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…

-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 Lullabies by my studio. I had known a little of Meshell before that, but not much. I felt like I was hearing the production I had imagined and dreamed about in my head; someone had achieved it. The music really got to me.

So, back to the song. Fascinating, she casts Christ as the whore, the endless giver; herself as his 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.

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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I watched a documentary this week called Stupidity made by filmmaker Albert Nerenberg.

Nerenberg examines the concept of stupidity from several angles: media and spin, interviews with average people on the street, and interviews with academics and thinkers, including an interesting professor named Avital Ronewell, and the extraordinary Noam Chomsky. The film deals with the history of the concept, the IQ test, and hierarchies like Idiot>Imbecile… and so on. One thing evident right off in the interviews is that it’s easy to make people look stupid if that’s your intention, if that is your lens. Each of us has blind spots, or forgets things, or stutters on camera; it happens all the time. It also doesn’t prove a thing. It doesn’t even remotely indicate IQ.

Ultimately, I feel that examining this human phenomenon has two possible aspects: one helpful, the other not. The helpful way of examining it is to look at popular culture and the general dumbing down of our society via entertainment and what is commonly called “journalism”, and how this allows exploitation, deception, corruption and profiteering by corporations and the politicians who serve them. Basically, an examination of stupidity in our culture: the how’s, why’s, and a few examples to help us recognize it.
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Do you think dreams can teach you something about your life, stuff you need to learn? Can they offer clues to the psyche: hidden fears or beliefs, or help you with crucial decisions? Or are they just scattered bits you took in throughout 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 the details are just random. Sometimes they contain deep meaning, clues to our desires, anxieties, choices. I think these clues come more readily because we have to submit to sleep; the controlling ego is disengaged. Other times, in my opinion, dreams offer proof that we can sometimes see the future. Examples for me usually center around the natural world.

One night a few years ago, I dreamt 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 during the show, just before I woke up, the band brought out this huge, frightening, thirty-foot tall animatronic creature onto the stage. It was a monster; its legs were so long I could barely see its torso or head. It had that strange, frightening un-reality, oversized proportions you only see in the world of dreams. It was very tall.

I woke up.

The next day, at this beautiful music academy I teach at, a very gifted student named Bret gave me a CD by a band I had never heard before, called Evanescence. This was 2003 or so, and I hadn’t yet heard of them. I put the CD in, and was listening to it at one point during my hour and ten minute long, very rural, forested commute back to the Berkshires. About halfway home I turned a corner with the music up loud, and what did I see?

A moose. First time in my life. A giant buck sporting a full rack of antlers, and legs so tall that from my Volvo wagon I could barely see his head.
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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 this: Life is not about discovering yourself, life is about creating yourself.

But do you think that’s true? I like the idea, but on the other hand, I think we do have a fundamental character and the more we live and experience, the more life brings it out. Joseph Campbell, the world famous professor of mythology and religion, said our life evokes our character. I’ve come to agree.

How fascinating if we were all just streaming protoplasm, shapeshifting at will. But I don’t know. I think each of us has a recognizable quality, and life is a process of discovering it, honing and refining it. I’m not suggesting this means we’re locked in to any one outcome, or that one could predict with certainty how we will behave in any given situation. Part of the deliciousness of life on this material plane is choice. We can play many roles in one lifetime. We can change ourselves. But even then we’re rerouting: choosing a new aspect which lay dormant, like a genetic predisposition of the soul.

Beneath it all, I wonder if there is a character, a basic makeup. Let’s imagine you built a company up from nothing, and within five years it was worth three hundred million dollars. Then let’s imagine it all came crashing down; within a month you were in the red. It was over. You were virtually homeless. So let’s imagine you started out again at the beginning, and you built the whole thing up from the ashes. You built it stronger this time, because you had learned from your mistakes. Now many would say that experience was character building, and I absolutely agree that it is, but I would also say experience would be character revealing.
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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. It was fascinating. I was hypnotized by its sinuous, serpentine motion as it snaked across the floor.

If this was an omen, what did it mean? Was I about to be tempted? I spent some time last night and this morning studying the significance of the serpent as symbol or archetype. Apparently, it meant a lot of different things to different people through the ages, but there were two that spoke to me the most. Well, a third possibility is the return of my ex-girlfriend Natalie, a dark, dangerous beauty who’s spirit animal is definitely the serpent.

But that’s another story… . So, two meanings, from this symbol:

One, I had just the day before been reading about awakening Kundalini at KL Masina’s be Conscious now weblog, so I was fascinated to find out this morning that the snake is associated with the stirring of Kundalini energy. Definitely relevant. And not surprising then, that it showed up, as this is how life tends to unfold.

Two, I had just been looking at a house and potential roommates. So that brings us to another association with the snake. Change. The snake sheds its skin. It changes.

I’ve been changing too… quite a lot in the past year, culminating in the past few months, in which change has accelerated.

I eventually brought Snake outside and set him free in the beautiful, wild Berkshires, but I regard this as an auspicious omen. A good sign.

Tristan L. Sullivan

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