Driving home last night, I heard the song “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer. Do you know the piece? I think it’s very innocent and pretty. All the more interesting since the piece was written by a man, yet has such a feminine sensibility. The group identifies as a Christian band.

I also know a song by Christian writer Nicole Nordeman, called “To Know You”, one obviously about Christ, and tinged with biblical references. I find it very evocative and beautiful. Try it:

So, given the above, I wanted to try and address a question: Why do I intrinsically feel uncomfortable with the idea of contemporary Christian music?

My examination of this has led me to a fascinating idea: Maybe all art is an attempt to worship, to connect with the divine. That concept has been so misused and abused in the last few thousand years that I think art is one of the last ways to find our way to it. Love probably is too, and I’ve noticed that they seem to come from the same place.

So, I’m grateful for the Christian Rock genre. It led me to this fascinating idea. May I repeat? All art is an attempt to connect with the divine. I don’t care if you’re talking about Nine Inch Nails or Marilyn Manson. It is all about getting closer to the source, closer to God, as Mr. Reznor reminds us, and if I fail to understand this it’s likely that I have too narrow a definition of the divine.

As such, “Christian Rock” bands seem redundant. They’re a copy of a copy. You don’t need to write “Birthday Cake” on the birthday cake. People will get it. Why call yourself a Christian band? I think the attendant criteria could cripple any genuine attempt at making music.

If an artist identifies as Christian, that’s fine. If a group makes music from their passion and sincerity, and that happens to reveal ideas about Christ, their work will have real power. If they write music with the intention of “spreading the word about Jesus” however, then to me they’re faking it. Music has such a sublime beauty and power, I am extremely leery of anyone using it to serve a preexisting agenda. I no longer believe in “bad” music as music that is poorly played. In my experience, people mostly use that label to bolster their own ego. There is music I don’t care to listen to, but in my view, the only truly bad music is insincere music. I suspect you could find that in any genre.
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Thank you to my loyal fans who have stopped in and visited during this time of transition. I love my new place! Possibilities stretch out before me. I think they are always there, it’s just that we need to let go sometimes and embrace the unknown to find them.

I have three or four brand new Imagine Weblog posts I am tweaking for release, along with a huge amount of music and video for my website, but let me start with the following. I want to relate to you an experience I just had, in the past 48 hours.

Two days ago, a woman approached me on a city sidewalk and asked me for spare change. Then she pointed down the street, apparently to her favorite restaurant, “Can you take me in there and buy me some chicken?” she asked. She was old, and very skinny. I took the money from my pocket. I had a one and a five. I gave her the one. “Can I have a little more to buy some food?” she asked. “I’m hungry.”

“It’s Christmas,” she added.

I smiled as if I knew about such things. I stated that if I gave her the five I wouldn’t eat that night myself. That wasn’t really true, although it was all the cash I had. I gave her the dollar. She thanked me and we parted ways.

Somehow the experience settled in, and in thinking about it that night I began to suffer. I’ve been approached by street people many times before: drunks, homeless people, and though I’ve been affected by some of them, most I don’t even remember. This woman was different for some reason, maybe because she really was hungry. I kept thinking about her. I hated that I hadn’t given her the rest of my money. I hated that she was hungry, and that life had been difficult for her. It caused me pain. I suffered.

Wednesday came and went. A lot happened, and then it was over.

This morning I went to my music academy where i teach gifted special needs students how to play music (actually, I don’t really teach them that, they understand it intrinsically; we work on original compositions and play music together), and although I needed to go back later, I came home, got directions to that street again, and drove to the same place hoping to find her. The short drive was tinged with a kind of aching sadness- a sense that I might never see her again, and that my failure would be something I would have to live with.
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I’ve missed my loyal readers here at the Imagine Weblog. I’m back. I spent the last month securing and moving into my new apartment, just outside of Northampton, Ma, and it is fabulous. It’s a great place to write and create; I will have many new releases coming your way soon.

Until then, I offer this hand held video tour of my new place. I will soon have a more current one.

The moon is almost full outside my window as I write this, and people across the street have decorated their three story Victorian house with candles in their windows and Christmas lights. Things are going well.

I should be posting a new Imagine weblog entry soon.

Tristan L. Sullivan

-Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it’s from Neptune.

-Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.
-Noam Chomsky

The truth draws people in. They sense something is wrong, sense that somehow they need to wake up- cut through the thick fog of lies, disinformation, advertising, mindless entertainment and the calculated doctrine of empire. Why else would Noam Chomsky be so influential, so in demand? He is truthful and unafraid, and people sense this is a very rare thing.

I recently watched three different shows on youtube on which Chomsky appeared as a guest, one of Bill Maher, another an hour long conversation with Charlie Rose, and a third who’s name I forget. In each of them, the interviewer started out by saying the same thing: we are inundated with emails and requests to have you on. Charlie Rose spoke of this several times during the hour long interview.

This is a white man in his seventies. A linguistics professor, the son of Talmudic scholars who spent his life teaching at MIT, in addition to his activism. He has stated himself that if he knew how to be a dynamic speaker he wouldn’t do it. Does this sound like the kind of personality that draws attention in this culture, in the world we’re living in today? Yet, he is immensely popular and influential.

Chomsky’s tenets are uncomplicated. He notes, for example, that US atrocities appear to be wholly permissable, while their atrocities are a vile crime. He points out what an absurd and vicious doctrine this is. This seems to make mainstream media conglomerates, committed propagandists and many western intellectuals uncomfortable. Mainstream media almost completely shuts Chomsky out. Yet, the people who suffer for those policies are thrilled to hear someone say it.

I think truth, combined with the courage to speak it, draws people in. We have a thirst for it.

Tristan L. Sullivan

A quick follow up on my last post: I feel NPR has some meaningful programming. Alternative Radio, for one. Some NPR affiliates carry Democracy Now. Some clearly don’t. But let me further explain the concern I was trying to voice in my last post.

It troubles me that a person who senses there is something wrong with this country: with its policies abroad, with the increasing gap between extreme wealth and crushing poverty, with the increasing tendency toward rigidity and obedience to power in the media… might switch on NPR on their way home from work and think, this is the limit of debate on the left. This is the extent of journalism, of the coverage of activism and democracy. For thinking, feeling people, this is it.

Increasingly, I feel that if you aren’t feeling energized by what you’re hearing, it is probably filtered, euphemized, disingenuous. It’s not getting to the heart of the matter. If you feel engaged and energized by a program on NPR, then it’s a good one! You’re learning something. If you don’t, do not despair. With podcasts downloaded to your iPod, college and other progressive radio stations that are actually of and about the people, and with Pacifica stations, which I feel are on the whole much more genuine, progressive and more alive with real people and real issues than National Public Radio, there is no need for the NPR malaise. There is an alternative. As the saying goes, the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. This is normal. Stay with it.

Tristan L. Sullivan

Deep NanoMoisture Care Set

“…these candidates talk about change, they don’t know what change is.”

-Mike Gravel, presidential candidate

Monday night, on the PBS program Newshour, former US Senator from Alaska Mike Gravel did something extremely unusual.

He was truthful. He spoke about issues that are actually on people’s minds in this country, and this is so strikingly unusual, and demonstrates by contrast so well the pathetic farce the political system of the United States of America has become, that it was probably the best political piece I have seen on PBS.
Certainly the best interview of a politician, local, state or federal. If they interviewed Kucinich already I missed it; I suspect his will be excellent also. But back to Mr. Gravel.

Seventy two percent of Americans, give or take a few percentage points, indicate they feel there should be universal health care coverage in this country. An even greater number seem to feel the health care system needs major changes. Politicians will say that this is not politically feasible, and this is a flat out lie. It is more than feasible. As Mr. Gravel pointed out, we spend more money on the military than the rest of the world combined, while our education system is painfully lacking, while our health care system rates low in comparison to other industrialized nations.

Mr. Gravel was speaking directly about real issues Monday night, issues that actually matter in people’s lives. He was doing this without the opaque filter of rhetoric, euphemism, elitism… all the things we get from political candidates on both sides on a regular basis. It was as if this news program transformed for seventeen minutes; was suddenly vivid when it had mostly been dull.

I had a similar experience when I first discovered a radio station in the Pioneer Valley, a Pacifica affiliate called WXOJ-LP. I had been used to NPR, and trying to glean information or analysis or inspiration from an NPR station. This NPR station is powerful and pervasive. Over time, you get the notion that, for people on the left or people actually interested in issues- NPR is the best you can do. That’s a depressing notion. When I first started listening to programs on the Pacifica station I mention above, such as Democracy Now, Antidote Radio, Axis of Justice with Tom Morello, it was like I had been living on thin gruel, and had just walked into a room with a colorful feast layed out for me to eat.

It comes down to intent. Candidates don’t speak truth, because they don’t want to. Let’s imagine a man walks into a room to speak on a given topic. First time. We can say many things about his style, his presentation, diction, phrasing, his use of language; none of those things means even half as much as his fundamental intent. If he has respect for his audience and actually wants to express something, and they are remotely interested in hearing it, it’s likely that he will. If he doesn’t have respect for these people, or if he is motivated by something contrary to speaking truth, then he won’t deal with substantive ideas, and he won’t reach people. It’s just empty calories. It’s obfuscation and manipulation. The problem comes when he is well dressed, well appointed, and representing some prestigious institution or another. So this makes people question themselves. Why am I bored with this? Maybe I’m just not interested in issues. It’s beyond me. But that’s not true.
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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 it now. The people that shine the most, that somehow draw people to them, are the ones who reveal themselves and take risks. It’s true.

Photo of KD Lang from Special Ops Media

Tell me I’m the only one…

-Me’Shell Ndegeocello “Mary Magdalene”

Me’Shell Ndegeocello wrote and recorded one of the most sincere, powerful, beautiful love songs I have ever heard. It’s called “Mary Magdalene”. The record is Peace Beyond Passion.

I worked with a talented bass player named Andrew Lack. One day he dropped Peace Beyond Passion and Plantation Lullabies by my studio. I had known a little of Me’Shell before that. Not much. Such a powerful influence after that. I felt like I was hearing the production I had imagined and dreamed about in my head; someone actually achieved it for real.

So, back to the song. The artist casts herself as Christ’s companion and would be lover, and she somehow captures the longing, aching feeling of a painful crush. It’s not clear whether she will get what she wants, just that she would do anything for it.

I want to publicly thank Me’Shell for doing such extraordinary work.

Tristan L. Sullivan

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 ourselves, why did he say it? To remind us of his honor and nobility? To congratulate himself? But I’m being coy. In truth, I think the reason is pretty evident.

It is hard to miss the defensiveness implied in Mr. Gonzales’s self-serving statement. It is interesting to hear a man describe as honorable and noble his commitment to sweeping and unprecedented executive power. It is interesting to hear him describe as honorable and noble his lap dog eagerness to cater to the powerful corporations and war profiteers that lie in bed with his beloved mentor, George W. Bush.

I wonder, does Mr. Gonzales judge his work as US Attorney General as honorable, and noble? Excepting the moral cowards who toe the party line without actually examining the facts, it seems few would agree. Much the way FEMA was drained, weakened, stripped of its resources and, in the words of a FEMA employee “effectively marginalized” under President George W. Bush’s changes prior to hurricane Katrina, which included the installation of one of his incompetent cronies as director, the US Department of Justice was “Demoralized. Discredited. Dynsfunctional.” under Alberto Gonzalez’s extremely incompetent leadership.

Mr. Gonzales stated that he is someone who has “lived the American dream.” What a truly perverse idea he must have of that. I sometimes wonder if Alberto Gonzales has been manipulated and exploited by the Bush family, and deserving of our compassion for it. The gratitude and admiration in his eyes for his mentor is unmistakeable. Whether he is personally predisposed to fascism, war profiteering and the sanction of torture I couldn’t say. From a distance, it’s hard to discern what may be just an extremely weak character coupled with greed, from actual malicious intent. The fact is, whatever the reason, he did further these things.
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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 information, the sheer number of issues playing out across the planet every day? We have more choices than ever now for learning. The world is smaller; the information available is massive, and maybe the whole array of choices is intimidating. I wonder if the emphasis on stupidity in popular culture is a sort of reaction to that, a way of saying, hey, we’re not quite ready. We’re afraid. Thus the strange appeal in vacuousness.

Then again, despite the availability of information and the time we are afforded to study it, a good deal of TV and popular entertainment is pitifully stupid. So maybe the answer is a more prosaic one. Maybe people are just reflections of the vapid shit they consume on a daily basis.

In my opinion, the most serious problem facing our culture right now is not stupidity, it is desensitization. You bump into the pitifully stupid; it’s true, but most are more than smart enough to grasp and make informed decisions about the issues in their lives. It’s just that with so little say in them, they feel there wouldn’t be any point. As much as the ruling elite may have succeeded in obscuring the truth and dumbing people down, I feel a more serious issue is their success in numbing people down.
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