Just A TMR Reminder: There Is Still The Main Problem

Heroes 

falling to the ground 

Like Hell's magnet 

Pulls me down 

On my knees 

I try to please 

his eyes 

His idol eyes,...

Things The Unloved Are Thankful For (Thanksgiving V)

"War-weary Americans and their distracted political leaders are less interested in responsibilities overseas, creating a vacuum of international leadership. But for better and for worse, neither China nor anyone else appears ready and able to fill America’s superpower shoes."

New Wave artists aging gracefully. An 80′s world gone by…

Even quacks must have free speech

Study: Casual Sex Might Be Making Teenagers Sad

9 Reasons 'Hookup Culture' Hurts Boys Too

Women are 'hard-wired' to regret casual flings - but men only regret NOT having them, study reveals

70% now think it is wrong for married people to stray

Michele Bachmann: ‘If God Wanted Everyone To Have Insurance, Why Did He Invent Miracles?’

It's Not Spiritual And It's Not Hippie - It's American Music

I wouldn't call it this - because The Spiritual Danger of Being Bored to Death ain't been my problem - I'm an artist.

My issues are much more fundamental - To be or not to be? What does it mean to be? Will I be allowed to be? That kind of thing.

And by the way, doesn't Foreigner look good?

   

 I remember "Urgent," hilariously reframing the Dirty White Boys as a New Wave band without style, back-in-the-day.

They were, momentarily, traitors to the culture (as we were recently reminded) "the sort of thing we loathed at the time and called 'disco.'"

I wasn't part of the "we" in that quote, for various reasons, but mostly because I can't count how many times I was set upon (sometimes violently) for enjoying music's evolution back then. If you want to know what it was like, imagine the reaction Dylan got for going electric, but following you around for more than a decade. 

   

 The future had arrived without warning, in synthetic form - and finally featuring rhythm - and machines! But, by welcoming it, I was the bad guy.

   

 Like it was my fault Led Zeppelin had one of the only drummers in Rock who thought (what we now call) a Rap beat was actually important - and who didn't think he practiced to, either, play metronome or occasionally express how "crazy" he was.

   

The larger culture waited for Talking Heads' eventual invitation, to join in what David Byrne called "changing my shape," and the rest of us called a party. We'd have to wait a little while longer.

   

 Of course - once the party officially got kicked off - where the future was heading didn't make many folks happy, either, so there was conflict again. 

You could say, from 1977 to 1987, it was pretty much open warfare - with me in the middle - until my "side" brought the walls down.

Since then, I don't have to remind you, there's been a few times when we've all had reason to contemplate ending it.

   

 But, like I said - it was because of the unwarranted hostility to change - not because it stayed boring,...

 

I'm Always Looking Behind (Something's Always There)

 

 Even blogging, I'm starting to feel like I don't have much in common with others.

The hints that's true are everywhere:

“Here’s what goes through my head like a ticker-tape: What kind of leader am I? I can’t even get my own shit together. It’s hard to publicly admit that you’re failing or feeling bad – especially when the blogosphere seems to be on a frog-march of relentless positivity. Cupcakes and unicorns! Awesomesauce! Happyhappyjoyjoy!”

 

 "What kind of leader am I?" is NOT on my list of 99 Problems. 

My fucking truck is more important.

   

 Some have said, like Krishnamurti, I'm trying to start my own cult (knowingly using the charge as a gambit) but I don't know at this point what, they think, I would preach.

Disdain, maybe? 

My only true connection with Krishnamurti is knowing what beat I'm marching to:

"I maintain that truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or coerce people along a particular path. ... This is no magnificent deed, because I do not want followers, and I mean this. The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth. I am not concerned whether you pay attention to what I say or not. I want to do a certain thing in the world and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies.”

 

With my spine's issues, I could certainly be Sting's "King Of Pain," but that's about it,...

 

Very Appropriate: The Cars (2011) - "Sad Song"

Interesting. It appears the boys see us driving off a cliff as well,...welcome back, guys.

I Can't Close My Eyes/New Romantic Shit/80s

"When a man is asleep, he is no better than if he were dead; and he who loves life and wisdom will take no more sleep than is necessary for health."

I'm having insomnia issues, and they're throwing my schedule all off (check out the time signatures on the previous posts). I don't need a whole lot of sleep, five hours tops usually, but when I find myself up at 6AM and I haven't made it to bed yet, it's pretty clear the next day is going to suck a little, probably with mental issues and a nap making everything screwy.

The difference, between the clock on the wall and my body clock, is very real.

"There is no use of a sleeping man, as there is not of a dead man. ... But whoever of us is most solicitous for living the true life, and for entertaining noble sentiments, will keep awake for as long time as possible."

I'll have all these brilliant ideas and then - *poof* - they're gone, so I've got to remember to write them down,...if I can remember to write 'em down. I've got brain farts, skips in time, and a need for constant backtracking. I'm being extra careful while driving. It's all very tiring. Not like drugs. No, it's nothing like drugs.

Not like the ones we were doing back then.

"Come - come on in. It's not - it's not like that. Down - down we go. Fall through - fall through the crack."

When I was young, in the '80s, I could stay up for days at a time - three or four, easy. Riding in cars filled with ants and empty fast food wrappers. Holes in my jeans. Cowboy boots - with spurs. I had to drink myself to sleep because I just wasn't going there. Sleep was for the dead, and it still is, compared to those of us who have work to be done. Creativity requires diligence. That guy or gal standing sentry on the fence. If you're not awake or aware, shit'll get past you.

Everybody's crashed out now.

"I stopped sleeping and I consider that the grandest tragedy that could occur. At all hours I walked the streets like some kind of phantom. All that I have written much later has been worked out during those nights."

The first show I did in the 80s, before anything had started for me, I did with a German named "Z-Snot". He had teeth that looked like Dresden after the bombing. (I'm probably going to lose mine early, so I'm one to talk.) We'd rehearsed this show for weeks, staying up for outrageous amounts of time, getting our moves down ("Alright, you do this and then I'ma do this, and then you reach under my arm,...there!") and coordinating 5 turntables with keyboards before we'd ever heard what MIDI was or anything. Then we finally got onstage and he forgot everything as soon as the music started, abandoning all that preparation for momentarily hogging the spotlight and acting out to the point of catastrophe. (You've only got a "show" when you're actually doing something, right right?) The crowd was polite until he fell off the stage, blinded by the lights and propelled by adrenaline. We went from cool to fools in minutes.

I never want to hear boos again.



(This is a remix, which I'm not crazy about, but I couldn't find the original - and the guy's dead now - so I'm running with it anyway.)

"You enter into a conflict with the whole world, with sleeping humanity. You no longer feel like one person among others, because others live unconsciously. One develops a demented pride. One tells oneself, 'My destiny is different, I know the experience of the uninterrupted vigil.' Only pride, the pride of a catastrophe, gives you courage then. One cultivates the extraordinarily flattering feeling of no longer being part of ordinary humanity."

I was sporting five small very tasteful and cool orange day-glo mohawks at one time back then, because - though I loved the machine music of New Wave - I was a Punk, and the lead singer of The Exploited had everyone beat for height. So FIVE mohawks. Oh yeah, I was so fucking hard. Spikes and everything. A human porcupine.

Listening to New Romantic shit on the sly.

"Insomnia, you ... in a single night grant more knowledge than days spent in repose, and, to reddened eyelids, reveal yourself a more important event than the nameless diseases or the disasters of time! ... I appealed to philosophy, but there is no idea which comforts in the dark, no system which resists those vigils. The analyses of insomnia undo all certainties."

Like kids today, I never imagined I'd grow up, or could become the person I'd be, writing this. I didn't even know what "divorced" meant, and definitely couldn't picture myself married. I guess I'm lucky to have never had kids. I lived for late nights, and music, and Johnny Rotten had already said there'd be "No Future" so who was I to doubt it? Getting both my ears pierced, with a red hot needle, was more important than getting older. It proved I'd endure. And I have.

Just not the way I thought.

"We begin to live authentically only where philosophy ends, at its wreck, when we have understood its terrible nullity, when we have understood that it was futile to resort to it, that it is no help."

Now I'm on some new and improved shit, shaking off everything that's ever held me. Including Punk, and old fucked-up friends, and apparently sleep. I'm working on music but it's coming from a whole different place, incorporating everything I've ever known, every style I've ever heard, all of it. I can't go wrong with music. I'm just as cocky as I've ever been. I know who I am. All I've got to do is stay alive.

But now, that's clearly easier said than done.

Talking Heads: Masculinity Sure Has Changed!

Alright, I've got to join everyone else in the laugh-and-point brigade, when it comes to the humiliation of Charlie Crist at the hands of David Byrne. Crist is such a douche there's nothing to do but laugh. How big of a douche is he? Well, first, Byrne got him to tell a lie in this video apology. But then, on top of that, Byrne goes around whooping and hollering, telling everybody he's "feeling very manly" after doing it! How funny is that? David Byrne is feeling manly? Here, let's get another look at David Byrne:

And that's when he was young!

Jesus, looking at him and Charlie Crist, can you imagine the noodle fight they got into?

Spiritual Warfare: Everybody's Feeling Mahdi Big

Oh goodie - the End Times Christians are watching the End Times Islamists, and guess what? The End Times are coming!:

New evidence has emerged that the Iranian government sees the current unrest in the Middle East as a signal that the Mahdi--or Islamic messiah--is about to appear.

CBN News has obtained a never-before-seen video produced by the Iranian regime that says all the signs are moving into place -- and that Iran will soon help usher in the end times.

While the revolutionary movements gripping the Middle East have created uncertainty throughout the region, the video shows that the Iranian regime believes the chaos is divine proof that their ultimate victory is at hand.

As Elvis Costello said in the song Waiting For The End Of The World, "Dear Lord, I sincerely hope you're comin' 'cause ya done really started something!"

The Best Parts Of The 1970s Get No Play Today

A bunch of handsome black men singing a love song with no irony. The clothes make total sense. It's a great fucking song - but, if it wasn't for YouTube, you'd never hear it.

Not to get too racial on you (you know we won't) but this is what's wrong with letting white folks have too much control of determining what's cool nowadays. They always have to remind us of some shit they laughed at, like The Brady Bunch singing or cheesy '80s New Wave nostalgia, when America has a legacy of greatness that they'll overlook (probably because they were never exposed to the good stuff, or - if they were (Thanks, Barack!) "a typical white person" of that time - they were laughing at it, because it was what blacks were into, while whites were worshipping at the feet of Led Zepplin and claiming blacks didn't make good music - a cultural line they kept up all the way through to Rap's destruction of their entire world.

The fact music like this is overlooked is why so much of what's made today sucks - it's informed by a history of crap. Crap white people think is clever when, really, it's just a mirror of their oh, so boring lives. Sorry to say it but, seeing and hearing this again gets the emotions all worked up, and reminds us of how much this country is willingly missing, overlooking, and holding back. Anyone or anything that says we have (and can) do better than what white devise is shunned. Don't get us wrong - we're not saying there's anything wrong with white people - love y'all to death:

But, to the detriment of all, you are (and have been for decades) the masters of cultural marginalization.

And that's a crying shame.