Howl in the new year!

What I Wish We Had, Now

Here's a partial recording from a live performance at Smokin' Aces taken last night...by Phillip Smythe's Dad! The lyrics to these videos are in the descriptions on YouTube if you'd like to read them.

Hey Girl,

A) Admit that Ryan Gosling is dreamy.

B) Click this link. http://fuckyeahryangosling.tumblr.com/

C) Your argument is invalid.

iTunes, Amazon, & a bunch of other sites

My friends, you can get a special rate for a digital download or do it per song.

If you have iTunes you can listen to a 1:30 of each song while you make your decision to purchase.

Check this link out! Or search for The Freshwater, Last Year's Ghosts in your iTunes!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/last-years-ghosts/id411102082

Also, you can hear the full version of the songs, AND get a free download, by checking out this site - http://www.facebook.com/TheFreshwaterMusic

This page has a funny animation that was made for me, and will have all sorts of updates as the new year peels away new layers of creativity. I hope you enjoy it all. Good luck in all your endeavors, let 2010 be the Ghost it is.

Adieu.

Selah.

Jaba-no-batta.

Stay With Me

A little afterwork special from last night recorded by my friend Phillip Smythe.

Defeat.

Defeat, my Defeat, my solitude and my aloofness; You are dearer to me than a thousand triumphs, And sweeter to my heart than all world-glory.

Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance, Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot And not to be trapped by withering laurels. And in you I have found aloneness And the joy of being shunned and scorned.

Defeat, my Defeat, my shining sword and shield, In your eyes I have read That to be enthroned is to be enslaved, and to be understood is to be levelled down, And to be grasped is but to reach one’s fullness and like a ripe fruit to fall and be consumed.

Defeat, my Defeat, my bold companion, You shall hear my songs and my cries an my silences, And none but you shall speak to me of the beating of wings, And urging of seas, And of mountains that burn in the night, And you alone shall climb my steep and rocky soul.

Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage, You and I shall laugh together with the storm, And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us, And we shall stand in the sun with a will, And we shall be dangerous.

-Kahil Gibran

Lovin'

Sometime last year, in a conversation with an old friend and once roommate, I sighed the admittance to myself that I was in fact, a 'Romantic'. Why it makes me sigh is beyond me, but maybe that's just how us Romantics are.

Regardless, I am terrified of marriage due to two divorces I've seen first hand and been shrapnel in. The image of a terrific love story then is clouded by romantic comedies and some straight romantic plays and novels and various media. The latter is a terrible formation for anyone who is a romantic - ironically I'm sure both of these are what fostered the deep rooted desire for a Love, whilst simultaneously leaving me with some terrible tools to do just that.

As time goes on however, I learn and see how dastardly I've been; and not just to others, but even when considering how I allowed myself to be treated - which is really just a reflection of how I treated myself. Alas, one must truly learn to love oneself before they can adequately fulfill the commandment to "Love one another like you love yourself". Then it comes to forgiving oneself, laughing at ones attempts, and having some genuine affection for the sincere effort one put in over and over.

That being said, I am and have been for a bit over a year, learning about love - and I'm certain that this training never ends, yet is continually enriched - especially considering that as a Catholic being able to reflect the purity of God's love in my fibers is the most intelligent way to live my life. Like the end of the book, 'The Great Divorce' by CS Lewis, "Keep going further up and further in!". Here of course I am not speaking of that Love, but one aspect of that Love, which is to say, Romantic love (also 'The Four Loves' by CS Lewis is pretty worthwhile).

Here then, I will share with you something from my romantic. I came across this on my favorite blog (i check the damn thing like it's crack) - Sid Ceaser put together a short film that was screened during the previews at a movie theater which him and his now fiancée frequent. Oh, and he did it using Muppets that he custom ordered to bear resemblance to the couple. What a cool way to ask someone to hang out with you indefinitely. I love it.

Watch the preview here and see the couple below the video to see what they really look like! Cool story yeah?

Sid & Sara

The Tree of Life

- The Space Between -

Revelation.

Naked singularities are an exotic prediction of Einstein's Theory of Relativity. They start as ultra-dense fireballs thought to form when a massive dying star (four to five times heavier than our Sun) exhausts its nuclear fuel (Supernovas) and collapses under its own weight. They are so massive that neutron degeneracy cannot hold them together, and so they go beyond even being a tiny but immensely massive neutron star. They continue folding in on themselves, collapsing again and again till they are infinitely small singularities, so dense that they begin sucking in the world around them. The reason they are called Naked Singularities is because they should be able to be seen by the naked eye of any one who wants to see.

But remember, they start out exploding "Like spiders across the stars" - Kerouac. Of course they are just exploding around themselves, a relationship with a star that near by would be much different when considering the final stages of a massive stars life - or even it's daily existence - however like Jack K, we will use that quote more figuratively and for it's imagery.

The last book in the Roman Catholic Bible is called Revelation, and is also known as Apocalypse. The sky's will be aflame. Spiders across the sky. And in the end, there will simply be left another rip in space and time, a black hole - whose determined natural function is for the life and worlds around it to fall hopelessly into it in an instant, though it will seem they are forever suspended in time; in the end then, as always it is, and always it has been - it will all be an unabashedly naked singularity.

I like to read the first verse and the last verse in the Bible. Gen 1:1 and Rev. 22:21. I like to do this periodically because in a few moments I read the start and finish of everything as believed by my own faith (I'm not sure where this is placed theologically so I do not want to ascribe this thinking to the teaching of Mother Church). I see those two verses, and inevitably, I am flooded full, as if a tide has come in, with snapshots of my life from India, through the continents I've lived on, through my studies, through my friends new and old, through the dreams of my future and the confusions of my present and the perspectives on 'reality' all in an instant. It's an effort actually to try and elongate this period of rapid uncontrolled reflection - as if my own soul explodes for a moment, or begins preparing to supernova or nova one day (we can hope it is a nova so it may end as a white dwarf versus a black hole).

I then think of the world that isn't just me, which is to say, the world! Every other thing which comes to mind, till I even begin having this feeling of dancing perilously at the edge of a cliff where I begin seeing my thoughts also as not my own - but of one who I am only a part of. A part who is wholly me, yet who I am wholly not, but only a part of. It is about then that I either fall or explode or come off the edge or whatever synonym you may find most palatable. The whole story of time as perceived by humanity exists between those two verses. Everything we know, ever can know, ever will know, and whatever developments in science and math and art and argument, etc. etc. etc. fall somewhere in between those two verses; all wars, births, marriages, evils, starts and finishes, every single thing which we as humans here will ever, ever be or have been or are - falls in between those two verses.

In the end then, after everything that has happened and will happen, all our worries and triumphs - everything will become part of a naked singularity. I mean this not as theoretical astronomy, that in fact the universe will fall back into itself only to 'big-bang' again (one theory) - but rather theoretically and figuratively theologically. That in the end, as in all things in some ways - at the finish, we see nakedly what it all was singularly. Whether what we see is reality or not I will not attempt to begin discussing, because I am not arguing what reality is - rather what we see, one way or another, to bring ourselves closure on things, is with a nakedness. Often more so a nakedness of ourselves during that period of time - one may even call this humility - but that also I can not intelligently speak to here. So in the end, all of humanity, everything we are to one another, is set to be revealed so unabashedly and simply that we may call all things at once - a naked singularity. And so maybe it is said,

"The Grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen." - Revelation 22:21.

And The World, Spins Madly On

Mind Blowing

I don't like gore, I hate gore frankly - despise it. I cannot in fact say enough to express my utter distaste for it. I hate evil, I hate suffering. These are the things that make my day to day life difficult to understand. Why am I so lucky when so-and-so is dying at the hands of a cog in the wheel of capitalism? Why am I allowed to fall in love while another becomes a slave to prostitution? So on and so on.

That being said, I was quite leery of watching a show where blood is used in the marketing. As the year has progressed however, I've become more and more accustomed to a habit which started about a year ago - taking advice; and let me say more accurately, taking advice from people whose advice I trust.

But this pitch is going on too long, and isn't even that compelling frankly - my purpose is to gain your trust - and thereafter hope you will give season one of Dexter a chance. I cannot guarantee your satisfaction, but I can express my own. It's remarkable television. Some could say groundbreaking, though I don't feel comfortable giving it too many artistic titles and strokes; it's simply entertaining and really well written. Specifically Season One.

Go on, git.

"I suppose I should be upset, even feel violated, but I'm not. No, in fact, I think this is a friendly message like, "Hey, wanna play?" and yes, I want to play. I really, really do."

- Dexter Morgan

Play me out Dave Davies

My makeup is dry and is cracked on my chin
I'm drowning my sorrows in whisky and gin
The lion tamer's whip doesn't crack anymore
The lions they won't fight and the tigers won't roar

So let's all drink to the death of a clown
Won't someone help me to break up this crown
Let's all drink to the death of a clown
Let's all drink to the death of a clown

The old fortune teller lies dead on the floor
Nobody needs fortunes told anymore
The trainer of insects is crouched on his knees
And frantically looking for runaway fleas

Let's all drink to the death of a clown
So won't someone help me to break up this crown
Let's all drink to the death of a clown
Let's all drink to the death of a clown

I stay totally, fucking, radical.

10 years in 1:25

Just awesome.

Kind of Blue

Jazz is a very good, and an arguably important form of music which I believe one should acclimate themselves with; and Miles Davis is a nice place to start.

It's the first day of snow in Dayton Ohio!

let's celebrate

My Brother

is boss

My Brother

Rules.