The best artists allow themselves to be vulnerable, that’s what defines the great artist. Vulnerability and courage. Mediocre artists are not mediocre for their lack of skill, they are mediocre for their lack of courage.
I saw this in music school; I’ve observed it in the artists I admire; I see […]

Tell me I’m the only one…
-Meshell Ndegeocello “Mary Magdalene”
Me’Shell Ndegeocello wrote and recorded one of the most sincere, beautiful love songs I have ever heard. It’s called “Mary Magdalene”, from Peace Beyond Passion.

I worked with a talented bass player named Andrew, and one day he dropped Peace Beyond Passion and Plantation […]

With Alberto Gonzales soon to be departed, I hoped to comment briefly on his tenure in the White House, and as US Attorney General.
Mr. Gonzales said the following recently, in a short speech announcing his resignation: “Public service is honorable, and noble.”
Well, that may be true, but we should ask […]

You and I are underdosed and we’re ready to fall
Raised to be stupid, taught to be nothing at all
-Marilyn Manson “I Don’t Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me)”
Another idea that came out of this film for me: could it be that the stupidity Nerenberg portrays is a reaction to the availability of […]

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Do you think dreams can teach you something about your life, what you need to learn? Can they offer clues to your psyche: hidden beliefs or fears, or help you with important decisions? Or are they just scattered bits you absorbed during the day, input, stimuli and thoughts you might not even have noticed as they happened.

The confusing part, I think, is that they are both. Sometimes they are just random; sometimes they contain deep meaning and clues to our desires, anxieties, clues from a higher part of you that has your attention once you submit to sleep, the ego disengaged. Other times, in my opinion, dreams offer proof that we can sometimes see the future. Examples for me often revolve around the natural world.

One night I had a dream I was at a rock concert. Odd that it wasn’t a Prince concert or a Robben Ford concert, as that’s where I would more likely be, but I was at the show of a loud, heavy, aggressive band. At some point in the show, just before I woke up, the band somehow ordered out this huge, frightening, thirty-foot tall animatronic creature onto the stage. It walked on two legs, and its legs were so long I could barely see its torso or head.

I woke up.

Do you know what you are?
You are what you is.
-Frank Zappa “You Are What You Is”

I grew up in the Berkshires, home of the world famous Kripalu Yoga Center. A popular idea at Kripalu, one you can find on a bumper sticker for sale in their gift shop, reads like […]

Most of my heroes don’t appear on no stamp.
Chuck D
Fight The Power by Public Enemy

I invite my readers to read a short story called Sleepers. It’s a sweet little piece about two young twenty somethings who hide out in their apartment as if from an apocalypse, burn candles, eat yogurt, and talk late into the night. Enjoy!
Tristan L. Sullivan
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“I’ve kicked the habit…
Shed my skin”
Peter Gabriel
“Sledgehammer”
I came home last night after looking at a new house and meeting some potential roommates, and what did I find in my studio? A snake! A tiny garter, pencil thin.
For some reason, I knew instantly this was a sign.
This had never happened before. […]