on the day my brother left for Utah in his Renegade.
I am at a crossroads again, much like that day my brother left for college. When he had gone, I stood there on the street looking after his empty image. Tears filled my eyes. Here, I told myself I was never going to let myself be alone again. I was going to follow the people in my life so that I didn't get left behind again. I was going to search for a future where I was the one leaving while other people were staying. I committed to myself to never be truly alone.
At the crossroads now, I don't quite know what to do. I've been left behind, but not by everybody. I feel hopeful about a lot of things. I have goals I've created for myself, and I feel like I'm still going somewhere. But I'm scared that me leaving could lead me to a new place where I'll face another new loneliness.
I don't quite know where the next River camp is, and I'm hoping it finds me soon.
Yesterday was an important day for me. It marked the "last" day of the rafting season for 2009 at River Runners. The staff was a skeleton crew of Peter, Fred, Myself and the Lulla's who visited. The rafters/customers were a wonderful couple of groups: some from LA with a bunch of singing, happy youth and an additional brave couple from San Jose (on my boat) who were married and seeking a little thrill before the fall begins to drop its coloured petals. The day was important because it rang with such honesty through every beating vein of my existence. The cool autumn air and empty river bends spoke to me of all the quiet and eerie realities that hide behind any location sans human interaction. At night, when the camp is at a usual bustle of voices and campfires, there were only Peter and Fred and myselfcleaning the last of the dishes and turning off the awning bulbs before the dark. There was a moment where Peter and Fred had both left, and our camp was mostly vacant under the stars and the glowing moon. I looked around in the early at the dark fire pit, the empty benches, the black kitchen, and a sadness swept over me that I've felt before.
When I was 16, my brother Matt left to attend BYU in Utah. I lived at home, with my parents and Joey, having my own room in the back. I remember one fall morning Matt was packing to leave in his Renegade truck to take the journey across the states to Utah for his career as a student at BYU. He gathered all his things, packed his truck, and with my two parents and myself standing on the edge of the driveway Matt waved goodbye and drove away down the steep hill Roosevelt Street. Mom and Dad walked back into the house, but I jogged out to the center of the street to look after him. I saw as his truck reached the stop sign, turned on its left blinker, and in seconds veered left and disappeared from my sight.
That night at the camp, I realized a similar experience: I was alone. Everyone I loved so much was gone. The adventures of the summer, the excitement and the warmth and the sweet freedom, was over. And as that fireplace lay in it's black ashes with the benches waiting quietly under the clouded yellow moon, I felt alone again.
Two months ago I was sitting in an outhouse along the riverbank of the Tuolomne River. Looking around while doing my business, I could see old rolls of toilet paper and scratched up cement walls. I had this thought about how this particular outhouse, a place I had never seen until that very moment, had been waiting alone through all the storms, winds and howling wilderness for the day that it would finally make itself my very temporary home. The outhouse had been right there, on the bank of this wild river, at the bottom of that steep cannyon, all alone. It had seen every night, every storm, every early morning that I had seen this last year. And, like me, that outhouse had withstood it all too. It had weathered the storms, slept through the nights, braced against every wind on every day that I too was weathering, bracing and sleeping through. And in a moment, I could see that all across the world, every rock and every single other thing is similarly alone.
Watching my brother's truck turn the corner filled me with a sadness that I hadn't felt yet in my life until that moment. My chest began to clench with a welling loneliness, knowing that as Matt, a brother I admired and looked up to so much in my life, was leaving and I was going to stay. I felt the sadness of difference, knowing that I could not bring back the love and lessons and experiences that we had had together and that he was going to simply be gone and I was going to simply be staying. I, in Placerville, alone. And he, on the road to Utah, alone. The difference between us was that he had a goal he was searching to achieve, and I had nothing but the silent home that stood, empty, behind me.
The River Runners camp is my home. And 3/4 of the year it is quiet and empty. Beaten by the freezing winds and pouring rain and swelling river. That Outhouse by the Tuolomne is also my home. It stands firm against the treacherous wild in its lonley hole by the river. Santa Cruz is my home, and as soon as college was over it was a place that was as empty and as lonely as the street on the day my brother left for Utah in his Renegade.
I am at a crossroads again, much like that day my brother left for college. When he had gone, I stood there on the street looking after his empty image. Tears filled my eyes. Here, I told myself I was never going to let myself be alone again. I was going to follow the people in my life so that I didn't get left behind again. I was going to search for a future where I was the one leaving while other people were staying. I committed to myself to never be truly alone.
At the crossroads now, I don't quite know what to do. I've been left behind, but not by everybody. I feel hopeful about a lot of things. I have goals I've created for myself, and I feel like I'm still going somewhere. But I'm scared that me leaving could lead me to a new place where I'll face another new loneliness.
I don't quite know where the next River camp is, and I'm hoping it finds me soon.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Nikki's right
Daniel's right. Joey's right. Candice's right. Dad's right. Andy's right. Shawn's right. Christy's right. Danny's right. Peter's right. Justin's right. Mom's right. Adie's right. Matt's right. Heather's right. Jarom's right. Pambert's right. Go Green Girl's right.
everybody's right.
even I'm right
but I still don't know what's right.
everybody's right.
even I'm right
but I still don't know what's right.
Friday, September 4, 2009
my mind is so full and there's no output
there is no slow flow over, only pregnant desires
my wires firing, singing in light at night the opals
bite my subconscious in drunken dreams of otherworldly things
I want to live in a mountainous place
I want to swim through fountainous lakes
I want to slide sweetly down the slopes of white mountainbacks
I want to feel fruit in the winter's dry cold
I want to supercharge my undersides
and never be old.
From the moment I'm awake at night
I watch the day break into light
the purples of a burning moon
illuminate th'approaching dawn
I cannot seize the consciousness
that life is so much more than this
what calling I am said to find
if make-believe, shakes up my mind
in wonder about the Everything
that I still have never seen
in the morning do I feel
the most impressionable.
Once heavy in the wet black cold
through sheets of ice and silver gold
a white and lofty precious mould
begins to drift along.
Along the rooftops of the rocks
atop the pitch of pine cone locks
in fuzzy white around the fox
that snow begins to fall.
Quietly the storm begins
softly touching nature's skin
breathing foggy from a chin
and stopping time from deep within
...
from months away with less to say,
and nothing that I know to do
the stories ringing through
my eyes wishing in me for so much
there is no slow flow over, only pregnant desires
my wires firing, singing in light at night the opals
bite my subconscious in drunken dreams of otherworldly things
I want to live in a mountainous place
I want to swim through fountainous lakes
I want to slide sweetly down the slopes of white mountainbacks
I want to feel fruit in the winter's dry cold
I want to supercharge my undersides
and never be old.
From the moment I'm awake at night
I watch the day break into light
the purples of a burning moon
illuminate th'approaching dawn
I cannot seize the consciousness
that life is so much more than this
what calling I am said to find
if make-believe, shakes up my mind
in wonder about the Everything
that I still have never seen
in the morning do I feel
the most impressionable.
Once heavy in the wet black cold
through sheets of ice and silver gold
a white and lofty precious mould
begins to drift along.
Along the rooftops of the rocks
atop the pitch of pine cone locks
in fuzzy white around the fox
that snow begins to fall.
Quietly the storm begins
softly touching nature's skin
breathing foggy from a chin
and stopping time from deep within
...
from months away with less to say,
and nothing that I know to do
the stories ringing through
my eyes wishing in me for so much
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
...about the Rx Bandits
Rx Bandits
I thoroughly will forever dig this tireless, timeless band. They have put together some of the most influential and incredible music to have graced my ears and brain. For the third time in my life, I watched them play this past weekend - at the El Rey Theatre in Miracle Mile of L.A.
A few things. First, they came in after two bands who had already rocked the scene and set the bar pretty high. Obviously, though, I was under no impression that the pharmaceutical boys would do anything less than blow the openers out of the water. And in a way, they almost did.
Here's my number one: the band is no longer quite the same. They used to consist of all the same players, plus horns. A huge part of the influence comes from a ska-ish punkish style, and the horns are an imperative part of that sound. If the music on the records heavily includes these unique instruments, you'd think the live performance would also (automatically, even) include them too...nope. No horns. In fact, the highlight of the actual "band" on stage wasn't Matt, nor the keyboardist nor bassis, but the drummer. Now, his drumming is something unmatchable and I recognize the complexity and freedom in his talent. He has created the backbone for all these songs, and keeps the Bandits' universe glued into rhythmic reality. Unfortunately, the drumming is not what highlights the music on the records. It's a part of it for sure, but not the priority for listening to the tracks.
Matt's singing, however, is a major highlight of their music. Matt's lyrics and signature voice make up a major part of the enjoyment factor for these guys. He swings and slings his words in a poetic tonal beauty. He creates lyrical images that he raps and rhymes to with a struggling beautiful flow that you can't help but dance to his beats. Based by the records, you feel like he's leading band rather than the band leading him.
Live now, and also somewhat on the new record, the band no longer backs up his songs but rather he seems to share a lot of his prowess with the others. There's more instrumental and far less singing in both his new record and the live show. I understand, since he clearly believes in equalities - especially among musicians - but it takes a toll on the listenability of both the record and the live performance. I missed him actually singing. Sure, he played along and watched his brothers rock too, but he sang maybe 25% of the time. The rest was spent not singing his lyrics by letting the audience sing them, or jamming through the verses and choruses with the other players, neglecting the lyrics. This total venture away from the recorded shows me either they no enjoy playing their songs, or they have just forgotten them, and it kinda pissed me off. The boys and girls who wish so avidly to participate in the music are now listening to totally new (which can be cool) and totally foreign unmixed jargon boiling through the PA system in blips and blurry guitar riffs that are surely fun to play but much less easy to listen to. Highlighting the drummer is good only in that it distracts you from the unbearable blaring of a crappy soundsystem. At least on the record you can differentiate by ear the keyboards from the guitars.
I'm getting a little off-topic. Don't get me wrong, they ROCKED. But for a $50 show and a professional band, I was slightly disappointed that the hornplayers were not present at all (I know the trombone quit, but still, NOBODY?) and that Matt hardly sang any of his own lyrics..something I love their music for.
The good parts:
I loved the drumming. I found the mixture of Americana and tribal ritual a perfect way to connect our modernity with the roots of a more primitive and simply way of life. I loved the jamming. I think it's great that a band can feel that communal understanding in their talents, feeling the thoughts and rhythms of eachother in sound and movement. I enjoy watching it mostly because their music have been so influential for me as a person, so to watch them create in a semi-structured environment fills me with a tad bit of wonder.
Unfortunately, I fear that Matt may have lost some of his sway in my mind. I appreciate their harkening back to the 60's and the free-loving, pot-smoking jamming of the times. But they have completely converted to that style, while playing Rx Bandits music. It's a little weird, to be honest. I used to look up to these guys as leaders in the popular world, sacrificing some of themselves so that they can be heard and accepted on a larger scale. Nowadays, I feel much more distance. I don't see their relevance as much. It's like, they found their niche and now they're enjoying it. A good thing to realize one's self..but our world moves to fast and I worry they may get buried. I hope they stay relevant, that's all. They are still for me, because I remember who they used to be so clearly. I still feel the intentions in Matt's lyrics and the band's ideals. I still completely agree with almost everything they stand for and talk about. I still completely love the Rx Bandits.
That's all.
I thoroughly will forever dig this tireless, timeless band. They have put together some of the most influential and incredible music to have graced my ears and brain. For the third time in my life, I watched them play this past weekend - at the El Rey Theatre in Miracle Mile of L.A.
A few things. First, they came in after two bands who had already rocked the scene and set the bar pretty high. Obviously, though, I was under no impression that the pharmaceutical boys would do anything less than blow the openers out of the water. And in a way, they almost did.
Here's my number one: the band is no longer quite the same. They used to consist of all the same players, plus horns. A huge part of the influence comes from a ska-ish punkish style, and the horns are an imperative part of that sound. If the music on the records heavily includes these unique instruments, you'd think the live performance would also (automatically, even) include them too...nope. No horns. In fact, the highlight of the actual "band" on stage wasn't Matt, nor the keyboardist nor bassis, but the drummer. Now, his drumming is something unmatchable and I recognize the complexity and freedom in his talent. He has created the backbone for all these songs, and keeps the Bandits' universe glued into rhythmic reality. Unfortunately, the drumming is not what highlights the music on the records. It's a part of it for sure, but not the priority for listening to the tracks.
Matt's singing, however, is a major highlight of their music. Matt's lyrics and signature voice make up a major part of the enjoyment factor for these guys. He swings and slings his words in a poetic tonal beauty. He creates lyrical images that he raps and rhymes to with a struggling beautiful flow that you can't help but dance to his beats. Based by the records, you feel like he's leading band rather than the band leading him.
Live now, and also somewhat on the new record, the band no longer backs up his songs but rather he seems to share a lot of his prowess with the others. There's more instrumental and far less singing in both his new record and the live show. I understand, since he clearly believes in equalities - especially among musicians - but it takes a toll on the listenability of both the record and the live performance. I missed him actually singing. Sure, he played along and watched his brothers rock too, but he sang maybe 25% of the time. The rest was spent not singing his lyrics by letting the audience sing them, or jamming through the verses and choruses with the other players, neglecting the lyrics. This total venture away from the recorded shows me either they no enjoy playing their songs, or they have just forgotten them, and it kinda pissed me off. The boys and girls who wish so avidly to participate in the music are now listening to totally new (which can be cool) and totally foreign unmixed jargon boiling through the PA system in blips and blurry guitar riffs that are surely fun to play but much less easy to listen to. Highlighting the drummer is good only in that it distracts you from the unbearable blaring of a crappy soundsystem. At least on the record you can differentiate by ear the keyboards from the guitars.
I'm getting a little off-topic. Don't get me wrong, they ROCKED. But for a $50 show and a professional band, I was slightly disappointed that the hornplayers were not present at all (I know the trombone quit, but still, NOBODY?) and that Matt hardly sang any of his own lyrics..something I love their music for.
The good parts:
I loved the drumming. I found the mixture of Americana and tribal ritual a perfect way to connect our modernity with the roots of a more primitive and simply way of life. I loved the jamming. I think it's great that a band can feel that communal understanding in their talents, feeling the thoughts and rhythms of eachother in sound and movement. I enjoy watching it mostly because their music have been so influential for me as a person, so to watch them create in a semi-structured environment fills me with a tad bit of wonder.
Unfortunately, I fear that Matt may have lost some of his sway in my mind. I appreciate their harkening back to the 60's and the free-loving, pot-smoking jamming of the times. But they have completely converted to that style, while playing Rx Bandits music. It's a little weird, to be honest. I used to look up to these guys as leaders in the popular world, sacrificing some of themselves so that they can be heard and accepted on a larger scale. Nowadays, I feel much more distance. I don't see their relevance as much. It's like, they found their niche and now they're enjoying it. A good thing to realize one's self..but our world moves to fast and I worry they may get buried. I hope they stay relevant, that's all. They are still for me, because I remember who they used to be so clearly. I still feel the intentions in Matt's lyrics and the band's ideals. I still completely agree with almost everything they stand for and talk about. I still completely love the Rx Bandits.
That's all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)