Punk Music. We Heard It, But Did We Listen?

The 1970’s brought out a style of music that had a message previously unknown to us.  It was the message of a young, disenfranchised and angry portion of the populace who gave us an up close view of what it is like to feel utterly hopeless in society.  It may have been the first and the last time in history that the poor were really taken notice of.

It sprang from the east coast of America with The Ramones, where someone offhandedly called them “a bunch of punks in a punk band.”  That person meant it as an insult but the term stuck and gave us some of the best protest music that the world would ever see.  Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and a host of other protesters of the previous decades would never get our attention the way that punk did.  Our eyes were well and truly opened by their sound and appearance, but did we take their message literally? Did anything really change in a society that devalues the lower to middle classes?  Did any of the listeners or the performers themselves take up the ball and put the message in a form of creating real change?  A few did, but not enough.

It wasn’t long after The Ramones and Patti Smith took their grievances set to hard rock and roll and unleashed it upon a hungry English audience that a multitude of young Brits took the torch and ran for their lives with it.  England was set ablaze with a generation of people who recognized the angst and found a forum for their own grievances.  The music can be listened to now and it hasn’t lost any of its flavor.  It is not dated and passé like many styles of music have become.  Truly it is more relevant than ever in 2014.  The problems of the poor and disillusioned are still with us.  Why didn’t we take the message and work for the change that was so desperately needed then? 

An Australian group called Midnight Oil that wasn’t necessarily considered punk but sprang from the same decade and the same angst with society is still to this day working with music but also law and politics to right some wrongs and keep our eyes open to the fact that we still don’t have it right.  Front man for the Oils, Peter Garrett in particular is still keeping up the fight. The Oils did get noticed here in America back in the 80’s but never to the degree that they were known on their home turf and possibly Europe.  Honestly, there was a real bias against punk and hard rock in the heartland of America by radio stations that refused to acknowledge its existence.  Many young Americans had never heard of The Ramones unless they lived in a coastal area.  When the Sex Pistols went on tour here the blinders were pulled off when the news stories of their concerts began to come out, but Middle America did not want their young to be corrupted if they could help it.  You had to raise some real hell to get noticed in many areas and the Sex Pistols provided that hell whether it was intentional or not.  Bless them, and rest in peace, Sid.  Their name alone made sure that they got some attention.

I have no idea if Peter Garrett of the Oils knows anything about his astrological chart and I don’t know if he went back to his past and discovered his true self early on enough to put his inborn gifts to work and try to make a difference.  Is he a psychic or a mystic? I haven’t a clue, but he is doing the work tirelessly to this day whether he is performing on stage or speaking in government.  For those who haven’t yet figured out what they are here for, I write this blog.  It isn’t easy to see your rightful place early on when struggle and survive is foremost on your mind.  I do not fault the creators of punk music for not going on, after music styles started to change on them, into politics or civil service.  To this day many of them are still struggling in life.  Groups like The Damned are still trying to keep the torch burning in a world that doesn’t necessarily know where they came from.  Those of us who do know are still playing their music, though not necessarily on vinyl or a cassette tape. More like on our iPods and Pandora or Spotify. I understand that they still tour sometimes.(Consider coming to Memphis, guys.)  What I wouldn’t give to attend a concert of theirs!  But touring is expensive and people are mean and apathetic sometimes.  Think of the recent difficulties that Morrissey has had on his current European tour. 

Music and politics may not be your niche in life but you have one.  You are not put here to sit back and let the world provide you with luxury.  That is the idle rich.  I’m guessing that their purpose is to show us what the hell not to do and give us the incentive to figure out what we are here for.  The Disney-Pixar film Wall-E is a cute but frightening scenario on what is likely to become of us in the age of electronics that do so much for us.  Truly, it is only the poor and disenfranchised that are really capable of seeing what is wrong in the world.  You cannot see it from a vantage point above it.  The problem is that you must know who the hell you are and what you can logically do in the world to keep it from destroying the best of us. You can’t do it from the top and you can’t do it from the bottom.  Either position can mask the truth too easily.  There are millions of us in that place in the middle where we are the most likely heroes because we know intimately what is wrong.  We live it, everyday, just like the Punks did.  They may not have had the answers to the problems that they were calling attention to but what is in their charts would probably speak very loudly.  They may have only been the spokespersons.  In a balanced world there are the communicators, the organizers, the builders, and the leaders.  Which one are you? When they issue the call do you know where your place is in the need?  Please find it.  Dave Vanian cannot keep singing Smash It Up forever waiting for you to figure out why things need to be smashed up! Look again at what people have said in the past.  They warned us. The problems are still here.

No Turkeys Were Harmed in the Writing of This Blog

I understand that England stocks all of the familiar staples of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner in their stores this time of year in response to the wishes of the many Americans living there. Even some of the native Brits celebrate the holiday as well, I’m told.  I think it is very special of them to accommodate all of the American ex-pats in this way.  If people in the U.K. are actually giving thanks for what they have as well it is truly a good thing.  I don’t agree with the consumption of a turkey but that is just my personal feeling.  I am all for anything else that would make people stop and be grateful for their lives and their blessings.

I have also learned that the celebration of Halloween has come to Australia recently.  Apparently it had been discussed for quite some time by its citizens and this year there were actually costume parties and trick-or-treaters on the streets.  What an influence we can have on others if we are doing things that make for a good and positive emulation.  I give thanks for the Australians and the Brits who have embraced something that has traditionally been good and happy celebrations in this country for a long time.  I wish that Americans understood that their recent behavior is also up for emulation, although it is not something that is positive.

The recent court decision in Ferguson, Missouri has sparked some behaviors that I truly wish hadn’t happened.  The protests in the streets of Ferguson were something that was not helpful to the cause of the outrage that so many of us were feeling.  Vandalism and destruction of property cannot bring back the life of Michael Brown.  The violence has only put some people out of work and unable to find things to actually celebrate now.  I understand their frustration and anger with a system that believes that those we do not understand are disposable.  Do things our way and be someone that we can use or you are of little consequence.  That hurts so much to say here but it is all that I can see in the tragedy of a lost life for behavior that is not how we perceive as appropriate or “like us”.

In 1997 David Bowie recorded a song called I’m Afraid of Americans.   Even back then I understood where he was coming from.  It is difficult to recognize the America that we live in now, for sure, as the one that I grew up in.  Certainly there have always been anti-social people and troublemakers here but not at the level that I’ve seen in recent years.  It is truly much worse now than it was when David Bowie released that song.  Trent Reznor, who appeared in the video, really looked like the creepy guy that you might meet up with on the streets of America, but as scary as he looked it was still Trent playing a role and not his true self.  We should take a lesson from that video and realize that however a person may look to us they are not necessarily what we might perceive to be as a threat. 

There was an incident in Arkansas last year where a young man was detained, handcuffed and put into the back seat of a police car for some minor infraction.  While there, he somehow managed to “commit suicide” by retrieving a gun from his pocket then shooting himself in the head while his hands were cuffed behind him.  Unbelievably, this was accepted as truth by the police department and other higher ups.  I guess the police “forgot” to pat him down and check for weapons before they cuffed him and the young man must have been a contortionist worthy of Ripley’s Believe or Not to have pulled it off! The young man’s mother contacted Jesse Jackson, who made a valiant attempt to call more attention to the incident  but ultimately, even with Jesse’s help nothing was done.  This story has troubled me ever since it happened and since then there have been countless incidents of injustice and intolerance similar to it.  Many of them do not receive one-tenth of the media coverage that Ferguson has.  They are barely noticed by the public at large.  Why this happens I am not sure but we do have enough outrage to go around every day of the year to keep people angry and frightened all of the time.

I don’t mean to put a downer on your Thanksgiving festivities today, well, maybe I do, a little, but my real purpose in writing today is to remind us that people are watching what we do and say and how we behave all of the time.  Some of the better behaviors that come out of America are being taken to heart and made manifest in positive ways, but when I hear that people as far away as Japan are protesting the Ferguson decision I am concerned.  It is always easier to promote a negative than it is a positive.  This happens as a result of our confusion and mistrust of a society that is breeding selfishness and narcissism faster that rabbits.  It is obviously something that the entire world can relate to I’m sorry to say.

I know for a fact that we can go back to the past and find some worthwhile behaviors to promote to society again like Thanksgiving and Halloween.  These holidays have been celebrated in this country for a very long time.  America is no stranger to civil difficulty but there needs to be a peaceful resolution to our social ills or we risk never being able to right what is wrong.

People everywhere are watching constantly in the information age.  The media has made sure that we can see the good and the bad and we are all the better for it, but please keep in mind today that our lives are all connected and it is more important now than ever before that our contribution in the world be something that is worth knowing about.  Like it or not, America sets standards and precedents all of the time for better or worse.  I am so glad that we have the opportunity to make a difference in the world but it is difficult to be proud of destruction and violence.  People are reaching back to our past to create something good and positive from the holidays that we observe.  We need to make what we show to the world something joyous and hopeful for the future.  I think we can.

Magic: A Conjurer’s Trick? A Force of Will? Or A Life in Balance?

In order to realize the real potential of magic we must first define it and believe that it is possible.  Magic is produced in our world every single day but most of us do not realize it as such.  Every day you use it.  When you pick up your cell phone and text someone, when you turn on your television or when you microwave your dinner you are making use of magic because it is nothing more than harnessing the elements available to us in the universe and making them manifest in a way that serves us. 

We are fortunate that there are so many people who were able to utilize the gifts that the universe has provided us with and make fantastic and wonderful things with their mind.  Yes, their mind.  We call it science once we are able to grasp it’s truth, but it all starts with a mind that believes these things are possible.  And that, my friend, is magic,  pure and simple.  We only run into trouble with this truth when we start to work with elements of mind and spirit.  These are the things that people fear because they do not see a material world way to use or destroy that kind of magic. It can go on behind our backs and possibly make us do things that we do not wish to do.  It scares the living hell out of us to think that someone might have power over us even though we give that power away every single day of our lives to people who can screw us up in monumental ways and even kill us.  Somehow, that doesn’t frighten us.  It should.  We hand over our bodies to physicians who say it is a good thing to cut out parts of us and prescribe poisonous chemicals but we recoil in terror if someone tells us that something common in nature, such as a flower or a weed might destroy a cancer inside of us or that a change in our diet, like  giving up meat, might help us control an illness that we have.  We are afraid of psychics knowing our true selves and being able to read us but we do not fear giving away our personal information for free on the internet which can be used against us in ways we would never have imagined a few decades ago. We are vulnerable to cyber attack and financial ruin. Teenagers are bullied and harassed day and night.  Home used to be a safe haven for them once they were away from school but the bullies can now get to them no matter where they are. This is so commonplace now that many of them have committed suicide, seeing no escape from the torture. Information about us is given to the undeserving and undisciplined constantly to use as they please and we are paying a terrible price as a result. I could go on and on about all of the ways that we are being controlled and enslaved by those who have obtained information on us and are using the “magic” of modern technology to wreck lives and gain undeserved power.  We gave it to them because we were having fun and delighted by our new toys.  So much so that we ignored the ways in which our fun could harm us.

So here we are, enjoying our freedom to communicate at any time and any place.  I think that it is a wonderful thing just like everyone else does but you must realize, as does the character of Rumplestiltskin on the tv series Once Upon A Time;  “All magic comes with a price.” That price, is taking full responsibility for our actions.

Those who acquire magic legitimately and through balanced means are not the culprits here, as (believe it or not!) many people today still believe.  The magic of the mystic, which is you, if you are striving to be a whole person who uses all of the power that was given to you when you took your first breath, is the power to manage your life when you are being challenged by whatever may manifest in your world.  It is the power to tap in to the source of all life and receive your personal answers to your personal needs.  Where we mystics tend to get in to the most trouble is in the area of “reading” others and keeping our health with natural healing.  This shouldn’t scare people the way it does, but that it does is the reaction of the phony who has created such an ungodly facade of himself that if anyone were to know his true self they would be floored by the lies.  It is also a huge fear to the people who make large sums of money by tricking you into believing that they have the power and you don’t. Truly, they would be floored if they could see themselves in living color the way that many psychics can.  I’m not saying that handing your personal information over to another person, even a mystic, doesn’t have the possibility of being abused. It does by the unscrupulous, but no more so than the unscrupulous users of your personal information gained through the internet. One should always be aware of whom they are dealing with.  Not all psychics are created equal, as I said in my post,  Check Your Ego At The Door, back in September. 

Mystical power has (most of the time) been gained through hard work and mental discipline. I cannot tell you that every last one of the people who have been able to harness that power is a wonderful and altruistic person any more than I can tell you that every priest, doctor, lawyer, minister, politician or fellow human that you meet is going to be.  We all have free will and the freedom to be a liar and a jackass if we want to be, but I am talking to you, right now, and I am going to assume that you would not be a seeker of your own personal power if you did not intend to use it to free yourself and not to abuse and enslave others.  The life work involved does not come quickly and easily and if you have the time to gain it for yourself just to turn it on others you have way too many problems with who you are and what you are to ever make much use of it.  That kind of false power is normally gained by being a criminal and you should go to prison for it, if indeed, the universe lets you get away with it without making a serious hell of your life. I hope it does if your ideals are that askew.  We as humans are in serious peril now.  We are finding it increasingly more difficult to manage a life with any true meaning and those who would stand in the way of us achieving our full potential and maintaining a peaceful existence should be purged.

The magic that you are seeking as a potential mystic is your birthright and you have access to it by first recognizing that the possibility exists for you.  Personal power and freedom are attained through recognition of our true selves and doing away with everything that stands in the way of that goal. Do not confuse those two abilities with what it tends to mean to the uninitiated.  It is not the power to manipulate others.  It is the power to control yourself and your life in whatever situation that may come to you.  Self control normally makes the desire to control others something that no longer has relevance.  That we can read the mental realms is a skill that is only available in the context of what we may need to know to control our own environment or as an ability to help others who have not found their own personal power to heal themselves or to solve a problem.  Not all information is available to us at all times.  Much of the time it is strictly given on a need to know basis.  Nothing is given that shouldn’t be.  If I get in a reading that a person is engaging in illegal drug use it is only because that person is in danger from it or is a danger to others.  It is not being given to me for any other reason than I and my client need to know it. If I read that someone has an ulcer or some other health problem the information is only given to make sure that they have the opportunity to return to wellness again if they choose to take the necessary steps toward making that happen.  Anything that is beyond your or their expertise will be told to you.  This is power. This is magic.  Knowing the unknown.  Seeing the unseen.  Creating life and possibilities with what you were born with.  You have a spirit, a brain, and god-given talents to make some damn great magic.  Learn to use it.  Use it for the best possible reasons; to make this life worth so much more than most people would ever believe is possible.

I also hope that you can learn to pull a rabbit out of a hat, if that is your sort of thing.

Whale Fat

I was talking with a friend recently about how much I really do not like the area where I live.  Here in the mid south it is difficult in the extreme to be a vegetarian and want to eat only organic and responsibly produced food.  Difficult is not actually an appropriate word.  It would be more appropriate to say impossible.  Forget eating in restaurants here.  These people know only meat and potatoes.  I hate it. And hate that I feel like the petunia in an onion patch most of the time.  I was wishing out loud to my friend that I could move to another country or another part of this country but I don’t think that a country exists that doesn’t hate Americans.  It isn’t difficult to understand why this is, but I wish that it was not so. I had heard somewhere that maybe Denmark or Sweden was more American-friendly and my friend said that he knew someone in Norway and that he didn’t think that they hate Americans there, but he said that they eat strange food like whale fat.  I have no idea if this is true but his statement made me stop and think about my situation.  If I lived in Norway and was used to eating whale fat, as it is a custom because of availability (if it is true) I am sure that I would be perfectly fine with it, like the people where I am now are fine with eating meat and prepackaged, processed food.   Do people in Norway sit around and lament about having to eat whale fat and wish for something that they just can’t have? I have never been happy in this area and I have been even less happy about the availability of the kind of life that I would like to live, but after years of thinking on my misery and what I would like to have, isn’t it a bit ridiculous to think that someday I will have everything exactly the way that I want it and never again have to eat symbolic American whale fat? 

I have learned through much soul searching and life experience that we are here for a reason and there is a reason for everything.  If I find myself at the hind-end of the universe and have never found a way to escape it I should be able to reason that I landed at the hind-end of the universe because there is a mission for me here.  If it were not so, then (when I am thinking logically) I should be able to accept that I am right in being here and let go of a fruitless desire to live in Salem, Massachusetts, or Nantucket or even Norway.  This excessive desire for a life somewhere else is something that has done little for my happiness.  It has only kept me reaching for a carrot on a string and made me miserable and made it hard to make peace with where I am in the moment.  Truly, the moment has lasted a very long time but is that because there really isn’t something better out there for me or is it because I am angry that I seem to be the “odd person out” everywhere I go?

I had a job once at a social service organization where the people had so many problems and life challenges that I sometimes felt like I was going to take off running and screaming if I had to hear one more terrible story about poverty and misery.  On a particularly bad day once, I related my unhappiness to my mentor.  I said “I do not need these people!”  He said, “I know you don’t.  But they need you.”  At that particular moment I did not give one big damn if they needed me, but later on I was able to realize the truth of it.  There are many things in my life that I would like to change, but to dwell constantly upon what you do not have is pointless.  I am usually able to get past these feelings of “if I could just get away from here, I would be happy” but it is very difficult sometimes. 

It is good to have ambition and it is good to want to keep moving and evolving but sometimes it is just not going to happen.  I try to think on the film “Ethan Frome” starring Liam Neeson when my desires get to me too much.  In the film, Ethan wants desperately to move to Florida, away from the cold and snow of New England and live where it is always warm.  He is sure that he will get there someday.  He has a map of Florida on the wall in his home and he looks at it every day and makes plans for his wonderful life there.  It never happens for him.  Ethan’s life was about 100 times more tragic that mine has ever been and watching the film you just know that it is never going to happen for him.  It is easy to sit here and think that I really will get everything that I want out of life because I am in a much better situation to begin with than Ethan was, but truly, sometimes you just have to make peace with where you are, who you are and what you are.  This is one of the biggest reasons for seeking out your true self and the strengths and abilities that you came here with.  Without being sure of yourself and your real possibilities, there is little chance of ever finding true acceptance of what life has given you thus far.  I know that there are some people who have reached for a star and grasped it, but if that happened, you can bet that this was already in their birth chart and they managed to make it manifest as a result of hitting on the right combination of universal elements that they were entitled to.  I do not want to put the mockers on anyone’s wishes and dreams.  Go for them, and I hope that you find them on your journey through this existence called human life, but do not let them keep you from seeing and believing in what you already have.  There is a reason for the place that you find yourself in.  The reasons may feel like crap sometimes and you may be suffering from the insanity of other people in your life at this particular moment, but do try to find what you really are before you set out on a path that is not going to be what you really need.  Television, movies and the blabbing of others may make you falsely believe that your destiny lies in other realms.  It might.  I hope that you can find that glorious existence that you feel is right for you.  But if you can’t, try to take stock in what you have already been given. Keep your dreams, but remember that you may just be where whale fat it the most reasonable item on the menu for right now.