I am the Messiah

I'm reading through some of my recent posts and realizing that I haven't really been writing much about the actual songs we're working on. That's the whole point of this blog isn't it? Not to talk about getting some lame job or tell dumbass stories. Whatever, I guess that stuff is fun for a little while but it's time to get back to business. I've had one of the songs Jon wrote stuck in my head for a couple of months and every time I sat down to write it just wasn't working the way I wanted it to. But the other night I sat down and suddenly the words just hit the page the way I wanted them to.

See, when I write I don't just sit down and write something down - I write it in my head first and that process usually takes a month or two. I'll pick a song to work on and I'll listen to it a bunch. I'll sing it to myself in the car. I'll think about it a ton in the shower (everything good that I've ever done has been dreamed up in the shower by the way). Eventually when I sit down with my notebook it will all be there just waiting for me to vomit everything I've been thinking about onto paper. So that's why it's been so long. For me it was worth the wait because it came out just how I wanted it to and I think it's my new favorite AB song. oh yeah, I've never dedicated a song to anyone. But this one is for Kelley. Enough BS... here's what I've got...

I AM THE MESSIAH

I am alive for the very first time
Conscious and pondering all of the ways that I've died -
Thousands of times
Hung for the truth while I choke on my lies

I am nothing
I am everything
I am fallen from grace
I was hopeless until the day that I learned
I am God and I work in mysterious ways

Yeah. I work in mysterious ways. We all work in mysterious ways.

I've been calling this place Hell for so long but it's strangely divine
Maybe this was Heaven all along but I just never noticed the signs

This is THIS.
I AM.
I am the Messiah
I am the Devil in disguise
I AM.
I AM.

When I stopped searching I found a man and he said to me:
"God is Everything. You are Everything"





Fuck. I love this song. Somehow it says absolutely everything that I want to say. It sums up pretty much every theme I'm trying to lay down with this record. And somehow it still probably seems like a bunch of jibberish. To me it's perfect.

Every idea that was floating through my head while I wrote this song was pretty much stolen from one of two places. The first is a book called "Illusions" and it's by a guy called Richard Bach. The second is called "Hardcore Zen" and it's by a guy named Brad Warner. In their own ways they are both about the nature of the universe.

In "Illusions" Bach lumps the universe, time, space, and everything that occupies it together and calls it "the Is". I love that. I don't know exactly what it was in particular that first struck me when I read that but it just hit me in the right place. I guess the simple answer is that aside from all of the meaning we're trying to find in everything, everything just is. Look at it. There it is. Just being itself. Same goes for people. Aside from all the labels we put on ourselves we just kind of are. Without all the bullshit and the posturing and the trying to get laid we just are. I've been trying to write a song called I AM for the longest time that would get that point across and it never worked. It just seemed to fit in this context which is why I like the idea of shouting I AM a bunch of times.




I think I'd spoil this song if I picked it apart and told you exactly what it meant to me. It would kind of undo everything the song is about... instead I'm going to tell a long winded story about some shit I said the other day and how it bummed people out. You can put together how these things are related on your own time.

So we played this show in Providence, RI last week and just before we played Orange I made a little speech. I'm not going to get this verbatim but it will be close enough to work with. It wasn't received well and I should probably leave it in the past but what I said was important and I think it deserves a shot at being properly understood. Here goes.

=> I want to get something off my chest. There's been some dispute about this lately and I want to make sure to set the record straight so I guess I'll just say it: I'm not a hardcore kid. I don't own any cool vinyl and if I do then you can be sure that I only have one copy. I don't really give a shit about Earth Crisis. I think Ian MacKaye had some funny shit to say. I'm not going to be around forever and I would never claim to be. Right now this place does something important for me and when that is done I will part ways with it. I'm not trying to prove anything. I'm here because, for whatever reason, screaming into this stupid microphone is the only way I know how to deal with the rocks and tar and other garbage that exist in the pit of my stomach and feel somewhat ok from day to day. So when I say that this means the world to me I want you to know that I'm not talking about how stoked I am about how many girls want to fuck me because I'm in a fucking hardcore band. I'm talking about how, if not for this, my face would have been painted on my bedroom wall years ago and how grateful I am that things didn't go that way. This song is called Orange and it's for the kids here who understand what I'm talking about. <=

I'm not really concerned with who I annoyed or pissed of by saying this. It was worded specifically to piss the people off who have no idea what the fuck I'm talking about and connect with the people who absolutely got it. The fact that I can remember this pretty much exactly is a testament to the fact that I thought about this little speech for hours before we played. I am bummed out however that despite the fact that I thought I was being crystal clear in my message, some of the guys in Another Breath really took offense to it. We haven't really talked about it at all. I've just heard murmurs. But if they didn't get it the possibility exists that I said something completely different than what I mean and I just want to try to clear that up for a second. So any accusations of backpedaling or spinning things can be saved. If you're not in my band and you were or are offended I hope you stay offended.

First off. I will say that I regret saying that 'Ian MacKaye had some funny shit to say'. It wasn't meant to mock the dude. What I mean is that he's not one of my personal heroes as he seems to be to a lot of kids around me. I only worded it like that as kind of a botched inside joke for one of my friends that was at the show. Oh and I felt bad afterward because I found out there was a kid there wearing an Earth Crisis shirt. What I said was in no way shape or form directed at that dude and if you know who he is please apologize for me. Everything else - meant it.

OK with that stuff out of the way let me give you a quick run down of why I said what I said. First off, I am not a "hardcore kid". I am a dude and I like hardcore. That's the point. I AM. I like a lot of things. Hardcore happens to be on of them. I just am. A "hardcore kid" collects vinyl, gets low, hangs out on the B9, has status for being in a band, gets scene points for being straight edge or vegan, sometimes has an ironic haircut... This is much in the same way that a "fratboy jock" plays a lot of beer pong, fucks a bunch of girls, listens to John Mayer, wears one of those corny letterman jackets, dodged rape charges once or twice, and yells 'college' all the time. They are labels and they conjure up stereotypes that are and should be considered bullshit. So what am I saying here? Well simply put, I don't get into things that the "typical hardcore kid" is "supposed" to be into. And SOMEHOW at the same time hardcore is still one of the most important things in my life. Wait... wait... wait... Hold the fuck up... This sounds like I'm saying that something can be important to you without turning you into a walking cliche. That CAN'T be right. But you know what? It's EXACTLY what I'm saying... and what's crazy is that I've been trying to say it all along. Weird.

If you're into vinyl. Cool. You like Earth Crisis? Awesome. You're straight edge? I'm psyched. I'm not talking shit on any of that stuff. I'm saying that I'm not into it and going a step further to let other kids that aren't into signing up for all of that stuff that it's still ok for them to be around. This music, these bands, and these songs are important to a lot of people for a lot of reasons. I guess my show and tell about things that are important to me wasn't ok for a lot of people - that made my point much better than any of my words could have.

Oh and as a side note, when I said that I'm not going to be here forever I meant it. I'm not saying hardcore is a stepping stone for me and I honestly don't even understand how it could have ben construed that way unless the Ian MacKaye talk got you on that train of thought. I'm saying that things change and that's OK. If you want to come to one show, fine. Five shows, great. Want to stay forever? That's ok too. No commitment necessary up front. If it's right for you I'm sure you'll stay. If at some point it's not I hope you won't lie to yourself and stick around when you could be doing other more productive things.



I'm going to close this one up by banging out one last thought that should hopefully tie everything together. I was having a conversation with my friend Adam the other day and we were joking around about how a band will do well if it has a "shtick" and he kidded me by saying that sincerity is Another Breath's shtick. I laughed. At the same time though, I'm not trying to have honesty be a gimmick for this band. I think for a long time I said what was on my mind and tried to spin it in a way that I knew would get the claps. I censored myself because somewhere I knew and knew that people don't want honesty. They want honesty that coincides with what they think already. When you tell people something that shakes them or makes them feel they are doing something wrong they don't want to change how they live. They want to shut you up (I know.. it's happened to me a couple of times). If you're going to tell the truth you have to accept that fact. That's why this song is called I am the Messiah. It's not about my ego. It's about my microphone. More so it's about my life in general and yours too.







*PS - I also want to offer a public apology to my band mates for past and future instances where I say things at our shows, songs, or in the context of talking about this band that they don't agree with. I offer the disclaimer that I'm not ever speaking for them. How could I? I'm speaking for me. It just so happens that they have to stand behind whatever I say - literally. I won't however apologize for anything I've said. I mean every word.


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Dear Prospective Employer

Nowadays the internet isn't just for looking at porn and talking shit on message boards. As it turns out, when you go to get a job, many times your prospective employer will Google your name and see if they come up with anything incriminating.

Fuck.

Anyone that knows me personally knows that I lead a pretty successful double-life. One the one hand I'm a 24 year old professional with a master's degree in mental health. I've been a substance abuse counselor in one form or another for the last year. Sometimes I wear a tie to work. I am damn good at what I do. I play my adult role well.

But when I'm not at work I might as well be Mr. fucking Hyde. I've been out of school for two weeks and have been living in my car for most of that time as I travel around having so much fun that I actually feel guilty. I sing in a hardcore band. I cause trouble with 18 year old kids. I've set myself on fire twice.... the list goes on.

So when you Google me, Mr. or Mrs. Future Employer, I can only imagine the surprise on your face when you find pictures of what you thought was wholesome, polite, well-educated white bread traipsing around half naked, tattooed, and punching kids in the face with a microphone. I cringe at what will almost certainly be your terrified reaction to the deep-bellied screaming that yours truly contributes to the Another Breath songs you may find yourself listening to. Oh and my blog. Man, if this isn't incriminating in some way I don't know what is. I can only hope you aren't offended by the word fuck - as I'm sure you've noticed, it's one of my favorites.

See usually I moderate that kind of thing. Whenever I first get a job I'll wear long sleeves. I don't talk too much and just do my job. I make it a point to impress the right people with the work that I'm doing. I know exactly how to say really intelligent and insightful things at just the right moments without overdoing it. If not for this Google business I would be able to paint you a really good picture of a model employee and human being. After enough time went by and I was satisfied that I had made the right impression I would start to kid around a little and make friends. Eventually I would find someone that I trust and enjoy talking to at work and let it slip that I'm in a band. The rest of the office would have Googled my name by then anyway since they're usually dicking around on their computers for most of the day anyway. They would know all of my nasty little secrets. Eventually it would get out and become the office gossip for a minute that I scream on the weekends and that I have tattoos. It wouldn't really matter though because I would have secured that crucial first impression. See if I strategically show myself to you like that then you see me as the well rounded white bread yadda yadda who's a little edgy. This view is much different than the tattooed screaming weirdo who happens to have a degree.

So now I'm in a rough spot Mr/Mrs Future Employer. If you're sitting here reading this you've effectively fucked up my game plan. At first I was pretty upset about that. I considered deleting this blog. I figured I could play down the Another Breath thing. But the thing is that I don't want to do that and I shouldn't have to. I don't want to have to put on some face to go to work. Because I get sick of that face really damn quick. At some point I should just be allowed to be me.

If you're here my cover is blown. You know I'm in a band. You know how I feel about suicide. You know I hang out with weirdos that eat acid and talk to each other with sock puppets. You know that today is the best day of my life. For as worried as I've been about you knowing that, today I feel strangely liberated and I only have this to say: take it or leave it. I'm getting sicker by the day of having to be somebody I'm not. As I accept the fact that I'm an adult I'm accepting the fact that part of being an adult is taking responsibility for yourself (and every little piece that makes up who you are). I'm not completely there yet but like with most things I'm a late bloomer. What I do know is that what I do isn't bad or wrong as so many people have tried to convince me. I have nothing to be ashamed of. This is who I am and I'm not sorry. If that doesn't work for you then I'd rather find out now than be miserable trying to keep pieces of myself shoved into a box. I've been doing that for too long anyway.


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Reality

Someday I'm going to lose my fucking mind. It's an almost certainty for me. I think so goddamn much that I'm pretty sure the line that separates reality from whatever I have made up in my head is just going to blur to the point of disappearing. When it happens I think it will be similar to things you hear about kids going on acid trips and then never being able to come out. I don't need the acid. I think so much. Too much. At some point I'm pretty sure I'm just going to go too deep and get lost. Sometimes I honestly think I already have. I wonder if I didn't just make my whole life up. I joke about it sometimes but the truth is that I really mean it.

Sometimes this really bothers me but lately I've gotten some relief. I guess when I get down to the brass tacks of things it doesn't really matter if this is real life or if I'm locked inside my imagination while my actual body is curled up in a ball on the floor of a padded room or if we're all in the Matrix. Does it really matter? Honestly..

.. I'm going to start talking about existentialism again so brace yourself....

Is my life really any more or less absurd if I'm living it for real or if it's all just an elaborate dream? What real difference is made? No matter what my thought process always comes back to the weird place where I'm hanging out right now. I am a person who embraces the idea that there is no master plan. I think life is an accident. I think all of the ingredients just happened to be at the right place at the right time and here we are. No plan. No direction. No meaning. No nothing. Just us and the world (which may or not be a fictional storyland made up in our heads or a new map on WOW).

Especially lately it all just seems like a big joke. Not like a cruel joke or something that doesn't matter. But legitimately funny. People running around like their lives matter trying to make sure they get everything just right and fussing over the proper way to live their lives. People sitting at their computers typing out convoluted drivel about reality and the absurd like it even matters. In the end what are we gaining? What are we trying to prove? Why so serious?

This kind of thinking and questioning leads one down a dangerous path. It's proven near fatal for me a couple of times. I've sat down before and come to the conclusion that life is just a big game with no winners. On top of that it's a pain in the ass. So why should I even play? Then I realized I had the option to quit if I wanted to and like I've said before I've ended up wrestling with the idea of suicide.

I guess though the one thing that saved me in all of this is something I've talked about before: embracing the absurdity. It's hard to do. Whether you're religious or not we're all taught from a very young age that the reason to do anything is because you get something out of it. You finish your dinner so you can have your dessert. You do good in school because you get a grade. You go to work because you get a paycheck. It's as if that shit actually matters. We're all working toward these ends that, once they come, aren't worth shit. At the same time we end up missing out on what matters. I guess what I'm saying is that if we're always working toward something then our lives are pretty shallow because when that something comes it's just not going to matter. Money is paper. Degrees are paper. Grades are letters. There is one certainty in life: You're going to die. When you die all of your pride and sense of purpose and achievement will be buried with you. What you pass on to future generations doesn't really matter because humanity is just waiting for a reason to push the button to eradicate itself. Eventually all of this will just be a blip in time.

Wow Ted. You're really a ray of fucking sunshine today.

I'm honestly not trying to be a downer. Accepting that life is death and that most of this is just a big joke has been really eye opening for me. Someday none of us will be here. Someday our accomplishments will mean jack shit. Someday after we're all dead and gone all of our money and diplomas will break down and be reclaimed by the earth. Someday after the next evil super-villain builds some new crazy bomb that can blow up everything in one foul swoop everything around you will be a pile of rubble. I honestly believe if I had the ability to live through that mess I'd look at the carnage and think back to May 15, 2008 when I sat and watched a fountain dance around in Clinton Square in Syracuse. I'd think back to school and how good it was to just learn new things. I'll be proud of myself for managing to lose every diploma or award I've ever received. I'd think back to life and it would probably slap me in the face how good it was... especially on days when I was with my friends driving nowhere just for the sake of driving nowhere.

Yeah that's right. After all this insanity talk this is just another rant about not taking things for granted and making sure to be awake in the here and now. The truth is that I really think that without meaning and without God and without all of the pressure we put on ourselves to do something we are free to just live and bask in the ridiculousness of it all. This is ridiculous. And it's also very beautiful. Anything you can do to remind yourself of that fact is time well spent. I think people wrapped up in trying to figure out how to get where they are going are stupid. Because where you're going is to a graveyard or a little tin can. I can guarantee you that. Worry less about where you're going and more about where you are. For the last 5o years humanity has owned power that we don't have the resources to control (I'm still shaken up by atomic cafe. Watch it). That means that a handful of people have the ability to completely erase humanity in a few swift movements. The sun will not burn forever. Disasters strike every day. This could all end at any minute and there is no way for us to predict or control any of it. I know it seems strange but that thought is very reassuring for me because it reminds me not to worry so much because in the end there's nothing I can do about it except dance while I've still got feet. And whether the music is real or made up in my head? Yeah. Don't care.


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Catharsis

We just played a show in Oswego that, as far as I'm concerned was the best we've had in over a year. I'm exhausted but I need to write this out before I fall asleep. This band, for whatever reason, helps me cope. It's a forum where I can say what's on my mind and express what's stewing in my guts. It's where I can take off some of my armor and some of my costume and just be. It doesn't happen all the time. Sometime I'm a dickhead with a microphone performing. But when it's good it's when I can just shed my outer layers and be naked in a way. That's what I felt tonight.

I've had friends come up to me in the past and tell me that when I'm playing in this band or when I'm saying something serious between songs they can't take me seriously because they know what I'm like in every day life. "That's just not you" they say. I've got news. You don't know who the fuck I am. I walk around every day of my life wearing my armor. We all do. We'd be stupid not to. The world isn't safe for people to walk around exposed all the time. There are certain times when I can take it all off and just be. When all things are aligned right and the atmosphere is just so, this is my tool for connecting with things.

It takes all my strength to not to tell lies... not to sugar coat things for your liking. Some days I can actually get to a point where what I'm doing is more important than how you see it and a lot of the time it occurs in this context. It is really frustrating to me when people I consider friends don't get that. On nights like tonight my ears ring so loud that I can't sleep and I get to lay in it and feel good about what I've done. I get to feel good about doing something good for myself and maybe even doing something good for somebody else in the process. I get to feel like I'm not completely full of shit. Please don't take that away from me.


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LSD and a bowling ball

A couple of years ago we were on tour and we ended up having a couple of shows with a band called Robot Has Werewolf Hand. Just a bit of trivia - we grew up with the drummer of this band and without his influence, Another Breath would have never existed. Anyway, we ended up having a show with them at Pirate's Cove in Allentown, PA which was great because it meant that we could play a show together and then all hang out afterward since we were all sleeping at the house where the show took place.

At some point in the evening someone found a bowling ball in the basement. The question came up, "what's at the center of a bowling ball?" Nobody really knew. The best we could come up with was that it either had a hard core or it was hollow. We had nothing better to do so Robot's guitarist Justin found someone that lived at the house and asked permission to crack their bowling ball open. It was decided that the goal of the evening would be to crack the bowling ball open to see what's inside. Around the same time it was decided by a couple of the guys in Robot that they would eat a couple tabs of acid.

At first Justin found a hacksaw and figured with enough elbow grease he could just saw right to the center of the thing but once the acid took hold the project took a new direction. The work stopped and a conference was held to determine exactly how one cracks open a bowling ball. They decided they would climb up to the roof and drop it. It didn't even leave a scratch. They decided they would fill the holes with m80s we had picked up the day before and try to blow it open. Again, nothing. I still don't know where it came from but at one point I went outside to see someone wailing into the bowling ball with a pickax. It made a couple of dents but it just didn't want to budge.

After assaulting the bowling ball every way possible they had run into a dead end. They brought it inside, put it on the kitchen table, and stared at it. They sized up their common enemy in silence for a good 10-15 minutes before someone spoke up, "We've worked so hard and we haven't even begun to dig into the surface of this thing. Something this unwilling to be cracked must be protecting something incredible. I bet there's a treasure at the center of this bowling ball." Everyone's eyes got wide as they realized the raw potential that they were sitting on. There could be anything at the center of this unrelenting ball.

Then the conversation started. It was a long time ago so I can't remember the exact time order but I think by this point the LSD had taken its full grip. With that in mind I believe all actual conversation had stopped and the guys had actually started talking to each other through sock puppets they had made somewhere along the way. It doesn't really matter but watching grown men with socks on their hands talk to each other only through said sock puppets in high pitched voices about what could possibly be at the center of a bowling ball was my favorite part of the evening. I just wanted to try to share that with you.

I can't remember the specifics of what was said but I do know the gist of it which was this: They knew there was something big at the center of the ball. At first they thought it was some sort of treasure but they quickly decided that they were thinking way too small. This ball had withstood falls from heights exceeding 10 feet, explosions, saws, and all forms of verbal abuse. No substance known to man should be able to take that kind of punishment. Therefore, there must be magic inside.... or better yet, dark matter. "Or a turkey sandwich!," yelled Justin. Probably not a turkey sandwich. Most likely it was dark matter.

After this conversation everything changed. This was no longer a fun little outing to figure out if a bowling ball is hollow or not. This was a mission to get the dark matter. They disappeared into the basement and vowed not to come up until they got what they were looking for. At that point the amusement had kind of worn off for those of us who were sober so we found something else to do. I think we left the house for a while because I remember coming back and seeing Steve from Robot sitting in the living room kind of zoning out and staring out the window or something. I said, "Hey Steve, what happened to the bowling ball? Did you guys give up?" He didn't even look at me. He just raised his hand and with the sock puppet that was still covering it motioned toward the kitchen and said "Kitchen table." I looked over at the kitchen table and sure enough there was a bowling ball split in two halves. I was astounded that they managed to get it open and asked how they did it. Once again the sock puppet looked at me and said, "Hack Saw." I guess they just went in the basement and kept sawing until it split.

There was no dark matter in the bowling ball. No magic. No turkey sandwich. It looked exactly how you might expect it to... kind of like the picture I posted with this entry. Just a lot of hard fibrous plastic wood. Those guys had worked their asses off for hours and although we ended up with a funny tour story there was nothing to show for it. What's more, the bowling ball was now useless. In the end, after all the work they were doing, after all of the exciting things they thought would happen if the could just manage to split this fucking thing open, after all of the sheer obsession, they ended up with an irreparable bowling ball and the exhaustion that came from all of the work they did.

So why am I telling you this? Other than telling you what I think is a funny story. What's the point of this? The point is that I want to tell you about how my friends wrecked their bowling ball and found out there was no dark matter inside. See, the bowling ball wasn't meant to be cracked open and understood. It's for rolling at pins and sometimes for throwing out car windows. I guess sometimes that isn't good enough. The truth is and always will be, though, that a bowling ball is what it is. Regardless of whether you know what's inside of it. I want you to know what happens when someone gets their mind going a thousand miles an hour and decides that they need to know what's inside a bowling ball. That way you don't have to wreck yours and you can still bowl with it. It's just that simple.


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Drive

This song is about losing touch with someone who I used to keep really close. It's about an ex girlfriend. The one that most of my "girl songs" are about.... I'm sure you could pick them out if you tried.

I intially wrote more but for as comfortable as I am talking about my shit... and as much as she factors into my shit... she doesn't deserve to be dragged into this. My life is my mess. Nobody elses. My words are weapons and I'm not looking to do any more damage tonight.






Drive

"On a darkened stretch of highway just outside of town
With inches between us I feel the distance of worlds
I realize that I've never felt so empty in my whole life
There's just the two of us and the silence, and we drive.

Her words cut through the silence when she turns to me and asks,
'Why is it that you're the only one with whom I can be completely exposed?'
My skin grows cold as the words climb up my throat
I answer, 'My darling when we're together you will always be alone.'

The silence crashes back on us as we continue driving on
And I feel the heartache in the truth that we're, all of us, alone.

We're, all of us, wounded
We're, all of us, burned
We're, all of us, scarred
and we're, all of us, alone."


I wrote this song on the airplane on my way to Rivalry Showcase in January of this year. It's an excerpt from my notebook taken from February of 2007. I believe the night that this song references was sometime in the mid-summer of 2006. I'm sure you don't care but it matters to me.

I remember the night pretty vividly. She was trying to show me some Feist record that I didn't give a damn about and even though we were getting along and laughing the air was awkward. I had 'Brick' by ben folds five playing on a loop in my head " Driving back to her apartment. For the moment we're alone. She's alone. I'm alone. Now I know it". So in the irony of the moment when she asked me why she felt so comfortable when I couldn't have been more uncomfortable the words were already primed to cross my lips. That night I felt so disconnected from absolutely everything.

When I think about being alone in the purest existential sense the video of that night pops into my head. It's why I've held onto it and made it into a song. I don't usually tell stories but this one just really hits a sad desperate place for me. The kind of alone I felt that night hit much deeper than the kind of alone one feels in a crowd. The people in a crowd are all strangers. To realize you're still alone when you're face to face with someone that knows your history, has seen your scars, that knows all of your secrets.... well that's just different. That's an utterly hopelessly depressing awful kind of alone.


I swear this record isn't all gloom. It's just really important for me to drive home the idea of isolation. In my search for truth I've realized that one of the fundamental tasks is to come to terms with the fact that every human being is born alone, dies alone, and remains alone despite anything that he/she does to convince himself/herself otherwise. I can rationally accept this idea but to really let it in is terrifying. So it's always on my mind. And leaks into everything that I touch.

This song also touches one of the other themes of this record which is silence. There is truth in silence if you only care to listen to it. But we're usually too busy trying to drown it out to even pay attention. This song is one of many that attempts to drive that point home and one of the things I like about it is that it musically and lyrically tells more of a story with silence than I think it does with the actual words.

And here you thought we just wanted to jump on each other and have sing alongs. Another Breath - deepest dudes in hardcore.


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Let's Talk about Feelings

I'm not a very open honest touchy feely dude. At least not in real life. I keep to myself. I talk when I feel comfortable talking. And I shut my mouth when I think it's a good idea to keep my mouth shut. And honestly, even though I'm pretty tight-lipped in a lot of situations I still feel like my "shut the fuck up" sensor isn't doing a good enough job sometimes because I still end up talking a lot and eventually putting my foot in my mouth.

But then I get on here or sit down to write a song and everything changes. I can let that part of myself that's a little more honest and a little less worried about how I'm going to be perceived show a little bit more. No... that's not quite right. That sounds like I'm saying that I'm dishonest to everybody I see on the street on a daily basis and the only time when I can actually be me is on some stupid blog on the internet. That's not the case at all and if it were I think it would be pathetic. The basic jist of it is that this is a different forum than the local bar, my office, a classroom, or any of the other litany of places that I exist.

The original title or premise of this blog was "Letters to God". Who's God? God's the person I can talk to about anything at any time. I can go to Him in times of need and in times of utter bliss. He gives a damn about every dumbshit piece of nonsense that comes into my overactive and sometimes pointless mind. The only catch? Yeah, you guessed it. He's not there. He's a figment of my fucking imagination. But I can accept that. Because writing down some of the dumbshit nonsense that pops into my head is kind of cathartic and helps me get my thoughts in order.

So one day after I start writing letters to this God dude it hits me that when you write a real letter and stick it in an envelope and send it off to God or Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or Zeuss or whoever you feel like writing to that it just ends up somewhere. I think it's called the dead letter department. Anyway, there's a guy (or a girl - Women can work for the US postal service too) in the dead letter department and he's in charge of overseeing the whole deal. His job is simple because his mail doesn't need to go anywhere. So I'm guessing that he gets bored and curious some days and starts tearing open letters. I know I would. I'd be fascinated to see what innerworkings of the human condition could be found in the unadulterated conversation between a person and his/her chosen superpower (or jolly gift bringer). So this person exists and is opening my letters to God.

And you know what. I'm ok with that. The postman can read my letters. Maybe he'll get something out of it. You're the postman. So read my letters. And enjoy. Or don't. I don't give a shit. I'm just writing my dumbshit thoughts and feelings into a little textbox and shipping them off to God. In the meantime I don't mind if you peer over my shoulder.

The thing I haven't been able to come to terms with is what happens when people start writing back. What happens when my mom finds out about this and starts reading it? What happens when classmates and coworkers stumble onto my little letters? What do I do with that? This stuff wasn't meant for discussion. It was meant to straighten up my little brain.

So I guess this is sort of a half explanation and half excuse about why I'm not real psyched to have conversations about my blog on the street. I take my private stuff and I make it public. But it's always in a letters to God kind of way. I don't write songs to anyone in particular. I just write them. I don't write this blog to anyone in particular. I just write it.

So with that in mind I'm going to get to what's actually swimming around in my head.

I've spent a long time terrified that the closest I would ever be able to come to another human being might be the exact fucking length of a microphone cable.... that the closest I could come to connecting with someone else might be screaming the same songs at the same place at the same time. Kind of acknowledging that we're in the same boat without ever really talking about it. But I've learned in the last year and especially in the last few days that I have the ability to be extremely honest and almost sickeningly vulnerable with another human being. For something that I used to be so afraid of it was such a relief to actually do.

For a long time I was just alone. Completely detached from everything. Then I found hardcore and learned how to feel connected while still keeping myself isolated. That's what hardcore is about to me in a lot of ways. It's what this stupid blog is about. It's what my songs are about. It made sense to me recently what I was actually trying to say in this song. It's called Still No God. It will be the first track on the new record.

Still No God

"There's still no God
We are still all alone

No voice to guide
No words can save
No faith can heal

And there's still no God

No salvation for lost souls
Still No God
But we needed more than everything.

We're all alone together
We're all alone alone
We're all alone together
Waiting for some kind of fucking miracle

No salvation for false souls
Still No God
But we needed more than everything

There's still no God."

I guess I could explain everything about what it means in context of the record but I think I'll leave that for a later day. The basic point is this: We're lost and we're desperate. We're reaching out to something that we see as really far away because we're too blind to see everything that's right in front of us... "We needed more than everything".. So we're all alone together. We're all alone even when we're staring in the very face of the things that could connect us. Save us. Hardcore kids are notorious for this kind of thing. We know what it means to be alone in a crowd.

So why are we all alone even when we have all these people around? My reasoning for it is because I'm too scared to bridge the gap. Everyone has their own reasoning. We all want to be connected. Some of us just don't know how. Some of us are scared. Some of us are stubborn. Some of us have just been burned too deeply by the right people.

I know this has been my issue for a long time. I'm alone but I realize it's because I keep myself so guarded. I keep everyone at a safe distance. But I'm in the process of crossing the bridge right now. Not with everybody. But with somebody. And in all honesty, it's so much harder to give myself to somebody in a real intimate and honest way than it is to hang my dirty laundry out in a forum like this. This is cake to me. One on one is waaaay harder and waaay more terrifying. Maybe that's just me though.

You can't legitimately give yourself to everybody. You can't legitimately accept everyone else's shit. These hardcore songs that we shout in each other's faces make us feel connected and in a way they tie us together. But a lot of us are still alone in the crowd. A lot of us are hiding in our ipods or in our record collections and in our pile ons. It's a great set up for people who are desperate to be close to people but terrified to be legitimately close to people. It's myspace. It's meaningless sex. It's sing-a-longs to your favorite band. It's sloppy drunken conversations late on a Saturday night. It's that stupid sheet of plastic that your grandmother puts on her couch. It's all a buffer. It's all a placeholder or an acting out of real human intimacy while at the same time trying to protecting ourselves from getting hurt. It will never touch legitimate human intimacy. Ever.

This makes hardcore seem cheap and meaningless. It isn't. It's been one of the most important things in my life. But it has the ability to be a breeding ground for meaninglessness disguised as meaning if you're not careful.

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