Category Archives: Politics

politics

second post from 2 year ago, on hating.

Second post from my tumblr, from some time in 2012, 2013.

on the (non)-wiseness of hating the haters via facebook…
for a long long time, I’ve acted “just like” the republicans and conservatives and christians that I have “kinda come to hate” thanks to um, the internet, life, erection cycles (election, that is) and well, I dunno, other reasons as well.

I have kinda taken on some of the characteristics of them pundits myself, on facebook.

I’m hateful, of them.

A kind friend this week was kind enough to point out that me doing this is kinda waste of my time and energies, I should be making music, and that doing this hating is just sad.

Were he an authority figure, an “adult” (I’m 37, so what the fuck)
a “normal person”, or someone from “back home”, especially if were one of the hated (see above,) I’d have gotten way defensive and didactic and been a pain in his ass and been way stubborn. But now.

I trusted this guy.

cause I believe him to be what I am, that is, a Crazy Artist from CalArts of course.

we had a totally public conversation on a facebook thread (158 comments.)

in which I mentioned what I am calling

“the Backwards-Bizzaro-Theory.” I’ll get to that some other time.

Well, as a result of his kindness or whatever,

I’ve ACTUALLY tried, since then, to not spend as much time posting political opinions, and to not get real angry with the repubs and the christians and those who are different than I, a tough task I should say.

and, somehow, though there are other factors in this as well,

I actually wrote music last night. first time in a while.

I play music, yes.

let us play music.

bout time I stopped stopping myself from doing that which is my purpose, so to speak.

yes then. and now.

The Hurt Locker, 1

the ideas in this post need clearer explanation. I’ll get to that some time.

A post about the film THE HURT LOCKER.
SPOILER ALERT! DON’T READ THIS till you SEE IT!!
seriously!




ready? ok.

the first time I saw the end, when he goes back… I felt what I imagine was intended, kinda shock and horror at how a man could become addicted to the adrenaline rush that they feel in a war.

but every time since,

I have felt, shall we say, something else.

as he is walking in slow motion, and then it jump cuts to him in the suit… with that super loud THRASH music…

I feel who is anyone to judge anyone for what is best for them in life…

there are things about life that I love very much (not war, no.)
sometimes, as in the case of The Dude from The Big Lebowski….
sometimes there’s a man… and… he’s the man, for his time and place.

ADHD is not “addiction, for one.
I am not addicted to war, no.
but there are things that I find “highly stimulating.”
fortunately, for me, they are mostly music, not some ‘foreign substance, i.e, a drug” that I put in my system.

nobody can tell me, nor indeed anyone,
that they shouldn’t be this way, that they shouldn’t get “what they need”, in “their” amount and in a way of “their” choosing. (albeit, if it’s really drugs we are talking about, and I’m not sure it is…. it might or might not change the equation.

I mean, is adrenaline a drug?

is developing tolerance for things, adrenaline included, bad?

who’s to say?
(this is why a film wins best picture, in ambiguities like these.)

certainly not “normal people.” anymore than someone different is to say that “normal people” are doing it wrong. though, we may often think so, I certainly do.

All I am saying is that when I see Sgt. James walking in Iraq, in slow motion at the end of the film…. in the suit….

having nothing to do with America, or War or anything… Edmund, I didn’t take any pro or anti-us stuff from the film, was on a different level for me, as you can see)

I felt empowered. very very VERY MUCH.

to this day, I get a BIG rush in that last scene (see above… it’s High Stimulation.)

not because of war. I was against our invasion or Iraq.

because sometimes people need to do what’s right for THEM, regardless of how it might appear to others.

this is why a film wins best picture. because of ambiguities like these.

In High Stimulation we trust.

p.s. this is all about MUSIC, and MY FEELING that people have often not been in sync with, not understood, my tastes, and the comparatively extreme nature of my musical tastes, to others’.

I love Wagner, West African Drumming of various kinds, Minimalism by Steve Reich and Philip Glass, James Brown, Jazz, and many other things too.

sometimes I like to hear the same thing over and over for hours.
sometimes I hear the same thing over and over in MY HEAD, automatically, for hours.
sometimes I love playing music for hours…. sometimes I like doing it until I’m dead tired and can’t drive home (but have to anyway… coffee…)

High Stimulation Music is life. for me.

so again, this post was not about war… it was about me, and music, which somehow, I saw in the last scene of the Hurt Locker.

(Incidentally, there are Tritones in the chords of this music…. pimp)

Topic Begin: PRESENTATION AND IMAGE

there are several reasons but ONE of them is
when people TALK and ACT like professionals, and yet, in truth, they turn out to be full of shit, and a shit-ton less competent than me, who despises talking and acting professional.
I was deeply offput, (sp!) more than once, when I saw some percussionist long ago, many many years, who presented themselves like that, and as principle percussion of so and so symphony (a tiny tiny one in a tiny tiny town, it turns out.)
I was frankly “offended” by them, and the musical director, when they allowed this person to play the same pieces I had played, and they played them way less well than I did.
I was more offended that they presented themselves in this way when they were not deserving of it.
a clear elevation of presentation and image over substance.
I say again
a clear elevation of presentation and image over substance.
UN-ACCEPTABLE!!!!!!!!!
I wonder how much of “the root” of my revulsion against normalcy, presentation, image, and professionalism, this particular incident played.
(it can’t have been all that much, the roots of those things in me go back to the 70s.)

paying for subscriptions is wrong

I think it is pretty wrong to charge for “subscriptions” to things. I ain’t payin for no such thing. not with something like music. or videos. it seems to me “entirely evil” to charge on an ongoing basis for “access” to something that you should be able to buy, own, and KEEP, once off, particularly if this has been the way it always HAS been. capitalism is not supposed to be regressive in this way.

I mean, is this how spotify works? (I honestly do not know yet.)

I thought it was wrong when cell phones did it. you should pay for what you use, no more.