Monday, January 05, 2009
To Begin at the Beginning
It's 2009. The beginning of a new year, for once for me, it is also the beginning of something else.
It is the beginning of my life in many ways. A rebirth. A time to dream. A time to look toward the future with excitement. A time, the first time, my mind is truly at peace and I am bursting with happiness inside and out.
It has been a long, hard road. Sometimes I get down when I think about all the things I could have been, but that is less and less, when I think about how young I still am and how many things are possible, and that I can be who I am and end up exactly where I want to be.
The rest of my life is coming, and it begins today and yesterday. For the first time, I truly feel I could fill it with whatever I want.
Just over two years ago, I remember sitting on a cold bed in a jail cell and crying, feeling as though my life had ended.
It had in many ways, but it took the last two years to work on healing and to own my mistakes.
I didn't feel I had much to look forward to, but I tried anyway. Still, I didn't care enough about myself; I still did not know how to live life, to own my life, rather than create situations and react to things that happened to me, while many of the things that happened to me were my own doing.
My mind and my heart had been crushed by experience. Existence was something I thought I knew as some kind of tortured artist.
I had not much less than sad songs to play, and solitude much of the time. Not being able to see straight. Not being able to relate to the world like I wanted. Not being able to find my place in it.
Then a year later, my mother got sick. This changed me. I knew I had to be strong, knew I had to get myself right.
It's funny how the biggest changes occur when you are not looking.
I worked hard. I tried to make my life better, but it is such a magical thing when you wake up one day and realize you've done it. That the inherent struggle you always saw in your life isn't necessarily inherent.
I fought myself out of poverty.
I fought myself out of a semi-long, semi-serious, unfulfilled relationship.
I fought my mind. I fought years and years of guilt and abuse, self-hatred, and came to terms as best as I could with the terms of my life, good and bad, the absence of my father, years and years of pain compounded on pain compounded on pain, and buried with tears and alcohol, fear and loathing.
Here we are. I've been at my job for a year. I got a 3.89 last semester, busted my ass and still managed to fall in love. I met the love of my life while I wasn't looking. He was right under my nose for months and when I found him all I had to do was allow myself to be happy, to give and receive love, something I'd always thought I wanted, but am finally capable of doing.
I got an internship this Spring doing PR for DiverseWorks. I am graduating in May.
I got to spend New Year's in Southern California and go to Disneyland and see the Rose Bowl Parade, and see Chinatown in San Francisco and the Pacific. I saw the fog in the air and the sun on the water. I saw the lights of L.A. from the airplane's window seat at night. I saw the stars on Hollywood Blvd. and walked among the tourists. I saw Santa Monica and Anaheim and Solvang, this little Dutch town lit up for Christmas.
I saw it all with a big warm hand in mine and a goofy grin on my face, and tried to take it all in whenever I could.
It's a new year, but it's a new life.
I wanted to say some other things. I wanted to say that for anyone who is still searching, for one's self or a love or a dream or for the tide to turn or for the season to change, or for an opportunity -- something someone once told me that I held on to half-heartedly while working as hard as I could mentally and emotionally to get there --
I can't find the right words. All I guess I really mean is something cliche about keeping one's head up, or like that Cursive line, "The Worst is Over," or how Ben Folds said for those who thought the past wasn't dead to stop and smell the smoke.
It can be smoke if you let it. Things do turn around. It's not immediate, but it does happen.
My mother is still ill and has to go through three months of chemo again beginning this month. My grandfather is not out of the woods yet. There are some things in life you can't control.
Obama is going to take his role in the White House soon and the whole world, those who voted and those who didn't, will be watching to see where he takes us. I am counting the days.
I could say a lot more. Happy New Year everyone.
Happy. New. Year.
It's 2009. The beginning of a new year, for once for me, it is also the beginning of something else.
It is the beginning of my life in many ways. A rebirth. A time to dream. A time to look toward the future with excitement. A time, the first time, my mind is truly at peace and I am bursting with happiness inside and out.
It has been a long, hard road. Sometimes I get down when I think about all the things I could have been, but that is less and less, when I think about how young I still am and how many things are possible, and that I can be who I am and end up exactly where I want to be.
The rest of my life is coming, and it begins today and yesterday. For the first time, I truly feel I could fill it with whatever I want.
Just over two years ago, I remember sitting on a cold bed in a jail cell and crying, feeling as though my life had ended.
It had in many ways, but it took the last two years to work on healing and to own my mistakes.
I didn't feel I had much to look forward to, but I tried anyway. Still, I didn't care enough about myself; I still did not know how to live life, to own my life, rather than create situations and react to things that happened to me, while many of the things that happened to me were my own doing.
My mind and my heart had been crushed by experience. Existence was something I thought I knew as some kind of tortured artist.
I had not much less than sad songs to play, and solitude much of the time. Not being able to see straight. Not being able to relate to the world like I wanted. Not being able to find my place in it.
Then a year later, my mother got sick. This changed me. I knew I had to be strong, knew I had to get myself right.
It's funny how the biggest changes occur when you are not looking.
I worked hard. I tried to make my life better, but it is such a magical thing when you wake up one day and realize you've done it. That the inherent struggle you always saw in your life isn't necessarily inherent.
I fought myself out of poverty.
I fought myself out of a semi-long, semi-serious, unfulfilled relationship.
I fought my mind. I fought years and years of guilt and abuse, self-hatred, and came to terms as best as I could with the terms of my life, good and bad, the absence of my father, years and years of pain compounded on pain compounded on pain, and buried with tears and alcohol, fear and loathing.
Here we are. I've been at my job for a year. I got a 3.89 last semester, busted my ass and still managed to fall in love. I met the love of my life while I wasn't looking. He was right under my nose for months and when I found him all I had to do was allow myself to be happy, to give and receive love, something I'd always thought I wanted, but am finally capable of doing.
I got an internship this Spring doing PR for DiverseWorks. I am graduating in May.
I got to spend New Year's in Southern California and go to Disneyland and see the Rose Bowl Parade, and see Chinatown in San Francisco and the Pacific. I saw the fog in the air and the sun on the water. I saw the lights of L.A. from the airplane's window seat at night. I saw the stars on Hollywood Blvd. and walked among the tourists. I saw Santa Monica and Anaheim and Solvang, this little Dutch town lit up for Christmas.
I saw it all with a big warm hand in mine and a goofy grin on my face, and tried to take it all in whenever I could.
It's a new year, but it's a new life.
I wanted to say some other things. I wanted to say that for anyone who is still searching, for one's self or a love or a dream or for the tide to turn or for the season to change, or for an opportunity -- something someone once told me that I held on to half-heartedly while working as hard as I could mentally and emotionally to get there --
I can't find the right words. All I guess I really mean is something cliche about keeping one's head up, or like that Cursive line, "The Worst is Over," or how Ben Folds said for those who thought the past wasn't dead to stop and smell the smoke.
It can be smoke if you let it. Things do turn around. It's not immediate, but it does happen.
My mother is still ill and has to go through three months of chemo again beginning this month. My grandfather is not out of the woods yet. There are some things in life you can't control.
Obama is going to take his role in the White House soon and the whole world, those who voted and those who didn't, will be watching to see where he takes us. I am counting the days.
I could say a lot more. Happy New Year everyone.
Happy. New. Year.
Labels: Ben Folds, Cancer, Cursive, Dreams, Music, New Year's, Obama, Obstacles
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Some Source of Life
Last night, it was really cold outside. It snowed! I decided to go to my other apartment and take a bubble bath in the central heat. I put on one of my favorite old mixtapes.
This one song I still like, by Bright Eyes and Son, Ambulance, was so, so sad. Oberst's voice is angsty, and the Son, Ambulance guy's so melancholy.
I sang along to the parts I remembered; the rhythm and melody and music parts are cool. I found myself singing little phrases like --
"You're always lookin' for somethin' to spit, smoke, or swallow!"
"Gotta find some source of life/ Gotta name some things you like/ Used to have such a longer list ..."
"You've gotta crawl from this bed you've made ..."
"'Cause you will never remember what you choose to forget."
Man, I sang. I jammed out. I did the crescendos. It was like hanging out with an old friend. That tape was four years old, and an old friend had given it to me. I thought of how many other people I know who love that song, or any of them, and they'd be like, "That rules."
This Desaparecidos song came on, reminding me how much I fucking love that band. Still, that album is so angry. He's talking about shopping bags and consumerism and marriage and houses and cars and white fences, and pretty much everything I hated when I was listening to it, too.
I couldn't help thinking, though, why does he hate them so much? Why is he so angry? Why is it so wrong to not be him? Then you think about the self-loathing in all his other songs, and it makes sense. He is crying out. He is angry because he is in pain -- immense pain -- and he doesn't understand how people can live out their daily lives and go to work, witnesses to all of it, like blind drones falling in line like cattle. Like emotionless, ignorant conformists. It's like when somebody dies and everyone goes to work and you're mourning, and you just want everything to stop.
That's how those appear to someone so miserable, and misery loves company, which is why I loved that tape, and so do so many, as someone else loved those songs and put them on that tape for me.
I thought about this girl I met not long ago. She's dating a friend of mine, and was trying to get him to switch from his Irish punk music to her music. You know what her music was? Neutral Milk Hotel and Neva Dinova.
And she was doing that scenester thing where she obviously thought no one else in the room could possibly know those bands. So, I'm like, "Yeah, they're good."
They're not all bad. "Two-headed Boy" and "Holland 1945"? I love those songs. But then she starts talking about which ones were her favorites and it was like the most depressing songs from the most depressing bands. I'm not kidding. I don't know the name of it; just think of the slowest NMH song you ever heard, and that was it.
I thought about how five years ago or something I would have instantly bonded with this chick; now, all I could think of was, "Wow, she's fucked up."
And that may be judgmental the other way, and maybe I'm projecting my past or emotions onto people when I think things like that, but I can only think of one person I've ever known who could listen to music like that without being in it, and enjoy it for its beauty alone, and that's Joe Tutt, and he's really well adjusted far as I can tell. So, I'm not saying it's not possible. I'm just saying what I have observed.
A Cursive song was on the tape as well -- "The Martyr." For the first time I saw some really strong parallels between it and The Ugly Organ that I missed before.
Tim Kasher and Conor Oberst really do border on infinite wisdom. Oberst almost gets there, especially with "Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love and To Be Loved)." Reflect on that and you start to think all his anger is not only out of pain but out of passion: that in Fevers and Mirrors and his other works, including Desaparacidos, he is leading up to the argument that nobody makes time for the things that matter anymore, and we make so little time we forget. His closest to realizing this, though, and giving it any real depth lies in those last few songs on The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground.
Same for Kasher. I started thinking about, once again, a song I at one time could mouth every single breath, and now only fragments: ideas like manufacturing pain and putting it on display, basically opening up a vein to sell records and how cheap that is, and how even more sad. He is right, but somehow it almost makes things worse, because he acknowledges that, like he has it right between his fingers, so close, but it keeps slipping through, and it's the slipping out between his fingers that inspires him to keep making those same sad, angry, songs, and the more he loses, the more he is fueled to do the same.
I don't know if I respect him more for it, or feel sorry for him, but that motherfucker can write; so, I will give him that.
***
All this stuff about Kasher made me think even more about those who do art because they have to -- and all artists do -- but for two reasons:
Some artists have to do art because they so desperately need an outlet; they are in pain and they need help, or at least, they need to feel they are not alone. Recycling pain for sale and lending it to ready listeners is the closest to healing. Although I at one time found these things therapeutic, I somewhat think it is the opposite of that.
The other kind of artists who "have to" is the genius snobs who I'm sure at least I wish I could be: the ones compelled to create something because they know they will do it better than anyone else, and worse, they are right.
I believe Kasher, Oberst, even Jenny Lewis at one time might have almost gotten there, or do at least for their respective genre -- but really I think more of the French Nouveau Vague filmmakers. It is so interesting that they studied film on their own only to become critics and then be like, "Screw this, we'll make our own movies, and they'll rule."
I feel the same way about Quinton Tarantino here. I guess from this also comes a pure love for the artform, where it's not just about expressing emotions, hoping someone will get it; but it's also about technique, form, style, content, effects -- creating memories. Making history, you know?
*UPDATE: I changed my mind. I just Googled that Bright Eyes/Son, Ambulance song, and am once again amazed and impressed at the title. Wow. Still relates to what I said about Kasher, though. Just sayin'. Also, it's a source of light.*
Last night, it was really cold outside. It snowed! I decided to go to my other apartment and take a bubble bath in the central heat. I put on one of my favorite old mixtapes.
This one song I still like, by Bright Eyes and Son, Ambulance, was so, so sad. Oberst's voice is angsty, and the Son, Ambulance guy's so melancholy.
I sang along to the parts I remembered; the rhythm and melody and music parts are cool. I found myself singing little phrases like --
"You're always lookin' for somethin' to spit, smoke, or swallow!"
"Gotta find some source of life/ Gotta name some things you like/ Used to have such a longer list ..."
"You've gotta crawl from this bed you've made ..."
"'Cause you will never remember what you choose to forget."
Man, I sang. I jammed out. I did the crescendos. It was like hanging out with an old friend. That tape was four years old, and an old friend had given it to me. I thought of how many other people I know who love that song, or any of them, and they'd be like, "That rules."
This Desaparecidos song came on, reminding me how much I fucking love that band. Still, that album is so angry. He's talking about shopping bags and consumerism and marriage and houses and cars and white fences, and pretty much everything I hated when I was listening to it, too.
I couldn't help thinking, though, why does he hate them so much? Why is he so angry? Why is it so wrong to not be him? Then you think about the self-loathing in all his other songs, and it makes sense. He is crying out. He is angry because he is in pain -- immense pain -- and he doesn't understand how people can live out their daily lives and go to work, witnesses to all of it, like blind drones falling in line like cattle. Like emotionless, ignorant conformists. It's like when somebody dies and everyone goes to work and you're mourning, and you just want everything to stop.
That's how those appear to someone so miserable, and misery loves company, which is why I loved that tape, and so do so many, as someone else loved those songs and put them on that tape for me.
I thought about this girl I met not long ago. She's dating a friend of mine, and was trying to get him to switch from his Irish punk music to her music. You know what her music was? Neutral Milk Hotel and Neva Dinova.
And she was doing that scenester thing where she obviously thought no one else in the room could possibly know those bands. So, I'm like, "Yeah, they're good."
They're not all bad. "Two-headed Boy" and "Holland 1945"? I love those songs. But then she starts talking about which ones were her favorites and it was like the most depressing songs from the most depressing bands. I'm not kidding. I don't know the name of it; just think of the slowest NMH song you ever heard, and that was it.
I thought about how five years ago or something I would have instantly bonded with this chick; now, all I could think of was, "Wow, she's fucked up."
And that may be judgmental the other way, and maybe I'm projecting my past or emotions onto people when I think things like that, but I can only think of one person I've ever known who could listen to music like that without being in it, and enjoy it for its beauty alone, and that's Joe Tutt, and he's really well adjusted far as I can tell. So, I'm not saying it's not possible. I'm just saying what I have observed.
A Cursive song was on the tape as well -- "The Martyr." For the first time I saw some really strong parallels between it and The Ugly Organ that I missed before.
Tim Kasher and Conor Oberst really do border on infinite wisdom. Oberst almost gets there, especially with "Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love and To Be Loved)." Reflect on that and you start to think all his anger is not only out of pain but out of passion: that in Fevers and Mirrors and his other works, including Desaparacidos, he is leading up to the argument that nobody makes time for the things that matter anymore, and we make so little time we forget. His closest to realizing this, though, and giving it any real depth lies in those last few songs on The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground.
Same for Kasher. I started thinking about, once again, a song I at one time could mouth every single breath, and now only fragments: ideas like manufacturing pain and putting it on display, basically opening up a vein to sell records and how cheap that is, and how even more sad. He is right, but somehow it almost makes things worse, because he acknowledges that, like he has it right between his fingers, so close, but it keeps slipping through, and it's the slipping out between his fingers that inspires him to keep making those same sad, angry, songs, and the more he loses, the more he is fueled to do the same.
I don't know if I respect him more for it, or feel sorry for him, but that motherfucker can write; so, I will give him that.
***
All this stuff about Kasher made me think even more about those who do art because they have to -- and all artists do -- but for two reasons:
Some artists have to do art because they so desperately need an outlet; they are in pain and they need help, or at least, they need to feel they are not alone. Recycling pain for sale and lending it to ready listeners is the closest to healing. Although I at one time found these things therapeutic, I somewhat think it is the opposite of that.
The other kind of artists who "have to" is the genius snobs who I'm sure at least I wish I could be: the ones compelled to create something because they know they will do it better than anyone else, and worse, they are right.
I believe Kasher, Oberst, even Jenny Lewis at one time might have almost gotten there, or do at least for their respective genre -- but really I think more of the French Nouveau Vague filmmakers. It is so interesting that they studied film on their own only to become critics and then be like, "Screw this, we'll make our own movies, and they'll rule."
I feel the same way about Quinton Tarantino here. I guess from this also comes a pure love for the artform, where it's not just about expressing emotions, hoping someone will get it; but it's also about technique, form, style, content, effects -- creating memories. Making history, you know?
*UPDATE: I changed my mind. I just Googled that Bright Eyes/Son, Ambulance song, and am once again amazed and impressed at the title. Wow. Still relates to what I said about Kasher, though. Just sayin'. Also, it's a source of light.*
Labels: Bright Eyes, Conor Oberst, Cursive, Music, Tim Kasher
