the sun

AAAhhhhh, the sun, the astral being that defines our human timescale. The radiance and energy provided by the sun has caused it to become an object of worship. It has been my opinion that it makes more sense to worship the sun that it does to worship a god or gods. However the beauty of the sun is that it provides to us regardless of our reverence. It has no intelligence (that we know of or can be expressed to us) yet has created the conditions under which intelligence can exist.

revelations

This weekend I took LSD and MDMA and had the realization that my goal in life to be able to express everything I think and feel without being clouded by my ego. Essentially I want to be able to spread knowledge and ideas without making an ass of myself. This requires a mastery of language and an inner understanding of the mechanisms of my own mind. It will take a while to get to this point, and I may never get there, but nonetheless I think it's a noble and worthwhile personal goal.

love poem for the apocalypse part 2

"Apparently there is a great discovery or insight which our culture is deliberately designed to supress, distort and ignore. That is that Nature is some kind of minded entity. That Nature is not simply the random flight of atoms through electromagnetic fields. Nature is not the empty, despiritualized lumpen matter that we inherit from modern physics. But it is instead a kind of intelligence, a kind of mind." - Terence McKenna

Laying in a mildewed hammock

staring into the stars,

I prophesize the death of the universe

and listen to my thoughts

ramble endlessly

and when the white noise in my head clears

it becomes apparent -

It's time to escape the systems of old,

escape the present and ignore the future,

for time only leaves us in a

linguistic chaingang, a postmodern rut

To extract understanding

from the shattering fragments

of human language

that sit inside my cranium

To compose childlike games

from body language

to distract from the backbreaking

monotony of everyday life

It's time to burn down the sports bars.

to roam unselfconscious through

the jungles that created us,

for we are not are products of the

factory of mass-culture

but animals capable of infinite experience

dubstep: the music of the future?

In Allan Moore's classic 'graphic novel' Watchmen, the hyperintellectual superhero Ozymandias described 'dub' music as sort of music of the future, a "a sort of hybrid between electronic music and reggae. It’s a fascinating study in the new musical forms generated when a largely pre-technological culture is given access to modern recording techniques without the technological preconceptions that we’ve allowed to accumulate, limiting our vision." Using the fictional character Ozymandias' description one can imagine that he views dub as a sort of music of the future, a result of technological advances transcending the cultural barriers they set up, allowing progression in musical forms into styles unlike anything heard before. Dub, a genre which is practically responsible for the existence of the hip-hop DJ, continues to evolve into new forms to this day, it's most recent incarnation being in the form of 'dubstep'.

Dubstep is best known for it's obsessive focus on the bass and it's use of a whacked out 'wobbly' sound. Very popular in British clubs, it seems that the music is catching on in popularity in the States, where it's unconventional beats grace many remixes of popular artists. While dubstep is far from conventional dance music, it's beats seem to fuel the motions of many clubbers in a -frenzied and chaotic way that is even more removed from typical dancing than the freeform body shakes of ravers.

Dubstep is just as much about atmospherics as it is about beats however. Listening to records from dubstep artists such a Burial creates a feeling of urban degradation and suspense. There is little of the feel-good vibe of most dance music. In fact the sounds created in dubstep seem to best fit the vibe of cyberpunk writers like William Gibson.

The best way to experience dubstep at it's purest is to check out the recently released compilation '5:5 years of Hyperdub'. The compilation covers highlights of artists on the Hyperdub label in a way that exposes what dubstep is all about while sounding diverse at the same time. While this is far from a complete compilation of all essential dubstep releases, it certainly will leave a newcomer to the genre entranced. The more underground side of the genre is explored rather than the more club friendly side (called 'brostep' by some).

While dubsteps roots in trip-hop, dub, and other forms of dance music is apparent, it mutates these styles into something that at it's best sounds like nothing else. Because of this one could say the music points to the future, being unafraid to let go of the conventional and break rules. Dubstep is a fairly new form of music too, only existing as a style since the early 2000's. The future of the style is unclear, but one can only imagine it's impact on other forms of music and observe it's rise to prominence in modern music.

i had too much to dream last night

So it's me and my good buddies, and we decide to break into a house. Same kids who blew their minds with me on New Years actually, another aspect of this dream that fit well into my own life. The house is pretty damn big, one of those ritzy river houses where the wealthier side preside. I don't even remember why we broke into it, maybe it was just the spirit of the group to do something ridiculous.

We enjoy the house for a while, smoke some grass on the dock, go through the place and explore, but we don't steal anything. We don't find anything worth stealing. There really is no reason for us to be here, and in the world of dreams this is ok with me.

Finally the peeps who own the place show up. They see us and are furious, screaming yelling and all that jazz at us. I get that fear, the fear that comes with all the thoughts rushing through my head like "will they call the cops?" or "will they just shoot us and claim self defense because Florida law says that's the way to be?". I handle the situation well, making up some story to make it seem like we were here on accident and assured them we weren't stealing anything. I think I explained that we did this because of the book I was writing, which is funny because I had been up all night working on it, another synchronicity with my own life.

They're all still angry, but one of the guys takes me aside. He asks for my facebook, but I tell him i'll give him my email instead. Then he takes me into this room full of oriental like staircases of mindbending intricacy and we keep on walking until he takes me outside. There's a beach, but it's surrounded by water on both sides so it's an island. The waves surrounding us are intense and the guy, who seems to know connect with me in a way of companionship rather than anger simply lets the waves sweep him away. I'm afraid to let it happen to me, but I go with it and then I wake up...

...but not into a waking state, but yet another dream where I'm reading a Rick Griffin comic of my dream. I've been fairly obsessed with Rick Griffin recently in my life, so this is yet another synchronicity with my own life that makes this dream more interesting. The waves and Rick Griffin go together perfectly because of his obsession with surfing.

artists that need to come out with new albums:

1. The Black Angels. 'Directions To See A Ghost' was a modern psychedelic masterpiece, an indicator that the groups potential existed beyond their debut 'Passover'. It's about time that they're due to release a new album, and while I remember reading somewhere that they're working on one I've yet to see any further evidence of this. Hopefully I'm not just fantasizing.




2. Boards of Canada. If these two ghostly figures of modern electronic wizardry release a new album I'll probably explode in excitement. While some thought their last effort 'The Campfire Headphase' was disappointing, I saw it as a sign of further sonic exploration to come. However because of their elusive nature I doubt we'll hear very little about their next effort until it finally springs into existence. Until then I'll sit tranced out in my room worshiping Egyptian death gods to Geogaddi.



3. Dead Meadow. I know these guys have been playing shows (nowhere near my own state however, motherfuckers) and blowing minds like always, but it's been quite some time since they graced the world with a new release. Pretty much every album they've released has been noteworthy and unique in it's own way, while still maintaining the sound that seperates from the typical stoner rock herd.



Well, I guess you can say I'm pretty greedy when it comes to music. At least it's something I can get excited about something that's not self destructive.

"why are we sleeping?"

This song, by 1960's psychedelic rock pioneers The Soft Machine, has been a favorite of mine for quite some time. It was written and sung in a narrated style by the ever-so enigmatic Kevin Ayers, a musical personality that I have been often fascinated by. The lyrics are informed by the philosopher Gurdjieff, a Russian philosophy that Ayers credited as an influence.




The lyrics to 'Why Are We Sleeping' are far from typical rock'n'roll subject matter. They carry a heavily esoteric and mysterious mood, existing in a sort of atypical reality (which is common for Ayers' work).

It begins with a blessing, it ends with a curse
Making life easy by making it worse
"My mask is my master", the trumpeter weeps
But his voice is so weak, as he speaks from his sleep

Saying: "Why, why, why... Why are we sleeping?"

People are watching, people who stare
Waiting for something that's already there
"Tomorrow I'll find it", the trumpeter screams
And remembers he's hungry, and drowns in his dreams

Saying: "Why, why, why... Why are we sleeping?"

My head is a nightclub with glasses and wine
The customers dancing or just making time
While Daevid is cursing, the customers scream
Now everyone's shouting, "Get out of my dream!"

Saying: "Why, why, why... Why are we sleeping?"

Gurdjieff's philosophy is one that urges one to take a path of self-enlightenment, which involves the metaphorical removal from the state of 'sleep'. According to Gurdjieff, "Man lives his life in sleep, and in sleep he dies." In this state of sleep we are not conscious, we exist as drones unthinkingly going throughout life, trapped by our own subjective perceptions. If we are able to 'wake up' and escape this state of mind, then we can better understand ourselves and reality.



The path to awakening was described by Gurdjieff as the Fouth Way. It was titled this because other teaches either stressed the importance of the mind, the body or emotions, where Gurdjieff beleived that enlightenment could only be achieved by simultaneously working with the three. Music was an important part of the 'awakening', because it combines the three. Gurdjieff wrote ballets accompanied by sacred dances that were designed to bring participants into a state of transcendence, exiting the realm of sleep and awakening them into a state of self enlightenment.

Gurjieff's philosophy of self enlightenment through the search for higher consciousness speaks to me. To 'awaken' (in my own possibly naive interpretation) is to escape the mundane and passive and reach a state of being that is less ignorant of it's surroundings, thus better understanding one's self through it's relation to the environment.