Here it is folks. You've been patient, and it has been well worth it. Click this link to head over to my music page on bandcamp.com where you can listen to and buy my newest track for download.
So much heart, time, and work went into making this my best recording so far. I could not have done it without the brilliant drumming from Joe Tounge, and the multifaceted instrumental, engineering, and production work from Joe Casey. It's great to get to work on music with my friends, and it's even better when those friends are so talented and willing to put in the time and energy to make that music all the better. This song is one that comes from a place of real honesty, and I hope you can connect to it and enjoy it.
Lyrics:
Cast away your weary woes behind from yesterday
It's okay, tomorrow's on its way or so they say
Mask the pain
A sleeve-worn heart for a start, but scars remain
Take the blame
You're handed as your loved ones walk away
I need a painkiller to take my pain away
I need a time filler to make my mind okay
I need a strong will, or a new pill, or a great escape
I need a painkiller
Faster now, we're screaming at the speed of social sound
Dangling doubts like chains around our necks, we all look down
Gather 'round, head toward the sea to see the pleading crowds
Heavy-browed, we shake in silence as the sun slips out
I need a painkiller to take my pain away
I need a time filler to make my mind okay
I need a strong will, or a new pill, or a great escape
I need a painkiller
Let my shoulders roll like waves
Let my eyes look out the cave
Let me go, let me go
No one talks, there's nothing to say
And yet we talk the world away
So let me go, let me go
I need a painkiller to take my pain away
I need a time filler to make my mind okay
I need a strong will, or a new pill, or a great escape
I need a painkiller
"Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you." - Jean-Paul Sartre
Dear Internauts,
Not much to say this week. In all honesty I've been trying to come up with something to post but am fairly drained after finishing up with a certain project FINALLY.
Might not be what you were hoping, but yes, Chapter One of my graphic novel project is done. Chapter Two should take less time, I'm hoping, as most of these past months were all about learning how in the world to make a comic as much if not more than how to make this comic.
I'm still not sure how to best share this with you. I've sent a few folks the google drive link to a pdf file as it's too large to attach directly to an email. When I tried compressing it lost serious image quality. All this goes to show that I know way less about computers than probably most people my age. I'll be figuring out what to do with this later, but for now we can just celebrate that I made something, right?
Anyway, here's the cover!
So with that checked off, I've started to rewrite the outline for the bigger story. In writing this first chapter a whole lot has changed, and I feel like I've grown both as an artist and a writer. It's been pretty weird, as I drew all the time growing up and have always loved comics, but never really considered making them until this year.
I'll be starting on chapter two as soon as I get it written, and hoping that it should take much less time now that I know a bit more of the format.
Also, my producer has had a lot going on in his life, thus why the songs I recorded last fall have taken so long to come out. I've started work on a lyric video and want to get the song and video to you as soon as they're ready. As with anything, the more folks you bring into it the more complex it gets. Still, I feel like this music is all the better for being in these other hands.
I want to get back into writing songs on a regular basis. Truth is, I felt like I really failed by not being able to make it work in Massachusetts. I'm still not sure what the next step is, but I think for now I've gotta keep working on becoming a better writer, artist, and musician, performing more, and try to pick up some kinda work so I can save up for whatever may come. My fam's been busy with a lot of changes going on, but I'm wicked grateful for my folks being there to help me stay strong and move forward.
Mental illness is a helluva thing, and some days I still feel more losing than anything. I gotta take advantage of those rare times when I do have the energy and motivation to make something unique and real.
All in all, we're only our most honest selves. Everything else peels like old paint.
There's no room for the oppression of fascists, racists, bigots, and haters in a genuine, loving, progressive society. I stand with all those who stand against institutions of hateful prejudice.
Hope you have a great week, and happy ECLIPSE!
Thanks for reading,
Odist
p.s. - if you haven't seen it, this Tina Fey video is spot-on and hilarious
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." - Noam Chomsky
Dear Internauts,
Been spending most of my time trying to finish up with this chapter of my graphic novel. It feels like so much of life has flown so far out of my own hands, I don't even know where to start grasping. But this little bit I can do. Write and draw and try and make something half decent maybe.
Growing up, I only really listened to "Christian" music. I don't think it was a rule that I not listen to secular music, but I only got new cds when we went to the religious book store. I had no reference point with friends or culture to suggest anything outside of the kind of gospel pop with which I was familiar. The loudest opinions I ever heard about secular music were from those most outlandish haters who believed anything referring to sex, drugs, alcohol, or even a somewhat negative disposition was enough to be deemed the devil's music.
So I got the equivalent of knockoff brands. Supposed soundalikes stylistically, who were more often than not just slight hues off from the same ten to fifteen years behind mesh of poorly-balanced easy listening. Sure, there were flavors akin to rap or hard rock, but rarely anything that tried to be fresh or take real artistic chances. The goal, sound-wise, seemed to be to never stray too far from what you may hear if the church worship band found a drum machine or an overdrive pedal they really dug.
I think there are a lot of really talented, hard-working musicians in the Christian scene, sure, but growing up with it, I can tell you it hit like a sack of amps when folks first started to introduce me to actual metal or jazz or classic hip-hop and rock music. To think that the music itself wasn't simply a vehicle to carry the same bland message again and again, but was an end onto itself—that just bowled me right over.
I've been thinking a lot lately about what Linkin Park has meant to me and other folks in the wake of Chester's passing. One of the biggest things that hit me with their music and truly with his performance of it, was that pain and uncertainty were in plain view.
A kind of hardcore, emo, and more brutally honest flood of music hit me around the end of high school, past due for a lot of great groups, LP included. The biggest difference—and the reason why, say Emery or My Chemical Romance or now folks like Watsky or Childish Gambino really connect with me—is it's all about accessibility of the emotional weight in the art.
All those artists when I was growing up, trying so hard to walk this line between cool and missional, rock star and evangelist, performer and worshipper, they all wanted to take the listener to a particular place. All the same place, really. Mostly, they all seemed to want to already be there. Any brokenness displayed had to be soon followed up with healing. Every problem had a solution. Every line declaring personal struggle must coincide with another in praise to the ultimate deity.
Like all music, it has some level of emotions attached. I know from all those years in worship bands that it is an extreme course in manipulating the emotions of a crowd. Mob mentality with a soundtrack. You get hype at church camp or during revival and this is the part that gets stuck in your head. I know all the tricks and the contradictions, so I can't say that folks' hearts aren't in a good place. Still, many people don't get the kinda power they wield over this captive audience. Everyone there wants to fit in with the vibe. It feels good, because it was designed to. It wants to take you to a place.
If the bus is leaving and headed toward the horizon, but it never stopped to pick you up where you live, then you're always gonna be chasing after its exhaust, choking on dissatisfaction. I'm not saying it's better to ruminate, because I do think the best art can transport you, for sure. But the real meaningful stuff first meets you where you are. It doesn't talk down to you and criticize your pain as some sign of failure. It doesn't flog you with your weakness from a place of self-righteousness.
The art that really matters, lasts, and resonates first comes from a place of honesty. That's not saying "oh we're all broken and evil but God's not so it's all okay." It's saying, "hey these are my pieces and maybe I'm broken or maybe the connections are just not so easy to see right now and it's okay if it's not all okay."
I grew up so terrified of being real about my doubts, insecurities, awkwardness, and quirks. Partially, I see now that coming to terms with these things and facing them head on and arms open is a matter of being able to find relational touchstones. Hearing that someone else has been down the same road doesn't have to make me feel like "oh humanity sucks so much, we're all doomed." Instead, I can look at the bravery it takes to be real and share your scars in your art. That reaches a place in me that chasing after some bland, shiny bit of mold-fitting power-worship can't.
Tough honesty can meet me where I am, thus earning the right to take me on a journey of discovery. Trying to drag me there or forcing me to constantly play catch-up may sell a few Christmas albums, but it will always feel more hollow than whole.
"If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected-those, precisely, who need the laws's protection most!-and listens to their testimony."
- James Baldwin
Dear Internauts,
My mind is spinning with thoughts from just seeing Detroit. Of course I could also write about The Dark Tower or Atomic Blonde. I've seen a fair number of films lately if you consider that most movies I do see are franchise films, and most of those have flickered out for the moment till fall hits with its newest hits. It may just be that I want to support daring pictures—or perhaps anything except for that Emoji thing. Anything but that. Still, the three I have seen in the past week are all far better than I'd expected, and the one I refuse to see still required hundreds of people to work their darndest.
I do wonder how many illustrators and techs and other young film lovers may get their start working on any years' big stinkers. It may be simple to think that any level of quality in the animation or effects or background bits is a direct product of the money so absurdly spent, but behind every horrible package that makes it to the screen you've got a near-endless chain of dedicated folks on the daily grind to at least make their tiny speck of artistic chip in the massive sculpture of polished turd.
Then of course, there are great movies. Ones that make you stop and think or simply awe or shake and shiver with glee, horror, wonder, or plain ol' speechless bewilderment. I could and would like to go on and on about such flicks. What a blood-sparkling joy.
But there's a road spike in my esophagus, buddy. Oh man.
We are smart, you know that? We are wonderfully brilliant when we mean to be.
We can do so many gorgeous and wondrous and astounding things.
And yet. AND YET—
WHY DO COPS STILL USE GUNS TO STOP FOLKS!?!!
Why of all our technology and brilliance is a lethal weapon even in the arsenal of those charged to serve and protect?
What is the point of a law if not to protect our rights? Those who enforce the law do the exact opposite when all their means of enforcement require physically and otherwise harming us. Oh they don't need to use a firearm, no. They can just taser you to death or bludgeon you to death or choke you with a knee to the back.
Now you may say that if criminals have guns then cops need them, but not likely because I respect your intelligence and that's a bs strawman kinda thing to say. Do we prefer our cops to be like criminals? Of course not, because if we did then our cops wouldn't get away with nearly so much murder of unarmed civilians. Our cops shouldn't even murder armed civilians. You know why? Because of the 2nd amendment for one thing, and for another—more important—thing, because you can't explain what you're up to in a fair trial before a judge and a jury of your peers if, instead of being captured and arrested in a way which respects your rights and your body, you are instead shot and killed or strangled or have an accident on the ride to the station.
While we're all caught up in a national huff over whatever new lie or snafu our dear Mr. Prez has most recently tweeted or fired or hired or canceled protection of or WHATEVER—not that those things don't matter, but—people are slaughtered every single day in this country by police officers.
I could take this space to say that NOT ALL cops are like that, but you've read that elsewhere I'm sure.
The whole BLUE LIVES MATTER thing is like how if after wearing protective glasses while doing an experiment in science class around potentially dangerous chemicals, I went to the burn unit at the hospital and screamed at someone who'd gone blind in a house fire...that I had also set with those same dangerous chemicals. Point is, anyone who chooses to be apart of a corrupt system is either unaware of the corruption or doesn't care or agrees with it. Option one, do you really want someone that stupid or uninformed policing anywhere? Option two, do you really want someone that complacent policing anywhere? And Option three, you've got everyone who cries on about how sanctuary cities are unpatriotic and local authorities should comply with ICE.
What I'm saying is that human rights and human lives matter more than the grid-lines which uphold an unjust system. Anyone who is willing to defend those walls, lines, and glass ceilings at the expense of human rights and human lives does not see those on the other side as deserving of those same rights or even their lives.
While we're down here squabbling over the block, there's genocide the next block over. Keeping us bickering and drooling over the next stupid scandal is a great way to keep funding a machine which continuously drops bombs on houses and families overseas and slaughters black and brown americans on the daily over here.
But you gotta support the heroes, right?
I don't support anyone who would rather take another person's life than use their own conscience. I think I'd be a much more patriotic, supportive kinda guy if the ones giving the orders gave a damn about human lives over some lines on a map and some decimal places on a budget.
Maybe I'm impractical, naive, an idiot, whatever...
But how's that practicality doing for the families who's kids aren't coming home?
You know all I ever have to give you on this blog is anecdotes and feelings, and I won't proclaim to have anything more than that. I'm a writer not a politician.
So when I called the cops after that kid robbed me at gunpoint and they came in to laugh at me and question me over and over with racist rhetoric...or all the times I had to call them when a drunk guy was threatening me or the other guests and they'd laugh at me again and drive off if they showed up or even returned my calls...or when they were rough with the woman who sat their bleeding to death, accusing her of prostitution, dumping out her purse, and making comments about the way she was dressed... well, those are my anecdotal evidence. My personal stories aren't anywhere near as harsh as so many other folks' are. Certainly they never treated me quite as bad as when I was sleeping in my car and they'd find me parked somewhere and wake me up with a gun to the window glass.
But how much worse must it be to live life so heavily under the scrutiny of death dealing uniforms that your sense of citizenship and property and neighborhood identity is completely separate from anything I can understand?
We look at riots and marches and looting and we see wild savagery and insanity. We can't possibly comprehend the separation between our view of commerce and property as identity and that of someone else who does not. To destroy our own street and burn our own home seems so ludicrous to us because it is our own. And I can't begin to understand it, because I grew up that way. But just imagine with me that what we own and where we belong was not. Just imagine that instead of being able to say this place and this stuff is mine and thus I deserve all the rights and privileges therein, instead you are treated as a constant stranger, a constant vagrant, a constant intruder even on your own home block. Even in your own neighborhood and house. Even when it comes to the sanctity and safety of your very body, you are treated with a contempt and an alienation which is the very definition of dehumanization.
And that is how we enforce our laws. With lethal force from hands fed by dehumanizing hate. It is fascist bigotry. It is unjust. It is American.
