We feel alright!
Into a sea of lonely lovers we arrive,
given decisions for the division of sight and mind:
the lines combine ‘til everyone is smiling, blind.
We feel alright!
Whispering wisdom, knowing nods, and silent sighs…
Your contradictions prove your fiction.
(Some one starts a fight)
…I’m calling a cease fire!
You’re feeling down? Man, you’ll be fine.
You make your fun, and I’ll make mine.
We feel alright!
I’m lightin’ a smoke as an escape-route from the jive,
wetting my lips ‘cause coversation’s runnin’ dry…
Turn up the music, alright!?
You’re feeling down? Man, you’ll be fine.
You make your fun and I’ll make mine.
“What’s yours is yours, and what is mine is mine.”
Let’s share a drink and we’ll be alright.
Why can’t we all just get along?
Or at least pretend ‘til the end of this song:
“We feel alright!
We don’t discriminate, don’t hate; we’re Open Minds!
This is a party and you’re welcome anytime you like,
just don’t dare start a fight.”
How did we digress to this broken social scene:
such seperate sound—-such idle comradery?
Now, I’m not a lover or a fighter
——but I fight with such Love.
Forgive but try not to forget
to remember subtle sentiments.
Let everyone be friend and kin!
Let every conscience be cleansed!
‘Cause anger’s such a senseless affair,
and regret won’t get you anywhere.
And if the sound drowns out the poetry,
try reading it while listening.
Oh, the message is not lost:
It’s bottled up in a thesis-chorus!
Marooned on hopeful shores,
I may be ignored,
but I’m never bored!
If competition is the battle to feel free,
this condition just needs community!
Don’t you agree?
So, what are we fighting for?
What are we fighting for?
Why don’t you tell me?
‘Cause I’ve found myself Good Company
who can agree to disagree:
blue-collar or deadbeat,
diamond soles or bare feet.
Now that I don’t have to sing alone,
this microphone finally feels like Home.
If competition is the battle to feel free,
this condition just needs community!
Don’t you agree?
So, what are we fighting for?
What are we fighting for!?
In this vision (even the blind can see!),
the simple wisdom: Live in Harmony!
We wish you’d agree.
So, what are we fighting for?
Record:
Rufus Wainwright - Want Two
It sounds like crushed velvet feels.
Book:
Tom Robbins - Still Life With Woodpecker
In a society that is essentially designed to organize, direct, and gratify mass impulses, what is there to minister to the silent zones of man as an individual? Religion? Art? Nature? No, the church has turned religion into standardized public spectacle, and the museum has done the same for art. The Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls have been looked at so much that they’ve become effete, sucked empty by too many stupid eyes. What is there to minister to the silent zones of man as an individual? How about a cold childen bone on a paper plate at midnight; how about a lurid lipstick lengthening or shortening at your command; how about a styrofoam nest abandoned by a “bird” you’ve never known; how about a pair of windsheild wipers pursuing one another futilely while you drive home alone through a downpour; how about something beneath a seat touched by your shoe at the movies; how about worn pencils, cute forks, fat little radios, boxes of bow ties, and bubbles on the side of a bathtub? Yes, these are the things, these kite strings and olive oil cans and Valentine hearts stuffed with nougat, that form the bond between the autistic vision and the experiential world; it is to show these things in their true mysterious light that is the purpose of the moon.
Movie:
Dancer in the Dark
I weep.
Song:
Elbow - Ribcage
So, pull my ribs apart and let the sun inside.
Record:
Dr. Dog - Fate
Just listen to it (in its entirety and in its intended order (please)).
But, really, everything does sound better on vinyl.
Book:
Hunter S. Thompson - Kingdom of Fear
“Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us; they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them.” -H.S.T.
“Morality is temporary; Wisdom is permanent.” -H.S.T.
“Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of fuel. Sentimental people call it inspiration, but what they really mean is fuel. I have always needed fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.” -H.S.T.
Movie:
Synecdoche, NY
My thoughts:
It’s as if Charlie Kaufman is perpetually mired to his seat on the over-crowded subway of his Self, and Inadequacy is the man standing in front of him, clutching the safety handle, incessantly and unabashedly fish-tailing his ass directly in Charlie’s face. Unable to avert their eyes, any other plebeian would attempt to shield themselves with a day-old newspaper, but he summons the video camera from his satchel and immortalizes that taboo: broadcasting the would-be deleted scenes of a confessional booth to the masses. He makes movies into mirrors; ‘tis resplendently selfish. That man is, truly, stuck “between Scylla and Charybdis” (as They say).
Song:
Cat Stevens - If you want to sing out, sing out
Dig? Dig.
Just a second ago,
(with a soft bomb drop)
all the fauna was lost;
but the flora’s only fading like a fleeting frost.
The words “hope” and “home”
(that sound the same)
smell the same as the day
the doe caught a sad snowflake on her
tongue, and melted it in an instant,
and it tasted like
the blackhole’s wild-eyed longing for light:
whether from the stars that radiate
or the planets that reflect it
or the eyes that reflect the reflection
or the eyes looking into those eyes
and seeing the reflection of the eyes,
which,
if all goes according to plan,
will outlast the universe itself.
Now, the world was empty on the day when they made it.
But heaven needed some place to throw all the shit.
Human hearts and pain should never be separate;
They wouldn’t tear themselves apart both trying to fit.
The higher the branch, the longer the plummet;
One year or a thousand—-it’s still just one moment.
The smaller the casket, the sadder the story;
The longer you live, the more you get boring
All the days of the week are a daze of the weak.
Just a second ago,
someone passed a warm mask (in the form of a flask)
to a nail-gnawing knave with a present past.
Counter-culture is culture, and ‘non-conformists’ play copycat.
The parade passes the on-looker as he wonders why he’s not in it.
They booked a motivational speaker,
an earnest, bold believer,
who says, “Life is just too short.”
But no stopwatch can read
or predict time’s quality
(which surpasses its quantity’s worth).
