be positive and friendly. they experience enough suffering.
don't listen to me. listen to your heart.
with the love and passion of lions,
Anthony
Friday, October 23, 2015
38
love. if you don't they will not heal.
be positive and friendly. they experience enough suffering.
don't listen to me. listen to your heart.
with the love and passion of lions,
Anthony
be positive and friendly. they experience enough suffering.
don't listen to me. listen to your heart.
with the love and passion of lions,
Anthony
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Barcelona
I went to Barcelona after graduating high school in 1995. Going to college in the U.S. wasn't going to be far enough away. The first couple of months went well. I was 17 and turned 18 while I was there. I played a lot of soccer. There was this bar called La Bolsa. Drinks were all listed on a computer screens. The prices of the drinks went up and down over the course of the night. It was like the stock market and every night the market would crash and the prices of drinks would all drop. It was fun.
In the beginning of December, I got what felt like a cold. I stopped attending classes at the language school I was enrolled in. Dorotea Blanco, the older woman whose flat I lived in kept trying to get me out of the house. She didn't like having her boarders in the house during the day. After a couple days of feeling mildly sick, I started to feel worse. It had been a week and horrible thoughts were inhabiting my brain. It didn't help that during this time I was reading For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway, which is all about a man, death, and Spain.
At sunset I would become terrified. As the day ended and night began, I would often attempt to call my parents from the one telephone in the flat, a flat shared by four boarders including myself, Dorotea Blanco and her thirty-something son. I would call my parents wanting to start balling, just let the fear and terror transform into tears. But the placement of the phone in the living room didn't allow for the space to do that.
I went to a doctor and attempted to explain my situation in Spanish. If memory serves, he said that something was wrong with my head and I was homesick but not sick in the "you have the flu" sense. I was sure I had mono or AIDS. I was sure I was going to die. I would lie in bed and visualize a planet billions and billions and billions of light years from Earth. A planet all alone in black space. Only I lived on this planet.
These were the first panic attacks I experienced in my life. I didn't know it then. Sadly, they wouldn't be the last. My mom had to come and rescue me. She stayed in a hotel not far from my flat. I went to her room and cried until I couldn't breathe. We went out where she loved the city all decorated for Christmas. It was hard for me to pay attention, I stared off into space a lot during those few days. They call that disaffectation or severe lack of emotional awareness. I hurt everywhere but felt numb.
I decided to go home with my mom, spend a few weeks with my family, and then come back. The day before I was to return I was filled with such fear, such poignant and precise fear, I couldn't go back. It felt too sickening. This was a difficult time in my life. But I learned. I learned what a panic attack is. I learned that they suck. That's all. Panic attacks suck.
With so much love,
Anthony
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
jesus on the modern cross
the cross is made of sleek, black steel. the rectangular posts, both vertical and horizontal, are perfect in 90 degree angles and geometric precision. the fullness of the black steel posts is also perfect (though they are empty). jesus is missing from the cross. the cross stands at the top of an Edward Hopper hill. the hill is angular. far in the distance stands a tower, grey, a shape, archetypal.
a man of art climbs the hill in search of the modern cross. he is a sharp man and he carries a knife. a shepherd herding mechanical sheep blindly ascends the hill along its path. the man of art pulls his knife and cuts up through the shepherd's belly. out fly the butterflies, they sing as they fly away "and if i only could, i'd make a deal with god, and I'd get him to swap our places, be running up that road, be running up that hill"
the man of art watches as the joy fills the shepherd, the ecstasy, the freedom from bondage.
if god is love, then the butterflys' departure is an allegory or an algorithm in the computer, the brain, aggregating human happiness and pouring it into the shepherd's soul.
i love with heat. i love with the passion of the fabled christ. i love with the spirit of the animal. i love with the servitude of the maggot. i love with the bravery of the black town. i love with insanity of white racial structural violence. i love with delicate wings, tiny wings, the wings of a common fly. i love with a hermeneutic zeal, examining the text for oppositions. i love with contradiction. bolted to a black cross.
if i only could, (let him be razed),
Anthony
a man of art climbs the hill in search of the modern cross. he is a sharp man and he carries a knife. a shepherd herding mechanical sheep blindly ascends the hill along its path. the man of art pulls his knife and cuts up through the shepherd's belly. out fly the butterflies, they sing as they fly away "and if i only could, i'd make a deal with god, and I'd get him to swap our places, be running up that road, be running up that hill"
the man of art watches as the joy fills the shepherd, the ecstasy, the freedom from bondage.
if god is love, then the butterflys' departure is an allegory or an algorithm in the computer, the brain, aggregating human happiness and pouring it into the shepherd's soul.
i love with heat. i love with the passion of the fabled christ. i love with the spirit of the animal. i love with the servitude of the maggot. i love with the bravery of the black town. i love with insanity of white racial structural violence. i love with delicate wings, tiny wings, the wings of a common fly. i love with a hermeneutic zeal, examining the text for oppositions. i love with contradiction. bolted to a black cross.
if i only could, (let him be razed),
Anthony
Monday, August 24, 2015
by grace we enter transformation
"Up, down, turn around; Please don't let me hit the ground; Tonight I think I'll walk alone; I'll find my soul as I go home"
Trainspotting was released in 1996, almost 20 years ago. I watched it alone at the Elmwood Theater on College Ave. in Berkeley when I was 19. Before the film I was driving around alone in a blue 1989 Nissan Sentra, crawling out my skin, desperately craving something different. In the film I found what I was looking for. A bizarre European indie film about heroin addiction, sex, teenage angst, violence, being Scottish--all things I strangely/not strangely related to. I loved the music. Songs from New Order, Underworld, Brian Eno, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop. I wanted to live in this music, foreign to me.
Today, I'm struggling in my professional life. I'm 37. I started a music business by myself two years ago. But lately I've become lost in relation to this work. I work three days a week at a nonprofit with first generation college students. I'm a career coach. I love this work, I love the students I work with, I'm grateful for the opportunity, humbled, and constantly learning from the students. But when you add up the pieces of my professional life, you get a number below 10, a number that is fuzzy, incomprehensible at the moment.
There are so many wonderful people and things in my life. I'm profoundly lucky to be married to a woman who is luminous, serene and grounded. We have a little boy. What a joy to have this little boy and his waves of feeling.
But in relation to my professional life I'm still that 19 year old crawling out his skin, confused. I dive back into New Order's "Temptation" and am transported.
I'm reminded that what's important is not what I've accomplished professionally. The goal is to simply live and let the judgements of good person/bad person, successful person/unsuccessful person dissolve. I'm alive, in this moment, living out energy, and soaking in energy.
If by grace we enter transformation, then the grace is the music, friends and family that allow me to transform my perspective. In this moment, just this moment, I'm no longer a slave to the ego concept, self-judgements of good/bad, successful/unsuccessful.
"oh you've got green eyes, oh you've got blue eyes, oh you've got grey eyes"
and they are all beautiful, so said the Lord,
Anthony
Trainspotting was released in 1996, almost 20 years ago. I watched it alone at the Elmwood Theater on College Ave. in Berkeley when I was 19. Before the film I was driving around alone in a blue 1989 Nissan Sentra, crawling out my skin, desperately craving something different. In the film I found what I was looking for. A bizarre European indie film about heroin addiction, sex, teenage angst, violence, being Scottish--all things I strangely/not strangely related to. I loved the music. Songs from New Order, Underworld, Brian Eno, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop. I wanted to live in this music, foreign to me.
Today, I'm struggling in my professional life. I'm 37. I started a music business by myself two years ago. But lately I've become lost in relation to this work. I work three days a week at a nonprofit with first generation college students. I'm a career coach. I love this work, I love the students I work with, I'm grateful for the opportunity, humbled, and constantly learning from the students. But when you add up the pieces of my professional life, you get a number below 10, a number that is fuzzy, incomprehensible at the moment.
There are so many wonderful people and things in my life. I'm profoundly lucky to be married to a woman who is luminous, serene and grounded. We have a little boy. What a joy to have this little boy and his waves of feeling.
But in relation to my professional life I'm still that 19 year old crawling out his skin, confused. I dive back into New Order's "Temptation" and am transported.
I'm reminded that what's important is not what I've accomplished professionally. The goal is to simply live and let the judgements of good person/bad person, successful person/unsuccessful person dissolve. I'm alive, in this moment, living out energy, and soaking in energy.
If by grace we enter transformation, then the grace is the music, friends and family that allow me to transform my perspective. In this moment, just this moment, I'm no longer a slave to the ego concept, self-judgements of good/bad, successful/unsuccessful.
"oh you've got green eyes, oh you've got blue eyes, oh you've got grey eyes"
and they are all beautiful, so said the Lord,
Anthony
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
opera
i read an article that showed up on my facebook feed. it argued that we should accept being average, mediocre, and not special because so few of us are actually exceptional. it's better to accept than delude. the author argues that doesn't mean to stop trying to be special, just let it go if you find out that you are not special, one evening, sitting at your computer, typing a blog post, about an article you read from your facebook feed.
what if i have deluded myself? what if my life, what i contribute to humanity is average or below average? i find pathways in my mind that lead to a place of self-exceptionalism. what if i have been tricked? what if the evidence is clear?
and then there is Maria Callas and her performance of O Mio Babbino Caro, the aria from Puccini's Gianni Schicchi. I assume you are familiar. Is this not exceptional? The beginning, gently uncovering the melody and ending down, setting up Callas' rise. and the end, with the substance of the strings. it would have been enough to end with her voice, but it is not enough.
am i not exceptional because i listen to this musical rendering, this happening, this vocal emotional subtle touching, this gorgeous life. it blisters and heals. i explode with genius because i listen. again and again. in other words: i love therefore i am exceptional.
alas, no. the crestfallen boy lowers his head.
brokaenhearted and h(e)ated, a paean, a pence, a pauper.
Anthony
what if i have deluded myself? what if my life, what i contribute to humanity is average or below average? i find pathways in my mind that lead to a place of self-exceptionalism. what if i have been tricked? what if the evidence is clear?
and then there is Maria Callas and her performance of O Mio Babbino Caro, the aria from Puccini's Gianni Schicchi. I assume you are familiar. Is this not exceptional? The beginning, gently uncovering the melody and ending down, setting up Callas' rise. and the end, with the substance of the strings. it would have been enough to end with her voice, but it is not enough.
am i not exceptional because i listen to this musical rendering, this happening, this vocal emotional subtle touching, this gorgeous life. it blisters and heals. i explode with genius because i listen. again and again. in other words: i love therefore i am exceptional.
alas, no. the crestfallen boy lowers his head.
brokaenhearted and h(e)ated, a paean, a pence, a pauper.
Anthony
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
traditional/unenlightened masculinity
At its core, traditional/unenlightened masculinity is a willingness to kill a threatening other man. Do you have the balls? Do you have the cock? If challenged by a rival will you step up and be willing to kill. There are a multitude of other layers to this normalized masculinity. However, it comes down to this question.
In the year 2015, our time, our era, in order to kill a man all you need is the psychological capacity, in an instant, to pull a trigger with your pointer finger. You need not lift weights, get buff, train for years in a given martial art. All you need to do is squeeze a trigger. Technology and advanced weaponry have made the passage into traditional/unenlightened masculinity so slight and simple.
We still play games on the gridiron and fight in octagons broadcast on cable television. But this is entertainment, not the heart of masculinity. Yes, it takes bravery and courage to step into the MMA octagon. But the game is controlled, and men have a certain degree of choice. (Men who fight in the octagon seem to be driven, enslaved possibly, by a quest for a quenching chaos, and in the octagon they are quenched.) But again this isn't about masculinity. It is about the visual performance of masculinity. It sells beers.
The question becomes where do we find the true bravery and courage that defines true/enlightened masculinity. No more a conception of masculinity driven by advertising, enslaved by an unconscious desire to "defend one's country" -- no longer do we uphold a masculinity that conveniently shepherds our poor men of color onto the new age battlefield, wherever that is.
In the age of the Glock, where do we find the courage of men?
I am carbon; I am love.
Anthony
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
God
What does it look like 10 minutes before the Big Bang? Is there sharp, eye-scorching white light? Is there serene blackness? What is the pace? Is it slow? Do the glow fish with hallowed shadows still swim about in the beyond?
I think this is my conception of God. Not metaphysical. Physical, unknown. So many unknowns. But why God? Why that word? Filled with so many connotations, an old white man with a white beard. Not that I believe that story. But why use the word? The modernists attempted to escape the meaning injected into words of the language/culture they were born into. The post-modernists attempted to use the word but put a strike through it.God. Simultaneously posting the word with it's bucket of meaning and emptying the bucket. Does that work?
The question for me is why God. I don't have the power to re-create a concept. As I write these words, I feel trapped, as the modernists and so many writers before me have. But one must trudge on, yes? Through the scrambled field, call it the wasteland, of language injected with prior meaning.
For me God is in music, God is music. God is death. Real death. Like the kind you don't come back from and the kind you don't go somewhere else from. Finality, the end, but again the unknown. Am I still an atheist? I don't believe in God. In this moment, I'm simply accepting the unknowable. Any scientist will tell you that the unknown dwarfs the known. What we know is a grain of sand in a universe of unknown. What's inside the sun? Why haven't the Oakland A's won a World Series when they have all the data? What is emotion? Where do the unicorns live, and are there huge monsters that collect unicorns in jars, smiling vividly when a new unicorn is captured and placed into the jar with other sad unicorns.
How can you listen to Brian Eno's "Discreet Music" and not believe in God? How can you not believe in the serenity and beauty of the music? Of course, musical serenity and beauty do not have to formulate God. But what is the alternative? That Brian Eno's "Discreet Music" is just a song. I notice all these words: "How" "believe" "just". Trapped again in language.
I would never push my God that is not really God onto you. I can't even clarify the conception, by definition, for my definition includes the unknown. I can't say my God is better than your God or your/my worldview that does not include God. I can't even come to know. However, I can feel. I can feel, and believe/know that the feelings are neurons firing in my brain, physical, biological, certainly not metaphysical. Transcendent, maybe, but a physical transcendence. Maybe that should be the name of my band. But it's already the name of someone else's band. I googled it (no I didn't).
Let me be clear on one point: science is superior to religion because it demands proof.
It's most likely a yearning. Yeah, it's probably just that: a yearning for something more, something transcendent. But more importantly a yearning. To yearn. To want on faith, to want so badly and so profoundly that it strikes your soul like an American Indian arrowhead made of flint; the strike creating friction creating fire creating warmth and wrath, the power to propel or destroy life.
A yearning for God, for meaning, for that which is beautiful and calm, for myself, for all folks, flora and fauna. Maybe it is because this desire, for that which is beautiful and calm, is so far from our shared social reality, so far from the known, so far from what seems possible, we must call it God. It must be something, something shared, text on a screen, something that stands upright for something, because the idea of its absence is so sad, so unbearable. (and the tears flow individually like clowns, so many clowns bursting out of that tiny car). Helplessness, happiness, profundity, excellence, tragedy, humanity, genocide, tactile domes, emptiness, completion, creation, singularity, opposition, human freedom, switch blades, bondage, children, hope.
oh the places you will go.
with the love of a God I accept but do not believe in (or maybe i do?),
Anthony
I think this is my conception of God. Not metaphysical. Physical, unknown. So many unknowns. But why God? Why that word? Filled with so many connotations, an old white man with a white beard. Not that I believe that story. But why use the word? The modernists attempted to escape the meaning injected into words of the language/culture they were born into. The post-modernists attempted to use the word but put a strike through it.
The question for me is why God. I don't have the power to re-create a concept. As I write these words, I feel trapped, as the modernists and so many writers before me have. But one must trudge on, yes? Through the scrambled field, call it the wasteland, of language injected with prior meaning.
For me God is in music, God is music. God is death. Real death. Like the kind you don't come back from and the kind you don't go somewhere else from. Finality, the end, but again the unknown. Am I still an atheist? I don't believe in God. In this moment, I'm simply accepting the unknowable. Any scientist will tell you that the unknown dwarfs the known. What we know is a grain of sand in a universe of unknown. What's inside the sun? Why haven't the Oakland A's won a World Series when they have all the data? What is emotion? Where do the unicorns live, and are there huge monsters that collect unicorns in jars, smiling vividly when a new unicorn is captured and placed into the jar with other sad unicorns.
How can you listen to Brian Eno's "Discreet Music" and not believe in God? How can you not believe in the serenity and beauty of the music? Of course, musical serenity and beauty do not have to formulate God. But what is the alternative? That Brian Eno's "Discreet Music" is just a song. I notice all these words: "How" "believe" "just". Trapped again in language.
I would never push my God that is not really God onto you. I can't even clarify the conception, by definition, for my definition includes the unknown. I can't say my God is better than your God or your/my worldview that does not include God. I can't even come to know. However, I can feel. I can feel, and believe/know that the feelings are neurons firing in my brain, physical, biological, certainly not metaphysical. Transcendent, maybe, but a physical transcendence. Maybe that should be the name of my band. But it's already the name of someone else's band. I googled it (no I didn't).
Let me be clear on one point: science is superior to religion because it demands proof.
It's most likely a yearning. Yeah, it's probably just that: a yearning for something more, something transcendent. But more importantly a yearning. To yearn. To want on faith, to want so badly and so profoundly that it strikes your soul like an American Indian arrowhead made of flint; the strike creating friction creating fire creating warmth and wrath, the power to propel or destroy life.
A yearning for God, for meaning, for that which is beautiful and calm, for myself, for all folks, flora and fauna. Maybe it is because this desire, for that which is beautiful and calm, is so far from our shared social reality, so far from the known, so far from what seems possible, we must call it God. It must be something, something shared, text on a screen, something that stands upright for something, because the idea of its absence is so sad, so unbearable. (and the tears flow individually like clowns, so many clowns bursting out of that tiny car). Helplessness, happiness, profundity, excellence, tragedy, humanity, genocide, tactile domes, emptiness, completion, creation, singularity, opposition, human freedom, switch blades, bondage, children, hope.
oh the places you will go.
with the love of a God I accept but do not believe in (or maybe i do?),
Anthony
Monday, September 15, 2014
Ray Rice kills 2000 innocents in GAZA! And HELLOF OTHER SHIT
Ray Rice was found guilty today of slaughtering 2000 innocent Palestinians. This according to multiple sources that vehemently defend all actions of the Israeli State. Ray Rice and Roger Goodell were found guilty of war crimes in the Hague. International tribunals began gathering wood to burn both men at the "steak" (BBQ!) but realized it was Sunday evening and NFL Football was on. The tribunals began laughing hysterically, and all at once bellowed "Are you ready for some football!"
Philip Seymour Roth said, "I hella love Oakland, mom. I hella love Oakland. I wear that shit on my t-shirt, which means I'm dope, hard, socially conscious and down with black people."
Young Mr. Roth's mom said, "Son, it is not enough to 'hella love Oakland'. Michael Brown was murdered by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri."
"WHAT THE FUCK, MOM! Who are you, like the Hannity version of Angela Davis! Fuck! I live in Piedmont, so I KNOW what the fuck is going on in Oakland! I may be white, but fuck if they're gonna play me in this Fox News catastrophic cacophony of lies and deceit."
A very cute golden-doodle barks in the distance. "Bark."
"Mom, I'm gonna show these people what I'm made of. I know you saw my comments on Jeff's post. That fucker is such a fucking racist asshole. Jeff thinks there is no such thing as white privilege. Mom, I'm going to be very real with you right now. I'm nine years old, and I'm about to get very real with you. White privilege is not a theory, it's not up for debate. It's a fact. There is now enough research on white privilege to put it right up there with evolution. I got a shirt that says "white privilege is a thing just like evolution, you Christian fuckers". I know it's a lot to put on a t shirt. But I've made my point."
"Son, do you know that I'm pregnant?"
"Yes, mom. You told me."
"And you know that my love for Morrison's Song of Solomon is supreme?"
"[what the fuck eyes]Yes."
"And you know how much I love Van Morrison's song Stepping Out Queen Part 2?"
"YES! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GETTING AT MOM!"
"I'm just temporarily telling you that Marvin Gaye is a God. Do you understand the logic? If you listen to What's Going On enough times, the complete album, you will transcend space and time and simultaneously have the tools to dismantle capitalism, sexism, racism, talk show hostism, sportsism, financial planninism, fortune cookieism, realism and post-modernism (that serpernt!).". (sic--just because)
"Understood. I'm at about 57 listens. I know the Buddha's calling me on my SAMSUNG GALAXY S 5, "The Next Big Thing Is Here" [Paid endorsement. Don't hate. Artists got to make a living.] soon. But, mom, the point is this: Marvin Gaye may indeed be God. I agree. I wholeheartedly, fuck-holy-wholeheartedly agree. I'll agree until I'm blue in the balls and my dick's as big as the Eiffel Tower so I can fuck the world for 72 hours, but what's happening in Oakland, with all the killing and inequality...well, us Piedmonters, us Hill Toppers, we gotta start wearing more t-shirts and clicking more likes when we read headlines about evil people presented in front of us on our Samsung mobile devices. Jeff fucking liked ISIS, mom! Can you believe that shit. Jeff is facebook friends with the Islamic State. He re-posts and re-tweets all of the ISIL commentary. It's fucking fascinating. They're all about Love! Can you believe that shit! They have loving-kindness as one of the top three reasons they're beheading motherfuckers."
"What does Jeff have to say about Putin?"
"Jeff thinks Putin is an asshole because he won't just admit he shot down that Malaysian plane."
"Son, have you ever read Good Will Hunting?"
"Mom, that's a movie; how could I read that shit. SHIT!"
"That's what I mean. You have to read the visual. It's like the matrix. Screens produce images that must be read as text. 3D text, and you don't need googles."
"MOM! Google is a search engine, and you don't need GOGGLES for 3D movies. Goggles are for fucking swimming pools. MOM! FUCK!"
"I'm about to give birth to an angel, and you are nine. It's like the matrix, son. Do you know that you can read the God of Marvin Gaye in Good Will Hunting?"
"..."
"..."
"Mom, that is some profound shit."
"Yes, son, it is profound. The father as savior myth, only in the case of Marvin Gaye, it was the father as destroyer of life. Marvin's father killed him because he thought the devil was in him, Marvin's father was convinced Marvin had demons in his blood stream. Marvin was made an angel that day and left this physical world. But like the catharsis experienced by Will, aided by Robin Williams', may he rest in peace, character, in the movie, Marvin was freed. Marvin became part of the infinite, invisible, unknown buttress that holds up our conception of reality. Whether or not Marvin should have been freed that day is neither here nor there. It is everywhere now. It was, and is, and will continue to be. Now Marvin is a God. And there are room for more. Soldiers that fight for civil rights and beauty."
"Mom, I just got a text from Jeff. He's got tickets to see Kanye tonight. He wants me to go. So I'm going. Love you."
"I love you too my bright eyed baby boy. Last thing, get this tattooed up your left arm, along your back and down your right arm, tonight:
"While my mother waters plants, my father loads his gun. He says, 'Death will give us back to God just like the setting sun is returned to the lonesome ocean.'"
with loathsome, loaded love,
Anthony
(bang)
Philip Seymour Roth said, "I hella love Oakland, mom. I hella love Oakland. I wear that shit on my t-shirt, which means I'm dope, hard, socially conscious and down with black people."
Young Mr. Roth's mom said, "Son, it is not enough to 'hella love Oakland'. Michael Brown was murdered by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri."
"WHAT THE FUCK, MOM! Who are you, like the Hannity version of Angela Davis! Fuck! I live in Piedmont, so I KNOW what the fuck is going on in Oakland! I may be white, but fuck if they're gonna play me in this Fox News catastrophic cacophony of lies and deceit."
A very cute golden-doodle barks in the distance. "Bark."
"Mom, I'm gonna show these people what I'm made of. I know you saw my comments on Jeff's post. That fucker is such a fucking racist asshole. Jeff thinks there is no such thing as white privilege. Mom, I'm going to be very real with you right now. I'm nine years old, and I'm about to get very real with you. White privilege is not a theory, it's not up for debate. It's a fact. There is now enough research on white privilege to put it right up there with evolution. I got a shirt that says "white privilege is a thing just like evolution, you Christian fuckers". I know it's a lot to put on a t shirt. But I've made my point."
"Son, do you know that I'm pregnant?"
"Yes, mom. You told me."
"And you know that my love for Morrison's Song of Solomon is supreme?"
"[what the fuck eyes]Yes."
"And you know how much I love Van Morrison's song Stepping Out Queen Part 2?"
"YES! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GETTING AT MOM!"
"I'm just temporarily telling you that Marvin Gaye is a God. Do you understand the logic? If you listen to What's Going On enough times, the complete album, you will transcend space and time and simultaneously have the tools to dismantle capitalism, sexism, racism, talk show hostism, sportsism, financial planninism, fortune cookieism, realism and post-modernism (that serpernt!).". (sic--just because)
"Understood. I'm at about 57 listens. I know the Buddha's calling me on my SAMSUNG GALAXY S 5, "The Next Big Thing Is Here" [Paid endorsement. Don't hate. Artists got to make a living.] soon. But, mom, the point is this: Marvin Gaye may indeed be God. I agree. I wholeheartedly, fuck-holy-wholeheartedly agree. I'll agree until I'm blue in the balls and my dick's as big as the Eiffel Tower so I can fuck the world for 72 hours, but what's happening in Oakland, with all the killing and inequality...well, us Piedmonters, us Hill Toppers, we gotta start wearing more t-shirts and clicking more likes when we read headlines about evil people presented in front of us on our Samsung mobile devices. Jeff fucking liked ISIS, mom! Can you believe that shit. Jeff is facebook friends with the Islamic State. He re-posts and re-tweets all of the ISIL commentary. It's fucking fascinating. They're all about Love! Can you believe that shit! They have loving-kindness as one of the top three reasons they're beheading motherfuckers."
"What does Jeff have to say about Putin?"
"Jeff thinks Putin is an asshole because he won't just admit he shot down that Malaysian plane."
"Son, have you ever read Good Will Hunting?"
"Mom, that's a movie; how could I read that shit. SHIT!"
"That's what I mean. You have to read the visual. It's like the matrix. Screens produce images that must be read as text. 3D text, and you don't need googles."
"MOM! Google is a search engine, and you don't need GOGGLES for 3D movies. Goggles are for fucking swimming pools. MOM! FUCK!"
"I'm about to give birth to an angel, and you are nine. It's like the matrix, son. Do you know that you can read the God of Marvin Gaye in Good Will Hunting?"
"..."
"..."
"Mom, that is some profound shit."
"Yes, son, it is profound. The father as savior myth, only in the case of Marvin Gaye, it was the father as destroyer of life. Marvin's father killed him because he thought the devil was in him, Marvin's father was convinced Marvin had demons in his blood stream. Marvin was made an angel that day and left this physical world. But like the catharsis experienced by Will, aided by Robin Williams', may he rest in peace, character, in the movie, Marvin was freed. Marvin became part of the infinite, invisible, unknown buttress that holds up our conception of reality. Whether or not Marvin should have been freed that day is neither here nor there. It is everywhere now. It was, and is, and will continue to be. Now Marvin is a God. And there are room for more. Soldiers that fight for civil rights and beauty."
"Mom, I just got a text from Jeff. He's got tickets to see Kanye tonight. He wants me to go. So I'm going. Love you."
"I love you too my bright eyed baby boy. Last thing, get this tattooed up your left arm, along your back and down your right arm, tonight:
"While my mother waters plants, my father loads his gun. He says, 'Death will give us back to God just like the setting sun is returned to the lonesome ocean.'"
with loathsome, loaded love,
Anthony
(bang)
Sunday, June 29, 2014
sharing Van Morrison
"expect them to rise for the occasion"
I'm sitting here, in my office, listening to Van Morrison, waiting for my Nike FuelBand to charge. It keeps showing a digital image of a battery becoming full and then deleting the three dots, falling back to incompleteness.
There is a stupid picture of me to your right. There it is, just there, you can see it. Wait. It is gone.
I feel different listening to one song, then listening to a different one. I expect silence to consume my soul, to have peace. And in relation to the Palestinians, I have peace. Peace is a relative thing. But I'm searching for a deeper peace, you might say. Or you might not. You might say, fuck you Anthony Leonard. Fuck you for all the bullshit that you've spewed throughout the course of your life. And I would say to you, well, that's a bit harsh. Let's sit and wait for the buffalo.
Of course, the buffalo, here, implies peace, between the two of us. You could run. You could bend over, hands on knees (you are tall and slender, so the triangle shape is grandiose and magnificent), and you could cry, cry so hard and so loud and so completely that you are lost and your anger is manifold and manifest except you can't catch it, you're crying so hard, the weeping wakes up tiny doves in a nearby nest.
Because different songs create different feelings, and I like to stick with one feeling when the feeling is right, I play songs on repeat. This allows me to stay with the feeling, for better, and certainly for worse. I have held you in my arms. I have lost you in the prison at Marseilles. I hope you are my brother from another mother. You black man in my arms, lost widget bird, calculated, short term, tender, deafening.
The thunder is deafening, the thunder of the waterfall in my imagination (I'm allowed to continue on because the song started again). It is the waterfall of the movies, the plot thickener, the tragedy or the tragedy averted. It is, after all, just the waterfall of my imagination. Nothing more. But certainly nothing less. You who hovered around this incompleteness and allowed me to persist.
What wakes me up in the morning? My job? What wakes me up in the night? My fears?
with a love complete,
Anthony
"Dweller on the Threshold"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ln-H2HV6o0
I'm sitting here, in my office, listening to Van Morrison, waiting for my Nike FuelBand to charge. It keeps showing a digital image of a battery becoming full and then deleting the three dots, falling back to incompleteness.
There is a stupid picture of me to your right. There it is, just there, you can see it. Wait. It is gone.
I feel different listening to one song, then listening to a different one. I expect silence to consume my soul, to have peace. And in relation to the Palestinians, I have peace. Peace is a relative thing. But I'm searching for a deeper peace, you might say. Or you might not. You might say, fuck you Anthony Leonard. Fuck you for all the bullshit that you've spewed throughout the course of your life. And I would say to you, well, that's a bit harsh. Let's sit and wait for the buffalo.
Of course, the buffalo, here, implies peace, between the two of us. You could run. You could bend over, hands on knees (you are tall and slender, so the triangle shape is grandiose and magnificent), and you could cry, cry so hard and so loud and so completely that you are lost and your anger is manifold and manifest except you can't catch it, you're crying so hard, the weeping wakes up tiny doves in a nearby nest.
Because different songs create different feelings, and I like to stick with one feeling when the feeling is right, I play songs on repeat. This allows me to stay with the feeling, for better, and certainly for worse. I have held you in my arms. I have lost you in the prison at Marseilles. I hope you are my brother from another mother. You black man in my arms, lost widget bird, calculated, short term, tender, deafening.
The thunder is deafening, the thunder of the waterfall in my imagination (I'm allowed to continue on because the song started again). It is the waterfall of the movies, the plot thickener, the tragedy or the tragedy averted. It is, after all, just the waterfall of my imagination. Nothing more. But certainly nothing less. You who hovered around this incompleteness and allowed me to persist.
What wakes me up in the morning? My job? What wakes me up in the night? My fears?
with a love complete,
Anthony
"Dweller on the Threshold"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ln-H2HV6o0
Saturday, April 19, 2014
nothing
Two potatoes, both female, bolt out of the castle entrance, wildly throwing their heads and eyes around visually scanning for something, and rush into the open manhole and down the iron ladder newly painted black.
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Happy?
I love Pharrell's song Happy. Like the 177 million people who have watched the video on youtube, I'm into it. But are we, all of us on this planet, happy? Maybe that's why the song has become so popular and connected with so many. It's about happiness. We want to be happy. A simple desire feel happy. It takes a lot to get through all of life's bullshit to feel happy. 177 million views of the video on youtube. Tells me we got a lot of work to do for all of us to feel happy.
wish you love and happiness,
Anthony
"Happy"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Sxv-sUYtM
wish you love and happiness,
Anthony
"Happy"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Sxv-sUYtM
Monday, September 16, 2013
The Corch and Mudge EP
I put out my first collection of original songs. Check out the full story and get the EP here:
https://tonyleonard1.bandcamp.com/ *
I wanted to put these songs out for a couple reasons. First, I wanted to release these songs in their imperfect, stripped-down fashion form a purely creative place. I wrote the songs, I've played the songs, and I felt compelled to put them out in the world. It's hard to explain beyond that. I wanted them out in the world, not alone with me in my bedroom. I felt this very deeply. It's super satisfying to have now done that.
I also wanted to go through the process of recording an album and releasing it online. I wanted to use my own creative talents, and those of my friends, to produce, release, market and promote an album. And from this perspective, as well, this process has been incredibly rewarding. I've learned a lot. I look forward to working with other artists and helping them take their music from the bedroom, into a studio and then out into the world.
Thank you for listening.
Much love,
Anthony
* The great thing about bandcamp is that you don't have to pay the listed price. You can pay more! Feel free to pay whatever emotional value the songs have for you! Or pay the listed price. That would be just as amazing. Funds obtained from the sale of this EP will mostly be used to build Human Interconnected Music, my new business. This will give artists much more talented than me a chance to have their music heard around the globe. If you're so inclined, you might think of this EP as an opportunity to invest in Human Interconnected Music. The website will be up in a few weeks. For now, the best place for information about Human Interconnected Music is on my LinkedIn page:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/tony-leonard/76/277/281
You can also get the album on iTunes, Amazon mp3, and Google Play.
https://tonyleonard1.bandcamp.com/ *
I wanted to put these songs out for a couple reasons. First, I wanted to release these songs in their imperfect, stripped-down fashion form a purely creative place. I wrote the songs, I've played the songs, and I felt compelled to put them out in the world. It's hard to explain beyond that. I wanted them out in the world, not alone with me in my bedroom. I felt this very deeply. It's super satisfying to have now done that.
I also wanted to go through the process of recording an album and releasing it online. I wanted to use my own creative talents, and those of my friends, to produce, release, market and promote an album. And from this perspective, as well, this process has been incredibly rewarding. I've learned a lot. I look forward to working with other artists and helping them take their music from the bedroom, into a studio and then out into the world.
Thank you for listening.
Much love,
Anthony
* The great thing about bandcamp is that you don't have to pay the listed price. You can pay more! Feel free to pay whatever emotional value the songs have for you! Or pay the listed price. That would be just as amazing. Funds obtained from the sale of this EP will mostly be used to build Human Interconnected Music, my new business. This will give artists much more talented than me a chance to have their music heard around the globe. If you're so inclined, you might think of this EP as an opportunity to invest in Human Interconnected Music. The website will be up in a few weeks. For now, the best place for information about Human Interconnected Music is on my LinkedIn page:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/tony-leonard/76/277/281
You can also get the album on iTunes, Amazon mp3, and Google Play.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Explorations in Online Narcissism
Pictures of Tony Leonard
"the pictures are all I can feel"
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| Tony Leonard |
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| Tony Leonard |
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
zero down/full inevitable return
What do I want most in this world? Free expression. The peaceful resistance, push through it, open my ribcage like birds’ wings, my stomach, slice it with a scalpel. Blood. I want the openness to be the freedom. I don’t want to hold on anymore. You can fucking have it. You can fucking take it. Make it beautiful because where it sits inside me is disgusting like death come too early. No time for introspection, no time for final stages, grief, moments held like all of the power of gravity in your right hand, balled to fist, while the rooted trees and concrete sidewalks float up and away.
Push through all the no’s. All the bullshit. All the haters. All the disbelievers. I hope I can carry this weight all the way to the water and let it sit in the river, while I jump from high rocks. Enter the water feet first, at high speed. When I reach the point of zero down/full inevitable return, I’m suspended. I’m so in love it’s goofy. I flap my feet and push towards the oxygen. I’m afraid, but the rush is so sweet. The rush of the fall and the micro-movements to make sure my entry is without head smacking rocks, bloodied.
Listening.
Push through all the no’s. All the bullshit. All the haters. All the disbelievers. I hope I can carry this weight all the way to the water and let it sit in the river, while I jump from high rocks. Enter the water feet first, at high speed. When I reach the point of zero down/full inevitable return, I’m suspended. I’m so in love it’s goofy. I flap my feet and push towards the oxygen. I’m afraid, but the rush is so sweet. The rush of the fall and the micro-movements to make sure my entry is without head smacking rocks, bloodied.
Listening.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Camera Obscura's Latest Album "Desire Lines"
(I'm having shoulder surgery in less than 7 hours. It's 12:22 am.)
Camera Obscura
Desire Lines
cool, rhythmic, jazzy, soulful, soft, mellow, Scottish pop music: plenty of quips, barbs, humour, melody, stories, self-deprecation, heartbreak, squish squish, plenty of poems, squish squish, I love this music, I have since "Underachievers Please Try Harder". Is there a better album title? Is there a better album? It was a record in Prospect Park I listened to and felt better. It might be the one album that I associate with a good time in my life. laugh out loud. The Tea Lounge cafe in Park Slope, 7th and Union, where I went with my loneliness, and my loneliness left me to talk to the hot barista for a while so I could listen to Camera Obscura or maybe stream an Oakland A's game when mlb.tv was in its infancy. I love this music. And now Desire Lines, with its unsurprisingly beautiful cover art, and its surprisingly groovy first two tracks. You're like "damn, that's kindof Jay-Zesque". Ok, no. nobody says that. But, Curtis Mayfield, yes, definitely yes, and I'm thinking of the song "So In Love". Camera Obscura brought a surprising groove to the potluck at my house, and it makes me feel damn happy again, again at a good time in my life.
Camera Obscura
Desire Lines
with love in lines of desire,
Anthony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESTd0AHkzlQ
Camera Obscura
Desire Lines
cool, rhythmic, jazzy, soulful, soft, mellow, Scottish pop music: plenty of quips, barbs, humour, melody, stories, self-deprecation, heartbreak, squish squish, plenty of poems, squish squish, I love this music, I have since "Underachievers Please Try Harder". Is there a better album title? Is there a better album? It was a record in Prospect Park I listened to and felt better. It might be the one album that I associate with a good time in my life. laugh out loud. The Tea Lounge cafe in Park Slope, 7th and Union, where I went with my loneliness, and my loneliness left me to talk to the hot barista for a while so I could listen to Camera Obscura or maybe stream an Oakland A's game when mlb.tv was in its infancy. I love this music. And now Desire Lines, with its unsurprisingly beautiful cover art, and its surprisingly groovy first two tracks. You're like "damn, that's kindof Jay-Zesque". Ok, no. nobody says that. But, Curtis Mayfield, yes, definitely yes, and I'm thinking of the song "So In Love". Camera Obscura brought a surprising groove to the potluck at my house, and it makes me feel damn happy again, again at a good time in my life.
Camera Obscura
Desire Lines
with love in lines of desire,
Anthony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESTd0AHkzlQ
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Jazz and the Wes Montgomery Anomaly
I've never really been into Jazz. I always thought it was too complicated. Give me the simple, funky bass lines of Bob Marley and the Wailers, a fat Tupac beat or the simple three chord folk songs of Woody Guthrie. But Jazz, it never really lit me up.
Many of my friends and acquaintances love Jazz. Many people suggested I listen to John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Dave Brubeck, Art Blakey...the list goes on and on. I've always felt that jazz musicians are the most intellectual and probably the "best" musicians. I hold them in higher regard than the best classical musicians. Obviously it would be impossible to say who was more gifted: Mozart or Coltrane. But most of the time, I'll go with the jazz musician. The technical ability combined with the ability to understand the foundation of a piece of music and then be able to improvise is mind blowing. I have John Coltrane's "Blue Train" and Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue". But my relationship with jazz is much more one of almost detached appreciation rather than soul squishing enthusiasm.
This changed recently when I listened to Wes Montgomery for the first time. Two people I respect maybe most in the world when it comes to music (music period, regardless of genre or ability) are my friends Alex Gedeon and Lyn Hinegardner. In another post I will explain why. When these two talk about music, each in their own very different way, I listen. Alex once told me, a while back, that he bought his first guitar after listening to Wes Montgomery. He wanted to be Wes Montgomery. He wanted to play jazz guitar brilliantly with his thumb in place of a pick like Wes Montgomery. I found out more recently, last Saturday night to be specific, that Lyn also bought a guitar many years ago with the hope of playing guitar like Wes Montgomery.
I should have at least checked out Wes Montgomery after hearing it inspired Alex to start playing and go buy a guitar. But it wasn't until Lyn also relayed her deep appreciation for this man's music and playing that I finally got wise. I'm a slow, slow learner so often. Lyn and Alex don't know each other, and they play and appreciate such different music, which made this even more amazing to me. And if asked, I never would have guessed Wes Montgomery played such a significant role in their musical lives. It's so cool.
So finally this last week, I went on iTunes, did some quick research, purchased "Incredible Jazz Guitar", supposedly one of Montgomery's early and important albums. Then I finally understood. Ah ha. Ok. This dude, man, there is just something different. He plays with more soul, his notes hit harder, like a Bob Marley bass line or a funky rap beat. And, of course, now I'm like, what is my problem? I need to go back and listen again to Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman, Coltrane, Davis, all the Jazz greats. It's amazing how one musician can open (or re-open, in my case) an entire genre of music. And as a music lover, this experience reminds me how important and necessary it is to listen to and draw inspiration from all forms of music, from all over the world. I'll need to do a blog on Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn or Fela Kuti or Philip Glass or the many other musicians who we don't hear on mainstream music outlets here in the U.S. yet who have significantly impacted so many great mainstream artists. And more importantly, whose music is just incredible.
Don't be stupid like me, go out and buy "Incredible Jazz Guitar", "Tequila", "Live at the Tsubo-Berkeley, CA" or any other album by Wes Montgomery. You'll be giving yourself a gift.
with love for the opening of hearts to new music, and to the special music and playing of self-taught Wes Montgomery,
Anthony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZDs3KgnQJk
Many of my friends and acquaintances love Jazz. Many people suggested I listen to John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Dave Brubeck, Art Blakey...the list goes on and on. I've always felt that jazz musicians are the most intellectual and probably the "best" musicians. I hold them in higher regard than the best classical musicians. Obviously it would be impossible to say who was more gifted: Mozart or Coltrane. But most of the time, I'll go with the jazz musician. The technical ability combined with the ability to understand the foundation of a piece of music and then be able to improvise is mind blowing. I have John Coltrane's "Blue Train" and Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue". But my relationship with jazz is much more one of almost detached appreciation rather than soul squishing enthusiasm.
This changed recently when I listened to Wes Montgomery for the first time. Two people I respect maybe most in the world when it comes to music (music period, regardless of genre or ability) are my friends Alex Gedeon and Lyn Hinegardner. In another post I will explain why. When these two talk about music, each in their own very different way, I listen. Alex once told me, a while back, that he bought his first guitar after listening to Wes Montgomery. He wanted to be Wes Montgomery. He wanted to play jazz guitar brilliantly with his thumb in place of a pick like Wes Montgomery. I found out more recently, last Saturday night to be specific, that Lyn also bought a guitar many years ago with the hope of playing guitar like Wes Montgomery.
I should have at least checked out Wes Montgomery after hearing it inspired Alex to start playing and go buy a guitar. But it wasn't until Lyn also relayed her deep appreciation for this man's music and playing that I finally got wise. I'm a slow, slow learner so often. Lyn and Alex don't know each other, and they play and appreciate such different music, which made this even more amazing to me. And if asked, I never would have guessed Wes Montgomery played such a significant role in their musical lives. It's so cool.
So finally this last week, I went on iTunes, did some quick research, purchased "Incredible Jazz Guitar", supposedly one of Montgomery's early and important albums. Then I finally understood. Ah ha. Ok. This dude, man, there is just something different. He plays with more soul, his notes hit harder, like a Bob Marley bass line or a funky rap beat. And, of course, now I'm like, what is my problem? I need to go back and listen again to Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman, Coltrane, Davis, all the Jazz greats. It's amazing how one musician can open (or re-open, in my case) an entire genre of music. And as a music lover, this experience reminds me how important and necessary it is to listen to and draw inspiration from all forms of music, from all over the world. I'll need to do a blog on Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn or Fela Kuti or Philip Glass or the many other musicians who we don't hear on mainstream music outlets here in the U.S. yet who have significantly impacted so many great mainstream artists. And more importantly, whose music is just incredible.
Don't be stupid like me, go out and buy "Incredible Jazz Guitar", "Tequila", "Live at the Tsubo-Berkeley, CA" or any other album by Wes Montgomery. You'll be giving yourself a gift.
with love for the opening of hearts to new music, and to the special music and playing of self-taught Wes Montgomery,
Anthony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZDs3KgnQJk
Monday, August 5, 2013
Elliott Smith: Love Songs, (Los) Angeles and Suicide?
"i can make you satisfied in everything you do"
Elliott Smith died on October 21, 2003, at the age of 34. It was my understanding that he committed suicide. He died from two stab wounds to the chest. Reading his wikipedia article, I was surprised to learn that there is at least some doubt about whether or not it was suicide. The Los Angeles police declared the autopsy inconclusive. The case remains open. In reading the article, it's hard to believe Elliott Smith did not commit suicide. He had a long history of extreme depression, anxiety, paranoia and drug addiction. My quick internet search me convinced he died by his own hands. Of course, I could be wrong.
Like many others, but not all, I was introduced to Elliott Smith's music through Good Will Hunting, the movie and soundtrack that featured five of his songs, including the song Angeles. Angeles hurts to listen, it soaks blood, it leaves readers in a universe of tension between the luck of the draw and the scientific skill involved in the quest for love.
For all the lonely, shy geniuses out there playing music on a stage that fills you with horrific fear, my wish for you is only that you find peace. On or off stage. Your music may be beautiful. But your life is more valuable.
Sometimes the pain is so deep and terrible, there is only one end. Inevitable, we who can bare our lives watch as our loved ones, whether they be far or near, choose to end things on their terms, even if the terms, the words, the phrases, the decisions are impossible to make sense of, irrational, delusional. They make the decision. We suffer. They suffered.
My heart is open, delusional and feeling the pain as I listen to this ghost song on repeat. Angeles. As in, Los Angeles? I don't know. The city of angels takes another addict into a heaven that only exists in the music that remains.
"and be forever with my poison arms around you"
with love for all that is done to prevent suicide (1-800-273-8255 - national suicide prevention hotline),
Anthony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La8Y6n0oqz0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMSU4QDbdew
someone's always coming around here trailing some new kill
says i seen your picture on a hundred dollar bill
what's a game of chance to you, to him is one of real skill
so glad to meet you
angeles
picking up the ticket shows there's money to be made
go on and lose the gamble that's the history of the trade
did you add up all the cards left to play to zero
and sign up with evil
angeles
don't start me trying now
cos i'm all over it
angeles
i could make you satisfied in everything you do
all your 'secret wishes' could right now be coming true
and be forever with my poison arms around you
no one's gonna fool around with us
no one's gonna fool around with us
so glad to meet you
angeles
(Lyrics courtesy of http://www.sweetadeline.net/langeles.html)
Elliott Smith died on October 21, 2003, at the age of 34. It was my understanding that he committed suicide. He died from two stab wounds to the chest. Reading his wikipedia article, I was surprised to learn that there is at least some doubt about whether or not it was suicide. The Los Angeles police declared the autopsy inconclusive. The case remains open. In reading the article, it's hard to believe Elliott Smith did not commit suicide. He had a long history of extreme depression, anxiety, paranoia and drug addiction. My quick internet search me convinced he died by his own hands. Of course, I could be wrong.
Like many others, but not all, I was introduced to Elliott Smith's music through Good Will Hunting, the movie and soundtrack that featured five of his songs, including the song Angeles. Angeles hurts to listen, it soaks blood, it leaves readers in a universe of tension between the luck of the draw and the scientific skill involved in the quest for love.
For all the lonely, shy geniuses out there playing music on a stage that fills you with horrific fear, my wish for you is only that you find peace. On or off stage. Your music may be beautiful. But your life is more valuable.
Sometimes the pain is so deep and terrible, there is only one end. Inevitable, we who can bare our lives watch as our loved ones, whether they be far or near, choose to end things on their terms, even if the terms, the words, the phrases, the decisions are impossible to make sense of, irrational, delusional. They make the decision. We suffer. They suffered.
My heart is open, delusional and feeling the pain as I listen to this ghost song on repeat. Angeles. As in, Los Angeles? I don't know. The city of angels takes another addict into a heaven that only exists in the music that remains.
"and be forever with my poison arms around you"
with love for all that is done to prevent suicide (1-800-273-8255 - national suicide prevention hotline),
Anthony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La8Y6n0oqz0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMSU4QDbdew
someone's always coming around here trailing some new kill
says i seen your picture on a hundred dollar bill
what's a game of chance to you, to him is one of real skill
so glad to meet you
angeles
picking up the ticket shows there's money to be made
go on and lose the gamble that's the history of the trade
did you add up all the cards left to play to zero
and sign up with evil
angeles
don't start me trying now
cos i'm all over it
angeles
i could make you satisfied in everything you do
all your 'secret wishes' could right now be coming true
and be forever with my poison arms around you
no one's gonna fool around with us
no one's gonna fool around with us
so glad to meet you
angeles
(Lyrics courtesy of http://www.sweetadeline.net/langeles.html)
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
White Male Privilege; White Male Grief
"How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see." - Bob Dylan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CwS60ykM8s
I encourage you to watch this TEDxTalk by Professor at SFSU (my alma mader) and High School Teacher in East Oakland, Jeff Duncan-Andrade. My thoughts below are inspired and contextualized in part by this TEDxTalk.
===================
There are many great white men who have throughout History done amazing things to help oppressed people. Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Tim Wise, Subcomandante Marcos, my friend Guthrie Brown Fleischman come immediately to mind. So too do the unnamed white men who walked with black men and women side by side during the Civil Rights Movement, white men who faced the violence of other white men, police with batons and guns. Some of these white men, just a few, died acting on their convictions. John Brown's name is often thrown around, but from my limited knowledge of his history, he seemed a bit looney. But that is the History of white men in the United States: lunacy, insanity, horrific decision making that led, that continues to lead, to the tragic deaths of people of color in this wonderful, sparkling country of ours. Unlike John Brown, 99.999% of the white male lunacy in the History of this country caused harm to people of color, and did not attempt to provide them greater freedom. As Marc Anthony sang this week, God Bless America.
But tonight I'm not here to judge or yell at white men for being stupid or evil. I want to reach out to my living white brothers whose hearts are broken just for being white. On one side of the coin, whiteness is a wretched thing. White men inherit a History of the slave trade; slavery; lynchings; the Klu Klux Klan; the systematic policies of US and US State governments extermination of Native Americans: the definition of genocide; the multitude of white men, many representatives of the US Government, who have taken land, killed in mass numbers and continue to dehumanize Latinos; the white masters who brutally worked so many Chinese immigrants to their deaths while building the train tracks that would help propel this nation into its current place of wealth and power.
There are white men across this nation, young men, children, who now feel the wretchedness of their white skin. That white men across this nation now feel pain for being white is the victory of people of color and their struggles for justice and equality. The Civil Rights Movement can claim a piece of that victory. More and more white people are beginning to understand that white isn't the "norm". Whiteness is slowly becoming visible.
To you white men whose hearts are broken because of the History of whiteness, allow yourself the space to feel this sadness, this tragedy of History. This takes a great deal of strength and courage. You must allow yourself to exist outside the hyper-masculine stereotype of a man that destroys your right to shed tears. You must be allowed to feel, to feel this pain and wretchedness. In this process, you will need love and support. I certainly did. It is not you. You are not to blame. Black people know all too well what it means to be born into History with a certain skin color and what that skin color means today. Black people are not the racist black stereotypes that remain ubiquitous in our society. And young white man, you are not to blame once you come to realize the horrific significance of being white in this country.
I empathize. I went through this process myself, am still going through it. I send my love and support to you in your grief.
Simultaneously, I must demand that you do NOT take this sadness and do nothing. On the other side of the same coin mentioned above, whiteness: having white skin and being identified by others as white in this country, brings with it great privilege, one that people of color do not share. If we white men do nothing, we perpetuate the status quo. The current status quo leads to the unnecessary murders of innocent black children. The nationally televised examples are Oscar Grant and Trayvon Martin. But there are examples of these senseless murders every day. Recently, here in Oakland, Alaysha Carradine, an eight-year-old African-American little girl nicknamed "Butterfly", was shot multiple times when she went to answer the door during a sleep over with two of her little friends. Alaysha was a human being, eight years old, African-American, innocent and now dead.
For those of you white folk still not sold on this idea of white male privilege, those skeptics among you, let me provide a basic, personal example, nothing as serious as homicide, but possibly something you can see:
I am a white male. When I go to a Subway Restaurant, the first thing I do is grab a bag of Sun Chips, open it and start eating it in the store. I'm waiting in line. I'm usually wearing a "professional" button down shirt and khakis. The employees at Subway, and I have been to various Subway restaurants hundreds of times in my life, have never once asked me to pay for that bag of chips first, before eating it. They have never once stared at me with a look of distrust, worried that I might just eat the bag of chips and leave. Now imagine an African-American male teenager in a hoodie walking into a Subway Restaurant and opening a bag of chips before paying for it. Would the Subway employees or store owner allow this young black man to continue to eat the Sun Chips? Would they smile at the black man? I believe the answer to these two questions is no. Would they stare, worried, and demand that the young black man pay for the chips before opening them? From my observations and experience, the answer is yes.
This is one small but critical example of white male privilege. Professor Duncan-Andrade, in his TedxTalk, discusses a more serious, life and death example of white male privilege. White males and their children who live in Oakland are extremely unlikely to be victims of homicide. Homicide in the City of Oakland and the Island of Piedmont is a tragedy that radically and disproportionately kills mostly young African-Americans and Latinos. The percentage of white victims of homicide over the last three years in Oakland is roughly 3%, probably lower. (This statistic is based on my web research. I couldn't find any website, report or article that gave the exact percentage.)
The sadness that we feel, even momentarily, for being born white must be freed and expressed. This is when the personal healing begins, when we acknowledge the powerful privilege of whiteness in this country, when we begin to call attention to it, when we begin to work humbly with people of color, to listen, to take responsibility for our privilege and we begin to do something to give it up. By giving up our privilege, we take steps toward equality. If we do nothing, as I said, but it bears repeating, we perpetuate the status quo and the killings of innocent people of color continue.
with love for the expression of sadness and the tenacity to fundamentally change the meaning of being white,
Anthony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWwgrjjIMXA - Blowin' In The Wind
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CwS60ykM8s
I encourage you to watch this TEDxTalk by Professor at SFSU (my alma mader) and High School Teacher in East Oakland, Jeff Duncan-Andrade. My thoughts below are inspired and contextualized in part by this TEDxTalk.
===================
There are many great white men who have throughout History done amazing things to help oppressed people. Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Tim Wise, Subcomandante Marcos, my friend Guthrie Brown Fleischman come immediately to mind. So too do the unnamed white men who walked with black men and women side by side during the Civil Rights Movement, white men who faced the violence of other white men, police with batons and guns. Some of these white men, just a few, died acting on their convictions. John Brown's name is often thrown around, but from my limited knowledge of his history, he seemed a bit looney. But that is the History of white men in the United States: lunacy, insanity, horrific decision making that led, that continues to lead, to the tragic deaths of people of color in this wonderful, sparkling country of ours. Unlike John Brown, 99.999% of the white male lunacy in the History of this country caused harm to people of color, and did not attempt to provide them greater freedom. As Marc Anthony sang this week, God Bless America.
But tonight I'm not here to judge or yell at white men for being stupid or evil. I want to reach out to my living white brothers whose hearts are broken just for being white. On one side of the coin, whiteness is a wretched thing. White men inherit a History of the slave trade; slavery; lynchings; the Klu Klux Klan; the systematic policies of US and US State governments extermination of Native Americans: the definition of genocide; the multitude of white men, many representatives of the US Government, who have taken land, killed in mass numbers and continue to dehumanize Latinos; the white masters who brutally worked so many Chinese immigrants to their deaths while building the train tracks that would help propel this nation into its current place of wealth and power.
There are white men across this nation, young men, children, who now feel the wretchedness of their white skin. That white men across this nation now feel pain for being white is the victory of people of color and their struggles for justice and equality. The Civil Rights Movement can claim a piece of that victory. More and more white people are beginning to understand that white isn't the "norm". Whiteness is slowly becoming visible.
To you white men whose hearts are broken because of the History of whiteness, allow yourself the space to feel this sadness, this tragedy of History. This takes a great deal of strength and courage. You must allow yourself to exist outside the hyper-masculine stereotype of a man that destroys your right to shed tears. You must be allowed to feel, to feel this pain and wretchedness. In this process, you will need love and support. I certainly did. It is not you. You are not to blame. Black people know all too well what it means to be born into History with a certain skin color and what that skin color means today. Black people are not the racist black stereotypes that remain ubiquitous in our society. And young white man, you are not to blame once you come to realize the horrific significance of being white in this country.
I empathize. I went through this process myself, am still going through it. I send my love and support to you in your grief.
Simultaneously, I must demand that you do NOT take this sadness and do nothing. On the other side of the same coin mentioned above, whiteness: having white skin and being identified by others as white in this country, brings with it great privilege, one that people of color do not share. If we white men do nothing, we perpetuate the status quo. The current status quo leads to the unnecessary murders of innocent black children. The nationally televised examples are Oscar Grant and Trayvon Martin. But there are examples of these senseless murders every day. Recently, here in Oakland, Alaysha Carradine, an eight-year-old African-American little girl nicknamed "Butterfly", was shot multiple times when she went to answer the door during a sleep over with two of her little friends. Alaysha was a human being, eight years old, African-American, innocent and now dead.
For those of you white folk still not sold on this idea of white male privilege, those skeptics among you, let me provide a basic, personal example, nothing as serious as homicide, but possibly something you can see:
I am a white male. When I go to a Subway Restaurant, the first thing I do is grab a bag of Sun Chips, open it and start eating it in the store. I'm waiting in line. I'm usually wearing a "professional" button down shirt and khakis. The employees at Subway, and I have been to various Subway restaurants hundreds of times in my life, have never once asked me to pay for that bag of chips first, before eating it. They have never once stared at me with a look of distrust, worried that I might just eat the bag of chips and leave. Now imagine an African-American male teenager in a hoodie walking into a Subway Restaurant and opening a bag of chips before paying for it. Would the Subway employees or store owner allow this young black man to continue to eat the Sun Chips? Would they smile at the black man? I believe the answer to these two questions is no. Would they stare, worried, and demand that the young black man pay for the chips before opening them? From my observations and experience, the answer is yes.
This is one small but critical example of white male privilege. Professor Duncan-Andrade, in his TedxTalk, discusses a more serious, life and death example of white male privilege. White males and their children who live in Oakland are extremely unlikely to be victims of homicide. Homicide in the City of Oakland and the Island of Piedmont is a tragedy that radically and disproportionately kills mostly young African-Americans and Latinos. The percentage of white victims of homicide over the last three years in Oakland is roughly 3%, probably lower. (This statistic is based on my web research. I couldn't find any website, report or article that gave the exact percentage.)
The sadness that we feel, even momentarily, for being born white must be freed and expressed. This is when the personal healing begins, when we acknowledge the powerful privilege of whiteness in this country, when we begin to call attention to it, when we begin to work humbly with people of color, to listen, to take responsibility for our privilege and we begin to do something to give it up. By giving up our privilege, we take steps toward equality. If we do nothing, as I said, but it bears repeating, we perpetuate the status quo and the killings of innocent people of color continue.
with love for the expression of sadness and the tenacity to fundamentally change the meaning of being white,
Anthony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWwgrjjIMXA - Blowin' In The Wind
Sunday, July 7, 2013
My irrational fear of Black men (because I grew up in the United States and I'm white and it's also my fault)
Frank Somerville, Channel 2 news man, and frequent facebook poster, recently posted a photo of a group of younger black men having a BBQ and playing dominos on Telegraph Ave., in Oakland, I believe. Frank, being the charming guy that he is, decided to stop his car and chat with the young African-American men. In his post with the photo of the guys, Frank says something like "this is what the 4th of July is all about. Friends getting together to BBQ and enjoy the day." It was the 4th of July, so that part made perfect sense.
My first response was one of utter happiness. I was so impressed that this white, extremely clean-cut (he's a newscaster) guy would stop his car and get out and chat with the Black guys. I felt like that was something that I would want to do, but wouldn't do out of fear. What if the guys are thugs? But that thinking, "What if the guys are thugs?" is produced in part by my experience growing up in an upper-middle class neighborhood predominately populated by white people with just a few Black people, and the fact that the US/California/Bay Area is still extremely racist (here I'm mainly referring to structural racism, the kind that keeps disproportionate numbers of Black men, women and children in neighborhoods with greater crime, less access to quality education, healthcare and job opportunity). I must emphatically point out that this stereotype of the "scary black male" that has infected me, is in my experience, absolutely wrong. I will discuss more below.
In any case, I was impressed with Frank, first of all, for stopping on his way to work for anything other than an emergency. Who does this?! I guess you have to be a reporter to do this. And more importantly, he stopped in a "sketchy" neighborhood, got out of a car and was like, "Hello young Black BBQers!".
This made me emotional. I felt like, "Go Frank!" because he confirmed my beliefs that these young black "thugs" (my word choice - from the fear mentioned above) were actually really nice, cool dudes, just relaxing having a BBQ, playing dominos, enjoying a beautiful day off.
This is something that eats me inside: the knowledge that black men who appearscary to me are in almost all cases decent, kind people. They're human. With families, a desire to do better for themselves and their loved ones. It hurts that I am afraid of certain Black men I don't know. This, of course, depends so much on context. There are so many Black men who I am not afraid of and who I know to be loving caring human beings. It hurts that I have to actually write that Black men are Human. But it is my belief that in the United States Black men are still not considered 100% human by the majority or people in this country. Black men were invited to participate in this country as 3/5 of a person, and they are struggling, still, to get to 100%. Let me be clear again, Black men are 100% Human. Their not being viewed as such is the continued historical product of a the white majority's inability enact laws that protect their humanity and participate in business practices that help their humanity flourish and even do what Frank did (even though I have issues with what Frank did, which I will get to below), make a personal effort to connect on an equal basis. I wish I would do what Frank did more often. I have a desire to connect with scary black men, and see first hand what is so evident to me from a distance: their inherent humanity and love. It makes me feel critically wounded and hellof sad.
(Art courtesy of the brilliant Kara Walker - http://learn.walkerart.org/karawalker)
Frank posted a couple days later that he got a lot of feedback from the BBQ post, and he said like 99% of it was positive. But some astute (my word) people mentioned that the post was a tad bit insulting (as I'm sure some people will find my posting). Frank quoted some posts where people were like, "Frank you stopped and realized Black people are nice. Good for you." That was me paraphrasing. This is me continuing to paraphrase, "Frankie the white man, shows up and the Black guys are like "Here are some ribs! Come play dominos with us Frank!" Frank has a quick, 15 minute interaction and he's back to his life free from all the perils of living where these black men live"""" (These extra quotation marks are just there because it got to be hellof quotes and it was annoying me.) These people are right. Frank, the well-to-do white guy, stops his nice car, doesn't get car jacked and feels compelled to post about it. But as a fellow well-to-do white guy, Frank's actions are actually important and inspirational to me. Even if it was naive, Frank made an effort to connect that so many white folks don't make.
Unfortunately, Frank in his response to the "negative" responses was all like "I look forward to the day when it's not about colour."(British usage on purpose to give impression of greater intelligence and to honor Andy Murray on his Wimbledon win). Frank. Frank. Shit's gonna be about color for a long, long time. It's been about color for a long fucking time and shit like that doesn't just stop. SCOTUS, if you are reading, and you should be reading The Existential Porcupine, that bright-line when Affirmative Action is no longer necessary isn't here yet, we're not even close. We need lots and lots of Affirmative Action, the same kind that his wiseness, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. championed during his lifetime (google "Operation Breadbasket", if you're not familiar). The goals of equality, justice and respect still remain and still remain unfulfilled. Oh and SCOTUS, gutting the voting rights act didn't help. Yes, I believe that things have improved greatly for African-Americans in this country from the time they were slaves. But we, I emphasize the we, all of us, have a lot more work to do. A LOT more work to do. And thank you to all of you who spend everyday doing this work.
But back to Frank. I love you Frank. I love that you stopped your car and got out and made an effort to connect with those young men. At the end of the day, I got nothing but love for you Frank and for those young men. It serves as another reminder that I must continue to be willing to feel uncomfortable, recognize my white privilege in all its manifestations. I need to continue to reach out to young Black men especially when my first reaction is one of fear. I need to do my part in the continued effort to mitigate the great damage history left to us, i.e. work towards ending racial inequality, and work towards eradicating the false stereotype of thescary black man.
with love for Frank and the Black Men he posted about,
Anthony
So Here We Are
(For much more eloquent writings on these and other related topics, please check out Michael Eric Dyson and Time Wise. Their links are on the main page, to the right.)
My first response was one of utter happiness. I was so impressed that this white, extremely clean-cut (he's a newscaster) guy would stop his car and get out and chat with the Black guys. I felt like that was something that I would want to do, but wouldn't do out of fear. What if the guys are thugs? But that thinking, "What if the guys are thugs?" is produced in part by my experience growing up in an upper-middle class neighborhood predominately populated by white people with just a few Black people, and the fact that the US/California/Bay Area is still extremely racist (here I'm mainly referring to structural racism, the kind that keeps disproportionate numbers of Black men, women and children in neighborhoods with greater crime, less access to quality education, healthcare and job opportunity). I must emphatically point out that this stereotype of the "scary black male" that has infected me, is in my experience, absolutely wrong. I will discuss more below.
In any case, I was impressed with Frank, first of all, for stopping on his way to work for anything other than an emergency. Who does this?! I guess you have to be a reporter to do this. And more importantly, he stopped in a "sketchy" neighborhood, got out of a car and was like, "Hello young Black BBQers!".
This made me emotional. I felt like, "Go Frank!" because he confirmed my beliefs that these young black "thugs" (my word choice - from the fear mentioned above) were actually really nice, cool dudes, just relaxing having a BBQ, playing dominos, enjoying a beautiful day off.
This is something that eats me inside: the knowledge that black men who appear
(Art courtesy of the brilliant Kara Walker - http://learn.walkerart.org/karawalker)
Frank posted a couple days later that he got a lot of feedback from the BBQ post, and he said like 99% of it was positive. But some astute (my word) people mentioned that the post was a tad bit insulting (as I'm sure some people will find my posting). Frank quoted some posts where people were like, "Frank you stopped and realized Black people are nice. Good for you." That was me paraphrasing. This is me continuing to paraphrase, "Frankie the white man, shows up and the Black guys are like "Here are some ribs! Come play dominos with us Frank!" Frank has a quick, 15 minute interaction and he's back to his life free from all the perils of living where these black men live"""" (These extra quotation marks are just there because it got to be hellof quotes and it was annoying me.) These people are right. Frank, the well-to-do white guy, stops his nice car, doesn't get car jacked and feels compelled to post about it. But as a fellow well-to-do white guy, Frank's actions are actually important and inspirational to me. Even if it was naive, Frank made an effort to connect that so many white folks don't make.
Unfortunately, Frank in his response to the "negative" responses was all like "I look forward to the day when it's not about colour."(British usage on purpose to give impression of greater intelligence and to honor Andy Murray on his Wimbledon win). Frank. Frank. Shit's gonna be about color for a long, long time. It's been about color for a long fucking time and shit like that doesn't just stop. SCOTUS, if you are reading, and you should be reading The Existential Porcupine, that bright-line when Affirmative Action is no longer necessary isn't here yet, we're not even close. We need lots and lots of Affirmative Action, the same kind that his wiseness, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. championed during his lifetime (google "Operation Breadbasket", if you're not familiar). The goals of equality, justice and respect still remain and still remain unfulfilled. Oh and SCOTUS, gutting the voting rights act didn't help. Yes, I believe that things have improved greatly for African-Americans in this country from the time they were slaves. But we, I emphasize the we, all of us, have a lot more work to do. A LOT more work to do. And thank you to all of you who spend everyday doing this work.
But back to Frank. I love you Frank. I love that you stopped your car and got out and made an effort to connect with those young men. At the end of the day, I got nothing but love for you Frank and for those young men. It serves as another reminder that I must continue to be willing to feel uncomfortable, recognize my white privilege in all its manifestations. I need to continue to reach out to young Black men especially when my first reaction is one of fear. I need to do my part in the continued effort to mitigate the great damage history left to us, i.e. work towards ending racial inequality, and work towards eradicating the false stereotype of the
with love for Frank and the Black Men he posted about,
Anthony
So Here We Are
(For much more eloquent writings on these and other related topics, please check out Michael Eric Dyson and Time Wise. Their links are on the main page, to the right.)
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
melancholia
boys and girls have been running away together for a long time.
melancholy innocence
they don't know each other, but there's a spark, and they run. and they run and run and the sadness permeates everything. khaki shorts, skirts, t-shirts.
handsome men and gorgeous dolls, falling. spin back around. the sand storm cometh.
separation anxiety
and the whole time it's not fun. no fun. moments of extreme discomfort and moments of most blissful sexual misconduct.
spectral waves
misbehaves. logic like a sage. penetrate the unforgiven lips, part the flower, open the hearts. of. desire.
spiritual bankruptcy
often attended to by lounges and bar tenders. she lays on the bed, naked, half covered by an expensive hotel linen sheet. so expensive. so holy. so barren. so tender. so tender
sensitivity proclivities
hop on the bus. time to go home alone through the pouring rain. take I95 from D.C. to N.YC. windshield wipers, back and forth, squish squish.
from a place of deep sadness,
Anthony
melancholy innocence
they don't know each other, but there's a spark, and they run. and they run and run and the sadness permeates everything. khaki shorts, skirts, t-shirts.
handsome men and gorgeous dolls, falling. spin back around. the sand storm cometh.
separation anxiety
and the whole time it's not fun. no fun. moments of extreme discomfort and moments of most blissful sexual misconduct.
spectral waves
misbehaves. logic like a sage. penetrate the unforgiven lips, part the flower, open the hearts. of. desire.
spiritual bankruptcy
often attended to by lounges and bar tenders. she lays on the bed, naked, half covered by an expensive hotel linen sheet. so expensive. so holy. so barren. so tender. so tender
sensitivity proclivities
hop on the bus. time to go home alone through the pouring rain. take I95 from D.C. to N.YC. windshield wipers, back and forth, squish squish.
from a place of deep sadness,
Anthony
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