HELL

Blew.

2012-02-14T16:57:00.001-08:00

When everything's changing on me
and everything's breaking off me
oh, who am I to fear
The Blues in your Heart.

When everyone's taking from you
and all Life's making of you
are rehashed tears
it's just The Blues in your Heart.

And all that's clear
is why you're running
ooh, it's called Love.

There's an old soul waitin' for you
to die in a blaze of glory
for your ideals
for The Blue in your Heart.

And all that's clear

is why you're running

ooh, it's called Love.

Song Not Nowhere.

2012-01-23T18:29:00.000-08:00

There's a light
out there in The World
I'm torn by
trying to find it
or just dancin'
as The Darkness
slays me tonight

There was a Time
I felt it all turn
sword like
twisting as a silver dancer
as The Darkness
swayed in the night

and it was always in them lonely nights
it was always in them lonely nights
that I found I found I found all the answers

Yeah there's a Light
out there in the World
I've sworn by
and now I've found it I'm just dancin'
as The Darkness waves me goodbye

and it was always in them lonely nights

it was always in them lonely nights

that I found I found I found all the answers

1.

2012-01-23T14:34:00.000-08:00

I think
it's dark
I say
it's here
that first begins
that tiny fear
of knowing what
I've never known
and seeing first that
dark that's shown
where nothing meets
what I can dream
this NowhereHood
I've never seen.

Magnolias.

2012-01-21T16:54:00.000-08:00

To fall
is to change
and when all is lost
and you feel done
it's time to move on.

To call your songs
your pain
is all you've sung
but you ain't done
it's time to move on.

Hello 'stralia

2011-12-19T17:50:00.001-08:00

Goodbye, Texas.

2011-11-29T18:26:00.001-08:00

2011-11-26T20:35:00.001-08:00

2011-11-03T16:05:00.001-07:00

Night.

2011-10-17T07:28:00.000-07:00

We sit atop the truck and talk but we don't talk much. Deer ghost just far enough away as to not wake Moose, the dog, who lies beside the front wheel. His ears twitch in semi-sleep. The moon is in hiding, giving light to all those worlds that exist behind it. Billions of lights amongst that red mist which spears the spine of the sky, your side, my side, past and present, now and forever.

We pass the cigarette back and forth.

So many things disappear as smoke.

I have learned that.

Earth.

2011-10-10T06:31:00.000-07:00

There is dust in the air as we walk. Dust which kicks and eddies up off the chalk dry field and settles on your skin, your hair, your teeth. There's been no rain for almost ten years now. None to speak of anyhow. There is dust in his voice as he speaks, saying -

My father grabs me by the arm as he lay in the bed. And he was still real strong, though he was pushing ninety. I was crying though I couldn't help it. Crying even when my wife came back in the room and daddy was screaming at me, screaming - you got to do this son, you got to do what I tell ya, bring me that gun, bring me that gun - and was all I could do to tell my daddy, no, I can't do it. I can't do it. And I had to walk out that room and have all them doctors and what not see me cry with my woman wiping my face and my daddy screaming for me to bring his gun...

The dog comes close. We stop walking and everything is still.

...he died next day though it wasn't of his own hand like he want to. And I swear that's the last time I cry and I won't never cry again.

I turn to look but he stares straight ahead.

I see a long, hard desert in his eyes and I know his words to be true.

2011-09-28T18:46:00.001-07:00

It's raining a light rain tonight, but it doesn't seem to mean anything.

Transmission 777.

2011-09-27T12:06:00.000-07:00

And the plan keeps rolling on. The apartment in Brooklyn in disarray. Everything non-musical must go. Streamlining. Again. The album still being mixed. The path leads back to Europe now. Via Texas.

And for the first time in a long time. A desire to sit back in here and write.

But not just yet.

Over and out.

2011-09-15T12:26:00.001-07:00

Bats.

2011-08-15T07:11:00.000-07:00

The sky so low it hits the floor of Manhattan and
somehow that full moon closer too
leering over us
stirring Gotham into a frenzy
and yet after everything that has gone before
even Gotham's earnest despair
seems
like a grand adventure
as I sip my tea
and watch it all
explode.

People worry. What are they worried about today?

2011-08-04T11:38:00.000-07:00

It's a tightrope, this city. A tightrope walk between being crushed by negativity and fear and money and power and finding the will to not only survive, but to flourish. I find myself scared again. Not of the streets, or the people, or the noises but of the fact that fear exists in me. That the voices have returned and here they are magnified. Failure here carries with it such a heavy price. This place does not easily comfort the broke, the broken, the weary.

I thought I'd given up talking like that. Using words like failure.

Here I found my true partner. My love. But can I find here the strength to not only stand tall myself, but to also lift her out of this dark, claustrophobic place?

I must. There is no question. I must.

I sit in the shoebox. I record these new songs. I tumble into fear and comparison and all the work that was done in Europe threatens to fall away - they're just not good enough, they're just not interesting enough, they just won't hold up...

But they did. On the stages I walked I stood tall and life changed around me. People were changed and cried as they told me so. Gifts were given and received. Hearts were broken open and it all became a plan and the plan is only four weeks away. Four weeks until we are back surrounded by the gypsies. Four weeks until we are back in Europe, where belief blossomed, common in the scented air of those smaller, more welcoming cities.

I have to hold that in my heart, or perish here in the fire.

Some days I am afraid. I will admit that.

Yet I must not fail.

Postcard from Brooklyn.

2011-07-30T17:11:00.000-07:00

Such a life that has been created. Hyper real, a constant dream which trembles in the blistering heat of the air and shivers in passionate determination. I am truly out to sea now, these weeks the tough call, where we pray that our little Brooklyn shoebox is built of analogy - an escape, just there, just outside the window.

In four weeks time we will be back in Copenhagen and I will be in the moment I have worked almost two years to reach. Work that has brought me my wife, a family of friends, countless adventures and sorrows, all building to a window, 8 days in length, to do what I do the best I can do it.

Then we wait - and watch the next moment come.

So here I sit, staring out at the escape.

And the heat presses itself hard at our window.

2011-07-29T10:14:00.001-07:00

New

Dear Machine.

2011-07-01T11:30:00.000-07:00

When Yesterday's sun
rises in blood
a cancer,
we'll all stand strong
and you
will be alone
as we float out on a sea
a hold of followed dreams
and you won't ever see
what we become.

And left in your home
you'll eat yourself
a stanza
of how it all fell
into
Hell
you should have let it be
and let us all be free
now we won't ever see
what you become.

We wanted Love.
We wanted Out.
And we wanted You
to prove
what you know
but you could never see
the honesty of dreams
so we'll just walk our own
Sweet Road.

6.

2011-06-24T20:17:00.001-07:00

Time has rolled away from the words.
Time and life and no chance to catch a breath
and remember the past few weeks,
when all the present is enough to fill a lifetime.

5.

2011-06-13T00:48:00.000-07:00

Silence as I float out on the lake. Silence under the water, silence in my soul. Blue fades to orange over lush green as the sun yawns, patient and considered in its descent. Smoke mysteries across the glass. Birds gossip as they watch my alien frame climb out of the water. The mosquitos quench themselves on us, but standing in this idyllic frame we let them drink as though it be their final feast. Everything is gentle when lit under this delicate midnight sun. Here we sing songs. The locals close their eyes and applaud in humble volume as not to break the evening spell. And when I stare out the window on the way back to the city, I see more trees, more lakes, more valleys, more beauty, and my soul, so hungry for his, so ready, inhales scene after serene scene and I am inspired to remain this free forever.

4.

2011-06-09T22:26:00.000-07:00

We catch a bus from the airport, back 600 years into the Old Town, where all the beauties are collected together in a square dedicated to Freedom. Beauty of face, beauty of architecture, beauty of heart and beauty of soul. I stroll in this place and I laugh and wave to the family that dust the streets with memories. Tallin, Estonia is another home. These friends another family. We drink beer. The sun does not sink below the horizon. I stand up high on a cliff face with a thousand year old stone fence as guardian, and stare out over the Baltic Sea towards what is still to come, but it is no surprise that here I am content. And yet, what true journey man is ever blessed with bliss, settled upon the word content. I say goodbye in the square, my friends close their eyes when I speak of where I am going. They thank me, I thank them. In the morning, Sam and I walk slow toward the dock, a languid parting with this beautiful, aged city. We travel over the sea, in a box built of lights, shopping, queues and ovine chatter which crescendos down the corridors of the ferry as a Momentus tide, as though the very beigeness of all aboard, is enough to keep us afloat upon these cobalt plains.
And initially, this is my impression of Helsinki. Land in mass of writhing trolleys, ages of elbows which muscle and need, sun baked fanaticism to be one in front and potato people baking in a glass oven on a snail pace highway into the city centre - I am thrown, this chapter all grey, steaming and jagged stares though just as all is dizzy and fit we find our tradition, the first beer in a new city, and we drink to leaving this place with a different impression than This we have found upon arrival.
There must be something here.
Our text arrives.
We trolley off.
A host with most gracious handshake and grin, my first Fin, who laughs at the pressure and yet can give stories out like candy cane, as my ears act like children, greedily gobbling them up and yet always hungry for more. And then, as he talks, he moulds this city around us. I the observer, desperate to see how he does this, am too lost in the beauty he creates to follow his words, his hands, but in the course of a few minutes walking, he has turned these brackish steel streets into a forest fantasy the equal of which I have barely seen. This land a land beyond a billion lands, over the reaches and into The Heavens we have travelled to sit beside and admire this mirror of the gods, the surface broken only by the dance of a single white swan and the sky seduced by the face of The Sun herself to turning a roguish pink as the fir trees release their evening aroma and all the animals look at me with knowing Narnian eyes. Here in the city, this great, wild surprise.

3.

2011-06-06T00:42:00.000-07:00

In the dark place, our voices trail molasses echoes into the corners, painted black and red with lascivious abandon. A home for ghosts and we the living possessed by respect for the dead and the sounds they require. This place, this place, atop the hills, a secret even amongst Norwegians, a place of sex and death, built by the visionary Emmanuel Vigelands. I'm awestruck. I exit the shoulder high stone door, and blinking the sun specks form my eye I breathe and let it all wash over me, as I have done so many times already. These Last Days, this feeling of change, which sweeps in on salt sea air and simply and softly arranges the mind in a new and hopeful dream state where in all is in front of us, and no and never are no words forever. These Last Days, they are a New Truth where in all is built upon solid words and firm goals and key concrete connections. The Family. The Family grows and grows.

A person I have never met travels 9 hours to sit before the festival stage and listen to me sing. She requests a song of mine. We talk. Later, she sings me a song she has written and I cry and take her by the hand and put her in front of the family and everyone sits silent and respectful and we all drown in this Now Nico Sea and afters we try and get going but Tobias sits quiet and stares at our new friend and says simply, I need to respect that song for a moment longer - and nothing, nothing anyone says or does is a cliche. I tell everyone the story of my Love and I play the song, the sound of it, over the stereo speakers and laugh as people slap me on the back, and the girls, amazing singers all of them, gasp and holler with glee when The Boots hits her notes. Tomas, twirling, insists on calling her later in the evening. Everyone loves everyone. Everyone is safe and everyone is free. I can talk to each person here in the same manner, real, right, open.

This is The Gypsy Family, one corner.
And there are so many more roads and so many more friends.
And shows.
And moments.

A chair beside the water overlooking the fjord. A red and white cabin in the woods. Absinthe and laughter. Joy as a brother achieves recognition. An incredible depth in a brief second of eye contact. With all of the boys and girls. Incredible. An invitation to play in the studio of a famous Norwegian Poet. A invitation to play in Iceland. Two men who come to every show. Hundreds of copies of the album downloaded now.

Further on further east further out further to farther our future fantasia.

2.

2011-06-02T06:34:00.000-07:00

How is this possible? I recall the tram to work, the stone faced hypnosis of the tired mass, the dreaming. Or do I? Perhaps I no longer recall these things. Here in my kitchen in Oslo. I will make coffee now. And eat caramelised cheese on dark Norwegian bread. Outside the rare cloud shifts position as if to stretch itself after an afternoon nap. The unceasing sun is not weary of its tireless shift. At 3am he will barely disappear, shading the night in pink, iced with scattered stars. Soft noises rise from the street. A truck passes apologetically. Everything is illuminated by the magic of the journey. It is Thursday afternoon, 3pm, and I am free to nothing. Though I will play guitar.

Days ago, Monday Morning, I woke on the grass, breathing the fragrant air of Dresden, East Germany. I was surrounded by friends. Our candles had burned themselves as we slept. The rug was as grassy as my hair. We all laughed. Monday Morning. Collecting our things we danced down the street to where was parked a green and white van. We climbed in. Once a police van it was now a haven. We rolled a joint. Someone filmed us. Guitar, violin, singing, the magic of the night here in the morning. We could barely say a word to each other. So we played and played and played. Monday Morning. At lunchtime we giggled home. Coffee. More music. The violinist and I devoted friends for life, such was the joy we found in the music. I will find her and she will play on the record. Here in Dresden.

Tears when we leave. Tears and fists over hearts and looks in our eyes and a jasmine memory sure to last. The Mayor of Neustadt insists we share a final coffee with him in his rooftop apartment and I listen to his histories as I hold dear the warm cup and look at the rooftops below. Such magic here. Deserted buildings garnished with graffiti and held together by the rapturous embrace of ivy vines, desperate to drag their new love into the ground, down, down, down, to cement the passing of time. We say goodbye. Goodbye. I stare quietly out the window as we drive. The Swiss girl next to me tells stories of lakes and parties and friends and plans and pasts and I do not tire of listening though I do so passively and let the road hypnosis take me.

Home base, Berlin. One night. Another wanderer, another wayward breed to sit beside and share stories. Another member of this Gypsy Family. How very true it is. We smile. Ten seconds and we are brothers. That's the feeling of The Road. My Road. I do not pretend to own any other than my own.

Sun, fast, snap, wake, coffee, croissant, airport. Over the Baltic and into Oslo. My other brother, the mentor, meets us at the train station. And we cook and laugh, three souls at the sublime serendipity of it all. A beer. Trails and strings that reach around the world and tie us all together, him to her to me to a friend to a city to a moment and back again. The world contracts around us and we drink whiskey to celebrate. There are shows to play here before we head further north. Deeper in. Estonia, Finland, Sweden...and beyond. A life now. A true, traveller's life. A dream come true.

And Elizabeth is coming. To Berlin. In three weeks.

I cannot wait to share this freedom.

1.

2011-05-25T13:49:00.000-07:00

There's so much room to breathe here in Berlin. I didn't expect that. It's like Paris, but without the weight and peacoque expectation of beauty. There's an emptiness which exists as a perfect palette upon which to create. The streets are quiet. People move almost as ghosts, as though to draw attention would be to break the spell. I roll a cigarette and stand on the balcony and I can see beautiful apartment buildings hunched beside post-war brutalist blocks and everything just fits. I can hear birds singing at dusk.

This is my life now. I will never turn back. I have a background in normality. As normal as all that ever was. Tomorrow the travelling, the playing, the work, the joy of walking my own path begins. I clean the blood off the guitar, caked and black from last week's goodbye. I make hand made CDs to sell as I go. I stay home, happy to be alone, drinking tea and quiet. I drink the quiet. I can't remember the last time I did that. I sit by myself, happy in a room with tall ceilings and a high lamp, though I am never alone these days. A happy thought synched with the buzzing of my phone. Oh, hello. Not long. I'm on my way. Just got to go through Europe to get there.

Life has sure taken a turn. I have begun to learn the Art of Happiness.

Let's do this thing.

2011-05-19T18:28:00.000-07:00

The FOR LOVE AND MAYHEM TOUR 2011 hits Northern Europe this May, June and July. Expect songs of bruised romance and death-defying emotion in great live shows from WASP SUMMER AND WATER MUSIC.

If you want to come to the house concerts, email berlinsofasalon@googlemail.com for details.

Thursday, May 26 Joe's Bar, Berlin DE
Friday, May 27 Des Geiger's Rätsel, Leipzig DE
Saturday, May 28 Die Buchbar, Dresden DE
Sunday, May 29 Musik Nonstop, Dresden (1:00-2:00)
Sunday, May 29 Veränderbar, Dresden DE
Friday, June 03 Sofa Salon Oslo, Oslo NO w/ Mark Steiner
Saturday, June 04 Musikkfest Olso at Sound of Mu, Oslo NO w/ Mark Steiner and his Problems
Thursday, June 09 House Concert, Turku FI
Friday, June 10 House Concert, Tampere FI
Saturday, June 11 House Concert, Helsinki FI
Sunday, June 12 Bar Loose , Helsinki FI
Wednesday, June 15 Fairbar, Århus DK
Thursday, June 16 Cafe Retro, Copenhagen DK
Friday, June 17 Southside Cavern, Stockholm SE with El Madrigal
Saturday, June 18 House Concert, Stockholm SE with El Madrigal
Tuesday, June 21 Fete de la Musique, Berlin DE
Wednesday, June 29 Pop-In, Paris FR
Friday, July 01 TBC, Edinburgh UK
Saturday, July 02 13th Note, Glasgow UK with w/ Mark Steiner and his Problems, Louise McVey and Cracks In The Concrete and How Garbo Died

waspsummer.bandcamp.com
watermusic.bandcamp.com

2011-05-19T16:53:00.000-07:00

2011-05-10T21:53:00.000-07:00

2011-05-10T15:38:00.000-07:00

2011-04-28T08:09:00.000-07:00

I have a new Ep for download if you want to click this sentence.

x

Anniversary.

2011-04-06T23:26:00.001-07:00

Tick Tock.

2011-03-30T18:53:00.000-07:00

Confession. I've always been a hippy. Always worn ripped jeans, scorned working for the man, carried a crystal or a rock in my pocket, fought the machine with passion and heart and wrath, chosen creativity over security. But oh boy, this time I've done it. I've really done it. I'm done for.

Teehee.

In seven weeks I walk away from this office and I go to the airport and I leave. I leave with a very small amount of money, a tonne of gigs in both Europe and the US, and absolutely no idea what I'm going to do next. I've left my house, the only Home I've ever had. I've been staying at a wonderful friends house. I've given notice to my work and told them I don't want to come back. Nothing exists anymore. I have no things. I am selling my pictures, my paintings, throwing away most of my clothes, leaving my books, well, leaving my books is difficult, but I'm leaving them somewhere safe. Somewhere appreciated. And then, that's that. A cloud. A current. A disappearer.

The time I spent in Paris with Meegs meant so much to me. I was in the company of someone who inspired me. Someone who had followed their dream no matter how difficult the challenges she was presented with. And she never gave up, and she was not false. Just human. And driven. Fucking beautiful. It lit something in me which is yet to dim. And another friend in Paris, my sister's ex-girlfriend, who had left Australia all those years ago with barely a cent, and traveled and traveled...the simple words she gave me as gift - "don't worry about the How, Matty, just think about the What..."

Not many people know what the What is. Life can be dizzying. Life can mean Love or Work or Pain or all of the above. So it is with humility that I thank the Universe for giving me my What. I may not be the best at it, or the most professional, but I can certainly say that I approach it with all the passion and determination I have and I leave nothing at home when I do it. It is, quite simply, everything to me.

So go, Hippy, fly. Count down these last days and smile at the joy of The Unknown to Come. Let loose the fear of being found and embrace, embrace, embrace - all that is gifted. The Lost Generation is not dead. The desire to fly, to live and experience is greater now, when everything is built to keep us checked, terrified, brought together to feel ever more alone. It's an information age, when everything we need is at out fingertips - and it is this I revolt against - for I desire nothing more, than to find out for myself what the world truly is.

Make the one wish, that you never believed.
Find the one place, where you want to be.

Don't talk.
Don't listen.
Just do.

All the eyes are empty, I fear.

2011-03-29T16:14:00.000-07:00

I call you out.

I call you shivering,
trembling, liquid eyes and fearful
surrender, your volcanic and sacrificial
salute to everything but soul, your spittle
as the Sheep call Sheep, blind to their own,
ewe and your schisms, me in your prisons, 20
something and keen, a sharpened dullard whose
only talents lie in the cutting of your perceived enemies
your betters, your worse, then thirty on your loss apparent
dark brambles and roads you'll never visit, oh yes dear, weep you creep
it's deep that sheepish sleep you recall, perhaps the dark rings and dry dizzying
demands you dragged down in the dirty dastardly depths of what you once
believed in but could never quite form, worm, your well worn scorn just bars now
behind which you'll rust rouge those iron tears - the last you'll ever cry before those wry
disappointment diamonds desert you in The Change, and the face becomes a shadow, turns
into star, fades white, then yellow to green, green to red,
red to a bruised
goodbye.

2011-03-28T23:15:00.001-07:00

2011-03-28T21:01:00.000-07:00

Cat Skills EP

2011-03-22T16:34:00.000-07:00

Hey there. If you can spare two bucks for two songs, you'd be helping us get to Nashville where we've been offered a studio to record a full length EP.

Click the pic to go to the download site.

xxx

Rosy.

2011-03-20T22:49:00.001-07:00

A man writes to throw off the poison which he has accumulated because of his false way of life. He is trying to recapture his innocence, yet all he succeeds in doing is to inoculate the world with a virus of his disillusionment. No man would set a word down on paper if he had the courage to live out what he believed in….

The End is Coming.

2011-03-17T16:48:00.001-07:00

News Desk.

2011-03-16T22:09:00.001-07:00

If you're interested, what's happening here is Anonymous releasing Bank of America documents which to cut a long story short, expose the Truths we are all already subconsciously aware of. That banks lend money and then control interest rates specifically so that home owners cannot afford to repay. In this way they are taking more and more from people who are struggling. This is a First World problem. The economic collapses we are seeing are being engineered. It's fucking amazing. It's insidious.

The releases are here bankofamericasuck.com

Oh, more?

Here is a video of an innocent Bahrainian Demonstrator being shot in the head by Security Forces. This is not a theory of War being raged for Oil. Nor is it taken from a biased News Source. Anonymous allows the distribution of images and video, direct from the source. So we, The People, can decide what is Truth for ourselves. Click here if you dare.

Wake up.

There are things afoot.

But Love, always.

Love as it is the the only Hope.

Void.

2011-03-16T16:18:00.000-07:00

I've become addicted to educating myself. To finding stories behind stories. To questioning what is fed to the zombies. And in this Age, it's terrifying how much information and misinformation is accessible to Us. And it's easy to run screaming, and it's easy to hide, and it's easy to just go with the line. Get your coffee. Ignore the helicopters. Don't think about Bahrain. Don't even consider the Akira Event. If you download US Air Force documents about HAARP - be prepared for...

Anyway.

What's difficult, drowning in the Darkness, is to change the language with which you talk to yourself. Your internal articulation. But it's possible, if you are vigilant, to call these times - The Beginning of Days, rather than The End. It's possible to remember to believe in Light. To both educate yourself AND hold perspective close. Remember, Matty?

We are STARS. The Plan. Each microcosm a Universe unto itself.

Education to expand Understanding.
And to show them they can't get away with it.
That they ain't all that.
That Truth always comes out.

Perspective to survive the Black Hole.

All of this to Nothing
for all time.

Ghost.

2011-03-15T19:23:00.000-07:00

I was a shadow among shadows
walking the gutters
crying
in shame I was
a ghost among ghosts
dancin' alone
drowning
in the rain when
You
come
and You
fall.

Rising.

2011-03-14T23:30:00.001-07:00

I have seen the incredible spirit of the Japanese people first hand. I know they can do it. But there's nothing wrong with exchanging horror or apathy with a ten second silent prayer. Every piece of energy helps. Spirits combined make a difference.

2011-03-09T15:24:00.001-08:00

First they ignore you,
then they laugh at you,
then they fight you,
then you win.

2011-03-08T19:30:00.001-08:00

Oh Bummer Bubble.

2011-03-08T19:14:00.001-08:00

By Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis

Bradley Manning leaked cables showing officials covering up U.S. tax dollars funding child rape in Afghanistan, illegal bombings in Yemen and more -- and he's the one in jail?

Bradley Manning is accused of humiliating the political establishment by revealing the complicity of top U.S. officials in carrying out and covering up war crimes. In return for his act of conscience, the U.S. government is holding him in abusive solitary confinement, humiliating him and trying to keep him behind bars for life.

The lesson is clear, and soldiers take note: You're better off committing a war crime than exposing one.

An Army intelligence officer stationed in Kuwait, the 23-year-old Manning - outraged at what he saw - allegedly leaked tens of thousands of State Department cables to the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks. These cables show U.S. officials covering up everything from U.S. tax dollars funding child rape in Afghanistan to illegal, unauthorized bombings in Yemen. Manning is also accused of leaking video evidence of U.S. pilots gunning down more than a dozen Iraqis in Baghdad, including two journalists for Reuters, and then killing a father of two who stopped to help them. The father's two young children were also severely wounded.

"Well, it's their fault for bringing kids into a battle," a not-terribly-remorseful U.S. pilot can be heard remarking in the July 2007 "Collateral Murder" video.

None of the soldiers who carried out that war crime have been punished, nor have any of the high-ranking officials who authorized it. Indeed, committing war crimes is more likely to get a solider a medal than a prison term. And authorizing them? Well, that'll get you a book deal and a six-digit speaking fee. Just ask George W. Bush. Or Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld or Condoleezza Rice. Or the inexplicably "respectable" Colin Powell.

In fact, the record indicates Manning would be far better off today - possibly on the lecture circuit rather than in solitary confinement - if he'd killed those men in Baghdad himself.

Hyperbole? Consider what happened to the U.S. soldiers who, over a period of hours - not minutes - went house to house in the Iraqi town of Haditha and executed 24 men, women and children in retaliation for a roadside bombing.

"I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head," said one of the two surviving eyewitnesses to the massacre, nine-year-old Eman Waleed. "Then they killed my granny." Almost five years later, not one of the men involved in the incident is behind bars. And despite an Army investigation revealing that statements made by the chain of command "suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as U.S. lives," with the murder of brown-skinned innocents considered "just the cost of doing business," none of their superiors are behind bars either.

Now consider the treatment of Bradley Manning. On March 1, the military charged Manning with 22 additional offenses - on top of the original charges of improperly leaking classified information, disobeying an order and general misconduct. One of the new charges, "aiding the enemy," is punishable by death. That means Manning faces the prospect of being executed or spending his life in prison for exposing the ugly truth about the U.S. empire.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration has decided to make Manning's pre-trial existence as torturous as possible, holding him in solitary confinement 23 hours a day since his arrest 10 months ago - treatment that the group Psychologists for Social Responsibility notes is, "at the very least, a form of cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment in violation of U.S. law."

In addition to the horror of long-term solitary confinement, Manning is barred from exercising in his cell and is denied bed sheets and a pillow. And every five minutes, he must respond in the affirmative when asked by a guard if he's "okay."

Presumably he lies.

And it gets worse. On his blog, Manning's military lawyer, Lt. Col. David Coombs, reveals that his client is now being stripped of his clothing at night, left naked under careful surveillance for seven hours. When the 5:00 am wake-up call comes, he's then "forced to stand naked at the front of the cell."

If you point out that the emperor has no clothes, it seems the empire will make sure you have none either.

Officials at the Quantico Marine Base where Manning is being held claim the move is "not punitive" but rather a "precautionary measure" intended to prevent him from harming himself. Do they really think Manning is going to strangle himself with his underwear - and that he could do so while under 24-hour surveillance?

"Is this Quantico or Abu Ghraib?" asked Rep. Dennis Kucinich in a press release. Good question, congressman. Like the men imprisoned in former President Bush's Iraqi torture chamber, Manning is being abused and humiliated despite having not so much as been tried in a military tribunal, much less convicted of an actual crime.

So much for the constitutional lawyer who ran as the candidate of hope and change.

Remember back when Obama campaigned against such Bush-league torture tactics? Recall when candidate Obama said "government whistleblowers are part of a healthy democracy and must be protected from reprisal"? It appears his opposition to torture and support for whistleblowers was only so much rhetoric. And then he took office.

Indeed, despite the grand promises and soaring rhetoric, Obama's treatment of Manning is starkly reminiscent of none other than Richard Nixon. Like Obama - who has prosecuted more whistleblowers than any president in history - Nixon had no sympathy for "snitches," and no interest in the American public learning the truth about their government. And he likewise argued that Daniel Ellsberg, the leaker of the Pentagon Papers, had given "aid and comfort to the enemy" for revealing the facts about the war in Vietnam.

But there's a difference: Richard Nixon never had the heroic whistleblower of his day thrown in solitary confinement and tortured. If only the same could be said for Barack Obama.

Shell.

2011-03-03T19:56:00.000-08:00

Today an almost comforting
blanket of maudlin
wraps itself around me
in memories
of her shoulder's curves
and captured skin
a prisoner of my
lonely eyes.

There and Back Again.

2011-03-01T19:23:00.001-08:00

2011-02-28T22:23:00.001-08:00

2011-02-27T15:44:00.001-08:00

Hell.

2011-02-24T17:29:00.000-08:00

And in the end, it was old pal Henry Miller who said it best -

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.

********

I am down a rabbit hole with this one - you can probably stop reading this now and be happy.

********

I've always been a creative writer, never a journalist, never a blogger as such, I've simply used this little art platform as a personal play space. And it's been fun. Sex, drugs, rock n' roll, break ups, new crushes, trips, loves, journeys within - blah blah....

And then all of a sudden, I found Hell. Actual Hell. Right there. In plain view.

Shit.

When I first caught a glimpse of it, I kept it to myself. I knew if I spoke too soon, I would be readily dismissed. So I kept quiet. But I could not ignore the fact that I had become aware of Hell. I needed to know more, and I needed to sort fact from fiction. Hell had hidden itself in such a web of misinformation and fanaticism, that to even mention it implied an insanity that could range anywhere between "cute", "kooky" and "dude, you're freaking raving please leave me alone now..."

So I read everything. I trawled new age websites, conspiracy websites, rascist websites, fundamental christian websites, government websites, news websites, hippy websites, wikileaks, wikipedia...I read and I read and I read and I trusted my intuition to discern between opinions and facts. All I did at work anyway was play music and look at hot pictures while dreaming of my time in Paris, so I figured my addiction to an as yet unformed idea was a harmless way to spend 8 hours of my day.

So I'm interested now. I mean of course I am. I am a child of the X-Files, I'm a believer in The Universe, I read star signs, I play guitar and I've got a crystal in my pocket for chrissakes...

Anyway I keep reading. I read 9/11 conspiracy theories - and I know what people will say to me if I talk about it, but whatever - I make up my own mind. I don't follow wild right and left wing theories, I simply use my own mind to make my own decision. As I'd suggest anyone who is actually interested should do. Anyways, here's what happens next in my brain, and let me stress it's merely a conversation - if you've read this far, then humour me.

*********

I have a conversation with my brain. It goes a little like this:

Ok, if we're actually going to spend time thinking about this then let's talk. We've reviewed all this information and we're both of the opinion that this 9/11 thing is a little dodgy right?

Right.

Ok, so riddle me this Batman, what's your answer then? George Bush? Aliens? Zionists? The guy on the Grassy Knoll? Who the Hell did all this shit if it wasn't just some guys pissed off and using a pretty genuine form of guerilla warfare to attack an Imperialist State who had done some pretty major damage to their homeland?

Brain, I don't know. But I'm just going to keep reading for a while.

Ok, but every now and again can we think of legs and bums?

Yes, brain. Yes we can.

Cool...

*********

Anyways - I keep reading. I read all sorts of theories. I'm not so much chasing down things about 9/11, but something behind that, I don't even know what it is I'm doing. Just following threads. Like I said, work sucks. This is more interesting.

I come across quotes, like this one by Woodrow Wilson, the 32nd President of the United States -

Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organised, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.

I think to myself, a guy becomes President, learns some fundamental truths about government. Things that I've always known. That Power is a hungry snake. Power is not elected by the people. Power is to those who have the most money. Even the President is answerable to money. We are ALL answerable to money.

I keep reading.

I find some funny shit. John Carpenter's They Live styles. Like how we're all ruled by a race of Lizards living in underground U.S. Army bases. I giggle. I like it, but it's not what I'm looking for. I keep reading about Woodrow Wilson and I find out about his involvement in recreating the Federal Reserve Bank of America. I find out something weird. That the Federal Reserve is actually just called "Federal". It's like McDonalds buying their "meat" from a company called 100% Beef. It's actually a private institution that is under contract to the US Government to issue bank notes in exchange for bonds. The US Government has some veto powers over this private bank, but in actual fact, the US is so far in debt to it, that it basically controls the whole fucking country. It concentrates the wealth and control of that wealth - of the entire country - into one private institution.

Weird websites point interesting shit out to me like this:

That on the top of the note, it doesn't say United States, it says Federal Reserve.

My brain starts to hurt about now. I find more quotes, I find motherfucking quotes from Abraham Lincoln for fuck's -

The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than the aristocracy, more selfish than the bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes."
Abraham Lincoln 16th president of the USA

I find -

We have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks. Some people think the Federal Reserve Banks are U.S. government institutions. They are private credit monopolies; domestic swindlers, rich and predatory money lenders which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers. The Federal Reserve banks are the agents of the foreign central banks. The truth is the Federal Reserve Board has usurped the Government of the United States by the arrogant credit monopoly which operates the Federal Reserve Board.” Congressman Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee, addressed the House on June 10, 1932. 75 Congressional Record 12595-12603

I research American History. I find out that the first time The Ghosts TM tried to set up this banking system it was fought tooth and nail by the 7th President of the United States - Andrew Jackson. He actually defeated it, and on his gravestone today are the words, I Killed The Bank. He spelled out his opposition to a privately owned bank controlling the nation's finances in these few points -

It concentrated the nation's financial strength in a single institution.
It exposed the government to control by foreign interests.
It served mainly to make the rich richer.
It exercised too much control over members of Congress.
It favored northeastern states over southern and western states.
Banks are controlled by a few select families.
Banks have a long history of instigating wars between nations, forcing them to borrow funding to pay for them.

*breathes*

Anyway he killed the bank. Well, he put the bank to sleep. Money is patient, however, and eventually it was Woodrow Wilson, 100 years later, who caved to the pressure and introduced it as US Law.

Charles Lindburgh, a US Senator at the time this bill was passed, commented -

This [Federal Reserve Act] establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President Woodrow Wilson signs this bill, the invisible government of the monetary power will be legalized....the worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking and currency bill.

He explained the power of these people thus -

To cause high prices, all the Federal Reserve Board will do will be to lower the rediscount rate..., producing an expansion of credit and a rising stock market; then when ... business men are adjusted to these conditions, it can check ... prosperity in mid career by arbitrarily raising the rate of interest. It can cause the pendulum of a rising and falling market to swing gently back and forth by slight changes in the discount rate, or cause violent fluctuations by a greater rate variation and in either case it will possess inside information as to financial conditions and advance knowledge of the coming change, either up or down. This is the strangest, most dangerous advantage ever placed in the hands of a special privilege class by any Government that ever existed. The system is private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits from the use of other people's money. They know in advance when to create panics to their advantage, They also know when to stop panic. Inflation and deflation work equally well for them when they control finance.

I mean, shit, all I was doing initially was watching stupid conspiracy movies - okay, and a little porn - but now I'm seeing this fucking THING. And I'm supposed to NOT think about it?

What else am I supposed to think about now?

Yep. I try.

But instead I keep reading...

I think, okay, so there's this huge financial institution, that's privately owned.

So who the fuck owns it?

I read and I read and I read....

About now I hit a lot of rascist shite. And it's really difficult to sort the facts. One common theme however, is the story of a particular family who have been controlling International Finance Institutions for about 400 years. It's the Rothschild family. And this is where I find difficulties. As they're a Jewish family, I find myself wading through all this Anti-Jewish and totally hatey crap all over the internet. I don't want my information to come from these sources. But I'm persistent. And eventually, on a website devoted to Gold Prices and Trading Information, I find an unbiased history of the House of Rothschild -

You can read it by clicking on this sentence.

It's fucking crazy. It's interesting. It's retarded. I sound crazy.

They have financed wars. It's fact, They finance BOTH sides of the wars. Exactly as Andrew Jackson stated 200 years ago -

Banks have a long history of instigating wars between nations, forcing them to borrow funding to pay for them.

I find out that the Federal Reserve bank is actually owned by these different corporations -

- Rothschild Bank of London
- Rothschild Bank of Berlin
- Lazard Brothers of Paris
- Israel Moses Seif Banks of Italy
- Warburg Bank of Amsterdam
- Warburg Bank of Hamburg
- Lehman Brothers of New York
- Kuhn Loeb Bank of New York
- Goldman, Schs of New York
- Chase Manhattan Bank of New York

I read that the parent companies of all these companies directly relate back to Rothschild companies.
I read about their involvement in the creation of Israel.
I read so many god damn things that I want to cry.

I go take a dump. I drink a beer. I play some gigs. I tell myself to follow the light, to just Love in each and every day, and that is all that matters. I tell myself how crazy I will sound if I actually blog about this.

But my Soul, my Soul screams Bloody Murder. And my brain wants more. I'm thirsty for something I've always chased but never understood.

I'm thirsty for Truth.

I see an incredible Truth here. And I feel obliged to be called crazy in the hope that one other person might see the same thing. That we might talk about it.

I remember my time in Seattle, talking to one of the loveliest people I've ever met, Todd. Todd said to me, man, I don't know why our government does the things it does. We're all just people like everyone else, just struggling, just fighting to survive, to live, love and die happy. He says, I don't think we're even governed anymore. This whole place is gone to shit, controlled by a fucking machine no one ever sees.

I see the thoughtful forces of the world blaming the Governments for all these unnecessary wars, for all this hate and destruction, and then I see the true face of it all. What we all know in our hearts. "The Military Industrial Complex" it's been called...Whatever the fuck it's called - it's fucking Evil, that's for sure.

And I mean, I know this. We all KNOW it. But we all fucking hide from it, because Jesus knows, it's MONSTROUS in its complexity and it's depressing as all fuck.

But oh god, The Truth...It hurts.

I know what this means to my once happy kooky creative blog.

It's just my little brain

I didn't know what else to do but write.

Stupid god damn red pill.

I'm going to have a beer.

Sorry if I chased you all away.

x

2011-02-23T22:10:00.001-08:00

If there are lights on the horizon that attract you, start walking toward them.

2011-02-23T17:44:00.001-08:00

2011-02-17T14:45:00.001-08:00

There is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold onto the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart and they will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.
Let go of the shore, and push off and into the river,
Keep our eyes open, and our head above the water.
See who is in there with you and Celebrate.

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally.
Least of all ourselves.
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary.
All that you do now must be done in a sacred manner
And in celebration.

We are the one's we've been waiting for.

The Woods.

2011-02-08T19:18:00.000-08:00

There's been a recurring theme in my life of late. Things are simplified, then paths begin to present themselves, veins of tomorrow, viscous with possible plasmas, threading sideways, borne of a root idea, but reaching to find a feeding ground of their own. And once the trunk can no longer bear the weight of so much possibility, I enter an Autumn of Inspiration, and let things die, that they may sprout again stronger.

I am no longer surprised by the coming of Spring. I have become a constant gardener, and as each new idea blossoms, I am slowly, patiently, learning to tend to it the attention it deserves. Last year, all I wanted was to build upon the roots I had planted by sheer chance, and it came to be. These days a new harvest approaches. One that requires a more deliberate approach. Careful planning. The right equipment. A studied calculation of the essence of all life.

Risk.

Outside I enjoy the empty sky, the wind whisper in my mind - far riskier never to risk.

And the mind, busying itself with such ponderings, begins to build Woods which strengthen with age, become deeper, more magical, a place of creation and safety.

In which to risk it all.

Faulkner.

2011-02-08T14:49:00.001-08:00

Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Do not bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.

Amis.

2011-02-07T20:03:00.001-08:00

Cities at night, I feel, contain men who cry in their sleep and then say Nothing. It’s nothing. Just sad dreams. Or something like that… Swing low in your weep ship, with your tear scans and your sob probes, and you would mark them. Women—-and they can be wives, lovers, gaunt muses, fat nurses, obsessions, devourers, exes, nemeses—-will wake and turn to these men and ask, with female need-to-know, “What is it?” And the men say, “Nothing. No it isn’t anything really. Just sad dreams.”

2011-02-06T16:33:00.000-08:00

I'm joined by Loneliness
who gives me
the usual -
pot shots
of savage self
reflection
but
I just can't
seem to swallow it
these days

so I
read my book
listen to Tweedy
lay for a time on my bed just gazing at the ceiling
I
drink whisky with my friend
and
play my guitar
as
my cat climbs all over me
and I just

Believe,

I s'pose.

I just believe.

Hide.

2011-02-02T17:46:00.000-08:00

Kept secrets
form clusters
of
concern
which are easier to trip over
when you're in
the dark.

********

I need to find a Single Light again.
Multi-tasking is proving impossible to navigate.

And I am proving Less than Able.

2011-01-31T15:25:00.000-08:00

Another Begininng.

2011-01-27T16:59:00.000-08:00

Approach.

2011-01-26T22:09:00.000-08:00

I'm so dizzy with how things are,
I have no idea
how to make them closer
to what I want.

Back to living in a cave,
I think,
where the Raven World
can't tap, tap, tap
at the windows
to your Soul.

Smoke and Mirrors.

2011-01-24T16:13:00.000-08:00

It's sunset and Ilana and I hold hands as Zebra plays and the first stars appear and the sounds and the wind and the smell of pot all drench the scene in teenage dreams and there's JC and there's Lyly and an older couple are in front of us leaning against each other in tender surrender as I tell my friend - Shit, Laney, if someone were to Love me right now I'd explode with joy, I'd contort into rainbows and become one of those stars and that would be it for me, I'd be gone...She smiles, and it's enough, more than enough, to be beside such a friend, and you can probably see it in these words, this shift, building for so long, and finally carrying me upon long forgotten feathers of freedom and glee. And I do miss Love, I miss Love, but at the same time, I am surrounded by it, more than ever before, so much so that I sometimes need to sit alone and bring myself back to Earth, unused to everything being so...

I can't talk about it.

Besides, it was focus that made this all happen, and with four months to go until The New World, it's focus I need the most.

But...these rainbows -

They sure can make a man giddy...

2011-01-23T18:25:00.001-08:00

Tonight! Rooftop! Beach House!

2011-01-23T17:51:00.000-08:00

Two paths intertwined

Upon
each
rests
its own
goodbye.

2011-01-13T16:20:00.000-08:00

The halos lights
Look good with the ringing
Fog bells
Orion dead in the arc
But you can't tell
Lead gray eclipse above
Hiss of the snakes
Rolling beside us
We are thrown into the shade
I think we'll be okay
The echo of the muffled drums
Don't be overwhelmed by that
If you think this is hard work
You've never seen work
Feel for your charm
Take out your good luck
We're getting close to the edge
Do what you know
Do a good job
You're getting closer to the end
What do you know
I know the song of the road
The song of the road

Debut.

2011-01-05T18:11:00.000-08:00

If you're interested, here's what I'll call the first, but in reality it's about the fifth, album I've been having fun recording at home for a year.

Click the pic to download.

I'll start writing words again soon. It's been a long time...

And now, also this:

I'm not There.

2011-01-04T21:39:00.000-08:00

Just a mental picture. If you will. A moment in time I need to hold. I wrote it here...

It's the second last night. I'm standing on a rooftop, in a garden, in Brooklyn. The lights of Manhattan burn seductive all around me. It whispers things this city. Depending on where you walk, where you are. You can hear the minds of the people you pass. You can hear the sensuous calls of the high buildings. But I'm standing across the river, safe above an apartment and I'm smoking a cigarette and that's when I notice on the roof of the building across the street another man, leaning in the same position. Smoking a cigarette. He turns. He's doing something. Music. Music starts and it's Radiohead and it's LOUD and I see him climb upon a chair and stare out where I'm staring and he punches his fists in the air with glee and I throw my arms out and scream, FUCK YEAH, and we both dance in the fire of the moment, beneath the Power of New York City, and the song nails that moment in my head forever as I close my eyes and let the intoxicating feeling of being alive carry me across the sky.

It's just that I finally found the song

So that moment. For me. One last time.

To this:

Even sea goats have birthday wishes.

2011-01-04T15:53:00.001-08:00

2011-01-03T14:50:00.001-08:00

2010-12-27T19:55:00.001-08:00

Back on track.

2010-12-24T17:19:00.000-08:00

Li Po.

2010-12-21T16:22:00.001-08:00

Amongst the flowers I
am alone with my pot of wine
drinking by myself; then lifting
my cup I asked the moon
to drink with me, its reflection
and mine in the wine cup, just
the three of us; then I sigh
for the moon cannot drink,
and my shadow goes emptily along
with me never saying a word;
with no other friends here, I can
but use these two for company;
in the time of happiness, I
too must be happy with all
around me; I sit and sing
and it is as if the moon
accompanies me; then if I
dance, it is my shadow that
dances along with me; while
still not drunk, I am glad
to make the moon and my shadow
into friends, but then when
I have drunk too much, we
all part; yet these are
friends I can always count on
these who have no emotion
whatsoever; I hope that one day
we three will meet again,
deep in the Milky Way.

2010-12-19T14:47:00.001-08:00

2010-12-15T14:34:00.001-08:00

2010-12-14T17:53:00.001-08:00

Cuts.

2010-12-14T15:37:00.000-08:00

Sinister snapshots force themselves upon an idle mind.
People go out of their way to tell me things.
It seems Hate is a word bandied readily in some circles.
And yet strangely, closer to The Storm, I am more at peace.

********

My friend calls me brother and I know it to be more than words.
My road is built upon these things, brotherhood, open heart, fearlessness -
real things which hold under scrutiny.
And I smile when I think the journey may take longer,
for these last months I have found the journey to be joy.

********

I am no artist.
I prefer the sight of a mountain to a Warhol.
I prefer my fingers blistered than inked.
My music is a craft, a trade
the exploration of wood, the obsession with detail, the joy of the spontaneous.
Saturn's Satisfaction in Hard Work.
Shoddy shoes upon a rocky path upon which I can hold and grasp each stone's tale.

********

May!

The map that is laid out to me keeps me focused.

And the fire burns again, healing the cuts
as the scars ghost pale and pleasant.

********

Everything blurs into Hope.

Proust.

2010-12-12T16:22:00.001-08:00

We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us.

Distance is sexy.

2010-12-09T21:00:00.001-08:00

2010-12-09T14:38:00.001-08:00

2010-12-07T18:30:00.001-08:00

Return.

2010-11-30T12:43:00.000-08:00

I don't like goodbyes. I'm not so great at letting go. I guess some people from my past can attest to that. I try and carry the memory of things as much as I can. History is important to me. I never understand people that don't feel that way. Strange though, for in all practical senses, I travel light. I have a bag and a guitar. I try to leave Hope where ever I go. I try to love as best I can. I like connecting with people. Deeply.
But like I said, I'm not much of a one for farewells.
Each time I've left a city here I've been maudlin, but the very feeling of movement has kept me sane. Watching the countryside through the Amtrak window. Landing alone and not knowing where I am, what I am doing, where I am going. It's made me more alive than ever. It's made me friends I never knew. And I've discovered things. Things I was looking for, and things I was running from. Where will that leave me when I return home? Returning from Paris, I felt stronger than I ever had before. This time around, this time around I feel sad and old. Just like someone once described me. Just like two people have described me.
But I never felt sad and old before.
Right now, on a couch in Brooklyn, with the grey rain muting the sounds of the city, I feel tired of all this movement. I feel weary as all Hell. But I also feel something so deeply that it frightens me. I feel I no longer have a home to return to. This Road has become my home, and the thought of returning to Life in Melbourne, with all its small pond comforts and traps, well frankly, frankly it makes me feel sick. I don't want to see those names. I don't want to be around those places. I have nothing left to lose.
Janis, you were so right.
I was Free.
Here, I was free.

I've seen a lot. A lot more than I bargained for. And if I dig deep enough to find The Rock within, things become clearer. In the last seven weeks, I have drunk more than I ever have from the Well of Life. Take for example -

It's raining harder than I've ever seen. North West Rain, on the road from Seattle to Portland. I'm being driven by the National Chess Champion of Bahrain. He's got one hand on the wheel and he's smoking crack pipes with the other hand. My knuckles are white. There are huge road train trucks screaming past us. The rain covers all sight. The road could be anywhere. Each time a truck passes us, the monstrous wheels casually toss oceans of water over our car, and visibility becomes Hope. We are doing 75 miles per hour as Ibrahim, the driver, casually begins eating magic mushrooms and offering a bag to me to do the same. I don't take any. But I begin to laugh. I begin to laugh because this is the craziest fucking close to death experience I have ever been in, and I feel Alive. I came looking for Life, and I feel Alive.

So there's bound to be a hangover. I have said this whole trip that when I finally get home I will lock my door and sleep for a week. But I will not do that. I will try to remember this feeling, and I will try to translate it to a New Life back home.

But the goodbyes are sad. The goodbyes to my Birthday Brother, my Gypsy Queen, my Lonesome Artist, my Penguins, my Australian Journeyman, these are hard to stomach.

I guess that's why I'm already planning. There will be no sleep when I get home. There will be straight back to the 8-Track, straight back to work, straight to the Travel Agent, and straight the fuck back out of there.

I left San Francisco in the middle of the night. I'd organised a sleeper cabin for myself. And a bottle of red wine. I lay down by the window and drank myself into a misty half sleep. Half aware of stopping at small North Californian towns. I passed out sometime and awoke in Klamath Falls, South Oregon. It was a service stop. I stepped off the train and smoked. I drank in the thick small town feel. The air was cold. The walk up and down the train was invigorating. As the whistle blew I took a snapshot, and climbed back aboard. Within five minutes my hands were pressed against the cold glass of the window as we sped by a mountain lake, ringed with mountains, actual mountains, mountains the like of which I'd never seen. Birds stubbornly sped across the water to escape the intruding hulk of metal which we rode. We were in the clouds. Clouds which caressed the waters of the lake, two lovers in morning embrace, unwilling to part for the day's activities. I cried. I cried like I cried in Paris. I cried with pride in myself for somehow making this happen. I was unashamed.

There are plans. Plans to record in Melbourne. Plans to record in Oslo. Gigs in Paris, Prague, Berlin. A return to Portland, Seattle - the whole trip again. This whole fucking thing, again and again, year after year. Never caring. Never chasing the ugly seductive beast of fame, but merely living the joyous freedom of being alive, and being on the move. Playing to 50 people, 3 people, 70 people, 2 people. Playing to yourself in an apartment on the Lower East Side. Playing to 8 people sitting cross legged around you in a circle, and then hugging and knowing each and every one of them after you play. That's the magic. That's the trip.

It's the second last night. I'm standing on a rooftop, in a garden, in Brooklyn. The lights of Manhattan burn seductive all around me. It whispers things this city. Depending on where you walk, where you are. You can hear the minds of the people you pass. You can hear the sensuous calls of the high buildings. But I'm standing across the river, safe above an apartment and I'm smoking a cigarette and that's when I notice on the roof of the building across the street another man, leaning in the same position. Smoking a cigarette. He turns. He's doing something. Music. Music starts and it's Radiohead and it's LOUD and I see him climb upon a chair and stare out where I'm staring and he punches his fits in the air with glee and I throw my arms out and scream, FUCK YEAH, and we both dance in the fire of the moment, beneath the Power of New York City, and the song nails that moment in my head forever as I close my eyes and let the intoxicating feeling of being alive carry me across the sky.

Like never before.

These feelings like never before.

Pit Stop.

2010-11-24T13:31:00.000-08:00

I haven't had time to write. I still don't. Right now, let's just say arriving in New York with no money, no phone, no plans is about as close to the edge as I've been. Nothing you read or write prepares you for it, until you actually stand amongst it. So I close my eyes and send it out there. And somehow, eleventh fucking hour, things fall into place. Of a sorts.

I'm playing a show tonight. Everything in The States has happened after I play a show. All the doors, from my gypsy soul mates in Portland, to recording with the Foo Fighters engineer in Seattle...everything has happened once I play a show. One week to go. So I close my eyes and let The Universe do as it will.

Where the road takes me...

2010-11-13T16:15:00.000-08:00

Interlude: A spell for happiness.

2010-11-09T12:22:00.001-08:00

Dance three times around an old oak tree
then go tumblin' down into the golden leaves
make the one wish that you don't believe
then lose that cynical stare
that's keeping you there
and the stars
will burn bright in your heart.

Strip off your clothes and jump in the sea
then dance like a child and sing like you're free
find the one place where you want to be
then use your natural charms
it can't do no harm
and the stars
will burn bright in your heart.

And you can change
and turn your old mistakes
into a fate
that you can take
to mend
your old dark broken heart.

Just dance three times around an old oak tree
then go tumblin' down into the golden leaves
make the one wish that you don't believe
then lose that cynical stare
that's keeping you there
and the stars
will burn bright in your heart.

3.

2010-11-08T11:35:00.000-08:00

Of course it was always a Hope that I would find a family. Truth is I stayed out of sight all year, because I knew I didn't belong anymore. That somewhere out in the world were my tribe, and I needed to transmogrify myself in order to find them. So I waited, watching the stars from time to time, choosing my actions carefully. Well, most of the time.

Here in Portland the first moment happens. I sit outside a diner with a musician from NYC who lives in Oslo and a Norwegian film maker and we talk as brothers. They talk about my songs. They say, people like you and I, and the oak leaves tumble and spin around us and my heart flips and shudders and I phoenix, right there on the street. I am now people like You. I have made a complete reality swap. I am an International Gypsy, and I am Home, and it all hits me until I struggle to hold myself down. I feel as though I am lifted beyond all that I ever was. Everything that is said is right.

Later that night I am in a bar, in a photo booth, and I am drunk on champagne. Mark and Jessy whisper to each other, and begin to tell me of other family members. In Paris, in New York, in Berlin, in in in...and everyone is a part of each other, and I can see the World I had only dreamed of finding, right here, sitting in my hands. They smile as we drink shots of whiskey, and they say - welcome to the family.

We sit up singing songs in the apartment until 5, 6am. There are no barriers. Every story is open to everyone. We sing. We plan. And I know, that these plans will come true. I know honesty now that I have found it.

I am stretched across this world into a new Universe.
And I am Home.
The Road is Home.

2.

2010-10-29T21:22:00.000-07:00

Seems like the ghosts are still close. I wake up in a Bear House and make my way outside to the back balcony, and there is a call in my head and I don't know why. I'm distant from that in so many ways, but here it is cobwebbed in the corner and dancing ethereal when the first light hits me. I take a slug of warm Coke and try to wait it out. There are smoke signals as I light my first one. Seductive silver plumes rise from my fingers. My face is still numb from the cocaine. I want to wince at what I'm thinking, but I'm frozen stiff and stuffed so I walk to the edge and lean out.
I'm on the side of a valley. Below me I can see the houses of the rich, barely visible beneath the thick verdant canopy of the forest. This is the richest county in California, and I'm here with ghosts and I don't know why. Last night's mess contains over sized pizza slices. I take a cold one in the mouth for luck. It helps. It seems like I've been here forever. This city of ten cities, each so different, black world, blue world, rich world, tourist world. None of them are my world. I need to sit down. This is just a week catching up, this startled maudlin, out of place in an adventurer's kit. I realise how lucky I am to have a brother in the city. He's waiting for me now, I'm supposed to play to his class, a song of ghosts and monkeys, but I won't make it back. He'll understand. I forgot how much we understand. That's a good man, right there. Strange in the all the right ways. Right in all the strange ones too.
For a moment I'd forgotten why I was here. At the bar of the Utah Saloon, with the Giants running 9-0 in the second game, and free Tequila shots for everyone when they won, and two girls I couldn't escape, yelling at me how it was fine that I talked to the other one, "cause she's obviously prettier than me..." - What the Hell are you on about? I need to find a corner while I wait for my friends to get here. I didn't come here to chase. I want the real thing now, I want an out to this forever fleeting fancy. I want my girl. The one that's waiting for me. The one that's going to understand. Not the one in the bar who doesn't even know who the Hell she's talking to. I've got three more days here. I want to remember them. I need my guitar. I need my guitar like I've needed it all year. The tequila keeps coming. I don't know what I say, or why, or how I look. Like I care anymore. Like I've cared ever since I was first not worth caring about.
Yeah, that coke sure was strong.
Later we drive across the GBB. And we're all laughing again, talking baseball, and I turn to the left and see the hungry fog edging toward the city, descending upon its prey. I lean back in the seat and close my eyes and the bone tired in me just says, bring it on, swallow it, swallow me, for this one night, let's all sink together and see where we turn up. Then I turn to the right, and there's the Pacific, clawing desperately at the cliffs and crashing in sickened revolt up, up, up, impatient to be done with these eons of erosion. Starving to just finally come on in and drown us all.
And far out to see, a sprig of lightning, to garnish the whole scene.
A storm slowly approaching.
One dark Halloween.

1.

2010-10-28T00:50:00.000-07:00

I ain't running no more. I think that as we land. I look out the window and I see the South Bay, I see a Land of Strangers, and I know I'm not escaping something. I'm arriving. That's important fact number one. Important fact number two is that I've travelled light. I haven't brought baggage this time, like I took to Paris. My heart does not feel heavy. My heart feels clean. My heart feels nothing at all, if I had to tell the truth. That's that. My heart feels nothing at all, though my eyes are wide open.

I play my first show then I stand at a crossroads. Dusted signs which point to differing nights. I choose a glass of red in a home, with my shoes off, no jungle, no animal, no exploring, no wanting, needing, hoping. Those people who died, they killed that lifestyle for me. They used to tell me things, what they knew about everything, what they were going to become. They'd talk, all people fucking do is talk - then they'd fall apart on a cocaine hurdle, throw misguided missiles of fuck, suck, and shit out of luck.

I used to to do the same.

I drink a wine, and keep it close, keep it internal, and that's when the year's work really kicks in. That I've travelled all this way in a huge metal fish, over an ocean infested with sharks that shoot spiders out of their mouth - and I didn't change. I didn't blend. I just smiled and stayed safe. And waited for the right thing, not the Old Thing. The Old Thing is dead. I know that now. It's dead and it's getting deader.

Similar things happen to last time. I walk a lot. I don't make friends with strangers like I could. I keep my head down and I try to use the streets as currency, to buy another piece with which to build a greater understanding. Everything looks like it should. The painted ladies, 2 story, 3 story, a static pirate station where no one knows any longer, just what they're tuned in to. Like anywhere. Like home. It's all shirts and shops and safety zones.

I can sense the death of this place. This once great pioneer flailing into the New Age.
I think about Space.
I think about China.
I think,

America will tumble, slowly. It won't die. Instead it will remain a place of ideas, of invention, of wild theories and outsider glory. America will become the wild, grey haired loon, and it will remain valuable for that. But China will be the one to take us out into space. China has the numbers, the discipline, the ability to dispose of whoever or whatever does not serve the greater good. America failed there. It placed too much value on the individual. Saving three astronauts, saving democracy, saving face, all of these things are holding us back. We need to cut things loose. Keep our eyes on the furthest galaxy. If we are to conquer Space, if we are to shift focus, we need to value the Ant Kingdom over the Me. I don't think America can do that.

That's what I think.
I light another cigarette. I'll always do that.
I don't order a whiskey.
I don't chase a girl or a guy who can help me be more than I already am.

I am dying. So I die with dignity. I pour a wine, and remove my shoes, and think about the show I played, and look forward to the next one. I live each day in this dying world as though it were my last, and I frighten myself with the knowledge that right now, if I had a choice, my last day would be spent alone, in comfort, rather than burning in a gutter beneath the stars which we as a race are forever pretending we have already reached.

I don't need to see the stars.

Though there is one, ahead, that may just be an angel.

2010-10-27T19:16:00.000-07:00

3pm Eternal.

2010-10-19T22:43:00.001-07:00

Scars.

2010-10-19T19:47:00.000-07:00

I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.

2010-10-19T17:07:00.000-07:00

Long.

2010-10-18T16:52:00.000-07:00

While I can’t have you, I long for you. I am the kind of person who would miss a train or a plane to meet you for coffee.

I’d take a taxi across town to see you for ten minutes. I’d wait outside all night if I thought you would open the door in the morning.

If you call me and say ‘Will you…’ my answer is ‘Yes’, before your sentence is out. I spin worlds where we could be together. I dream you.

For me, imagination and desire are very close.

Meaning.

2010-10-17T18:52:00.000-07:00

I was honoured to be asked to provide music for my friend Justin's documentary on street kids in Nepal. I wrote this song so long ago, and have not sung it much since. To know that it was used for something so special, makes me burst with humble joy.

That Way.

2010-10-17T02:48:00.000-07:00

Used to be I'd start a write with me sitting in a bar. I guess some people saw that as something, and they'd get it in their heads that that's what I was all about. My name and drinking. I'd see some people, the way they looked at me, and there'd be this distance, because what I'd do is, I'd say out loud what I thought about things. And there was a lot of things I was thinking. Anyway. I made the best friends I've ever had just by talking like that. And those who were turned off by it, well, I guess you'd say they just didn't get it.

Used to be I'd write about how she hurt me, what it felt like, why I couldn't work things out. Why I kept trying to. She wasn't one person or another all the time, though there were times like that too. But she was a host of things to me. Things I needed to learn about myself. Things I was determined to explore before I ever ran into the real She. I never thought about people reading it. I did it for me. I used therapeutic sentences to find a peace. I am not concerned about that. It makes sense to me. It's those that don't want to find their own truths that I don't understand. Maybe they've already found them, though I look at people sometimes, and it doesn't seem like they have. Me? I only found them through writing. I carved my own personality out of stone cold words.

Now I'm ready to stop sculpting for a spell. January 1st 2010 I stood alone in Paris and began to see myself as someone who could make things happen. Not someone who reacted to events, as I'd often spent time doing. Wasted time doing. I never thought it would be easy. But the thought of finally rolling my sleeves up appealed to me as nothing had before. Sure, I took a couple of wrong turns. I went backwards for a time. But I never felt lost. Merely that some paths needed to be marked, once and for all, on the map, for what they really were. And now the maps' been set. Well, the map of the past at least.

The future - the future spans out like so many scattered stars, tossed random across a dark blank canvas. Distance means nothing in this New Future. Everything dances evocative and intimate ahead of me. The dizzying confusions of willpower and destiny intoxicate me with endless choice, and the rock I have forged beneath my feet provides the vantage point from which to admire the true beauty of The Universe. Belief, Pride, Desire have been drowned for the falsehoods they are, and instead I hold threads of reality with which to harness the power that I, You and Everyone We Know all possess in some measure. Keep it simple. Do not stray. Grin in awe at the scope of Everything, but be content to keep yourself small, mobile, humble.

In seven days I embark on the greatest adventure of my modest life to date. And in the lead up to it, I have battled many emotions, many dreams and expectations. Only to find peace finally, and as I always do, in the simple comforts of a quiet home. My cat. A bowl of pasta.

So I'll pack a small suitcase, and of all the possessions a quixotic soul must never forget, this quiet determination is the only necessity.

Oh, but I'm sure I can fit in a little excitement. Just a dash.

Family.

2010-10-16T23:23:00.000-07:00

Mothers can't always help you
when you're far and feeling blue
but they'll hear your whispered cries
in the middle of the cold, lonesome night
and say
Oh Son, I'm still a part of You.

Fathers don't always get it
as they ain't half as strong as You
but one day maybe you'll sigh
breathe deep and give it a try
and say
Oh Daddy, I'm still a part of You.

Only you can make that change
and use that one mistake
to light a flame.

It'll help you.

Sisters don't always listen
as they walk along on a path too
but they can sure make you cry
when they look you right in the eye
and say.
Oh Brother, I'm still a part of You.

And you can make that change
use that one mistake
to light a flame
but
who can turn a
burned out breaking
man into a
flame

when mothers can't come back and help you?

2010-10-14T21:39:00.001-07:00

2010-10-14T17:53:00.000-07:00

2010-10-14T17:21:00.000-07:00

Role.

2010-10-12T15:49:00.001-07:00

2010-10-10T15:53:00.000-07:00

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe,
to match your nature with Nature.

This town.

2010-10-08T04:43:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been wondering
why it's all so hard for a man like me
I've been feeling lucky
but it just don't seem to stick
and I'm still lonely
I'm waiting for induction
and for a stranger's hand to reach for me
see, I can barely function
without some sort of friend
for me to hold.

And I'm living in a Lonely Town
filled with heartbreakers and
lovemakers and
girl, are you a lot like me?

And I'm living in a Lonely Town
filled with money makers and
fashion fakers and
girl, are you just like me?

Are you always running?
Do you feel at home beside the sea?
Do you find it funny
that folk like us are still alone?
Do you hate mass production?
Do you want everything for free?
And do you somehow function
though you haven't got a friend that you can hold?

Sounds like you're
living in a Lonely Town
filled with heartbreakers and
lovemakers and
girl, are you just like me?

Both living in a Lonely Town
filled with money makers and
fashion fakers and well
girl, you are just like me.