____________Expressions in Song & Spirit & Social Change____________

Just to make sure we are all on the same page an archetype is ‘a very typical example of a certain person or thing.’ Bootsy has one of my favorite examples of the invisible archetype, expressed as the protagonist in his song Fuzz Face from the 1993 release Lord of the Harvest. Lord of the Harvest was dedicated to the guru behind Maggot Brain, guitarist Eddie Hazel, who had recently passed. in terms of duality. Bootsy let’s the listener know right away what’s up. ‘Don’t treat your puppy like a dog, and don’t hug your kitten like a cat.’ Which presents the imperative to limit yourself in accordance to your surroundings. As the term fuzz face implies, there is a a lack of definition, and the lyrics certainly dance around the invisible. ‘Work my fingers to the bone. / My speakers blown.’  Working because work is necessary, or because the speaker is blown?

Curiously, there are quite a few similarities between Bootsy’s Fuzz Face, and the Twenty One Pilots Stressed Out. Though Tyler Joseph names Blurryface as insecurity, that may be only the surface of the archetype with which he obviously has familiarity. The most direct comparison is between ‘we used to play pretend, wake up you need the money’ and ‘work my fingers to the bone, I’m coming home.’  As the obvious correlation between work and life, each of these artists seem to believe that today’s definition of work seems to work only against the common person, as referenced by Tyler’s line ‘out of student loans and tree house homes, we all would take the latter.’

Further similarities exist in reference to rocket ships, blurry or fuzz face, youth vs being adult and of course existential anguish, through the obvious regret of being an adult, in Stressed Out, and in Fuzz Face, the backing vocals accusing ‘we trusted you captain.’

As friends occasionally discuss, it is quite interesting to talk about certain ideas without the language to present them in proper context. This is of course one of the things that makes music so incredible, as for me as a lifetime learner, I see a direct connection to the two faces discussed here by these artists, and have discussed the connection between music and ‘The Glass Bead Game in the post Sic Semper Summa.

Having recently read I’m Your Man, a biography of Leonard Cohen, it seems that it would be appropriate to extend the blog to other types of my writing. With that in mind, here is the first installment in a short story / novella that I began writing a number of moons ago. I will continue to publish part of the story once a week, and with any luck, will be done by solstice.

Thorpe’s Last Run

Thorpe had always enjoyed cationing, staycation, laycation, Californication, vacation, he had tried them all. Currently on his way to what would be his personal vacationing long distance record, Thorpe had neglected to consider how much time there would be while traveling to think about her. The slender brunette next to him, an attractive woman who payed attention to detail, with a tan that complemented her burnt beige toga type dress and woven sandals, was nothing like his wife. Ex-wife? Dead-wife?

Thorpe had become a widower nine months ago. After two weeks of mourning, he had returned to work for three weeks before he agreed with his friends and co-workers that the mud was no longer in his blood. So, after spending a few months wrapping up his affairs, saying goodbye to his friends, and selling his staycation and vacation homes, Thorpe booked a trip to Titan.

He had been there once before, and since it was the hub of inter-stellar travel for the Milky Way, he had decided that from there he would plan his last voyage. He wasn’t really a veteran space traveler, or perhaps he would have remembered the stasis medications provided on long trips did not seem to work as well on him as it did on the other passengers. Once again, he glanced around the cabin, at the others frozen in slumber as their ship hurdled through space at light speed and faster than light speed. He suspected it was the change between the two states that always seemed to awaken him, yet there was no astro-biologist around for him to discuss his theory. Not that his vocabulary would be up to the task, not nearly as well as his wife, a neuro-astronomer. She would have relished the conversation.

He could picture the glow in her eyes as he imagined her passionate interest in the symbiotic relationship between space and cellular structures. Her dissertation had in fact helped to name the study of neuro-astronomy, as her research regarding the similarities between molecular structures and constellations began to provide insight into neuro-transmitters and began to prove psychology as an actual hard science.

She certainly would have appreciated the imagery that the screen was providing as there was essentially a 360 degree view of the area through which they were traveling. Rainbows of colors, shades of grey, blue hues to make Picasso piss with envy. He wondered if his neighbor was seeing similar sights in her dreams.

Neighbors: Cole, Thorpe’s childhood friend had become a Marine after graduation from O.A.S.I.S. The Orbiting Academy of Stellar Incursion Strategies, and had only returned to Earth twice in the last twenty five years. As a matter of fact, it was the Vermillion Vincent image that Cole had sent which had helped him to decide to visit with Cole after all these years.

As the cabin began to awaken, Thorpe felt a small twinge of regret for the three or four months he had aged during the days he had been awake. He briefly wondered again why such an Ωwoman would be making such a trip by herself, and decided she must be traveling to marry, since an agent would be traveling on a military transport. Thorpe snickered, realizing in spite of his wife’s years of patiently pointing out sexism and how insipidly it had become part of the culture, somewhat amused that he had thought of his fellow traveler only as an agent, or bride. He then laughed at the thought of GI Bride. Had he really skipped over business woman, scientist (as his wife had been), or even a solo adventurer?

As their ship begin to dock on the moon of Braugliian, Thorpe began to feel excitement for the first time since his wife had passed. He remembered some of his first adventures with Cole, and imagined that his old friend would now have stories which would make those of their first adventures of camping, fighting and becoming men seem relatively tame.

Music is my Albatross,
Pulling on my neck, dragging down my soul.
Through the orange yellows of Dante’s inferno.
To the steel blue fires, the true gates of hell.

Until the heaviness weighs on my brain.
Until, Under Pressure,
adding one note and rhyme,
To beauty created and calling it mine.
Eyes accustomed to the eerie glow,
the lies I believe it’s not touching my soul.

My hair, my face, my vanity,
I clutch with all might believing it’s me.
My clenched fist straining,
last strength waning.

The angelically wrought gates show their true face,
as blue fire burns cells inside and out,
from where, I can’t say, a word enters thought.

Mitochondria.
The powerhouse of the cell.
Poetically meaning the fear of might.
The fear of true power, the fear of true sight.

No wonder the Light Bringer lives here in hell,
not feeling creation became scared of himself.
With itching and squirming,
began to swallow his tail.

Is this legend boring? Or you bore us!
A leg only ends when you can’t feel the toes,
‘Yours are getting closer.’, whispers Albatross.

The Weight, The Band, sinking still,
Approaching faster the far end of hell.
Leaving the blue, into the candle,
the brightness could only be heaven’s mantle.

Thoughts flowing faster
than humming birds sing,
Sheer momentum alone
could break fix anything.
A camel’s back, a crystal glass,
a guitar string.

Now baffled, confused, at a loss,
at the truth revealed through my Albatross;
No longer buried, no longer dead,
ascending all heights
with the Treble Clef!

More than a few of the conversations I had this weekend were quite lively. I was rather intrigued by one, where it was discussed that opposing sides often considered you on the enemies side, if you were not on their’s. Since some have just celebrated Easter weekend, and others have celebrated Ishtar’s fertility. As someone who has been searching for quite a while, I wanted to take the opportunity to point out the symbolic unification of these supposedly ‘opposite’ forces through the use of some of the worlds most well known symbols.

The Star of David is representative of two forces, equal in strength and brought together in balance. Through direct comparison, it becomes easy to allow one of the triangles to represent the feminine, and one the masculine. Though I have not been a student of the Torah, it is somewhat amusing that the Star of David which has been found to exist as early as the 6th Century B.C.E., is a many faceted symbol representing a faith which is known for שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָֽד – “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one.” – Deuteronomy 6:4. Curiously, since most Christian churches refer to the trinity, is their a possibility that Christian ritual is acknowledging the complexity of divinity while not necessarily recognizing the balance?

The Tai Chi, is another symbol which presents duality in one symbol, thus creating a visual understanding of togetherness, oneness, motion and flow. Since these energies must work together to create balance, they are most often pictured with the yin beginning within the yang, and the yang beginning within the end. There are myriad possibilities of interpretation of each of these two designs, yet, by sticking to traditional and visual references, I believe that the recognition of balance is able to be communicated, thus the musical as well, No Religion and In The Garden, each a Van Morrison song, and each insightful into today’s duality.

Initially, I was going to post about the roots of the word humus, based on the phonetic connection between human, posthumous and hum. While looking up the etymology, it seemed that most of the roots were already in common knowledge. As I was ‘surfing’ through other research on the net, a Fela song was in the youtube queue, and the similarities between the two songs being analogous of people and elements became the idea instead.

I suppose technically, that The Human League’s song doesn’t compare people to earth, except through the etymological root, though these lines are very very close: ‘I’m only human of flesh and blood I’m made, Human, born to make mistakes (I am just a man, human).’ Fela, on the other hand is using water as directly analogous to human society, specifically, Nigerian people. After using extremely strong examples of how water is a necessity to human life, ‘T’o ba fe se’be omi l’o ma’lo If you wan cook soup, na water you go use’ and ‘T’omo ba n’dagba omi l’o ma’lo If your child dey grow, na water he go use,’ summing up brilliantly the end result of warring with water. ‘Water, him no get enemy!’

Interestingly, the use of paradox illuminated by Fela is mirrored in The Human League’s song Human, ‘I just needed someone to hold me, To fill the void while you were gone, To fill this space of emptiness.’ Both of these then draw attention to the duality which exists, while using the duality by combining sound and space to create music, that is beautiful communication. There of course is a reason while there has always been a strong correlation between the elements and humanity, just as there has always been a strong correlation between humanity and the archetypes of ancient religious deities.

Those of us who listen to the muses are perhaps a little more in touch with the creative side of these forces, while being able to take care of our daily needs based on the societies we have created. My own take on how we are earth and water, one and many is probably best summed up by some lines from one of my poems, called First Rhythms.

‘Is there a prayer for those who are prey?
For strength and sinew create not courage.
Fierce vision enhanced with need to feed,
Set fires aglow with ancient urges.

Strange how atomic attributes
Atrophy into carnivorousness.
Cleaving spirit from sanctified flesh.

This dream, this vision, this portent of death.
Offerings to gods unmade and manifest.
Land and Breath, Motion and Blood,
thrown and shaped and tossed in the kiln.’

The dance will always be, whether we are there to watch, the great mystery.

A fellow musician I met in Olympia a while ago, recently made a post about essentially being honest on Facebook (and life in general I would think). I have been thinking the same thing lately, which makes me wonder where Mercury is right now. Running through my mind has been a line from Leonard Cohen’s song ‘Ain’t no Cure for Love’ – “I need to see you naked, in your body and your thoughts.”

            Here goes: I was on the bus the other day, and a gay guy (do I need to say how I knew he was gay?) sat down directly opposite me, and my first thought was to agree with the bowl of petunias from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – “Oh no, not again.” It was obvious that he wanted to interact with me as he mimicked my movements, and looked at me to see how I would respond.

            When I remained unmoved, he used chi tricks on me, sending so much energy to my second chakra that when I got off the bus a crew from Puget Sound Energy rushed over and hooked up a step down transformer to my hair. My aura was so bright it banished my shadow, or maybe that was ’cause I was outside in Seattle.

            So, ‘big deal’, you’re thinking, ‘get over yourself.’ While the methods he chose allowed me to know his intelligence and level of awareness, which I might have surmised from his manicured and glossed black fingernails and his thinly striped rainbow Pippi Longsocks (two possible clues of his sexual persuasion btw); whatever happened to ‘Hello’ or ‘How is your day?’

            While I can’t help but think ‘what about my interests?’; that thought is self-centered; he was initiating an interaction based on what he thought, felt, or wanted. His only knowledge of me was based on my presence, charisma, or visage – pick one, and apparently my aura, though whether through emotional experience of it, or visually seeing subtle electromagnetic fields I will probably never know.

            A rather long story to explain why pickup lines don’t work. Humans have been around long enough now that some things ought to be in the collective consciousness. Here’s my vote: Approaching someone you’re attracted to and focusing on your sexual interest in them is UNORIGINAL.

I’m sure that many of you are familiar with Danny Elfman‘s music, and Who Do You Want to Be is not only an incredible representation of his music, it is phenomenal lyrical philosophy and social critique. From the first verse, where television is both lauded and degraded, while recognizing that life is the imperative behind all forms of communication, the song becomes saga. Everyone of us wakes up with a new day in front of us, and the choices that we make are definitive within the cosmos of existence. One of the reasons this song is saga, is that within a limited amount of time, the lyrics suggest multiple methods of manifestation within matter, with rhythm and meter equivalent to the power of Excalibur. 

The idea that the song is a social critique emanates from the lines ‘Do you like to be just like a rock in the middle of the sea, do you want to suffer by yourself in a pool of blissful misery.’ The imagery created here recalls Sisyphus, while emphasizing the solitary act of creation, valueless without medium to express emotion.

The first verse takes the arrow of time, with the versatility of ouroboros, pulls a Robin Hood out of thin air by stating ‘I’ve been reborn so many times, I can’t remember them all.’ Using this line as a mirror for the rest of the song, there is a curious correlation between television and the characters being portrayed, the choices of a soul on a pilgrimage to discover it’s true self. Do you want to be pretty, or a Hun, a newscaster, or a news maker? The music provides drive and curiously, to myself an answer. BE. Not so much who, the definition has been changed so much over the years that the only prerogative is to exist. Only existence can answer the question, certainly not devised, sanitized, televised avatars created for the purpose of furthering the cause of global consumerism.

I do hope that anyone reading the blog is aware of Danny Elfman’s music, if you aren’t, take five and have a boingo break.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym2huLDA_rE