Drench The Tender Earthlings

This morning I woke up and got some tea and opened my e-mail. Not an unusual occurrence, right? Well I had three interesting e-mails that sort of hit me with their feelings of alignment. I had phoned a buddy of mine in Vancouver a couple weeks ago to let him know a mutual old friend of ours was very ill. My friend in Vancouver wasn't home and I spoke to a housesitter who told me Pete was in Japan! Pete works at the particle accelerator in Vancouver and he occassionally gets sent around the world to work on other particle accelerators and this time he was in japan. So I sent him an e-mail with this sad news. I didn't hear back. Until this morning and Pete is in a hole in Japan. He sounds pretty down because it's such hard work and long hours he hasn't even seen much of Japan! It's also very difficult to hear bad news about an old friend or person in ones life and not feel you can do anything to help or support. I relate, our mutual friend is in rough shape and he had also estranged himself from almost everyone in his life in the last 15 years. He hadn't seen his parents in over ten years or his sister in 20 years. This has been described by one of his friends in this e-mail as "his strange retreat from engagement".

I found these words in an e-mail this morning so haunting and bittersweet. Life can be so very hard and sometimes processing our feelings and relationships can be so difficult. I have been sad about this situation for the past couple weeks because sometimes life just sucks. Sometimes it's just too hard for some people. And sometimes anger and fear are the principles some people choose as their path. And there sometimes ain't nothing we can do about it.

But I was filled with a lot of feelings of love this morning at the three e-mails I received from three hugely apart places in the world. So, for poor Pete who is working away in Japan in a dark hole I thought I'd post a Moe. song. We sent Pete a big cd compilation of Moe. playing at the Aragon a couple years ago. he loved it so much he and his son went to see Moe. when they played Vancouver and said it was the best show he'd seen in years. So Pete...I know you're too busy to see this, but here is a song for you anyhow...

I also got an e-mail this morning from a friend I used to work with in a nightclub in Toronto and he now lives in England...and he is a poet and was letting me know about a spoken word show he was doing...but he had the following words in his e-mail Beauty is the word, and it just tied in which the two other e-mails I got this morning so nicely...I guess Carl Jung would call it syncronicity or something, heh heh!

And then, I got a really wonderful video link. It's a song written by the person in the video making a painting. The song is quite lovely and although I wasn't sure of all the lyrics something stood out to me in the beginning of the song...the following sounding lyrics of "and in the chrystal difference between all the beetles/Beatles backs..."

I don't know if the song is saying the band Beatles or the bug beetles...but I heard the band. And I immediately had this image of the song being begun with Bloom's notion of the anxiety of influence. I don't know what the singer/songwriter intended but...for me, it was like a powerful strike and made the song all that more powerful. As the song moves it has many lyrics that also struck me as referencing the idea of desire to find a primary experience for oneself...despite the history of art or religion or philosophy or any social construct. I found the song to be about the struggle and bliss of feeling for oneself and not second hand poetry or images and experience.

Apologies to the writer if this was not their intent...and I admit that I had the sensation of three e-mails effecting me emotionally and all three feeling connected. The idea of a "strange retreat from engagement" to the idea of "beauty is the word"...combined with a sorrow for a person who was in my life a long time ago...and his loss, helplessness and what sort of influence they had on me when I was younger...to this fabulous video and song. Sometimes the people who we meet and pass though our lives can produce both a beauty and an influence of anxiety. The title of this song "drench the tender earthlings" I love because it suggests that life is abundant. That imagination and the energy for experience is infinite. The word drench is a beautiful contrast to the notion of anxiety of influence. There is such an abundance of imagination that we don't have to be stagnant and trapped by the ideas of history or philosophy or previous poets and artists. There's enough freedom and potential of expression for all of us. We are being drenched with experience and life.

So I tried to play the lyrics again to discern what they meant if it was Beatle or beetle...but no answer...I am only able to hear the word as meaning the band...especially in relation to the song examination of "God" and influence that follows in the song. AND...the examination of a poets existence in comparison to notions of God, what god is or is perceived...and hell...that surely is an anxiety of influence (har!...and ouch!) I have typed out some of the words/cut-ups in the painting here...


deepening meanings
flowers with power and unfolding like a bud...

through the glowing green of a glowing plant
The Devil is a God who would control
Rather than love an ear of earth of definitions...(?)
not of possibilities. But poets
Do not live in that fract-
Ured half of life: they swim like swans
Through this inverted wold
This painting on a pond, and glowingly
They glide with knowing grace across the gloss
of that sobering hallucination pool.

whose brief...

and god is groovy because he can build
The world out of the words in which we live
And weave a living love that never leaves
Drench the tender Earthlings God is Groovy
A vision augers inward in a turn
of revelation wheeling through the wire
whose information revelation rise

Check out this awesome video ! I love how the clouds and the sun are also working on the light of the painting...what a great piece! And what a beautiful way to wake up to three such profound e-mails...I feel so lucky...

$

Here are a few more painted bills...

Futbol, Etc

We had another fairly hectic week. Yesterday I went and met up with friends to watch soccer. We have a local pub that shows U.K. soccer matches and some others on weekend mornings. It's fun to meet our friends who travel over from Pilsen to watch futbol right down the street from us. I was looking forward to this weekend and watching soccer because I'd had a busy week. Time to kick back. Every now and then I get nuts and decide to do some household chores. This week I got quite motivated and not only did four regular loads of laundry but also five loads of bedding, with blankets and pillows. Now don't get some idea I'm a clean freak. The truth is I have no problem ignoring a sink full of dishes or sweeping or any housework if there is something else going on...and usually there is something else going on, har! I also got it in my head to clean, sort and organize my closet. Now I only have half a closet. Which is okay...considering I only came here with a suitcase. Stagg has three closets. 3. One of them is a huge walk-in closet. I joke that my full-time job is organizing Stagg's t-shirt collection and his hat collection. I'm not really joking. I have become quite anal retentive in how I fold his t-shirts in order to fit them into his two huge bureaus. (I don't have any bureaus I'd like it to be known). :) Anyways, I decided to organize my closet. I can't really be too hard on Stagg's hat collection as I've had a shoe and purse fetish so...I did somehing fun with my purses. I hung them up on the walls inside my closet. They had been tragically piled in heaps on the floorr. I also let go of a couple that needed retiring. But now my little area of closet looks so big and tidy with the floor cleared and purses hanging safe and sound. I had a lot of shoes..especially high heels and stilletoes and I donated them to charity a couple years ago...and am down to about 10 stilletoes and walking shoes. I haven't bought clothes for quite a while and it's a good feeling in many ways. I hate shopping but I love clothes. I did't buy any clothes in the last year because we still don't know where we're going to be living in the future so I don't want to get crazy and have to sort out a lot of possessions. Besides, whatever happens, if we move out of the country...or even to a new neighbourhood I will have my hands full with Stagg's collections ha ha. Plus, we've had to be really really careful with money this past year. Omg...I have no idea how this post has gone on such a tangent. I also cleaned out the refrigerator last week. It looks real nice. What the hell am I rambling about? Well, it's almost been a year since we ran off to Vegas and got hitched. People have said some adages like the first year is the hardest and I've wondered what that meant. I suppose it might mean different things for different people. Well, if it was the hardest then I'm feeling pretty good about the future. Stagg and I have had a hard year, but not to do with our feelings or our life together. But we have had a lot of financial challenges with making sure we had enough money for lawyers and rent and processing fees for the government. It's been a tricky year in that way. The good news is, we are both able to live with very little and I'm good at finding food in the city and great protein rich meals for not too much money. I also love making Stagg his lunch. So while doing chores I had three pots of soup on the go. A butternut soup, a tomato soup and chicken soup. I chopped up about 20 onions, six bulbs of garlic, two huge heads of celery...and other vegies including cabbage and green peppers. I'm a total animal in a kitchen! We've been careful with movies and been able to get a lot of passes to movies and free entertainment. it's amazing what you can do if you want to live thin, save money and also not add to the waste of living for the environment. So even though Stagg and I had some stressful moments during this past year...it feels like we kind of have come out the other side of something. We did it with a lot of help from our friends and family and a little thought to what we need and want.

I was really excited to meet up with Marty and Lil Guido yesterday and watch soccer. We haven't seen or gone out as much as we usually do and like to do this past year...and part of working on the apartment and house chores was to free up time for the priority of getting together with friends and family. It's time to turn the page on this past year. I feel like this weekend was a door opening and some kind of paradigm shift for me. I'm not sure why this week, or weekend, but I feel a page turning...It feels good.

Sweden is one of my favourite teams to follow in soccer. We have some very dear friends in Sweden and so I always like to keep an eye out for Sweden soccer. We spent World Cup 2006 in Toronto with the Swedes and our family, and here are some pictures. Soccer is a pretty big deal in Toronto. One of the largest populations of Italians, outside of Italy is in Toronto. So the pictures here are taken in the streets of Little Italy right after they won the World Cup. We had spent the whole week either pub hopping with the kids, or in the cool basement on bad humid days following the Cup. Our friends from Sweden and Scott and Jill are shown walking on the streets in the pics. I'm especially linking these photos for Marty to see. I suggested that we all head up to Toronto for the World Cup 2010. Toronto is an amazing place to be part of the World Cup games and celebrations.

Football is the third most popular sport in Sweden (behind skiing and ice hockey), with over 240,000 licensed players—of which 56,000 are women—plus another 240,000 youth players. There are around 3,200 active clubs fielding over 8,500 teams, which are playing on the 7,900 pitches available in the country. Football was first played in Sweden in the 1870s, the first championship was decided in 1896 and the Swedish Football Association was founded in 1904. Despite being a relatively small country population-wise, both the men's and women's national teams and the club teams have gained rather large success from time to time.

Football, along with other organised sports, came to Sweden in the 1870s and was mainly exercised by gymnastics clubs which exercised most of the sports of the time. England and Scotland were the main sources of inspiration and it is thus not strange that football gained popularity fast, with the first agreement of rules made in 1885 by the clubs active in Gothenburg, Stockholm and Visby. The first international club match was played in 1890 and the first match with modern rules was played two years later in 1892.
The first association to administer a Swedish national football tournament was Svenska Idrottsförbundet, founded 1895 in Gothenburg, the dominating football town in Sweden, at the time. The association arranged Svenska Mästerskapet in 1896 which Örgryte IS won. The tournament was played until 1925 when the first national league, Allsvenskan, was started. In the late 1890s, the IFK associations began playing football, and by 1901, the first Kamratmästerskap (IFK championship) in football was arranged.
Football has grown since and there is currently around 3,300 clubs with 32,700 teams and with one million members, whereof about half a million are active players, altogether. From Wiki

One of the interesting things about soccer is so many teams around the world have their own special narrative and story arc. No, it's true, it's part of the charm of watching futbol. Yesterday was a huge game between Chelsea and Liverpool. In England many of the teams have stories that appeal to adopting a hero, or a bad guy. Liverpool is an interesting and sympathetic team in many ways and one of them is for me is their motto from a 1940's musical "You'll never walk alone"

I would be in big trouble if I don't mention the beloved teams of my blog friends Four Dinners and his beloved Oldham Athletics...and Total Perspective Vortex and his beloved Barnsley



In the past 30 years, they have been one of the most successful clubs in English and European football; they won four European Cups between 1977 and 1984.
The Heysel Stadium disaster made the club infamous in Europe; 39 Juventus fans died after a wall collapsed as they fled from charging Liverpool fans. The club was involved in another disaster four years later—the Hillsborough Disaster— which saw the death of 96 Liverpool fans in a crush against perimeter fencing. Flames were added to the club's crest in honour of the Liverpool fans who lost their lives at Hillsborough. Both disasters have had wide-ranging impacts on English and European football, and the club, to this day.

Liverpool remained highly successful to the end of the 1980s. Despite being banned from European competitions for six years after the tragedy at Heysel, Liverpool dominated the domestic scene under player-manager Kenny Dalglish who succeeded Joe Fagan in 1985. They joined the elite of clubs to have won the double of the league title and FA Cup in 1986, gained two further league titles in 1988 and again in 1990, and also won their fourth FA Cup in 1989.
The 1990s was a relatively unsuccessful decade by Liverpool standards. The 1990 league title was their most recent top division title to date, although they did win the FA Cup in 1992 and a record fifth League Cup in 1995, they never finished higher than third place after 1991 and in 1994 finished as low as eighth.
However, the 2000s has seen an upturn in fortunes for the club. They won three trophies in 2001 (the UEFA Cup, FA Cup and League Cup), finished second in the league in 2002 after 11 years outside the top two and won their seventh League Cup in 2003 under the management of Frenchman Gerard Houllier, who had been appointed in 1998. Houllier was succeeded by Rafael Benitez in 2004, and in his first season they won their fifth European Cup. Since then they have also won their seventh FA Cup as well as achieving another second place finish in the league. In spite of these success, they have still yet to win the league title since 1990. From Wiki.


I really like the sports teams scarves on the wall. This is a pub right down the street from us where we often go to watch soccer or have a pint. They make a great breakfast so it's a lovely way to spend a morning with good company, soccer and bacon and eggs and good hot coffee. You can order a pint at 9 in the morning too if you want! Sweet! That is Marty below.

I watched most of the Bears at Detroit game in the afternoon. Not bad! (My team are the Eagles, but I still care about da Bears) Meanwhile, Stagg had slept in so when I got home from soccer, he was heading out the door to show his paintings on the street during the Ravenswood Art Walk. He had a great idea because he sold 5 paintings in 3 hours! We started jumping around the apartment when he got home, he made me sit down while he showed me his big sales pile of cash, and then I just jumped up cheering and hugging him! I'm off to the grocery store today with the earnings, yippee!
Tricia, Stagg and I went up this afternoon for a beer then went over to Pilsen for a cook-out. Tony, our buddy from The Skylark Book Club and his wife made up a bunch of chili, Stagg brought some sausages and we hung out around a fire pit for a couple of hours in beautiful crisp October weather. The chili and chili dogs were excellent! Some guacomole and smores too.


Fires are so great huh? We had a bright moon, lots of stars and a lovely fire. I felt like I got so much fresh air I could hardly stay awake for the ride home on the El train. What a great weekend.

Gallows

Okay, in the previous set of comments my friend Beej, and her son...said that I was lucky to go see this band because this was a bad ass band. Yes, Beej's son, you're so right. Gallows is a seriously band ass band!!! Listen, I've seen a lot of bands and a big variety of bands...so I was surprised to be totally blown away by Gallows. They are really one of the most exciting bands I've ever seen. I was right up leaning on the stage and I had the most ridiculous shit-eating grin because these guys had the most awesome energy and just fucking blew me away. I will now try with all my effort to see them whenever they are on tour. We had a fantastic evening, got early to the club to eat dinner and have a couple drinks and then just loved being in this club...and then Gallows, I just want to travel around the world and dance to them live.



Complete air!

Time To Dance

We're off to see Gallows tonight at a really great club in Chinatown. I could hardly sleep last night I am so excited. Got my combats, my wristbands and swag for beer.

I love this video below...

Secret History

Every now and then it's fun to surprise Stagg with a band I saw that he never heard of. Stagg and I love a lot of music in common. The major music we have in common is rap. For years he was really the only other person among my friends who listened to rap as much as I did. We also both love Prince. But he wasn't really into punk...but his best friends in school were so he is well familiar with bands I love. Sometimes we just sit and have a beverage and reminisce about various concerts we went to. I am jealous he saw NWA and he is jealous I saw The Clash.

Isn't it weird when you get into a band and then they break up? It's like so heartbreaking especially if you feel they were a growing band and you have this feeling of music that will never be made. I was really into a band from D.C. back in the day. No, really way back in late 80's. I saw Nation of Ullyses perform in 1991 at a small club at the corner of Queen Street West and Niagara in Toronto. I thought they were fucking amazing and they had a look and sound that was so cool and fascinating.

Nation of Ullyses also seemed to be part of the culture that has a secret history. It's like unless you're part of a certain scene or generation...you don't hear or share or even understand why some people would believe the things they believe. I recently was introduced to a similar kind of subculture this month. I have always beeninto Hinduism and Buddhism and am more or less a recovering Buddhist of sorts. Okay, surely the worlds worst Buddhist...but it's there. And the influence of some prime concepts of Hindusim and Buddhism crossing over to counter-culture and mainstream culture has always been an interest of mine. For example a couple of years ago a fellow re-worked some basic concepts of Hinduism particularily about the "ego" and published a hugely popular book that became an Oprah selection. (A New Earth) Our Pilsen bookclub is not reading a book this month but instead watching a movie.

D.C. post-hardcore of the late '80s and early '90s, while undeniably awesome, could be a bit dire. Mapping out an exciting new musical territory informed by the energy of punk, the dedication of hardcore, and the tunefulness of pop, but doing it with furrowed brows and studious frowns, many D.C. bands of the era came perilously close to overdosing on earnestness. Which is why the Nation of Ulysses were so welcome. Fronted by the insistently sartorial, perfectly-coiffed, and unnervingly charismatic Ian Svenonius (Sassy Magazine's Sassiest Boy In America, 1991), the Nation of Ulysses were a five-man army spouting a revolutionary youth manifesto founded on sleep deprivation, parent destruction and insurrectionary separatism. It sounded cracked and brilliant, the product of over-caffeinated punks down with Situationalism, Futurists, Constructivists, classic soul, and raw garage power.

According to Svenonius, who has since fronted Cupid Car Club, The Make-Up, the Scene Creamers, Weird War, and most recently Chain and the Gang, and who graciously sat down with DCist recently to discuss the Nation of Ulysses, “The Nation of Ulysses really started as an ideological program before we ever struck a note of music…. We were really different…. We had a gang sensibility. We all lived together. It was more of a cult than a band. It was explicitly a political party. We were explicitly modeling ourselves on something like the Vice Lords, a gang from Chicago that became a political party.” From here

Nation of Ulysses' music was noisy and manic, but they also had a strong free-jazz influence. The group embodied a rejection of the 60's and 70's music and styling by rejecting drug use and advocating that punk youth dress nicely and sensibly. To this end, the liner notes of 13-Point Program to Destroy America states the band's aim "To dress well, as clothing and fashion, are the only things which we -- the kids -- being utterly disenfranchised, have any control over." Much of the band admitted to not knowing how to play their instruments well, stating "All you need is a concept. There's no reason you have to sound like Led Zeppelin."

Nation of Ulysses described themselves not as a rock 'n' roll group in the traditional sense, but "as a political party" and as "a shout of secession." Explaining their intent, Svenonius said "it's basically a new nation underground for the dispossessed youth colony. It's all about smashing the old edifice, the monolith of rock and roll."

Now what the hell does this disolved punk free-jazz band have to do with a movie our bookclub is discussing next week you ask? Well...because in some ways Nation of Ullyses was a "concept" band. They mixed idealistic and political values with their music and fashion and hopes. Recently there is another set of musicians doing a similar thing. In the oddest way...part of me is attracted to this kind of multi-tasking type of group because...let's face it...it reminds me of Buckaroo Banzai!!! Buckaroo Banzai was a physicist, a neuro-surgeon, a martial artist and a rock star! Yeah baby!

And lo and behold...maybe Ben Stewart is a little bit like Buckaroo Banzai.

Who is Ben Stewart you ask?



Hierosonic is an unsigned self-proclaimed "hybrid rock outfit" band composed of singer/guitarist Ben Stewart, guitarist Jarred Cannon, bassist Mike Stang, keyboardist Chad Adams, and drummer Mark Bohn.
Hierosonic, the "hybrid rock outfit" was formed in November of 2002 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Hierosonic was originally composed of Ben Stewart - singer/songwriter, Chris Bulick - guitar, Brandon Krotser - synthesizer/keyboard/backing vocal, Mike Stang - bass guitar, and Mark Bohn - drums. Hierosonic quickly became a popular local band. In 2003 the band recorded their first album, The Vision Cliff.
By the summer of 2003, Hierosonic was able to participate in the Battle of the Bands produced by Street Wise Promotions. The competition consisted of over 400 bands across the country. The band received the most votes and won the competition. As a prize, Hierosonic was able to play at the 2003 Lollapalooza in Seattle, Washington. They were able to play alongside with bands such as Jane's Addiction, Audioslave, Jurassic 5, The Donnas, Incubus, and numerous other bands.
After Lollapalooza, Hierosonic kept a lower profile. They toured closer to home, in states such as Ohio and parts of New England. However, by 2004, Hierosonic was looking into making some changes. The band ousted guitarist, and replaced him with their current guitarist, Jarred Cannon. Cannon had been in other local bands (Evensong), and had been a friend of the band prior to joining. From here

Okay...so here you have a "hydrid rock outfit" which osunds almost like either William Burroughs would come up with or Buckaroo Bonzai. The singer, Ben Stewart has been making movies with his brother and posting them on YouTube. Kymatica is the movie we've watched for our book club. It takes place over 9 YouTube installments making it an hour and half long. For the first two segments...I had a few problems with the choice of words they used for the narration. I believe the writers should have avoided words that are heavily rooted in "the establishment". I don't think the writers should have concerned themselves with aligning their opinions and spirituality with science. They use a lot of concepts which may or may not be scientifically "true"...and I think it weakens the feeling of getting into the movie...at least it did for me at first. Stagg however said he didn't have a problem with the narration in the beginning. So it was just me.

Kymatica is an interesting use of media to discuss the way social constructs might have influenced the way we live, think and even, question authority. I love it that these guys are out there trying to make something very very difficult. It is not easy to make a spiritual informed movie and avaoid it being preachy or cultish or corny. I would compare Kymatica to the movies What The Bleep, Contact, and Fearless although it is by far no where as professional or focused as those films...but it is a very interesting project.

Kymatica represents a counter-culture that has been building in North America at least since the 50's influenced by Herman Hesse, Howard Zinn, William Burroughs and New Age and popular cross overs of Transcendental Meditation and Indian Gurus. Is there a revolution going on? Is it possible that spiritual investigations about "the ego" would gain more attention via YouTube? As far as I can tell between two or three sites which play Kymatica a 100,000 viewers have watched all 9 segments. I think the movie has to be watched like any movie by playing the whole thing at once especially as the weakest installments, in my opinion, are the first three segments. The movie becomes more sucessful as it goes along. I think Ben Stewart, who is interviewed in last couple of reels is a compelling personality. Maybe not quite Buckaroo Bonzai...but damn I have a lot of respect for what he is trying to tackle. I'd really be interested in hearing if any visitors here check out this web mini-phenomenon. How do you feel about what the film suggests? Are the film makers sucessful in their goals? Does the movie make sense either intuitively or spiritually or politically to you?

You can watch the entire movie at YouTube or Facebook....here is the first segment...

Esther