Where I've Been

Here's a little practice



I'm not from around here/ and you don't know where I've been/ all that you see surround me/ is something I'm passing through as I begin//Don't you understand what I'm doing?/I'm learning how to let you in/ it's dangerous I know I could affect you/ it's something we're passing through till it ends//I'm not from around here/ and you don't know where I've been/ all that you see surround me/ is something I'm passing through as I begin//Do you understand me now?/ I want to be close or I'll go without/ as a man growing wise shows you the love in his eyes/ baby you brought my heart back to life//I'm not from around here/ and you don't know where I've been/ all that you see surround me/ is something I'm passing through as I begin//I'm not from around here/ and you don't know where I've been/ all that you see surround me/ is something I'm passing through as I begin.

Ima do this now

really, the 4:13 mark, really, seriously.

Be Jolly

Christmas is coming.

Strong?

So you've all seen this right? If you're not in America, welcome to out politics. Beautiful because we can say pretty much anything, and even lampoon it- -at least to a greater degree than most countries (or is that just what we're fed to believe here...?). Sad, because we're speaking about everything that doesn't matter and the idea of service is lost in a sea of vapid and feigned concern.

So if you haven't watch, this.

Then I find this as a response on line.

Today, or yesterday, I was swimming around thoughts about how the internet is one of the newest, and also last places that we can exchange ideas so amazingly and so freely. It's like how the idea of Humanism in the 15th and 16th centuries got such a boom by the advent of Guttenburg's printing press. It's like that, on steroids that take steroids themselves.

Materialistic Malaise

New Homes

I live here now.

On Time

I don't know why I write less here. I used to love it, oh man I LOVED it. I used to have plans for what to write. Didn't even know if people would read them, but loved it. "Last Years Ghosts" is done, what a romp out that was. I say that because the new album is coming near completion. I may even add another song, but I think by March certainly I can have it up on iTunes, Amazon, Google music, etc. Plus of course the physical copies.

The muses don't change. They've been at this since antiquity--do I really expect them to make room for someone else to take their role? "I can't say that I loved you, but I miss you everyday." I can't imagine the hours that went into this site, life was different then. Like Bob Dylan plays when I think back to times gone by, when Ghosts walked around in flesh and blood, "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."

I wonder if my three or four dead friends think of me, if I am a ghost they fondly recall only the romance of? Is it that I, romantic first before anything, meet only the practical? Or that if I was to meet the romantic, it sparks my own practicality? It seems that the issue is boundaries. Oh psychology, will you try and ruin all mystery?

They hang up over me, sometimes walking besides me. Nearly everything relates back to them some how--'they' being those gone. I want to love those who are alive, like those who are dead to me. I have a great opportunity in the set of friends I have now. They are incredible revisions of the previous stories. Two men, one woman. To stand them near one another, two groups of three, would be wild to witness. Oh, how different these two groups are. I suppose I needed different teachers, a new environment. It's moving, without moving. Instead of Nashville, Pittsburgh, instead of the priesthood, the secular life as a doctor of theology. Instead of a writer, a nurse.

It's amazing, to list out--the former having across the board what I've romanticized prior to meeting them, the latter, everything that allows me the room to grow into my own being. The roles I play are different, but it's also where I've come from, I used to be "so much older then, I'm younger than that now," remember; I am less sure of things, and the things I'm sure of, I'm certain that it's okay to be sure of.

For instance: I have an account, as do you, and we are both unaware of how much has been put into that account for us. All we know is that it is being transacted from constantly and that we have no way to hoard it's contents or to make more of it; we don't even control the rate at which it's being transacted from! The only choice we have is how to spend it. Obviously, I'm talking about time here.

I'm sure of time, rather, that my time, my lifespan, my waking life, is finite. The year 2064 is the year of my death if I live to 80 (though I'm going to live to be 102). That's real. That's a real year, and somewhere in that year, the date and time of my last breath may exist; barring of course, the sword that forever hangs at my neck from a spiders thread, falls to cut my account even shorter--but that's exactly it--I have no clue how much is in this account!

I've already decided I will most likely not deplete it all at one time, but I also don't want to waste what I have. As such, I've become hyper selective about how I spend these funds, and work towards having ever more freedom in dictating how I spend this resource.

The twenty minutes I typed this? Done, spent. I now have twenty less minutes to live the rest of my life. Everything is evaluated from this baseline. At least for now. I am a restless sort, not quick to settle into comfort and say, "This is enough." I'm pleased with what I have, so everything is 'enough' in that sense, I've seen children mistreated due to birth, watched starvation first hand and been helpless to affect it--everything is 'enough' (on that note btw, click this link, THIS ONE)

So I suppose a half hour is enough time, I'd say well spent. I have a renewed appreciation for change (a lesson I think is wise to embrace and re-embrace again and again), a renewed thankfulness for my work, for my freedom within what can feel confining, for the players in my life who help me accept what love may look like outside of my own biased, self-protecting construct, for my fingers, my synapses, etc. etc. etc. lots of things, man, my heart, my name.

Thanks for transacting from your account to spend freely here. I hope it was well spent. See you before the sword falls perhaps.

Threats of Love / The Manipulation of Infatuation.

It's slowly starting to creep in. The old wisps of black smoke, curling in and around me; such a seductive ghost. She holds my attention till she can crawl into my nostrils and flood my bloodstream, blot out my vision and show me what she wants me to see clearly. Oh darling, where have you been. I want to ravage her -- hand me the knife; to tear you apart and weep passionately for months. This old smoke, this old dragon, you old flame. My curling mouth says she's getting in, my quickening breath is almost a pant. I remember, I remember. Who is she? One who doesn't exist. Did she ever exist - but for living eternally? This smoke, this seductress, this woman, this sorceress, divining lunacy. How many expressions will you impel? Grabbing hold at the base of my skull, shaking free exaltation like gushing bile? Oh but it's so sweet. Sickening me, infiltrating my veins, tearing up my insides; you push me till I bleed out art. My ribs are cracked from heaving mercilessly, she loves hating the power she has inside me.

I'm only in your memory, and if you try and blot me out, even if you succeed -- I will always remember.

I met a young woman whose body was burning.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son ? / And what did you hear, my darling young one ?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin'/ I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin' / I heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin'
I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin' / Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley / And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard / And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

-B. Dylan

Maybe I'm not Listening.

My Master, my Slave.

My fear wards over me, threatening me with a lifetime of regrets and unhappiness if I do not live in my dreams--which is to say, even in pursuit of them. This life is my slave till it takes from me all it gives.

"Bad! Bad! What? Is he not going - backwards?' - Yes! But you ill understand him if you complain about it. He goes backwards as everyone goes backwards who wants to take a big jump"

- Nietzsche, Beyond Good & Evil

The Mad Ones

iThankyou

"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

- Steve Jobs

Goal orientated

Have confidence in yourself.

Formulate a plan of action.

Follow through.

Thanks Internet, I couldn't have done it without you.

I am on my way, I am on my way....

You may as well be warned, you're going to love this.

If you find that you don't--make sure you still have a pulse.

You're welcome. We're all welcome! Gosh I love it!

Hey, baby

“The proper time to influence the character of a child is about a hundred years before he is born.”

— William Ralph Inge

Forever Young

The cool thing about heroes and one's age is, they (the heroes) keep the same age. The appreciation for them extends beyond the dream of having their powers, or being like them, to an appreciation for one's own youth. There is also, during this moment, a foreshadowing of the future self, looking back upon the reflective, middle-youth it once was.

A hero reflects the greatest in us, it is nice to live in a world of these myths. DC and Marvel (in my opinion more so DC) is an institution, there are now generations who know no world without these characters alive. Kind of like anyone who recently turned a legal 'adult' and knows no world without the Simpsons. One day maybe we'll look upon the 'Infinite Crisis' series like the stories of the Mahabharata...

As the ravages of 'groundhog years' which force one to either succumb, or tackle their own tolerance for ambiguity, grind the youthful hope and belief in ourselves, founded on nothing in particular, which sent us sky-rocketing, daringly into any situation, down to a powdery chalk-we see contemporaries yolked with the dreams and ideals simply because they're too busy to chase them...because groundhog day awaits.

I told all this to a Madman, and he told me I need to work on my run on sentences and comma usage, then he said that it was "Better to look like a fool, than feel like one," and so I began sinking into the Sea of Ambiguity, and learning to swim.

Aaaaand, we're back.

What up internet.

"Last night, I was on the threshold of hell. Today, I am within sight of my heaven. I have my eyes on it: hardly three feet to sever me!"

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body

-Pablo

A Sense of Touch

There it is, still standing, in the shadows of the mountains.

The Red Hot Revival

Pentecost, at any cost

The Colbert Report

Collaborative stop-motion sculpture

MÖBIUS from ENESS on Vimeo.

Beggin'

So you'll have to forgive some of the video (and some of it is pretty awesome), but the song is super boss. Contemporary music which can hang with the classics which birthed its genre is how I personally validate something as "Super Boss"---the word "good" also suffices.

Mostly just the milk drinking and ninja kick are weird, but maybe I just don't get it. Considering the gyration of hips 'over the top' says more about me than the gyration I suppose.

If at first you don't succeed.

I hate how much I try. I am falling into hate; a dark cynicism is digging its roots in with a tighter grip into the dirt of my mind. My heart's beat weakens and clarity is leaving my eyes—you can’t help me, and I can’t promise I can help myself--how I wish I could.

I can’t even pray confidently for it to pass right now. The fruits of its branches ripen and fall, and burst in throws of anger and rage, this fear isn’t going away at all anymore—and it promises to leave me alone in my old age. I am too tired to find another hatchet right now; and if found--then what? Another set of hack, hack, hack. Spit, chew. Hack, hack, hack.

It doesn't go down; the attempts against her, the black tree, dark and suffocating, work like antibodies that viruses become accustomed to--my attempts make her stronger, and weaken

me. My heart's beat grows quieter and is slowing down, the clarity is leaving my eyes.

Then, there's Somalia. Famine by definition must be at least 10 child deaths daily attributed to malnutrition for a set period of time. You live in a world that has created a definition for famine. Maybe it all stems from an unspoken fear of death. What does it matter if I have tangible evidence of my youth for my children? What if I have no children? Why must I need tangible

evidence to prove I once existed and had a mind?

This is probably back with my Grandmother. She was completely undignified for the last eleven years of her life. Her only real joy and pride seemed to come from watching her old movies. Unable to clean herself or even ask for what she wanted, it was when she would see herself a youth, acting a villain that I would watch her joy emerge.

My Grandfather on my fathers side, K.N. Singh. He had a family, but he bed my Grandmother on my Fathers side (not the same as the one above) and created my Father, who for his life called him "uncle". A piece of film picked out of his long career spanning 15 seconds or so is still taught in Indian Acting schools today.

I've lost my train of thought, too many distractions. Hack. Hack. Hack.

L'amour fou

"Some men have passion for horses, others for birds, others for wild beasts; but I from childhood have been possessed by a passionate longing to acquire books"

- Julian the Apostate

it drags the strength from my body

I feel a weakness i can't understand.

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/07/famine-in-east-africa/100115/

Love me tender, love me true

"Solitude is an ocean, and wisdom is her queen."

-Madness

A Sigh

Sometimes, only at 28 years of age, I feel like I gave up on life "when I was younger".

I also sometimes, sometimes, think I'm not nearly 'cool enough' --meaning that I gave up on voraciously following my interests and now have tarnish over my talents, with no time to scrub if off and shine.

Most of the time I think I think of myself too much.

God save me from myself.

Sigh.

Also please note, the translation is incorrect in the video. What they are saying is, "Hey friend, these are for you"

A Prayer

A prayer, Madeleine Peyroux from pomerenge on Vimeo.

Lord
I must be strong now
I don't belong now
In this world anymore

I'll say a final prayer for
Those I care for
Who've kept my company

My destiny is clear
I'm dying to have you near
To me

Lord
I don't belong now
If you are waiting
I am not afraid to die

I'm prepared to go
Divide my body and soul
Won't you

Lord
I won't be long now
If you are waiting
I am not afraid to die

Have mercy, Lord
I'm told it's paradise
To have and to hold you

Lord
I must be strong now
I don't belong now
In this world anymore

Lord
I won't be long now
If you are waiting
I am not afraid to die

-Madeleine Peyroux

Heart Beat

Two dozen other dirty lovers
Must be a sucker for it
Cry, Cry, but I don't need my mother
Just Hold My hand while I come
To a decision on it

Sooner or later
Your legs give way, you hit the ground
Save it for later
Don't run away and let me down
Sooner or later
You hit the deck, you get found out
Save it for later
Don't run away and let me down
You let me down

Black air and seven seas and rotten through
But what can you do?
I don't know how I'm meant to act with you lot
Sometimes I don't try
I just now, now, now, now ,now .....

Two dozen other stupid reasons
Why we should suffer for this
Don't bother trying to explain them
Just hold my hand while I come
To a decision on it

Two dozen other dirty lovers
Must be a sucker for it
Cry, Cry, but I don't need my mother
Just Hold My hand while I come
To a decision on it

Sooner or later
Your legs give way, you hit the ground
Save it for later
Don't run away and let me down
Sooner or later
You hit the deck, you get found out
Save it for later
Don't run away and let me down
You let me down

Black air and seven seas and rotten through
But what can you do?
I don't know how I'm meant to act with you lot
Sometimes I don't try
I just now, now, now, now ,now .....

Two dozen other stupid reasons
Why we should suffer for this
Don't bother trying to explain them
Just hold my hand while I come
To a decision on it

-----

Sometimes there is little else better than an 80's music video. Contrasted with today's videos, these are just gold. A whole new world, where videos somehow had to lend themselves to the song. It's amazing to see where we come from, I really enjoy that aspect.

Isn't it amazing how little it matter what we like or what we go through, except in regards to our continual formation in either response or reaction to circumstance? And even then, that matters for only two possible reasons, neither of which I have time to rattle on about now.

So, I guess, I'm saying I'll save it for later.

Come on baby, come on and work it all out

First Contact

This is straight up awe inspiring (awesome and sweet are too overused though good descriptions). I'd like to think we would react similarly to first contact--however I question our sense of peace.

It's also a good reminder that we can live without fashion magazines, and how incredible the conveniences of modern day are (like the camera, internet, and matchbook).

Dig on it. It's one of the few videos which you'll hesitate to fast forward through; be warned, the music selected for it is pretty lame-that is admittedly subjective.

Hope you enjoy, let me know what you think.

My Back Pages

Girls’ faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

-Bob Dylan

On a related note

Drip drip drip

An old associate with whom I am soon going to meet asked me today via Facebook email how my morning was today (I had a 7:30 meeting). This was my quick response to him -

"it was okay. the moments we got to go stand in the sun and look out over the green as old people and the wealthy middle aged drove their golf balls for the love and improvement of their ability were some of the finest moments in reminder that the whole world is forever just moving on, and that we are simply caught up in those waves--though most of us, especially with the advent of casual social media usage would like to think ourselves a wave unto ourselves--but watching those people drive balls over a manicured lawn while the sun warmed the concrete and my black suit just reminded me that, at best, we are water, whipped into waves by the air currents of history and the shifting plates of time."

Sometimes, I know the first sentence is sufficient, but I still go on.

As a wave then I crash and leave a momentary mark on the sand (with whom I am in love remember?) recede and take some of it with me, only to bring it back in new form, and so on and so on. This isn't quite rebirth, it's more life and death.

See, even in this post.

I one day may see how much I used to speak and know why.

Back to Plotinus.

Evolution.

Only our toys and dress have changed. We are, under all circumstances the same beings that always are. The arrogant organisms. The short-sighted masses itchy with pangs for pleasures and conquests and 'happiness'.

A few have available to them the frequent meditation of not only the brevity of human life, but the brevity of the time our faculties serve us as master; when our hands and feet and mind move swiftly to our calling.

History and the future are going to be themselves-our time is now, in our short span of life we will have a set amount of presidents and celebrities, but that will make them neither greater or lesser than any before or after them - so "puny is the arena of human fame" to paraphrase Marcus Aurelius.

I could meditate on that picture to remind myself of my own little nature. my own arrogance, a reflection of my own short-shortsightedness. Something to be continually fought certainly, especially if I am to have any joy with my time through these short decades that slip by faster and faster.

If I die around 80, my death year will be 2062; but I plan to live till 102, and die in 2084 - I'm going to go out in the 80's; just like I once started this little respite on Earth in the 80's. Think on your potential death-date, think on it and linger on those thoughts, you'll find the present truly a gift.

IRON

Remember this one?

I seem to forget it sometimes.

Haleh Sahabi: Our Antigone in Tehran

Haleh Sahabi, 54, was a distinguished Quranic hermeneutician, a religious comparatist, a women's rights scholar, and a committed activist to the cause of her people's civil liberties. Haleh Sahabi was sentenced to a two-year prison term after she had joined a rally in front of the Iranian parliament in the aftermath of the contested presidential election of 2009.

While serving her term in jail, Haleh Sahabi was informed of her father's impending death. He was the prominent Iranian dissident Ezzatollah Sahabi (1930-2011), a revered democracy activist, known and admired for his mild manner, open-minded generosity of spirit, a liberal demeanor, and a commitment to non-violent activism on a religious-nationalist platform for over half a century.

Haleh Sahabi was briefly allowed out of prison to be present for the final days of her father's life. Ezzatollah died, at the age of 81 on May 31, 2011. Millions of Iranians in and out of their homeland were saddened by his death, deeply grateful for his moderate and caring positions, even those who did not agree with him.

His funeral began on the following day, June 1, under tight security control, and - according to a number of reliable eyewitness accounts- including those of Ahmad Montazeri, the son of the late Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, and Ahmad Sadr Haj Seyyed Javadi, an aging opposition politician - a band of organised plainclothes security forces began to disrupt the funeral, ridiculing and humiliating the attendants, and moved to snatch the body of the deceased from those who were carrying it for a proper burial.

Haleh Sahabi, leading the funeral, tried to prevent the disruption, while holding on to a picture of her father. The picture was violently taken away from her by a security agent and she was hit on her side. She fell to the ground in the scuffle and soon after died of a cardiac arrest.

The International campaign for Human Rights in Iran holds the plainclothes security forces responsible for Haleh Sahabi's death, and has called for an official investigation. "The shameful actions of government thugs in this incident reveal a deep contempt for traditions that belong to all Iranians, and they have resulted in a tragedy," said Hadi Ghaemi, spokesperson for the campaign. Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian Nobel Peace laureate, has declared Haleh Sahabi's death,"intentional murder".

In Sophocles' Antigone (circa 442BC), we learn of two brothers who died fighting each other opposing sides of Thebes' civil war. The new king, Creon, decrees that one of the two brothers, Eteocles, will be honoured, while the other, Polyneices, will suffer the public shame of not being given a proper burial.

Antigone, one of the two sisters of the dead brothers defies the royal decree and decides to give her damned brother Polyneices a dignified burial. She considers it her duty, even at the cost of defying the law of the land.

Over the centuries, Antigone's courageous and principled stance, made against the royal decree, has been the source of the most cherished reflections in the entire tradition of Greek inspired humanities. For more than 2500 years, Sophocles' tragedy has been the source and inspiration of the most enduring and insightful reflections on the nature of citizenship, political dissent, civil disobedience, moral obligation to one's family, duty to one's God, and the rule of law. So much so that is it impossible to imagine the Greek foundation of any claim to humanity and civilisation without Antigone and other tragedies of Sophocles.

We - Arabs, Iranians, Afghans, Africans, Asians, etc - are in an inaugural moment of our renewed claims to our history, humanity and dignity.

Today in the streets of Tehran, Kabul, Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, Tunis, Tripoli, Sanaa, Manama, and scores of other major and minor cities from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, our people are busy writing the allegorical parables of our future claims on who and how and what we are. Our people are writing new legends, crafting new metaphors, coining neologism for our emerging poetries.

Modern day heroes

Remember today the names of Hamza al-Khateeb, the 13-year-old Syrian boy who was brutally tortured and mutilated by Bashar Assad's agents in Syria; or Mohammed Bouazizi, the young peddler who set himself on fire out of economic desperation in Ben Ali's Tunisia; and Neda Agha Soltan, the young Iranian pro-democracy protester who was cold-bloodedly murdered by the security agents of Ayatollah Khamenei. They join the names of Abeer Qassim Hamza al Janabi, the 14-year-old Iraqi girl gang-raped and murdered by US troops and Muhammad al-Durra, the 12-year-old Palestinian boy murdered by Israeli sharpshooters as the iconic parables of a dramatic unfolding of a renewed accord of a people with their destiny.

They are the dramatis personae of the living legends that our posterity will read in their history books, literary genres, moving poetries. The brutish regimes that rule over our lands will in one way or another come to an end and will leave behind nothing for their leaders than ignominy and infamy.

In Antigone, we are faced with the law of the land contravening the rule of traditions. But here and now, facing a vicious and wicked regime that is over-anxious about its own lack of legitimacy, Haleh Sahabi wrote in her living memory a different drama.

The Islamic Republic is so terrified of any public gathering, especially over dead bodies of its dissidents, precisely because this is the manner in which it took over from the previous regime and that it abused to outmanoeuvre its ideological rivals in order to stay in power.

The Islamic Republic is a republic of death and dying, a republic of fear of the living and thriving. Haleh Sahabi did not break any law to honour her father's right to a dignified burial. She exposed the banality of the evil that rules over some seventy-odd million human beings, a banality that has not even the decency of allowing a dignified burial of an 81-year-old father, without causing the death of her mourning daughter too.

Ezzatollah Sahabi lived a long and fulfilling life. Haleh Sahabi was cut down halfway through her dignified extension of her father's causes into unchartered territories. Antigone defied a human law to observe a divine mandate, a moral commandment. Haleh Sahabi defied the ghoulish last shrieks of a dying theocracy to lay the foundation of a new ennobling legend for her people: The legend of Haleh Sahabi - the daughter who did not allow the body of her noble father stolen by ignoble fiends.

How many brute and cruel tyrants have come and gone? But we only remember the glorious, the defiant, the courageous Antigone.

The Ben Alis, the Mubaraks, the Gaddafis, and the Khameneis of our history too in one way or another will eventually become a boring footnote in some future history book - the titles, themes, and empowering dramas of which will blossom around the names of Antigone and Haleh Sahabi.

Tonight Haleh Sahabi, a daughter who came out of prison to bury her father and honour his passing to eternity, sleeps prematurely but peacefully in the vicinity of that father.

Among her other courageous endeavours, Haleh Sahabi was a member of the "Mothers of Peace", a group mostly consisting of mothers whose children had perished at the hands of thugs employed by the garrison state to preserve it a little longer, each woman committed to reduce the intensity of violence in their homeland.

Somewhere between defiant daughters and mothers of peace, the future of Haleh Sahabi's homeland is in very caring and capable hands - the hands of the living and the life-givers. Like Antigone, Haleh Sahabi is now the budding seed of an ennobling tragedy that will sustain her people's renewed struggle to demand and exact their inalienable rights to freedom and liberty, for the dignity of daughters and sons being allowed to bury their fathers and mothers in peace.

Rest in peace, gallant sister, our own mighty Antigone: Haleh Khanom Sahabi.

Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York. He is the author, most recently, of Iran, the Green Movement, and the US: The Fox and the Paradox (Zed, 2010).

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Source [http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/06/2011638221479547.html]

Ode

"I want to see you.

Know your voice.

Recognize you when you

first come 'round the corner.

Sense your scent when I come

into a room you've just left.

Know the lift of your heel,

the glide of your foot.

Become familiar with the way

you purse your lips

then let them part,

just the slightest bit,

when I lean in to your space

and kiss you.

I want to know the joy

of how you whisper

"more"

-Rumi

Empty

She lifts her skirt up to her knees,
walks through the garden rows with her bare feet, laughing.
I never learned to count my blessings,
I choose instead to dwell in my disasters.
I walk on down the hill,
through grass, grown tall and brown
and still its hard somehow to let go of my pain.
On past the busted back of that old and rusted Cadillac
that sinks into this field, collecting rain.
Will I always feel this way?
So empty, so estranged.

And of these cut-throat busted sunsets,
these cold and damp white mornings
I have grown weary.
If through my cracked and dusted dime-store lips
I spoke these words out loud would no one hear me?
Lay your blouse across the chair,
let fall the flowers from from your hair
and kiss me with that country mouth, so plain.
Outside, the rain is tapping on the leaves,
to me it sounds like they're applauding us the the quiet love we've made.
Will I always feel this way?
So empty, so estranged.

Well I looked my demons in the eyes,
laid bare my chest, said "Do your best, destroy me.
You see, I've been to hell and back so many times,
I must admit you kind of bore me."
There's a lot of things that can kill a man,
there's a lot of ways to die,
listen, some already did that walked beside me.
There's a lot of things I don't understand,
why so many people lie.
Its the hurt I hide that fuels the fire inside me.
Will I always feel this way?
So empty, so estranged.

-Ray Lamontagne

Day by Day

Thank you for the days,

Those endless days, those sacred days you gave me.

I'm thinking of the days,

I won't forget a single day, believe me.

I bless the light,

I bless the light that shines on you believe me.

And though you're gone,

You're with me every single day, believe me.

Days I'll remember all my life,

Days when you can't see wrong from right.

You took my life,

But then I knew that very soon you'd leave me,

But it's all right,

Now I'm not frightened of this world, believe me.

I wish today could be tomorrow,

The night is dark,

It just brings sorrow, let it wait.

Thank you for the days,

Those endless days, those sacred days you gave me.

I'm thinking of the days,

I won't forget a single day, believe me.

Days I'll remember all my life,

Days when you can't see wrong from right.

You took my life,

But then I knew that very soon you'd leave me,

But it's all right,

Now I'm not frightened of this world, believe me.

Days.

Thank you for the days,

Those endless days, those sacred days you gave me.

I'm thinking of the days,

I won't forget a single day, believe me.

I bless the light,

I bless the light that shines on you believe me.

And though you're gone,

You're with me every single day, believe me.

Days.

Mama

"When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, whispering words of wisdom, let it be."

-McCartney/Lennon

My Little Black Book

Has been quite an awesome companion lately.

I sort of figured

My friend Shams showed me this song called 'Do You Realize' - I heard it on his phone and I was pretty lost. I heard it on the radio like a week or two later and downloaded it right away through my music app. Yesterday when Shams and I were trading music before James left, I asked him if he'd ever heard this song - completely sincerely and entirely forgetting it was him that turned me onto it. It all seems very reasonable in light of his departure. I love it...so much.

-----

Do You Realize - that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize - we're floating in space -
Do You Realize - that happiness makes you cry
Do You Realize - that everyone you know someday will die

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Do You Realize - Oh - Oh - Oh
Do You Realize - that everyone you know
Someday will die -

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Do You Realize - that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize

-Flaming Lips

I know it looks like I'm moving

Every so often I come back around. Last night one of my best friends I have ever made in my young life so far, moved away. We spent the better part of our last hours together listening to each others songs, plugging in one another's iPod's as we saw the time dwindle towards departure.

I told Shams about how nearly a decade ago I can remember weeping to this song....and then subsequently at various points thereafter when I would come back around to putting this song into rotation. Last night however, my tears were softer as we shared listening to this song, I came back around to a place I like being emotionally and spiritually.

I want you, unsuspecting internet passer-by (should you have read this self indulgent stranger thus far) to take few minutes to stop, about ten if you read me and then listen to this song. Sharing our experience is so important. When someone leaves, what is leaving is the ability to share together in the ways you do - even though those ways grow you to share together in different ways. It's all transient, so what makes the sweet sting of departure a loss? Alas, I am but Socrates without a student here, I will postulate no true answer alone it seems...

Every time, after the week began taxing me, my meetings with Shams would bring me to a reality. I would find my own skin and realize it was better than I even knew! Shams lives forever, and though my sweet brother James has moved, Shams will live on when we speak on the reg and visit one another. A brother so close that I swear he was cut out of the same womb that formed me; of course, that is par for the course with Shams.

Different cries and different times. It's that reality of my life that all coming will pass - though I suspect at sometime a few will remain - or at least we can safely say appear to stay, since time is always "running away". Luckily, I don't feel like my soul has turned to steel anymore. It is an interesting apathy that sets in. Us reasonable adults are very, very funny creatures.

I could write forever today, bleed in emotions and thought as they wrestle in loving embrace. I guess I just still want to share experiences with some people, even if I know that we have completely separate lives. The way Shams leaves, leaves hope and appreciation and makes parting more than just bitter, but bittersweet - it is always thusly right?

Amen for Shams living on in my brother Tim; our trinity was marvelous, and I cried again after James left because it became clear how well God (call it circumstance and chance if you wish) takes care of me. I, an only child, was surrounded with such loving brothers as only great poetry can hint towards; then again, awed at how James & Tim came into my life, Shams told me to burst open like this

I hope you will laugh with me loudly, because you see my writing in circles. It's time to be alone again.

Love you Shams, show Philly what brotherly love means, we will see you soon.

Shadows are falling and I’ve been here all day
It’s too hot to sleep, time is running away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I’ve still got the scars that the sun didn’t heal
There’s not even room enough to be anywhere
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

Well, my sense of humanity has gone down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing there’s been some kind of pain
She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind
She put down in writing what was in her mind
I just don’t see why I should even care
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

Well, I’ve been to London and I’ve been to gay Paree
I’ve followed the river and I got to the sea
I’ve been down on the bottom of a world full of lies
I ain’t looking for nothing in anyone’s eyes
Sometimes my burden seems more than I can bear
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

I was born here and I’ll die here against my will
I know it looks like I’m moving, but I’m standing still
Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb
I can’t even remember what it was I came here to get away from
Don’t even hear a murmur of a prayer
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

70

Bob Dylan turned 70 yesterday.

Here are 70 pictures of him.

If you like him, you'll love these.

Click on these words

A Keyhole's View

1)My Sandbox.

2)"A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us" - Kafka

3)"Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads" - Thoreau

Happy Birthday Bob

Thank you for the inspiration to sing songs and learn the guitar towards that end when I was younger. Thanks for sucking the air out of the room of singer-songwriters. Thanks for having such a large body of work, that covers of covers of your originals still ring true and loud. Thanks for showing us how a troubadour follows his life and lives his lies till they become some kind of truth. Thanks for your influence on the Beatles. Thanks for showing what it meant to try and love and thanks for showing that you are human in your many personal idiosyncrasies - pulling at your hair, lying about who you worked with, stealing melodies and picking patterns (in fact the song that made me fall in love with, what you are in your work - you stole!). You brought me a long way Bob, I am sure to love your work till time ticks away entirely for my corporal being. Thank you for reminding me always that it isn't dark yet, but that it's getting there. Or that she'll take just like a woman and make love just like a woman, but break like a little girl; that I should bow down to her on Sunday and salute her when her birthday comes; that they'll go there way and I'll go mine; that always, the times are a' changin'; for telling me about the lonesome death of Hattie Carol, or what it feels like on Maggies Farm; for teaching me about the Hurricane, or keeping me aware that a hard rain's a' gonna fall. Thank you for giving me a peek into how wonderful it is when they lay across a big brass bed, and what happened along the watchtower, and for putting so well what it feels like on Desolation Row. Thanks Bob for telling me there's an answer blowing in the wind and what it's like to live life like a rolling stone. I don't know you, Bob, but who your work is - him I love with my deepest heart, for he - in part - exposed and taught me something about my deepest heart

I hope it's all worked out well for you. Thanks again,

Sincerely,

Another person you impacted.

I've forgotten who I am - and 'The Pursuit of Dreams'

I wrote this about a year and a half ago.

The album version has strings and trumpets and feels much fuller in it's expression. I cried in the last two lines of this song while recording it. Something hit me. Before we started recording it, a dove flew into the chimney, and after quite some time, it wouldn't leave - with three adults behind it - when I was done singing and opened the door to get air for the tears in my eyes, the dove flew out.

I had a few hours to spend how I wished on Saturday so I recorded this song since it's been a while I've recorded a song. It's long and so I cut it down to the end, plus it's a teaser which lacks the trumpets and horns and strings that really bring the song to life closer to the way it was intended.

These online videos and blogs and social network sites are little windows - keyholes - to reference 'She Belongs to Me' by Bob Dylan (which is what I learned to play before recording this song). Digital keyholes, tiny peeks into what another's space and life seems to look like - giving some indication while simultaneously being wholly something subjective and myopic. Little keyholes.

Hope you enjoy your peek, click through the video and get a free download if you'd like (you'll be redirected to Facebook in the description).

She Belongs To Me

She's got everything she needs

She's an artist, she don't look back
She's got everything she needs
She's an artist, she don't look back
She can take the dark out of nighttime
And paint the daytime black.

You will start out standing
Proud to steal her anything she sees
You will start out standing
Proud to steal her anything she sees
But you will wind up peeking through her keyhole
Down upon your knees.

She never stumbles
She's got no place to fall
She never stumbles
She's got no place to fall
She's nobody's child
The Law can't touch her at all.

She wears an Egyptian red ring
That sparkles before she speaks
She wears an Egyptian red ring
That sparkles before she speaks
She's a hypnotist collector
You are a walking antique.

Bow down to her on Sunday
Salute her when her birthday comes
Bow down to her on Sunday
Salute her when her birthday comes
For Halloween buy her a trumpet
And for Christmas, buy her a drum.

- Bob Dylan

Click on the image.

That would be a nice reaction

Tilling the soil

Philosophical contemplation: Aristotle with a Bust of Homer by Rembrandt van Rijn, 1653

"Just as a piece of land has to be prepared beforehand if it is to nourish the seed, so the mind of the pupil has to be prepared in its habits if it is to enjoy and dislike the right things"

- Aristotle

Book X: Pleasure and the life of happiness

The Nicomachean Ethics

I really just want to write quickly.

I have been reading a lot of ancient Greek philosophy - and equally as important, the context and string of growth behind that philosophy.

Socrates was the turn inward - the turn from psychical nature, to the human -- but not directly. It started out with persons like Anaxagoras turning to explain the nature of the cosmos away from the 'Gods' - this was hated back then and stifled -- seriously, same problems over and over, us a human race has got to figure this out. This combined with Protagoras (and his individualism) lead to a trembling of the foundations upon which ancient Greece stood (specifically Athens - the villages of Attica accepted this easier).

Anyways, without showing my still very unlearned view, the pendulum swinging led away from the physical sciences and an interest in human experience; specifically the interest in senses and the mind. The philosophers associated here are gone from my mind this early afternoon - but you can trace the thread very easily by reading Will Durant's books on Ancient cultures (Part II specifically on the rise and fall of Greece).

Anyhow, the way Socrates is different from these aforementioned thinkers is numerous; here specifically I am highlighting the turn further inward from the senses - he, Socrates, became interested most in human intention and character.

I found the seeds of his philosophical push thrusting from the soil of my young and still actively tilled intellectualism. I see and experience life finding my most interesting stimulus in the backdrops of human interaction and processing. This is to say that I am interested in how we respond as people and individuals to stimuli, but also why we do, and what factors potentially led us to.

Let all I've written so far rest comfortably a few inches from settling in the back of your mind before I finish my overall point following -

I also like video games and read about them. Even in that I see human experience as I've described above, the why and what and how, etc. Today I stumbled upon a little article about fixed mindsets and malleable mindsets and how certain video game habits can indicate both and how video games can be used slightly to modify one or the other.

Finally, one point away from my conclusion - I am still tracing the dance of positive processing. It is amazing. Using the word 'difficult' is far too easy and childish, and the word 'challenging' is trite and obvious - the precarious ways in which we must "vigilantly guard our good moods!" is quite a sensation. As I've previously described it, it's almost as if I can feel the new pathways growing while the old die - as if I can sense my brain's shape altering - so Amazing is the most accurate and comfortable word to use.

In conclusion then, Socrates turned inward to see the human character and suggested that we 'know ourselves' - the move of positivity can alter the mind and improve ones character and also give a good reflection of the base which someone starts out with - and video games, are another remarkable modern tool which allow us to embark on this wise, age old endeavor if used in the right manner. (which in writing it out, brings my thinking full circle to the way Socrates describes what 'good' is --- which is something being used in a good purpose).

Read the video game article here

I think this blog was about philosophy, spiritual growth thereafter, and video games as another vessel that we comtemporaries mostly have access to which our forefathers of thought did not. So I guess I'm saying even video games can be included in our personal growth?

That seems interesting.

you should tell me if you feel like you've wasted your time...because my 'old neurons' are telling me that I think I just did...though my new ones are laughing and saying 'way to write about what you want, constant writing will make you a better writer, thinker and person as it will give you a written log of your personality at the time - thus charting your growth and giving you the tools needed to chart direction and plot destination...and maybe it will also entertain them...whoever they are'

love karan

The Velveteen Rabbit

Stumbled across this little gem yesterday.

the album version is really good, but i thought it would be nice to see them live.

Good arms, versus bad arms, will win hands down
they are built to hold and fit
look how far they go around

you don't need these now that you've found another pair
and the difference astounding, i should expect
except
leave the rest at arm's length
keep your naked flesh under your favorite dress
and leave the rest at arm's length
when they reach out, don't touch them, don't touch them

i decided this decision some six months ago
so i'll stick to my guns, but from now on it's war
i am armed with the past, and the will, and a brick
i might not want you back, but i want to kill him

and leave the rest at arm's length
keep your naked flesh under your favorite dress
and leave the rest at arm's length
when they reach out, don't touch them, don't touch them

and leave the rest at arm's length
don't brush with him, he might have diseases
and leave the rest at arm's length
steer clear of the grasp, girl -- run, run, away

and leave the rest at arm's length
just roll over boy and don't make me do this
and leave the rest at arm's length
i am armed to the teeth and i'm heavy set
and leave the rest at arm's length
i'm not ready to see you this happy
and leave the rest at arm's length
i'm still in love with you (can't admit it yet)

-Frightened Rabbit

Good Arms vs. Bad Arms