Creme de carrot

I made a reference on my likebook page to “pop music pablum.” The only explanation I gave was: music “pared down and pureed to death.” I’m guessing that some will see it who aren’t quite sure what I’m getting at, and might even feel insulted.

I think I’m borrowing the term from Frank Zappa. I think he compared pop music to baby food because, within the great realm of musical possibility,  mainstream music purveyors stick to a very narrow field; songs that are structurally simple, repetitive and formulaic (baby formula?) and within a very limited selection of chord combinations and patterns. Obviously Zappa had a deep mind musically, which had the capacity to appreciate – not just theoretically but to really dig – unusual structures in music. He had an unusual maturity of mind in this regard.

Here’s an example in the extreme: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star is an awesome kiddie song. It is so simple it is accessible to just about any baby brain. But we grow out of it because it is just too simple for most of us and thus gets very old very fast. I think that Zappa is suggesting that pop music has moved only inches beyond the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star level based on a scale of music maturity that many of us don’t “get.” And I don’t think he was trying to be elitist about it. I think he felt that if the pop music executives and intelligentsia would widen their repertoire, that the minds of the public would grow.

But major record labels and radio stations, like any corporation of course, embrace the world domination greed mentality. Keep everything as accessible as possible – in order to reach the widest market quickly and please the shareholders.

For some reason, as a kid, I got intrigued by the band, Rush, who’s music, at least that from most of their various incarnations over the last forty years, is not immediately accessible to the masses. But they’re very very good at their own game, and thus are popularly considered the world’s biggest cult band. Rush stretched my mind enough to appreciate their unique music and the reward has been incredible. Their music moves me immensely and never gets old. Their songs never go stale. The huge grassroots popularity of early album 2112, in spite of corporate and critical derision, won them a rare immunity from label interference. This was only possible because of rare courage. They obeyed their creative yearnings instead of the man with the chequebook (to their own demise, they assumed). But surprise: they got lucky. Or were just that good. Or both.

Neo has a deep Zappa-like mind. He especially, but also JazzLion, have pushed my brain even further, as I have opened up to neo-psychedelic and jazz music for examples. Again, I am slower to absorb this stuff but then its impact is much greater. People stuck strictly in the pop world perceive, I believe, that the songs of other genres are not “catchy” and don’t have the magic that keeps your foot obliviously tapping.

But they are. And they do. Just not immediately (for this novice anyway). You invest time getting to know the song and the investment is worth it. You get a lot more back. There is a timeless component to music appreciation. You’re not simply enjoying the precise sound component which last entered your ear, one component at a time. You like the stream you’re hearing, in part because of how it interacts with the stream that came before it, and in part with the stream you know – or predict – will follow. At least that’s how it seems to me. It’s slippery to talk about music appreciation considering it mostly goes on in the secret depths of the subconscious brain. Right? It’s not like we get to choose our ear-worms. Not with perfect authority anyway.

Pop songs become predictable half-way through the first listen. Hence wide, shallow appeal. Twinkle Twinkle Piles of Cash.

So that’s what I mean about pop music being pared down.

What I mean about it being pureed is how all the lumps are taken out. Every apparent blemish is removed from pop songs. Everything is metered and tuned to robotic precision. These days I hear the radio and usually all I hear is computers. Sometimes I half wonder if computers are actually concocting the songs. Not that computers shouldn’t be used as an honest musical tool.

I think it was Tom Petty, in a documentary, who said that music is not supposed to be perfect. Perfection takes the humanity out of it. It takes the experience out of it. And you will hear other pop musicians complain about the paring down if you can catch them at an unguarded moment. I think most of them would rather be more creative and making more experimental music if only agents and executives would let them.

So I don’t mean to insult pop musicians. I think they mostly get taken advantage of and regret where they end up, unless money and attention is their only bag, of course. And I don’t mean to insult radio listeners. I listen to pop songs too and I enjoy a good lot of it – in a simple easy way. But there is so much more to the world of music and it serves us well to ignore the pop scene as any kind of standard to aspire to. But by that, am I saying that American Idol is a steaming pile of poo?

Well, yes. 

Just don't ask me how many times I've watched the Susan Boyle moment on youtube... ;)

Despicable Confession

Things have been so heavy for the last couple months. Cancer victims and then much further suffering by various people who I dearly care for. And me looking back and looking inward and very aware of my own lack of effectiveness in being helpful. Procrastination, missed opportunities and so many external barriers that keep too much love locked up inside me. Too many challenges succumbed to without a fight.

I’m not accustomed to such sustained bouts of heaviness. Have I lost sight of the joyful perspectives I once trekked long and hard to access – so unexpectedly when truth was all I sought?

I can’t remember when I last sought deliberate escape prior to this stark year of 2015; a year I recently promised would be a celebration of life. Recently I have spent a few sessions board-gaming, primarily with Aqualad and his girlfriend, which was effective and fun.

Tuesday night I was feeling a little overwhelmed and turned to an unlikely diversion. I have long disdained the very idea of kiddie/animated movies of the Disney-or-similar persuasion and been pretty vocal about it I think. But I am not one to fear the hypocritical inevitability of being human in an inhumane society and so, finding myself in the home entertainment sector of my vacationing hosts’ little estate (I feel like Magnum P.I. here except there are two Cocker Spaniels, not Dobermans), I popped a Despicable Me disc into the player and uncorked one or more bottles of red.

Well, wouldn’t you know: I actually laughed long and hard. I actually enjoyed it. I feel I shouldn’t have, but I’m forgetting why. Maybe if I do this again I’ll be reminded. But damn, I really laughed. My spirits lightened for a little while.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUkZFetWYY0

abdicate [ab-di-keyt]

I am labeled Canadian though I don’t choose to be. My parents sold me to the corporation that is Canada when they registered my birth and so I am an asset on their books. Still, I am unworthy of the label just as it is unworthy of me. I deny it! But then, there seems no other place for me; no habitable place left unconquered on this shell of earth which we have made small. 

abbreviate [uh-bree-vee-eyt]

Such a very fine collection of understandings I have seen; how intertwined, how logical, accessible and seemingly complete; how comfortably in line with logic, the senses, science, religion and the poetry of ancients, and how they unite them all. How they solve problems and tame mysteries, and how, when genuinely absorbed, they bring about change: how a mind is re-wired: how consciousness evolves and educates the instincts.

But how to condense them and make them teachable, to arrange them in the linear? That is some task, one whose time, surely, has come.

abbey [ab-ee]

I would very much wish to go off and apply to some monastery. I imagine it would be a profoundly appropriate and productive experience, where I would further my understandings, test them through dialogue with qualified peers, and most importantly, learn how to leverage them. And there I would be forced to develop discipline; my great downfall. That I might be further separated from the people in the world I most love, on top of the other hurdles and barriers which already separate us, would be the main drawback.

The greater problem though, is that there are no existing spiritual enterprises that I know of which I could subscribe to without hitting fundamental barriers. There are key understandings, so ingrained in my unarguable living experience, they will not bend for anyone. For instance, key Christian fundamentals are taught backwards with regards to causality, while too much useful wisdom is cloaked in metaphor. And there is such a failure to communicate Christ as a relevant and accessible role model. Buddhism, as it is taught suffers profound unnecessary contradictions, while Buddha too, is treated too much on a pedestal; like Christ, his experience presumed too unreachable. Not good. Humanism has so many merits but seems not to have done the math; has not found the joy and inspiration; has not grasped the miracle at the end of the equation.      

To create such a spiritual enterprise that is free of such problems as these; which wraps everything up in a circle of logic and universal inclusivity, would be some great achievement, and I truly believe the basic blueprints lay at hand. But I have little ability to lead people or inspire them to such great ends. The way to nourish in this present society seems to be in self-help books I suppose, while cathedrals loom about; dull and archaic.

abattoir [ab-uh-twahr]

I once decided that though I possess no evidence or testimony which is guaranteed to be truthful - or at least genuinely representative of the norm, it is fairly evident that cows, pigs, fowl, and likely other creatures, are being subjected to unnecessary degrees of suffering in the pursuit to sate the appetite of humans. I decided that it is not useful to me; not wise or responsible or in accordance with poetic principles, to forgive my own carnivorous habit without gaining first-hand experience with the matter. In other words, if I must kill by proxy, let me know the nature of this blood on my hands.

I decided I needed to find my way, somehow, into a meat-packing plant and upon witnessing the phenomenon of life becoming meat, decide what habit I should or could embrace thereafter. I decided this some years ago and still have done nothing to act on it.

New Day Rising: The Mandate

Mandate:

To champion the evolution of harmony in the universe through action, awareness, education, personal example, the creation of new - or support of existing - harmonic organizations, and/or through opposition to entities which promote disharmony. These activities shall be prioritized according to greater capacity for leverage and effectiveness.

Next step: goals.

Terri

I was either sixteen or seventeen when I dreamed of my biological paternal grandparents whom I had not seen since I was a young child. Days later I journeyed by bicycle to Stoney Creek and triggered a strange and joyful sequence of familial reunions.

Uncle Dave, just ten years my senior, had married a woman with two kids from a former, troubled, relationship. Terri was my age and Steven, just a year younger I think. While everyone in the extended family treated me with tremendous kindness, almost made a celebrity of me, it was Dave’s immediate family that I forged the strongest connection with, probably for the obvious reason that they were more in touch with teen culture. The other cousins were all younger.

Terri, Steven and I became instant friends. I slept over with them on more than one occasion. I attended my first rock concert with them. I even deep-kissed a girl for the first time in their presence; an event that no doubt bolstered my reputation, misguidedly so, in the eyes of Steven who was a prodigious stud at fifteen. They were wildly gregarious, more so than any of my current high school friends, and they treated my shyness with a good-natured, almost naive respect. “Mellow,” they called me, and, “laid back.” They seemed as pleasantly intrigued with my differentness as I was with theirs. They introduced me to new crowds and new behaviors and in hindsight I can see that my own process of emerging from shyness; one component of a dual coming-out, took root in this friendship.

Terri, in particular, was guileless and cheerful in her manner and would probe without reservation into whatever subject suddenly interested her. It is much to her credit that I felt so comfortable around her, despite my normal reticence, that I was happy to engage in any of her questions about my life, experiences or opinions.

This friendship did not thrive for a long time though. Seventeen is a volatile age and we three were headed in very different directions; Terry to early motherhood and myself toward an alternative lifestyle – so they called it. Steven was so friendly and so generous in his own way, that all the stories of his juvenile delinquency seemed a joke to me. Surely he was done with all that. But I was naive at the time. I hadn't yet realized that criminality was far from the absurdities portrayed by Death Wish flicks and the like. I didn't realize that our struggle to thrive within the umbrella of the law, with all of its shadows and secrets and compromised ethics, is not so different from the alternative; the struggle to thrive outside of the law, under a different set of codes. So it was a shock to me when my new cousin, immediately dear to me, vanished into that world; a world I have only come to begin to understand three years ago, upon employment with Corrections Canada and subsequent volunteer work with troubled men.

Terri and I crossed paths infrequently over the last 27 years and her cheerfulness was a delight each time. We always mouthed intentions to get together some time but we never did. It was always something that sounded great but was never a priority; like so many other great things in life that are easy to put off for the sake of more critical affairs. What a mistake, I realize.

I was deep into the Liberal Theologian’s struggle with breast cancer and the more dire emergent cancer, when I learned that Terri was in the same boat; breast cancer running from bad to worse.

One week after L.T.’s passing I forced myself to attend the funeral, and was glad I did, and then I set my thoughts on Terri. I needed to visit her. I needed to talk to her about our old teen friendship and how awesome it was for me and what it meant to me. Yes, just as soon as I get a little time off from work.

But of course she couldn't wait that long. My opportunity to inject a few joyful moments into her deeply difficult experience has expired.

My dear Aunt Karen, and to some near degree if not the same, my Uncle Dave, have had their second of two children slip through their fingers in one way or another. This is crushing to me emotionally. It is an unbearable contemplation; parents losing children. At L.T.’s funeral I did not face her parents. I knew there was no way I could do that without falling apart in front of them and I knew they wouldn't want to witness that.

But I have wanted very much to see my uncle and aunt for a long time now. I haven’t seen them really, since Biodad’s funeral, another blunder of mine; another total absence from a person’s final stage of life.

For the same reason as L.T.’s parents, I dread facing my uncle and aunt, but more so: I want to see them. I don’t want to lose them from my life. So I will try to see them and I will try to be strong as a rock.

Wake Owl

I'm pretty pumped about this band. If you haven't heard of them yet, you're in for a treat. Their 2013 debut EP, Wild Country is just dynamite; every track a delight. Their recent album, The Private World of Paradise is nearly as compelling. Here's the fourth track, Vacation, which is too good a song not to have a video on youtube, so I put one together myself. Hope you like it:

If you dig that, check out the second track, Candy. It's even better.

Still with me? Now you're ready for the EP: Wild Country

abatis [ab-uh-tee]

What follows is a week of entries from the guest log of a cottage that my friends and I rented. It seems pretty normal at first:

Saturday August 11

Wow! What a beautiful cottage and a beautiful lake! We love the Paper Birch trees. It’s so nice and quiet here! We heard loons calling from far away. The windmill and the water cooler make a subtle symphony of strange noises!

Sunday August 12

We swam and played games all day – all four of us. Some chipmunks came by. Heard the loud call of a heron as he soared low across the shoreline. Beautiful! The setting sun makes the lake look like wine!

Monday August 13

Had breakfast in town. Bought a big bag of peanuts and fed the chipmunks all day. A moose came by! He seemed to check us out for a bit and then wandered away.

Wow! What a storm! Magnificent! The lightening on the water plays tricks with your eyes. Looks like faces emerging from the lake!

Tuesday August 14

There’s some trees down from the storm. A few have fallen across the lane way. There are strange footprints all over the beach. I think Stevie is playing a joke on us. Belinda and I played Scrabble. Amber and Stevie played a game called Trouble. The chipmunks did not come today.

Wednesday August 15

Worked on the lane way most of the day. At this point there are quite a few trees blocking it. Came face to face with a bear. It was huge. We stared at each other a long time before it ran away from me. It’s so very quiet. The setting sun makes the lake look like blood.

Thursday August 16

There’s a big puddle in the kids room. It rained heavily all night – which softened the ground. Made it easier to dig the holes. Ideally they should have been deeper but there’s so much work to do. So many trees to chop down for the driveway. All work and no play makes Brian a dull boy.

Friday August 17

Filled in the three holes. It’s so quiet. Even the windmill and the water cooler are silent. Played solitaire. Won 66 times. Lost 600 times. There are puddles all over now. They look like wine.


Okay. I confess: I wrote all these entries in the log the first day we arrived, before we fell in love with the place and knew we'd want to come back every year. Luckily the owners weren't offended! 

abate [uh-beyt]

So much suffering has dissipated since my withdrawal to the loft. I say my days in the loft because someone I respect immensely once warned me that poetic pursuit sounds pretentious. Oh well. Pretentiousness is everywhere. Humans are wired for it in spades. My own has become a rare pretentiousness. I consistently allow people to believe I'm duller than I am; daily declining to offer crucial insights except where I predict it might be heeded.

Embarrassment, guilt, insecurity, jealousy, sorrow, confusion, hate, rage, indignation, confusion, anticipation, disappointment, shock, suspicion, hate and rage, to name a few breeds of suffering. And lonesomeness of a pedestrian sort. All of this has diminished to some great degree or another.

What has grown in me instead in such joyfully unanticipated abundance: Freedom, peace, understanding, patience, tolerance, clarity, insight, forgiveness, empathy, love. And a lonesomeness of a different sort. I can't seem to find anyone who views both the universe and the human being in fundamentally the same light as I. Sometimes I think Neo sort of understands my perspectives in general, while sometimes I doubt that I have made enough material available to him; or that he has absorbed enough of it, or that his own perspectives allow him enough trust in them. It is not his priority to be another me. But I dearly wish that he would experience (or continue to experience) as similar a migration as possible. I wish this for everyone. It's just that I'm accustomed to thinking of him as the most likely candidate of anyone I've met.

Waiting... waiting...

This will sound phony; cliché, but it’s true. I sit there session after session watching and hearing her long laboured breaths and thinking each one is the last. There is a static pause between them. Is that it? Is it over? Every time… No. One more… And now? Now is it over…?

Suddenly I find myself rising from the chair and hear myself uttering “I can’t do this” and I’m walking down the hallway purposelessly, having no conscious will to do or say what I did, but animating like a puppet. Pure instinct perhaps. I realize that I am driving myself completely crazy.

She is asleep or semi-conscious all the time now and her only infrequent whispers are to assert her will to die, or else to answer “No [I’m not in pain].” I must confess admiration. I never imagined she had the strength to face the end this way. But what do I know?

The doctor has warned that she could go on this way a long time. Even without eating or drinking, the accumulated fluid in her bloated limbs could supply her body for weeks. I’m aghast at the morbidity of it.

And so it lasts all day and into the evening. Visitors accumulate. I beg off to grab a few hours of sleep. I will come back and take the night shift, perhaps alone again with this silent new friend who does not resemble the Liberal Theologian.

At 1 AM I awake and prepare to return. I check the phone and see I've missed a recent call from Monica.

Relief and dread. I call her back and receive the news. It’s all over.

It’s all over.

So I go back to bed and lay awake until dawn.

It’s a bit of a marvel, looking back on it. I was so preoccupied for so long with my concerns about the issues and concern for LT and concern for The Daughter. And never once during her living cancer experience did I spare a moment’s thought for the hole that would be left in my own life. All the great talks we've had. All the helpful psychological views she shared as I pored over the sufferings of my friends and loved ones and the wards of my charitable work. I will miss all that generous input and advice and the brave transparency we made of our lives to each other.

Trust. We had magnificent trust in one another. Not perfect, of course, for that is only possible for two people who have entirely escaped the matrix of illusions, but... magnificent.

Strange I never once, until now, thought about her coming absence and all the best things about her and all I would miss.  I think she once accused me of being in denial that she was dying. She may have been right. Perhaps I still am.