Civil unrest is seriously gripping everyone quicker than I would’ve ever expected. Maybe chalked up to my drive to observe everyone more than I ever have before, but I have noticed there is a shift to angrily debate in great detail of the ideas fueling the nation, when having a singular mindset of harmony and peace has begun to blur at the dischord that these times have brought. Whether it be Obama, unions, gay marriage, abortion, or the strew of national concerns haunting America’s ability to enjoy themselves again, there must be something done to straighten out the split and skewed opinions of the mass majority of American society.
I talk of this from debating everything from philosophy to religion to conspiracies to politics, all the while recognizing a strong division growing between the ignorant, the arrogant, and the pacifist. People are at odds with themselves, sometimes for the sake of it, and it does not need to be so. Not even in a lofty idea of universal peace and understanding, but in the demanding of humanity to allow themselves to listen to everything, believe nothing unbeknownst, and apply all thoughts to the betterment of man. Trust me, when applied, change can happen again. But I guess, really, the goal seems just as lofty as the dreams for a world at peace. Maybe, I’m wrong. Life is funny in that I may never know consciously. I’m okay with that. It’s easier to politely dismiss arrogance, enlighten those with ignorance, and always preach pacifism than it is to combat any or all three.
Vampire Weekend is really a fantastic band to listen to when the weather is nice out like it is today. It’s a bit distracting to writing, though, but almost in a “What the fuck are you doing on a computer?” kind of way. The music is driving me to feel the need to go outside and enjoy myself. I might do that, soon enough. Once I’m done here, of course. I’m taking out some books as well. Some of philosophical theories. Some on movie critics. Maybe something else that fits my fancy when I pass it by. Who knows.
It’s odd that I’m not writing. But it feels neccessary. A break to let what I’ve done absorb into me again, like the sponge of knowledge I’ve thought of myself as. I’ve always had odd moments in time where the one thing I’ve been in love with doing, whether is be music or photography or writing, always slips away from my focus. During that time the knowledge sets it. It locks into place. Almost as if my brain were an infinite apartment complex, and my knowledge of things needs to get settled into it’s new abode. Gotta get the feng shui just right. Make it feels like it makes sense living. Just like in real life. Then you go back to that task, calling for that knowledge you developed, and the task becomes so uniformly right to you. It’s like you never took a break, and in fact gives me the feel that I was gather more technique and knowledge on my random creative trades without even the need to practice the trades. It’s an uneasy, yet completely benificial, phenomenon that I have trouble coming to grips with most times. I fear lack of productivity, but my mind never relents in productive growth. So, fuck it, I’m gonna enjoy myself instead of worrying about what needs to be written until I’m driven to write it. Writing for me again, and not for some self imposed need to write based on some sort of regiment intended to give myself a crash course lesson on learning how to write better. That, like all else, comes with time and patience, both of which I seem to have, endlessly.
This is old, but I think it’s TERRIBLE. Please tear this thing apart. Give me every critical remark you can muster up. Take me through what I feel ended up to be one of worst things I’ve written so far. I probably am being too hard on myself, but you should read it first and tell me if I’m right about the shocking truth of my writing mediocrity.
The saddest part about Bamboozle is that it has the capability of doing damage and destruction to the music and culture that this festival used to represent.
To preface this, everyone should have the most appreciation for music they can, no matter what genre. Open your mind to all sounds, and you can truly realize the emotional impact music can have for you in your life. With that said, I have been going out of my way to find constant musical variety. At this point in time, I’ve found myself listening backwards through time as much as forward in my search for new tunes, and in that search I have found and listened to the true heart and beginnings of many different genres of music. In having a deeper knowledge base to work off of with music, and with a still ever demanding need to expand that knowledge, I decided to properly give about 90% of the lineup 2012’s Bamboozle has to offer in order to thoroughly evaluate the value one would get from dropping the 200+ dollars it requires for a three day pass. What I came to realize though, was what led me to write this entire post.
When I was a teenager, the Bamboozle was an entirely different animal. Back then, the Bamboozle was called The Great Bamboozle. It began in 2003, and was geared towards a much more indie rock crowd, hosting acts like M. Ward and Sonic Youth, as well as jam bands like Dark Star Orchestra and moe, and retained it’s dignity as a legitimate festival for interesting and new local talent in their respective alternative genres. The coordinators of the Bamboozle used to put together a festival called the Skate and Surf Fest, in the same location that this year’s festival is being held. It was even structured the same exact way, with multiple days and tons of artists to watch. Skate and Surf was a punk rock, metal, hardcore, and emo festival, where you could watch The Bouncing Souls, Thursday, Dashboard Confessional, and the like. Skate and Surf Fest had the punk rock/ hardcore/emo aesthetic, and Bamboozle had the indie rock/jam band aesthetic. They were joined together in 2005, though the original Bamboozle vibe had all but vanished. Essentially taking the line-up and major success of the Skate and Surf Festivals of the past, and slapping the Bamboozle name on it, it became the festival that most of the previous attendees remember it as. And from 2005 until around 2009, it retained that audience.
In 2009, though, it began including larger pop acts in the line-up in the forms of No Doubt, Demi Lovato, and Third Eye Blind, as well as including comedy and hip hop stages to the festival to diversify the choices attendees had for entertainment. The acts on those stages had barely mid-level notoriety during that time, but there was still gems amongst the few. I saw Zach Galifianakis at the 2009 Bamboozle, prior to the explosive popularity he gained from his role in The Hangover, and it was a hysterical set. So all in all, the additions were suspect in the future of the fest, but instilled hope that the variety could propel it to grow into something of a coachella or bonnaroo in my home state, and the thought was exciting. The problem, however, was in its expansion, it eventually began to lose its identity.
Now to finally embellish on my first point. Post 2009, the Bamboozle gained so much popularity that it had grown massively, spawning a west coast extension and a roadshow tour in support of both coastal festivals. In that time, bands like Paramore came into existence. I’ll use Paramore as a example because it is the most striking example to me of the bastardization of the music that the Bamboozle offered. Paramore is by no means a bad band musically, and commercially that shows, but they are a terrible band at being a respected musical entity, due entirely to the fact the band is completely manufactured and created to fuel the image of Hayley Williams, the band’s lead singer. Paramore is the pop punk or emo band equivalent of Nsync, strictly crafted to take advantage of musical trends and exploit the demographic that so loves that music. That band ideal spread like wildfire, and hundreds of manufactured, watered down versions of bands from ten years prior popped up. With proper management crafting these hollow incarnations of acts, the lineup of the Bamboozle from that point on began slowly filling up with fluff.
I’ve never seen so many bands rip off other bands so blatantly in one place ever in my life. It is as if these management companies have templates of bands filed away in their offices, waiting for the moment to gather a bunch of overrated kids who adhere to the image of the template of choice, don’t know better, and are willing to sign away their lives and creative rights to gamble at the chance of being the next big metal or emo band. It turned back into quantity over quality in a world where teenagers were finding this music for the first time, unaware that there were multiple bands in the past who already made the music their new favorite manufactured band plays now, and did it entirely better. It is a giant dupe on the teenage youth of today. And the youth of today buy into it so hard that I don’t know when we’re going to get an age of real music for all ages ever again.
I’m convinced there should be a constant flow of stimulants running through my body. With such energy, I feel infinite. I feel like the weight of the world is nothing. I feel like the flash. I feel myself pulling on the ropes of time harder and faster, with my grip firmer and more intended to bring myself further into the future. The speed and accuracy for which my mind works is astounding, and never difficult to adjust to.
Funny thing is, I’m addicted to the idea of comfortable awareness enhancement, but there comes a point where the enhancement reaches a point of reversal of benefit. My mind gets so lost that I can’t keep concentration on anything of any importance, and the feeling can drive you crazy with anxiety. Cocaine is quite the bastard at fueling those feelings, being said from someone who has first hand experienced it. It feels eventually like the most fiendish desire to straighten yourself out, but thinking that more Cocaine is the only solution. It’s an addiction I managed to quit when I caught myself thinking about it out of context of partying, and that was scary to recognize but refreshing as well. Everything in moderation, you know?
Except Caffeine, of course. Caffeine is the one thing I’ve grown to notice that the sheer number dosage required to kill combined with the effect it produces makes it easily abusable, with great results in a pinch. And on top of it, not much is said about the long-term effects it has truly on the body. So, it seems to me, that I don’t see the problem with jonesin’ for some pick me up espressos. And the majority of people around would agree. Caffeine is great. Fuck what you heard. ‘Nuff said.
in my writing. I mean, I’m getting more short-handed, in a sense. I don’t know, maybe it the fact that I haven’t written anything in a week or so that makes me a little bit less lengthy in my exclamations. Or perhaps, dare I say, I’m changing? Perhaps I’ve become something new and different in my writing. Perhaps I’ve returned from an oddly emotionless, yet necessarily full of emotion, week all the more in tune with my ability to write a little more from heart. Not from the heart really, but more like in the ability I’ve gained to greater explain what I’m thinking in my head, and especially a lot more clearly.
I still have roundabouts in my writing, though. One thing I managed to notice about myself is my ability to craftily reiterate a point quite variably and uniquely each time. Fully explaining the same thing multiple times yet still managing to differ in the way it is told. It’s nice, but dreadfully annoying to be told the same thing over and over, so I’m attempting to minimize that. I’ll do all of us a favor. No one to feel like my audience needs further explanation. Embellishment is for the people who lack the knowledge to understand a subject, so they need to be given something of which it will give him that understanding, bringing him up to speed. Nothing I write about is really necessary to bring anyone up to speed about, so why do it?
I still manage to live in my writing metaphorically free, yet in real life I’ve become much more metaphorical. It’s funny, but as I write I never assume the need to make someone understand me in a way that it becomes something that is universally understood. But in life, metaphors are beautiful connections people make that bring that individual to place where you feel or act on a subject the same as the proclaimer. I would love to bring that into my writing, but that’s all in good time, I guess. For now, I keep on trucking again. Like a proper writing man should.
Have you ever taken time to break something you see down to the most acute level your mind is capable of doing? Think of it this way, I’ll give you an example. Look at this picture, and what do you see? Obviously, you see the pair of poles in the forefront, both seemingly supplying a purpose for existence. That’s besides the point. Look deeper. Look through that image. Pretend to travel inside the light pole. Imagine the wiring inside these poles, leading up through the inner chamber, allowing the power that eventually illuminates the bulb in the encasement. Imagine the massive electrical pole, with it’s extended arms supporting the six cables as they float, seemingly effortlessly, across the sky. Where does any of this outstretch of cabling begin and end?
At the end result, though, does anything I think about this image, with the intricate details not even visibly present, even matter in the overall feel in the image? I look at the details both present and not present in an image, but am I alone in this? Or do people look equally into imagery with such an unnecessary attention to detail? I don’t know. Maybe, that’s why I can look at the image of mainly industrial looking subjects, and put a purpose to the capturing of them. All I know is that for some reason, I find this image nice to look at and think about.
Like seriously, why is it most young men’s agenda the majority of the time to constantly make sure they specify how big their game is, or how tough they are, or any other theoretical dick measuring contests that are applied to the topic at hand. I know this whole phenomenon fades with age, especially with the realization that no one really cares about any of those things, but why is it so glorified? It’s truly the character of the individual that gives them the respect that they think their dicks will give them. You wanna measure you’re dick? Grab a ruler, and leave society out of it. The biggest dick measuring contest in life is truly you’re ability to be an adult, and it in no way has anything to do with anything else. At all
Manhood is the most elusive beast because there are a set of rules and standards put in place to regulate manhood, and it’s terribly hysterical farce. Real men do whatever the fuck they want, regardless of what people deem manly or not. Men are primal, and never pathological. They work entirely on the things that drive them forward, like dreams and aspirations, and in the drive towards that they become knowledgeable and experienced in the art of interaction between individuals. You begin to build tact, and you don’t allow your emotions to get in the way of that.
You realize insecurities are just concepts and ideas of yourself that you haven’t decided to be honest with yourself about. Back to penis measuring, imagine your penis was in fact small. How long is it going to take for you to actually come to terms with that, and when you do, how much will you end up kicking yourself for actually caring about such petty things? I mean, granted, women enjoy the fruits of proper love-making, but who says you can’t get creative in you shortcomings? If you just accept the things that you think bring you down, then you can learn to transcend your debilitating character traits to the point that nothing can hold you back.
It’s funny, it’s almost in parallel to how I thought about myself when I was overweight. I was purely in denial of being overweight, and in that time my weight skyrocketed. Once I came to terms with myself, realized my weight doesn’t reflect who I am, funnily enough I lost the weight. All of it. I take that as a point to say you are what you allow yourself to be. Allow yourself to become the man you desire to be, and in due time you become what you desire.
Mark Ronson is the man. No if, ands, or buts about it. Enjoy
Walking out of my job last night, I sit outside and await company, whilst writing about the inability I have to be comfortable going to the same bars and having the same conversation with the same people for four years now, I noticed something sad yet endearing. A man, strapped with an acoustic guitar, begins playing while I’m writing, consequently distracting me, if only for a moment, and begins a set of stripped down and rearranged covers of “everybody’s” favorite pop rock hits. And by everyone, he intends on the insistent notion that Matchbox 20, Maroon 5, Third Eye Blind, or any other numerically quippy band names are the ultimate example of what the common bar attendee would want to hear on a Friday night.
About 60% of the audience he seemed to have been pegged. That other fraction of the audience seemed too concerned with getting wasted than to actually listen, so I’m assuming this man has overall won the crowd over. I held myself amongst the minority group of people concerned with my belligerence, yet seemed to have caught some instances of musical performance, and I was unfortunately all but impressed with the boring bar-chorded interpretations and the slightly below average vocals, which surprises me more with the level of tolerance most individuals have with the quality of music they are being presented.
This man was rock solidly mediocre, yet was still considered an impressive and thriving acoustic cover artist, at least to the half-drunk, half-listening crowd. It seems, though, that this may be in fact all you need to pay the bills sometimes, and I guess there’s something earnest in the effort. I mean, I wouldn’t have put the effort this man did to learn those songs, and maybe in that tortuous task he is a better man than I, or maybe I have too much personal pride to allow myself the thought of lowering my musical standards to appease the masses. Either way, the man did what was required of him, albeit sub-par and uninspired, and it paid off for him in the form of a check. This, I guess, serves as a statement that maybe more people don’t really care about music as much as I thought and care to admit, which is truly terribly sad outlook on societal priorities.
On the same token, though, I have seen fantastic acoustic artists, even in Red Bank, that deserve the respect given, or sometimes not given, to them. And I will always commend a man willing to stand up in any live setting and perform, whether it be original material, a beautiful rendition of a classic, or a bastardization of a pop rock song that was almost just as much a flash in the pan in it’s popularity as it was in the time it was performed in your local bar. So, once again, I tip my hat to another type of man, the One Man Cover Band, for you’re willingness to perform and you’re ability to often-times bite the creative bullet for that paycheck. Your efforts are both parts commendable and questionable, yet you persist, and in that persistence you have, at least, garnered my respect. I maybe perceive you negatively, but your existence serves to defy what I sometimes find a futile practice, due from lack of effort or talent. Maybe I’m just to critical. Maybe not. Nonetheless, continue your musical journey, and someday you may outshine us all.
