Music is My Paradise

I've been a musician for more than half my life. Music, in many ways, allows me to tell love stories.

I have played the alto saxophone at a SuperBowl:

I have played the piano at numerous recitals (those pictures are a wee bit too embarrassing and will not be viewed by the general public).

My love and passion for music has taken me around the world. I have met so many wonderful people and done so many great things. But the real joy I derive from playing music and performing in front of crowds is that feeling that the audience gets. That's my paradise.

(In fact, I'm actually listening to famed composer Hans Zimmer's Pandora radio station as I type).

I ride a motorcycle and while I know it is "illegal" I still listen to music as I ride.

For me music obtains the same kind of aura that Walter Benjamin's writes about. Music is art. Music is element and emotional. Music provides people with feelings of both sadness and happiness, much like any sculpture or painting. Music can be composed as a painting. That has aura of its own. And in that sense music has that lasting effect, that aura.

A Party Bus and a Diet

This weekend I traveled to Miami to meet my Nephew Norman and his wife Diedra who was celebrating her 30th birthday (oh, yes, my nephew is about two years older than me) and their friends.

I think the drive to miami from just about anywhere else on the map is about as close as you can get to pure evil. That said, I love Miami. I love my family. And I love to party.

I recently started a diet, it's called the "Ketogenic diet" It's similar to the pale diet except cheese and dairy are encourage. Being bound to this Keto diet and not being able to eat birthday cake (because of the sugar) and French fries, chips and dip (because of the carbs) I found myself consuming and lot of meat and liquor.

By the time I had reached Miami, I was already one week into this crazy ass diet. And let's just say that before I started Keto that I pretty much ate like a fucking goat.

And then came the drugs, I mean weed, which is not a drug. Or is it? Hmm....I used to think weed is a "drug." But perhaps, as Deleuze and Guattari write, “If the experimentation with drugs has left its mark on everyone, even nonusers, it is because it changed the perceptive coordinates of space-time and introduced us to a universe of microperceptions in which becomings-molecular take over where becomings-animal leave off.”

In all, I had a great time partying and celebrating with family and friends on south beach. I survived my first party bus, too. And nobody got shot, stabbed or arrested, you know, because those things tend to happen episodically in South Beach.

Fashion and Music as Medicine, or Something

“When people say 'there are other fish in the sea' I say 'fuck you, she was my sea.'”


― Jen Faulkner

It's Saturday, 7:32p.m., still suffering from a shattered heart I decided that lying in bed in fetal position (Just imagine that I am Kurtz, insane, lying on my side chanting "the horror...the horror...) listening to The Boxer Rebellion's "If You Run" on repeat... 

...probably wasn't the best way to spend my night. 

I cracked open my eyes just enough to see my iPhone. I found Daft Punk's Random Access Memories and pressed shuffle (the song didn't matter much because in my humble opinion, the whole damn album is one hit after another). 

I rolled out of my kings sized bed, (boy that thing seems bigger now) turned on the light and began to gaze into my massive closet much the same way we stare at a refrigerator when we're trying to find something to eat. Sixty seconds passed. Then three hundred. It was ten minutes into this little dance when I said fuck it and took a shower. I already knew what I was going to wear and where I was going to wear it. 

An hour later, I sprayed on some Perry Ellis 360 Red, grabbed three cigars,  jumped on my motorcycle and revved my engine extra loud in some sort of act of rebellion-like escapism. 

With Daft Punk playing in my ears (yes, I know that's illegal) I was off to Level 8 Lounge. There I came across all kinds of fashion and the DJ played some Lana Del Rey. Three shots of Patron Silver, a Vesper martini and two Gran Habano cigars later, I was feeling a whole lot better. 

S y n c h r o n i c i t y

Synchronicity.  

Tido fires up the bass. Mike kicks in a guitar rift. Steve feels around so he can fill in the blanks between the bass and the guitar. Barak's bravado brings this whole thing together. 

Four, who went from boys to men and from strangers to friends. The cause? A beautifully badass melodic mind-orgy. The effect? Just the same. And when Big Orange Band brings the pain, we all gain. 

Random. Maybe. 

Coordinated? Who gives a fuck!?!?!? 

I lost my girlfriend. I lost my motorcycle. I lost my motorcycle key. I lost purchasing power because some asshole tried to use my credit card number to buy muscle enhancement medication from fucking Switzerland. All! In! One! Weekend!

I almost lost my damn mind. 

Synchronicity.  

Random? I don't know.

Coordinated? **Flips the middle finger to God**

But instead of having a huge pity party and feeling sorry for myself, I went to St. George Island. 

There I found peace. 

And peace of mind

I shed a tear. And that shed light. 

I didn't have any outer body experiences like the drummer of BOH, but I did come to have a deeper appreciation for not only the practical relationships, but also for the more conceptual relationships, those ones between ideas, nature, time and space. 

Gotta run. The Police are coming to take me away: Synchronicity

America's War on Mary Jane and Why Playing Hard to Get is Played Out

War. What is it good for? Well, some wars are fought for freedom. And other wars are fought for fucked up reasons. Still, some wars are well known and others, not so much. And then there are those wars that have waged on for decades and are even less known.


The War on Drugs. Heard of it?


One doesn't have to own a tie-dyed ferret and a hackysack to realize the waste of the drug wars; not to mention how they've resulted in a disturbing accumulation of federal powers (mandatory minimums, asset forfeiture, a paramilitary DEA to name but a few).
Let us pause here while Peter Tosh sings his peace: 

Now. Some argue that the war on drugs (more specifically, weed) identifies, isolates, and targets the most marginalized, defenseless, and the most vulnerable in American society: the poor. 


Indeed, declared a 'trillion-dollar failure,' the war on drugs less about keeping so-called dangerous illicit drugs off the streets. Keeping weed illegal is good. But not for the reasons you've been taught. 


The worst thing that could happen is if weed was legal tomorrow and grandma could go down to her neighborhood Starbucks to grab a dime bag.  


Legal weed would leave a lot of people butt-hurt: 


1. The Private Prison Industry
2. The Addiction Recovery Industry
3. The Drug Testing Industry
4. Police Unions
5. Alcohol And Beer Companies
6. Pharmaceutical Corporations 
7. Prison Guard Unions
8. Trial Lawyers


Sun Tzu said "all war is deception," and that "there is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolong warfare." 

Can I get an Amen? 


Shunned by the high-minded, moral majority, blighted by a religiously ambitious Bible Belt, and regulated by a powerful hegemony, (weed) drugs and there uses have remained pervasive among popular culture. 


From movies to music, drugs make up a sizable part of the fabric of America. 


The path forward --> Decriminalize the plant!!! And tax it!!! Or something!!!  


Washington state and Colorado legalized weed for recreational purposes, and it looks like Washington DC butting the hell out.


Even Virginia Attorney General and Candidate for Governor, Ken Cuccinelli thinks states should "experiment" (hahahaha) with legalizing weed. 


Smokey, another noted philosopher tells us, "Ain't nothing wrong with smoking weed. Weed is from the Earth. God put it here for me and you. Take advantage, man Take advantage." 

Can I get another AMEN? 


In the famous words of Andre 3,000, "Marijuana illegal but cigarettes cool, I might look kinda funny but I ain't no fool."
That's the dissonance. The paradox. And the pop culture pressures seems to be eroding the confines of conservative thinking towards pot. 

And on that note, I leave you with this: