I recently noticed that there is a melody, or at least a rhythm, going through my head at all times. My foot is always rocking, even in my sleep. Birds, subways, cars on the street, the flow of a conversation, make imprints on my consciousness that bend, sometimes all on their own, into melody. Even the sun and the Earth have beats that pulse in us as constantly as our own hearts.
Breathing sweet mercy into my mask
While juggling knives on horseback
How we crossed the desert
I never found out
Fewer returned than set out
The desert was nothing
The flooding was worse
Then organized cruelty
Caused people to burst
Breathing sweet mercy into my mask
Hoping that mercy isn’t too much to ask
For people who do all the things that we did
The things we can see and the things that we hid
We have to get better
We keep getting worse
The things we keep hidden
Must come to light first
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. is the first person to tell me – not to my face, and not in so many words, but I got the message – that I am not the only one to recognize that the society I am living in, is insane. And the insanity of our society is not accidental or coincidental. It is intentional.
I first read Slapstick, or Lonesome No More, around the time it was published in 1974. As crazy as the book is, it was a little less crazy than it is now, reading it the second time in a world that has descended even deeper into insanity.
Vonnegut’s views of the corruption of presidential power by Nixon is almost comical compared to the rampant criminality of Trump. Is it parody that becomes tragedy or the other way around?
Like a lot of things in this book, the title and subtitle are contradictions. The narrator’s mix of cruelty and kindness balances unevenly on a fulcrum of world-weariness. The greatest contradiction is the narrator’s dream of a world where connection to others is the key to happiness even as he confesses his disconnection from the people closest to him.
Kurt Vonnegut experienced World War II in a way that burned through everything he wrote. The horror of living in an abandoned Empire State Building as society crumbles around him is no worse than the horrors he has already seen.
The book is dedicated to Laurel & Hardy. Angels, he calls them. Maybe angels are just people like Stan and Ollie, who make us laugh and make the burdens of life a little lighter for a little while.
I first visited Santa Cruz in 2023 and have returned every year since. I expect it will always hold a special place in my heart and not just because of the people I love who live there. Coming from New York City, is almost like visiting a foreign country. The language and customs are mostly the same but there is a different feeling coming from the people. They are relaxed and kind. Nobody seems to be in a hurry. In a lot of ways, life makes more sense there. Unless you visit the Mystery Spot, where nothing makes sense.
This video includes a few sketches I made on a recent trip, paired like a buttery chardonnay with the opening chords of my new song Angels.
I first visited Santa Cruz in 2023 and have returned every year since. I expect it will always hold a special place in my heart and not just because of the people I love who live there. Coming from New York City, is almost like visiting a foreign country. The language and customs are mostly the same but there is a different feeling coming from the people. They are relaxed and kind. Nobody seems to be in a hurry. In a lot of ways, life makes more sense there. Unless you visit the Mystery Spot, where nothing makes sense.
Here are a few sketches I made on a recent trip, paired like a buttery chardonnay with the opening chords of my new song Angels.
I should say at the outset that I am not dying. At least, no more than we all are. I am also not suicidal and have no desire to die. I enjoy life. Which is why I think I will enjoy death.
I do not believe that death is the end. I do not believe there is a being who created the universe and sits in judgement. I do not believe that bad people will be punished and good people rewarded after death. Being a bad person is its own punishment and being good is its own reward.
When I say I will enjoy death it is because I don’t believe I will die. Only my body will. If my life goes like my parents’ did, my body will be a burden by the time death comes to free me from its cage. What comes after that will be so different from any experience I have perceived with my five little senses, that I don’t think my animal brain is capable of comprehending it. But the other part of me – soul or spirit – will recognize it as a homecoming.
Like the song says: When death comes, it’s like the sun rising to end the night.
Now I know why nobody dies
In the arms of heaven
We’re just here as long as we’re
Supposed to be
When my time comes then I’m
Looking for the arms of heaven
To open wide and take me inside
Forever
When death comes it’s like the sun’s
Rising to end the night
And it shines till it blinds us
With its light
When death comes you’ll hear the drums
You’ll hear everything in harmony
Or you’ll find a way to pass the days
So the days don’t pass you by
All that you were that’s just a blur
When you’re in the arms of heaven
You can feel what you thought was real
Baby, that was just a dream
But now you’re awake so they can take you
Into the arms of heaven
They’ll open wide and take us inside
Forever
When death comes it’s like the sun’s
Rising to end the night
And it shines till it blinds us
With its light
When death comes you’ll hear the drums
You’ll hear everything in harmony
Or you’ll find a way to pass the days
So the days don’t pass you by
You’ll find a way to pass the days
So the days don’t pass you by
You’ll find a way to pass the days
So the days don’t pass you by
The harshness of the world is there;
It bends our minds towards despair.
Yet since we cannot make things well,
Should we on all this cruelty dwell?
To ponder distant hardship's yoke,
Was not the way of ancient folk.
They knew naught of what lay beyond
Hearth and home and village pond.
To think too much on evil's banes,
Our brain's resources slowly drains.
To contemplate the tyrants' ways,
The groundwork for deep sadness lays.
In simple ways to take our shelter,
Protects us from the Devil's smelter;
Or else we might succumb to rage,
In fury we might quickly age.
So grant us peaceful meditation,
In Christian style or else in Asian;
Let joy infuse our total being,
A quiet refuge from sorrow seeing.
Stephen Wylie
Amazing what a little water, sunshine, and time can do.
You have to know how much I love you Or all of this is just a show You have to know
In April, I went into the studio to record my new album, The Changing of the Garden. A month later I got an email from a producer in the UK named Adam James who had heard some of my music and thought we could both benefit from a collaboration. I am so glad he did because now I can share with you the album’s first song, You Have To Know.
Listen to You Have To Know on all streaming platforms here
The video for the song is my own concoction of original images and drawings and I hope you enjoy that as well as the song.
If you know anyone interested in indie music, or anyone indie-curious, please pass this song their way. And thank you for coming along on this ride.
In April, I went into the studio to record my new album, The Changing of the Garden. A month later I got an email from a producer in the UK named Adam James who had heard some of my music and thought we could both benefit from a collaboration. I am so glad he did because now I can share with you the album’s first song, You Have To Know.
The video for the song is my own concoction of original images and drawings and I hope you enjoy that as well as the song.
If you know anyone interested in indie music, or anyone indie-curious, please pass this song their way. And thank you for coming along on this ride.