../melody in chaos
My favorite new track this year. Written with Composer+Producer Masaya Ozaki (https://masayaozaki.com), in response to a call he received from a music licensing company for “summer songs about adventure and time.” Every once in a while, I write with no irony. Anti-confessional mode, you might say.
“Screw off, I’m happy.”…
continued...
A song written in 2018 in Laurel Canyon, CA. Performed this year in Lowell, MA (which we affectionately called Lowell Canyon while living there for 8 months in 2021).
LYRICS
time will not release
a missing puzzle piece
or faded memories
of deleted scenes
you can’t watch a sunrise
through someone else’s eyes
if they never see you
in dreams
clouds over LA
dance alone
between skies
distant freeways shimmer
traffic as rivers
red and white ribbons
valley to sky
lost friends reappear
in dusty windshields
as evening light hits
California 5
clouds over LA dance alone between skies
drifting the night
suspended from life
shadows of every last good bye
clouds over LA dance alone between skies
People with power in any system know that any human custom, behavior, or thought process can be eliminated in 3 generations.
Take human custom “X.”
“X” is outlawed during Gen 1.
Gen 1 becomes the last to experience “X.”
Gen 2 relies on the accounts of Gen 1 for their view of “X.”…
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Austintown, OH, is the driving midpoint between New York City and Chicago. Written election season 2004 in Austintown at the Best Western off Rte 80, in view of the Quaker Steak ‘n Lube across the highway.
performance recorded Jan 2021 at the old Hood’s Sarsaparilla Soda Factory in Lowell, MA
from Hola, Sayulita (2010)
LYRICS
When they dig us up – they might never know
We dug deep – left our evidence as far down as they will go
They might even think we were older than dinosaurs
Arrogance thinks we’ll see the end of the world
That we’d be last ones – to ever see
the truth/the truth
it’s just funny how much
truth
you
find
½ way between here & there
so many secrets you can’t begin
to dare to leave
escaping only in dreams
looks like it comes down
tonight to AustinTown
They’re gonna say we went backwards – all the way back
Before we went forwards again
Here it comes around again
And there goes the
the truth
ah, the truth
it’s just funny how much
truth
you
find
½ way between here & there
so many secrets you can’t begin
to dare to leave
Escaping only in dreams
looks like it comes down
tonight to AustinTown
“I’m brighter than you stars!” New York City taunted, waving their walk signs, shaking their streetlights at Orion, the sole visible constellation that Fall night.
“Pfft,” said Rigel, Orion’s brightest star, “what are you, a hundred years old?”
“Shut up, I’m almost five!”
—-
Fwiw, Capella, Vega, Sirius, and Deneb were also visible over the City the night of the story.…
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The death of comedy signals an upstream, tactical conflation of embarrassment and shame.
Banning jokes is a means to censor laughter, not words, or comedians.
How do you censor a few comics?
Make one die onstage.
What is the world’s most offensive joke?
Depends who laughs.
Any word can be made dirty.…
continued...
medium mirror
“Free-stuff? More like free baggage!” Luna piped up, looking at the discarded wedding memento, a painting inscribed by guests with personal wishes to the newlyweds, now left to the sidewalk free-cycle giveaway wilds (presumably by one of the ex-spouses still residing in the brownstone behind the wrought iron rail on which it leaned).…
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The paradox of truth in the context of privacy arises where lying is not always unjustified, or even unproductive.
Sometimes, lying is downright forgivable, even necessary.
Anonymity and pseudonymity, for example, are forms of lying. But in these cases, untruth protects the truth. The “lie” is IRL armor; shielding a true identity.…
continued...
There’s nothing more dehumanizing than relying on technology to get you through the day. To outsource all your gathering of knowledge and perspective, to a network that has no human sensations or emotions, is the essence of dehumanization.
Technology, however, has no monopoly on dehumanization. Not only can nature “de-human” quite easily (think tsunamis, earthquakes, asteroids, etc), it also offers up diseases such as Alzheimer’s or ALS that strip away self-consciousness and self-awareness.…
continued...
the acoustic zen of an almost-moved-out-of home is never underrated, however wistful https://t.co/Axrgo7MXfc
— ../westy (@westyreflector)
Jul 29, 2021
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Solo acoustic version of “ok” from Hola, Sayulita! (2010), and also included on my early-years greatest hits collection Your Song Is Beautiful: 2002-2012 (2012).
This performance is from March 2021 in the old Hood’s Sarsaparilla Soda factory, my temporary home Lowell, MA for the last 8 months. We leave Lowell for good in ~2 weeks on 7/31.…
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my track broken heart wasted soul off 2017’s cipher /e dreams settling in behind the ambience and noises of a metal shop is my fav google alert on my name of late
:^D…
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take your fences
take your shutters
take your blinds
— you are here —
take your window screens
take your windows
take your mosquito nets
take your flashlights
turn off the sun
That Old Guitar on That Old Guitar
Uncle, a 1934 Gibson L-1 flat-top acoustic, came to me via my wife Cat’s father, Steve, a stellar pianist and big band leader in Chicago. Cat’s great Uncle Ernest, Uncle’s original owner, bequeathed the guitar to Steve.
Cat & I found Uncle (in his original case) in Steve’s basement on a trip to her Chicago home.…
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The Resurrection of Uncle
That Old Guitar on That Old Guitar https://t.co/NzphSx1zEV— ../westy (@westyreflector) May 21, 2021
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time is a small price to pay for a gentle drying cycle
— ../westy (@westyreflector) May 13, 2021
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“Let me in, Luna.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Take me to @downtowndoghouse to see @baracudajo. Massachusetts has turned my coat into hard scrabble!”
“Kid, that’s where we’re going. Tomorrow you see JoJo.”
“Oh, ok. In that case what are you waiting for? Come in! I’ll ring the Footman.” pic.twitter.com/J7uGNlbmIc— ../westy (@westyreflector) May 12, 2021
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“Let me in, Luna.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Take me to @downtowndoghouse to see @baracudajo. Massachusetts has turned my coat into hard scrabble!”
“Kid, that’s where we’re going. Tomorrow you see JoJo.”
“Oh, ok. In that case what are you waiting for? Come in! I’ll ring the Footman.”
May 12, 2021 at 08:52AM
instagram
connecting to your self is the polar opposite of disconnecting from reality
— ../westy (@westyreflector) April 26, 2021
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