Prelude Of The Gulls: Scaling The Whales

I had to change the name of my blog again.

I had a lucid dream the other night on mushrooms in which I was at sea basically as like a Capt. Ahab type character and I was looking for my white whale. Then I had a similar dream to that again last night, in which I was on a boat at sea looking for a group of whales that I couldn't find.

Since having these dreams I've had this phrase in my head "Scaling The Whales." I feel I've reached the part of my Drive To 2011 where my journey has been distracted by my attempt to scale the whales.

I assume that the "whales" I'm looking to scale involve music. Even within that phrase the word scale has multiple meanings and music has scales, which only leads me to believe I'm looking for something with music.

I'm in the process of starting a new side project with one of my oldest friends and former bandmate from 5 years ago, which is a total departure of what I've been playing. I hope to get some our of music online very soon, it's all improvised and more electronic than about anything I've ever done. Our music is a mixture of King Crimson, MGMT, Animal Collective, and free-form jazz. We're thinking of naming the band name Weather. I like it, it's a very simple name and weather invokes all different kinds of mental images to people when said.

I had an interview at DePaul University earlier this week as part of their admissions process trying to get in there for grad school, and Dr. David Ehrlich who interviewed me said I exceeded all expectations he had after meeting me, and that he is recommending for DePaul's Public Policy Studies graduate program. So I'm pretty excited about that, and now I'm on the scholarship hunt. It'd be cool to be going to grad school this fall, and DePaul was my No.1 choice, so it's great that I got in there and now I just have to figure out everything else in my life.

Iambic Strays

Yesterday I had quite the experience. I had never taken psilocybin mushrooms before, but yesterday I had gotten my hands on some and it was quite the ride. I've taken LSD before and psilocybin is somewhat similar, but also quite a different kind of psychedelic experience than LSD.

Previously when tripping on LSD I would just listen to music or watch visually stimulating movies, but with mushrooms I decided to be more active and I played music for most of the experience with my friend Ryan, and even recorded some of the music I was playing.

I liked being able to create with tripping, I find that to be more productive than just the experience itself. Psilocybin made me feel differently than LSD does, probably because LSD is a more intense experience, and like you don't even have time to feel while on it.

LSD makes me very anti-social, where mushrooms made me want to be very social. I think I angered/annoyed quite a few people yesterday, because I just felt wanting to be social and "trip texted" a bunch of my friends who I don't think were amused by my comments and out right buggery. Regardless of what I did and felt the experience was great, and definitely worth doing again. Mushrooms are a more functionable experience than LSD is.

The psilocybin definitely influenced my style of drumming while playing, and made me play more primal and free-jazz like drums. The music sounded somewhat similar to Zach Hill, who is now one of my favorite drummers in modern music. Hill's style of music I think is the direction of music I'm heading into with my drumming.

David Lynch + Moby = Shot In The Back Of The Head

My favorite film director and American legend David Lynch has just directed the new music video for Moby's first single off his new album due this summer. I think it's a great video, and Moby's musical direction is kind of sounding to me like taking a lot of Thom Yorke influence.

Now I'm Always Smiling

"Sometimes shit don't work." Ben the singer from my band said that during a gig we played, and as simple of a statement that is it's very true.

Life is pretty much a big joke I've come to realize. I watch the news, and I pay attention to popular culture and popular music and it's all a big joke. We are becoming a parody of ourselves as a society and no one seems to care. I consider myself a serious person, and I care about what I believe are serious issues. I notice more and more that people by and large don't care to be serious. If you are a serious person you are considered a snob or an elitist, which I think is absolutley ridiculous. What is wrong about trying to take something you're passionate about seriously? Don't people have passions anymore?

I feel like 80% of the people I talk to anymore remind me of the Joker, but not in a cool joker way. People ask me why am I so serious, and that I take things too seriously, yet I don't believe in morals and the stupid hoopla that trick people into following the supposed norms of society and I'm all for chaos. These people who don't take thing seriously still want order and are against chaos even though they don't even seriously believe in the morals they follow. Does this make sense to anyone? Why does everyone try to have their cake and eat it to? I find myself being a mockery of something, what I'm a mockery of yet I don't know, but my way of life is definintely distancing myself from the rest of society.

I've also noticed that I tend to scare people off, maybe it's some subconscoius mechanism I enable without realizing to keep myself in the social dark?

It's strange that like people I consider my best friends I very rarely if ever see. When I meet someone I like if I don't blow it immediately I only usually ever the see person more than a few times and usually quite sparingly. What is my deal? That is what I'm trying to figure out.

My favorite band is a band most people have never heard of called King Crimson. Given the opportunity I would talk about Crimson forever, and I mentioned them and members of the band periodically in my entries. There is a song they wrote called "Epitaph" and I've even quoted the chorus lyrics in previous entries, but they are very strong and powerful words and I just keep finding myself going back to them. They sum how I feel about myself and about this world/reality right now. I think they are possible the best song lyrics I've ever heard and very poetic.

"The wall on which the prophets wrote
Is cracking at the seams.
Upon the instruments of death
The sunlight brightly gleams.
When every man is torn apart
With nightmares and with dreams,
Will no one lay the laurel wreath
As silence drowns the screams.

Between the iron gates of fate,
The seeds of time were sown,
And watered by the deeds of those
Who know and who are known;
Knowledge is a deadly friend
When no one sets the rules.
The fate of all mankind I see
Is in the hands of fools.

Confusion will be my epitaph.
As I crawl a cracked and broken path.
If we make it we can all sit back and laugh.
But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying,
Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying."

David Lynch's A Goofy Movie

I find this video hilarious. It is Disney's A Goofy Movie if made by David Lynch.

Of Moons, Birds & Monsters

Friday:

I hung out with some friends, it was a pretty fun night. I attempted to expand my horizons Friday night and besides the usual of drinking alcohol (which included two of my favorite beers being 1. Framboise Lambic a delicious rasberry flavored belgian beer 2. Brother Thelonius a great brown style ale named after the one and only Thelonius Monk) I took some Adderall. Adderall is a crazy drug, which not only increased my cognitive ability and focused my concentration, but kept me up til 6 in the morning.

At the whims of the friends I was with we ended up going to Exedus II, which is a reggae bar and is predominantly black. I was one of like the only four white people in this place, which was packed. I even did something I very rarely do and broke it down on the dance floor and got a few looks from the brothers near me. I was out of my element.

Saturday:

I met up with a friend of mine down in Pilsen on the southside. I had never been to Pilson before, and it's actually a pretty cool place. I feel the southside gets a worse wrap than it deserves. I like hispanics, and Pilsen which is predominantly hispanic is an interesting area. I was at a apartment in Pilsen just hanging out, and one of the guys there who was from Chile and tripping on mushrooms suggested we go to a tequila party some friends he knew were having.

The group of people I was with went to the party, which was wild. They were guys doing tattoos in the kitchen and scarifications. If you don't know what a scarification is, picture a tattoo that is carved into you with no ink, kind of liked getting branded. It was a wild scene, and definitely different from the kind of parties I was use to. I think it was good for me to see the otherside of life something.

The tequila party was nothing but hispanic and blacks expect for me, I was literally the only white guy there, but nobody seemed to notice or care, which was really really cool. I felt like I fit in, which I don't usually feel when I party with white people.

Sunday:

I had a really boring Easter, probably because I don't celebrate the holiday so there's nothing to do.


To catch a monster
We make a movie
Set the tempo
And cut and cut its brains out
It will inspire on the burning pyre
Half the distance
Half the motion
Communication
It's easy as the ocean

Of Moons, Birds & Monsters

The Only Way

I've haven't had time to do much writing lately, but I've done some reading.

I've been reading lyrics by Greg Lake recently and have really taken to them. Greg seems to write alot about three subjects being the military industrial complex, organized religion, and tehcnology. Greg Lake is not a fan of any of the three.

He wrote a hymn about living for oneself and not falling for the rhetoric and lies of organized religion. I just love the irony of speaking against religion through a religious medium like a hymn. It's a great song, but I really find the lyrics inspiring.

The piece is called "The Only Way (Hymn)"

"People are stirred moved by the word.
Kneel at the shrine, deceived by the wine.
How was the earth conceived? Infinite space.
Is there such a place? You must believe in the human race.

Can you believe, God makes you breathe?
Why did he lose six million Jews?

Touched by the wings, fears angel brings.
Sad winter storm, grey autumn dawn.
Who looks on life itself, who lights your way?
Only you can say. How can you just obey?

Don't need the word, now that you've heard.
Don't be afraid: man is man made.
And when the hour comes, don't turn away.
Face the light of day, and do it your way.
It's the only way."
- Greg Lake

This Is Not 'Nam There Are Rules

Has the whole world gone crazy?

That is a question asked by the character Walter Sobchak played by John Goodman in the film The Big Lebowski. I find myself asking the same question.

I don't think there is anything wrong in rejecting society and rejecting the norms presented by society.

I don't like the term alternative lifestyle. What is it an alternative to? Being a greed oriented uninspired uncreative ignorant moron, well hell yes I want the alternative to that. Why are alternatives seen as bad or weird?

People need to become more open-minded and more accepting.

Ron Paul says America is ruled by Soft-Facism (aka Corporatism)and I tend to agree.

Confusion Will Be My Epitaph

The world can be full of surprises. When I was 17, I formed a band that radically changed my life at the time and made me look at the world in a new and different light. I formed that band with a guitarist a couple years my younger, who was the Neal Cassidy to my Jack Kerouac. I revisited the past today.

Ryan who was the guitarist in the band, or as I refered to it as musical institution, that is (IN)Discipline showed up at my house today. Ryan is such an interesting character. First of all he's a brilliant musician, and just a phenomenally creative individual. Secondly I've never met anyone like him. Since (IN)Discipline broke up in 2004 Ryan lived a couple of years in Driggs, Idaho, followed by a stint in Little Rock, Arkansas and now is back in Michigan/Chicago area.

Ryan has more crazy stories than I do, and he has all the crazy stories I want. He came to me today with the intention of maybe forming a band. Right now it's all in talk and prepartion phase, but I already feel like it is going to happen and be bigger than when we use to play together. People always told us that we were ahead of our time, and we pretty much were. Now the experimental progressive music we use to play 6 years ago is much more acceptable and popular today.

What we don't have is a rest of the band, but we both have ideas of individuals to fill in the gaps. Now for me the question is do I want to bring back the monster that is (IN)Discipline or whatever we name we give the group? How would this effect the rest of my life right now? Will we be able to get gigs? I was all set for grad school this fall, and I'm playing in a band right now, but for the chance to be in an active band with Ryan again I would probably be willing to change the course I'm going in.

Now I'm afraid if I get too comfortable in Chicago that I could miss this musical opportunity, which is the creative outlet I've been waiting for.

Playing with Ryan would allow me incorporate my electronic drums and bass pedal synthesizer and all this equipment I have that I can't use because of the current music I play. With Ryan and me the rules are simple just be creative and don't think about what you're doing and you'll be fine.

It's funny that I originally planned on blogging on a totally different subject and this is how it turned out.