Monday, May 18, 2009

Has it really been so long?


Oh man. So much has changed dude. I myself moved to Chicago. I gave up them cigarettes.
I'm working on a special new print project for Sequoia. Sorry it's take us so long to get around to it. I swear that we're still friends, I haven't forgotten about you.
Are we still cool? Whew. Thanks. Good to know you don't think I'm a jerk.

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

All Good Things Must Come To A Close I Suppose.

I'm reporting in to give my condolences and heart out to the fine folks at Punk Planet, who have just sent out the last issue of the magazine that I grew up reading. MMR and Heartattack were too centered on just the punk scene Punk Planet gave us younger folks in the Midwest (it was based in Chicago) a greater and wider world view. I'll miss waiting every two months for my issue in the mail.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

The Unspeakable Lifestyle

Living in southern California is a really difficult proposal for a Midwestern punk. The other day someone looked at me when told by someone else that I'm a punk. After an odd look they said, "Well you don't look like a punk", to which I responded, "Where I'm from you don't have to dress the part to be a punk it's about your ethic and view of the world.". Their response: "Well here if you're a punk it's kind of about dressing the part", My response: "Well there's a difference here, (whispered) I'm a grown-up.".

That being said I came to a great realization. I'm living amongst a generation of punks in Southern California who never had to grow up with the persecution of an older more conservative generation. Think about it, the Republicans in California are akin to Democrats in Kansas. Shit, Republicans even have tattoos here. They support issues that Republicans in the Midwest think are "Crazy Talk", STEM CELLS CAN DO WHAT!?!, "We can't do that those are gods babies! Let's send some more of "god's babies" off to die in order to save some Muslim heathen souls y'all, yee haw!
I'm just waiting for the day that:
1.) Fred Phelps is convicted for child pornography and caught masturbating to tapes of gay men having anal sex.
2.) For the Daughters of Jim Ryun or Sam Brownback to have a child out of wedlock that they no doubt conceived after being drunk at some vomit stained frat party and having sex in a hot tub in front of a bunch of other guys (hey it happened to a Mayor's daughter in Texas). Let's see how they deal with that situation, when she can't tell them who the father is.

All humor aside, what I'm really trying to say I think is that this generation of punks in California never had anything to fight against. I'm not talking about their parents, or saving a beach (which is a very important fight nonetheless). In Kansas and the surrounding Midwest we are still fighting the most Conservative Republican crazy people in the United States we are the home of Sam Brownback, Paul Barkey, Fred Phelps, Jim Ryun, and John Ashcroft (he actually thinks Calico cats are the "devil). We fight for reason and intelligence. We come from a magical land where evolution is considered a "fairytale" and we are all going to hell for being ourselves and succumbing to human nature, and where the arts are supported by severely limiting them. It something we fight Yearly, Daily and Hourly in an infinite flux.

A very smart man once said "On the coasts you have these great rivers of culture flowing in, the Midwest however has no river, so you have to dig the well yourself" in essence we created our own punk culture one not held by the bias of fashion or music. But rather it's founded on ideals, and I for one am proud to call myself a Midwestern Punk, and to be able to say that I'm still a punk, not because I'm following the latest MTV fashion trend. I'm a punk and played in punk rock bands because I still have something that is important to me, something that I'm willing to fight for. The punks I know protested unjust wars, marched against Fred Phelps and the rest of the anti-gay conspiracy and went to bat for too many more issues to list here.

I'm not saying that these folks aren't capable, they just haven't ever been faced with the issues that Midwestern punks had to grow-up through, one day they'll be hit by a very rude awakening. Just remember everyone, it is not morning in America, it's Midnight.


Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Resisting Californiation

Getting used to a new place is always a difficult process, getting used to San Clemente, CA is no different. To a newcomer it seems as though in this part of the world the issues that cloud the political landscape simply disappear. Not in the literal sense, they just don't affect these folks. It's nice that there's a place that the negativity of the world doesn't affect.

However, what worries me is that if the "real world"(*1) creeps in it may destroy this view of the outside world that these great folks in this town have come to appreciate and embrace. This isn't to say that they don't have issues that are concerning to them. They just happen to be, the environment which is important to all and must be looked after. What I think I'm trying to convey is that they need to be gently exposed to the harsh realities of the world that surround them. or perhaps it's just me (*2) focusing on the negative. Perhaps I just need to be exposed to more of the residents of my little burg.


*1-I really dislike the use of the term the "real world" in negative context, my "real world" is quite nice actually. Where I'm nice to people and they're nice to me in return.

*2-I've always been slightly cynical and morbidly minded.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

The Destruction of Everything Through Construction

I'm coming to the realization that the world is being destroyed by things such as construction and hyper-materialism. Al Burian said it best, "End it for me before it all becomes white walls and shitty carpet.".





Buildings are going up everywhere destroying the beautiful fragile chaos that is the world, and replacing it with astringent, ordered ugliness. Worlds made of glass and metal, pulled from the earth yet not beautifying it. While I was raised to believe that ugliness can be beautiful. Skyscrapers are hideous monoliths, false mountains. That's really it, isn't it? Mankind playing king of the mountain with nature. We've ostracized ourselves from nature. Maybe we never were part of the natural world, we just evolved into a virus, or a better analogy would be weeds. Pulling all of the nutrients from the earth and leaving nothing. I fear to say that it might be too late.

Monday, November 27, 2006

When the Goldfinch Roosts After Restlessness.


Do you ever get the feeling that you're floating? I do. Constantly. I find myself flying around the room like a Goldfinch. It usually happens when I'm trying to fall asleep amid the dead quiet of night, when I can hear trains that are several miles away and the street in the front yard is dead quiet.
I guess I should really be starting at the beginning. I don't sleep very well. Never mind you who I am; that is if little importance and beyond the portal of sleep inconsequential. We do not own our dreams. Our dreams our borrowed real estate. We build things on them, maybe a house, a belief or a hope, but how long can we hold them until we lose them? I once heard someone say that sleep is a genius notion. It allows us to slip into ourselves and see who we truly are.
We are not who we think we are though. We are God's creations. Mailable flesh formed over bones that we believe to have been relics of people who were not saints. From the beginning of time we were not perfect. It's not our fault; not his, nor hers. It's a flaw in the design; we were not built for eternity as we are. We must be reminded of what it was that they learned so long ago; that we are not perfect. We can not live forever.
It seems that we are born without this concept. We drink wine and break bread and talk about the fact that we oxidize with time and become fragile. Some of us become fragile when we are young and some of us live long and fulfilling lives; the tricky part is that we don't know which we have. Neither does anyone else. Which is why I lay in bed and can not sleep. And I think about the dreams that I do not touch. They are worse than films; a film we can handle, rewind and examine. Dreams we can not; they are not tangible, yet we talk about them as things that belong to us.
Waking means that we have to give them up. It means that we have to practice being alive. we have to experince pain, trust, love and forgiveness. I don't know that we can really ever touch these things either, however, they can be gifted, transfered and accepted.
They are also the most difficult things we have. Difficult to understand, accept and give. we can not put them on a shelf and look at them. We doen't truely know if they can be saved for posterity. We can't even see them in the literal sense. The best we can do is to have faith that they do indeed exist. This is what makes them difficult. We have to look harder for evidence of these things in the world.
It's there. Miles Davis. Fingers.Sideways glances. Gentle smiles. this is a list that could go on and on. These are things that are here for us in all the moments when we become scared and unsure about the intangible things of this world. they are also things that help us heal heart and scars. They also help us fall asleep. ?They are God's creations, his gifts. They are what he gives us so that we can stop thinking in the middle of the night when we can't sleep. When I remember that these things exist I feel better about things. I know that I don't have to understand the world. I can't understand the world. There is no need to because just exploring it's possibilities can be enough.
When I feel myself flying around the room like a Goldfinch, I think of these things and I know that I am not alone in the world, even if I am lonely. I have the majesty of the simple things of the world. And if I can't call asleep I can go outside, let the dense, cold November air into my lungs and know that it is good to weighed down by the world. It is exactly that weight that lets me know that the world is not for me alone and I don't need what dreams may come to let me know that I am alive. There is nothing that I really need to do but open my eyes to the wonderment of what I will se in the short time that I will be here.