Yelp Review of an Undisclosed Chinese Restaurant

I grew up down the street and my family would go here on a semi-weekly basis when I was growing up. Now it's always the first place I go when I'm home. It might just be the MSG or maybe it's all the countless cherished memories I have here with family and friends, but there is no eatery that can provide me with as strong a feeling of satisfaction.

Every time the decor seems to get classier by a few quanta, to the point where they now have piped-in soothing piano music, white tablecloths, and even some artwork on the walls. The place is usually pretty empty since most of their clientele does takeout, but eating in is a great experience. (Fun fact: there used to be a sign out front that advertised free valet parking, but since their parking lot consists of about ten parking spaces in two separate lots and they are at the intersection of two narrow streets, this was always a lie.) You can't really go wrong with any of the entrees, except the walnut shrimp look like are covered with a mixture of phlegm and whale semen. But don't let that dissuade you, the walnut shrimp are delicious once you get past the appearance.

What most people don't realize about this place is how incredibly well stocked the bar is. It's probably the most under-utilized stash of liquor this side of prohibition. However, be warned: although they have all the necessary ingredients to make sake bombs, it's a trap. When my friends and I asked for some, the bartender seemed confused. A Chinese man sitting at the bar tried to tell him what we wanted, and all of a sudden they were yelling at each other in impassioned Cantonese. The two waiters and the maitre d' got involved in the discussion, and then even the manager got involved, causing it to escalate into a six person hustle and a bustle. We had created a mini Chinese soap opera. To quell the situation, we just asked for three Saporros and three cups of sake. We thought this was the end of the saga, but as it turns out, their glasses are not conducive to sake-bombing. They taper about halfway down to the point where the sake cup gets stuck, blocking some of the beer at the bottom until you tilt your glass all the way back, at which point you have to brace yourself to keep  the dregs from spilling all over you.

When the bombs drop and there is nothing but fallout and burned cities and black soot blocks out the sun, I will fight my way through hordes of mutants in a beat up diesel pickup truck, on the off chance that this is the one place from the world I once knew that has survived.

Strangers with Wi-fi

My demographic was raised to be terrified of the internet. We were first exposed to it at the same time as our parents. It was just as new to them as it was to us. Back then our parents didn't see it as being useful for very much, except my dad was very excited about this whole "e-mail" thing. What they did realize was that it was a way for their kids to talk to strangers without ever leaving the house. Which meant, of course, that pedophiles from the Tron universe were going to scan us into the computer and cybermolest us.

You would hear vague rumors that almost coalesced into anecdotes about a kid who went missing because of someone they met in an AOL chat room, how this stranger with cybercandy figured out where they lived and where they went to school and one day the kid just up and got abducted. Of course, you would have to voluntarily divulge this information, but try telling that to a panicked parent. So they forwarded bad jokes to each other via their hotmail accounts and poured themselves stiff drinks. Or at least my parents did. And you know, I really don't blame them.

Then the Bush Era rolled around and it wasn't the pedophiles that were out to get us on the internet, it was the g-men. The FBI was reading every email you sent. The internet was a series of tubes, and each of them passed through a shadowy basement room in the J. Edgar Hoover building where dissidents were held without warrants and branded with cigarettes by scotch-sipping men in black. You were one email saying that all the guests at the party would be "blown away by your cake" from going to Guantanamo. These were true facts.

And now we're all in a panic about Mark Zuckerberg having rights to the information that we publicly broadcast using a medium he created. Unless you're Amish or my mom or some Yupik tribesman wandering the frozen tundra chewing on seal blubber, you've seen the statuses where people are making a disclaimer about their profile being their intellectual property. I actually don't know what the content of this chain status is. I haven't read it. Because I know that it's meaningless. You already agreed to everything they asked when you created your profile.

I don't even care if they use any of it. What's up there for facebook corporate to appropriate anyway. Pictures where I'm awkwardly tagged in the background? My futile attempts to be witty with statuses like "Fabric softener? I hardly know her!" The movies/bands/books I say I like in order to project some kind image of myself? Go ahead, take all of it.

In fact, it probably should be their intellectual property rights. The you on facebook isn't you, it's a version of you that was created by the constraints of the medium, and by the culture of sharing bits of pieces of your life that wouldn't exist without social media. If they have the patience to dig through all the garbage on my profile, then they deserve whatever turds they end up polishing.

Also, the first person to make this post their status gets a free Ozone Shack prototype coffee mug. Go!

Paralysis Epidemic Adventure Live Blog

So today is a monumental event. Somehow, I got tricked into playing Dungeons and Dragons. I will be live-blogging the entire process. This is apparently the third part to a campaign that has already been underway, so it behooves me to provide some backstory.

Backstory: A plague that causes paralysis has spread across the land. Initially, one of the hardest struck towns contacted a band of adventurers to find the source of this plague. They were accompanied by the town doctor, whose name was Hellarug. They ventured into the mountains, believing it was caused by an evil magician, but the magician was not found. Instead, they stumbled upon a group of perished travelers who had conceived a map of the mountains, which lead to cave. Within this cave, they were forced to fight a giant squid, and through a series of intricate waterways, the group was split up. Many were never found. The remaining adventurers found a small gathering of minotaurs, who had found that the source of the sickness was in the water, and were applying a remedy. The minotaurs led them to a crazed mad scientist named Barnby, who needed more of a special yellow flower in order to create more antidote. At this point, one of the Tiefling adventurers had been entirely struck down by the plague and could not move. The final two of the adventurers ventured into the forest and were attacked by bears. Once again, they were separated.

It took a long time, but several of the adventurers were finally reunited, after their failure, and added more to their group. They returned to the alchemist's house to conjure more antidote and began their journey back to the caves, where they believed the water source was running from. They were never seen again. dun dun dun...

3:14 I have been informed that Carmen Jello the Better will not be joining us on this quest.

3:51 Dungeonmaster: "Ok, here's how the modifiers work, it's really confusing." This is going to be a long evening. Still drafting characters...

3:56 Game manual: "Hafling males have no beards, but often have long, flowing sideburns."

4:29 Dungeonmaster: "Let it be known that the Dungeonmaster has decided that Tieflings are the black people of the Dungeons and Dragons universe."

4:36 Beers have been broken out. We are attractive people and are not in a basement. We are defying all stereotypes of Dungeons and Dragondom.

4:45 I have drafted my character.I AM HIMBRICK THE AMBIGUOUS OF DIRECTRIX ADVENTURE DYNAMICS INCORPORATED (OF WHICH I AM THE PRESIDENT, CEO, CFO, AND SOLE EMPLOYEE). I AM A TIEFLING (WHATEVER THE FUCK THAT IS) WHO SPEAKS THE COMMON LANGUAGE AND ELVEN. I WAS RAISED BY ELEPHANTS AFTER MY PARENTS WERE KILLED FOR BEING EVIL, AND LED THE ELEPHANTS TO VICTORY IN THEIR WAR AGAINST THE WOOLLY MAMMOTHS. NOW I ROAM THE WORLD SEARCHING FOR TRUTH AND PEOPLE WHO LOOK AS FUNNY AS I DO. I AM 6' 2", 210 POUNDS, 37 YEARS OLD, HAVE BLACK RAMS HORNS AND DARK BLUE HAIR. I AM A ROGUE, WHICH MEANS I HIDE IN THE SHADOWS AND USE STEALTH TO VANQUISH MY OPPONENTS. I LIKE LONG WALKS ON THE BEACH AND SPOONING VIGOROUSLY. CURRENTLY, I HAVE LEATHER ARMOR, DUAL WIELD HAND CROSSBOWS, AND CAN ALSO DUAL-WIELD DAGGERS AND USE SHURIKEN. YOU DON'T KNOW IF I'M GOOD OR EVIL. I CONSTANTLY WRESTLE WITH MY DUAL NATURE, SINCE MY ANCESTORS SOLD THEIR SOULS TO DEMONS IN EXCHANGE FOR POWER, BUT MY ELEPHANT ADOPTIVE PARENTS TAUGHT ME THE GENTLE WAYS OF NATURE.

5:18 Here is my party:
Aukam, the goliath monk. He worships Kord, the purity of battle. Is riding a horse that is half his size.
Driker the Striker! A halfling ranger, at 12 years old, is a prodigy in the arts of Ranging, whatever the hell that is.
Bonaparte, the dragon-born warlord. Likes martinis. Gets bitches all day long. Bitches love dem scales.
Andaris, half-elf half-paladin. Got over his daddy issues to become a battle-loving badass.
Diomedes, human wizard. Was a member of a town and became unhappy with his life after being faced with a large problem. At the time he was known as Hellarug the doctor. He noticed he had magical abilities, and devoted himself to the dark arts in order to gain personal fortune.

5:40 Finally, after creating our characters and figuring out what spells we know, it's time to flip this bitch!

5:41 Forex, an eldrin wizard, has just joined our party. He the half-brother of one of the former adventurers,  who is missing and presumed dead.

5:46 Our in-game Wills might be powerful, but our "IRL" wills are not. Time for a beer run.

6:20 Our team has been contacted by the chieften of the Minotaurs. I'm doing this for 75 gold pieces. I don't know if that's good or not in this economy, but I don't know what else there is for work in this universe.

6:23 We're debating the difference between presignation and cantrips. I'm so lost...

6:29 I tried to hit on a minotaur woman in an alehouse and she shut me down. I thought she would find my horns attractive. I guess not.

6:57 I've been hit with two arrows after stepping into a booby trap, one in the right shoulder and one through the left thigh. I lost 20 hit points. Fuck this game.

7:04 The Dungeonmaster will not let me retroactively change my stats to better reflect my backstory. I don't know if I can keep roll playing if this is the case. So confused...

7:09 Another fucking booby trap! Fuck this dungeon. Fuck this game!!!

7:10 Andaris set off another booby trap but dodged it. This is so not fair!

7:19 Dungeonmaster: Two figures enter from the other side of the dungeon. In a language you don't understand, they say "halt."
Me: Then how do we know they said halt?
DM: Because they inflected it the same way you would say halt.
Me: But what if it's a tonal language?
DM: Uhhhh... It's not a tonal language.

7:21 Bonaparte: Can we diplomacy the shit out of them?

7:25 We're discussing the finer aspects of the player/character duality. I never knew we would get so philosophical.

7:37 Two of our party are currently fighting monsters called "oozes." The minotaurs have informed us that they have an affinity towards water. Also I think I'm getting a little drunk at this point. Also, we are once again debating the difference between player knowledge and character knowledge.

8:34 We've been fighting the oozes for a long time. These fuckers be strong.

9:09 Driker the Striker! has just died. That's why you don't bring 12 year olds into battle.

9:22 The DM just suggested I use a saw booby trap to saw off the arrow that has lodged itself in my bicep. #suggestionsfromthedungeonmasteryoushouldn'ttake

9:30 Kip the Minotaur has been hit. He is bleeding... AND OOZING!!! Kip has turned into an ooze. This dungeon is worse than 'Nam!

9:46 I just dodged a boulder with my cat-like reflexes!

9:54 A wave of water just washed us out of this dungeon into the next section of the map. That was convenient...

10:05 People seem to be losing attention. I need to come up with inane things to say...

10:11 d4, d8, d10, d20, and now they're calling a regular die a d6. I'm in another world.

10:29 Andaris: I demand an explanation.
Barnby: Fair enough.
#bondvillain

10:33 "He thinks it will be awesome, but really, it will kill everybody."

10:34 Andaris: I'm sorry Barnby, you sn-ooze, you lo-oooooze!!!

10:59 My character has just apparently lost control of all his actions, because of the way I rolled a 20-sided die. Just like real life...

11:01 Wow, I just fucked my teammate up. If only I could have been that effective fighting the oozes.

10:09 Diomedes has been betrayed by our minotaur allies and is now dead. He would have died honorably, except he spent more time sexting than he did playing the actual fucking game. Now the turns will go faster, I suppose...

11:11 DM: Roll for will.
Me: Wait, who's will?
DM: No, willpower, dumbass.

11:23 I have switched my deity alliance from Ionas to Glob. omGlob...

11:26 We have stopped the plague. The minotaurs turned on us, but we killed them all, so the minotaur chieftan doesn't know about it. We get our 75 gold reward.

11:27 The minotaur chief gives us each an additional 25 gold for our fallen comrades. First DnD quest is a success. Now time to mourn our dead.

The Salt Woman, Part I

Thought I would post the first part of this story before I head out for this holiday of gluttony and tryptophan saturation. Part II will be readable in a week or so.

             Growing up, I remember the caravans would come through the town four times a year, twice in each direction. They came once in the middle of summer and once at the end, and they carried salt and nothing else. They would come in the pinelands out of the east with their bags empty and return loaded up with the stuff, stopping in the high country towns before returning to the pinelands. They say that without salt the body leaks out through the skin until it deflates and shrivels up. This is why, my father explained to me, we depended on the salt caravan.

                They got their salt from a woman who lived in the badlands, who extracted it all by herself from the earth, and on one occasion when I was fifteen, burned half the town to the ground in what can only be described as a supernatural occurrence.

                A trip to the salt flats took her three days down the course of the river, a journey she would make with her mule as many times as she could during the summer when the salt flats were dry, and in the fall when there were still patches of salt that weren’t underwater. She knew where to find the purest veins; since she had only one mule to load it was only worth her time to bring back the stuff that was free of impurities. As she dug her hands would crack, and her face would crack, weathered by the salt blowing in her face. And after a day of digging she would fall asleep on the salty ground lying on her back, spread eagle and looking at the stars, sometimes recalling that she had once heard that there are as many stars in the sky as there are grains of salt, her mule tied to stake she had planted in the ground. She stayed until she had filled her mule’s packs, as well as two woven wicker baskets she would load up with as much as her frame could carry, and then make her way back.

                Upon returning to her dugout she would leave the salt in huge piles in an enclosure she had made, the roof sealed with pine tar from the mountains and the floor covered with lizard hides to keep the salt from being ruined by rainfall. And then she would bathe in the river, its icy force breaking over her naked wiry frame, although it was the river who thought it could break her. She would pinch clumps of hair between her thumb and forefinger, then pull outward away from her scalp, squeezing the salt out from between her follicles until every last bit of it was gone, then sit naked on a rock watching the river flow until she had shivered herself warm.

                She lived on the provisions the caravaners would trade for the salt, along with whatever she got from the traps she kept in the foothills and the berries and wild roots she gathered. The river, it seemed, was too alkaline for any fish. That was fine, the salt it bore was what fed her, ultimately.

                They say she would grind the salt herself by crushing the rocks in her hands, that she could simply hold it up, squeeze, and the whole thing would turn into fine grains to be packet into the caravaners’ bags. When they showed up she could feel them coming, feel the vibrations of the ground as their pack animals approached, and would have the bags of salt lying in the open, ready to be loaded. They regarded her with respect and uneasiness, always paying her up front in tools, sacks of rice and potatoes, sometimes a can of anchovies all the way from the sea. As they loaded up the salt she would watch them idly, picking at her teeth with a shard of bone. They would wave to her as they departed but she never waved back. She only stared at them until their thin line of mules vanished over the pass, when she would go inside and carry on whatever it was she did with her life. Probably cracking her own neck, repeatedly, with a grimace of mixed pleasure and pain.

                Except on this occasion she approached the leader of the caravan and told him she was coming with them.

                “I’ll take my own mule,” she had said to him, “I’ll even have him carry salt, he does it already anyways.” She stood almost a head shorter than him, and for the first time he noticed there was nothing in her frame that suggested such a strength as she was reputed to have. “I think it’s been five years since I been in town,” she continued, not to justify herself, just to explain, “so I’m going with you.”

                The leader of the caravan had no reason to object, although he had heard stories about her. He heard that before she came out to work the salt flats she would wear a necklace made from molars she had knocked out in bar fights, that making eye contact with her for too long would give her power to paralyze you, that she turned into a dog at night and could summon the dead spirits of her people, whoever they were, to do her bidding. That she kept a jar with a human heart underneath her hammock. All apocryphal at best, but all who knew about the Salt Woman also knew some sort of story about her. None agreed. Some said it was a necklace of shrunken skulls, that it was an ibex that she turned into, that she in fact was possessed by dead spirits against her will. But they all agreed that there was a jar. In some stories she slept clutching it.

                “You can come with us,” he said, “but you’ll have to camp separate. Some of the men wouldn’t find it” he paused “proper.”

                “They’ve heard the stories, haven’t they?” she said.

                His eyes momentarily widened and he said nothing, but then a smile crossed her face.
                “I’ve heard a lot of them too, and I can assure you there’s not much to them.”

                “Not much?”

                “Well there has to be something, else I wouldn’t be out here, right?” She picked at something between two molars with her shard of bone. “We’ve done good business for years. You trust me, don’t you?”

                “Of course,” he said. “Load up your mule and let’s get moving.”

                They stood for a moment regarding each other, his beard encrusted with salt and her hair bleached by it, a thin layer that she could never get out, even in the river. She cracked a smile and he could have sworn her cheeks were going to split as she moved them.

                “I think I’ll enjoy this trip,” she said, “I think I’ll take a lot of enjoyment in it.”

To be continued...

Pilgrimage With the Technicolor Gypsy

There's a tree downtown from which, legend has it, the first humans were born. They were squeezed out, from a crevasse between two massive exposed roots, head first like most babies, but could crawl upon touching the earth. The tree nourished them and sheltered them; extending its branches downward with fruits rich in electrolytes and amino acids, and blocking the elements with thick foliage and its own subtle infrared energies. These people had no one to observe, no one to speak to them, so they created their own customs as the need arose, and called each thing what they felt it should be called. After growing to where they could walk tall under their own strength they ventured out from under the branches and called many things what they were. After all, they were those things. No one had ever said otherwise.

This morning I made a pilgrimage to the tree with a Technicolor Gypsy. She pulled over in her pickup truck as I was biking and through hand signals and sketches in the dirt we determined we were going to the same place. Somewhere off in the distance I could hear airplanes taking off. I threw my proverbial horse in the back of her truck and hopped in the passenger seat. She had neon turquoise hair and wore a bright pink bandanna. We each spoke of our homelands in our respective tongues. I told her of the forests with bark the color of fire hidden in valleys flowing with rivers of fog and the radical diviners who tore apart matter itself in their mountain hideout. Although I couldn't understand her language exactly I gathered she was from a place where a great desert met an even greater ocean.

Of these first people, some accounts say there were twelve, some say there were seven, some say it was a prime number between fifty and one hundred. There certainly were more than two. They set out, in a group, for the end of the universe, which they could see from the highest branches of the Mother Tree. But as they walked towards the horizon, naming things as they went, it receded into the distance with increasing speed, until they could no longer be sure it had an end. They wandered in this fashion until one of the women became pregnant and they decided that if more people were to be made, it was best to be stationary like the tree that birthed them.

Today there is no mention of what makes this tree special. It's the largest in the park, by far, but there is not even so much as a plaque to commemorate what happened here. Kids hide behind it to smoke pot and drink cheap beer. The Technicolor Gypsy and I sat cross-legged on the grass, staring at it, passing back and forth a thermos of tea. Tea that was black like delta soil.

This first child to be born did not grow up to name things. Some things he could not name, because his parents' generation had already called the things what they were. But there were new things, which no one had said were anything, left for the child to name, but he did not. They journeyed back to the Mother Tree to ask why. But they received no answer. That was, until they decided to climb the tree once again. After waiting for several days she provided them with fruit and soft canopies to rest on. By the time they reached the top they could see that the world still had an end. So they kept moving to push the universe outwards in all directions, so their children would come to know the joy in giving names.

Fog drifted in from the ocean and hit the mountains, coalescing into thick clouds which broke apart on the southern slopes. The Technicolor Gypsy said it was time for her to go. I grabbed my bike out of her truck and she drove off to chase the currents. I ate tacos from a taco truck with my ass leaning against my bike frame, standing under a street sign. I smiled at motorists who didn't smile back. The man running the taco truck gave me an extra cup of salsa. I tucked it into the side pouch of my backpack and started the ride back home, along dusty roads with semis spewing dust and diesel fumes. It's a long way to the edge of the universe but I may never need to go that far. Home is far enough from the Mother Tree.

Exclusive Interview with Cub'b, New Album Setting/Context

Producer Chris Cubbison, or as he is known by his stage name, Cub'b, has just released his debut LP, Setting/Context. You can purchase it for as much or as little as you want, or just give it a listen, at his Bandcamp page.

The Man Himself

I would try to sell you the album, but I think the music sells itself. Plus, Cub'b himself agreed to sit down for an interview and can do a way better job of explaining the album than I can.

Ozone Shack: Talk about the platform you chose to release this album. The way you released it is something that’s becoming more of the norm these days, where you put it up on a website and the customer chooses how much they’re going to pay for it, or if they pay anything at all.

Chris Cubbison: First ,as a listener,  I love that it’s going that way. I love the internet with music because taste and genres can become incredibly specific, you can find any sort of genre online, and depending on how much effort you put in, you can immerse yourself in an online culture where you can find multiple like-minded artists. Just last night I was searching through multiple websites – online labels- just pressing download button after download button. Just as a listener, I really appreciate that. It also kind of changes things for the artist, because your tastes and genres can become so specific, and so dense I guess, there’s kind of an oversaturation on the internet, and it can be hard to find artists, and not only that, but it can be difficult for an artists to get noticed or get some kind of following. It kind of changes the game. It makes it a different playing field.

OS: You mentioned downloading music. I feel like a trend that’s happening a lot, with Grooveshark, Spotify, YouTube, where people don’t actually need to have a copy of the recording, they can just access it through the cloud. But it seems as though you like actually having the music. I’m one of those people myself. What are your thoughts on having the music on your hard drive and getting it from the cloud?

CC: I kind of see with things like Spotify it’s blurring the line. I don’t know if I see much of a difference between streaming something on Soundcloud and having it on your hard drive. It kind of blurs the distinction between the two. Recently, I’m appreciating the fact that artists are putting their music online. And with Spotify and Soundcloud, it’s nice that it’s up there. I think it’s also interesting to think about the social connection, just because Spotify kind of take music and make it social

OS: And not only that, but there’s the added element where people can see what you’re listening too.

CC: They can see your taste, and that’s interesting too. People delve into things for different reasons too, maybe to be seen as liking this, this and that, but I don’t know, I think at the end of the day it has to come down to your own personal interest and whatever you want to get out of it.

OS: Well as for the album itself: Talk a little bit about what went into making it.

CC: Basically, I started working on all the songs at the end of last school year, during finals week. I was just starting to do some new tracks, wasn’t really thinking about where they were going. It feels like I get my best creative moments during the worst times, like during midterms or finals I get something and I’m like “dammit I really want to work on this.”

Everything on it was basically me, I think there were two tracks on there that feature a couple friends of mine, but it’s interesting the way that I did it. A lot of my friends are kind of describing it as collage music, and I think that kind of makes a lot of sense when I take a step back, because I’m working with a lot of samples, but not exclusively with samples, it’s kind of balance between pulling from other sources and putting in my own kind of stuff as well.

The equipment I use: An SP 404, Roland drum sampler. That piece of machinery is extremely conducive to sampling, because you can just plug in anything into it. On the album itself I pull from different sources for sampling; I sample vinyl a lot. That was a lot of fun. There were times when I was home in San Diego and I might be bored so I would go to a record store where I would buy ten used records for ten dollars or something. I would try to choose things that were random, where I look at it and go “what the fuck is this?” or this looks like it could be interesting.

OS: So it’s almost like a found art element?

CC: Definitely. It’s interesting because I think that the idea of found art or even collage isn’t really limited to one medium. But with music, the idea of sampling has kind of changed the way I listen to music at the same time too. I feel as though, as a listener, there have been times when I’ve been like “I don’t really listen to this genre” and then slowly I become more familiar with it and like it. I think the idea with sampling is that it broadens your perspective and your taste, because I feel like I’m not really listening to things with the mindset of “I like this” or “I dislike this,” but “what parts can I appreciate from this?” I like to think that there’ a positive you can taek away with everything you sample or everything you listen to, and it’s also about warping that or changing that. Basically this summer it was a way to stay entertained. I basically see the 404 as a big toy, I feel like a kid when I’m playing with it.

So yeah, I’m sampling with the 404, and then I also add in other instruments, like keyborard, bass, and guitar. The sampling itself is a balance from vinyl, other sources like youtube clips – a lot of time for the samples I’ll take clips from youtbue and warp them or change them in some way – and then there’s also an element that I really like of live sampling, or field recordings. There are a cpule tracks on there where I was out and about and I had just a microphone, I would hear something and record it and try to integrate it into a song. There were a copule on the album that included field recordings. On the track Aquarium I actually got a lot of sounds from the Birch Aquarium in San Diego. There’s this kind of water art installation outside and I just kind of recorded stuff on my iPhone and transferred it all to the 404. Also with the track Lunar Beach, for the beach noises, I was actually at Campus point. I was just sitting there with my microphone. I felt really silly when people would walk by.

OS: What about the spoken samples?

CC: A lot of those came from YouTube, movies or speeches, or just certain authors that I like who had readings online. I balanced that with my own vocals too. There were certain songs where I felt like it was appropriate for me to sing instead of pulling something from somewhere else. And with vocal samples, I feel like I have a lot of fun with that, because I feel as though – not just with vocal samples but with samples generally – it’s kind of a way to stack meanings and stack messages within your songs and kind of embed different meanings within them. I think that’s something I think about a lot. It can really shape a message when you’re trying to get that through in your music.

OS: Do you get to the point now where you’re listening to music or just in the world and start hearing everything as a potential sample?

CC: I feel as though I’m starting to look at the world that way, yeah. I even think that listening to music, I’m starting to break it down to individual noises that I’m hearing, not just a whole collective song. I might listen to a song and be like “oh, I really like the snare,” or “that hook is really good.” I’m starting to break it down and dissect different aspects of music – not just technically but in terms of meaning and in terms of voice.

OS: Let’s talk a little bit about how you perform this stuff live. When you do this stuff live you have your samples and then you’re playing some kind of instrument over that. I’ve seen you do it while playing bass and also with bongos. Talk about what that process is and how it’s different from creating material for the album.

CC: The live stuff is definitely different. I’ve only performed [the material off this album] once or twice. I think that can be kind of difficult as an individual just because I feel like I have to compromise certain parts of songs, just ecase I can’t physically do them all at once. It really depends on the way it was recorded when I’m trying to figure out how to play it live. A lot of times I’ll just have certain parts of songs or certain aspects of the songs that will be playing and then I’ll play a specific part up against that with backing tracks. That can be difficult, but it forces me to prioritize what I want to do. Ideally I would be able to make every single noise live, but I’m still in the process of learning how to do it.

OS: And then you’re also using real instruments.

CC: Yes.

OS: We’re sort of entering an epoch where real instruments aren’t really perceived as being necessary anymore. How do you feel about that shift?

CC: I’ve thought about this a lot. I try to come to a balance in my head. I think that a lot of people are turned off by the fact that everything is going digital, and that certain genres are going more towards computer-based, and I think there’s something to be said for that. I think that there’s something that can be appreciated for physicality of music, even with recorded music vs. digital. But also at the same time with live music, I feel like live instruments add a certain element of finesse or technical ability. I’m saying this very humbly. I’m definitely not the most talented when it comes to that. I think that at the end of the day it’s not what you use, it’s how you use it. As long as you’re pursuing something that’s on part with whatever you want to do, that’s the goal. I think that people today kind of get caught up with how things are made; they add a lot of significance to programs or instruments instead of the person using them. The way that I approach music is not really computer based. I’m recording onto a computer and I’m recording into Ableton, but all the beats I’m making and all the noises I’m making either stem from samples on the 404 or from instruments. It’s not like I’m making noises on the computer and using them as a crutch.

OS: It sounds like what you’re doing is a healthy blend of using the electronic medium but also creating the music yourself. I guess I would say that’s something I have a lot more respect for than a DJ who just splices and kind of creates a Frankensong. Now I’d like to ask what your diet of music, so to speak, was like growing up.

CC: Yeah, my taste in music has changed a lot and I think that happens with everybody who kind of digests music. I try to listen to a lot of different types of music. I’m not trying to listen to something just so I can say “oh, I’ve listened to this,” it’s really kind of a self-motivated thing.

OS: You’re trying to integrate it into your musical being; you’re trying to grow.

CC: Yeah. I think that a lot of times, with music, when people say “I don’t like this genre,” you’re kind of building a wall between what it is you like and what you don’t like. When you say “I don’t like rap” or “I don’t’ like R&B” you’re building a wall between yourself and what you can enjoy from that genre. I really try to give everything a fair chance. To more specifically answer your question, lately my music tastes have greatly diversified. I think that has a lot to do with my friends.  With my friends from back home, listening to music is a way to stay connected. I think at first, before I made music, it was a way of keeping up with my friends, you know, I would listen to something and we would talk about it the next chance we got to catch up. As I started making music, that’s also become a way of staying connected, you know, sending each other tracks and noticing musical progression without actually seeing each other.

I don’t know, I listened to a lot of 70’s punk in middle school, and I appreciate the way that was made, you know, it’s music from below, not music from some kind of established realm. High school when I met a lot of my friends I started diversifying. In the last couple years I’m really starting to enjoy beat music and experimental music. The more time you spend listening to any genre the more you understand it.

OS: Anything you’re particularly digging right now?

CC: There’s a lot I’m digging. I’ve been listening to a lot of my friends’ music, from different areas around the United States. I’m getting into Beat Music and experimental ambient and kind of weird house music, and techno. In the last week, I’ve listened to Andy Stott, he’s a British producer, I’ve been listening to a lot of Soundcloud artists. There’s this one community called the Astral Basement, they make a lot of experimental beats that I feel are up my alley in terms of listening and producing at the same time. I try to follow a lot of young guys on the internet that are doing a similar thing to me, maybe in a better and more depth extent. There’s this producer in Ohio, he’s like 19 years old, his name is Contact Lens, he’s released a lot of stuff. A couple San Diego artists, there’s this 15 year old kid called Television Sky, and he’s really good, he’s released like 12 albums.

OS: And that wouldn’t even be possible ten years ago.

CC: It really wouldn’t. And that’s just a sign of the times. People can make music on their own; they don’t need to worry about getting the record contract to be noticed first. It’s more of a self-motivated process today, or at least it can be.

OS: Any artists or bands out there right now that are doing something right? We’ve talked a lot about the role of the artist in our conversations, and I’m wondering if there are any musicians out there who you think are really fulfilling that “artist’s role.”

CC: So many. I think the role of the artist today is to make something that nobody else can make, and to be really unique with your sound and be sure that when somebody is listening to that, they’re listening to you. There are so many people doing that today and that’s the thing about the internet. If I may do a shameless plug, my friend Austin Cesear up in the Bay, he’s doing a lot of really interesting stuff. Another friend who’s in New York, Lotide, is going to be having a lot of really unique stuff coming out soon.

I don’t know, I think that a lot of people when they’re making music get caught up in the accessibility of it. They might make something to pleasure an audience or to fit within a genre. The way that it’s going today, I don’t’ think that the artist should approach something and be like “I’m going to make this kind of music” or “I am going to be this kind of musician.” I think they should be making the music and letting it speak for itself.

OS: Yeah, you know, the one area where I’m more of a Platonist than an Aristotelian is in regards to music, because in Platonic philosophy, the things below are representative of some pure thing that’s up above. I should listen to how the music sounds instead of what it sounds like, you know? That’s how I should evaluate it.

CC: Yeah, that also comes down to how it’s enjoyed. If someone is going to a concert and they have a premeditated notion of what it should be, I think that’s also setting yourself up for disappointment. People should be going into music with no expectations of what it should sound like, that way it’s more fulfilling.

Once again, Cub'b's debut LP, Setting/Context, is available for download from the following Bandcamp page: http://hlf-pin-mzk.bandcamp.com/album/hfpn010-setting-context

Send him some love, Ozone Nation.

The Laptop Urine Bandit

 The following is inspired by a true story:

           She had been on hold with tech support for an accumulated total of at least two hours, tossed between people in various departments, all of whom had thick yet impossible to place accents. Each one she told that yes, there were eighteen of them, and that yes, they had been urinated on, by a child, and that of course they had got wet, that’s what happens when something gets peed on. Each one had diplomatically responded, without a hint of shock or amusement in his voice, that he would put her on with his supervisor. When she was eventually put on with the head honcho of Apple tech support for the North American market, he simply cited the official warranty statement and told her good day. “Thank you,” she said, bitterly, as she hung up, got up from her desk, and walked into Principal Dawkins’ office.

            “Got any good news for me Debbie?” he asked, leaning back in his chair, throwing his arms up in the same shape referees do when the field goal is good. Dale Dawkins wore the same salmon-colored shirt with the same barely visible ketchup stain right below the breast pocket every day, and her eyes instantly gravitated to the slightly redder shade of salmon it made. She forced her gaze back to his pudgy red face.

            “Unfortunately not.”

            “Damn. What did they say?”

            “Well,” she said, “they transferred my call all the way up to the chief supervisor, and he said that it’s Apple policy not to restore any devices that have been urinated on, human or animal, because of the potential biological hazard.”

            “Isn't urine supposed to be sterile?” he barked.

            “I don’t know,” she said, “you’re the one running a school. I just work here.”

            “Well now we lost thirty-six kay in assets,” he said, leaning onto his desk. He thought about how he had to kiss the superintendent’s ass for months to get the funding. What was he thinking? Laptops, at an elementary school? What the hell do kids this age need computers for? Pissing on them, apparently.

            “I always knew that Jorgenson boy was trouble,” he said finally.

            “The juvenile justice department wants you to give a statement,” said Debbie, “to see if there was any previous behavior that indicated such an event would take place.” His case had been handed over to the county juvenile prosecutor.

            Dawkins laughed. “Previous behavior? There’s nothing that indicates a kid is going to up and pee on a cart of eighteen laptops. You know what you should tell them? Tell him the sign was that he was a little dumb shit kid, like all the rest of them!”

            She walked out of the office, scribbling “youthful indiscretion” on a pink sticky note.

Buyer's Remorse

I'd like to share another few bits of thought on the election, now that it has had time to gestate in my brain. It's certainly a strange mood in America right now - people either seem relieved and slightly optimistic or terrified, convinced the sky is going to come crashing down and that the sky is a socialist. People legitimately think that this is the end of America. The place is certainly different, and will get stranger, but let's face it, this is a pretty strange place. If you need a good model for America, go to the supermarket and look at all the food and foodlike substances on the shelves. There is abundance of everything, some of it is healthy, most of it is nourishing, and many things will cause cancer or birth defects. Most of that stuff is strange. Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper? Country Crock? Chicken injected with saline solution to make it a little more... well... more of it? How the hell do they make those things? It's beautiful and miraculous but yes, you do have a right to be afraid of what kinds of crazy things will be for sale there four years later, or, for that matter, what your kids will see at the supermarket. Ham in a Pillsbury dough tube? Spray-on tomatoes? I don't know, but there will be a lot of it, and it will be better than the alternative, which is no food. And somehow, our bodies will make it work.

And, for my conservative friends out there, don't worry about the fate of the Republican Party. It will live on, because the one who need the Republican Party the most is the Democratic Party. And vice-versa. They need each other to survive. But I won't get into my theory on that.

The most heartening piece of news to come out of the election, though, isn't about who won. It's not actually one specific race either. It's actually eight candidates who lost. And no, they are not the "rape ones." These were the eight candidates whose campaigns received funding from Sheldon Adelson, who made the single largest donation in political history. Adelson's Super PAC funded Romney and seven other Republican candidates, all of whom were defeated Tuesday night.

I'll admit, I'm worried about corporate influence on elections, and the rise of the Super PACs. And I legitimately thought that it was going to be the end of American Democracy a few years ago when the limit on corporate campaign contributions was raised to infinity dollars. But hey, looks like there's just not enough capital out there to pump into the elections to make them all go your way. Yes, in California we still have to unknowingly eat ham from hyperpigs thanks to corporate financial backing to those opposing prop 37. I'm not naive enough to believe that all corporate political financing can be undermined with simply the free spirits and smiles of the American people. What we did learn was that more money doesn't always yield more votes.

That alone gives me more hope than the '08 model of Obama. It sends the message that votes aren't commodities. Consumer culture is based on the principle that more money will get you more of the things you want. And everything you have you will eventually want again or want more of, because things will break, things will become obsolete, and usually they are engineered to do so.

It's easy to make people no different from commodities in this framework. Our bodies break down after a certain time fighting gravity and entropy. And eventually it's all going to fall apart. But I hope that our hearts and minds can be in a separate category, intrinsically, from the stuff we buy. A part of remaining that way is by sending the message that we are more than consumers, more than pieces of data in an economic model. And we need not to be consumed by our consumption. Cherish the things you have as unique, your own things. Make things, repair things, borrow things, share things, if you can do any of those at the expense of buying things. I know, you've heard this so many times. But it all ties together, consumer culture and maintaining our freedom. Because you don't need to be oppressed to not be free. In this free market society we're slaves to our stuff, or our desire for stuff. And of course, we must realize that there is something left after our bodies break down; we are more than commodities. That question, of course, has to be answered by spiritual inquiry. And while I believe I have a pretty good idea of what that looks like, this isn't my platform to preach it.

Because this is the Ozone Shack. [Cock Joke] Never take it too seriously.

Dip Me in Molasses and Call Me Shirley!

What follows is a fake history of a fake form of poetry which I made up for a formalist poetry workshop. Yes, I am partaking in a formalist poetry workshop. No, you cannot read my sonnets. Anyway, the name of this form is "Dip Me in Molasses and Call Me Shirley." I might get around to putting up a good example one of these days, but for now, here's the history:

The Dip Me in Molasses and Call Me Shirley may have one of the oldest and richest histories of any poetic form. The form dates back to Ancient Sumeria, where archaeologists have found five-line stanzas using words from the preceding stanza inscribed on the walls of ziggurats. The traditional name for this kind of stanza was either “coat the high priest with pitch tar and call him Surshlash,” or “the one with the honorary title ‘Shurlash’ is covered in resin,” translators remain divided. This likely refers to the embalming practices for the bodies of high priests. The form appears to have been preserved through the Mesopotamians and Babylonians, as several key passages from the Epic of Gilgamesh are written in a similar form, most notably the scene in which Enkidu burns down the cedars in Lebanon after being mocked by the goddess Mishmash for putting his left boot on his right foot. The form was also one of the most popular in use by the common people of Babylon…

          The tradition was adopted by the Jews during the Babylonian captivity, and was brought back to Jerusalem, where it was used as the format for a number of psalms and various other passages of the old testament, notably the book of Amos. Following the conquest of Alexander the Great and the establishment of the Selucid Empire, the form was adopted to Greek, which flourished in not only the Selucid Empire itself, but within Ptolemaic Egypt and the Greek Mainland itself. At this point there is no evidence that the sixth stanza had developed. The Greeks only used the pattern seen in the first five stanzas. Most were written in dactylic hexameter.

            Virgil, Pliny the Elder, and Cicero all wrote this form, but it was not popular with the Roman nobility. In fact, the Emperor Nero threatened Pliny the Elder with being impaled from the anus to the mouth if he “wrote one more stanza of [that] detestable form!” The form would disappear from the European continent for over a millennium.

The tradition, however, had survived through Greco-Bactrian traders on the Silk Road, who would compose long songs in this form to pass the time as their caravans rode through the Taklimakan Desert. Few were written down, but from what has been recorded, it seems that this was where the form of the sixth stanza developed, sung as a kind of refrain. However, this stanza would never change throughout the entire song, which would sometimes last for upwards of one hundred stanza. The skill of the poet would be measured by how many stanzas he could manufacture using the same end-words in the same configuration, but with different content and meaning.

Emperor Han Shundi received one such merchant and was so impressed by his abilities to improvise that he commissioned all one hundred and sixty seven of his court poets to write similar poems, and executed the poets whose work he deemed unworthy. His method of execution was to dip them in a thick boiling liquid known as “fang gao,” which was described as resembling tar but smelling of young lychee blossoms. The form was therefore known as “feng gao dip shrieking tradition.”

Famous navigator Zeng He brought copies of his favorite poems with him on his voyages, and one of them was a poem composed in the early-modern Dip Me in Molasses form, which he read to the Sultan of Zanzibar as an overture of diplomatic goodwill. Despite some adaptation in mainland Tanzania by tribal populations under the cruel heel of the Sultan, the form would see little use until its reading was again used as a token of diplomatic goodwill, this time to Portuguese explorer Vazco Da Gama, who brought it back to Portugal where it gained wide use among the Portuguese nobility.

In his later years, Milton penned what were allegedly translations of a “mergulhe me no molaço,” but were actually creations of his own. His senile brain is thought to have imagined poems allegedly in some language vaguely Portuguese-sounding. The “translations” themselves are mostly gibberish. Never the less, Byron, Wordswroth, Keats, and Coleridge all tried their hand at the form, finding it to be, in Byron’s words, “so bombastedly complicated and inelegante that it is only suitable for orphanes, trampes, and streete urchines of the loweste birthe.”

Meanwhile the Portuguese tradition continued, coming with the Empire to Brazil, where it flourished among Amazonian and Highland backwaters, before spreading to the Pampas and eventually to Buenos Aires, where it was discovered by Borges. It was in this form that he wrote his long narrative “Un Sueño de mi Sudamerica Cósmico,” (A Dream of My Cosmic South America), which was mostly a thinly veiled critique of the Pinochet regime in neighboring Chile.

The form got its English name from Brazilian immigrant João Fermin da Cunha arriving at Ellis Island in 1893. When trying to explain the pronunciation of his name to immigration officials, one official was reported to have said “Well dip me in molasses and call me Shirley, where did you get a name like that?” Da Cunha promptly changed his name to John Clemens to avoid any future confusion. But the phrase had stuck in his mind, and he penned a poem in the form which now bears this phrase as its name. It became wildly popular, posted on broadsides across the nation. It did not, however, catch on with educated city dwellers. Carrie Nation wrote an anti-liquor propaganda poem called “The Dip Me in Molasses and Call Me Shirley of Prohibition,” and the Woodrow Wilson campaign was known to have distributed pamphlets with Dip Me in Molasses poems to remind voters to get to the polls while keeping their black neighbors from doing so.

It was for this reason that Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen appropriated the form, feeling that it would empower blacks who were disenfranchised at the polls. The Duke Ellington Orchestra performed “The Dip Me in Molasses (And Call Me Shirley) Suite” to commemorate Hughes’ and Cullen’s work.

Ginsberg, in his early years, dabbled with the form in his early years, but found it to be “too heavy, maaan.” However, an early draft of “Howl” was found among Ginsberg’s papers after his death, indicating that he had intended to write his magnum opus as a Dip Me in Molasses before abandoning the idea.

The form has seen recent resurgence thanks to its frequent use by poet Billy Collins, and many alt-lit “authors” (the term used very liberally) on the blogosphere. A recent adaptation has been the “Tweet Me in Molasses,” where Twitter users collaborate to create an entire poem, tweeting one line at a time. There is also resurgent interest in places where the form has history, including Iraq, Xinxiang, Tanzania, Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, and New York City. President Obama has stated that after his second inaugural address, current poet laureate Natasha Tretheway will read a Dip Me in Molasses and Call Me Shirley. He hopes this poem will be less of a disaster than the last one.

Four More Years of Meh

"The clock just struck and it's democracy time!"

-Abe Lincoln

Four years ago I was one of the youngest voters. I had turned 18 days before, and had registered well before my birthday. I had sixth period off so instead of napping in my car in the parking lot before practice like I usually did, I went to participate in my first ever election. My polling place was in my neighbor's garage. Since it was the middle of the day the only other voters out were retirees. My neighbor himself was handing out the ballots. When he asked if it was my first time voting, so he could show me how to fill out a ballot, I said "yes" with way too much enthusiasm. I marked  the bubble for Obama and for no on Prop 8, and got my sticker. Actually, I got two stickers, one in English and one in Spanish. They might have only made that concession because it was my first time. (Apparently absentee voters don't get a sticker, which completely defeats the purpose of voting. Just like it doesn't happen unless you post it on facebook, your vote doesn't count if you don't have the sticker don't have the sticker to show for it.)

When I got home from practice my parents were watching CNN showing that Obama was already crushing the electoral vote. I had been anticipating a long night of white knuckles and electoral math, but it looked like it was already over before it started. But that wasn't what made me happy. What made me happy was that this was the first time that the youth vote was a significant demographic. And I was one of the youngest out there, only eligible to vote less than a week prior. In fact, the yellow card with my polling location on it had only come in the mail the day before. Watching those people celebrating in Hyde park, I felt like I had done something, I was part of the movement that was pointing this country in the right direction. I still haven't missed an election since.

Now, four years later, I stood outside some grungy building a block from campus, with a short line of people, mostly college students, moving pretty quickly. But people still complained. I told the group of girls standing behind me they should stop complaining, octogenarians in Florida are standing in line for hours. People in rural Uganda waited in line all day to vote a few years ago. There were allegedly precincts this year , two thousand and fucking twelve, where poll station workers tried to intimidate black people out of voting. People stand in long lines to vote, people have gone to jail to vote, people have died to vote. On the democracy spectrum, we got it easy.

But it wasn't the same this time. Of course I'm happy with the result. And I still felt that solemnity while filling in my ballot, even though I might have been checking out the girl voting in the next booth over. (But what could I have said as an opening line? So... vote here often?) But this election wasn't a movement, it wasn't optimism sweeping the land. We know that Obama can't just waltz into the Oval Office and kick the budget deficit in the teeth. It was a grind, resisting a dangerous culture of absolute materialism, the health-and-wealth gospel, and corporate excess. And even though the figurehead of that has been handed a narrow defeat, this election gives me little optimism. Maybe things will get done in the next four years, maybe national sanity will be restored, maybe we'll all find something to satisfy us other than all the stuff we have. And maybe our leaders will be supportive of that kind of culture.

But, still, fuck yeah, we got to commit an act of democracy today. And that's enough.

Something Silly About Poetry and Nature

            Two competing desires struggle within me. There is the desire to carve out a place in space of my own, where I am aware of all things as they are and as they change. This would be the place from which I drew my sustenance. And then there is the desire to be a constant nomad, physically and intellectually, to draw inspiration from the myriad peoples and nations of the world. I could synthesize a culture endemic to only myself, amalgamating and adopting the fragments I could glean.

I want to ride on the roof of a train, a stowaway, as some new scrubland unfolds before me, caravan lines running parallel somewhere off near the horizon, and know that I am looking their way as they look mine. This is my nomad aspect. It scours the land for nutrients, amino acids, fuel to burn, parts for the machine. At the same time I want to know a singular piece of nature, carve out a habitat for myself, where I can observe the subtle changes that take place from day to day and year to year. This is my farmer aspect. It harnesses natural processes to subtly refine matter into a form which will sustain me. This distinction, I have found, is reflected in the poetry of two writers who champion reverence for the earth, Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder, Snyder representing the nomad aspect and Berry representing the farmer aspect. Of course, this is not simply because one was a bit of a nomad and one farmed for a living.

Wendellberry Cobbler

Berry is the farmer, basing his life and livelihood on a single patch of land and working it, becoming intimately acquainted with its character, with every hill and valley, and even the soil itself. The land is comfort, and the slow rhythms of nature provide stability, respite from the chaotic rhythms of civilization. Berry’s poem “February 2, 1968” reflects the stability and isolation of being tied to the land: “In the dark of the moon, in flying snow, in the dead of winter, / war spreading, families dying, the world in danger, / I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover.” There is a sense that Berry feels entirely content in the presence of the land he has chosen to remain on, feeling a satisfaction with being in a place that few can feel in a post-agrarian society. In fact, one gets the impression that this connection with a specific piece of land is itself something that very few do feel. In his poem “On the Hill Late at Night,” he writes:

I am wholly willing to be here

between the bright silent thousands of stars

and the life of the grass pouring out of the ground.

The hill has grown to me like a foot.

Until I lift the earth I cannot move. (129)

It is isolation, but a liberating isolation. While the world changes around him, Berry is content to foster a connection with the land he knows, and the land he works.

            Berry’s reverence for the land grows from his understanding of the particular patch of land he has chosen to call his own. Salman Rushdie quipped in order to understand one life, one must swallow the whole world. But Berry’s life seems to suggest the opposite, at least in terms of understanding the natural world. The soil of Northern Kentucky is the soil of the whole Earth in its cycles of growth and death, freezing and thawing, nourishing and decomposing. His poem “Enriching the Earth” begins:

To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass

to grow and die. I have plowed in the seeds

of winter grains and various legumes,

their growth to be plowed in to enrich the earth.

There is a cyclical nature in these four lines, beginning and ending with the phrase “to enrich the earth,” evoking the circular nature of time for a farmer. (It has been documented in ethnographies of traditional farming societies that time is not perceived as proceeding linearly, as is common in Western culture, but instead moving in a circle.) This evokes a fact of nature that often does not play out in human time: that everything organic grows from and returns to the soil countless times over. Berry’s observance of the soil, both its ecological properties and philosophical implications, extends to all soils of the world. And he recognizes that he is himself part of this process. “After death, willing or not, the body serves, / entering the earth. And so what was heaviest / and most mute is at last raised up into song.” In this model of perpetual decomposition and regeneration, it is entailed that all living things are made from the same matter, and therefore are in communion with all other living things, united by the soil. Cultivating a piece of land results in Berry cultivating all of nature.

The Pacific Northwest Bushman

            Snyder possesses this same reverence for the soil, but in his worldview it may be more dirt than soil, emphasizing the vibrancy without the decay and consuming aspect. His is the hunter-gatherer’s earth where Berry’s is the farmer’s. Being nourished by the land does not come from careful cultivation, but from vigorous exploration. This sheer joy in discovering nature through furtive exploration – akin to a forager happening upon a patch of nourishing tubers – is reflected in “Meeting the Mountains.” In this poem, a man is discovering nature through furtive exploration.

He crawls to the edge of the foaming creek

He backs up the slab ledge

He puts a finger in the water

He turns to a trapped pool

Puts both hands in the water

Puts one foot in the pool

Drops pebbles in the pool

He slaps the water surface with both hands

He cries out, rises up and stands

Facing toward the torrent and the mountain

Raises up both hands and shouts three times!

This discovery is not made by careful cultivation of the soil, maintaining a small patch of land to learn the universal truths of Nature. Nature must be encountered in as many places with as many senses and appendages as possible.

            Yet the realization of the near-eternal scope of natural time is there in Snyder’s poetry as well. Snyder is preoccupied with the impermanence of nature on geological time rather than the cyclical properties driven by the seasons. This understanding of the beauty in the changing landscape is brought to life in “Poem Left in Sourdough Mountain Lookout.”

I the poet Gary Snyder

Stayed six weeks in fity-three

On this ridge and on its rock

& saw what every Lookout sees,

Saw these mountains shift about & end up on the ocean floor

Saw the wind and waters break

The branchéd deer, the Eagle’s eye

& when pray tell, shall Lookouts die?

The recognition of nature’s constant flux no doubt dovetails with Snyder’s studies in Buddhism, particularly with the notion of impermanence. Snyder’s conception of Nature as encompassing all physical phenomena could them be said to apply to Karmic cause and effect. This isn’t the Western pseudo-karma, a kind of moral causality that is invoked only when something very fortunate or unfortunate happens. This is the true Buddhist philosophical Karma, a force natural as gravity, which shapes the illusion that is the world through linear cause and effect. In this worldview, everything was once everything else in the scope of eternal time, and so man is tied to Nature through its intrinsic properties. In “By Frazier Creek Falls,” he writes “This living flowing land / is all there is, forever // We are it / it sings through us” (477).

Despite this blissful (again, in the true Buddhist sense) erosion the boundaries of the self, Snyder still seems to be conscious to define himself in relation to nature, keeping himself as a separate “I.” He maintains his role as an experiencer of nature while himself being tied to it in the appropriately named poem “Nature: Green Shit.” Notice the italics when recognizing his identity as something fleshy rather than a structure of cellulose:

The brittle hollow stalks of sunflower

            heads broke over full of dusty seed

            peeld, it tastes good, small

Why should dirt be dirty when you can clean up.

            stop to like the dead or dying plants,

            twisted witherd grass

Picking the last peppers

Soft and wrinkld; bright green, cool

            what a lump of red flesh I am!

What was soil for Berry is dirt for Snyder; it is medium rather than resource. Both authors are reverent of the stuff. To Snyder it is as much a part of nature as are the majestic peaks surrounding Kitkidizzi. And in fact, to Snyder, every part of nature may be nothing more than equal parts. But there is a sense that Berry’s soil is something sacred. It is his to cultivate and it is what sustains him.

The Mad Farmer's Sanity

            A restless mind can never reconcile its competing desires. It may be that there are simply too many places in the world to experience in a human lifetime, and countless more when accounting for the places in space where we will one day settle. But never the less, I feel this extreme restlessness, a feeling of being incomplete without having known intimately every city, culture, landscape, and biome that can be experienced. The term, which seems to be prevalent in the communal lexicon thanks to its being integrated into tumblr graphics and facebook cover photos, is wanderlust. Of course a term doesn’t any legitimacy when it is appropriated by popular culture, and my compulsive need for exploring and learning is a shared trait of humanity. Snyder encourages this. Between the lines he is nodding at me, encouraging me to act on these mad impulses. And I know he is right, this is what I must do.

            But then there is Berry to temper what I will call my wanderlust, for lack of any more appropriate term. In Berry’s worldview, to work the land is to become acquainted with the whole world, because the whole world is present in the working of the land. I could be that Siberian woodsman, to whom Berry says “the forest / whose ways, strange to me, are well known to you as the sound of your own voice.” Whatever form that forest may take, be it a city or a field of study, I will know that an enlightened man has spoken with reverence of this kind of exclusive familiarity. I may not settle some place for long, the nomad aspect may be too much of me. And I know that both aspects, the nomad and the farmer, are meaningful, productive futures to carry out. There are many ways to know the whole of the Earth.

I write about this sometimes. Deal with it.

This Plug Has No Shame, Because It Is Not Sentient

You there, reading this! You obviously like the internet because you're on it right now. You also probably like music. And you might like radio. Then  I got good news for you! My friend Weston's radio show, Resistance Radio, is on tonight, and every Sunday night, broadcasting on KUPS Tacoma, THE SOUND! which can be streamed live on the internet. So if you want to do some loud rambunctious rawkin tonight, at 10:00 PM pacific time check it out here:

http://tunein.com/radio/Yuri-OYABB-Kahan-p381928/

We tune in to this every week, gathered around the computer-radio like old-timey assholes, darning our old-timey socks and burning down the small businesses of old-timey immigrants because IT WAS A SIMPLER TIME DAMMIT!

Of course you should listen for the music, which runs the spectrum from loud to really loud, from snorting coke off a toilet seat on the Sunset Strip to wakeboarding on a archetypal Dante-esque lake of fire as Satan himself drives the boat at speeds upwards of Mach 7. And there's the ethical argument to be made for listening to a real human DJ. But most compelling reason to listen is that you might hear an ad for Taco Night at the New Frontier, which usually plays during his show.

When adjusted for production quality, this might be the most effective advertisement ever. The ad is for some kind of bar/restaurant somewhere in Tacoma, which apparently has taco night, as well as pizza and beer. Let me break down the add for you:

It opens with some clicking sounds that are probably supposed to be a horse's hooves, but it might just be the a corruption in the audio file. Then there is a dialogue between a voice that is a few octaves too low to be human, and someone whose speech is being manipulated by an auto-tuner into a kind of Tom Haverford does R-Kelly sing-song. I suppose this technically means that he's singing, because all of this takes place over a few twangy acoustic guitar chords. The auto-tuned voice asks the deep voice how his herd is doing. And then, "speaking of herd," asks if he has heard that The New Frontier has taco night.

"On Tuesday?"
"No."
"On Thursday?"
"No. On We-e-e-e-e-dnesday!" It takes him a long time to sing Wednesday. Because when you have auto-tuner, you might as well run with it and drag out those melismas.

Then, they singe a jingle! A real live fucking jingle! It goes "They've got pizza they've got beer, down at the New Frontier, oh man, oh man." Let's recap the elements here. We have: 1) a country/bluegrass style acoustic guitar 2) a high pitched, auto-tuned voice, and 3) Fat Albert. This is the instrumentation for a jingle, something they haven't made in decades.

And you know what, I really want to go to taco night at the New Frontier, if I ever am in Tacoma again. All because this ad was so bad, it's memorable. My parents' generation always talks about how everything used to have a jingle, and how they're still trying to get "You'll wonder where the yellow went / when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!" out of their skulls. And they just know that when they have Alzheimer's or dementia  those neurons are going to be the very last ones to go. It makes me wonder why advertisers ever stopped making jingles. I know that other forms of advertising used back then stopped working. They were so mesmerized by the concept of television that if anyone came on the story box and said that something was the best, they would believe it. If they told you it would make you happy, then it would make you happy. If they told you it would get you a date, then it would get you a date.

Then people started to realize that you could lie on TV just like you could in the real world, and advertisers had to pinpoint and attack our insecurities, most of which are that we are afraid of being undersexed and appearing foolish. If you don't buy Old Spice, you will be undersexed, they say. If you pay too much for your car insurance, you will look foolish, they say. And all of your friends are out somewhere having fun drinking Bud Lite while you sit at home and watch your lackluster team, which represents your decaying city, lose yet another game to that team whose fan base really irritates you. We live empty lives when sitting in front of the TV, and advertisers know this. They strike when we are most vulnerable.

But the jingle just makes us all feel good. And if you tune into Resistance Radio tonight, you just might hear one of the best!

And Weston, if you read this in time, I'm in the mood to hear some Suicide Machines tonight.