Records of Existence http://patrickjosephmusic.com/blog.cfm Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:05:20 GMT http://bandzoogle.com Optimistic http://patrickjosephmusic.com/blog.cfm?feature=21849&postid=34458 1/12/09 There's this feeling going around, airborne and floating freely like airy mist in a summer's heat. Things don't always turn the way you expect them to, pathways are never as bright as they seem. It's easy to pull up a chair and play cards at the table with the status quo regardless of how bleak the energy is or whether everyone's even playing square. But there's a new feeling at the beginning of this new calendar year, one that provides an eagle's eye perspective and gets you off of that table and up into the heavens looking down on a world that likes to kick itself in the face and pretend that all matter is composed of black and white. If you're dying out there, remove yourself. Rewrite the rules and paint your own reality.
There's this feeling going around, airborne and floating freely like airy mist in a summer's heat. Things don't always turn the way you expect them to, pathways are never as bright as they seem. It's easy to pull up a chair and play cards at the table with the status quo regardless of how bleak the energy is or whether everyone's even playing square. But there's a new feeling at the beginning of this new calendar year, one that provides an eagle's eye perspective and gets you off of that table and up into the heavens looking down on a world that likes to kick itself in the face and pretend that all matter is composed of black and white. If you're dying out there, remove yourself. Rewrite the rules and paint your own reality.
]]> Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:05:20 GMT 1E50EC1C12A66C49F8220EF617DDBF5B Last Call http://patrickjosephmusic.com/blog.cfm?feature=21849&postid=31803 12/10/08 I've never cared much for warm weather. It covers my skin and breathes down my throat, trying to talk me into believing that all's well and there's no work needed to be done. My brain spoils in the pathways of those rogue sun rays. This time of the year sings to me - the world tilts its head backward as to take a rest from the sun's magnetic spell and breathes down the frozen air it inhales from the freedom of the blackened sky above. Alas, a breeze chilled enough to align all the particles of the world in divine order and refrigerate my thoughts - Music notes chime all the more clear in the frigid wind of these months. Things are getting closer, ever so nearer to where they need to be. A dream is but a whisper when it's first conceived, almost impossible to capture in the fleeting focus of one's eyes - like a cluster of stars in the sky you can only see by concentrating away, pretending they're not there. But with a great deal of persistence and a little bit of luck, a whisper quickly becomes a voice that can carry thoughts across continents. Absence isn't always a sign of slowing, but more often than not the evidence of feverish work. Last call folks, it's been a tough year. Get your last from it while its still here. Here's to new chapters. "Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave." - Calvin Coolige
I've never cared much for warm weather. It covers my skin and breathes down my throat, trying to talk me into believing that all's well and there's no work needed to be done.

My brain spoils in the pathways of those rogue sun rays. This time of the year sings to me - the world tilts its head backward as to take a rest from the sun's magnetic spell and breathes down the frozen air it inhales from the freedom of the blackened sky above. Alas, a breeze chilled enough to align all the particles of the world in divine order and refrigerate my thoughts - Music notes chime all the more clear in the frigid wind of these months.

Things are getting closer, ever so nearer to where they need to be. A dream is but a whisper when it's first conceived, almost impossible to capture in the fleeting focus of one's eyes - like a cluster of stars in the sky you can only see by concentrating away, pretending they're not there. But with a great deal of persistence and a little bit of luck, a whisper quickly becomes a voice that can carry thoughts across continents.

Absence isn't always a sign of slowing, but more often than not the evidence of feverish work.

Last call folks, it's been a tough year. Get your last from it while its still here.

Here's to new chapters.



"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave." - Calvin Coolige
]]> Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:20:00 GMT 53D9CFE76005A68837BCDB5CFAF92402 A New Dusk http://patrickjosephmusic.com/blog.cfm?feature=21849&postid=26378 8/09/08 And so I've carved out a moment of this day to catch up with myself, to remind myself that I'm still here - Alas, a space where I can unpack the load I bear upon my spine, and prop it upon this altar of rented electricity and counterfeit light. The only distractions that interfere are the distant sounds of this strange city carried in through the open windows by the night breeze, chilled by an icy moon above. My clothed body lies stiffly on a naked floor; I amire the irony of being the only decoration upon this otherwise vacant surface. Crickets. I never imagined crickets here - Charming as they are, cloaked by the infancy of night to provide the ambiance of a place more fittingly called "home." I am flooded by borrowed thoughts, perhaps carried again upon that night wind. Dozens of images of light and pictures, sounds and vibrations from all directions and dimensions penetrate the metal screen that is only designed to keep away more earthly things. How delightful the breeze feels tonight - inspiration on tap, electrified airwaves traveling at the speed of pollen floating through the atmosphere. Man-made contraptions only entrap this bliss, filter it from your spaces and snatch it from your eyes and ears. These devices are absent here, nowhere in sight as I lie idle from the world in this new space of mine, absorbing the best entertainment money can't buy - the sound and scent of freedom.
And so I've carved out a moment of this day to catch up with myself, to remind myself that I'm still here - Alas, a space where I can unpack the load I bear upon my spine, and prop it upon this altar of rented electricity and counterfeit light.

The only distractions that interfere are the distant sounds of this strange city carried in through the open windows by the night breeze, chilled by an icy moon above. My clothed body lies stiffly on a naked floor; I amire the irony of being the only decoration upon this otherwise vacant surface.

Crickets. I never imagined crickets here - Charming as they are, cloaked by the infancy of night to provide the ambiance of a place more fittingly called "home."

I am flooded by borrowed thoughts, perhaps carried again upon that night wind. Dozens of images of light and pictures, sounds and vibrations from all directions and dimensions penetrate the metal screen that is only designed to keep away more earthly things. How delightful the breeze feels tonight - inspiration on tap, electrified airwaves traveling at the speed of pollen floating through the atmosphere. Man-made contraptions only entrap this bliss, filter it from your spaces and snatch it from your eyes and ears. These devices are absent here, nowhere in sight as I lie idle from the world in this new space of mine, absorbing the best entertainment money can't buy - the sound and scent of freedom.
]]> Sat, 09 Aug 2008 13:55:00 GMT F2BC285FA99590E5771CB0D3D2929270 Changes http://patrickjosephmusic.com/blog.cfm?feature=21849&postid=25794 6/27/08 I'm feeling rather blank today. I thought perhaps spilling out some words unto the open computer screen would declog my thinking tubes. I'm reminded of when I was younger and used to get frisbees stuck in trees. My brothers and I would take off our shoes and throw them, attempting to free the disk from the branches. Whether you're aware of it or not, this is something we all must do once in awhile. I'm not a biologist or scientist or master of the mind. I do know that from time to time things get congested up there, and a simple practice of letting the clock spin doesn't always remedy the situation. Too much of the same thing tends to draw patterns on your brain that start to stick out awkwardly when traced over too many times. Driving home from work, watching the same old movie a hundred times over, having the same morning routine - These are all automatic fixtures we get stuck in every day. Sometimes these repetitions are traced so many times that they cause your mind to skip like a record with a scratched groove. Lonely, depressed, uninspired, out of luck, tapped dry - all symptoms of being imprisoned by repetition. There are various ways out of this cycle. Don't watch television tonight, read a book. Put your left shoe on first instead of your right. Take the backroad to work tomorrow morning. Talk to a stranger today, make them a friend. Fear is the only warden keeping us from breaking the habits that bind. The mind is an incredibly powerful tool, an enormous muscle that requires exercise to stay fit. Neglect it for too long and you won't have the strength soon to stand up out of bed. There are ideas up there. If you've been neglecting them, pick them off of the surface of your brain, examine the silhouette of dust that's left there behind. They're just as good as they were the day they were born. Try them on, today is our day for change.
I'm feeling rather blank today.

I thought perhaps spilling out some words unto the open computer screen would declog my thinking tubes. I'm reminded of when I was younger and used to get frisbees stuck in trees. My brothers and I would take off our shoes and throw them, attempting to free the disk from the branches. Whether you're aware of it or not, this is something we all must do once in awhile.

I'm not a biologist or scientist or master of the mind. I do know that from time to time things get congested up there, and a simple practice of letting the clock spin doesn't always remedy the situation. Too much of the same thing tends to draw patterns on your brain that start to stick out awkwardly when traced over too many times. Driving home from work, watching the same old movie a hundred times over, having the same morning routine - These are all automatic fixtures we get stuck in every day. Sometimes these repetitions are traced so many times that they cause your mind to skip like a record with a scratched groove. Lonely, depressed, uninspired, out of luck, tapped dry - all symptoms of being imprisoned by repetition. There are various ways out of this cycle. Don't watch television tonight, read a book. Put your left shoe on first instead of your right. Take the backroad to work tomorrow morning. Talk to a stranger today, make them a friend.

Fear is the only warden keeping us from breaking the habits that bind. The mind is an incredibly powerful tool, an enormous muscle that requires exercise to stay fit. Neglect it for too long and you won't have the strength soon to stand up out of bed. There are ideas up there. If you've been neglecting them, pick them off of the surface of your brain, examine the silhouette of dust that's left there behind. They're just as good as they were the day they were born. Try them on, today is our day for change.
]]> Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:50:00 GMT CE9ED2BD75CC097557980A084E08612C Angeles http://patrickjosephmusic.com/blog.cfm?feature=21849&postid=25793 6/16/08 And so my path curves westward. The dynamic shifting of the seasons in the eastern atmosphere is certainly in exile from this golden coast. Souls carefully crafted from the colonial air no longer rest in the cool comfort of the Appalachian cradle - often times bearing the honorary title of Guest is an invitation for wearing the clothes of a foreigner in one's very own country. I am fulfilled here. Fulfilled in the sense that my spirit yearns for more in these surroundings. A puzzle incomplete, forever in search of the missing piece - not longing in sorrow for resolution but resting in joyous occupation with the knowledge that my chapter is far from finished. This place stinks of wonderous filth, reeking of the love affair between a fly and his mound of manurer - yet sturdy in the promise that fruit spawns from feces so long as you're not planting in the shade. My feet are well rested, they won't get you far out here. The sun massages my skin moreso than usual. The notion that such dynamics exist within two coastal lines in this world is infinitely exciting - the very thought of it all fills my cells with color and light and makes me want to live twice as loud. There is time for that though, always time for that. It is never too late to pull down the curtains and let the particles flood the brain with the brilliant light of today. My head is unsteady, my fingers are distant. My eyelids carry the weight of two thousand moments of consciousness, and gravity drives an easy bargain. Endless thoughts of happiness to you all.
And so my path curves westward. The dynamic shifting of the seasons in the eastern atmosphere is certainly in exile from this golden coast. Souls carefully crafted from the colonial air no longer rest in the cool comfort of the Appalachian cradle - often times bearing the honorary title of Guest is an invitation for wearing the clothes of a foreigner in one's very own country.

I am fulfilled here. Fulfilled in the sense that my spirit yearns for more in these surroundings. A puzzle incomplete, forever in search of the missing piece - not longing in sorrow for resolution but resting in joyous occupation with the knowledge that my chapter is far from finished. This place stinks of wonderous filth, reeking of the love affair between a fly and his mound of manurer - yet sturdy in the promise that fruit spawns from feces so long as you're not planting in the shade. My feet are well rested, they won't get you far out here.

The sun massages my skin moreso than usual. The notion that such dynamics exist within two coastal lines in this world is infinitely exciting - the very thought of it all fills my cells with color and light and makes me want to live twice as loud. There is time for that though, always time for that. It is never too late to pull down the curtains and let the particles flood the brain with the brilliant light of today.

My head is unsteady, my fingers are distant. My eyelids carry the weight of two thousand moments of consciousness, and gravity drives an easy bargain.

Endless thoughts of happiness to you all.
]]> Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:50:00 GMT 2428F3EB42B17E5B38F278439CBD8913 Arsonist Blues http://patrickjosephmusic.com/blog.cfm?feature=21849&postid=25792 5/27/08 My little collection of sonic data, "Arsonist Blues," is all grown up now. I made sure he got his fair share of vegetables and eggs over the months, stretched out every morning, said hello politely to strangers while I introduced him to folks during parties, outings, nights out on the town. Now I awake one morning and there he is, a staggering tower of layered orchestrations, complex cellular composition; a frame that no longer fits in my guitar case. I don't even recognize the lad. What happened to those organic bare-bones, the hollow constitution of acoustic simplicity that I knew so well? Alas, he is reborn - A face forged through time and care, foreign yet familiar, similar yet strange. More suitable for the performances he will soon deliver, no longer greedily in solitude but with a band of brothers on stage to practice all facets of his existence, growing with each exercise. Enjoy the new "Arsonist Blues" - Many more in the oven, many more on the way.
My little collection of sonic data, "Arsonist Blues," is all grown up now. I made sure he got his fair share of vegetables and eggs over the months, stretched out every morning, said hello politely to strangers while I introduced him to folks during parties, outings, nights out on the town. Now I awake one morning and there he is, a staggering tower of layered orchestrations, complex cellular composition; a frame that no longer fits in my guitar case. I don't even recognize the lad. What happened to those organic bare-bones, the hollow constitution of acoustic simplicity that I knew so well? Alas, he is reborn - A face forged through time and care, foreign yet familiar, similar yet strange. More suitable for the performances he will soon deliver, no longer greedily in solitude but with a band of brothers on stage to practice all facets of his existence, growing with each exercise.

Enjoy the new "Arsonist Blues" -
Many more in the oven, many more on the way.
]]> Tue, 27 May 2008 17:50:00 GMT C46AB6D2C4FBE6B8EC7CD0A1C8FAA3C1 Today (Yesterday) http://patrickjosephmusic.com/blog.cfm?feature=21849&postid=23983 5/1/08 Today was just one of those all-inspiring days - the sun seemed to shine twice as bright, yet the breeze quenced its bite with the cool comforting embrace only the innocence of spring can deliver - A marriage of all pleasures circled my self without cost or reason. Simply taking in the air of the atmosphere put all things in their place, and I felt as if perhaps today was the rightful headstone of the New Year. Once in awhile everything just makes sense, and all plans and elements are laid into place without effort or care. Today was one of those days, and it was a good day indeed.
Today was just one of those all-inspiring days - the sun seemed to shine twice as bright, yet the breeze quenced its bite with the cool comforting embrace only the innocence of spring can deliver - A marriage of all pleasures circled my self without cost or reason. Simply taking in the air of the atmosphere put all things in their place, and I felt as if perhaps today was the rightful headstone of the New Year. Once in awhile everything just makes sense, and all plans and elements are laid into place without effort or care. Today was one of those days, and it was a good day indeed.
]]> Wed, 21 May 2008 15:21:22 GMT C6BE5104B782DD633851AA63032BFA7E a letter to a friend http://patrickjosephmusic.com/blog.cfm?feature=21849&postid=23982 3/21/08 Dear Cosmos, I thank you for your light and your air. I thank you for the day I stand upon and the tomorrow that floats into my palms like a glacier, thawing and drifting to the death that is my warmth. I don’t give thanks often enough - but I offer it to you now. Please accept it graciously and remember this deed when the odds are against me and all fortune has fled. Someone told me I don’t blog correctly. Is there a manual I’m unaware of out there that I can study up on? I obviously don’t get it. To cover my bases for breakfast I had two eggs, a piece and a half of toast, 13.3 ounces of 1% Milk and a banana. I brushed my teeth for two whole minutes. I walked, talked and sat all day long conversing with several people and not conversing with several others. I counted my footsteps to my front door and drowned my alcohol in a glass of pain. Alas, I tried to solve a sudoku but the sudoku solved me. Much better.
Dear Cosmos,

I thank you for your light and your air. I thank you for the day I stand upon and the tomorrow that floats into my palms like a glacier, thawing and drifting to the death that is my warmth. I don’t give thanks often enough - but I offer it to you now. Please accept it graciously and remember this deed when the odds are against me and all fortune has fled.


Someone told me I don’t blog correctly. Is there a manual I’m unaware of out there that I can study up on? I obviously don’t get it. To cover my bases for breakfast I had two eggs, a piece and a half of toast, 13.3 ounces of 1% Milk and a banana. I brushed my teeth for two whole minutes. I walked, talked and sat all day long conversing with several people and not conversing with several others. I counted my footsteps to my front door and drowned my alcohol in a glass of pain. Alas, I tried to solve a sudoku but the sudoku solved me.

Much better.
]]> Wed, 21 May 2008 15:19:58 GMT 28F03DC25E0A1CCB888B0B59A1C435D8 Inspiration http://patrickjosephmusic.com/blog.cfm?feature=21849&postid=21921 3/14/08 There’s no telling when you’ll be struck by a surge of power that compells you to turn all of your raw energy into something you can hold in your hand, or let spiral down the funnel of your ear and descend down into the sewers of your brain - or perhaps this surge just motivates you to get up and go buy some groceries. There’s an invisible web preventing you from doing these things, keeping you where you are in your puddle of contentment, your pinhole of complacency. It’s just apart of being human, though. Don’t feel too down and out about it. An object at rest tends to stay at rest. It’s hard to conjure up the momentum to swing your body into an orbit around a goal or a prize, attaining something your heart desires but your body cares not for. This is the constant human struggle, the spirit versus the ever-sluggish physical formation of what you really are upstairs. A body moves at a finite speed. Your brain thinks at the speed of light. This human delay isn’t likely to improve in the near future. What if the souls that manifest these temples of transportation have so much more to do than what their means of conveyance are capable of delivering? Our brains think without us, so quickly in fact that we’ve come to learn to ignore most of its processes in order to go about our mundane lives. Some of the most brilliant minds in history came to be who they were because they managed to harness just a slightly greater percentage of this power of the mind more than the average person, and thus came operas and playwrights and equations that map our universe. The only thing we learn in time is patience, ironically through our own impatience about where we want to be going or where we’d rather be standing. We are but building blocks hovering on all fours in a giant pyramid of our kin, above those before us and below those to come. We have a set role in this delicate structure of the meaning of it all, for better or worse. The knowledge of this offers us humility to calm our otherwise egocentric nervous system. Patience is our only option. I spend much of my time sitting on a couch in a quiet and dark basement, waiting to catch ideas in various traps I have set out all around the room and beyond. These traps collect sparks, notions, observations, ideas, arguments, conversations, and sometimes just boots and paper clips. I sort them all out later. I then shed my guise of an Alaskan crab fisherman and trade it in for the downgrade of being a caveman huddled over a pile of soggy logs in the rain, attempting to create something kindle. Hours, days, weeks, whatever it takes. I’m not even talking musically. This is my proud process of everything I create in life. It’s a wonderfully dreadful process that I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world. Inspiration is everywhere. It’s on the street, in the paper, through the television screen. It’s in your own head, or under your bed or probably somewhere locked up inside of a dream. The truth is you have to set up traps where ever you go, and answers will thaw out like water being freed from the snow. Whatever it is you’re after in life, whether it be writing or finding a job or finally figuring out exactly who it is you are, you’re not going to get far very if you don’t set up some traps and keep your eyes open. Pay attention. Stay awake. That’s all there is to it.  The rest is on its way.
There’s no telling when you’ll be struck by a surge of power that compells you to turn all of your raw energy into something you can hold in your hand, or let spiral down the funnel of your ear and descend down into the sewers of your brain - or perhaps this surge just motivates you to get up and go buy some groceries. There’s an invisible web preventing you from doing these things, keeping you where you are in your puddle of contentment, your pinhole of complacency. It’s just apart of being human, though. Don’t feel too down and out about it. An object at rest tends to stay at rest. It’s hard to conjure up the momentum to swing your body into an orbit around a goal or a prize, attaining something your heart desires but your body cares not for. This is the constant human struggle, the spirit versus the ever-sluggish physical formation of what you really are upstairs.

A body moves at a finite speed. Your brain thinks at the speed of light. This human delay isn’t likely to improve in the near future. What if the souls that manifest these temples of transportation have so much more to do than what their means of conveyance are capable of delivering? Our brains think without us, so quickly in fact that we’ve come to learn to ignore most of its processes in order to go about our mundane lives. Some of the most brilliant minds in history came to be who they were because they managed to harness just a slightly greater percentage of this power of the mind more than the average person, and thus came operas and playwrights and equations that map our universe. The only thing we learn in time is patience, ironically through our own impatience about where we want to be going or where we’d rather be standing. We are but building blocks hovering on all fours in a giant pyramid of our kin, above those before us and below those to come. We have a set role in this delicate structure of the meaning of it all, for better or worse. The knowledge of this offers us humility to calm our otherwise egocentric nervous system. Patience is our only option.

I spend much of my time sitting on a couch in a quiet and dark basement, waiting to catch ideas in various traps I have set out all around the room and beyond. These traps collect sparks, notions, observations, ideas, arguments, conversations, and sometimes just boots and paper clips. I sort them all out later. I then shed my guise of an Alaskan crab fisherman and trade it in for the downgrade of being a caveman huddled over a pile of soggy logs in the rain, attempting to create something kindle. Hours, days, weeks, whatever it takes. I’m not even talking musically. This is my proud process of everything I create in life. It’s a wonderfully dreadful process that I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.

Inspiration is everywhere. It’s on the street, in the paper, through the television screen. It’s in your own head, or under your bed or probably somewhere locked up inside of a dream. The truth is you have to set up traps where ever you go, and answers will thaw out like water being freed from the snow. Whatever it is you’re after in life, whether it be writing or finding a job or finally figuring out exactly who it is you are, you’re not going to get far very if you don’t set up some traps and keep your eyes open. Pay attention. Stay awake. That’s all there is to it.  The rest is on its way.]]> Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:38:27 GMT 10B59215218E58122EDD16DF03792D18 The Smudges of There http://patrickjosephmusic.com/blog.cfm?feature=21849&postid=21920 2/27/08 I've never written a blog before. But I suppose everyone has written a blog once in their life, in the form of a journal entry or casual note to oneself. Perhaps it becomes a blog when it is shared with somebody, or when it's converted into electrons onto liquid crystal and bright lights and released out into the air for peoples' browsers to gather, iron out and interpret. Thinking is blogging. Being is blogging. There aren't any rules to it. I'm an advocate that writing is the absolute best way you can organize the electricity running through your brain, an art unparalled by simple vocalization, movement or witness. All of my life I've written often to no one in particular, just writing at random to make sense of the air that circles in my lungs and the light that penetrates my eyes. I thought it would be entertaining if I started writing aloud, publically, to everyone in particular. I wrote a song about this sort of thing once, about the irony of public print, and there's no other way to try on a suit than to put it into practice. When you sit and write you force yourself to confront your insides, an act that much of the world is too afraid to do very often. While trapped inside a box of electricity, or better yet a piece of paper wielding only pen and wit, you're watching the moments and the minutes that are stored inside the corridors of your head fall out of the confines of darkness and into the light of day, smudging your human fingerprints all over an otherwise you-less existence. Granted, the world is ever-expanding and there isn't much space left to smudge, people have been smudging for thousands of years. Some smudges stick and others fade, but the only thing that matters the most is that the print you smudge is yours, and only yours. Whether your mark lingers for eons for others to study or if a breeze carries it tomorrow and spreads it into a thousand grains of nothing all across the globe, the only thing that matters in the end is that you were there. You were there just as much as anybody else was there, Josef Stalin was there just as much as Jerry the locksmith was there. The day I squeezed into this world and stole my first breath I was there just as much as the President of the United States was there. Will you still be there if you don't organize a smudge into a series of patterns representing that you were there, proclaiming that you had feelings and insights and angers and passions unlike anyone else before? You'll still be there. Just being there says you're there, and the smudges come from the breaths that you steal and the vibrations of your atoms modulating throughout the air in and around the skin you're in at this very moment. I guarantee on the scale of the balance of everything in the grand scheme of the universe that Shakespeare's "Hamlet" sits dead even in weight and purpose to the silent symphony of vibrations coming from a lonely man standing mute on a street corner in Boston, not that they're equal in meaninglessness, but that they are identical in brilliance. Enjoy the glory of being there, where ever there is. Amplify there with words, with sights, with sounds, or smiles or changing your pants daily. Writing won't take you there, you're already there. But it'll make there an incredible place to be.
I've never written a blog before. But I suppose everyone has written a blog once in their life, in the form of a journal entry or casual note to oneself. Perhaps it becomes a blog when it is shared with somebody, or when it's converted into electrons onto liquid crystal and bright lights and released out into the air for peoples' browsers to gather, iron out and interpret. Thinking is blogging. Being is blogging. There aren't any rules to it. I'm an advocate that writing is the absolute best way you can organize the electricity running through your brain, an art unparalled by simple vocalization, movement or witness. All of my life I've written often to no one in particular, just writing at random to make sense of the air that circles in my lungs and the light that penetrates my eyes. I thought it would be entertaining if I started writing aloud, publically, to everyone in particular. I wrote a song about this sort of thing once, about the irony of public print, and there's no other way to try on a suit than to put it into practice.

When you sit and write you force yourself to confront your insides, an act that much of the world is too afraid to do very often. While trapped inside a box of electricity, or better yet a piece of paper wielding only pen and wit, you're watching the moments and the minutes that are stored inside the corridors of your head fall out of the confines of darkness and into the light of day, smudging your human fingerprints all over an otherwise you-less existence. Granted, the world is ever-expanding and there isn't much space left to smudge, people have been smudging for thousands of years. Some smudges stick and others fade, but the only thing that matters the most is that the print you smudge is yours, and only yours. Whether your mark lingers for eons for others to study or if a breeze carries it tomorrow and spreads it into a thousand grains of nothing all across the globe, the only thing that matters in the end is that you were there. You were there just as much as anybody else was there, Josef Stalin was there just as much as Jerry the locksmith was there. The day I squeezed into this world and stole my first breath I was there just as much as the President of the United States was there. Will you still be there if you don't organize a smudge into a series of patterns representing that you were there, proclaiming that you had feelings and insights and angers and passions unlike anyone else before? You'll still be there. Just being there says you're there, and the smudges come from the breaths that you steal and the vibrations of your atoms modulating throughout the air in and around the skin you're in at this very moment. I guarantee on the scale of the balance of everything in the grand scheme of the universe that Shakespeare's "Hamlet" sits dead even in weight and purpose to the silent symphony of vibrations coming from a lonely man standing mute on a street corner in Boston, not that they're equal in meaninglessness, but that they are identical in brilliance.

Enjoy the glory of being there, where ever there is. Amplify there with words, with sights, with sounds, or smiles or changing your pants daily. Writing won't take you there, you're already there. But it'll make there an incredible place to be.]]> Fri, 14 Mar 2008 15:31:35 GMT 9C7C6B8C6099817DC2B983BA227D90A8