Hello again. Welcome back to the "in the beginning" blog series I've been creating. I've been taking the lucky few of you who read this on a bit of a journey through my childhood. You can still go back and read what you've missed, but be warned I'm a little odd.
I have been obsessed with music since i can remember. There are literally only a handfull of memories that predate my love of audio assaults. Most of those memories are images and mini flickers of a time when I was a baby. Can you imagine how empty this world would be if we didn't have our songs and melodies. Mankind as a whole has been chanting and shaking sticks since the dawn of time.
Life would be so empty. Think about it. Every movie, tv show, cartoon, and program out there has a soundtrack. Its nearly impossible to go anywhere or do anything where you won't find music pumping out of some system somewhere. It makes life flow. I take great joys in hearing the music of life.
Whether in nature or in a big city if you take a moment and join yourself with the oneness around you, you can hear so many songs. The tweet of the birds hold a rhythm, the syncopated steps we take, the alarms and tools and cars we use, they all hold a rhythm. I have countless times held mini freestyle sessions in my car at a stop light with the kids. Cause everything man made has a click track of sorts. Everything beats a rhythm, whether crude or beautiful.
The rhythm of life is undeniable. You literally have to be disconnected from the world to not see it. I guess its rooted in our DNA. We've only been rolling around this big green rock for about 200,000 years. Yeah that's a long time but not really. Not when you hold it up against the history of the world and the universe. Man is just a wrinkle in time. Life was here before us and it will trudge on after we've all returned to dust.
Every creature on earth has been searching for the same few things. Food, water, shelter, and love. You can argue the love part but think about it. Call it family if you'd prefer. Call it a procreational disposition. Call it what you want. But almost every living thing ever, from bugs to birds to flowers to diseases, thrives on togetherness. We long to find others like us and replicate. We long to simply not be alone.
We have been sharing stories and songs with each other for thousands of years. The oldest musical instruments we have found are about 22,000 years old. And that's only what we know of. I am quite sure that we were grunting and scratching in rhythms and forms that just can't be proven. There had to be song before that. Those early instruments were flutes made of bird and mammoth bones. Imagine that. Before all of technology, before musical concepts, before the modern world as we know it, there were hairy cave dwellers asserting their control on time through the art of music.
We've been passing stories and lessons through word and song for generations. There was a time when all you knew about your family or the world outside your village was in the songs passed down. We have doubtless lost whole societies and unimaginable amounts of knowledge through the years of mans greedy lusts. One thing conquerors loved to do was wipe away any trace of that which came before them. But in this destruction so many songs still survived though. Sheet music hidden in cubby holes or already passed down to the children through word. Whole nations turned to ashes but their songs still echoed on the flowing winds of time through the hearts and minds of family and friends.
Its impossible to erase an idea. And there has never been a shortage of ideas inspired or kept alive through music. I used to be nearly unable to function without song. Even today its hard to do much without it. I listen to music going to and fro on the road. I listen to music when I"m doing my yard work, the dishes, cleaning, creating, most things. Hell, I'm listening to Sentenced greatest hits on youtube as I write this little blog. We play music at our funerals and marriages. Everything has a soundtrack. EVERYTHING> >>> If you are anything like me you probably even have songs pumpin through your head when there isn't any music playing at all.
In the blogs that came before this and in those that come after you will see how music shaped my life. It even saved my life. But I will tell you more about that soon enough. Not today.
Today is was supposed to be writing about being in the 5th grade. I was 10, then 11 in the the 5th grade. It was a transitional year. My first step out of elementary school. My slow turn from golden oldies and classic rock to grundge and metal which started the year before in 4th grade. It was also the start of a very long history of detention. I have omitted a number of details on purpose as I've been writing these blogs. Some things are forgotten by accident. Some things just wouldn't flow as well together. Plus there's always the fact that I'm not 100 percent certain of all my time frames. I did A LOT of drugs in my life. And I believe I have lost a number of memories.
For example I started stealing things when I was in elementary school and it continued for many years to follow. But I will have a lot more to say about that in the next installment. As it turns out 5th grade wasn't that crazy. I had a number of interesting things happen but they pertain more to stories I will finish in the next couple entries.
The riots in LA had officially begun when I was in 5th grade. In my last blog i told you about the KKK in my little home town. I told you about how we had "race riots" beginning in Hanover. Though they were nothing even close to the chaos that struck in LA. After those cops were let off the hook for doing what the whole world knew and watched them do time and time again for months on the video footage Tv kept showing us, LA went crazy. I can't blame em.
Here we are not that far from the riots that were happening in my backyard Baltimore. I would never necessarily condone the actions of those who destroy a CVS to prove they are upset about race relations and bullshit policies, but I can fully understand. As much as possible that is. I'm a white guy. I can't get away from that. But i can understand frustration and intolerance. I can understand a desire to burn the world to the ground and dance in the ashes. I've had those feelings flowing freely through me since I was a child. And I don't even have good reasons, just skewed chemical equations.
I can only imagine the plight of the brown, black, yellow, purple, tan, gay, trans, etc. I have had a hard life, but as far as I know its never been due to my pigment issues. And no one cares at all when you're heterosexual. People fear the things they don't understand. People are stupid. Plain and simple. If we could be more like children this fucked up world would become such a lovely place.
One of the many reasons I've always loved kids is because they aren't full of shit. They are just what they are. Especially when they are 3-6, before the assholes of the world and their families have a chance to taint them. Kids will play with eachother and accept one another as they are. They aren't yet tainted by the sicknesses of the world. We as adults have things to prove. Who makes more money, who has the bigger house, who has the nicer vehicle, or the power, or the pussy, or the right, or the truth.
Life is a mess. We are all but pieces of a shattered puzzle, just trying to find the missing parts that will make us whole again.
People want to feel like they have power. That's why He-man was such a successful toy franchise in the 80s. We all want to feel like we have control. I know the feeling very well. My ism's have controlled me a number of times and in a number of ways over the years. I wish they didn't and I've come a long way since I was younger at gainig control over them, but I"m not quite there yet.
How much control do you really have? We think we control our cars because of the fact that we are sitting behind the wheel. But it takes a split second to turn that car into a 4000lb flying death trap. We feel we control our relationships. But there's not controlling emotion. He/she decides you suck and in a heartbeat they are gone. You think you control your money, but a turn in stocks or a bank crashes and you're fucked again. You think you can control your emotions, but then your lover dies in a sudden accident, and your shattered. We have very little control in life. It took me many years to start figuring that out.
We can control our actions, but we can't control how they affect others. But its not our job to protect the emotions and mental states of those around us. All we can do is our best. Do your best to be a better you. That's another thing I've been working on for a long time. Do your best to be the best you that you can be and you will affect others without trying. Do your best to be there for the ones you love. Do your best to stand strong against adversity. None of us is indestructible. Not one of us are free of the emotions that come with lifes many twists and turns.
Hell if you wanna talk about emotions, I can go on all day. I pour everything I am into the songs I create. Up until recently the most absolute way you could get to know me is by listening to my music. My anger, my love, my truths are all in the music. I can find myself crying very easily when listening to my own bands songs. Cause no one knows better than I the point of the songs or the stories that inspired it. My beliefs and life lessons are bled on the page with unabashed fury. There isn't a single song created for Crimson Orchid or my hip hop that's pointless. All my songs have a meaning. All my songs are stories of the world around me or the life I lived. I know no other way.
I stopped trying to control my emotions a few months ago. That struggle was no longer worth it. I have no shame in tears. I have no shame in love. I love as hard as I can in the hopes that no one I know will ever fall to the emptiness I have. I don't care if you think I'm a pussy cause I cry at emotional parts of films. (Pussys are some of the strongest things in this world by the way) I don't care if you think I'm a faggot or that Im burning in hell cause I fully support the LGBTQ community. Everyone deserves love and fear has never been a motivator for me. I dont care if you think I'm despicable because I believe in a womans right to abort. Its not your fuckin body. I don't care if you think my man bun is gay (its been 12 yrs). I don't care about anything other than being the best me that I can be and trying to bolster the hearts of those around me.
Life is too short to worry ourselves about the shortsightedness of others. We can't focus all our energy on what we cannot change. Its a futile battle. We must focus on those things that we can change. Ourselves. Not to mean that we should all be selfish and cut off from eachother. Quite the opposite really. We need to each be the change we wish to see in the world. We need to be the light. This world is shrouded in darkness, but we can all become illuminated by love and knowledge.
All of existence is based on perception and perspective. If we can keep our eyes and minds open to others points of view we will find understanding in a world of confusion.
I was going to write more but that's fine. I'm watching a house in PA with 2 dogs and they are getting antsy. I never feel like I've written very much but its been 2 hours. I will sign off here and take care of the pups. As you may have been able to figure I didn't have a lot to say about 5th grade. It can be summed up easily... fights, detention, grundge, metal, girls.
I always have more to say. Some things will never change. Catch me with a bowl and some time and we can talk till you wanna run. More tales to come, like my first arrest at 12 yrs. old.
I'll tell you about it sometime...