divineguitar

2010 was a heck of a year filled with train rides, plane rides and lots of echo in a excessively big apartment.  There’s a quote that says some look for similarity in things, others admire the nuance — although top 10 lists are filled with repetition, there is much to explore when you grab the right artists.

Eastern philosophies have earth, wind, fire and water as core elements.  Thanks to Musashi and A book of 5 Rings, ‘void’ enters the picture.  Just as Roy Orbison is earth, Tom Petty is wind, Bob Dylan is fire, and George Harrison is water, this is the year I’ve finally discovered the void, Jeff Lynn, in the Travelling Wilbury’s, and in life, hence, the breaking out of another shell, and things again take on a brand new way.

Starting the year working at Camp Slayer, ending the year working in Italy at Caserma Ederle, and lots of travelling in between have made the mind seek out true storytellers…true craftsman of the art,  examples and role models as I craft stories, experience and perspective of my own.

From Iraq to Italy, Tokyo to Istanbul, Budapest to Sarajevo, a few artists helped in the explanation of the tapestry the eyes were seeing.  It’s been a hell of a ride, honorable mentions this year, Lissie, and Spoon and Belle and Sebastian.

The sound scores that linger –

10 – Weezer – Death To False Metal - With every album you take the total picture with you — Watching the band evolve from high school days when they’re jammin’ ‘Say it Ain’t So’ on Letterman to the days of Rivers sportin’ a mustache and cowboy hat, you get a sense that the band is just havin’ fun these days and givin’ the stink eye to critiques.  Cover of the century goes to Unbreak My Heart, as the paradox of a wailing guitar solo intro over Toni Braxton’s sultry hit from the good ol’ days.  I think Rivers would be an awesome guy to have a beer with, and an awesome American President.

9 – MGMT – Congratulations - I think the correct word for this band would be a ‘mutt‘, but if you keep it in the cd deck long enough, influences like a hybrid between the Babyshambles and The Specials emerge, and you begin to realize these lads are very thoughtful and ironic, “I’ve got someone to make great reports and tell me how my money’s spent, and all I need is a great big Congratulations’ – If Neil Hannon gives them the NOD in a brilliant cover, they also have my blessing.  Live fast and die young, don’t know if I agree, but I like the ring to it.

8 – Gaslight Anthem – American Slang - New Jersey is a hot bed for modern classics like Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi, we can only hope the Gaslight Anthem takes to torch and runs with it for decades.  Jammin’ the album you hear a tribute to the Boss, and you hear soul…I lost count of the mountains, literally and figuratively, while listening to The Diamond Street Choir. 

7 – Broken Bells – Broken Bells - You can’t be objective and not list this album in a top 10 list for the year.  Mercer has become a ‘base ingredient’ for a damn good recipe.  The Ghost Inside is the song that has yet best to capture the feeling I had when I was 10 years old staying up all night watching videos on TBS Night Tracks waiting for my favorite Weird Al video.  25 years later, I’m glad they didn’t play what I wanted…the journey was the destination…the love of music was caramelized at a young age, Mercer and Danger Mouse is a natural progression of this.

6 – Nada Surf - If I Had a Hi-Fi - Months out in the Iraq desert to a nightclub in Zurich Switzerland is a perfect incubator for a beautiful and natural endorphin rush.  Skeptic at first you always are when you hear of a ‘cover album’, but you won’t hear Sweet Home Alabama or Freebird on this one, but you’ll hear great indie classics covered in Nada Surf sentimental glaze.  It’s terrific, it’s beautiful, it’ll knock your socks off.

5 – Josh Ritter – So Runs the World Away - I’d throw this man from Moscow Idaho up there with the best songwriters of all time.  A lofty claim certainly, but I’ve yet to find someone who strikes the proper balance of explaining the human condition yet leaving a lot open to the imagination.  Yet another perfect storm for the emotions, spending some time in Texas in June and getting to see his show at Antones and snagging a wonderful recording of Lantern that sends chills up and down my spine.  Change of Time and The Curse are the standouts, these songs I’ve listened to at least a few times — The Curse, an amazing ride down a topsy turvy road.

4 – Mason Jennings – Live at First Avenue - 18 tracks of pure good heart and splendor.  First Avenue danceteria sits right across from the Target Center downtown Minneapolis, the memories of sitting down there and people watching are wonderful — I can imagine Mason coming out of an Electric Fetus in-store performance, heading to the gig in the snow, and rockin’ the local crowd like only he can., playing it loud, smooth and clean, at times even just on one string.  You listen to Mason Jennings music long enough you pick up on things, you jog the mind and heart and you find out where they meet.

3 – Electric Light Orchestra - Time - So its from 1981, it’s not my fault I didn’t understand what was going on back then, otherwise I would have been hangin’ with my brothers while they were jamming this concept album.  Yet another alignment of space and time occurred flying over Russia, and thinking about how it’s tough to be brave enough to do ‘concept albums’, especially when predictions are made.  What gets me thinking is which predictions made on the album have come true, and may possibly yet come true, and the disconnects in geography, and how that is slowly being reconciled in the ‘flat world.’  Much of the world suffers from lack of information yet too much of the world suffers from too much information.  Prozac, falling in love with IBM’s, and other themes occupy the album.  Curious to think as so much of the world embraces technology as savior, the rate of prozac use and litigation rise…..are they related?  I think absolutely so, Jeff sets these predictions perfectly to music.  just wish I had a smoke machine, disco ball and an insanely loud sound system to set the stage perfectly.

2 – Electric Light Orchesta – Zoom Tour 2001 - After listening to this album, you receive a revelation that goes something like ‘damn, that’s what rock’n'roll is all about.’  Grab a few people at the top of their game, give some gorgeous ladies some electric cello’s and style Jeff Lynn’s hair to perfection and you have something close to what could be considered a spiritual experience.  Hands down song of the year is ‘Telephone Line’ from the concert, I’m told the harmonies employed in the tune are difficult to pull off, the ‘tightness’ of the performance is simply incredible.  So there, I went rogue and popped two albums from the past in the top 10 of 2010.

1 – The Divine Comedy – Bang Goes the Knighthood - Storytelling is all the rage in business these days, in that case, Neil Hannon could very well be a high paid consultant.  He spans the years and miles and perspectives with grace and dignity.  Too much to summarize in a blurb, if you ‘get it’ you’re tightly coupled with a wonderful group of fans that transcend understanding.

Today I accepted a job on the other side of the Alps in Stuttgart and as the I’s are dotted and the T’s are crossed the day will come soon when yet a new adventure begins.

Why only six months in Italy? As the tune ‘Charmed Life‘ says, take your chances and ride your luck and never never never never never give up and those waves will see you safely to a friendly shore.  In the realm of this line of contracting its always a crap-shoot, a place where random rules, your company wins some, your company loses some, and regardless of how important anyone thinks they are, we’re all just pawns on the chessboard. To thine own self be true, a sad reality in the capitalist blood-bath of the high ante games.

Three beers deep I could give some mesmerizing tales of ‘in-sourcing,’ (taking a contracting position and converting it to civil service.)  As the famous quote says, ‘The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of an expanding bureaucracy“…..the sentiment couldn’t be more accurate — This isn’t a call for one type of politics vs. another simply because ideas like ‘civil service’ exist for the sake of themselves, period, and as ironies like oil companies giving the same amount of cash for lobbies on all sides of politics, politicos make the same sorts of promises to the civil service machines — all the time I really ask myself who has the bargaining chips in our democracy, something that’s too big to fail, too big to succeed, too big to make significant changes.

Playing musical companies is truly a blessing, you gain perspective, you see what works and what doesn’t.  I’m excited to work for a ‘small company,’ somewhere I feel where awknowledge that I’m a human and not a billable hour in a seat.  It’s nice to have purpose, and hopefully I will get utility from the company and vice versa.

It’s also nice to have 15 minute long interviews.  The days of proving my worth with multiple choice examinations, code samples, writing samples, answering bullshit ‘soft skills’ questions seems to be over.  A few pointed questions and accomplishments and engagements should do the trick, but nevertheless, opportunities and surprises always arise, as long as you flow with the current and let the water go around the rocks.

Taking a page from a previous blog posting, the quote says it all

A man is not old until his regrets take the place of dreams.-John Barrymore

As with adventures of late, I feel as if I can only understand and admire these cultures on a very surface level.  While I was sitting in Texas dreaming about travelling the world, the general observation is, there more to this style of life than meets the eye or mind — being a stranger in a foreign land trying to make of go of things is rewarding and often difficult, I’m glad to have throw my cards out there, not only to aid with wanderlust, but also to understand things better and eliminate as many misconceptions as possible.

Finally I think about the lost art of storytelling in the workplace, and how the major place you can see them is TED, they don’t show up in power-points, in meetings, on missions, on mission statements or mantras, on situations of the heart or mind.  So many are silenced by an inner critic and fear of miscellaneous consequence, hence what’s shipped is homogenization.  I’m never asked at a job to tell stories, and I’d love that opportunity one day…I’d be very rusty, but I think I’d come up to speed quick.

I’m glad there are some great storytellers out there, I admire that skill and look for any and all chances to cultivate it.

a heck of a mantra for living and a cadence for life, just remember to adjust that capo on the change of key. milano, if i remember for only one thing, it will be this

mason jennings tells us there’s so many ways to die in his new album of b-sides.  it’s a nice little tune that says when your time comes, it can come from the most random things, shooting stars, unprotected sex, or driving while you text.  i’m thinking it can come if you’re sitting at home on the couch, or you’re out there making things happen for yourself…you’re equally at risk.

the prevailing theme in my head these days is courage.  knowing you’re always at risk makes endeavors worth fighting for more approachable.  courage manifests itself in many different ways, polar opposites i’d say are soldiers dying at war on one end, and true love on the other — both represent a great deal of risk, but love is holds true reward.  In my twitter feed today, I saw a woman’s tweet that said something like, ‘i love till it hurts, then the pain goes away’ –

amazing the inflection points in such things.  amazing how courage can turn into stupidity and vice versa.  amazing that tiny sparks can set the world on fire, and amazing what happens when you tap into the collective feeling of your choice, and watching it amplify.

excessive stimuli has made me drunk, but i feel i haven’t lost the virtues that count.  there are plenty good fights to be fought when fear doesn’t register and your life moves on.  the new horizon is always beautiful.

Grand Bazar Istanbul

Never the more surreal than a city like Sarajevo.  You hear that its the Jerusalem, you know the city was under siege, but to truly grasp the tip of understanding you have to pay a visit.  We understand for the lion’s share of history, its been a place where many different religions and ideologies exist peacefully as depicted in the picture, a Mosque in site through the window of a Jewish Temple.

Jewish Temple and Mosque

While the city was under siege I was a high school student in rural Texas, on TV we see smoke, we hear things on CNN.  In Sarajevo and Bosnia at large you seen bodies on TV, of friends and family, you see people starving when supply lines are cut, and you hear stories of people crawling through the ‘tunnel of hope,’ a 800 meter long tunnel carved under the airport to get to supplies for their families.  Below, a Sarajevo Rose, this one comes from a Mortar blast that killed 40 in a marketplace, while the city was under siege, and people were in line to receive bread.

Sarajevo Rose

I’m late to the game in shining of spotlight on these events, and I can’t even begin to understand the complex history of the Balkans.  Human life is precious, off the cuff figures say 10,000 or so killed in the siege, and other 8,000 ‘ethnically cleansed’  in Srebrenica in the matter of days.  Folklore has it Bono was shooting pool with the locals while the city was under siege, an average 300 rockets per day for years.  Fascism on one end, an international community consisting of the UN, NATO and others sat and watched on the other….a city that just 8 years earlier held the winter Olympics.  If these institutions aren’t there to preserve the sacredness of human life, what are they there for?

Last is hope, while politics yield stalemate at the cost of human life, the human spirit remains strong.  As the quote says, the brighest bolt of lightening is produced in the darkest sky.  The Multicultural Man, a gift to Sarajevo from Italy, shows birds helping man bind the world together — when we get there, cities like Sarajevo will be leading that charge.

Uomo Multiculturalis

Eight hours from now a buddy and I hop on an overnight train to Zagreb, then a day train to Sarajevo.  Logistical challenges have never deterred me from experience.  Often I feel it’s what’s owed to the developing world, first exposure, then understanding.  Hence, 16 hours on a rickety train is a true adventure.  The quote says something like, you regret the things you didn’t do more than the things you did.

Things blur together, I recall sitting in a coffee house in Tokyo hearing ‘Two of Us’ by The Beatles and not being able to recall it was actually a Beatles tune.  For weeks the song has been cached in my head finally to find a home on some musings about two buddies making the patronage to Bosnia.

Talking to people who say they travel is often humorous.  To paraphrase a buddy:

I’ve been all around Europe, and I ain’t riding on a train full of shit and chickens riding out to the middle of nowhere.  This is a mess, you can’t do this, you can’t this, this is ALWAYS how it works.

The best I can gather is there are different styles of travel, 1) on one end you have people who need to travel with a satin pillow, and 2) the other end, the college kid with the dorky backpack hoppin’ from hostel to hostel, drinking booze from a plastic bottle and living off of mommy’s credit card.

I’d say I fall somewhere in the middle, I don’t make assumptions and prove many people who are ‘experts’ wrong by asking the right questions and not thinking worse case scenarios.  It’s amazing what asking the right questions will reveal.  I’ve learned that A path to success is not loading the dice, when you ask obvious question or give obvious observations, the answers are clear and there is no growth.  I’d rather be curious than to know the answers.

Looking east I see much more ‘open ended metaphor’ in philosophy and spirtuality.  Western theocracy gives us ‘the way, the truth, the light’, the farther east, less is spelled out.  If you’re certain your way is the way, more power to you, if you live in a world where ancient scriptures and modern technology don’t reconcile, the mystics prevail over monotheism.

Random things occupy the mind while travelling, I’d say its very therapeutic to be in a train, out of elements you’re used to and joining the ranks of a different reality for the plurality of the developing world.  My opinion suggests it’s definitely more exciting than most activities that are comfortable. 

I’m excited for extended dialogue with a friend from America, the two books along for the ride 1) Out of Mao’s Shadows and 2) Drive, my sandwich, crackers and liter of water.  While there the ‘bridge’ and all the intricate history around it, the mosques, the pyramids, the people, the snow….all to be eye opening….a good mind and imagination stretch before resting the bones and soul in familiar places.

a memory blazed into my head, flying over russia enroute to istanbul on a clear night and seeing the small clusters of lights 35,000 feet below, listening to ELO’s ‘Time’ album.  A rare occassion when truly unique things line up, 1) Turkish Air has the album in their list of things for your listening enjoyment, 2) You take a quick glance out the window, and instead of seeing nothing, you can see below, and 3) tired from a new iteration of the mind.

it gets me thinking about history, how so many things are relative and subjective.  i once had a conversation about divinity with a Christian and posed the idea that if they were to be born in a Muslim nation, they’d hence be a product of Islam.  The rebuttal was, ‘O no no no, that wouldn’t be so,’ and a tirade of defense followed, even though there wasn’t an attack on a belief, rather something I considered an objective observation.

Knowing enough people around the world I’ve come to understand events are interpreted in so many different ways, and cardinal human emotions are the same.  The negative connotation trades one form of cronyism for another, a place where human greed and slime have the same characteristics reguardless of the label associated.  The positive connotation see the human spirit, a deserved heirchy of needs, and love being the primary engine of survival.  Events are temporary, that which lasts are the positive long term characteristics of mankind, the societies who embrace this will ‘come out ahead.’

being a victim of your past, geography, environment, ideology can be overcome ultimately by not being a victim of yourself.  looking someone in the eye and giving and receiving mutual signs of admiration have broadened the world i know, and as mark twain says, travelling makes you prove to everyone they are wrong about everywhere.

planting seeds and seeing what grows, observing what’s going on around, knowing the world is big yet small, exploring nooks and crannies, examining where I belong and where I might not.  life’s a dance you learn as you go, so they say.

last time i sat in this seat at the istanbul airport was leaving baghdad en-route to basel. leaving the desert, i noticed a lot more, appreciated a lot more…no it seems as if it’s just another day…an attitude that needs to be overcome.  i’ve always told myself awareness is the key to progress.

last night toured istanbul for about 5 hours, it reminds me a bit of Tijuana in texture, but has a charm of its own, i’d say its a place not for everyone, but it always leaves me with a feeling of intrigue.

next on the radar i look forward to sarajevo in a few weeks, a stint in texas for the christmas days, a day in florence with my niece,  perhaps new years eve in ljubljana, and then super excited to begin the program in prague, meeting new people, hopefully enjoying a bit simpler life for 2011.

finally found the answer to the question, ‘if you had one super power, what would it be?’, and that would be to speak every language in the world…how impressive would that be!?!?

thinking about a tune from the dust bowl, which Woody Guthrie spoke of the ‘mixture being all of us and we’re still mixing.’ a wonderful tune describing how most people get along and have a lot in common.

writing from Narita Airport in Tokyo coming off an emotional high from the introduction of new people and stimuli.  I knew I’d make it here eventually, I waited too long for the first time, and won’t make the same mistake for trips to the east in the future.

belle and sebastian’s new album, ‘write about love’ suggests to write about love it can be in any tense but just make sense.  a quaint tasking i will follow through with in the coming weeks.  all of a sudden a burst of inspiration has hit me like a ton of bricks.

moving around and traveling makes it very difficult to write from the perspective of home, or the people at home.  i’m beginning to feel at home anywhere the plane lands, and the four walls permanent residence feel like suffocation.

could one be so lucky to have a dynamic ever changing life living on the go as well love, intimacy, and safety?  i think very much so, and as the old dog who watches the skunk eat his bowl of food knows, patience and wisdom is what it takes to make it happen.

when you have a week like this, your mind expands and it can never go back, silenced only by that of ritual.  conversation is king more than ever, the stories you’re able to tell will dictate where you sit and the company you keep.

Proud, strong, humble, helpful, grateful, curious are the words I use to describe the collective feeling of the people and culture……final destination is a different story, thank the temples you can choose your own adventure in life.

Tokyo, I call it now, I’m going to live around here one day.

Why The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted, a piece by Malcolm Gladwell, examines twitter and its use in social change.  He asserts a point like the Iranian elections weren’t being tweeted in Farsi by participants, but other sources outside the fray with little first hand perspective, and also he tells a story of how a wall street banker used crowdsourcing to find his way back to phone he left in the back of a cab, which is now in the hands of a teenager.  Most importantly, he makes a compelling case that social media builds weak bonds that bypass hierarchy, something which social change has always needed.

Subtext has always been a huge factor in determining the strength of a bond.  In the story presented, the folks sitting at the bar had history / biography between them.  This pure subtext can an would be diluted in a sea of irrelevance when the barrier to entry is that of an iphone with the twitter application.  Hence instead of 300 people showing up to the protest, who know what they’re doing, are well orchestrated and feel passionate about what is driving them, you get a mass of people who forget what they were there for, or went because the protest shirt looked cool, or by in large, show up because the mechanisms in place today make it easy.

Dilution occurs in all shapes and sizes in social media:  for every situation like Haiti where crowdsourcing was beneficial, there are 1,000,000 daily scenerios that are entertainment based that are often saluted as activism, not only by the creator, but a curious new form of minions that have emerged.  One could successfully argue social media is the first step in organization, so then, the needle in the haystack hunt begins for the dedicated and driven individuals with persective who can bring something quantifiable to the matter at hand.

Subtext allows family and loved ones to talk about the weather, Uncle Joe’s back problems, the price of household goods, or discuss how The Price is Right is rigged till you’re blue in the face.  In many cases with strong bonds and loved ones, small talk isn’t small talk.  In the digital world, small talk will gain loose connections.  That plate of food you tweet about is of considerable value to people who care about you, and is a waste of binary to those who don’t.

Social media experts are coming out of the woodwork, of which, 99% don’t have a clue.  Many think just because they know the mechanics of throwing your 146 character tweet out there, and aggregation technologies fly is all over the place, they are able to set the world on fire and dictate policy and subvert heirarchy.  The good idea fairies are cool, but they make the role of a pragmatist more difficult.  Like to old quote says, Ideas are a dime a dozen, its the execution that matters.  In the case of the protest in the aformentioned story, 300 people (or a bucket or strong paint) is more effective and easier to organize than putting an effective wrapper or list together of tweets and making something actionable.  Tom Sawyer can only sell so many boards to paint.

This is my truth, tell me yours is how I like to think of the twitter account I maintain.  Hopping to a conventional job interview, the boilerplate answer to a typical social media question, twitter is ‘web 2.0′, you can tweet to let people know what’s going on, etc — you can even ‘see what they are saying on twitter’ on the public evening news, that’s how cool it is, really!.  If ever you’re in a room with someone who gets it, the answer poses a question and subsequent dialogue, and that question is ‘go look at my twitter account and tell me what you think.  it’s the psychology in my mind, the inputs to that mind, and the perceptions of the world around me….and please disreguard the occassional small talk, its appreciated by the people who know the subtext.