Hippie Things to Say

 I was just thinking about not understanding social media, war or power hungriness and need somewhere to put that text. This all ties into needing others to validate you.

Social media initially made sense to me because I did not understand it. I saw a place where folks posted their creative work and could communicate. Cool. Unfortunately, most of what is on there is deceptive in some way, an advertisement, made by someone who does not know what they are doing or talking about, intentionally created to disrupt the viewer or some other crazy new thing I don't know about. The communication is mostly used to argue. Even older, "proto-social media" things like YouTube feature deceptive titles and content heavily weighted into the negative like Instagram. Lots of what I have seen on YouTube is long videos of desultory conversations between folks and British video essayists who are always sponsored and make the advertising for the companies they are sponsored by themselves and part of all their videos.

War is incoherent because the people who decide to fight are not the ones fighting. They have others fight their battles for them. Some would say that is a sign of weakness. The extra problem is the increasing destructive power and accuracy of the weaponry wielded by those others.

 Hunger for power is almost coherent. If taaken a different way, I have it: I've been learning skills and ideas about what interests me my whole life. I've been trying to get involved in things to the point that I am "conversant". I have a range of skills around media creation in every way that made sense, mechanical things, multiple types of computers and electronics, new world order conspiracy theorism, raw vegan yoga ganja hippie stuff and drugs. If I had any hunger for power, I satiated it with REAL power. Wanting the approval of others is a valid thing, but one must do something to earn that approval. I'm thinking of politicians, the popular kids at school, social media influencers and addicts, George Costanza from Seinfeld and Eddy from Ed, Edd & Eddy. Double D was building WHATEVER HE WANTED and was NEVER THANKED. Record executives and music industry businesspeople make more money than the folks who create what they trade in, creating their job.

Like the title says, hippie things to say. I have long hair, smoke ganja, listen to some of the exact non-mainstream music some hippies would have played and heard back then and think and write things like this. This brings up the subgenre topic and me. I'm a metalhead from a teen, like thrash Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Judas Priest, King Diamond, Mercyful Fate, Blind Guardian. Had been a BMXer during or before that. This early time also included the accidental discovery of black metal, skateboarding, hackey sack, magic cards, AD&D (but it fizzled alone), and an interest in punk. When I was working at a warehouse in my 20s, a coworker turned me on to jazz, so I started learning jazz chords on guitar and listening to the local jazz station. I has a job at a music shop in my 30s and the owner selected sirrius XM internet radio for shop music. There was a day that my hangover only allowed me to listen to Willie's Roadhouse and I became known to my boss as "Metal-Tonk Andy". I bought country albums from the pile of junk CDs, cassettes and records he had for sale as well as Hawaiian when I picked up ukulele and a Peavey Powerslide. I got really into symphonic speed metal from when I worked at the warehouse and got my 1st internet computer. Symphony X, Silverheart, Shadowstrike, Spellblast, Sonata Arctica and I can do other letters like that. I turn to this when I'm in the emergency room and the bad sounds are surrounding me too loudly. It is an outward expression of what Rhapsody call "the power of the dragonflame" in a spoken section during the Emerald Sword Saga and I have it, can feel it changing size/strength inside me. I got really into gutter punk: Annoying, Chad Fontaine, Grant Faithful, Days & Daze, Cranford Nix, Jesse Stewart. I listened to the music, watched the documentaries and thought about just leaving. Recently, I've been liking G-Funk like Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Afroman, H.O.H. (House of Hell) and Artifacts. I downloaded a huge bunch of music videos and rap was a large part of it. I ended up incapacitated by a bad reaction to too many pills changing at the samme time and watched those as well as admiring R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet. I was riding with a medical cab company whose staff and management were from Ethiopia and one of the drivers was REALLY cool and listened to "swinging adis", referring to Ethiopian folk music influenced by western jazz. I like Alemayehu Fanta most, Mulatu Astake and Ibex Band.

I have long hair, a beard and they are "unstyled", just ponytail and narrowing sides of the beard, trimming the mustache. I wear metal band grapgic Ts or dark/muted color polo shirts with baggy cargo shorts (grey camo shorts and Sepultura shirt is authentic). The shinguards with knees stay on all the time because I have to crawl back and forth on the stairs so frequently. My left foot wears a medical boot that I chopped the hightop shin section off of. There is a system of notched foam wraps and rope across the back that keeps my foot from forcing its way out through the front or top and the right foot wears a hightop black work boot that has been decimated by the left foot. I tried to accessorize with a simple bandana, but anywhere I put it was touching the steps of the stairs or getting too close with some other dirty thing. I tried a necklace and felt like I was being choked. I remember liking a double wristband setup I got from a gumball machine when I was in my 1st band. Conformist clothing feels stifling and overdecorating myself is just a way to get those things destroyed. I'm thinking about the fashion designers I saw on Bliss Foster's channel who wore such simple outfits and produced such outlandish ones. Being the one who contorts himself and gets dirty dealing with all manner of items and substances, I NEED to wear simple clothing. I spend time designing the appearance of other things, so I get to just be me. I'm strange enough on my own without adding artificial interest.

Beauty products industry and spending tons of time on one's own appearance don't make sense from here. That's just my last little joke. They don't harm quite as much as some others, so watching Bliss Foster dork out about fashion designers and how that whole system works is great to me. Even instructive. Let them obsess over appearance, but the stuff they use should not be made from animals and oil. I think the designers need to just have their shows when they are ready and display their "current line" at the big fashion week deal. Displaying unfinished designs might make sense to some, but the designers would definitely prefer to display finished ones. 

Black Metal Classification

 I've watched plenty of documentaries about and listened to plenty of black metal. When I was in high school, there was a local radio show that played metal some nights. It was run by Michael from Night Conquers Day and another DJ. Michael's tastes in music mirror his music and this was imprinted on me early and heavily. I found the radio show on the way back from a family Christmas gathering when I was scrolling the radio dial and Gehenna came out. The 1st few songs I heard were from Gehenna's 1st 2 albums! Michael MADE SURE I like Cradle of Filth, Ancient, Gehenna, Night Conquers Day, Vinterland and Blut Aus Nord.

The distinction here can be seen as "keyboard black metal/non-keyboard" to some, but there is a level of complexity and concern for creating melodic phrasing in the type that I like, which does not exist in what I call "blast black metal" like Immortal, Necrophobic and Mayhem. Another way of defining this difference could be creepy vs scary. Like a complex spider's web with segmented body spider lurking somewhere in the darkness to a superheated captive bolt gun or battering ram glowing red with heat. Energy level plays a large role, but some of the faster melodic stuff has cascading minor phrases that sound honestly beautiful to me. The borders of metal subgenres are less defined than some may think and moving out from the spider's web of keyboard melodic black metal, comes folk-influenced metal like Mental Home and then dipping into gothic rock more comes Nightingale. Eventually, you get to Bauhaus and need to make a "rock vs metal" distinction.

When folks say "black metal", they generally tend to only mean blast black metal, like when non-metal folk refer to metal as only stuff like Toxic Holocaust, Venom, Slayer and Cannibal Corpse. This has a "mirror" in melodic power metal. There are bands like Gloryhammer, Rhapsody, Blind Guardian and Silverheart that are easiest to compare with this in a "white knight, black knight" manner. This is also "secret" metal for those who look, find and know. We could go all the way to L-Train for Australian My Little Pony metal.

This brings us to the current "sub-culture template" thing going on online now. Folks with no base in this stuff are trying to put on the costume to assume the role. It doesn't work like that. We call them posers. The true metalheads know who they are and will still be into whatever THEY like, regardless of fashion. If mainstream style lines up with yours' temporarily, that is just an interesting effect of this complex world.

Here I am in life, what the fuck? I'm rambling.

 Here is my creative writing about a possible lack of theology that also allows for it.

Let's let science say how the universe, solar system and world were created. Yeah, I could totally see the possibility of evolution theory and apply that type of thought to human civilization. So the evolution of human society would be easy to believe. Going from gather tribes to speaking, language, mathematics, architecture, music, art, culture... In order for complex systems to exist, they must be assembled or evolve from simpler pieces. The tower of Babel story is really important here. For all these different languages and cultures to exist across the world, they would either need to come from the same source or just HAPPEN all over JUST BECAUSE. Every religion says they have the only true book and only right way to think. Why choose from among squabbling children and adopt that as your way of life? Again, as with scientific evolution, I can totally see a religious civilization-shattering event spreading people from the same place all over the world. All of the different environments and isolation made each place develop their own culture. Now, we are in a time of blending of those cultures across the world. Namely, the western Europeans and the North Americans suddenly flooded other areas, creating a culture that can communicate across the world, but is looking more the same every day. I think light contact, infrequent communication, trading based alliances could be achieved that could benefit everyone, but not homogenize cultures. Some limit on tourism might be set for example.

Maybe if we can get this world functioning better, we can access other places like space or religious/psychological revelations and such. Besides, the past can't be changed. Neither can what is here now. The only things that we can change are what we think and do to try for a future we prefer.

The more skills one develops across more areas, the less other people have done that. The more intelligence, creativity, imagination, drive, presentness one requires of another, the less of the population worldwide possesses that. This situation creates smaller and smaller, more isolated groups down to individuals with their own ideas about what life is, why we are here, what one should do... To the point of weaponizing life against a person with "something in them". The EXACT OPPOSITE of a meritocracy. I have to go with the conspiracy folks here and say that this world really is a negative energy farm and we humans are the livestock. We generate negative energy MORE than cows produce milk, possibly more than chickens lay eggs in addition! Reptilian overlord government seems to be in place.

However, people ACTUALLY DO have something inside them, generate some life and creativity, some activity. I don't know where it comes from any more than another person would BECAUSE NONE OF US DO! I say we allow for religious, theological, mythological thoughts and stories because they have some value outside their context. We can think about these stories and think about parts of our lives. We say, "Sure, some deity we can't access to know made us and that is why we do what we do. That is another reason why we should read/hear these stories, to get some direction." Art, music, theater, dance, video, food, culture should be our goal then. Let's build the best technology, architecture, vehicles. Let's make effective government, complex psychology, mathematics... We're going to make our society good, right? This is part of why I don't believe stories regardless of where they come from, unless I hear it mirrored enough and it makes sense enough. Nobody could possibly tell me that the current state of the world came about naturally, this was clearly guided by evil.

Bringing us to the last "bullet point" of the day, this really is hell. If you just take a step back from MULTIPLE THINGS and think about just making a system that functions, no way. Why fight anyone when you can make a rude gesture, loud noise and leave? The only reason could be "stuck together", but with different countries across oceans, that just does not work. Engineered evil was automatically adopted by an unthinking population and implemented. Centuries of war and bad governments not caring about their own people. As David Icke has said, religion destroys spirituality, government/law destroys justice, education destroys intelligence and the medical system destroys health. I've asked medical staff about the subject and everyone is just trying to do their best to keep up. The doctors a little bit less, but it's like working at a warehouse with warehouse managers, office team, sales section, then within the warehouse was shipping, receiving, restock and pick & pack. Each of those sections had "leaders" who worked slightly less and made more decisions than lower ranked members of their teams. The bosses of the sections don't bust their behinds nearly as much as the lower ranked workers. An expertly crafted negative energy factory.

Music Notes

 I am of the opinion that music should be in place of religion. My thinking there is quite simple and logical. Pretty much every religion uses music because it connects to something inside people that their words can't reach. Currently, The most fun I can have is writing King Diamond parts "acoustic fingerpicking" style on the 8 string guitar, using it to alternate playing bass and guitar parts or play old Venom songs on two 32-key portable casio keyboards, 1 per hand for better bass/treble separation and to eliminate finger/hand crossover. I'm not rushing to record because who would listen to it?

A Commentary on Music Paintings

 

I've been into music and painting for quite some time. Whistler did "The Piano Lesson". "The Banjo Lesson" is by Henry Ossawa. I would like to call into attention how rigid or natural a painting is. The banjo lesson seems to breathe on its own, but the piano lesson is set in stone. How about the posing of the characters in the scene? The banjo lesson seems extremely intimate and the piano lesson seems distant and uncaring. I'm just comparing painting style and character placement in 2 paintings of something I know: music. Too bad I got so few lessons.

I went back to looking things up and found "The Guitar Lesson" by Pierre Augutse Renoir. The style of painting and arrangement of characters is in between piano and banjo lessons. I also searched around for what I was going to make and found plenty of jam session and band paintings. Mine is just an overly developed cartoon in my notebook, but I wanted to just get it out of my head and into a sketchbook.