"The Question"

I'm going to ask you a question? Yes you...the one reading this. Right here, right now. The one who is willing enough to be interested, focused, curious, brave, deliberate, resolute and poised on the brink of discovering my thoughts, my spirit, my infinitely small, yet precious point of view and all that it encompasses...

I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to be totally honest, unafraid, unbiased, unabashed, unashamed and unequivocally committed to the expression...even if it hurts, is superficial, is beautiful, malicious, kind, trite, complimentary, defiant, difficult or rude...

I'm going to ask you a question, because I believe in you. I love you, I trust you and I want to know how you feel, think, dream, laugh, love, cry, desire. I want to know how it feels inside you, your mind, your spirit, your soul, your ugliness, your beauty, your divinity and sublime singularity. I want to know who you are...

I'm going to ask you a question, because I'm reborn, sanctified, forgiven, justified, appreciated, impacted, inspired, elevated, reviled, delighted, scorned, enlightened, betrayed, complete, vilified, loved and dignified by your answer...

I'm going to ask you a question...because it's the only question that matters, that defines, that is significant, that binds us to our humanity, our fears, our joy, our brilliance....

The question is: Who are you?

"We Are The Authors"

"On this bridge," Lorca warns, "life is not a dream. Beware. And beware. And beware." And so many think because Then happened, Now isn't. But didn't I mention the ongoing "wow" is happening right now? We are all co-authors of this dancing exuberance where even our inabilities are having a roast. We are the authors of ourselves, co-authoring a gigantic Dostoevsky novel, starring clowns. This entire thing we're involved with called the world, is an opportunity to exhibit how exciting alienation can be. Life is a matter of a miracle that is collected over time by moments, flabbergasted to be in each other's presence. The world is an exam to see if we can rise into direct experience. Our eyesight is here as a test to see if we can see beyond it. Matter is here as a test for our curiosity. Doubt is here as an exam for our vitality. Thomas Mann wrote that he would rather participate in life than write 100 stories. Giacometti was once run down by a car, and he recalled falling into a lucid faint, a sudden exhilaration, as he realized that at last something was happening to him. An assumption develops that you cannot understand life and live life simultaneously. I do not agree entirely. Which is to say I do not exactly disagree. I would say that life understood is life lived. But the paradoxes bug me, and I can learn to love and make love to the paradoxes that bug me. And on really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion. Before you drift off, don't forget. Which is to say, remember. Because remembering is so much more a psychotic activity than forgetting. Lorca, in that same poem said that the iguana will bite those who do not dream. And as one realizes that one is a dream figure in another person's dream, that is self awareness.

"Free Will"

This is some heady fucking theory...dig it! I did...

"In a way, in our contemporary world view, it's easy to think that science has come to take the place of God. But some philosophical problems remain as troubling as ever. Take the problem of free will. This problem has been around for a long time, since before Aristotle in 350 B.C. St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, these guys all worried about how we can be free if God already knows in advance everything you're gonna do. Nowadays we know that the world operates according to some fundamental physical laws, and these laws govern the behavior of every object in the world. Now, these laws, because they're so trustworthy, they enable incredible technological achievements. But look at yourself. We're just physical systems too, right? We're just complex arrangements of carbon molecules. We're mostly water, and our behavior isn't gonna be an exception to these basic physical laws. So it starts to look like whether its God setting things up in advance and knowing everything you're gonna do or whether it's these basic physical laws governing everything, there's not a lot of room left for freedom.

So now you might be tempted to just ignore the question, ignore the mystery of free will. Say "Oh, well, it's just an historical anecdote. It's sophomoric. It's a question with no answer. Just forget about it." But the question keeps staring you right in the face. You think about individuality for example, who you are. Who you are is mostly a matter of the free choices that you make. Or take responsibility. You can only be held responsible, you can only be found guilty, or you can only be admired or respected for things you did of your own free will. So the question keeps coming back, and we don't really have a solution to it. It starts to look like all our decisions are really just a charade.

Think about how it happens. There's some electrical activity in your brain. Your neurons fire. They send a signal down into your nervous system. It passes along down into your muscle fibers. They twitch. You might, say, reach out your arm. It looks like it's a free action on your part, but every one of those - every part of that process is actually governed by physical law, chemical laws, electrical laws, and so on.

So now it just looks like the big bang set up the initial conditions, and the whole rest of human history, and even before, is really just the playing out of subatomic particles according to these basic fundamental physical laws. We think we're special. We think we have some kind of special dignity, but that now comes under threat. I mean, that's really challenged by this picture.

So you might be saying, "Well, wait a minute. What about quantum mechanics? I know enough contemporary physical theory to know it's not really like that. It's really a probabilistic theory. There's room. It's loose. It's not deterministic." And that's going to enable us to understand free will. But if you look at the details, it's not really going to help because what happens is you have some very small quantum particles, and their behavior is apparently a bit random. They swerve. Their behavior is absurd in the sense that its unpredictable and we can't understand it based on anything that came before. It just does something out of the blue, according to a probabilistic framework. But is that going to help with freedom? I mean, should our freedom be just a matter of probabilities, just some random swerving in a chaotic system? That starts to seem like it's worse. I'd rather be a gear in a big deterministic physical machine than just some random swerving.

So we can't just ignore the problem. We have to find room in our contemporary world view for persons with all that that entails; not just bodies, but persons. And that means trying to solve the problem of freedom, finding room for choice and responsibility, and trying to understand individuality".

-An excerpt from the film "Waking Life" by Richard Linkletter

Mad Girl's Love Song

I think this poem is beyond the beyond...

"Mad Girl's Love Song"

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

-Sylvia Plath

Meeting David Bowie

A friend of mine recently asked me how I came to know the quintessential rock photographer Mick Rock. I sent an email of the story to him and felt like sharing it with all of you. This is for anyone out there who has made an ass out of themselves (not really!) when meeting their idols, and...for Bowie fans! Remember...WE ARE ALL HUMAN! I love to hear stories like this so I hope you do too!

The edited email excerpt is as follows:

Mick Rock is an old friend. He was working as the photographer for a band I was in called Erin Evermore. Mick is fucking awesome...very funny, dynamic...and somewhat of a superfreak! We instantly hit it off and got along magnificiantly. At the time we met, we were doing a photo/video shoot at SIR studios in NYC and David Bowie happened to be rehearsing in the room next door. So, not one to miss a golden opportunity, I practically (more like LITERALLY) BEGGED Mick to introduce me (as you probably know, Mick and David have a long history together. Mick directed all of David's early videos and has taken some quite extraodinary photos of him as well). I immediately began harassing Mick to the point of utter annoyance, which is something I rarely would do...but...what can I say...opportunity knocks, especially, when relentlessly pursued. And, most "fans" always seem to forget their manners, wits and any semblance of human dignity when meeting or interacting with such a "force majeure". Mick, seeing this affliction in me, and being the puckish man that he is, put up with my childish, pestering pleas...assuring me that he would comply with my request to meet one of my heros, when the proper moment arrived.

So, a few days of rehearsals goes by and he doesn't say anything about it, not a word, nuance, hint...NOTHING! And me, being usually polite, as well as, a little dejected/disappointed, don't ask anything about it either. I just mope and let him see me mope, like the kid in the corner with the DUNCE hat on! All the while, through the walls, halls and corridors, I can hear the strains of "Heroes", "Fame" and "Fashion" reverberating and reminding me that not only was I in the presence of greatness, but, that I could touch it...if ONLY Mick would capitulate my quiet, pathetic, desperation! Every echo of every song, was a vibrant, colorful memory for me revealed in kaleidascopic visions in my mind. A reminder of every make-out session in the back seat, every drunken high school party, every sombre, painful, violent, lovely, epiphanous, drug-addled, kicking and screaming moment of my life spent listening to Bowies music. Those songs also revealed why I became a fucking musician in the first place...and I was not about to let the perveyor of that inspiration escape me! At least not without meeting him eye-to-eye. No fucking way!

So, after banging away at a song with my band and feeling sorry for myself at the slowly diminishing prospect of meeting Bowie, Mick asks if I want to have a cig outside, and of course, I do. Not only for the pleasure of his company, but also, to subversively conjole him into submission by taking pity on me (LOL) by playing the rock n roll martyr! (Keep in mind that manipulation, is not something I do very well, also without making an ass of myself). We go outside and before I can implement my Machievalian scheme, Mick starts exagerating his voice and movements, as if he's putting on "The Magnificiant Mick Hour" to an audience of one. Right when I start to think he's been hitting the bottle or some illicit substance very hard in the last 10 minutes, I see this fashionably wiry dude with his back to me leaning against the wall smoking a cig in the undesignated "smoking area". As we walk towards him and get about a foot away, Mick wildly gesticulating on my rock star aura, charm and photogenic qualities, the dude quite startlingly turns around, does a pseudo Weimer era, out-stretched arms, "Velcome To Da Cabaret" mephisto gesture and gives me the biggest fucking chesire cat grin he can muster...and it's fucking David Bowie! It was one of the few times in my life when I was totally dumbstruck! Mick LOUDLY says in an overblown, drunken Cockney accent, "David...I'd like you to meet another silly cunt, Aaron!" (Mick likes to call people he likes cunts). "Aaron, this is another silly cunt, David!". I usually don't get flustered by meeting anyone famous...yet, I stood there like a blissfull fucking moron with the biggest, stupidest grin on MY face and couldn't find the words to say a thing that would reveal or resemble my usual repose, intelligance, charm or wit except "Duh...Hi David". All the while, Mick's looking at me with HIS shit eating grin because he knows how nervous and surprised I am, and because, I know he's quietly pleased with himself. It's obvious that David knows too, because Mick's told him what a "fan" I am, as well as, what a pain in the ass I've been for the last few days. David starts putting on the "I'm Bowie" facade for a few moments before he starts to quietly chuckle and grin even more widely at me than before...and at that moment...we all laughed...at our own humility...and of course...at my expense! It was fucking AWESOME!

David is cool because he knows how his stardom affects people on a human level, but he's not vain or an asshole about it. Like most of the people I admire, he's totally approachable, decent and generous. He approached me with amusement, humility and respect, which is rare in those circles, or any circle, for that matter. Mick...definitely...Rocks, and I'll always remember him for giving me that moment. It's so important NOT to take yourself to seriously all the time...life is to short to miss all the fun! Shit...if I could work with one artist before I die...it would have to be Bowie. On another occasion, I jokingly told Sterling Campbell (who is an aquaintence and Bowie's current drummer) that if he ever breaks an arm, gets hit by a bus or decides to become a fucking monk and move to China...to give me a call...I'll step in immediately...no worries! I know at the very least...that I could definitely handle it now!