Sick unto death of being part of the problem

[Philter]

I wouldn't expect much social change to follow from a "don't worry, be happy" attitude. That's not a condemnation- it takes all sorts.

[Jotown]

We are all multi-dimensional beings. Physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. One of the reasons we are artists, (and this isn't always a choice) is that we are open, and that we feel, and see a little deeper than most folks. This is a blessing and a curse. Ms. Estes words are wise: [quote]Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.[/quote]It is natural for our spirit to get weak with the daily bombardment it gets. You have to find a way to nurture your soul, and begin again. As artists, we are powerful people, it's easy to forget that sometimes. Start in you, and realize you do have a circle of influence. You will be alright my brother. As Ms. Estes reminds us: "To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these" Your soul shines bright, and sometimes you have to start by shining it on yourself first. Good luck on your journey my friend.

[eh steve]

ARTHUR: In the name of the Lord, we demand entrance to this sacred castle! FRENCH GUARD: No chance, English bed-wetting types. I burst my pimples at you and call your door-opening request a silly thing, you tiny-brained wipers of other people's bottoms!

[Super 8]

[quote]Originally posted by Jotown: [b]It is natural for our spirit to get weak with the daily bombardment it gets. You have to find a way to nurture your soul, and begin again. [/b][/quote]A little [i]'Chicken Soup for the Musician's Soul'[/i] oughta fix you up right... [img]http://lfa.atu.edu/Brucker/images/lavalampblue.gif[/img] [img]http://lfa.atu.edu/Brucker/images/Warhol%20soup%20can.JPG[/img] [img]http://lfa.atu.edu/Brucker/images/lavalampblue.gif[/img]

[Curve Dominant]

Ted, Take the cross off of your back. Life is imperfect for everybody, not just you. DO SOMETHING.

[Tedly Nightshade]

Da Coiv- Many, many things are being done. Many things be done for a long, long, time. I been at this dilemma for the longest time. I've been applying all this social work (did I mention the years doing music and changing diapers with the victims of our institutions for the not-altogether-there? A refreshingly original bunch, I must mention), all this contribute to a positive change, for so long- I have been surrounding myself with beauty and love and positive healing people for so long. Why do so many assume that I wouldn't be having this dilemma if I had ever thought or acted past the beginning stages? The whole auto culture is so destructive, it's unconscionable. I'll feel a little better when I'm burning biodiesel instead of gasoline, but even when I travel by bike I travel on the roads, one of the vicious corsets binding the earth to death. I see the corpses of better animals than any of us lining those roads daily. Contributed a few corpses myself. The cross ain't on my back, it's on the other gal's back, and just 'cause I'm not the one being tortured to death doesn't mean I can stand it.

[Uh Clem]

A whine, a roar - I have recorded both as WAV files and analyzed them extensively and they are nearly identical except for volume - try it and see. :D Many things about the world suck, many things about the world are glorious. And they always have been. Your sentiments are as timeless as they are useless. In the large scheme of things our trivial little lives and gigantic concerns are laughable at best. You are right - what you do might matter or not - that's the same deal we all get. My dog may be more important in the long run than I am for all I know - I'm cool with that.

[Prague]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Super 8: [QB][QUOTE]If this is all you've gotten out of 30 years of writing music, you have gotten much... [b]Ted[/b], I guess I missed this. I think you meant I have not gotten much. Well, Les Paul after 50+ years in music came to a similar conclusion. "There are 2 kinds of music; Good and Bad". People either like your music or they don't. That is what I found out, too.

[Tedly Nightshade]

I thought the difference between a whine and a roar was the playback speed... My 'sentiments' are far from timeless. We've done more destruction to the world in my father's lifetime than humans have managed to do in the previous however long it was. Yeah, the Romans deforested and trashed Europe, and sucked asbestos napkins for their troubles. I think many of us would live our lives in a less trivial fashion if we thought about all the bones crunching underfoot, and considered the phenomenal price that is paid for our every move and every day that goes by. At least I hope we would. I will anyway.

[Raymar]

quote: [b]I think many of us would live our lives in a less trivial fashion if we thought about all the bones crunching underfoot, and considered the phenomenal price that is paid for our every move and every day that goes by.[/b] Ah, existentialist guilt. Some people just don't quite feel like they're alive unless they're in some pain. Take a tip from the Buddha and lighten up.

[Tedly Nightshade]

Why all the guilt talk? Surely we can be empathetic and responsible at the same time without guilt. I sure as hell am not guilty. I've fucked some things up in my time that I feel some real regret about, but all this shitting and spewing poisons in our nests is not anything I caused. I've cleaned up a lot of messes that I didn't make, and I'd like to leave things nice for the kids. That's responsibility and empathy, not guilt. Try it- it ain't easy, but it's worth it for someone, if not necessarily yourself.

[NOT Bolt Rifles]

[quote]Originally posted by Ted Nightshade: [b]For a while it seemed like the tide was turning around here- like we really might be able to complete an album and get the show on the road. I can't go on driving the car, trashing the natural world I so love, doing my little dance on the mass graves of the tortured and starved, and on the bones of the poisoned and neglected. To be able to pursue a life of privilege when so many, human and otherwise, are deprived of their most basic animal needs is beyond me. I am incapable of sustaining the tortuous rationales that enable me to burn resources like there's no tomorrow while maintaining the openness necessary for creative work. And the idea that that work could in any way redeem my role in the ongoing exploitation and destruction is just not an idea I can buy anymore. Today I finally broke it off with my engineer, the album mostly tracked, a couple attempts at final mixes done. There is no doubt in my mind that the music in question is as powerful and healing and music gets, that it is sorely needed in these times, and that kept me going for a while. On the way to the studio I would see three or four cops pulling people over for driving while poor, and I never once had the guts to stop and get out and stand up for any kind of justice. Why? I would have been beaten up and incarcerated for my troubles, and I'm just too chickenshit. I can't live with myself when I just drive on by as people's already barely workable lives are further disrupted by the police. I know what it was like in Nazi Germany to walk on by not attracting undue attention while brains were spilled against the streets- I do the same thing every time I go to town, and if brains are being spilled instead of much-needed means of transportation being confiscated, I will probably do the same thing. My relief at not being stopped and searched and harassed myself is considerably dampened by the knowledge that just that is happening to people all day long, while the known child molesters in the neighborhood are left to go about their horrible entertainments. And the many locals who would feel a lot better about taking matters into their own hands are sitting on those hands contemplating their own prosecutions if they were to do that, prosecutions that would not be neglected. I thought I could find the strength and peace to finish the album while the engineer made racist and homophobic asides, quite out of habit, all day, and maybe I could have if this damned invasion of Iraq hadn't taken place. But it's more than I can stomach to be helped by someone who views me as valuable and people of other colors as expendable, even if this is a largely unexamined view held mostly out of long habit. It just calls too much attention to my own hypocrisy- making art with power obtained from the radioactively poisoned and dammed Columbia river, which flowed freely and unpoisoned mere decades ago, driving to work on a road made by dredging the recently wild rivers, enjoying the pleasures of the area because the Chinese, who were once half the population here, were tortured, killed, and harassed out of the place, as were the native peoples. All so recently I can taste it. I can't see continuing to take part in the rape and waste of the land I love, in the destruction of the habitats and food supplies of the plants and animals I love, in the poisoning of everything and everyone I hold dear. There is nothing I can do with music that will reverse any of that. I can do powerful, transformative magic, healing, but it's nowhere near enough, and the price is too steep for me to stomach. Plus I'm scared of all the harassment, all the detainments, confiscations, imprisonments, beatings, and shootings of the American police state running amok. I know touring would be to place myself and my bandmates constantly in harm's way, while poisoning the earth, it's animals plants and peoples all the while. I am trying to figure out what to do. Proceeding with our plans is totally unworkable at least for now, and heartbreaking as that is, it is nowhere near as heartbreaking as the horror unfolding everywhere, and the straw that's breaking this camel's back is the callousness and smugness with which so very, very many of us think of the "ragheads", the "faggots", the whores, the drug addicted, the desperate, and the dying. The first lesson of the first scene of the Bhagavad Gita is from Krishna to his charioteer- we must kill that we may live. I can handle the killing, that can be merciful. But there is no way torture, poisoning, rape, and starvation can be merciful. I am unfit for this life.[/b][/quote]Boy, am I glad none of this stuff ever happens to me. Maybe it's because I'm from the midwest. If I did'nt know better I'd swear that this post was straight out of a novel, probably written by Naomi Wolfe. Hope it all works out for you. NBR

[Tedly Nightshade]

Oh god not Naomi Wolfe. She got Germaine Greer out of retirement, to dismantle Naomi's "power feminism"- basically you kiss ass, get rich, and call it empowerment. Germaine Greer is a seriously scathing read, man I love her. She says, women in a lot of countries are learning to handle machine guns, and when they get here, you'd best hope they can tell whose side you're on. Ever see her in that "Film about Jimi Hendrix"? belle hooks on Naomi Wolfe: "She'll run you over on the way to the makeup counter". No, Naomi is quite oblivious to the bones underfoot.

[Super 8]

[quote]Originally posted by Ted Nightshade: [b]Why all the guilt talk? Surely we can be empathetic and responsible at the same time without guilt. I've cleaned up a lot of messes that I didn't make, and I'd like to leave things nice for the kids. That's responsibility and empathy, not guilt. [/b][/quote]Well, I think he was saying that you come across as having a lot of guilt -and you kind of do. But I think I can see where you are going with this. I'd never begrudge a person for giving a damn. It's true, we are leaving a pretty big mess here on earth, in the name of prosperity. I think we are taking some steps in the right directions too -but that's not the point. It is important to think about what we are leaving behind. Will future generations -thousands of years from now- have something that inspires awe, like the great pyramids of Giza? Or will they only have a collection of toxic dumps to remember the 20th century by? Because the 20th century will go down as being perhaps those most significant century in history... We have all of this great technology that we have developed, and it's true that we haven't really spent much time thinking about the damage and waste that these things create... Okay, so now we have established ourselves. Now it's time to clean up our mess... To figure out how to make more with less -and when we're done with it, to turn it into something else. The CHALLENGE will be, how to do this with minimum effect negative effect on business and the ecconomy. In fact, it really needs to be profitable for us, rather than legislated. This way, we are doing it because we want to, not because we have to. It's the only way it will get done right, and in the shortest amount of time. It CAN be done. I took an envrionmental biology class a number of years ago, and read of some very interesting innovations by people who understand what it takes to affect changes WHILE working within the system. It's possible for everybody to benefit.

[Tedly Nightshade]

Very engaging thoughts, Super8. My question is, profitable for whom? What we have going now is not profitable for the vast majority of the earth's human population, let alone the other species. There's certainly plenty of real work to be done, and a lot of paper-pushing that represents no real work (some paper-pushing does, but a lot of it is a shell game). I think the immediate and artificially manipulated financial pressure on folks results in a lot of damaging decisions with only very short-term gains. Got to get through the day, no time to think of the long term, that kind of thing. I understand in Europe, stores have to accept back and deal with all the packaging they sell. As a result there is a lot less of the plastic waste packaging material that is so common here in the states, where it's all on the "consumer" (what an insult- do we produce nothing?) to deal with it all. That's surely the result of legislation, not that I think legislation is any kind of cure-all.

[Lee Flier]

Ted, sorry I didn't see this earlier, because as you now know I haven't been able to check the forums for the past week. Well, you already know I love you Ted, so I'm gonna be straight with you here: I think you're choosing to focus on the things you can't do out of fear of doing what you CAN do. Specifically, it seems whenever you get close to having a musical project finished you bail out of it in some way, saying it's not good enough or that it can't possibly save the world, or the engineer is a racist, or whatever. I think we can all relate to that feeling, but if you're being "part of the problem" it's not because of all the bones you're trampling underfoot, it's because you're withholding what you CAN do, which apparently is to make music. Or, as Gandhi said, "Nothing you do will be of any importance, but it is very important that you do it." As you know I've been involved with activism of various sorts for most of my life, and I see the kind of thing you're suffering from a lot, went through it myself a long time ago. There were a few things that I observed over time though, which helped me to get to a better place about all that, and I haven't really experienced what you're experiencing since then. So if you don't mind, I will try to summarize my observations as best I can in a relatively short space, although it's tough! - Culture is a collection of defaults. It's it's not within anybody's capacity to continually reinvent the wheel in everything they do in daily life. Therefore cultural norms exist which define how to do stuff and who does it, without your having to think about it. And for the most part, people accept and use these "defaults" unless there's a really compelling reason to do otherwise - either a catastrophe disrupts the ability to do things by default, or something comes along which is so much more compelling than the current default, that it becomes a new norm, or an individual finds a way to do some specific thing (or specializes in something) that they feel is better for THEM, even though it's not the norm. I'm not making any judgement at all as to whether this observation is "good" or "bad" - obviously there are good and bad things about it, but it's a reality there is no getting around: culture is a collection of defaults, and most people use the default in most things, except for in their individual areas of specialization. - Therefore, in order to "change the world" you have to change the defaults, and as I said above, people have to have not only a compelling reason to do this, but they also have to be shown there is a WAY to do it that won't disrupt their lives (unless their lives have already been disrupted by an emergency situation). - The problems you speak of have to be addressed at the level of cultural norms in order to be truly solved. Individuals can go off and live in the woods and use no electricity and declare themselves (falsely in any case) "not part of the problem," but that's like turning on a kitchen faucet to hold back the tide. People from all walks of life have to participate in changing cultural norms - engineers, scientists, governments, retailers, everybody. Berating individuals for not making sweeping changes in their lifestyle won't do any good, because most people simply won't do it, they don't know how or feel it would be too difficult. And indeed, it WOULD be too difficult for most people, even well intentioned and well informed people, to design and build their own homes, and ditch the "consumer" lifestyle on all levels, considering the way things are. Changes need to be made by lots of different people and organizations, each in their own area of specialty, so that the "default" way to do things is less exploitative. If you have to make a conscious and deliberate choice as to how to do every little thing you have to do throughout the day, it's not sustainable (as you find out yourself every so often). It drives you nuts. Certain everyday things HAVE to be defined by cultural norms. - Therefore if you give a damn and you want to help change those norms, the only way to do it effectively is to do it in the areas where you are most qualified, where you have a gift. And if you do your part you also have to trust that others who care will do theirs, and that those who are working for good will inspire each other. Those who hide away and feel that whatever they do isn't good enough, are simply wasting whatever energy they COULD contribute, not to mention making the rest of us who care feel even more alienated and alone. - In order to do your part, you have to make Faustian bargains to a certain degree. HAVE to. You might want to grow all your own food and supply all your own power, but if your job is to be a musician and you don't play a gig because you have to drive a car and use grid power to do the gig and you have to eat at McDonald's when you get done playing, or you won't release your CD because the materials that made the CD have contributed to poisoning the land, you've trampled on many more bones IMO than had you played the gig and put out the CD. Because if by burning a few more dead dinosaurs you inspire someone in a different walk of life to design a new default, maybe a new way to manufacture CD's or get to your gig in a way that doesn't trample so many bones, then the amount of good you do will be much greater than you would by staying home and hiding your passion from the world. This could be summed up by saying "Don't sweat using the defaults when you need to, in order to accomplish your more important work." - If you're leading by example, don't be a shitty example. Nobody wants to follow someone who is miserable or self sacrificing or comes off as someone on the lunatic fringe. Most people want to enjoy life as much as possible, and indeed Darwinism suggests that we should because those who are most motivated to survive, will. If you really want to influence people in the kind of numbers it would take to change the cultural defaults, you should make your own physical and mental and emotional health a priority. If you're having a better time doing things your way than most people are doing things the default way, then people will want to do things your way. If you come off as an unhappy, bitter, burned out person, no one is going to want to follow your example or they'll figure they will end up like you, or that only a crazy self sacrificial person would want to live as you do. It makes me sad when you get in this kind of state Ted, because I really do believe that you're living a better life than most and you could be having more fun than the average person and inspiring others to do the same, if you didn't get so overwhelmed by all the stuff you can't do. If you could just focus on making YOU better, and getting your music out no matter what it takes or how scared you are, you might incidentally help save the world too. If you can't, I can pretty much guarantee you won't. Which would just SUCK, because I know for a fact that you have so much more to offer everybody than most. Howard Thurman, a minister and a friend and classmate of Martin Luther King, once said something that I repeat to myself about as often as I do the Gandhi quote: "Ask not what the world needs. Find what makes you come alive and then go and do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." If you believe your music heals people, get it out there. People who are healed and vital and alive, pretty much by default make better and more conscious decisions in their lives than those who aren't. Those kinds of people just might contribute to solving all these problems that concern you, each in their own way, the way it needs to happen, the only way it CAN happen.

[GeorgeVW]

When loading up the band truck, the key is to pick the items that you can lift by yourself, and get help with the ones you can't. You can't just walk up to the first thing you come across and do it yourself - it might be the keyboard player's C3. If you keep trying to put that organ in the truck by yourself, you'll end up being no use to anyone. Remember, despair is a heresy, mostly because it leads to inaction. George

[realtrance]

And perspective is valuable, too. I've been forced to burn my excessive share of fossil fuels, criss-crossing the entire USA a few times in the past months looking eagerly for a job. It's a shame I have to be traveling that far to find one! Oh well... but: I always try for a window seat, and I'm the bugger who doesn't pull down his window shades when they want to show you the LCD movie in-flight, 'cause I have a better view down there. Amazing how much country there is out there. Amazing how little of it we've really touched. The most evident and extensive destruction is of the grass prairies, they've all been turned into these cute and seemingly meaningful circles, squares, of different shades of green and brown. Somebody told me that's agriculture. Those squares and circles ship tons of food all over the place. Anyways, I'd maybe suggest a flight across the country, keeping your eyes on the ground -- you'll be amazed how much left there is. I feel along with you all the despair over what I think are truly tangible macro changes we're making to our environment, many of which I think are irreversible and some which may prove to be the global equivalents of thermal runaway circuits. And, I sense in all things large and small, the increasing pressure of dramatic increases in population on the planet. When I was a kid we were impressed there were 4 billion people in the world. In the course of my lifetime, another 2 billion have been added ("where the hell did they come from?! send 'em back!"). Mind-boggling. :eek: Where we gonna put them all, how we going to feed them all, is there enough water, etc. etc. These things have grown so beyond the scale of human endeavour to manage, I fear, that we'll just have to see what happens. I don't consider that entirely fatalism, but I do consider it realistic to assume that there are forces far beyond what we puny (though certainly populous) humans can deal with in time, so it'll just have to be a crazy ride. Hang on to yer hats, and keep the kicking and hitting to a minimum wherever possible. Don't try to take it all on yourself, as one very wise soul said a coupla messages above. rt

[Tedly Nightshade]

"- If you're leading by example, don't be a shitty example. Nobody wants to follow someone who is miserable or self sacrificing or comes off as someone on the lunatic fringe." I will never be able to appear as anything but "on the lunatic fringe", because that is in fact where I am. I'm stone crazy, and no mistake. I've been in a whole hell of a lot of pain for many, many years now, although I experience joy, wonder, laughter, and the rest of it, probably far beyond any kind of sane moderation. I thought I'd be able to do a great deal of recording work here at home- well, let's say I learned a lot about acoustics, and got burnt like everybody else on some expensive cheap computer/digital recording crap. Driving 100 miles each working day was not what I had in mind, and in fact I expected most of the energy used to be sustainable/renewable. The place I've been working at uses more juice in a day than I use at home in a month, no exaggeration there. Add an unbelievably hypocritical war and an police crackdown (funny how these always go together), and the engineers repeated mantra of "faggit" etc., it's just not something I can do anymore, at least not for a good while. I could go put in the time, but coming home day after day without results because I can't function at the high level necessary ain't worth it. I'm afraid, Lee, that you just don't understand who I am or where I'm coming from here, despite our many things we have in common, and all the love . You can be a poster child for social change- you have a stability and steadiness that will never be mine. I'm not a believer in Kant's Categorical Imperative- translation: Just 'cause this is what I do does not imply I think anybody else, let alone everybody else, should do the same thing. I am not interested in attracting converts to my "lifestyle" or point of view- -I am, however, very interested in calling them as I see them. I reserve that right, and to demure is one particular kind of betrayal of my home planet that I will not do. I don't have the answers, neither do any of the kind respondents to this post, most of whom seem to believe that I haven't been applying all their kind suggestions for years. Seem to, I say, I don't know for sure. And as for "doing what I can do", that's an easy thing to call if you aren't the one who has to do it all- still plugging away after 15 years or so, and the things I been through you don't even want to know, I assure you. Got sidetracked for a while here building a house and developing a property- there's more to that than met my eye, at least. I've been reading Thomas Merton, a monk/scholar/recluse, on the recommendation of one forumite here, on the subject of Zen, which he doesn't seem to understand either. It seems to me very much like everyone is completely missing the point, whatever that might be. Tangible actions are so overvalued in our society, seeming is held in such high esteem. I don't care particularly about what I seem like, I care what I am. Same with you all, and I don't pretend to know what any of you are from how you seem. Realtrance, you're thoughts are appreciated. Only when you get up close, you find there is very very very little we have not damaged extensively. It's true there are pockets here and there, it's tough to see them intact one year and destroyed the next, that's very common in my neck of the woods. Lee, I hope you can see, we crunch bones underfoot whatever we do, or if we do nothing at all. It's kind of a nice sensation when you get the feel for it, actually. Interesting sounds, too!

[Tedly Nightshade]

I like the part about loading up the C3. Reminds me of when I hauled the Hammond to a hundred gigs without owning or even being able to drive a car- now I've got a truck, and I keep looking for the roadie that's supposed to come with these things! I'm a bit pissed at Lee about her apparent assumption that I'm not doing everything that I possibly could to make this music thing happen. I will admit that I'm particular about it happening really WELL- I've "had a lot of potential" for many years now, no desire to go out unprepared again and do mediocre work. For the magic to happen at all consistently, requires much more work than I've done so far, which is much more work that you would care to imagine, apparently. Always apparency. I've been burning resources nonstop like a crazed thing, burning the midnight lamp and burning some people too here and there. And it's not getting me where I want to go, or getting the music out there, although we're closer perhaps than we've been. If I thought it would all happen if just I kept burning away, I would, and have until just recently. Failure is a fine thing- it lets you know a new approach is in order, and keeps you from beating away futilely for any longer. Crisis is opportunity, sez the Chinee. Lee, one of these days we'll have to get to know each other. You play them cards pretty close to your chest... surely you're way messier than that.

[Dak Lander]

[quote]Originally posted by Ted Nightshade: [b]Lee, one of these days we'll have to get to know each other. You play them cards pretty close to your chest... surely you're way messier than that.[/b][/quote]Ted, my fine friend, You'll be money ahead when you finally have a chance to meet Lee. She's a fine person, from my impression when I met her, and I think your evaluation is correct in her playing her cards close to the chest. I do, however, believe she's one hell of a lot cleaner than most folks would ever believe. My take on Lee is that of a person who is intelligent, direct, real and honest, maybe to a fault, and a really staunch friend once she becomes one. We should all be so lucky as to have a friend like Lee. Though you seem to be going through some turmoil at this time, you are one of the folks on these forums I've always wanted to meet in person. I don't understand all you're feeling now but I do wish you peace and, hopefully, some serenity in your soul.

[Tedly Nightshade]

Aw shucks!

[Lee Flier]

[quote]Originally posted by Ted Nightshade: [b] I'm afraid, Lee, that you just don't understand who I am or where I'm coming from here, despite our many things we have in common, and all the love . You can be a poster child for social change- you have a stability and steadiness that will never be mine. I'm not a believer in Kant's Categorical Imperative- translation: Just 'cause this is what I do does not imply I think anybody else, let alone everybody else, should do the same thing. I am not interested in attracting converts to my "lifestyle" or point of view- [/b][/quote]I didn't say you were looking for people to follow what you do exactly, but... [quote][b] -I am, however, very interested in calling them as I see them. I reserve that right, and to demure is one particular kind of betrayal of my home planet that I will not do.[/b][/quote]Exactly. And my point was simply that it's tougher for people to trust your word (valid as it may be) or want to consider it if they can see how much pain your world view causes you. They'd rather stay in denial about it - ya know? [quote][b] And as for "doing what I can do", that's an easy thing to call if you aren't the one who has to do it all- [/b][/quote]But that's just it. You're not. I know you feel that way because I feel that way a lot myself. So it does piss me off when you say things like that because you're NOT the only one who suffers through feeling that way. [quote][b] I don't care particularly about what I seem like, I care what I am.[/b][/quote]I totally understand that and wrestle with it all the time. I am constantly pissed off that apparently I seem to many people to be different from what I actually am. But I also know that "what I am" doesn't live in a vacuum. I won't pretend to be something I'm not in order to seem more comfortable to others, but I also operate on the premise that because I'm part of a larger organism, "what I am" must somehow work in concert with that and if it seems to me not to, then perhaps I need to make changes in order to become that (I mean really become it, not just give the appearance of it). I don't believe I exist just to get under other people's skin. Maybe you do, and maybe that's who you really are, I'm not going to say I know that! But I don't believe anybody is here to be in pain their whole life, that's for sure. [quote][b] Lee, I hope you can see, we crunch bones underfoot whatever we do, or if we do nothing at all. [/b][/quote]I do see that. I think that's the point, I'm basically OK with the fact that we all have to kill to live. What makes you any less deserving of doing so, or enjoying life despite that, than anybody else? Why do you say you're "sick of being part of the problem" if you already know that no one ISN'T, that it's how things are? Your cat can tell you that. What causes me pain, and maybe you too, is the LEVEL of destructiveness that goes on in the industrialized world. People aren't just killing what they need to live, they're killing much more than they need and are most of the time unaware of it. And yes, that includes you and me, and yes, that sucks. So it becomes a constant struggle whether it's more important to minimize my own level of destruction or to join the fray and be a force for helping others, which ironically often means being a bigger participant in the destruction. Maybe that's what you're struggling with? It sounds a little like you've been trying to have it both ways and finding out to what degree that isn't possible - or at least isn't possible right now. And maybe have to rethink things in the context of what IS possible. That's what I had to do, anyway, and sometimes still have to.

[Lee Flier]

[quote]Originally posted by Ted Nightshade: [b] I'm a bit pissed at Lee about her apparent assumption that I'm not doing everything that I possibly could to make this music thing happen. I will admit that I'm particular about it happening really WELL- I've "had a lot of potential" for many years now, no desire to go out unprepared again and do mediocre work. For the magic to happen at all consistently, requires much more work than I've done so far, which is much more work that you would care to imagine, apparently.[/b][/quote]Maybe so, but I think what I have a hard time with is the fact that you get so far along with something and then decide at close to the last possible moment, after you've already invested enough to know what you've gotten into, that it won't work or isn't good enough. I mean... if the studio you're working at is 50 miles away and the engineer is a homophobe or a racist and makes you uncomfortable, presumably you've known that practically from the beginning. Yet you were still purporting to be very excited about this record you've been making until a week ago or so and then you suddenly broke it off with this guy. But he's the same guy that's been helping you make this music you've been so excited about, and you may be driving 50 miles to the studio but that's what you signed on for when you started - right? If you knew you wouldn't be able to live with that choice because you hate burning all that fossil fuel then why'd you start down that road the first time? It'd be worth it if you actually finished the project and got it out there, but if you don't, then it seems to me like you really WILL have wasted a lot of time and energy needlessly, when you could have come away with something good. I'm sure there's a lot I don't know, but that's how I see it from this end. [quote][b] Lee, one of these days we'll have to get to know each other. You play them cards pretty close to your chest... surely you're way messier than that.[/b][/quote]Well I have my hurts and my complications like anybody else, but I think I'm speaking honestly when I say I'm less messy than most, probably quite a lot less than I ever imagined, unfortunately. I say unfortunately because that in itself causes me a lot of pain, since I feel pretty alone in this - especially considering that my version of not being "messy" doesn't read like something out of a self help book. :D One of the main reasons I sometimes play my cards close to the chest is precisely because it seems to get under people's skin that I'm not particularly messy inside - they get determined to pick at me until they find something, and then usually blow it way out of proportion. Either that or they think that because I'm basically OK within myself I don't need anybody or suffer anything. And all these assumptions hurt, bad. If anything makes me messy and gets me feeling sorry for myself, it's having been through years of THAT. Whether or not I understand what's going on with you though Ted, I'm with Dak here: I think you're one of the good guys, I really hope you can find some serenity and peace of mind somehow, and I still hope to hear your music some day. And everything I've said to you here is about that more than anything. I think George's analogy about the band truck is perfect - and ya know, sometimes you have to deal with some slimy, sweaty, nasty roadies in order to get all your stuff where it needs to go. :D

[Super 8]

[quote]Originally posted by Ted Nightshade: [b]Very engaging thoughts, Super8. My question is, profitable for whom? What we have going now is not profitable for the vast majority of the earth's human population, let alone the other species.[/b][/quote]That's not the point, Ted. If you want business to get on board, it needs to be profitable -or it's not going to get done. This is how our system works. If you don't make money -you don't make a living. When it's more profitable to clean up a mess, rather than to make a mess, you will see some REAL changes. [quote]Originally posted by Ted Nightshade: [b]I think the immediate and artificially manipulated financial pressure on folks results in a lot of damaging decisions with only very short-term gains. Got to get through the day, no time to think of the long term, that kind of thing.[/b][/quote]No doubts there. That's why we only deal with 'crisis' situations. [quote]Originally posted by Ted Nightshade: [b]I understand in Europe, stores have to accept back and deal with all the packaging they sell. As a result there is a lot less of the plastic waste packaging material that is so common here in the states, where it's all on the "consumer" (what an insult- do we produce nothing?) to deal with it all. That's surely the result of legislation, not that I think legislation is any kind of cure-all.[/b][/quote]I didn't know about Europe. I do know that packing materials are expensive. There are probably local businesses that will take them off your hands. I know a place that takes my stuff.

[Tedly Nightshade]

"And as for "doing what I can do", that's an easy thing to call if you aren't the one who has to do it all- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ But that's just it. You're not. I know you feel that way because I feel that way a lot myself. So it does piss me off when you say things like that because you're NOT the only one who suffers through feeling that way." I don't think for a moment I'm the only one who feels that way- I just mean for my particular project, there are particular details to be attended to, which are quite invisible from where you are. Actually some real significant ones I haven't mentioned out of consideration for some of the other players in the story. Unfortunately, in my band as possibly in yours, I'm the one who has to attend to all these things, otherwise they are not attended to. It would be refreshing to have it be otherwise, hoping it may someday get to be that way. I certainly don't think I'm the only one in my general dilemma- it's got to be rather common. I'm actually not that concerned with whether or not I seem credible. Fools in the jester sense survive on that ambiguity. I may not be exactly that, but Tom o'Bedlam and I have some things in common. I also understand that my ideas can be dismissed on a conscious level and still take root where it counts...

[Tedly Nightshade]

And Lee, perhaps you can understand that I went in with eyes open, although underestimating, as is so typical, both the sheer amount of work and time involved, and my ability to stomach the homophobia and that. I will also say there was not a war for the first couple months there... kinda brought things to a head. I was good for about 4000 miles of the back and forth (the increasing spectacle of people being harassed by the cops didn't help- This at 8:00 AM as well as 10:00 PM on the way home), and 500 hours of ignoring the homophobic comments, etc. I thought I might be good for a bit more, and I thought the work would be done sooner. I also thought, silly me, that ANYBODY else on the gig might be more interested in quality than in "affirming" everything in sight- a lot of work has to be redone because I was talked out of redoing it then and there when everything was all set up. Talking about tracking. The road to hell, you know. I worked until the point of being absolutely unable to work anymore- a bad habit of mine. Something about plowing down a row of mailboxes on the way home one night helped clue me in that my limit was fast approaching, and that dire results would almost certainly take place if I continued. I work with people from all walks of life- it would be easy, where I am, to surround myself with "safe" people who I know see things my way in many ways, but I work with the local rednecks, the oldtimers, whoever knows their job best and I have the most to learn from. I tend to find a lot in common with almost anybody, but high level creative work on a sustained basis has it's liabilities. Super8, there is big money to be made in pretending to clean things up- witness the Halliburton contract to "rebuild" Iraq and deal with the fortunately not-too-numerous-this-time oil fires. Fat contracts go to the cronies- these big oil spills, there are people ready to really clean them up, using organisms that eat the oil, etc., but they don't get the contracts, although they could do the work and get it done for far, far less money than the big chemical companies that get the contracts and fail to clean up the mess. Business is involved- but the playing field is far from level. Actually too much money is there to be made for much of the important work to be done.

[Tedly Nightshade]

Lee is on the money as far as I go so often, that's why I get so bent out of shape when she reads me wrong now and again. I dig the part about being part of a larger organism. So true, and one major reason why quantifiable action is far from the only meaningful course. What really bugs me is the pat pop psychology formulations a few people have brought to this- I'm afraid of succeeding, so I stop just short of success, etc. My own pop psychology, probably just as far of the mark, which I will at least admit- some of y'all need or want me to fit into your worldviews in a tidier fashion. And I know you all dream about black dogs. It's just possible that I continually work way too hard for way too long and then am unable to work any longer, for a good while, at least not on the same things in the same way. If success was that close, I'd grab it. It's far enough away that a whole 'nother campaign will have to be undertaken to get within striking range. Like my metaphor? It is about closing in for the kill. Sustainability is the watchword of my life, and there really isn't anything sustainable about most of it. In many ways I'm biding my time, edging closer and closer, but every now and again the goal seems within reach and off I charge at an unsustainable pace. In an unsustainable society, in a world that could have been sustainable, and was until just recently. I'm an Aries, I suppose headlong rushes are going to be tempting. Back to plugging away steadily, which looks a lot like going nowhere at all. At this rate, we'll get there in 10 years or so. That makes the headlong rushes all the more tempting, but I've crashed and burned often enough to know that that will happen promptly if I go into another heavy work phase anytime soon.

[Lee Flier]

Ted, it doesn't sound at all to me like you're "afraid of success," and I hope you don't think I have that idea. If anything it sounds like you're just afraid your work won't be what you want it to be, that if every little detail isn't in place the whole thing won't stand up and won't move people as much as you feel you're capable of. And geez, I don't think I know ANYbody in any artistic field who doesn't have that fear. I'm pretty well convinced myself that when our CD comes out nobody is going to give a damn. I don't think it'll be the best we're capable of doing, but we'll put it out anyway warts and all, and then it will be out there, and God willing we'll do another one and it will be better. We've still had a lot of fun doing it and it's really helped us to gel as a band. I do know what you mean about having to take care of the little details and it getting overwhelming. It's a lot of work, and it's tough to think about the pragmatic details sometimes when you want to be focused on the creative part. We have this problem also, and it's responsible in large part for us taking so long to put out our first CD. But I think we have worked at a reasonable and sustainable pace. We haven't burned ourselves out, we just work when we are in a good mindset to work. You're probably right that running yourself into the ground results in a lot of backpedaling and can make you lose perspective. I've seen that happen often enough with recording projects, including ones that I've been involved in, which is why my band has made it a general rule NOT to work that way. Have you thought about taking the tapes that you did at this studio and getting yourself a deck at home to finish your record? Vintage 4-track decks can be had quite cheaply, and the old Ampexes for example are built like tanks and sound amazing.

[Tedly Nightshade]

I have thought of getting a 1/4" 4 track and finishing things over here. Trouble is, the acoustics are unworkable. The acoustics can be addressed, and will be at some point, but it's another big project... I wish I knew how to run the analog machine, and I know more than I did, but man it's a headful. Whether I can do that and perform well at the same time I don't know. I ought to be able to use one well enough to mix down. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lee sez: "Ted, it doesn't sound at all to me like you're "afraid of success," and I hope you don't think I have that idea." I was wondering... I've heard that other places. "If anything it sounds like you're just afraid your work won't be what you want it to be, that if every little detail isn't in place the whole thing won't stand up and won't move people as much as you feel you're capable of. " Well, not every little detail, but you're right, although I don't think of it as a fear really. It's more of a conviction. I've been amazed to find that the one song we managed to get a final mix candidate for is way more engaging and moving that I had any idea it could be. I really didn't know what we had, not even after umpteen listenings of the less-than-final mix. I just insist that the material get justice done to it- I know the songs are truly great, (not all of them are mine so don't look at me that way ;) ) and some of the perfomances are really happening too. The right mixes will make it so available to the listener, which of course is the goal. I'm thinking to get the right mixes I will have to do them in the same environment and in the same way as the one we did nail- the 13th print of that one, end of a 12 hour day, and sure enough I could still tell exactly what was going on, although I couldn't hear right for a few days my ears were so tired. Fortunately the engineer isn't cross with me, but I feel very bad for hurting his feelings. He's put a lot into all this, bad habits and all. Actually he was in a dense alcoholic fog, as he's been the whole time I've known him, when we went in to do "couple song demo". Well one thing led to another, he became very lucid for the first time in years, and our project became rather ambitious... From what I hear he's anxious to change, but I can't ask that and I don't want him to be all self conscious every time he says "faggit" (sic), which is more often than you could possibly imagine. I need to get around to where I can accept the situation as it is and approach with a fresh start. I'm done being in a hurry. Our performances are 100% ragged edges- every moment is the very extent of our ability at that time, always going for more than we can really achieve. It's quite the antithesis of the perfection syndrome you hear so much these days. I'm not after anything perfect, just something available and vital.