My last take on LOST

I still haven't seen half of the last show, but I figure I will someday. I walked into a party late, higher than anything in the world from that feeling you get when the best thing just happened to you. I had just played an incredible show for a personal record of spectators. I got some new precious stones to keep up my energies and whatnot - there was absolutely nothing that could bring me down. Not a stupid ending to a show I admired and cared about, not the negative attitudes of some of my bitching friends, nothing. - I was on top of the world that night.
That said, I didn't give the show much of a mental digestion. It didn't deserve one.
It reminded me of the Packers/ Cardinals playoff game earlier this year. Overtime, the Packers driving, Rodgers drops back, pressure coming, he is hit, grabbed by the face mask for an obvious penalty to advance the ball- but it didn't happen that way. The call wasn't made, a fumble was recovered, and the game was over before there was even a chance to understand what just happened. That's it. It was over. It happened, there was an obvious foul of the ages, but an instant later and the season was lost and the network train had already left the station to promote the next big game. Could you figure it out if you hopped on that train? Why would you? It was over. Just like LOSt. There can me many question that come to many people's minds, but actually there was only ONE question remaining...How will you react?
Will you see the injustice and get all Lou Ferigno and beat your wife and fill up the battered women's shelter in Green Bay and go to the bar and pick a fight and carry a field of negative energy around you contaminating your environment for you and your friends?
It's a game. It's a show. I watched the whole season, I rooted and cheered, I showed up on time, I high five my friends, I talked about it when it wasn't on, but it is just a silly game after all- it is just a silly TV show after all. You have to carry some expectations when you become emotional about something you can't control. Expect to be let down, to be disappointed, (in LOST case, expect that it is after all we want to think it was, it is still a program on major network TV show that will push ideology and whatever they want to sell you- it is programing...programing you)
The next Monday in each case, I moved on. I'm not going to sit and listen to the pundits, I don't care. It's done, and it's time to move on. It was over the instant it was over and to continue to bring it up in your mind is very un-zen like. Especially getting all pissed off about it, what's the point of that? It's just a game, it's just a show. TV sucks and we all know it, why would we think that it wouldn't? There are new moments to appreciate or bitch about. Lets live those moments and never watch TV again.

ps. Also one thing that always bothered me since I began watching in season 4 - The I ching symbol that is used as the "Dharma" logo. This instantly struck me as daft and offended me. "Dharma" is Sanskrit. It comes from the subcontinent of INDIA, not China. It means "the work" that is done in a spiritual sense and applies to Hindi and Buddhism. The I Ching symbol is fucking Taoist. It has nothing to do with Dharma. Unless you are like, "oh, it's one of those eastern things- all Chinese people look alike and they all have the same weird religion." Will anyone ever see the I Ching symbol and NOT think "Dharma" for Jesus Christ sake? can we- folks who try to really understand the meaning of patterns and shapes and relationship to the human gestation period and cosmic movement - can we please have our symbol back with out someone calling it fucking "Dharma?" Can "Dharma" continue to remain a word that inspires sacred thought and non- attachment and not be a brand name for corn flakes and ranch dressing? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I just wrote a new song and it is called "the Light"

I haven't been able to sit down with my guitar in my lap for about two weeks. This is the worst feeling for me and my entire psyche suffers. Playing my guitar is my shrink, it is my gambling addiction, it is my umbilical chord, it is my grounding switch, it is my sigh and the next breath in after a sigh. I missed it. I had a chance tonight to play and I wrote a song in 1 minute and spent the next 9 trying to figure out the best key to sing in. I never did.
But I would like to dedicate this song to 13 Ahau, the Midwest Beat's upcoming tour, and the rebirth of a new sacred Mayan cycle and all the things that remind me of birth like my Mom especially and those little baby robins in that silver maple in my yard.
Like Ahau, it is called "The light" and
here is a quick run through take demo thing for you to DOWNLOAD and listen to on your computer.

Also, just writing the word silver maple made me think of a lyric for something, some song in the future about the I Ching.

"Silver maple's are red,

And red onions are purple

it makes sense to me

cause I am King Wen's turtle"

cause ah...king wen wrote the i ching as legend has it after seeing the back of a turtle and understanding the properties of nature and so forth blah blah

King wen's turtle, a fable, but in my opinion is a symbol of creation in the same respect of the hindi incarnation of vishnu in the mural on the top of this blog. And What does Hindi have to do with Taoism but what does anything have to do with anything when there are an astronomical amount of coincidences, and even beyond astronomical to the quantum level and back again.

God, how did I get from there to this.

Shut up ok

13 Ahau -a year in review

YES!!!!!
Another 260 day sacred round complete in the Mayan Calendar. It's new years eve of creative energy.
This is an immensely important day, today and in the future. It is the end of the creative cycle of 260 days, and will be the end of the entire calendar as well. Ahau means light, it is the 20th of 20 day lords signs, and the tone 13 is the 13th of 13.
Perhaps this would be a good day to reflect on the last 260 days, and tonight is a good night to dream of what you need to manifest in the next period of tzolkien energy.
It's been an amazing year for me. It began away from home floating down a river on the Mississippi. I watched the gods above move the heavens in an epic vision and profound shamanic experience. While atop a high sand dune, The world and everything that had been created seemd to fold together, eagles soared and dipped, water rushed by, and giant reptiles and indians moved the sun to the lay in the west. Everything made sense to me on that day. Today is another day for those visions, on heaven as it is below.

buy oh buy

The best day / Zen Jokes

I woke up at 6 30 am after an incredibly long perfect awesome day and rode my bike to work to start it all over again. It was the best day, yesterday, and since I only slept for 3 hours, I feel like it hasn't ended. I caught a big fish, I played music on the street, I played music on the radio, I spent time with my best friends and I saw nice looking dresses that affirmed the beauty of the season and the Wisconsin-ite leg. I realized that I don't need sleep as along as I stay high from my perfect life. Gotta get high, so tired... no time.
Did you ever hear about Bodhidharma? He was the most bad ass man to ever live. He was a monk that walked to China from India. When he got to a Shaolin temple, he went inside and kicked everybody ass then he came back out and sat down and decided to stare at a wall until he found enlightenment. He got tired once, ONCE...but then he just cut off his eyelids so he couldn't fall asleep. Then he created Zen Buddhism. He also looked like this:

There is this old story about a monk who asks when seeing a painting of him, "Why does that fellow have not a beard?"
It's an old zen joke, they are so hilarious, that if you get it, you become enlightened. They are called Koans, and it is a question or parable designed to make the dual mind fold over on itself and be whole again. It destroys perception of reality and the ego, but generally they are all silly so I just call them jokes. Like "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" or "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound," or "Does a dog have a Buddha nature?" The answer to these questions is a phrase called "Mu" which can't be translated, but it kinda means, "un-ask the question." you can't just go around saying "Mu" if you are being quizzed in zen school and expect an A plus, it is just an answer that you have to understand. I would hate to go to a zen school, they sound like assholes. It's your first day, you are confused about where your robe goes, so you ask the teacher. The correct answer would be to bop you on the head with a stick and then you become enlightened. MU. The teacher ask you a question like "what is 2 plus 2?" and if you say 4, you get a bop on the head with a stick. The correct answer might be something like, "the sky is very blue today."

Here's one, "Does a COW have a Buddha nature?" Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Some more hilarious zen jokes here...hahahahah yuk yuk yuk.


I looked at my calendar and on June 7th, after I get done with work, I will finally be able to sleep.

[{W(h)O}(o)]/F = who is that babe? + where has this band been all my life? x howl at the moon ~ attention devided by Wheels on Fire

God this band is fucking amazing. I just heard them for the first time a few weeks ago. Chris was getting all excited about us playing with them on JUNE 6TH so I thought I'd take a listen and see what all the fuss is about. I was like, yeah yeah, ok, I'll check it out IF...IF I feel like taking the time, whatever. Since then, I have joined an elite club where a few of us insiders share WOF tracks that we have found, bootlegged, and some that are held by Kind Turkey, the labels first vinyl release. Much turkarma to the man who has privileged my ears to hear this exclusive stuff....sorry, it's a secret and I promised I wouldn't share them on the Internet or to anyone for that matter. But I will share this: Kind Turkey records is sitting on the hit EP of the year. I can't wait for this record to come out.
The Midwest Beat has added a few shows on our upcoming tour with WOF including one in their home town of Athens, oh - where I played last year this very week and it was unbearably hot and there were lots of steep hills and I hung out at this laundrymatic place with a silly name that I wish I wrote down- but I didn't so I'm just going to take a stab at it - it was called "Dave and Bud's Sud-denly Suds", but it is not even close to that name in real life.
FACT: Girls that play awesome music are sexy.
FACT: Girls that strive for vintage tones in their instrument are the sexiest.
FACT: GIRLS, GRILS and WOF at Franks Power Plant Sunday June 6th.
FACT: BYOMAYO

Things I've noticed recently: Switches, Vibes, and Cat-itudes

There is a switch on my new guitar that is peculiar. Sometimes if I flip it, the guitar will get louder, with the same tones, just a boost of volume. And sometimes when I switch it, it mutes my guitar completely. There are only 2 options with this switch, up and down. In the "down" position, it is stable. With my limited knowledge of this instrument (including it's tonal vibrations potential for healing, and/or mastering the tremolo blues cry- "doing the indian style 'wah wah wah' hand motion over your mouth, but actually while yawning instead of summoning the Panther in the Sky to kill" kind of guitar sound) it is impossible to know what the switch will do when I turn it to the "up" position.
This is a very real problem, it's there alright. All day I wanted to think of this feeling I get, and express it as a metaphor- it finally came to me - after a lost drinking game, toed and elbowed out from sports- while mellowing my nagging higher mind with a glorified whammy bar. This feeling that certain vibrations, or emotions or feelings seem to be amplified at times, and at others it is as easy to shut them off as a switch. I thought about how I can control that etc. I noticed that.

I don't have good hands, but I love to use them. I worked on automobile engines today. As always, I feel a much more rewarding end when I use my means-hands. I lost feeling in my right hand long ago and became ambidextrous as a result. It is a pins and needles kind of sensation in my right fingers, but I can feel things that I can't feel with my left hand. Like magnetic fields, vibrations, and chi- particularly from humans, old trees, dogs and refrigerators, and for some reason books too. So when I use both of my hands together, like say...in dentistry, or a sweet move to the hoop, or fixing a van, or playing guitar, it becomes a manifest - a sculpture - a physical product of a dual sided form of creating stuff in a non-dual way.
The left being the physical, the yang, the masculine, strong jar opening, smoking a cig, bra taking off hand.
The right being the creative, the receptive yin feminine, detecting pathogenic stuff, twisting an acupuncture needle (not according to the textbooks and this 90 degrees bullshit, but twisting the needle until you feel the chi dam destroyed) and figure out a way beyond the limits of this world kind of grip. I've noticed this for over 15 years, but it made more sense today.

There is a cat that lives in the apartment next door and comes to the second floor balcony every night, late at night...well, first he hops out of the screen door and lands on the balcony, then he sways his/her cat hips like a Broadway play through the little fence on the balcony and sits a few meters from my room and meows and meows like the sky is gonna fall and he/her wants to have one more conversation, or meows and meows like he/she is a cat Brittney Spears in a youthful career - still in the mall circuit and willing to sing to anyone, humbly, carefree, and without any tarnished big contract Cat-titude. This cat will ALWAYS sing with me, in fact I feel that it comes out just to sing with me. I hear it, meowing in the wrong direction (south) I send a mocking meow back, and this cat I don't even know comes to the other direction and she/he meows, I meow, it meows, I meow in a higher voice, it meows in a higher voice, I come to the door, we watch the raccoons on the garage roof, and joke about them in meow voices. They are all inside jokes. I noticed that I have gone to bed with a smile since it has been warm enough to sleep with a door ajar.

Tornado, new friends, and Thai funk

Playing basketball in a tornado might be as fun as playing my new (very old) Magnatone Tornado guitar at band practice tonight. The International Datelines are getting set to record next Thursday at Howl Studios with a great engineer.
I try to play after work everyday, at the same shin splinting time. It's nice to hear the clock towers in riverwest rang-a-lang and bong-along, banging at each other's stain glass windows just a few seconds apart to assert their sonic space. The Catholics always win, and they have the best 11am on a Sunday song. And it's nice when a variety of friends play a pick up game with my clumsy ass.
Yesterday this kid said "Hey, you let me ball wit chu?" and we played for awhile before he asked me what high school I went to. I said "Senior High. It's in Indiana." He told me that I have "game" and that he will meet me there again. I can't wait to exploit his lack of defense again. It makes me feel like a spry young bright eyed angst-y anarchistic Senior High student with decent basketball shoes tied up tall.
God it makes me feel good.
It makes me FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL GOOD
like, like like....um, like/medrontri airachk
Thanks Adam, you game?

miles

There is a math problem that is on my mind. I need some help figuring it out. Ok. So. If you take your left hand off of your mouse (or right hand if you so chose to mouz with) and put your index finger tip on the mouse pad and your middle finger tip on the mouse pad and make a little running guy with two arms on one side and one arm thumb on the other side and running guy is polite so he tucks his arms behind his back like he is wearing a tuxedo and listening intently - or like he is sitting down on his own ARMBUTTBENCH - then he wants to run around things like - run up your monitor sideways and when he gets to the top he stops and jumps over your keyboard in slow motion and then he has seen enough of this desk and he wants to go outside and run on top of cars and turn into a 4 legged dog and pee on stuff and sniff it and howl and turn back into a 3 armed man, right.?... So, ok, well, what would be a good equation to figure out how many miles he has gone?

Kan "the seed" and bridge graffiti

I wrote a song today in my head while sitting under a bridge, kicking a 6 foot curb with my heels of my feet for a beat, trying hard not to slip and hum this new melody out loud in front of my friends who are talking about the stuff we talk about.
There we are...near a river-like body of water under a highway, and if the wind isn't blowing, and if the rain isn't pouring, it is like a mirror reflecting the concrete across the Styrofoam and dead bird banks. And underneath the highway across the river-like body of water and across the dead bird banks -these guys with lots of paint and crazy handwriting like to write the names they give themselves in weird font like "ETC" and "Snatch" except you have to stare at it hard to read it, but I was looking in the river, in the glass, the mirror cause there was no wind or rain beneath this bridge and I started to see the images backwards and upside down and wondered if they were meant to be interpreted that way after all..

This song I am writing for a comprehensive art project I began. The project began this weekend using all of my hours doing arty things I don't normally do like paint, and cut wood into little shapes and whittle details and so on... all in the privacy of a giant studio downtown. Listening to AM radio, power tools, screws/nails, dirty fingers, just like my old man...creating anything that came into my mind- music, poetry, art, sculpture- the studio was mine all weekend.
The song is called "The Seed." It was written today because today is Kan, The Seed in the Mayan Calendar, (I imagine - though I wrote it with my pen, it is not for me to hypothesize why it was written, cause when inspiration comes, it comes, yes? Like a fire fly in the June night. And I happened to be in the dark spot of the universe when the idea lit up and I caught it and I'm going to put it in this jar which is my blog for it to shine for a day or so before it dies unless I poke some holes... and I'll let it go I suppose, cause though I wrote it with my pen, I still understand that it is not my fire fly, but I just caught it)
So today is Kan, The Seed, the 4th day sign of the 20 day "Unial" they call it, or month. There is a different day sign for 20 days a month, we are in the 4th. Tomorrow is the 5th sign, Chichuan and it means serpant. We are in the last month of the Sacred Mayan year so energies get especially tense in a creative standpoint. There are only 16 days left until the new sacred year of 260 days.
anyway, here are the lyrics to the first verse - the ones I can remember from a few hours ago, I got the song all sung in my head, and I'll share it soon once my "comprehensive art project" is done in july-ish.

"Climbing up the old oak tree,
found a nice branch, come sit next to me.
Carving your initials - I'll carve mine,
They'll be there till the end of time,
They'll be there till the end of time-

Kookaburra, Quetza bird - they do sing
I wish I had me a diamond ring.
I'll make you a necklace with an acorn bead
Everything grows from a little bitty seed,
Everything grows from a little bitty seed."

Today was the best day to make a wish by blowing a dandelion's seeds. May your wishes come true readers.

Overheard at the beach {Robbie}

I was out for walk today- there's a little place I like to sit - down on Bradford beach, and I overheard this. It sounded like Rocktopus practice.
Robbie wants to go to the beach was written while waiting for a lock to drain, after securing a houseboat on a nice and easy trip through the lock, like one of those marble games where the tiny marble bounces from wall to wall, except it is a huge boat. Then we parked along the side, I'm sitting there by the steering wheel looking at the radio dial channel 6 "lock and dams" , there was some graffiti on the wall that said "Robbie wants to go to the beach" in yellow chalk. All of the crew was hanging on to these ropes so the boat wouldn't slip away. "Hang on, hang, hang, hang on Robbie" It came to me. Bass Bass always wanted me to write a song that was like "Yakkity Yak, don't talk back," or the "Charlie Brown" song where the bass man says "Why is everybody always picking on me?" - so that was on my mind. - I just Chuck Berry-ed it up like I always tend to easily do, and try so consciously hard NOT to do. Writing dumb songs about dumb things is a fun way to spend my free time outside of the shower. I wrote the first verse right then and there and it stayed ever since. Dumb songs like that come to me often, but I just need one phrase and then I can remember it. If I don't write it down, it is gone forever. Thanks Robbie.
It's a good thing there is practice.


There was an old drunk lady at this bar in Madison at this bar Rocktopus played at called the Wisco, an eclectic crowd in there like most nights- a crowd that can roll with the Rocktopus and not get freaked out cause they like freaky stuff, these folks that hang out at this bar, these old hippies and crusty punks and old drunk ladies and metal heads with slayer tattoos - and this old lady screams after we play a song, "Hey Wait, Stop, Robbie lost his eye!" and she was talking about Bass Bass of course and his eye that lights up and whose Velcro bond that had failed from off his head to the beer soaked floor that his tail had knocked all of our beers from our amps. She kept yelling, "Wait, Robbie, his eye, His eye fell off, it fell off of Robbie, wait! Robbie!" It was pretty funny.

Happy Mother's Day Mama / Moms

Let's do what our bodies tell us to do

but not in a gay way.

I'm off to shoot some hoops and think about how awkward I am too.

Ik-y stuff

Today was/is, the day in the Mayan calendar called Ik, and it means "the wind" appropriately. It is one of my favorite days of the Unial because of it's glyph. It's so playful. In some shapes it looks like a tongue sticking out of a classic smiley face, sometimes it looks like Bugs Bunny teeth or what I would call supra erupted central 8 and 9 incisors.
This past few days have been an incredible adventure. Putting up my hood and roaming the hood, finding old friends and walking in new places and homes, and trying new food, bought a new guitar on a whim, got punched in the face for trying to help a drunk guy passed out in the street, building things with power tools, painting, writing songs, shooting in the rain, ping pong, new style of song writing...blowing in the wind
It's a funny thing, this Ik stuff, this wind stuff, this Mayan calendar stuff. When you start to sync up with it, you experience something very strange indeed. It's hard to say, but if the day means the wind, then follow the wind. Wind, ya know, it also means breath, like primordial essence of life, breath like the essence of communication. The day was given by these forces to roam and meet people and talk and just go with the dang flow, and I know - It's seems weird and complicated, but I found living a heck of a lot more enjoyable when you can laugh at the Day God's glyph symbol for looking funny then put your sail up and see what shore you land on. Tomorrow, akbal means Night and it's a perfect symbol for a typical Sunday, rest/sexnapz.
Just got a call, gotta go before the wind stops and the night begins.
{ins motzart's 4th somehow.mp3ersomething>

Rocktopus review of Iron Man 2

I'm the type of thing that likes to escape the hardships of my day by picking up a novel or comic book, and sinking my mind into a fictional land. A place of wonder where the imagination is set free and anything can happen- unlike this world that you and I live in. Where you enter a place and meet characters that simply aren't real - They don't exist. They are fictional. They are not living breathing creatures like you or I with complex lives, and mundane duties, and jobs, and nagging mer-wifes, and cave mortgages, and duck-bill collectors, and too much traffic on the northern turn pike, and crime and non-indigenous blood sucking parasites. It's too much sometimes and you just got to get away. I enjoy paging through a lamented comic book and just getting away from this harsh reality that we all live in, you, and I, the Rocktopus. That is why I anticipated the release of the early summer blockbuster, Iron Man 2 - a sequel to Iron Man apparently.
Robert Downey Jr starfishes as Tony Stork, a wealthy entrepreneur who is as tech savvy as he is smooth with the human land dwelling females. The casting on this role is perfect like a professional angler, Floundy Jr nails Stork in his fast paced life and dialogue. Then the movie introduces it's villain played by Muskie Rourke. Rourke is a natural selection for a bad guy, he is like a coelacanth, ugly, old, stinky, has these dumb gray things coming out of his head, and is making a comeback in his career when folks said he was extinct. His character however is very poor. The writing does little to explain his motivation for being a bad guy. Why does he hate Iron Man? There was some dumb reason, but it didn't add up. He is a former Siberian inmate with tattoos all over his body, gold inlays on all his anterior teeth, and all around goon, or thug. The best potential he should achieve is head crony to the boss, or loan shark. But wait! He is a genius! He can also build an arch reactor and does. And this seems to be the modern day equivalent of splitting the atom, it introduces forms of energy previously un imaginable. So what does he decide to do with that awesome power? Make a super flying weapon that can reach the stars and the depths of the sea? How about just a gun? no? Well at least a sword that shoots laser beams right? Nope. Whips. You really are dumb after all? Did your dad help you with this science project Muskie? I give you an F for not showing your work. seriously, Whips? Why not a power up a big rock and just throw it? Was the arch reactor catapult too expensive to build on your budget of....wait, where did you get the money to build this shit anyway when you can't afford a loaf of bread? Better go with whips then, they are the cheapest arch reactor weapon I guess.
The thing that bugs me the most, being a Rocktopus with tentacles is the lack of dexterity in his whipping. Now if they would have consulted with any creature that has whip like appendages, we could have explained how to use them as a source of locomotion and improved upon his attempts to flail this archaic weapon in a more effective way.
The villain ruined this movie for me. That is not a villain, this is a villain.

There is a lot of funny one liners, flashing fight scenes, in your face patriotism, and sexy gadgets and outfits. But overall the picture was weak.
I give it 4 out of 8 tentacles, but recommend that if you see it, you see it on the silver screen.
glub glub glub

Midnight Movie Haiku

Oriental Room

Free popcorn free soda yawn

Buddha waves goodnight

duh

As I predicted late last year, there would be a strong surge of resistance of the energies of the 6th night to assert themselves with in 1 week of May 1st. I blogged about it, and in an effort to generate some interest of the Mayan callendar with my girlfriend, I made Lindsay write my prediction down so I could say I told you. I predicted some sort of attack on the West with in 7 days of the first of May. And then I forgot all about it until I saw the nespapers today.

I was just consulting some oracles and doing some calendar work, checking the Akashic records and so forth because I got the feeling that energy is swirling around like a weird storm through a Manhattan alleyway. And maybe the way I feel about ends and goals is akin to dropping a girls phone number in that alleyway and trying to catch it as the winds swirl in unpredictable ways like some kind of chaotic sign.

Tis the case. When I realized what the period was I was like "oh yeah, duh."

We have just entered the strongest point of the 6th night of creation in the galactic wave movement, the most violent period of this particular wave movement if you will, where the energies of the "night" of this wave begin shifting back to the day. The Galactic wave is just way of describing the movement of the energies in the Galactic Underworld, the second to last tier on the completion of the Mayan Callendar. In other words, if you were to chart the history of the universe and how it is created and complied, a good way to do it would be to make a 9 tier pyramid. We are currently living in a time that is the 8th tier, but the 8th tier can't rest on anything unless it is sitting on top of the other tiers so we get this knowledge as a race of this tier and all the one's below it. That's why all the Mayan pyramids are 9 tiers tall. Ok, so every time the universe moves into a new level, or Underworld as it is called (not to be confused with hell, underworld simply means level of consciousness) then things really get intense. It's like time speeds up. This underworld that we have entered is called the Galactic underworld and it began in 1999 just like the Internet. Technology increases at a rapid rate and so does speed of information. The previous underworld, the Planetary Underworld began in 1755 and brought about things like railroads and the industial revolution and so on immediately entering that underworld... It's really accurate and a neat way to chart history. If you picture it as a pyramid, you get the impression that the Mayans wanted to describe that this energy becomes more concentrated as it reaches the top, like a vortex.





ok, got that? Ok great, now each underworld is governed by a palpable waveform, and if you are like me and notice the change in creation and sense things like that, you can feel it change and move. Like I said, we are in the middle of the 6th night. see: it is about the beginning of May on this chart.

What does this mean? The wave is broken into "days" and "nights" depending on the vibrational frequencies and there are corresponding deities for each day and night for a total of 13 - 7 days and 6 nights. Because we are in the 6th night, we are about to enter into the final "day" and also the final Underworld. This must be clear; this system does not describe time as we think of days and night and trips around the sun, but it describes as process of evolution and creation. From the potential energy of a seed to a giant oak tree. From the antiquity of the mind and the beginning of language and articulating ideas and the miracle of communication to he point of our next leap of consciousness at the end of this cycle, this count, this calendar. The Mayan calendar is an amazing tool for understanding creation, creativity, and waves of how energy and consiousness evolves - on a global scale to a personal scale. You can use it for personal data to understanding global economics. Just like most scholars of the Mayan calender have been predicting for decades, the currency of the West (us dollar) would decline at the beginning of this 5th night, which it did, 1 week after we entered it as a matter of fact.
Also, just a few days after the sixth day began, President Obama was elected.
What does that mean for us as we enter the second half of this 6th night? Well in the National Underworld as we left the 6th night of the wave and entered the 7th day, it was a little time called the Renaissance. I expect there to be a harmonious transition of the mind, thoughts, creativity and understanding others as we gather energy in this crazy vortex. It's hard to say, but it's almost like there will be a shift in thinking as we know it, and evolution of consiousness, in just a brief little period because that is the way this scale works. It multiplys like the center of a vortex, like the tier of a pyramid. What else do we expect? As we enter into the final day of the galactic underworld? As we enter into a new underworld all together? Oh man, some crazy exiting stuff. I hope you are as excited as I am to be a gifted soul living in this period.


http://www.calleman.com/content/articles/nov8_sixth_night.htm
http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Mayan_Calendar/id/1722
http://tribes.tribe.net/mayancalendarcode/thread/5221fb76-4091-444c-97ea-df0a4fe1b42e
http://www.calleman.com/content/ppt_slides/img0.html

Trip to the Museum

Hello Land Dwellers,
This is the Rocktopus and it is a pleasure to be writing to you from the depths of the sea. Today I went to the museum. It was so neat that I took a picture of it. I was excited to see some paintings, but the water made all the colors run together and it wasn't very neat. The gift shop was expensive, but it had astronaut ice cream and magnets of dinosaurs. It was a nice museum. Also, there was a huge hole in the ceiling from when it fell to the depths of the sea. Nobody seemed to mind though.
Glub glub glub~

Disciple of Love

I'll be sparking my thoughts with Etznab today it seems

CArefull though, play with fire and you get burned.

This brutal teacher, these rich lessons.

Much appreciated.

one on none = fun way to run in the sun on a Mon(day, dammit)

I've had strange dreams lately, I wonder what's happenin' to me...

Maybe I'm not that interesting because I'm always interested.

Building a Girl Group Song: "Tides" and "Catch and Release"

There has been a Rocktopus revival in my thoughts lately with a show coming up on May 24th with good friends and one of my favorite bands The Pharmacy. Typically in my creative ways, Rocktopus is on the back burner and I stir it occasionally to keep it from stagnating. It kind of blows my mind that it actually exists, Rocktopus and the Scallywags. It started out as a one Octopus band and now boast 12 members, all of which I give credit for the Rocktopus to be alive - as, if it weren't for folks to say, "I want to be a part of that" and me saying "Really?* do you realize what you have to do? Dress? Act? In front of people? Have you even heard these songs?"- then I don't think it would keep going on. But it's great! It's amazing! I am met with more support for Rocktopus than anything else I have ever done. People from all over the world contact me, I have never made any attempt to reach out besides touring. To think, that what started as a silly joke to fill some time on a show on short notice - writing 6 songs in 4 days - and now the potential of such sounds, like a mile wide canvas with colors never seen brought by the best artists to help make a...a.... something - however silly it is. It blows my mind that I am a part of that, that I have friends to help me realize this, that it works, that it gets booked, and press, and smiles, and applause. I'll get into that later- I want to talk about the Sirens and more Pacifically a song I am writing for them.
The Sexy Sirens have added a great dimension to the arrangements of these songs. These 3 girls in particular are incredibly talented. I sit down with my guitar and find myself singing into my recording machine in 3 and 4 part harmony with girl voices so I can articulate my thoughts to them...they pick it up instantly, always eager to do what I clumsily and half confidently say, or they come up with great ideas that I overlook. I want to make a few songs just for them. And since my the genre reflects direct influences (see: unknowingly ripping off) of 50's and early 60's pop rock n roll, I wanted to build the perfect girl group songs.
Now I use the word "build" because I think of girl group songs being incredibly complex, not in terms of chords or progression or difficulty, but complex in layers. It might be easy for someone who writes songs to write any old song, but I think that one should adopt this mindset of "building" when you want to produce a song that requires several working systems to make a simple rock sound in a girl group genre. I think of Phil Spector and what he innovated, what he called the "Wall of Sound." I asked Adam what he thought and he returned with one word "tides." I asked what J-man thought while fishing with him and he came up with a hook instantly, "Well I guess that's what he calls catch and release." I thought about this and made some notes that I'd like to share from my real journal. (My journal that no one sees except when I leave it at Lindsay's house and she reads it and wonders why I'm so crazy and gets mad at me for thinking like I do, and sad at me for not saying stuff that I really feel.) Notes of what I need to consider in this process.

Ingredients to building a girl group song brainstorm
-Begins with "be my baby" drum- bass bass bass snare x2
-Lyrics: "remember, walking in the sand, walking hand and hand" incorporate into song - something about footprints fading by tides like a symbolic form of an expression of love, nothing stays, everything changes, set pace with this lyric.
-Call and response, call and response
-variations on ballad chord structure (1, 6 minor, 4, 5) C,Am,F,G - variations with diminished chords, mixing order of ballad structure, riffs in and out of hooks or bridge, or riffs as hooks, key changes in 3rd part of song.
-lack of personally singing can enable focus on syncopated guitar rhythms.
-rhythm in vocals + heavy percussion. Focus on syllables and pattern of backing vocals delivery, mortar in sound wall!
-Vocal trails, backing and leads following each other to keep it tied together, vocal trails, and trailing vocals
-"Tides" perfect symbolism of the ultimate feminine force, brought by full moon - don't get carried away! stay vague, keep it relate-able yet personal - tides wash away, tides rise and fall, tides can't be stopped, tides represent change as well.
-"catch and release" what the fuck?, he charmed me, he loved me, he looked deep into my eyes, he made me laugh, he made me something special, and then he left with out a trace, he left for what reason? another girl? no reason? why won't he call? sitting here racking my brain trying to figure out why he isn't calling and i just found out he's at the drive in with some tall brunette and she is wearing his jacket. what the fuck? -draw on personal experience, the nice guy struggle, the battle against dudes like him, why did he get that girl in the first place? he's a dick. she's crying and I'm pining...paint a picture in your head of him and write.
-lyrics, channel phil spector yet sensitive to feminism, and evolution of this thought. What does a typical girl group song say to folks? What do I want to say to folks? Combine. Classic girl group lyrics tell the following: "He's a bad boy type, and I love him for that. He's a bad boy type, and I hate him for that. He loved me and left me for another girl and I happened to witness it. or the classic: girl was wrong but you can't blame her because she is a woman ala "Train to kansas city." set it up for the girl to be the loved character and pull the rug out from the listener in the final verse.

-percussion is so important. Hand claps, individual drum parts/fills that should be left for the only sound that you hear, ala "do ron ron" and snare fills and late crashes in chorus.

-it important to first write the song in a soul slow ballad form, then build and build and build and bring it up to a rocking pace. Build with these techniques and NOT tempo to add what it is that makes the song rock. Build this song with the band and NOT alone. get input, but keep mind clear of what sound you want. steer away from individuality and focus on the wall of sound and group aspects of the song. remember that this song is only produced as a holistic sound and not an instrument or voice.

-that clicker sound thing, what is that? spoons?
-choreography LAMF
-oh, the fishy puns, don't forget

I have a few rough copies of these songs, half ass written- and usually on this blog I share that kind of stuff. But I want to keep this away from ears for now so I can see how it develops on its own. Also, not that it is a pity bait, but I am in a stage where I wonder if I ever wrote a good song. I've been losing confidence as of late, I've had some serious doubts about my songs after I learned how to play Roy Orbison songs in particular - well, not that I have stopped writing songs, it's just that I get a bit more embarrassed to think that I could actually create a quality song that I'd like to share. I won't get into that either, it's just a stage I'm sure (hope), and that is contradictory to this blog's welfare. So maybe someday I'll start posting my baby songs again, if I can ever write a good song for once. I'll use this as an opportunity to change my own mind with this girl group song project ahead. I'm really excited about it. Hope to see you on MAY 24th for the debut of these songs and the reality of that brainstorm.

http://c4.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/136/l_b5b27a0a70474e9093e83782c3fa18ef.gif

*really folks, I don't care if you can play an instrument or not. If you want to be in you are in. There is only one qualification, that you represent your aquatic client in the most professional kayfabe way.