Why I'm a Pacifist

I know you mean well, so well, when you tell me how grateful I should be for those who have served in the military, even given their lives, for this country.

I know enough about History to recognize the difference their service has made in shaping both the U.S.A. and the World into what they are today, for good and for ill.

I know some of the most blessed moments of my life have been spent hanging out with and having conversations with those who are serving or who have served, whether they be relatives, friends, or even strangers I meet through happenstance.

I know that the mental and physical toll and dedication it takes to be a part of the armed forces is far more than I could possibly imagine or take into account.

I know that to do the job required of a soldier to the best of their ability it would be impossible for that soldier not to simply follow the orders of their superiors without question.

I know that looking back on past wars and other martial situations, even the most studied of scholars can be hard-pressed to find an option out of those situations that does not include at least some kind of violent action.

I know that this country is neither the first nor will it be the last to have an History steeped in and built upon the bloodshed of military action.

I know that the majority of every U.S. citizen's tax dollars go to the defense budget.

I know that the incentivization of recruitment may eventually lead to the abandonment of veterans.

I know that lives have been saved because others have been taken.

I know that I could not possibly make such decisions for others and must solely place the burden of my own morality on the choices that I make.

I know that I have no idea what war is really like.

I've heard it's hell.

I know that weighing all this and more, balancing the pros and cons of the entirety of human history, all I can say is that I get a little sick in the stomach.

I know the look in a friend's eyes while PTSD takes them too far away.

I know the way a mother, a wife, a husband, a father, and so many friends will wait so long and cheer so hard not for what their loved one does or may do, but for who they know them to be deep down, and how much they hope to see them safely returned home.

I know the lies, half-truths, and manipulative promises that politicians have dangled in front of the eyes of voters on the payroll of private weapons contractors, big oil, and the chance of getting re-elected.

I know that the ones to suffer most in war will always be the poorest.

I know that there is evil in the world.

I know that evil begets more evil.

I know that we can't change anything in the world by not first changing the ways we respond to it.

I know that negotiations between patient, well-educated, open-minded parties can and do work.

I know that it is not always possible for such parties to be given a voice in times of strife.

I know that walking across the room and shaking the hand of a stranger, no matter what differences may separate you, may be the difference between a new friend and a new enemy.

I know I'm tired of people killing and being killed in the name of my country and my freedom.

I know that no one's life is worth more than another's simply because of a separation of borders, economics, or ideology.

I know that to be able to take another's life, one must ignore the complex worth of that life.

I know that I do not want to kill, and my elected representatives should not represent me falsely in this way.

I know my living is not worth another dying.

Honestly, I don't know much.

I don't know how to fix History or save those in situations that seem hopeless.

I don't know why bad things happen to good people.

I don't know what the price of freedom really is or even what that kind of freedom really means.

I don't know what it is to be a soldier.

But I do know what it is to be human, and so do those that are being murdered daily, inside and out.

I'm sick and tired of it.

And really, that's all I know.

(Word) Nerd- "Suspend Your Disbelief"

Part of what makes poetry so fascinating for me is word choice. It's not even simply choosing the right word for what I want to express but the attempt to use words that will convey meaning and even mood to the reader or listener.

Context is a big key. For instance, the context of the word "WHO" makes the difference between whether I'm talking about a certain time traveling alien in a blue box, a race of dust speck residents, or the spread of a new international plague.

Then there's phonology, the sound of the word. "Cellar door" makes a lot of linguists drool (especially those named Frank) based on some sort of inherent musicality.

I believe there's something to the presentation of the word however, which can cancel out, intensify, or reshape the entire perception of a word.

My reason for feeling this is one particular phrase: "Suspend your disbelief".

You see, the first time I saw Star Wars was when it was re-released (with special edition features) for movie theatres in 1997. I might be mistaken but I'm pretty sure that night was the first time I was introduced to the term "suspension of disbelief" in a conversation with my dad about science fiction/fantasy stories. I was a strange kid.

Maybe my mind was in an epic adventure kind of headspace because of having just watched the Death Star explode [context]. Maybe it's the way that "suspend" sounds kind of like super bend to a six year old, especially when combined with the mystical word "disbelief" [phonology]. I had after all just been introduced to the Force.

These two linguistical allies came together like Han and Chewie to scoundrel me into thinking "suspend your disbelief" meant something along the lines of morphing my perception into something magical.

The great thing was that this isn't completely wrong. Sure, suspend in the way my dad was probably reffering to in using this phrase is more like being suspended from play in a game or getting a suspension in school. I should set aside skepticism and enjoy the ride (and I'm glad I did because 1-Star Wars and 2- I was six).

However, what fascinates me is that I got by for so long knowing full well what all the words in the phrase meant and, using such simple logic, the true meaning of that phrase, but the mystic idea of my belief hanging out in some higher plane of existence being reformed into some wondrous new consciousness stuck with me pretty much till fifteen minutes ago. (Okay, it's still kinda there). Maybe it's my love of story, especially story of the fantastic variety, but as much as I'm all for using logic and deduction to dig the answers from the depths of the universe, it is always the exploration of the mysterious which most inspires me.

Rod Serling wasn't just saying be less critical. "Just have fun and watch the bookworm drop his glasses, kids." He was inviting us enter into a realm where words are more than their assigned meaning, when the sound and placement of a combination of letters surprises us by not only hitting us where we think but also where we feel.

And that's why poetry is like...

Petrichor.

p.s.-check out my sister's awesome Mongolian Adventures!

This Town

It's been a long time, too long probably, since my last update.

Not much has changed and everything is always changing, right?

For those of who have been following the adventures of me, you would know that I previously worked at a thrift store, pounding away like a zombie starved of the right kind of brains.

That's right, I said previously (also, zombie...because I follow trends I guess).

My current position is sitting on a bed at 5 in the morning, but my current job position is working the front desk at a hotel! Sometimes I drive the airport shuttle, sometimes I check people in, sometimes I answer the phone and say sorry to people's silly complaints, but mostly I have plenty of time to write my novel.

Yes folks, I'm writing a novel (no, not that one, a different one). I'm participating in NaNoWriMo, which is crazy times, mostly. Essentially, I'm attempting to write a fifty-thousand word first draft of a novel during the month of November. Why? Because I'm insane.

Also, in doing so, I hope to develop the habit of not only writing every day, but also using the first draft as a freer, less edit-heavy space where creativity can flow without worry for perfection. I think these are skills which perchance may lead to an exponential increase in productivity on the writing front.

Tonight, however, I've already done a great deal of writing and am only still awake because in about two hours a strange person is coming into my room to stare at the water damage in the ceiling. Believe it or not, I actually cleaned.

Before all this sitting and writing, I was at a Friendsgiving party with some fantastic new friendstrangertypes I'm slowly growing to love. It was fantastically brilliant in the way that only a packed house full of people I don't know well but who still jump at the chance to bless and encourage me with our similar loves and hopes and questions can. I am blessed to be in an area of the world where crazy, talented, creative, wonderful people can gather and eat tons of food and just be there in the midst of one another. Yes, it's awkward for the introvert sometimes, but that's why we have a tiny box for him that I keep in the back left of my brain. I let him out for exercising most nights around this time, so it's okay.

As far as music goes, I am not sure of the exact date yet, but the first new single in (for)ever should be "dropping" as they say in the next couple weeks. SO LOOOOOK OUT!

More on that bit to come.

Love you all, and I hope you're getting more sleep than me.

p.s.- check out my new acoustic video right here: CONSTITUTION HALL

Days of Future Past

In retrospective contemplation, I feel compelled to say I'm better off because of how life's worked out, opportunities I've had for taking certain paths instead of others.

What if I'm not better off, though?

Perhaps "better" is a coping mechanism. Perhaps I don't have better, while I do have now. This is where and when I am, but seen parallel, other options could potentially be much better under certain analysis.

Who am I to judge the man who made different decisions simply because I did not? Different circumstances. Different consequences.

Is he a failure who seized the opportunities I didn't?

Then again, could I have really done differently as I sit here with separate results in a separate reality. (Free will sometimes seems a shaky concept in hindsight.)

Right now does not equal better. It could have, I suppose, but I dare to admit than in my case it doesn't. This recognition is the meaning of regret.

I would imagine that hope, as far as free will is concerned, lies in that chance we might make the choice that not only seems the wisest at the time but whose consequences would stand up to the scrutiny of all other possible situations. It's the hope that even if the best is too far off, better off is right around the corner. Not only that, but it may just be in our hands.

Real life, after all—the one they told you will start just as soon as you're done doing whatever you're doing now—is the conglomeration of a whole lot of misplaced priorities.

Where Am I and Who Are All These Crazies?

Been bringing in some really cool folks to record on the new album lately, and between all of them and the utterly fantastic engineer with whom I get to work, I am simply surrounded by talent and kindness. The creative energy truly just drowns that tiny room in some not-so-fancy but still very much brilliant and exciting ways.

I mean, check this out:

That right there is the phenomenal Ashley Wright laying down some mind-blowingly cool piano parts (think Mozart meets One Republic) for a track that the wicked talented Whitney McCombs  had sung on (read: broke hearts into a million pieces) only a few days prior. I've also had my dear friend Chris Murphy adding some very catchy guitar stuff, and am hoping to bring in some more of my friends—old and new—quite soon. 

This is all so exciting. I mean, I just played a house show with a whole bunch of artists I'd never met. Every one of them was so nice and encouraging and...TALENTED. I'm surrounded by it, drowning in it, engulfed in the mighty wave that is this crazy town and its crazy people. 

I know I've spent a lot of time on this blog complaining and philosophizing (more like angsting, which should really be a word) at length about what's wrong with my life down here. I now have a place to stay for relatively cheap rent, a job that, despite a certain amount of soul-destroying, allows me to live in said place and eat food and pay for gas and buy music stuff and so on... Still, though, there lingers questions of morality in being a part of so many corrupt systems. Those questions haven't disappeared (though going from a car to a bed has made me realize how blurry the lines between societal classes really are). 

However, being generally pretty depressed means I have to find ways to lift my head up and keep pressing forward. Honestly and with all the sincerity in my heart, I tell you the only way I have been able to do that is the fantastically genuine and supportive group of creative folks I've met down here. It is often hard for me to believe I have friends or to know what to do with them once I've got 'em, but these folks are good, unusually honest (and quite excitable about new ideas), and fairly patient with me.  

I hesitate to say that is through others we find ourselves, but perhaps in the midst of others we can at very least get some fairly overwhelming levels of feedback. 

Good, bad, inconclusive. 

People. 

>sigh<

Voting or Not

So I’m not the smartest and didn’t really do my homework. I knew I was registered to vote…in PA. I live in TN now, but my registration hasn’t changed. I thought I could do the absentee ballot thing, but I’m neither a student nor in the military. I’d have to fly back to PA and vote in the county of my license there. This makes sense and I’m not saying it’s wrong or anything like that. However, I can’t afford to fly to PA without taking a pretty big risk of not being able to afford November’s rent. 

So am I too poor to vote? Maybe. Maybe not. 

Did I really want to vote in the first place? Maybe. Maybe not. 

You see I believe that exercising my right to vote is an important part of preserving one of the great symbols of what’s still good about the US. Still, with the electoral college and battleground states and lying douchebags running for both of the two major parties, it is mostly just a symbol. 

Does your vote matter and should you vote if you can? Yeah, I believe so.

Will you then be responsible for choosing between two politicians? Obviously.

So it’s kind of a relief to be honest. The president doesn’t have as much power as this season makes us think, and no matter what/who gets elected. The way that you live in your local area, loving your neighbor and all that, will make a bigger contribution than your vote will. 

(and I was prob gonna vote for Jill Stein anyway)

What Really Matters (Art for Art Sake)?

By the end of this month, a few things might transpire in my topsy-turvyish little life. 1) I stay at a job that is making me feel increasingly miserable no matter how hard I try to see the bright side, and I then miss out on some really great opportunities as my soul slowly melts like an overly hydrated wicked witch of the west. 2) I find another, at least somewhat more palatable job, one which allows me to either start after or start and still take off for those "great opportunities" (one of which includes maybe playing a show), and quit my current job. Or 3) I find myself at a place where I must choose between leaving a job for aforementioned opportunities or staying at a job where it's okay to mislead your employees about their ability to take off for said opportunities as well as melting their souls on a daily basis. It's a statistical improbability that everyone hates their day job, right? Right?

All that to say I'm trying to get into a better situation—one which will not only allow me to continue to live under a roof but also free up time in the right places so I can continue recording and performing and writing my book and countless other creative endeavors. My current job (and most other entry-level jobs by their descriptions at least) require an elementary to early high school level education, and yet somehow the employment process makes it seem like I'm not qualified for any of them. I really hope all those folks in my "class" who graduate this coming May find themselves in a very different situation than the one I've been in. (If not, please know it is possible to drastically lower your middle class standards for what is an acceptable level of number of showers per month if necessary...2 maybe 3 sounds good.)

  

On another note, I've met a lot of fantastically talented songwriters in this town, but I've become to notice a trending dichotomy. There is this line between those that write as an art and those that write as a craft. The former shatter open a bottle of their inner most thoughts and feelings, pouring out an over-exposed, blurred mess of gut-wrenching, heart-squeezing, tear-jerking REAL set to music. The latter build a machine, cog by cog, with such finely tuned precision that it basically spits out radio play and awards to give itself. There have been a few throughout contemporary music history who have been able to bounce back and forth across this line, bringing handfuls of one side to the other. No one can traverse the tightrope all the way across that gorge, though (all that plays at my work is late 70s to today's pop music and I've yet to truly find correlation besides bipolar relationship issues). 

I'd almost rather have something real that rips my foot off and feeds it to me still raw and bleeding than a tin toy that timidly trots over and coaxes my toes into tapping. (alliteration overkill, oh well.)

A friend today asked me if the whole point really was to become rich and famous or to even be heard or if art for art sake could be enough. I used to think, used to hope that it could be. 

Back then I slept in my car for two months and was more creative than I'd been in years. Now I'm paying rent and hating my job and trying to find not just the time but the motivation to keep creating. After a long day of work, it seems almost impossible to crank out the same level of material that I made when my life was either so taken care of or so desperate that I couldn't or didn't have to worry about much. Growing up or in school or when I was just roaming, the art was all I had. Now, all I have is getting through the day... adulthood, by some definitions. 

I still believe art for art sake should be enough. I still strive to be someone who creates out of the deep, honest places in my soul, because that's just who I am. But then I gotta pay rent, and I gotta eat, and I gotta this and that. You know the propaganda. 

All I can think, though, is what's the point if what you gotta do to keep living takes away what makes your life worth living?