Facts are important when fighting hypocrites & extremist partisans.

Pablo Picasso - Bull (1945)

“Pablo Picasso created ‘Bull’ around the Christmas of 1945. ‘Bull’ is a suite of eleven lithographs that have become a master class in how to develop an artwork from the academic to the abstract.

In this series of images, all pulled from a single stone, Picasso visually dissects the image of a bull to discover its essential presence through a progressive analysis of its form. Each plate is a successive stage in an investigation to find the absolute ‘spirit’ of the beast.”

“…like worms on a hook that were plucked from the heart of the bodies of gods for the wretched and lost…”

If you’ve seen the movie The Right Stuff you might remember the name Pancho Barnes. Pancho owned the dive bar in the desert where the test pilots hung out. Well, it turns out Pancho was a SHE - in the film she’s the wise cracking “pudknocker” lady - but it turns out SHE was a bad ass pilot and pioneer for women in aviation. Pancho was a stunt pilot, she broke Amelia Earhart’s speed record in 1930, and started the first pilot’s film union in Hollywood. It’s more than a little frustrating that in a film trying to illustrate the courage and skill of American aviation that they ignore and gloss over one of its pioneering rockstars. Never let anyone define you. Never let anyone stop you. Don’t make an impact on society, make a crater. Leave it smoldering and leave everyone drop-jawed in awe.

Otep - Voyeur (Hydra)

(Source: youtube.com, via artsavesallofme)

Watching the documentary HUBRIS by Rachel Maddow. It reminds me just how horrible things were during those dark days of fear & ignorance. How the pigs & opportunists jackbooted our patriotism & with cheers & a treasure of brave soldiers & tax dollars marched us into an unnecessary invasion of Iraq. 

Some of us stood strong against the tide of tyranny & propaganda. Some of us spoke out even when it cost us so much. I am proud we did. It was worth it. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

(via samsaranmusing)

“Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence.”
- Robert Fripp


We stand on the edge of national metamorphosis armed with hope and lengthy dreams, and the desire to leave the mistakes of the past far, far behind us.  Some wake to a blessed plague of amnesia hoping never to recover the damage that was done. Some keep marching forward feeling the heavy ache of everything they wish to change about themselves and our nation dragging behind them like a long, prolonged shadow. And still others shine above the sun, sparkling like raging cosmonauts, propelled by the strength and power of their pathological optimism.

I tend to slingshot between all 3 of these distinct planets with unruly fortitude. This is where art comes in. It helps me deal with my compulsive randomness, and allows me to abate life’s repressions while exploring all possibilities of transformation and growth.

And for this, I am eternally grateful.

When I first began thinking of putting a band together it was out of sheer panic. I was almost homeless, jobless, a sadistic scribbler, my life had no direction, and I was headed negative north with a bullet. To top it off, the energies that had fed my hungry soul through illustration and poetry had all but dried up. I knew, without the magic of creativity, I would surely be lost. And then I rediscovered a band, The Velvet Underground, and was transformed. They were painting pictures on silence. They were writing poetry with sound. Then it hit me.  Whatever I could create in prose, whatever I could lay down on paper in the form of a sketch or rambling tirade would come alive if shaped and remodeled into something hallowed, into song.

Madness? Sure. But I am one of those insatiable heretics that still perceive art as sacred. For me, making music is not recreational. It is a powerful spiritual experience that permeates every atom of my being. Each note that we write, every syllable that slips from my lips, every riff change, bridge, intro, outro, chorus, and interlude is as important to me as transcribing sacred verses was to the prophets of old. Through song, I am attempting to speak with forgotten gods and heroes, to uncover the great mysteries of existence, to seduce a lover, slay a tyrant, write a wrong, or to unravel the hidden places of my being. In doing so, I can explore all of the spiritual, philosophical, sexual, and intellectual freedom that I secretly hunger for.

This is why plankton like Britney, Lindsey, and the rest of the Slack Pack sicken me.  Granted, collectively, they have sold more records worldwide than the number of Mormons in Utah, but that does little to sway my opinion of these swine or their music. These prefabricated plastic mammoths of industry (& their handlers) have learned the Lemming song and know just how to change it so it appears somewhat different on every lazy album that dribbles from their noses.

But I digress.

Music is the fluid in the spine of imagination. Its origin predates written history. Some believe the first songs were imitations of nature. Crude flutes and other wind instruments have been discovered at paleolithic dig sites. The earliest written records of musical expression have been found in India, China, and Mesopotamia. For me, music is the secret language of the soul. It transcends time. Empires may fall, but their art persists. Music is the grand uniter. People from all varieties of background, socioeconomic status, religion, race, sexual orientation can find solidarity in one piece of music. Throughout history, music has been used to strike the emotional chords needed to propagate revolutions, to celebrate victories, commemorate tragedies, motivate, seduce, destroy, and invigorate.

It seems, as a species, we have always needed music.

Many ask me for advice on how to write, how to start a band, how to kill the demon of writers block. I think the simplest and most powerful method is to begin a foundation of immovable principles. One of my literary heros, Charles Bukowski, wrote:

“if you’re doing it for the money or fame, don’t do it. if you’re doing it because you want women in your bed, don’t do it….when it is truly time, and if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself and it will keep doing it until you die or it dies in you. there is no other way. and there never was.”

Excelsior.

To OZ!!

DEAR MISS: Notwithstanding the cloud of doubts which overshadows the mind of adoring fancy, when I trace that vermillion cheek, that sapphire eye of expressive softness, and that symmetrical form of grace, I am constrained to sink into a flood of admiration beneath those heavenly charms. Though, dear Miss, it may be useless to introduce a multiplicity of blandishments, which might either lead you into a field of confusion, or absorb the truth of affection in the gloom of doubts; but the bell of adulation may be told from the distance of its echo, and cannot be heard farther than seen. Dear Miss, whatever may be the final result of my adventurous progress, I now feel a propensity to embark on the ocean of chance, and expand the sail of resolution in quest of the distant shore of connubial happiness with one so truly lovely. Though, my dearest, the thunders of parental aversion may inflect the guardian index of affection from its favorite star, the deviated needle recovers its course, and still points onwards to its native poll. Though the waves of calumny may reverberate the persevering mind of the sailing lover, the morning star of hope directs him through the gloom of trial to the object of his choice.

My brightest hopes are mix’d with tears,
Like hues of light and gloom;
As when mid sun-shine rain appears,
Love rises with a thousand fears,

To pine and still to bloom.
When I have told my last fond tale
In lines of song to thee,
And for departure spread my sail,
Say, lovely princess, wilt thou fail
To drop a tear for me?

O, princess, should my votive strain
Salute thy ear no more,
Like one deserted on the main,
I still shall gaze, alas! but vain,
On wedlock’s flow’ry shore.

About this poem:

George Moses Horton holds the distinction of being the first African American to publish a book, and the only to publish while living in slavery.

NOBODY MOVE NOBODY GETS HURT!

You know you’re right…