I think sometimes. Well, more like
I don't think, seldomly.
And those times are
few and far between
hiding harmonies
and blabbering busts.
Too late to choose to opt out.
A verdant vehicle for conception
veering,
spinning,
and crashing
out of control somewhere
near my destination, but far
off. Trying to relate to different
folks, to different post-traumatic
every-bodies, to side-steppers,
to give them a reason
for joining in on the hunt
for the wave that's coming
for the violent fairy tale
for the way cross' that unbridgeable gap.
You wake up in the morning
expecting to speak to someone,
who knows you?
People can hear these words-
these master accidents.
Thoughts slide away, while
what you say stings ears and
holds like glue.
People can see this long hair-
this eloquent freak flag.
We won't run away, we will
wait for some collective hallucination.
to pull us through.
Confide within confidence
and original optimism.
Watching your tightest thoughts
deflate into flabby regrets.
No anchor in time or
space to move about
comfortably.
Highs and Lows differ
between those
with rags
and those
with crowns.
Your public outrage
does not translate
to your private belief.
These text novels and
laptop realities alter
the ways we think.
And it's like walking home
down an alley off of the street,
feeling the stories tower above,
thinking about them toppling down.
I personally would rather
rise to the occasion.
Abandon persuasion.
Keep my mind and
my knees shaking.
Let um lose all respect
as long as
I do what
I know is right.
Take the gavel to
the Judge.
Take the surrealism
to the idealism.
Stupid strength
fades out quick.
RwmG
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
I Like Heavy Beats and Text Novels
and i like to clip my toenails while i am stoned.
and i like to navigate through the dark while I'm at home.
and i like to store my memory lobe in my phone.
and i like to drink coffee, smoke bowls, then see which way the wind blows.
and i like to imitate the highs and raise the lows.
and i like to hear sporadic lyrical vocabulary's and perfect prose.
and i like to refill a glass sparkling water bottle that is over a year old.
and i like to eat pizza, thin mint cookies, and mac n cheese cold.
and i like to appease often, but not fucking doing what I'm told.
and i like to pull over to take a piss out on the open road.
and i like to have efficient arrangement of furniture in my abode.
and i like to wash all my clothes in one packed load.
and i like to write things like "Throw some dub on that bitch!" on sticky notes.
and i like to watch the yellow spread apart when my fork breaks the yoke.
and i like to use a digital tape recorder to playback words that friends' spoke.
and i like to scrub the dishes clean only if I can use alot of soap.
and i like to remember to relax, breathe, hydrate and hope.
and i like to say i like things when others would say nope.
RwmG
Fear and Loathing: Gonzo Journalism and the Evolution of the CounterCulture
By Richard Guerra
The 1960’s embodies a time when those who grew to reject the mainstream American values spawned by ‘50s conservative sensibility decides to take a stand and speak out against them. These Americans disassociated themselves from ideals related to consumerism, conformity, and blind acceptance of the U.S. Government’s domestic and foreign policies. As the Civil Rights movement picked up speed and the Vietnam War emerged, the timing was right for members of the political Left to push for the creation of lasting social reform in America and embrace new forms of progressive activism. The counterculture perspective, spearheaded largely by America’s youth and minority populations, emerged in the 1960’s as a optimistic force against the U.S. Government’s aggressive foreign agenda, corrupt political systems, and unjust domestic civil policies. Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 serves as an approach to traditional politics and journalism, characterized by the revolutionary bedrock of the American Counter-Culture. His personal account of the ’72 presidential campaign brings to light the transformation of the ‘60s Counter-Culture at the dawn of a new decade.
In Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 , Hunter S. Thompson leaves no political camp unturned as he tracks the American political establishment cross-country as a journalist for Rolling Stone magazine. He accepts his year-long assignment on the campaign trail as a means of representing brutal honest political journalism. “The great American press was a babbling joke-an empire built on gossip and cliches- a final resting place for rumormongers and pompus boobs.” While most journalists traveling on the presidential campaign trail in ’72 write stories that focus on up-to-date developments and information filtered through the candidates’ political camps, Thompson embraces a counter-cultural approach to political coverage and to Journalism itself. He ruthlessly abandons faith and support for taboos associated with traditional, strictly non-fictional Objective Journalism. “Objective Journalism is a hard thing to come by these days. So much for Objective Journalism. Don’t bother to look for it here –not under any byline of mind; or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction of terms.” By incorporating fictional writing, adhering strictly to factual accuracy, and writing as the primary source, Thompson’s writing looks to include elements of the New Journalism style popularized by Tom Wolfe. The result is his own individual breed of New Journalism that he refers to as “Gonzo Journalism.”
Thompson’s “Gonzo” approach to reporting does not simply look to uncover the motivations and actions of the politicians he covers, but instead documents all aspects of the environment he experiences around him. “I think that’s why it’s so easy for me to write what seems like an original or even bizarre point of view about scenes or situations that a lot of writers tend to ignore, because they live right in the middle of them.” Since his own counter-cultural perspective separates him from any sort of American social majority, he does not trust the seemingly mundane facets of society to remain separate from the news. His writing in Campaign Trail ’72 includes sometimes lucid, but often garish details and observations about people, words, and situations that most journalists wouldn’t stop to think about, let alone write about. “In terms of classic journalism, this kind of wandering, unfounded speculation will have a nasty effect on that asshole from Ireland who sent word across The Waters to nail me for bad language and lack of objectivity. There have been numerous complaints, in fact, about the publisher allowing me to get away with calling out new Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist a ‘swine’.” Thompson holds nothing back while reporting, allowing his exact thoughts and analysis to escape to his typewriter almost instantaneously.
In Campaign Trail ’72 , Thompson functions as both a journalist working to cover politics in America, and a member of the Counter-Culture possessing a strong hatred for corrupt politicians. As he listens to George Wallace give a speech or shakes President Nixon’s hand, Thompson brutally examines the canidates at face value. “The main problem in an democracy is that crowd-pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage and whup their supporters into a orgiastic frenzy.” Searching within the rhetoric and attitudes of political candidates campaigning in ’72, Thompson rarely finds the breed of authenticity that the Counter-Culture and he naturally desire. Through his reporting, he comes to realize that the run-of-the-mill American public thrives upon a politician’s political spin, and is largely “not a nation of truth lovers.” Thompson embraces this concept. Unlike these politicians, however, he does not label his style of fabrication as truth. His literary inventions do not work to cover up the important facts, but instead helps to expose them in a remarkable light. “With the truth so dull and depressing, the only working alternative is wild bursts of madness and filigree.” The Counter-Culture is not interested in reading about politician’s and politics through the same restricted form as their white suburban middle-class counterparts. Thompson’s shocking journalistic writing essentially acts as an authentic critique of politics and society written in the language of that Counter-Culture. His writing in Campaign Trail ’72 allows him the space to create his own individual journalistic ideal, free from society’s out-dated norms and criteria.
After John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, New Left idealists, Civil Rights activists, and constituents of the Counter-Culture watched Lyndon B. Johnston reluctantly take hold of the reins of the Executive Office of the President. Looking back on the Johnston administration in Campaign Trail ’72, Thompson uncovers his own rational for the expanding disconnect between the Counter-Culture and traditional American institutions. “Johnston did a lot of rotten things in those five bloody years, but when the history books are written he will emerge in his proper role as the man who caused and entire generation of Americans to lose all respect for the Presidency, the White House, the Army, and in fact the whole structure of the government.” According to Thompson, that younger generation of Americans (supporters of the Anti-War movement) watches Johnston fail to uphold their own inherent liberal principles so miserably that the door to the White House is left wide open for Richard Nixon and his Silent Majority.
As the legacy of the Vietnam War comes into focus, members of the 60’s Counter-Culture are unable to stomach the thought of being left in the dark politically for another decade. This sense of anxiety becomes a reality as the events of ’68 leave student activists and members of the Counter-Culture -once “a part of the same trip, that wild sense of breakthrough in the late Sixties when almost anything seemed possible”-feeling alienated and disillusioned. In Campaign Trail ’72, Thompson describes the demise of the Counter-Culture’s political faith and optimism. “Martin Luther King was murdered in April, Bobby Kennedy in June…then Nixon was nominated in July, and in August the Democrats went to Chicago for the final act. By Labor Day it was all over. ‘The Movement’ was finished.” In 1972, Thompson believes that the only place left in politics for the student/youth movement is to fall in-line behind a “consensus candidate”, or “crippling the party with another one of those goddamn protest movements that’ll end up like all others and not accomplish anything except to guarantee Nixon’s re-election.” The years of effort and work that protesters and member’s of the Counter-Culture provide in the ‘60s to combat all wrong doing by the U.S. Government, appears to have little impact at the start of the ‘70s. Young American’s and boisterous members of the Anti-War movement watch as their hopes are quieted, as shown by the words of one character in a 1975 G.B. Trudeau’s Doonesbury comic: “I stopped demonstrating because I didn’t think the Government was in the least bit responsive.” In Campaign Trail ’72, Thompson watches as more members of the Counter-Culture, previously optimistic about their political impact, are left with a zealous desire to drop out of society completely.
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 speaks to the American Counter-Culture of the ‘60s in a way that no other traditional political journalism could. Hunter S. Thompson’s “Gonzo Journalism” allows him the freedom to present his readers with an honest account of what he experiences on the campaign trail, while drawing his own conclusions about the nature of the present society and American politics. His connection to the Counter-Culture provides him with a unique perspective and the means to understand the true nature the Counter-Culture as the ‘70s begins.
RwmG
The 1960’s embodies a time when those who grew to reject the mainstream American values spawned by ‘50s conservative sensibility decides to take a stand and speak out against them. These Americans disassociated themselves from ideals related to consumerism, conformity, and blind acceptance of the U.S. Government’s domestic and foreign policies. As the Civil Rights movement picked up speed and the Vietnam War emerged, the timing was right for members of the political Left to push for the creation of lasting social reform in America and embrace new forms of progressive activism. The counterculture perspective, spearheaded largely by America’s youth and minority populations, emerged in the 1960’s as a optimistic force against the U.S. Government’s aggressive foreign agenda, corrupt political systems, and unjust domestic civil policies. Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 serves as an approach to traditional politics and journalism, characterized by the revolutionary bedrock of the American Counter-Culture. His personal account of the ’72 presidential campaign brings to light the transformation of the ‘60s Counter-Culture at the dawn of a new decade.
In Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 , Hunter S. Thompson leaves no political camp unturned as he tracks the American political establishment cross-country as a journalist for Rolling Stone magazine. He accepts his year-long assignment on the campaign trail as a means of representing brutal honest political journalism. “The great American press was a babbling joke-an empire built on gossip and cliches- a final resting place for rumormongers and pompus boobs.” While most journalists traveling on the presidential campaign trail in ’72 write stories that focus on up-to-date developments and information filtered through the candidates’ political camps, Thompson embraces a counter-cultural approach to political coverage and to Journalism itself. He ruthlessly abandons faith and support for taboos associated with traditional, strictly non-fictional Objective Journalism. “Objective Journalism is a hard thing to come by these days. So much for Objective Journalism. Don’t bother to look for it here –not under any byline of mind; or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction of terms.” By incorporating fictional writing, adhering strictly to factual accuracy, and writing as the primary source, Thompson’s writing looks to include elements of the New Journalism style popularized by Tom Wolfe. The result is his own individual breed of New Journalism that he refers to as “Gonzo Journalism.”
Thompson’s “Gonzo” approach to reporting does not simply look to uncover the motivations and actions of the politicians he covers, but instead documents all aspects of the environment he experiences around him. “I think that’s why it’s so easy for me to write what seems like an original or even bizarre point of view about scenes or situations that a lot of writers tend to ignore, because they live right in the middle of them.” Since his own counter-cultural perspective separates him from any sort of American social majority, he does not trust the seemingly mundane facets of society to remain separate from the news. His writing in Campaign Trail ’72 includes sometimes lucid, but often garish details and observations about people, words, and situations that most journalists wouldn’t stop to think about, let alone write about. “In terms of classic journalism, this kind of wandering, unfounded speculation will have a nasty effect on that asshole from Ireland who sent word across The Waters to nail me for bad language and lack of objectivity. There have been numerous complaints, in fact, about the publisher allowing me to get away with calling out new Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist a ‘swine’.” Thompson holds nothing back while reporting, allowing his exact thoughts and analysis to escape to his typewriter almost instantaneously.
In Campaign Trail ’72 , Thompson functions as both a journalist working to cover politics in America, and a member of the Counter-Culture possessing a strong hatred for corrupt politicians. As he listens to George Wallace give a speech or shakes President Nixon’s hand, Thompson brutally examines the canidates at face value. “The main problem in an democracy is that crowd-pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage and whup their supporters into a orgiastic frenzy.” Searching within the rhetoric and attitudes of political candidates campaigning in ’72, Thompson rarely finds the breed of authenticity that the Counter-Culture and he naturally desire. Through his reporting, he comes to realize that the run-of-the-mill American public thrives upon a politician’s political spin, and is largely “not a nation of truth lovers.” Thompson embraces this concept. Unlike these politicians, however, he does not label his style of fabrication as truth. His literary inventions do not work to cover up the important facts, but instead helps to expose them in a remarkable light. “With the truth so dull and depressing, the only working alternative is wild bursts of madness and filigree.” The Counter-Culture is not interested in reading about politician’s and politics through the same restricted form as their white suburban middle-class counterparts. Thompson’s shocking journalistic writing essentially acts as an authentic critique of politics and society written in the language of that Counter-Culture. His writing in Campaign Trail ’72 allows him the space to create his own individual journalistic ideal, free from society’s out-dated norms and criteria.
After John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, New Left idealists, Civil Rights activists, and constituents of the Counter-Culture watched Lyndon B. Johnston reluctantly take hold of the reins of the Executive Office of the President. Looking back on the Johnston administration in Campaign Trail ’72, Thompson uncovers his own rational for the expanding disconnect between the Counter-Culture and traditional American institutions. “Johnston did a lot of rotten things in those five bloody years, but when the history books are written he will emerge in his proper role as the man who caused and entire generation of Americans to lose all respect for the Presidency, the White House, the Army, and in fact the whole structure of the government.” According to Thompson, that younger generation of Americans (supporters of the Anti-War movement) watches Johnston fail to uphold their own inherent liberal principles so miserably that the door to the White House is left wide open for Richard Nixon and his Silent Majority.
As the legacy of the Vietnam War comes into focus, members of the 60’s Counter-Culture are unable to stomach the thought of being left in the dark politically for another decade. This sense of anxiety becomes a reality as the events of ’68 leave student activists and members of the Counter-Culture -once “a part of the same trip, that wild sense of breakthrough in the late Sixties when almost anything seemed possible”-feeling alienated and disillusioned. In Campaign Trail ’72, Thompson describes the demise of the Counter-Culture’s political faith and optimism. “Martin Luther King was murdered in April, Bobby Kennedy in June…then Nixon was nominated in July, and in August the Democrats went to Chicago for the final act. By Labor Day it was all over. ‘The Movement’ was finished.” In 1972, Thompson believes that the only place left in politics for the student/youth movement is to fall in-line behind a “consensus candidate”, or “crippling the party with another one of those goddamn protest movements that’ll end up like all others and not accomplish anything except to guarantee Nixon’s re-election.” The years of effort and work that protesters and member’s of the Counter-Culture provide in the ‘60s to combat all wrong doing by the U.S. Government, appears to have little impact at the start of the ‘70s. Young American’s and boisterous members of the Anti-War movement watch as their hopes are quieted, as shown by the words of one character in a 1975 G.B. Trudeau’s Doonesbury comic: “I stopped demonstrating because I didn’t think the Government was in the least bit responsive.” In Campaign Trail ’72, Thompson watches as more members of the Counter-Culture, previously optimistic about their political impact, are left with a zealous desire to drop out of society completely.
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 speaks to the American Counter-Culture of the ‘60s in a way that no other traditional political journalism could. Hunter S. Thompson’s “Gonzo Journalism” allows him the freedom to present his readers with an honest account of what he experiences on the campaign trail, while drawing his own conclusions about the nature of the present society and American politics. His connection to the Counter-Culture provides him with a unique perspective and the means to understand the true nature the Counter-Culture as the ‘70s begins.
RwmG
Monday, February 9, 2009
It’s Like Music to my Robot Ears: Are Electronic Musicians really Musicians?
by Rich Guerra
As computer technology rapidly advanced over the last half century, our access to forms of information and function-previously available only to experts in a specific field extended with the same rigor. The development of music software, computer music systems, and personal computers (most recently portable high-speed laptops) provide trained musicians and non-professionals with a means to create, record, and mix music compositions with the click of a button or a turn of a knob. Do electronic musicians create music in the same classical sense as musicians who create music using organic instruments?
An electronic musician using computer technology to compose a song, is able to create fresh music spontaneously with the same creativity as a musician playing an organic instrument. However, an electronic musician is able to take music improvisation even further. On a computer, the musician can take any sound, examine it a number of different ways, and reinvent that sound through effects and recording. Utilizing electronic music production technology (synthesizers, digital mixers, etc.), electronic musicians are able to break away from traditional forms of musical production, doing more musically with fewer resources.
An electronic musician creates music using any sound that can be recorded on, or transferred into a computer through electrical voltages or digital information. While a laptop will never be an organic instrument, such as a cello or a guitar, computer-produced music does not adhere to any preconceived ideals regarding “what it sounds like". Although some traditionalists hold narrower views as to what signifies a musical instrument, electronic musicians approach the computer as a unique instrument that is able to process natural sounds and generate unnatural ones.
“When thinking about the computer you are talking about any sound on the planet being a musical sound. If you think about that and you look at a laptop computer; it’s really the ideal tool for new forms of musical expression,” said Michael Bierylo, an Associate Professor of Music Synthesis at Berklee College of Music.
If we take a look at music that we hear on the radio, television, or the Internet, an overwhelming fraction of that music has been produced on a computer. Since the start of the new millennium, many software-based virtual studios, like the well-received Ableton Live, have become cheaper and easier to use. These virtual studios provide the user with the freedom to utilize audio editing software while creating new music using audio effects and electronic instrumental sounds. As these virtual studios become more accessible, the number of amateur electronic musicians getting their start sitting at home at their desk's continues to grow.
The rising number of electronic musicians worldwide continue to change the way music is being created. “Someone with inherent and advanced musical knowledge & ability coupled with electronic/computer based technology can create incredible sonic landscapes,” said Ben Cullum, a songwriter/programmer/producer/musician currently touring with the British electronic funk band, The Egg. Adopting a progressive attitude and style, these musicians continue to mesh traditional elements of music with computer generated sounds.
As computer technology rapidly advanced over the last half century, our access to forms of information and function-previously available only to experts in a specific field extended with the same rigor. The development of music software, computer music systems, and personal computers (most recently portable high-speed laptops) provide trained musicians and non-professionals with a means to create, record, and mix music compositions with the click of a button or a turn of a knob. Do electronic musicians create music in the same classical sense as musicians who create music using organic instruments?
An electronic musician using computer technology to compose a song, is able to create fresh music spontaneously with the same creativity as a musician playing an organic instrument. However, an electronic musician is able to take music improvisation even further. On a computer, the musician can take any sound, examine it a number of different ways, and reinvent that sound through effects and recording. Utilizing electronic music production technology (synthesizers, digital mixers, etc.), electronic musicians are able to break away from traditional forms of musical production, doing more musically with fewer resources.
An electronic musician creates music using any sound that can be recorded on, or transferred into a computer through electrical voltages or digital information. While a laptop will never be an organic instrument, such as a cello or a guitar, computer-produced music does not adhere to any preconceived ideals regarding “what it sounds like". Although some traditionalists hold narrower views as to what signifies a musical instrument, electronic musicians approach the computer as a unique instrument that is able to process natural sounds and generate unnatural ones.
“When thinking about the computer you are talking about any sound on the planet being a musical sound. If you think about that and you look at a laptop computer; it’s really the ideal tool for new forms of musical expression,” said Michael Bierylo, an Associate Professor of Music Synthesis at Berklee College of Music.
If we take a look at music that we hear on the radio, television, or the Internet, an overwhelming fraction of that music has been produced on a computer. Since the start of the new millennium, many software-based virtual studios, like the well-received Ableton Live, have become cheaper and easier to use. These virtual studios provide the user with the freedom to utilize audio editing software while creating new music using audio effects and electronic instrumental sounds. As these virtual studios become more accessible, the number of amateur electronic musicians getting their start sitting at home at their desk's continues to grow.
The rising number of electronic musicians worldwide continue to change the way music is being created. “Someone with inherent and advanced musical knowledge & ability coupled with electronic/computer based technology can create incredible sonic landscapes,” said Ben Cullum, a songwriter/programmer/producer/musician currently touring with the British electronic funk band, The Egg. Adopting a progressive attitude and style, these musicians continue to mesh traditional elements of music with computer generated sounds.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Lotus's Hammerstrike Tour
Lotus: Hammerstrike's Gold
by Rich Guerra
This last year has been an expansive one for Lotus. After acting as a premiere late-night band for summer festival’s like Camp Bisco and Rothbury, they have continued to produce the fast-paced and fauxtrotted steez on stage that we can’t help but shake our rumps too. Transitioning nicely into their fusion sound from a strictly organic Rock/Funk sound, a new-but polished-style has emerged adding elements of Jam/Electronica/Jazz.
“Planting the holographic seeds of an LP with stunning potential and the detectable pliability of major advancements to come, they tended to each new addition with careful attention and precision, the initial, introductory phase of the innumerable performances time will eventually put into motion.” - Greg Gargiulo Jambase on the 9/24/08 Mercury Lounge show in NYC
The current Winter 2009 tour is a continuation of their 2008 Hammerstrike Tour, which helped make their newest album- Hammerstrike(Oct. 08′)-a definite success.
Some would argue that no band working today can produce a better blend of head-shaking instrumental pull and knee-knocking electronic sound than Lotus has year after year. The energetic and enthused crowd of fans at any sold out show on their seemingly never-ending tour feeds off of the band’s own encouraging spirit and stamina. And it doesn’t hurt that they don’t leave home for tour without the notorious overhanging light rig-their own slimmed down version of Daft Punk’s light pyramid. What would a fan’s memory of a Lotus gig be without the eye-popping rhythmic light show?
The Spring conclusion to the tour includes a first time performance at Lupo’s in Providence, two night stand Higher Ground in Burlington, VT and another two night banger at the “intimate” Bowery Ballroom in New York City to finish it off in April. Grab some advanced tickets and bust out your 3D-glasses and camera phones once again for Lotus as they finish off this tour on the east coast.
-Richard (Ranch) Guerra
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