Or Give Me Death

Freedom.
Freedom is ambiguous, but has one defining concept; the lack of total control, the openness and wherewithal to greet each day with the knowledge that what may come can never be know, but the mindset, experience, and wisdom to handle any situation.

As you might guess, I recently moved out into my own apartment. I pay my own bills, and rent, have a bit of fun, but responsibly. I go to my job on time because my freedom depends on my job. It's a tricky balance, and one I am lucky enough to be able to support. I know a lot of people my age are still struggling to make rent, or stuck at home, or in a bad situation. I treasure each decision I have the freedom to make because of what I have.

I missed being able to go out with no plan in mind, or to have a last minute change of heart and head somewhere other than my intended destination, or finding an event that interests me and being able to plan a specific night to go. One such occasion the other day resulted in three new friendships that were exactly what I was looking for in this crazy neighborhood. A fun night was had, and numbers exchanged, and for the first time in almost four years I feel like myself again, dressing how I used to when I experienced social freedom for the first time. Slipping back into a trench coat and hat, or a snazzy all black outfit accessorized with hints of red feels just like coming back in line with the parts of myself that know how to have fun. Tempered of course this time with a few more years of wisdom, lessons, and responsibility.

Here's to 2015, and a new year, a new beginning of many choices, plans, alternatives, and the freedom to do what I choose.

Pandering to the Lowest Common Denominator

The New York Post, owned by that almost messianic conservative figure, Rupert Murdoch, is a constant sight in my job's break room. No wonder, right? It bills itself as " a tabloid newspaper on the island of Manhattan that is widely considered to be the golden standard of journalistic ethics, writing and sophistication."

Bull. Shit.

Every time I open the paper, there is another sensationalist headline meant to shock and rouse god-fearing americans into action.

"WAR ON COPS"
"PIED DIVIDERS"
"TERROR TEENS SLAY HERO COP"

The writers at the Post must live in some sort of self delusional action movie universe. Their daily caricature of the President has devolved to something resembling a toxic waste mutant, by this point. Every day, every headline is either mudslinging the president, the mayor, exploiting tragedy, or at worst, rabblerousing. How else can you explain such rhetoric as "BAIL-FAIL JUDGE STRIKES AGAIN; FREES COP PUNCHER JUST LIKE THREAT THUG"

The Post would have you believe that President Obama is wiping his ass with the constitution while sad eyed heroic policemen are being cut down in the streets by wild eyed proto simian "thugs". They may claim that's not the case, but reading this drivel? Sure sounds like it. There's good and bad on both sides. It's gotten out of hand, but only long simmering resentment and distrust breeds this kind of explosive protest. People are fed up. The country is fed up. The youth are fed up, and I'm fed up, especially with bullshit newspapers, networks, and sock puppets paraded around on mainstream media.

Fuck you, New York Post.

Horizon Burning

After a day of working at my job in downtown New York, I came home to find my facebook page lit up with news about the Michael Brown verdict. I'm betting hundreds of people are/have already written about this, but the sense of trepidation and guilt I feel is burning me on the inside.

It's unjust, and a portion of me expected the not guilty verdict. The police in this country have steadily been overmilitarized to the point of parody, given deadly military surplus weapons that they themselves are not trained on. They are police. Not soldiers, no matter how badly they want to be soldiers. This is how fascist death squads operate, people. A gun should never be your first tactic. The police carry nonlethal measures that are just as effective at dropping a violent suspect without needless loss of life.

The stories have been there, buried in headlines or floating on the internet. It's a symptom of the mountain of oozing corruption and pseudopatriotic pus that we were spoonfed since 9/11.
The time of "your government will protect you" is fucking over. The people have spoken, and cities are burning.

Is that enough of a message?

Attn: Executive Staff

Dangerous radicals threaten our country. Their insidious methods and unstoppable rhetoric are a serious danger to the natural order of things. If they continue to spread their lies and propaganda...

Then people will listen.

And by god we can't have that! If they listen they might think. And if they think, then they might vote! And when they finally figure out that voting does fuck all to stop the flood of oozy corruption and money that pumps through our veins instead of blood then we'll really be fucked.

Release headlines! Call up the celebrities! Get another fifty tons of cocaine delivered to Hollywood, stat, and make sure those goddamn hoodlums in the ghettos are listening to the latest plastic bullshit we cooked up in the boardroom yesterday. Wave your hands in the air, don't care. Get cash get money. Get drugs get honeys. And if by some absolute fucking miracle you do make enough to be a threat it won't matter. We've already got our poison in your brains, and now you're just like us. Those morals you swore you'd never give up aren't shit compared to the power of playing with lives and livelihood.

Suck it dry. All for us, none for you. The ups and downs of the economy are mere distraction. Our towers of glass and steel shield us from the common man while the future of this country rips itself in two with but a handshake across a shiny wood table. That's the bottom line, and god bless America.

Long live the dollar! Long live greed! Long live ignorance! These give us our power!

AND THE BEST PART IS, NO ONE WILL READ THIS! NO ONE WILL SEE! AND THOSE WHO DO, WELL....

These dangerous radicals threaten our country.

Vaporized

I get home at about 1 am on days when I work my 3-11 shift. The commute isn't too bad, as I can usually sleep on the hour long train ride home, then get into my house with enough energy to burn an hour or two on the computer. One thing I never expected to see at that late hour, when everyone is sleeping, is a huge plume of smoke as I drive down the road.

Panic sets in, and the inevitable foot pressure on the gas pedal, until I advance far enough down the street to see my own home untouched ( with all the lights on). The fire is coming from our next door neighbor's house. His family is huddled across the street, staring at the front of their house, the only hint something is wrong from that end is the smoke issuing from the windows, and a glimpse of orange through the open door. Then I turn the corner, and the back of their house is a chaotic curtain of flame, tongues of evil lashing across the siding, their roof, and their lives. It consumes everything, and the cop cordons off the area while I stand outside with my family, awestruck and selfishly relieved, but still worried. The fire might spread.

It didn't. But the threat was there and so was the fleeting panic. I can only imagine how my neighbor and his family must feel right now. Watching a fire take the material possessions of another is a harrowing experience even if your own life was not touched by the flames. I can't help but feel odd, pity and empathy mixed with relief and a twisted, ugly interest. Everyone loves a spectacle, or so the media would have you believe.

Physiologically, the mix of burning rubber, insulation, shingles, propane, and memories catches in my throat. My mother is coughing up a storm, but me and my brother don't cough. We;ve been tempered in the construction field of New York, and have built up a resistance from three years of breathing in dust and other airborne detritus. I still feel the effects of the flames as I sit here writing this. My body feels tight, and my head is swimming like I've smoked too many cigarettes. I've no doubt i'll wake up tomorrow lethargic and sore. The last sounds I'll hear before I go to sleep are the hum of the remaining fire engine and the low radio buzz of their announcements and direction.

The last thing I'll see will be that sky high plume of heat touching clouds of smoke above the air, and the river of smoking water flooding the street.

Streamline, Don't Add

The great machine spins its rusty cogwheels. Flecks of rust and dirt crumble into the air and float down into the fine layer of detritus that surrounds the solid base. The springs are rusted, providing no stability. Yet still the mechanical energy grinds along, for if it stops who can start it again?

The engineer is far too old. His hardhat is cracked and stained with oil. His machine has out-evolved him, a paradoxical mashup of ancient history, modern technology, and future prototypes. He cannot hope to understand how it works now. He can only bang its exposed parts with a wrench or tighten a loose bolt. The knowledge he had once made this gleaming steel juggernaut hum with efficiency. Now it is rusty and patchy, chugging along at half capacity at best, but with the continued assurance of "perpetual motion" that only the men in the research lab are faithful in. Amalgam of technology, built on the past yet crosswired and reprogrammed for a future that does not seem bright to the old man dutifully pressing buttons he is told to. Once he could take this machine apart, tell you what each part did, then reassemble it and run it at 110%. Now the sickly green glow from the beast's center dizzies him, and the extraneous lasers that shine out of rusty screw holes do not belong there.

The engineer does not know what his job is anymore.

Burrows, Gin, and Gangster Guns

Noise. Light. And a hollow metal tube speeding screaming through a dark in-between. Pay to see the tigers, museum. Members free, but the exhibits are caged.

Motionless, a candy cane sickness sleeps in the corner. Round corners of a cornered round, one last round to put the loud ones over the edge. I have to move my bag for Grandma Pelvis. A cloud of choking dust settles on the seat and a clown with the face of the day asks what time it is. What time for who? You or me?

It doesn't matter. The chewy fruit youth stumbles into our mobile galaxy, bringing a somber mood and the raw passioned plea for acknowledgement. He wants an honest dollar. No one looks. I give him ten but refuses his wares politely. Charity seems empty for some reason and the loss of money hurts less than this unknown sadness. More suited to losing their words in my ears, and now the shame of past phantoms has caught up with me.

The empty station has such pretty lights. Glimpsed through plexiglas for seconds at a time. Like galaxies in an Italian telescope. Feeling like a junky without the junk. I burrow through the words of past prophets and wonder if their nicotine screams mean anything. A rose of plant and dairy wanders past and spreads her petals lewdly. I travel every day but go nowhere. Like a subatomic hitchiker, leaping from A to B and making no real progress.

Time to go.

The River

Getting off the last stop on the E train is a fleeting experience. The platform is arranged so that the clearest exit is at the very end of the station, a long shiny run way leading towards the metal tangle of grates and turnstiles. It's an image that the more cynical of us might compare to a sewage treatment plant. I call it the river Manhattan.

It's everywhere, that mad rush of people bustling down the streams and eddies of the sidewalks towards wherever life requires them to go that day. The picture of the river invites piscine comparisons, but the truth is, we're pebbles. Some shinier than others, smoother but bland, others rough hewn and inclined to stick or divert course. Geologic rubble tumbling through the Lower Sediment. We're not the salmon.

The salmon swim above us, sleek and fat in their ascending glory, chauffeured by the societal equivalent of artificially constructed steps built with good intentions. The pebbles can only hope for little pieces of floating shit to settle down and provide some fleeting dreams of ascendancy. Vicarious motion. The only thing any individual salmon fears is a bearish predator, but that can only do so much before another spawns to take its place, helped along by those oh so convenient steps.

One pebble is an annoyance, but a multitude of sufficient speed and momentum is a fucking shotgun blast.

One person's trash....

The world runs on stories. Almost all stories are about a journey of some kind, either personal, or physical, or emotional. The path we take from A to B to C and beyond. What a lot of people don't realize is that it's not only people who have stories. Objects, philosophies, places, names, words, all have a history behind them.

Flea markets are one of those love/hate things. Something about people trying to sell their used items for extra money, as if they didn't get enough use out of it, galls some people. But there's a charm to flea markets, a sort of atmosphere that evokes an old world bazaar. Sure, there's stalls full of broken knick knacks and tarnished silverware, but for people who have certain interests, there's that metaphorical genie in a bottle just waiting to be found.

I went to one of New York's local markets with my aunt the other day, and had an amusing time perusing the oddities. Burlap sacks from the days where marijuana would have been shipped wholesale, proudly printed with its country of origin. Heavy iron pie tins, and steel kitchen implements that wouldn't look out of place in a civil war surgeon's bag. An ornately decorated sword for fifteen dollars, which upon closer inspection possessed a blade so loose as if to guarantee a hole in the wall upon your first practice swing. Pins from presidential campaigns of old, proclaiming the wearer's fondness for Ike or their premature faith in Nixon.

There was an antique army helmet, of US make, dating back to WWII, the faded date of 1943 stamped on the inside. It intrigued me, and I agonized over buying or not buying it, because although an interesting and unique item, 70 dollars could be spent more sensibly. Alas, when I returned it had walked off with someone not so conflicted. However, positioned next to it had been a German helmet of similar design, except badly pitted and rusted by what looked like seawater.

Going back to the topic of stories, it made me think about the two helmets, and both their stories. The Allied helmet was in good condition, not struck by any sort of visible damage. It's owner had most likely survived the conflict, and brought it back home, only to sell it to this antique dealer. The axis helmet, however, was in very bad shape, A large hole in the back of the helmet belied it's owners fate, shot down on some foreign beach somewhere, the lifeless corpse half submerged in sandy surf. His helmet having failed in its sole task, consigned to a salty, slow decay. Then most likely, some hours, days, or months later, recovered and sent to next of kin, or to the state, or to some other unknown location until it ended up here in New York in 2014. Did the wearers of both helmets meet on the battlefield?

The point of this long rambling tangent is that although the more undamaged helmet held more interest to me initially, it was ultimately the rusted and chipped helmet that hid the more interesting tale. Sometimes, the more damaged something is, the greater depths it has.

As it is with objects, so is often the case with people.

Circus of Values

I recently unfriended someone on Facebook. Not because of any thing they did to me specifically, but because of the political content they post on their wall with mechanical regularity. Yes, they are staunchly conservative. Yes, I consider myself "liberal" on a number of issues.

But stopping to think about the meaning of those two designators gave me pause. Recently, "conservative" and "Republican" have become interchangeable, as have "Democrat" and "Liberal". But those two parties are not strictly one sided. I am by no means the first or the last to say this, but our two party system is literally a bowl of shit looking itself in the mirror. By co-opting the terms, the parties have managed to gain followers from the all important "swing vote"or people who tend to favor votes to one side but are BY NO MEANS ENTIRELY LIBERAL OR CONSERVATIVE.

You can't vote in a presidential election if you're not registered as a Democrat or a Republican. But by associating with those parties, you also associate yourself with all the stereotypes and baggage inherent to your chosen party. The vocal minority becomes the standard caricature and the rest just go along with it because they agree with the majority of those beliefs. This is how you end up with one side refusing to execute a mass murderer because of "human rights"and the other side ranting about how Obama is a nazi muslim spy who wants to ship people off to internment camps. In these people's minds there is no middle ground. But the rest of us make up that middle ground. And we need to be heard again, if only to prevent the extremists of both sides from eliminating mutual diplomacy.

The meaning of the word "liberal" intends to illustrate receptiveness to new ideas, openness, wide mindedness, accepting of change. Conservative, on the other hand, invokes pragmatism, solidarity, integrity, and staunch position. Both can be good and bad. The american independence movement was made almost entirely of liberals, who were fed up with being treated like a resource and wanted to enact change. The American Indians were most certainly conservative, in that their status quo, their way of life, was under threat of massive change and they refused to accept it.

The "liberal media"is a redundant term. Media SHOULD be liberal, because media is one of the most important ways society can communicate. Communication changes, and a media that refuses to change along with society becomes repressive and obsolete. It's not hard to recognize in today's world. Institutions based on monitoring or regulation, such as the economy or environmental agencies, should tend towards conservative practices on upholding the established laws. If those laws become obsolete, or easily circumvented, then change must occur to return to a conservative baseline.

People shouldn't have to pick between two bloated, crumbling ruins to live in. You can build a dwelling that will fit you and you alone with bricks you select by hand, to fit your own beliefs.

And unless people are throwing their bricks at you, no one needs to take issue with the kind of bricks others use.

Greetings, earthling.

Words have power. Both positive and negative. With a few carefully selected words, you could turn a stranger into a friend, a friend into an enemy, an enemy into a love. All it takes is an understanding of people's motives and wants and needs, and your own. Compassion, social awareness, selflessness. Yes, words have power. But there's one word that is potentially the most powerful.

"Hi."

Hello. Hi. What's up. Any form of casual greeting.

The way our society is structured today is based around social contract, that is, the implicit agreement to behave appropriately in social settings, and follow unwritten social mores. However, this has translated and grown into a general isolation and indifference towards those not known to you. A person can live in New York City, and pass by thousands of people a day, yet still be completely alone, isolated, and friendless, until they hear a word.

"Hello."

It breaks the isolation, the metaphorical shell created by the policy of "keep to yourself". Hello can lead to many things, or nothing, but the base power of it lies.in the fact that it represents acknowledgement. Confirmation of the fact that you exist, you are not alone, and someone is choosing to acknowledge that for whatever reason. Many of my friendships have started because I said "Hello" and then kicked off a conversation. Even just that, "Hello" and a smile or a wink, can mean the world to someone who rarely receives even that.

Cracked Christ

I was walking back from the Javits Center the other day, and I passed by a school with this statue out front. It was covered by this heavy plastic barrier, which already had a hole in it, visible in the picture. Made me stop and think for a minute.

Now, I am not in the least bit religious. In fact, I’d say I’m somewhat anti religion. A belief system based on adhering to ethics in return for reward (the promise of eternal life) seems ideologically and spiritually less sound than an ethics system based on doing the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do. Selflessness without the need for a metaphysical carrot to be dangled ahead of you.

I wonder how a religion, or many religions, that are based at their core on a fundamental dogma of love, tolerance, and understanding can systemically be co-opted by certain causes. In doing so, turning the faithful into absurdist strawman caricatures of themselves without realizing what they are perpetuating. How Christians who believe in the sanctity of life paradoxically bomb abortion clinics, or how Muslims, whose Koran actually states that the prophet Muhammad was the last of a series of godly prophets that included Jesus, and that Allah, Yahweh, and God are the same entity, commit mass murder in the name of their faith. A faith that advocates love and understanding.

Faith is a powerful tool. It’s something that at once is both beautiful and horrifying. Beautiful because it is one of those exemplary human traits that allow an individual to persevere through adversity, even when all other sources of motivation have been sucked dry. It can also spur entire groups of people to go commit heinous acts, not pausing to consider if their actions are just and ethical on an objective standpoint, but confidently and even joyfully if they are assured that such acts prove their faith and guarantee them high standing in whatever they believe.

That something that once stood for the very concept of peace and tolerance can come to represent the hatred, anger, and self delusion of those who claim to venerate it, to the point where it must be protected behind a thick barrier for fear of what those who oppose it might do, is one of the fundamental rots of corruption that is underlying the surface of our world today.

The Rising Tide (opinion)

A select few of my friends who I know offline share common beliefs with me. Locational issues prevent me from connecting with them in person, so the majority of my socialization is done online, and mainly through facebook.

One friend of mine posted a status that neatly condensed the highs and lows of what I feel is happening in America, and across the world. Some of my views might be polarizing or inflammatory if taken as such, but he's right in his main point that society as a whole, right now, seems to be on a frightening decline. The slow death of net neutrality, the increasing self-absorption and narcissism complex of everyday Americans, and a host of other problems. Stopping to think about just how completely fucked we seem to be gets depressing quickly. But it's people like the aforementioned friends that give me a small amount of hope.

Another topic touched on is the apparent inherent tendency of people to rally against any viewpoint whatsoever, that they either disagree with or believe others will disagree with. Both sides of the issue need to be taken into account. I myself am guilty of hypocrisy and jumping to conclusions, but we need to realize that it is a simple, inherent part of being human and to transcend our self delusion.

And it's not all self-inflicted. The culture that has sprung up from the twisted mockery of hope that the American Dream has become has significantly contributed to the decline of society. And no, it's not the "how-mo-seckshuls corrupting god fearing citizens" or "paranoid right wing gun nuts" or even "miley cyrus is OUT OF CONTROL"; it's the fact that these are presented as valid issues to argue and take sides about, while the real movers and shakers of the world, the ones with all the money, who own the means of production and are swiftly acquiring the channels of free communication, manufacture these conflicts in an attempt to keep each thinking human being from realizing it.

I realize that this is beginning to sound like a diatribe, and anyone in the aforementioned groups can write it off by labeling me as the other side. But the truth of the matter is that's exactly what the manufacturers of conflict want you to do, so that you don't think about it. The almost automatic decision to write something off you don't agree with, which is exactly what the specific friend was referring to. These are real thoughts, and real opinions, considered and articulated. Not sound bites. Not meaningless rhetoric. It's the horrible truth.

We appear to be on a bad path, one leading to a rapidly dystopian future. We already live in a dystopia; it's just not obvious to the majority of people yet. The people we believe represent us in government only represent the interests of whoever bankrolls them, and that's the way they want it to stay, while we watch American Idol and argue about talk shows, celebrities, and ultimately meaningless conflicts created for the express purpose of distraction.

As of right now, honor is dying. Integrity is dying. Compassion is dying. Intelligence is dying.

And crap is king.

Karma Police (Yes, inspired by Radiohead)

"Got one. Jay Fallsman. Age 37."

A keyboard clicked in front of a large bank of monitors. The larger screen situated in the middle brought up a camera feed, taken from the branches of a tree, or a lightpost, or a parked semi. Anywhere that escaped the normal notice of people. The subject the feed was centered on a crimson jaguar, brand new. Inside was a man dressed in a business suit, one ear glued to a cellphone as he backed out of his driveway, gesturing wildly. He blew out onto the street, narrowly missing a bicycling child, and denting the side door of a car parked on the opposite curb. The car's owner turned from his mailbox and yelled at the rapidly retreating Mr. Fallsman, who in turn raised a middle finger without even looking.

"Fuckin' businessmen. High powered Madoffs-in-training, eh?" The speaker nudged the man sitting next to his booth, who turned and gave him a warning look.
"You know you aren't supposed to be personal about it, Jack. You're gonna get another citation."

Jack sighed and turned back to his monitors, tapping a few more keys on his panel. "Alright, alright Craig, I know you're right. Besides, not like the boss doesn't hand out citations like candy."  Picking up a coffee cup, he took a sip, and switched over to another feed. Another street along the oblivious Jay Fallsman's route to his office.

A contractor van turned the corner sharply and a rusted screw bounced off the fender, landing bolt upright. Minutes passed. A few more cars came down the road, but Jack tapped a key or two and they missed it by inches. Finally, the shiny red jaguar roared down the street, and the screw embedded itself deep into a tire with a loud pop. Fallsman's eyes went wide as he jerked the wheel to the side, his car squealing in protest until he banged against the sidewalk and into a telephone pole. As he got out and inspected the flat, he grumbled into his cell. "Yeah. Yeah. I blew a tire. Shit, man, this was the last meeting in the portfolio, and now I'm gonna be late." A pause. "I'll see you at the office."

As he went back into his trunk and began to fiddle with the jack, he neglected to notice his front bumper now had a dent in it.

Jack leaned back in his chair and logged the entire scene. He finished typing up his report, and placed it in the "Out" tray on his desk. Tabbing over to the monitor bank's "search mode", he leaned back and watched the rapidly changing feeds, smirking to himself. "That's what you get when you mess with the karma police..."

Music Lit # 1 : Control Room Before You

So this is the first in a series of musical writing I'll be doing, where I'll match points in a song to scenes in a passage I'll write. the time in parentheses corresponds to the elapsed time in the song, so (2:52) would mean that this scene syncs up with two minutes and fifty two second into the track. This first one is from my favorite artist, Gramatik, and is a very electronic/funky guitar fusion track. So, click the link and listen along as you try to imagine the setting...

(0:00) We open on a clear blue sky, a few puffy white clouds floating above, as the camera swings down and pans across a flat dry cactus desert, narrowing on a dust cloud trailing behind what looks like a stage coach.

(0:40) We focus on the back of the stagecoach, which seems larger than normal, the driver sitting up front and cracking his whip in time, wrapped up in all sorts of patchy shabby clothing and a worn bandana. As we follow the stage coach, we begin spot the high wooden timbers of a fort drawing closer. The stage slows down, and pulls up to the heavy gate as the music picks up.

(1:02) The gates fly open and admit the slowly rolling stagecoach into a sprawling old western town, complete with saloon and sheriff and barrels and tumbleweeds. The people are actually shabby, fifties style clunky robots, performing menial tasks and actions along the road as the coach rumbles past.

(1:15) The camera enters the saloon, where similarly dressed cowboy robots lift mugs of oil in time to the counter syncopation of the track (one, two, one, two). Others pick up and drop coins on tables, show hands of poker, play the piano, raise their hats at robotic barmaids.

(1:30) We snap cut outside to another robotic cowboy playing a boxy guitar stiffly and methodically, like an animatronic doll from an old wild west showcase (think Wild Bill's Revue, etc.) The camera pans out as he plays his riff, but the circuitry under his outfit begins to pulse and glow to the beat, his edges looking less ragged and boxy, the guitar slowly beginning to gain fluidity.

(1:54) The barrels lining the edges out the road begin to shake, their lids starting to rise and pop back down, flashing lights visible for the few seconds that they are up. The townsrobots begin to move more smoothly, and the dust of the roads blows away in small patches to reveal dull metal underneath. The entire town seems to be starting to move to the beat, the buildings twitching in time along with the rest of the inhabitants.

(2:19) The robot with the guitar stands up on his bench, which unfolds into a chrome metal table, his guitar growing fluid metal appendages, his very form beginning to streamline as he plays. No boxy approximations of digits, his fingers are mimicing the grace and dexterity of human fingers, like an android. The change sweeps up his arms as his circuits reconfigure, and the barrels surrounding him start to unfold as their hidden occupants raise their heads. A plethora of futuristic looking robots, with neon purple and teal accents unfold from the barrels, a sweeping change from the dust of the streets to gleaming metal and circuitry begins to spread across the town. The old wooden building facades begin to fall off, showing the bleeping and blinking lights underneath them, the cool metal jarring with the old style architecture as the technological takeover spreads.

(2:50) The change continues, steady and fluidly, as we pan to the interiors of buildings, growing more modern, advancing steadily through the coming decades of smooth chrome and sleek shine, the outfits changing on all the patrons as well as they begin to methodically dismantle the old from the new, now in control of their own setting. The sheriff stands up and unlocks the now holographic bars of the jail cell and releases the prisoners, who looks like robotic punks. They all proceed to dismantle the musty dusty office into something shiny and bright, then proceed outside with the rest of the citizens.

(3:34) We move back again to the first robot, continuing to play; he steps down from the stage and his guitar plays itself as he joins the throng in ripping up the dust and dirt of the road, revealing complex circuitry and patterns, fractal shapes bleeding through the dust not yet cleaned up, light pulsing from the exposed underlying machinery as the entire town shines with energy. The work continues as the wooden timbers of the border begin to stretch up higher and cover the town.

(4:00) The walls rise higher and higher, the entirety of the townspeople now almost human looking, the futuristic metallic androids of Dick and Gibson. They continue their construction as the synchronicity slows down and each develops their own pattern, the new utopia slowly covered with a shiny weaving metal dome made of fibrous metal as it begins to sink into the ground. Finally, the dust blows over where the town used to be, tumbleweeds and dust blowing everywhere as the changed androids retreat below the ground. The camera slow pans to one leftover barrel, tipped over on its side, as a small robotic scorpion crawls out of it and heads into the desert...

(Header Image sourced from Iron West, by Doug TenNapel)

Frank in Stain

The theory wrote
A price is paid
He stares upon
The silent maid

Her heart is cold
The life was slayed
He flips the switch
A hope delayed

The power jolts
Her body, swayed
The genius runs
His love, is saved?

Returned to light!
Then her light fades...
His pain grows more
His love, the grave

Out of the Blue

So I made this blog all the way back in 2011. Well, no, that's not entirely true. I laid the foundations for it back then, but didn't write a single post. I've always had a lot to say, but never managed to conceptualize it in a way that I could pack it a lunchbox and send it sailing out into the great dark internet, like some sort of mentor figure sending a hero on his quest for honor. Four lines in, and I'm already rambling. I don't know who'll read this. No one might. All in all though, I think just writing it down and logging it might be more substantial than just letting my thoughts sublimate into brain noise.

Part of the reason I was initially reluctant to post was that feeling, that dark shadow that hunches over in everyone's brain, telling them 'Why? What makes you special? Why do your words deserve to be listened to?' It's inside everyone. The triumph of humanity is that we don't always listen to that voice, and the outcome may be better or worse. But the outcome will always be different than if we'd never tried at all. It took me a long time to realize that, and three years later, I think I'm ready to strike out, sword-pen in my hand and wits in my head.

This blog will contain a variety of posts. Some might be incredibly pretentious musings on human nature or the vast capacity of the mind to perceive, and other such philosophical drivel. Others might be pertaining to certain musical tracks and thoughts they evoke (I like to visualize music videos to some songs that I feel fit the music, or a scene that the tune evokes). There may be short literature pieces, or poems, or examinations on facets of the city-state I live and work in, which could be a whole blog by itself, and is most likely covered in depth in other, more established blogs. But most of all, I'll be trying to process the prismatic tornado of my brain and personality into some sort of concrete parcel, much easier unpacked and examined than the current wisps of wait-no-i-forgot-damn-hey-what-about-this system I currently have.

Reject the Mundane
Embrace the Unknown

SP