"Ghost Culture" by Pete Huff

I am currently hovering Lakitu style in non-citizen space above the current nonsense of Australian climate change politics and find myself understanding the grievous loss that occurs when inspirational acts become codified into profession. I'm not so dull to believe that this is anything but the natural progression of most human minds given the hoarding tendencies predisposed by the prominent economic/social structure currently popular with Earth's current dominant species.

It has been demonstrated time and time again that the movement from the spiritual to the secular is hallmarked by the centralized and exclusionary movement into the golden temple, from which authenticity is banished for fear of the light revealing the deep fissures hidden in the darkness. When existence is defined by competition inspired by fear of loss rather than inspired by cooperation inspired by faith in communal security, the natural tendency is to develop the professional niches that feed like remoras on the detritus of authenticity left over by the systematic sharks.

Leadership, in my mind, started out as a natural occurrence of (relatively) altruistic and (relatively) selfless behavior for the greater good of ones own people. Call it a modified version of survival of the fittest or whatnot - altruistic leadership was a service performed beyond the realm of personal gain.

However, we exist in an age where the competition-based systems for human existence have picked up considerable speed on the tracks and the once noble pre-mass-civilization act of leadership is now a survival/accumulation mechanism that utilizes the mires of democracy to ensure job security.

We have fully accepted the human-production model so fully that altruistic acts have become akin to the once numerous American bison. Professional politicians no longer represent the good of the tribe and this is so readily accepted that it is admitted openly without public shock. Something intended to be a mechanism of inclusiveness has become bastardized to the point that the inspiration source is indistinguishable and, if stumbled upon it is often shot or disemboweled by the media/social blades that be.

It seems to me that the systems so vulnerable to destruction by their origin authenticity are often the best at convincing those it interacts with that they must pass through its systems to reach such authenticity – our own country, with its revolutionary Constitution and politico-media soma-induced social comas, serves as an excellent example. I take great interest in the events of Egypt and Libya as they dismantle the democracy-via-garbage-disposal systems in place of self-determination. Let’s hope that revolution-back-to-the-source cannot be trademarked and marketed by Coke.

So what of it all? It isn’t just politicians. Our mother culture is so connected that the loss of the spiritual in the secular is common, with efforts to shake up the system (art, music, environmental activism, etc) are quickly co-opted by competitive structures that they ironically turned into Borg without awareness. And in that transition, the flame burns lower and recognition of the authentic is more difficult. We have become a ghost culture that has eaten its soul to fill its belly. The taboos have been destroyed, the rituals have been marginalized, and the peace has become packaged.

But I believe the recognition of the authentic and the ancestral is undeniable. This story of existence is just that – a veil that holds no power beyond its ability to obscure and sow doubt. The power of an individual expressing authentically without hope for gain beyond personal fulfillment is bewildering to the system. The response comes in the form of ignoring the act in hope that its walls will withstand any losses. This quickly moves to the acquirement-model that attempts to trade such an individual shiny things for the power of their expression. If no ground is gained, social ostracism or annihilation assumes priority, as the survival of the system is paramount in light of penetrating authenticity.

It is the realization of what has been all along: a hollow dream induced by those who are so inextricably dependent upon a consumptive system. Power lies in the realization of the individual and the expression of the pure without hope for hoarder gain. Those shaking off the mantle and rejecting the need to pass through the system to reach the enlightenment, a fundamentally pure act, are mocked by those within the system. Such is the case with all that live outside of a system in which mockery and ostracism are the best ways for any individual in the system to avoid the pangs of introspection that come when an alternative sheds light on ones own choices. It is a lofty goal to slough-off and I hope that one day I can touch its edges.

(written & submitted by Pete Huff, 28/II/2011)

"Don't go to SXSW®" follow-up (short on poetry, long on wind)

I am honored by the many thoughtful comments that last week's article "Songs as Gifts Simultaneously Received and Given (Don't go to SXSW®)" has inspired. My first piece of was a more poetic, general, and less narrative work, but a few readers seem to be looking for a more specific follow-up, so I am happy to oblige...

Some have missed a key distinction, which I may not have made quite clear, I am not criticizing musicians who play at SXSW® or other inadequate venues or festivals, I am criticizing the festival. However, if musicians refused to engage with these exploitative and mediocre systems, the festivals/venues would disappear or change. Hence the call to boycott, and my strong language: “don’t go”.

I have personally felt very unhappy performing in many loveless commercial spaces, bars in particular, and eventually came to the realization that it is not necessary. Creative practice (a.k.a. art) is not the same as entertainment, sometimes they are interchangeable, but not as a rule. Spaces that want to sell something (other than the experience of the music itself) are interested in entertainment as a method of bringing people into the space to sell to them.

So are you revealing truth and beauty or are you selling drinks? Of course it is possible to do both at the same time, but why should you? Why should we cow down to a parasitic and mediocre set of parameters? And who’s pockets are we padding, and what exploitations are we propping up? Most musicians are underpaid or not paid at all for their hard work. In my experience it is the less commercial venues (art galleries, houses, community spaces, unofficial clubs, etc.) that pay artists a reasonable percentage of the money they bring in.

SXSW®'s clear commercial agenda is certainly enough to throw up a red flag or two. This little gem of a statement on there website kind of says it all: "With numerous avenues for exposure to over 36,000 key industry representatives, SXSW® 2011 is the most valuable addition to any marketing plan." Their key sponsors are… Chevy, Miller Lite, AOL, Pepsi & Monster Energy Drink… to my mind this kind of multi-national corporate underwriting is an obvious problem that doesn’t require overt analysis. May it also be noted that despite the distasteful sponsorship there is a $25 fee for all bands to apply to the festival. Tens of thousands of bands apply.

Unfortunately there are a lot of non-creative middle-men that profit while artists’ starve, and grasp in the dark for recognition. SXSW® uses a particularly shabby intermediary called sonicbids(dot)com that charges artists a monthly fee to set up a profile, and then collects additional money for submissions to venues and festivals. It is even more unfortunate that musicians are led to believe it is necessary to engage with similar parasites in order to share their tunes. Further more, these middle-men and bad venues contribute to a setting of competition that benefits them and not us. Bands will pay to be considered “legitimate”, and step over each other to play for someone else’s profit.

We sometimes pay a much higher price when we attempt to engage with the sacred in a place where very few, if any, could succeed. We may loose our way back to the ecstatic source, we may eventually no longer hear the songs, and we may give up the quest entirely.

So, a practical summary… Musicians who are interested in making a better artistic community/habitat ought to… demand payment if money changes hands anywhere in a venue, seek out spaces that care about music for music’s sake, make your own way as much as possible, and support each other! This is not cynacism, cynacism implies resignation, I believe that a better way is out there, I have tasted it, and I want more.

Songs as Gifts Simultaneously Received and Given (Don't go to SXSW®)

Dear musicians... Let me be plain, don't go to SXSW®. Mass consumer spectacle isn't very musical. Artists climbing over each other to get 50 shows so they can be "discovered" doesn't have much to do with truth or beauty. Stay home and record a song. Go into the mountains, the desert, to the top of a building, and receive one. Play a show in the town right next to yours that you've never actually been to.

Say no to vampires. So no to mediocrity. You make music and there is no one who doesn’t love music, this makes you one of the most powerful people in the world. Tastes may vary widely, but music is a universal good. You create the most important human export.

The Ainu (Japan’s native population) believe that songs are Man’s gift back to the Universe. As the top of the food chain we do very little to give back, so the Ainu played epic music at every meal and many times throughout each day to honor the beings, and land that sustained their lives. When they played the spirits gathered to drink the song, to bathe in the music.

Every primary culture I have ever studied believed that songs were received, sometimes smuggled back from another plane, usually the world of spirits. Or given to them from some non-physical beings, or some ineffable place. These songs were generally semi-secret songs that gave the singer power and specialized knowledge. So a song is a gift that is simultaneously given and received. That sounds right to me.

Let’s take a few (thousand) steps back and return to the sacred. Not the kind of sacred that is static, reserved or dogmatic. The sacred that is ecstatic, powerful, creative/destructive, funny, wise, overwhelming, honest, entheogenic (God manifesting), hallucinogenic (vision manifesting), and/or psychedelic (mind manifesting). Don’t fill your head or environment with simulacra songs, turn off the car radio, try to tune out the music in the market. And stop giving your songs to parasites. Play only where creation is welcome, where the sacred particles of music can do their good work, swirl for the spirits, and dance for our own.

Goodnight Majik (nature journal 20/II/11)

From the trail we clamber down to the beach. Garnet tinged, purple sand flows through the normal white stuff. Violet brush strokes swirl around green jade look-a-like rocks. Not an average beach.

Noël finds a perfect little abalone shell on the sand, slaps it in my hand and calls it my paycheck. A big rock shelf means radical tidepools, some deep and wide enough to paddle around in. Vast hermit crab and anemone civilizations have thrived in these shallows for centuries, and yet no monuments or temples have been erected, at least none that I can discern. Maybe the temples are in the shells, or maybe the whole place is a temple.

A seaweed-filled ravine cuts right down the middle of the rock jetty. It seems just the right kind of place to find another abalone shell, and lo-and-behold there’s a great big one a few feet away. When I tell Noël that I saw the shell before I actually saw it, she says matter-of-factly “why does that surprise you at this point?” Sometimes I forget about the world’s majik until it is dropped right in my lap.

Around the bend we find a tiny cave. We sing inside it, playing with the tones, feeling out which ones resonate in the space. The song brings on slow languid movement, and rock on rock drumming. Every sound and sign just right for the moment. Good shamanism, which is to say: good playful and loving engagement with the spirit of that place, with our spirits in that place. A fine gesture of cave/man love.

We’re all smiles when we get out, I hope the cave smiles too. I stare at the sky and it subtly flashes, kind of a “yes” flash, affirmative pulse from the sunset. Behind us a weird mark is set in the sky. A vertical cloud line, like the vapor trail from a plane, but upright, like a rocket’s trail. An optical illusion, a meteor, a spaceship? The trail/cloud is gone in a few minutes, evidence wiped clean by the wind. Aliens, meteors or men: the Sky is indifferent, and, come to think of it, so am I. Cavesongs seem so much more important.

The trail fills up with scattering bunnies for the hike back. Polyphonic owl hoots sound majikally from a eucalyptus grove, a three-tone hoot that boggles my mind. My first thought is of a giant spectral owl. Eventually the mystery unravels. There are really three owls hooting in different pitches. Somehow they managed to call out in perfect unison, giving the impression of a supernatural hoot. Amazingly this happened twice in a row before the band broke up.

A skunk waddles at full speed in front of us, zigzagging – evasive tactics. He leaves just a splash of mercaptan (skunk spray) behind him, just in case there was any confusion. “Don’t know if you noticed the stripes chums… can’t be too careful.”

A fox dashes across the highway as we drive home, barely more than a flash in the headlights. Our last visitation from the twilight kingdom. Goodnight Majik.

Belated Honorings

Rainbow, the dog, is attracted to the site long before we are. I only notice it because he does. A ring of fur, evidence of a deeply penetrating event. Speculation begins at once. A rabbit? A fox? Some manner of weasel? Couldn’t be a house cat, not this far up the trail. Allan pokes a bendy stick into the ground in the center of the ring. “Well whatever you were, we honor you.” Something we clearly should have done first.

Imagine is we stopped at a fatal car accident and acted like this. “Those look like a banker’s shoes to me. Yeah, but look at that ink stain on his shirt pocket, I think he was an English teacher. Well whatever you did, may God love and keep you.”

From that place on that trail one bodily life was extended and one bodily life ended. Maybe that’s all we need to know. It’s certainly enough information for reverence.

In the end we decided it was probably a bobcat.

My Real Costume is Underneath

Sent to me by my friend Em, by way of several other blogs... clearly working hard for the collective good of the internet.

Father in Law does not like connotation of "Dude"

What follows is a letter from my girlfriend's dad, the title was his original subject line... he makes a good case, with some very nice writing.

"Hey Fletcher, checked out your blog via this post and it is really intelligent and interesting. As Noel will tell you, I am hypercritical, but always with a positive end in site. I hope you won't take this criticism personally, but for me connotations that follow the word "dude" are not positive. From Wikipedia: One of the earliest books to use the word was The Home and Farm Manual, written by Jonathan Periam in 1883. In that work, Periam used the term "dude" several times to denote an ill-bred and ignorant, but ostentatious, man from the city. The rest of the Wiki article is informative also. Of course the most common understanding of the term is of a "dandy", an effeminate male who is consumed with fashion and clothing. But the most damaging to your blog image (from my perspective) is the dumb stoner connotation. The use of the J in Magic doesn't help to dispel this. I know you are intelligent and your esoteric/80's vision of the word probably trumps my historical one, with most of your blog followers not even thinking about it twice. - Just an old man ranting about the vagaries of youth." – Dad Dude (Noel Vietor)

"Big Time"

I mark my hands and face with charcoal, picked up from a burnt out redwood. – Signs for the spirits, silly and serious: Paleolithic clown priest. – How many can fit in a tiny cave? – Ah, but the real sage is the Cave. – The only Immortals that lived in the mountains were the Mountains.

All of this is little talk in some big time. – Sometime, like stone time. – Sometime like tectonic plate time, ridges and canyons time, endless caverns time. – Here in stone time my memories are like fallen fruit. – Enjoyed by some beings in a small way, and then… – Well where is the fruit? – In the bird or beetle? In the mushroom or mold? In the soil?

Microscopic soil life is vast and numberless. – The enlightened realms of the Buddha are vast and numberless. – That seems like quite enough for now.

Another Gift From the Amazon

The richness of the Amazon cannot be overstated... Millions of species interpenetrating, the densest and most diverse ecosystem in the world. Ancient civilizations of staggering technological and cosmological advancement. An estimated 3,000 unique languages over the many centuries. Plants that open the soul (Ayahuasca). Plants that cure cancer (maybe). And also this joyful albino man and his merry band playing some genuinely silly music, guaranteed to put a twinkle in your eye! Magicians were usually hermits, and his name's Hermeto.