03-18-2047: Somebody That I Used to Know

Two years ago, when Sarah left, I started cutting people out of my life like they were cancer. It wasn't that I had too many friends--on the contrary, I could count my close acquaintances on one hand and one middle finger. I think I was severing these ties for a few reasons: I wanted to be history-less. I wanted that feeling that you get when you move to a new country. Another big reason was reciprocity. It was an issue for my mother, and despite consciously fighting it most of my life, it has become an issue for me too. I don't want to expect some kind of emotional collateral from friends when I do something for them under the guise of charity, but somewhere down inside the truth is I do. It's an inherent sense of justice and fairness. Maybe it comes from the disproportional reprimanding in the estrogen-flooded household of my youth. Or maybe it stems from the fear of looking like an easy mark.

There hadn't been reciprocity in my marriage for years, and, illuminated by my sudden alone-ness in the wake of our divorce, it occurred to me that my friendships were void of it as well. Yes, it sounds like the Atlas complex, and maybe it was/is. But these friends… I listened to them when they needed to talk. I worried about them when they were alone. I made them laugh when Shannon died, and when Selkirk was thrown out of the country I organized the trip to see him and bring him his son. I helped them whenever there was something I could do. I recoded their tablets to stop waking them up at odd hours, I advised them about relationships... And now I needed more help than I could find in this bottle and they were all out to lunch, systematically shirking their duties as "close" friends. How did I amass a whole stable of Brutuses?
Maybe part of me did it because I wanted to see who would care. Juvenile, yes. Morbid, yes. I needed to know who exactly would make an appearance at my funeral. Everyone wants to know that.

None of these "friends" seemed bothered by the amputation, either. It was easy; I just stopped contacting them. No one fought, no one confronted, no one mourned, no one apologized. I was such a dark cloud of a man at that point, I think they were relieved to be rid of me. They didn't really have a use for me in this state, inoperable as I was. When you're as low as you can get, people can tolerate it for about a week. They'll listen to you too, so long as they can wallpaper their own tale of grief over yours. And after one week of pseudo-empathizing looks and back patting, they will just avoid your flight path altogether.

Torrey came to my hotel room once. Bless him for that, Torrey was the only one. He said he'd go to the house and get some of my clothes, but I told him I didn't want any of them. Sarah had bought most of them and aside from my two pairs of Blowy Clothes, they were mostly broken. He helped me shave and even cut some of my remaining hair (my Growadome subscription had run out, so my scalp was boasting a much more “honest” appearance). He advised me to stay away from the house because I "wouldn't like the changes." When I told him (tritely) that I didn't know how I'd continue to live, he said, "We just keep living. That's what we do." It was the best Morgan Freeman performance he could muster, and when I said so, he looked at me like I was an old DVD Player. Nobody remembers artistry any more. I wanted to talk more about craftsmanship and where it had disappeared to, but he said he had a cab waiting outside. I lent him the $600 and thanked him for cleaning me up. He said, "Stay straight" and was off. I know that I'm straightest when I'm tamped down, so I swallowed two Sempertonin and waited. Nobody came.

The Vaux Swift Birds Roost in the Chapman School Chimney

Every year in September the Vaux swifts stop here on their way to Disney World.
Since 1984 Portlanders have gathered to watch up to 35,000 of them funnel themselves to sleep down the Chapman School chimney. Most nights the hawk is there to put one of them to rest a few minutes early. This was the best theatre I've seen in a long time.



Features music by Reed Wallsmith and myself.

I SAW U: Express Lane Checkout Check Out

You: voice of lion, gut of elephant, obnoxious Boost phone
Me: straining to hear the cashier explain how to swipe my credit card
I'm sorry my transaction disrupted your life story.
Let's reenact it, but this time, you with more discretion and I with cash.

When: Monday, September 22, 2008
Where: Albertsons in Gresham

view actual ad

The Low Low Price of Parenthood

Finally back in Portland, I was blessed (or so I thought) with the assignment of watching my niece Eva for a few hours yesterday. It was cool for a while, but when I brought her to Target (to get an application) she just wanted to touch this and that. Ultimately, I felt like it was more than I'd bargained for, so I worked out a consignment thingie with one of the kids that works there.

I didn't feel right asking for full price, or even 50% off, because it's already been opened (and it had a poopy diaper), so I settled for 75% off. I knew that this would be a tough sell to my sister and her husband, so I prepared for them a graph that shows that even with only 25% of its net worth returned to them, they still make a profit and also it's easy to just make another one and next time try to keep it clean enough to get at least 50% returns.

Micropoem: Redeye from Boston to Portland

I can't sleep with this many strangers
snoring in harmony, shuffling their dreams together

2-24-2047: American Paralysis

I want to talk about what didn't happened. Not just with me and music, but to us, as a species.

I remember in my thirties when "Singularity" became a household term, and the world divided itself over this notion of eternal life through technology. In those days the world was always dividing itself up into twos; we had a two party political system (The Rich and The Poor), two computer manufacturers (that shared Intel as a chip manufacturer), two cell phone companies (AT&T 1 and AT&;T 2), etc.. 95% of the world's population had "evolved" to the point where greed was our main motivation for things rather than survival, so there just wasn't much to divide ourselves over outside of material things. We tried and tried. We invented so many divisive issues---sexuality, death penalty, deities, dolphin killing, football ---but nothing stuck. Without the threat of death everything was just... really... boring. So this was the perfect time to argue over the advent of Singularity, both because we needed something massive to polarize us and because the idea of extending this boring existence indefinitely was truly horrifying to many of those old enough to remember life before social networking.

It was also at this time, the 20teens, that the human brain was maturing so rapidly that we could finally identify and verbalize our collective ailment while still young enough to procure a receptive audience, one willing to entertain the notion of being proactive, even if doing so seemed unrealistic and costly. That cancer we blogged and Tweeted about --- this was before I.N.F. (Intelligent Nonsense Filtering) was implemented, mind you --- the great sickness of our species that had chewed away at our existence since we first crawled onto dry land some 4+ million years ago, was Acceleration itself.

Suddenly there was massive debate about all things accelerated: technology, bio-engineering, environmental negligence, etc., most of which was more sensationalism than actual intellectual output on the matter. Every Hollywood director worked overtime to Green-wash any children's fable with an over-simplified good vs. evil theme (again, dividing into twos), wrap it in an ever-improving CGI candy coating, and market it to the largest movie-going demographic. Cross-industry conventions and high profile think tanks were sprouting up all over the country to aid in the advancement of science and technology. We were unified in the belief that we were marching towards something biblical, we just couldn't agree on if it was an End or a Beginning.

Now it's 2047, two years past the date when Kurzweil predicted Singularity would be achieved, and we have no such thing. I'm seventy years old, and I cannot upload my brain's data anywhere. A giant asteroid has not hit the earth and I'm not being chased by Terminators (there was that one serial killer that got caught and put down by a Terminator, but that was an isolated incident).

So what happened? Or better put, why didn't anything happen?

First I want to tell you why I divorced music. At first it may seem a bit unrelated, but my struggle with a career in music is the perfect microcosm for our universal struggle with acceleration, so it seems a proper vehicle for the story:

In 2010, at the height of my career (which looked frighteningly similar to the beginning of it), the definition of a musician had quietly transformed. This shouldn't be surprising; at the time, social networking had pushed us to define and redefine ourselves on a daily basis. As artists we were enabled to abandon our composition, musicianship, bravery and pitch in favor of much more applicable skills such as graphic design, web development, video editing, and of course, marketing. The Sony Song Structure (intro/verse1/chorus/verse2/prechorus/chorus/bridge/chorus/fadout) had been scientifically proven to be the stickiest format; deviating from it seemed illogical. The only experimentation we allowed ourselves was in regards to aesthetics and textures - in this way our music became more like graphic design and less like art. And thus our impact lessened, and our workload doubled. Understand me: we never made a conscious decision to leave art in favor of fashion --- we were coerced by the iPod culture, the download culture, the reign of Autotune, Pro-tools, and the submergence of American youth into personality-marketing.

Those of us that could not adapt to this new paradigm floundered in a stubborn fog; suddenly obsolete, instantly elderly. We met at bars and had long talks about the state of things, wondering where things were going and how we would eat. We borrowed money. We grew jealous of our friends that had gotten out early. In hushed tones some of us suggested that things had been better when the major labels were running everything... at least under that system there was due process and a clear path to financial success (however regulated). Our days were rife with depression and the American paralysis that accompanies one's transition from idealist to realist.

At first, my survival instinct took charge... for a few years I excelled at online marketing. Back then we had this network called "Facebook" that occupied most of our time. These were the early days of syndication, mind you, so we actually had to manually post things and create content from scratch (Regenerative Content and Recyclops Technology wouldn't be pioneered for several years). I made some headway, asking my listeners to vote for me here, add me as a friend there, subscribe to this, download that and repost everything. I was checking my page views, tracking my song plays, pouring over analytics and insight statistics to figure out and exploit the best sources of traffic. I made the mistake of reading reviews and comments of my work, inflating and deflating several times a day. I was so busy frantically supplying "content" and gathering feedback that I hadn't the time to produce anything meaningful, resonant, or cathartic. I went weeks without writing. It was a terrifying metamorphosis, but the alternative, falling out of sync with the industry I grew up in, was just as terrifying.

I tried to book a small west coast tour to get out of my bedroom and back into hands-on music making, but the resistance I was met with made all those months of online activity seem pointless. As a last ditch effort, I recorded some demos for a new album and submitted them to my label in hopes of garnering a small advance to pay my rent for a few months. Expecting a Coffeelocks 2.0 and 3.0, they were not impressed with these tiny stripped down songs about disillusionment and personal revelation. They asked for more, promised less.

A few days later, my only companion, a 13 year-old doberman/shephard, walked face first into a door. He was diagnosed with mature cataracts, resulting in near blindness. I could not afford his surgery. That night I did what all white people do when faced with uncertainty: I went back to school.

A few years later, when I was well on my way to corporate stardom and sporting a lovely new bride, the audio-destroying virus known forever as "Noah15" ripped through every tablet and pod like acid. You may find it odd that it took Google two years to beat it, but you have to remember that this was the very first truly I.A. computer virus, so the technology to remedy it hadn't even been comprehended yet. At first it was devastating. In those two years, the music industry changed drastically once again: the number of "musicians" in the country fell from millions to thousands. Since streamed performances were now out of the question, live shows were again heavily attended and well paid for. Laptop/Pod artists disappeared, acoustic instrumentalists were revered again. Everyone that still had their old vinyl collection held special listening sessions and charged admission. My friends were getting their bands back together and touring. I considered it, but only for a few minutes at the end of each day. Chris was on his way and Sarah frowned heavily on any time away from the nest.

So you see that the panic of those times was perhaps not warranted. And clearly we didn't accelerate into extinction, either. Why?
Because time has never been a straight line and it's never been a circle. It's always been a sine wave. There is long-term balance to all things - eventual equalization. Eastern thought wins again. In regards to Singularity and technology acceleration, no one predicted the great reactionary Habitat Flush of the 20's (in which 68% of the population returned to cave-dwelling... albeit with Ikea furniture and proper plumbing), the neutralizing effects of vegetarianism (and its subsequent cattle reduction) on our atmosphere, or the impact of diabetes-related fetal gigantism and its sudden reversal of the overpopulation issue.
Likewise, no one in the music industry could have predicted the swift and total domination of live performance revival bands like Black Flag 2.0 (or "Blog Flack" as they were affectionately known). Yes, you'll be quick to point out that Black Flag 2.0 and many other bands in the forefront of the digi-punk movement (and, much later, the Noah15 virus itself) were eventually exposed as highly-strategized products of Warner Sony, but you'd be missing the point:

If I could go back and talk to 31-year-old me --- the debt-ridden, apocalyptic guy filling out college applications --- I would grab him by his allergic face and say to him only this: have faith in the balancing act of nature. Above all things, believe in that.

the Forgotten Genius

A couplet from each song on Home

Bugguts:
"I feel so little on the inside but
my skin is persistently life-size."
Coffeelocks:
"Love with us was such a waking up
warm and foggy as a coffee mug"
War Paint:
"our lips crushed like armies
under the rule of two love-consumed enemies"
Sugar on the Sheets:
"these toes are hungry like new baby birds
uncurled to feed from my mothering lips"
Stampete:
"the living braid of two hearts in the shade of youth
why would you ever untether this parachute?"
The Wall Starts To Give:
"I know you don't believe in God
but I do, and he's not here with us"
Layers:
"but you are just a blank, frozen in your seat
eyes of a lemur, ghostly as teeth"
Unparallel Rabbits:
"there is no greater pain than the misaligned break
the varied healing tempos of the giver and the take"
Red + Blue = Yella:
"I see blue for a second just before the second wave falls through
and it's the only sky I've seen since we made the barricade of dog food"
Oregon...:
"I taste sulfur smoking upwards
whirling towards my loose teeth"
Beetlemeet:
"What about your Lu?
What's a son to do?"
The Human Torch:
"it's a tree house some where, we're a jungle affair
with a porcupine fence and we're so present tense"
Credits:
"you lied about the way this went
you're stepping in your wet cement"

Spinal Tap 2007

Taylor Hanson is one hot chick, I'll give her that...

This is important

took this from Oprah.com of all places:

5 THINGS HAPPY PEOPLE DO
by Gabrielle LeBlanc

Sages going back to Socrates have offered advice on how to be happy, but only now are scientists beginning to address this question with systematic, controlled research. Although many of the new studies reaffirm time-honored wisdom ("Do what you love," "To thine own self be true"), they also add a number of fresh twists and insights. We canvassed the leading experts on what happy people have in common--and why it's worth trying to become one of them:

They find their most golden self. Picture happiness. What do you see? A peaceful soul sitting in a field of daisies appreciating the moment? That kind of passive, pleasure-oriented--hedonic--contentment is definitely a component of overall happiness. But researchers now believe that eudaimonic well-being may be more important. Cobbled from the Greek eu ("good") and daimon ("spirit" or "deity"), eudaimonia means striving toward excellence based on one's unique talents and potential--Aristotle considered it to be the noblest goal in life. In his time, the Greeks believed that each child was blessed at birth with a personal daimon embodying the highest possible expression of his or her nature. One way they envisioned the daimon was as a golden figurine that would be revealed by cracking away an outer layer of cheap pottery (the person's baser exterior). The effort to know and realize one's most golden self--"personal growth," in today's lingo--is now the central concept of eudaimonia, which has also come to include continually taking on new challenges and fulfilling one's sense of purpose in life.

"Eudaimonic well-being is much more robust and satisfying than hedonic happiness, and it engages different parts of the brain," says Richard J. Davidson, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "The positive emotion accompanying thoughts that are directed toward meaningful goals is one of the most enduring components of well-being." Eudaimonia is also good for the body. Women who scored high on psychological tests for it (they were purposefully engaged in life, pursued self-development) weighed less, slept better, and had fewer stress hormones and markers for heart disease than others—including those reporting hedonic happiness—according to a study led by Carol Ryff, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

They design their lives to bring in joy. It may seem obvious, but "people don't devote enough time to thinking seriously about how they spend their life and how much of it they actually enjoy," says David Schkade, PhD, a psychologist and professor of management at the University of California San Diego. In a recent study, Schkade and colleagues asked more than 900 working women to write down everything they'd done the day before. Afterward, they reviewed their diaries and evaluated how they felt at each point. When the women saw how much time they spent on activities they didn't like, "some people had tears in their eyes," Schkade says. "They didn't realize their happiness was something they could design and have control over."

Analyzing one's life isn't necessarily easy and may require questioning long-held assumptions. A high-powered career might, in fact, turn out to be unfulfilling; a committed relationship once longed for could end up being irritating with all the compromising that comes with having a partner. Dreams can be hard to abandon, even when they've turned sour.

Fortunately, changes don't have to be big ones to tip the joy in your favor. Schkade says that if you transfer even an hour of your day from an activity you hate (commuting, scrubbing the bathroom) to one you like (reading, spending time with friends), you should see a significant improvement in your overall happiness. Taking action is key. Another recent study, at the University of Missouri, compared college students who made intentional changes (joining a club, upgrading their study habits) with others who passively experienced positive turns in their circumstances (receiving a scholarship, being relieved of a bad roommate). All the students were happier in the short term, but only the group who made deliberate changes stayed that way.

They avoid "if only" fantasies. If only I get a better job…find a man…lose the weight…life will be perfect. Happy people don't buy into this kind of thinking.

The latest research shows that we're surprisingly bad at predicting what will make us happy. People also tend to misjudge their contentment when zeroing in on a single aspect of their life—it's called the focusing illusion. In one study, single subjects were asked, "How happy are you with your life in general?" and "How many dates did you have last month?" When the dating question was asked first, their romantic life weighed more heavily into how they rated their overall happiness than when the questions were reversed.

The other argument against "if only" fantasies has to do with "hedonic adaptation"—the brain's natural dimming effect, which guarantees that a new house won't generate the same pleasure a year after its purchase and the thrill of having a boyfriend will ebb as you get used to being part of a couple. Happy people are wise to this, which is why they keep their lives full of novelty, even if it's just trying a new activity (diving, yoga) or putting a new spin on an old favorite (kundalini instead of vinyasa).

They put best friends first. It's no surprise that social engagement is one of the most important contributors to happiness. What's news is that the nature of the relationship counts. Compared with dashing around chatting with acquaintances, you get more joy from spending longer periods of time with a close friend, according to research by Meliksah Demir, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at Northern Arizona University. And the best-friend benefit doesn't necessarily come from delving into heavy discussions. One of the most essential pleasures of close friendship, Demir found, is simple companionship, "just hanging out," as he says, hitting the mall or going to the movies together and eating popcorn in the dark.

They allow themselves to be happy. As much as we all think we want it, many of us are convinced, deep down, that it's wrong to be happy (or too happy). Whether the belief comes from religion, culture, or the family you were raised in, it usually leaves you feeling guilty if you're having fun.

"Some people would say you shouldn't strive for personal happiness until you've taken care of everyone in the world who is starving or doesn't have adequate medical care," says Howard Cutler, MD, coauthor with the Dalai Lama of The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World. "The Dalai Lama believes you should pursue both simultaneously. For one thing, there is clear research showing that happy people tend to be more open to helping others. They also make better spouses and parents." And in one famous study, nuns whose autobiographies expressed positive emotions (such as gratitude and optimism) lived seven to 10-and-a-half years longer than other nuns. So, for any die-hard pessimist who still needs persuading, just think of how much more you can help the world if you allow a little happiness into your life.

Gabrielle Leblanc is a writer and neuroscientist in Washington, D.C.

Micropoem: Biking Through Downtown Providence

even your shadows have shadows, even your alleys have alleys

T-Rex does the Deion Sanders Dance

I have yet another career. Tha Funky Dinosaur. Live in Philly

Car Phone vs. Moog

Here's some footage of some synth tracking from Home.

11-10-2045: Sarah With the Papers to Sign

2045

I heard the door
but I felt like it was upside down
so I stayed on the floor
and soon enough they let her in
Sarah
Sarah with the papers to sign
Sarah
Sarah wanting her piece of mine/mind
she makes the plans and she wears the pants that I -
I can't seem to find

I keep dropping the pen
she just wants it to end
we write my name together

It's pathetic but everything came down to whether or not I was rich
she tells me it wasn't the money but I find it funny that losing my job is what toggled the switch
she says it's painful to be in the house with me
but never complained when she had half my salary
she says that I have a problem with pills
the real problem is all the credit card bills.
You take the house.. the kids... the money...

I took the pills because they were there
and they even me out... make me act right

No I took the pills because I don't dare
to be thinking about the mistake of my life

She stone froze
when I touched her face
I said, "How can they expect us to raise our own replacements? It's insane!"
Nothing sounded right when it left my mouth
she didn't say a word to try to pull me out
she left me on a hotel floor to rot,
alone with my lonely thoughts

It's pathetic but everything came down to whether or not I was rich
she tells me it wasn't the money but I find it funny that losing my job is what toggled the switch
she says it's painful to be in the house with me
but never complained when she had half my salary
she says that I have a problem with pills
the real problem is all the credit card bills.

She tells the kids that I ruined her life
what kind of wife - what kind of human tells that to her children?
About their father!
Even if I did want to get better, why bother?
you screw up just once - for one second -
ONE TIME! and they won't let you ever forget it
happiness will ruin your life if you let it...
you can bet on it.

2045