Travels of the Summer

Whales. Whales everywhere.

Well, I'll be leaving for the Motherland on Monday evening: Azores. The occasion: my uncle's wedding. He's asked me to be the DJ at his party. What that entails has yet to manifest itself to me. I love the Azores. My aunt and uncle will be there, my other uncle, and my grandmother. I'm pretty excited to spend my two weeks there. It's Europe so anything goes.... within reason. The Azores is a very beautiful, almost tropical, paradise lost in the middle of the Atlantic formed by volcanoes. There are banana trees, pineapples, passion fruits, flowers; it's a tropical paradise, really. Sure leaving my friends for a couple weeks is a little unnerving but I'll have my laptop and internet, no doubt. I'll frequently update my blog with pictures, thoughts, and experiences while in the Azores as much a possible. Hopefully my blog readers will find my travels interesting and, hopefully, humorous. The Azores has always been where my heart has been. I get there and it's a breath of fresh air full of opportunities, late nights with family, and an overall relaxed experience. I'm nervous, however, to be the DJ at a wedding. I don't wanna be that annoying bro who mispronounces names, plays the electric slide, and annoys everyone with the choice of music. At any rate, most of the time spent in the Azores will be on beaches, with family, shopping, and walking around. It's been almost 5 years since I've last visited the Azores. Hopefully with my new found maturity (laughable) and cultural know-how from my previous travels to Italy, Lisbon, Madrid, and London, I'll be able to appreciate my time away from home before college punches me in the face. The Azores will be fun, for sure. I hope you all will enjoy reading about my time there. Pictures are sure to accompany the posts. Any comments or ideas of things for me to do while in the Azores, feel free to leave a comment.

- Andrew

The Creative Mind Block

It’s one o’clock in the morning. I’m sitting on my couch with my guitar in my arms. I’m staring blankly at the pitch black abyss surrounding my windows. Strumming one dissonant chord after another. Nothing is making any sense, musically. One chord to another, my guitar sounds like a crying baby deer. “Why can’t I just make this song happen?” I keep thinking to myself. After strumming a bit more, I realize this is quickly going nowhere. So, I go to my iTunes for inspiration. Track after track plays and I’m still not feeling creative.

Why does this always happen at the most frustrating times? This musical creative mind block is something I’ve been experiencing off and on for a month or so. I’ll sit down, strum two chords, think of a melody and put the guitar down realizing it’s going nowhere. I’m sure fellow musicians will attest to the frustration this block causes. It’s a feeling of meaninglessness, helplessness, and creative insecurity. When this block occurs, I feel less like a musician and more like a layman trying to construct a song.

After thinking about this phenomenon for a while, I realize that it might be caused by my utter dislike for pop music and it’s form. Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge/solo, chorus, out. <--- Typical pop musical format. Now, deep down inside, I’ve forced myself to write crappy pop love songs simply because I wanted to. I’ve forced myself to write all kind of music as well. But this time, it’s a bit more difficult.

I’ve actually gotten over this mental creative block recently. But I still realize that the musical inspiration is generally lacking. I no long can listen to music and get inspired. I find myself striving to write music that is generally unheard of, out-of-the-box, or just strange in general. Whenever I’m with fellow musicians, writing music is always easier. Perhaps it’s the energy in the air, the chemistry, and the creative flow of ideas. All I know is that when I’m playing with another person, I find myself in a state of emotionally creative bliss. Everything seems to work: I find the right notes at the right time, and the music is all that matters to me at that point in time.

I’ve had times where I’ll sit down alone and churn out an entire album in a zombielike state. Where it would’ve taken me 3 hours to create a musical work, I would have created an entire album when I’m is this mood. Now, this state of mind is rare and I wish I could have it all the time. (If anyone wants to hear proof of this, leave your email in the comments area or something and I’ll send you the album.)

Music is strange. One person’s hated genre is another’s favorite. I write music according to my own personal tastes. There is so much music that I want to hear that I can’t because it isn’t created yet. I make the music I want to hear. Perhaps that is why I can’t sit down and write a song every time I pick up the guitar. Oh well. If any fellow musicians read this, I’d like them to write about their own experiences of this mental musical block and what you did to get over it. Maybe it’ll help me get over this block. It’s good for you guys and for me. Good for you because you get to listen to more of my music. Good for me because I get to make music and keep on doing what I love. Thanks for reading this even if you can’t relate.

Thoughts on Language and Perception

I've recently been reading two literary works off and on throughout the summer. One is Huxley's "Doors of Perception" and the other is Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist". Before I get into how both books are similar in their views on language and perception, I'll provide some slight background on both works.
In "Doors of Perception", Huxley recounts an experience he has while under the influence of mescaline. He has auditory and visual hallucinations, his perception is shifted, etc. In Coelho's "The Alchemist", an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago meets an old king while in Morocco with his sheep. The king teaches him about life and how a person's "Personal Legend" can be realized. The king tells the boy that "when someone truly needs, wants, and believes in something, the universe conspires with him to make sure he gets it." The boy's Personal Legend is to go to Egypt and see the Pyramids where he will find a treasure. Along the way he meets alchemists, crosses the desert, and falls in love about 30 times (as a young man should).
Now that the background is out of the way, I will begin to explain what this post is all about. In "Doors", Huxley speaks of how written and read language is terribly inefficient in relaying experiences. He basically tells the reader that writing about experiences will never allow the reader to truly understand the significance of an experience or situation. Huxley believes that written language is never as useful as the unwritten language of the Human Experience. (MIND=BLOWN)
In "The Alchemist", Santiago learns about the Language of the World. The following passage takes place when Santiago is reading into omens and meditating while crossing the desert: "Things have to be transmitted (by God in the form of omens) because they were made up from the pure life, and this kind of life cannot be captured in pictures or words. Because people become fascinated with pictures and words and wind up forgetting about the Language of the World."
I think the point both authors are trying to make is that personal experience, not written word, is much more essential to life than reading about experiences. This is more pertinent today than ever before. Watching television all day will never substitute the physical experience of being somewhere, meeting somebody, or learning something new through experience. Of course books and television have helped society become culturally richer and more dynamic. However, are we becoming dependent on these mediums to experience the world for us? Should we just revel in the escapism books, television, movies, and video games give us? I don’t think so. I’ve been to many places and experienced many things. Reading about a bullfight in a Hemingway novel is radically different than actually sitting in La Plaza de Toros, hearing the bull’s pants, seeing the bright crimson blood, and hearing the crowd shout “OLE!” with each pass of the bull. Hemingway would have merely written, “The bull panted. It bled. A lot. People were shouting”. Does this mean Hemingway’s experience of the bullfight was any different than mine? I wouldn’t know. I’m not Ernest Hemingway. I have, however, experienced a bullfight in Madrid and, to me, it was unlike any experience I’ve ever read about. In fact, I don’t think anybody can accurately convey a complete experience of a bullfight in written form no matter how descriptive the language is. At any rate, the human mind is only capable of perceiving so much from descriptive written language.
Huxley’s psychedelic experience and Santiago’s realization of how the universe communicates are essentially the same adventure. Santiago learns to perceive the world around him differently. He learns that the Language of the World is neither spoken nor written. It is felt. I’ve come to the conclusion that the Language of the World according to Coelho and Huxley is essentially the same thing. It is a statement that the human mind is capable of many things. However, perceiving through written and spoken language is not one of them.
I’ve heard “the book is better than the movie”, and vice versa, many times. Is it that the reader is better at perceiving the story any better than the person who saw the movie? No. It simply means that the reader’s perception of the story is different than the movie-goer’s. Seeing a film is not quite the same as reading the novelization. In active reading, the mind is creating it’s own experience through the written word. The viewer of the movie is simply an observer of the director’s experience and perception of the story. The world is full of varying opinions, different thinking and learning patterns, and altered perceptions of things. As responsible human minds, it is up to us to see things in an altered manner; not always through the use of drugs. One can alter one’s mind through varying mediums: meditation, sleep deprivation, caffeine, what have you. In order to truly be accurate perceivers of the human experience all around us, we must remember that we are not alone in this experience. We are all connected through the Language of the World. Written and spoken words simply cannot stimulate one’s ability to perceive this experience. Human beings need to be stimulated to experience and perceive. Humans must experience things for themselves. We cannot let ourselves be enslaved by the false idea that reading and watching can substitute being physically, mentally, and emotionally engaged in an experience. Books conjure up emotions and images in the mind. However, can we truly experience the story until we’ve actually lived it? Can we accurately say “Don’t go back to help your friend! Pick up the knife and kill Jason!”? Unless one has actually been in the situation where a deranged serial killer is about to take your friend’s life, and one has to make the choice between helping your friend and killing the serial killer, the movie-viewer cannot say these things veraciously. I’ve begun to rant. The point is, don’t think just because you tell an "awesome" story, that everyone is going to react the same way that you did when you experienced the situation. Spoken and written language will never substitute the physical, mental, and emotional act of perceiving an experience. “So, we were all hanging out watching Twilight at Becky's house and Jacob took his shirt off. Becky started laughing so hard and then she kicked me in the face! I laughed! It was like SSOO funny!" "..... okay." "You just had to have been there”. You shouldn’t have taken up that much of my time.

The Tea Party, The New Right-Wing, and the Prevention of Social Change

This article, written by Don Monkerud, exposes the truth on the Tea Party movement, how it came to power, and why it can ultimately lead to a state ripe with social injustice: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/072910c.html

Those who keep up with political news, depending on where one gets their news, are quite familiar with the Tea Party Patriots, Tea Party Express, and the lobbying group Freedomworks. These groups consist of 80 percent white members, 60 percent of whom are over the age of 50. These people fear Obama's "Marxist" reforms to the American government. 75 percent of the Tea Party members want smaller government. Meanwhile, many Tea Party members live on Social Security, benefit from Medicare, and a fearful of the current economic state. All of these statistics come from the said article.

The Tea Party's goal is to bring America back into the dark ages of social and economic repression. They want to lower taxes which, in the long run, will cause bigger problems and a worsening federal deficit. The social oppression they preach is frightening. Bernie Sanders, the independent-Democratic Socialist Senator from Vermont, frequently shows disgust at how the Republicans, many of which are Tea Party Members, are blocking real social, environmental, and economic change.

In his recent week in review (found at http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=e8de0a02-9fa9-4539-b326-4fd64951ca2f) Sanders speaks of hypocrisy in Congress: ""We have (to) expose the hypocrisy that`s taking place in Washington," Sanders said on MSNBC. "The Republicans refused to vote to extend unemployment benefits last week for 2.5 million American workers. At the same exact time, they wanted to provide a trillion dollars in tax relief for the top 0.3 percent of the population. If that`s not hypocrisy is, I don`t know what is."

Figures on both sides of the Political Spectrum are being fed up. The Conservatives can’t make their voices heard, so they turn to radical groups like the Tea Party, help fund their operations, and use their insane and immature tactics to make their ideas heard. Liberals cannot pass true social reform without the Tea Party bashing it. The current political climate is one of limbo. The gap between Liberal and Conservative has become so great. Name calling is prevalent. Tea Party members call Obama a Socialist and Liberals call Tea Party Members Fascists. It’s a real turbulent time, politically, in America right now.

All the American people can do is look on, laugh, and elect members of congress and vote on laws in an educated manner. As citizens, it is up to us to have our voices heard. We shall not allow our voices to be silenced by the radical Tea Party movement. Does wanting comprehensive health care for all truly make us Marxists? If so, everyone else around the world are surely Marxists. How does wanting Marriage Equality make us friends of the devil? Jesus preached equality, acceptance of all, and love, right? He preached against many of old Orthodox Jewish laws. He preached against many of the old Mosaic Laws in the Old Testament. One of which says no gay marriage. He told his followers to follow Him and not the impractical Mosaic Laws (one of which preaches consuming shellfish is a sin: http://www.godhatesshrimp.com/). I digress. This is not a religious blog post by any means. The point is, Tea Party Members must realize how hypocritical and immature they’re being. By gathering on Capitol Hill and calling Democrats Socialists really going to get their point across? I think it just makes them more of a spectical for the American people to laugh at. Speaking of which, Glen Beck, Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh are all firm supporters of the Tea Party. These men, Glen Beck especially, have been known for their crazy antics on radio and on “Faux News”.

My conclusion is that the Tea Party is an oppressive and ignorant group of white Americans that simply cannot stand that fact that a black man is president. The Tea Party is incredibly racist. There’s an entire article dedicated to ignorant Tea Party signs (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/16/10-most-offensive-tea-par_n_187554.html). Tea Party leaders state that any racism is swiftly dealt with and the offenders are asked to leave. How can you regulate this when you have 8,000 angry rednecks preaching for the destruction of the Department of Education (I kid you not) all holding up posters of the Statue of Liberty weeping with Obama’s election day scrawled underneath it? The Tea Party doesn’t care. They’re overtly racist. They are afraid of social change. Their ignorance has caused their own problems and, so, they’re blaming gays, blacks, and Mexicans for their problems. This is all a big game of pointing fingers at the powers that be for causing the problems of the “hard-working man”. America, I urge us, as citizens, to stop this horrendous display of false-Patriotism. Is calling Obama the N-word truly embodying the American spirit of equality for all? (Does the question need to be answered?) It is up to the citizens to vote in the next Congressional election in an educated manner. If the Tea Party gains more fuel, the majority of heart-broken, poor, and disenfranchised Americans will turn to radical groups like the Tea Party to make sure their voices are heard. Hopefully America will make the right decision and the Tea Party will finally be exposed and shut down for their racist and bigoted remarks. I wish I could sympathize with the Tea Party in some way, shape, or form, just so their message doesn’t seem so kooky. But when one of your main platforms is the destruction of the Department of Education, I simply cannot let a group like this stand uncontested. I’m gonna make my own group of Liberals called the Founding Fathers. The name makes just as much sense as the Tea Party Patriots.

Hell, even Paul LePage is being backed by the Tea Party *shudders. In fact, I shudder every time I see a LePage sign in Waterville... Which is all the time.

I’m pretty sure many of the readers will disagree with my views on the Tea Party (Fascists) but I’d like to hear from you and your views on this movement that has, in recent months, truly made gains in their political influence.

What makes music memorable?

One of my new favorite bands is from Montreal. They're a francophone indie pop band named "

La Patère Rose". Translates to, I believe, The Open Rose. This song has been stuck in my head for the past two days: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWx4bjwp8-Y

It’s poppy, joyful, beautiful, sorrowful, and delightful all at the same time. It’s quickly made my list of top ten Canadian indie pop songs ever. (Believe me there’re enough Canadian indie pop songs to facilitate such a list.) I don’t speak fluent French at all. I only know the typical phrases such as, “Comment Ca Va?” or “Je veux une biere, s'il vous plait.”.

So, why is it that this song, sung in a language I know little of, such an infectious and memorable song? Is it the lyrics? I don’t believe so. The song could be singing about animal rights for all I know and I’d still enjoy it. As a musician, I find the lyrics of a song to be just as important as the instrumentation of a song. The human voice is an instrument to me. Singing helps aid and strengthen a melody that has already been established by, in this case, a melodic instrument such as the piano.

In today’s musical society, consumers crave music with memorable lyrics. Do they care about how the voice sounds in relation to the harmonies and melodies in a musical piece? In Lil’ Wayne’s case, absolutely not. Lil’ Wayne sings (or should I say auto tunes) about drugs, country matters, and other various “rebellious” things in his music. Teenagers, the most important consumers of Pop music, find his music to be raw, pugnacious, and entertaining. Why? It’s because today’s teens have very little to rebel against, socially. Thus, horrendously sexist, misogynist, and sometimes racist themed music becomes the Pop music. The consumer determines what Pop music is. Therefore, Lil’ Wayne and other “gangsta” rappers have become the musical norm.

My point to this discussion about Pop music is that it forces unnecessary attention to the lyrics’ subject matter rather than the actual song as a whole. How can music truly be music if it’s being created with the intention that the music, as an entire piece, is being put on the back burner for lyrics that make the listener feel defiant? I’m not saying protest/revolutionary music (in the likes of Rage Against the Machine) is necessarily bad. It’s admirable. Rage Against the Machine, Bob Dylan, and Jimi Hendrix all used music to protest and question authority through a medium that is universally appreciated. Is Lil’ Wayne questioning authority and awakening social consciousness when he says: “She lick me like a lollipop.”? You can decide that answer for yourself.

Music in other languages is a whole other issue. La Patère Rose, Malajube, and Coeur De Pirate are all Francophone bands from Montreal that I truly love, appreciate, and find mean something. They all sing in French about widely different subjects. In one album, Malajube sings about Roman Catholicism’s role in Quebecois society (Labyrinthes). Coeur De Pirate sings about love.

What makes their music memorable and the likes of Lil’ Wayne and Drake not? It’s the music, instrumentation, and musicianship coming together into one idea that invokes imagery, emotion, and fascination. When Drake tells his “girl” that “She’s the f**king best”, what kind of imagery, emotion, or fascination does that conjure up? None. It’s terribly inefficient at conveying any sort of emotion. There is no imagery because he doesn’t want any. And, the only fascination I find in such a lyric is “How is this popular?”. Then I realize. IT’S THE RADIO STATION AND THE BEAT. Oh man! That beat is sick. The radio station stuffs it down your ear canals 3000 times a day. You’re bound to hear it, bob your head to the beat, listen to the chorus all 40 times it’s repeated, and go out and buy it on iTunes for $1.99.

For other songs that are catchy and fun before the lyrics are paid any attention to, look up “You Look Better When I’m Drunk” by White Tie Affair. (Believe me. I couldn’t make this song title up if I tried.) I’ve reached a conclusion. Pop music is memorable because of its beat, lyrical subject matter (no matter what it is; good or bad), and airplay. Let’s face it, no one would listen to this no matter how many times it was played on Top 40 Pop music radio in America: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD6hdj5-u9s .

No matter how good a song is, it’s only as popular as its subject matter, beat, and radio play. It’s a cold hard fact in today's society that if you’re not on the radio, you’re pretty much an indie band. And if you’re on the radio, you’re a Pop puppet. I’m not telling people the radio is bad or that ALL music on Pop radio is bad. Once in a while, it’s nice to just let it all go while screaming “California Girls” by Katy Perry. It’s actually fun. I just hope that next time someone tunes into 92 Commercials (Credits to Goldsmith) they’ll sit there and actually listen to the lyrics. Maybe just maybe they might realize the sexist crap oozing out of the speakers and switch it off. That’s what I do on a daily basis. Hopefully this conjures up some sort of personal internal discussion about the music one listens to or maybe a debate between friends about what makes music enjoyable to them.

Thanks for the read. Feel free to comment.

- Andrew

North Korea declares war on US... For the lulz

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66M10I20100724

This article states that North Korea said on Saturday it would begin a "sacred war" against the United States and South Korea at "any time necessary" based on its nuclear deterrent, in response to "reckless" military exercises by the allies.

Well, Kim Jong Il dun goofed. The North Koreans sank a South Korean ship in March, killing 46 people on board. Thus, South Korea and US forces have been training side by side. Should I be scared? I don't know. I'm just anxious to see whether or not North Korea will actually follow through. They claim to be fighting a war against imperialistic America. I can sympathize with a sort of want for liberation for the World Police mentality the American military has. I'm not entirely sure what the American sanctions on Korean nukes states. However, it always seems, politically, that we feel the need to oppress nations for doing the same things we did. Okay, okay.... Kim Jong Il is insane and oppressive. He destroys human rights and flushes civil rights down the toilet. The fact that North Korea feels the need to obtain and keep nuclear weapons just proves the fact that Kim Jong Il is insane.

This is a so-called retaliatory war. North Korea states, in this quote, an obvious thing: "The army and people of the DPRK will start a retaliatory sacred war of their own style based on nuclear deterrent any time necessary in order to counter the U.S. imperialists and the South Korean puppet forces deliberately pushing the situation to the brink of a war," the North's National Defense Commission said. The Defense Commission calls the US imperialist and the South Koreans a puppet force. The US ARE the World Police and are exploiting South Korea's geographical position to North Korea for their own use. The thing is, North Korea is only doing this to heighten the stakes of US nuclear sanctions.

Is this just Kim Jong Il being all "LOL watch what happens when I say war!"? Or is it a real cause for concern? I'm hoping it's the former. The US is already burned fighting terrorism (you cant defeat and idea) in Afghanistan. If North Korea decides to start a war, where will the resources come from to fight THAT war? Will we need a draft? Who knows. What I do know is that North Korea, through all of this media craziness, is making a bold statement. Although the statement was bold in a slightly irrational way, by declaring war, North Korea is saying "American military should really stop being the World Police. Like, seriously you guys. We're crazy, you know this. Why are you still trying to make Kimmy Il stop being crazy?". North Korea will always be a Fascist Authoritarian state cloaked under Communism. Kim Jong Il's son is set to become the next leader when the Korean succession takes place. Will this leader be less insane and more receptive to nuclear sanctions? Who knows? North Korea will constantly have problems politically and militarily. Should we be worried right now? I don't think so. It's probably just North Korean media scare tactics. I'm pretty sure North Korea has already declared war on us last year...

The U.N. should continue to sanction North Korea's nuclear weapons potential. War shouldn't be the answer but Kimmy Jong isn't listening. So, where do we go from here? Full on nuclear war? Do we invade their country? WIll they attack us? Should we be afraid? So many questions so little time. What we SHOULD do is talk to Kim's son, corrupt him and his regime, and then turn it into a touristy money-making Asian paradise. THE AMERICAN WAY!

AMERICA!

Some lyrics/ poem I wrote

I wrote this at about 1 a.m. I'd been watching Ghost Hunters all night on Hulu. They were some sort of abandoned Lunatic Asylum. I got inspired and wrote this. Now, I'm not too sure of the underlying theme of the poem, to be honest. I sort of wrote it focussing on strong imagery. Hopefully it conjures up imagery of an old seaside town, postmodern, blah blah blah "industrialization is bad mmm-kay" kind of thing. I seem to write a lot about masks and stuff. (Wonder what Freud would say about that). Anyway, it follows some sort of incoherent pattern. There's a chorus, one could say. Upon further reading into the lyrics, I suppose it's all about loneliness, longing, false-happiness; you know, teen angst stuff.

Cool Pic. Possible accompanying artwork(?)

Victorian Ghosts of Simple Bay

We’re all part of a greater composite

Floating, breathing, press play and pause it

Shooting the target with rhinestone arrows

Open up the polyphonic bones devour the marrow

Gazing up at the sky hopeful for an achromatic sunrise

Head hung low under this disguise

Living life with masks of anonymity

Playing with the fabric of of equanimity

We’re all robots ghoulishly masquerading as beings of worth

Experience a premature death followed by an overdue birth

The beginning of the end is here pulling at the threads

The children all look on with heavy heads, with heavy heads

The afterthought remains

Like heavy cold steel chains

Lavender moonlight falls into the sea

Shouting out please come back to me

Grey skies fading away

Sunlight creeping into the bay

Ships and anchors floating endlessly

In the infinite sea of senility

We’re all robots ghoulishly masquerading as beings of worth

Experience a premature death followed by an overdue birth

The beginning of the end is here pulling at the threads

The children all look on with heavy heads, with heavy heads

Ghosts and spirits in boundless replay

Walking the streets of endless decay

Haunting the heartless and favoring the bold

Heavy and shining like the purest of gold

We’re all robots ghoulishly masquerading as beings of worth

Experience a premature death followed by an overdue birth

The beginning of the end is here pulling at the threads

The children all look on with heavy heads, with heavy heads