Family Moth at the Movies

I realize that what I'm up against is pretty fundamental--if I'm wrong or not.

I completely accept that this battle is within me, although I certainly see it reflected all around me.

The reason I love hip-hop--and much of black culture--is that it asserts that it is right. That it has a right.

Women's culture does that too. It's nothing to see a magazine at Borders (as I did today) with a white woman holding something magical in her hands and a huge word "Goddess" above her. And then have the title explain how women are goddesses or whatever.

But try that with a white man--hell no.

But I'm a white man and I'm right. Dangerous stuff.

I love Tupac and Biggie--and Master P and the like--because they assert that they are right--are people and have the right to be--even when they are wrong. The bible would likely agree with them on this one. God probably even more. Whether or not they have crossed over to glorifying being wrong is up to them. And those of us who choose to listen to them. If it didn't strike a nerve, it probably wouldn't get served.

This wasn't always the case. In some sense white men have been so right that it got annoying. And oppressive. And set other people into motion figuring out how they could be right. How they could flip the script.

This doesn't mean we've never been wrong, just that we're not wrong. Just that we have the same access to the truth--and to god--to authenticity and everything else--that everyone else has. And that we're alive and have a very valuable contribution to make to the present and future of the world.

Just like everyone.

White culture--especailly white male culture--the culture part of it--has become in some sense a culture of wrongness. Of either apology or just getting into the stuff that people hate about us. Postmodernism in a lot of ways is a culture of erasure. Of destruction. Which is not to say that there's anything wrong with it. It would probably agree. But that doesn't mean that the time won't come where it is the cancer and its death is our only salvation. The same could be said for mainstream white culture in the 50s--it had acted as a homogenious unifying force while we fought two world wars and integrated a land of immigrants into the strongest and free-est nation in the world--and then huge parts of it had to die. Because the very momentum the good parts of it had created told people that it's dep dark secrets could no longer be tolerated.

That's how change happens.

And people may just be as attached to punk rock now as they were to Jim Crow then. The only difference is that Jim Crow was against others exclusively (not really, but externally), while punk rock is against different others and a large part of the self.

Anyway, I try not to get too much into cultural criticism, more of an observation. I know for me, leaving punk rock--the world of "indyness" felt like I was dying. It literally made me sick because I felt like I was giving up the only power and identity I had. And I had no inkling that there was anything outside of that. Leaving the mainstream was hard enough for me, but at least there was another tribe to head to. People to talk with. A way to be. Better music and the promise of more free sex, more fun, etc. At least we were right. :)

Leaving that tribe for the real wilderness--when that one already felt like the wilderness--let's just say it wasn't as cute as dyed hair and a pout. And if you think punk rockers are more accepting just try putting on a suit, shaving, keeping your hair sharp and wearing an ironed shirt. Or telling them what you care about. Or bringing up god. You also don't have any ideas that you're going to get any because of your new stance. Any being whichever mixture of love, attention, sex, societal conferral of authenticity, and street cred you want at any given time. At least heading out into the counter-culture you THINK you're going to get, to feel more.

But back to the front, I'm right.

And I'll bet my life on it like the Wright Brothers. Strap me in, crank the prop, and push me toward the cliff--I've done the math in triplicate, sussed out my competitors designs, eliminated every variable--White Gold will fly.

And I hope that when I do, people see it as love. Just like they do now when they see "young blacks get money".

I never came into this game to be like this. I was attracted like a moth to a flame. I just wanted to hang out with musicians and artists. I had already given up on creation. I thought they'd be having more fun, know something about love. Be living better lives. I can guarantee you I was no different than anyone else. Probably even more passive if anything. I took my women's studies classes at school seriously. (And i thought it would get me some--some being whatever it was that I so obviously lacked). I wasn't in a band (most of my friends were), then when I was we never did anything, then when we did, we immediatly broke down. I was very good at drinking and getting into shows. Occasionally I'd end up throwing a party. In short I was a scenester--a good one--but a scenester. (Had my drink and courage been up and you been a woman I was interested in impressing, I might have told you my art was life--an idea I ended up, post-scenster years, describing and debunking in a book called The Love Artist.

But you can only get so close to a flame. Especially if you're a moth. (Just ask the flies who try to get down with my halogen lamp here in the basement--and don't forget I'm writing from the basement of my mom's house).

So eventually you burn out, or die--OR--or you burn out, die and become flame yourself. Which is what we all are. Light. Energy. That's not some new age mambo, that's a scientific fact. You are 100% energy--vibrating at a frequency and in a manner unique to you. The only difference being between those who know that and those who don't. (And those who fake it and those who don't, of course). Usually we probably fall along a continuum of the graph representing those four states. --Just because we're all right doesn't mean we're immutable. Doesn't mean we're perfect or done.

Au contraire. It means we can finally start!

I still don't know what to do with the knowledge that I'm right. I was raised that it was the height of arrogance to say so--a sin. I guess I could just be right and not say so--let my actions do the talking. But I talk so little already. And is there any subtlety that isn't lost on folks these days. [Or maybe that's the whole thing--just walk into the gaping, football field-sized hole right in front of everyone's eyes. That's my plan anyway, but I feel like explaining it will do something. Maybe the energy would be better spent writing lyrics. Or maybe I'm the trapese artist and the ring leader at the same time. Who knows?]

Who knows.

What I do know is that there is literally UNLIMITED REAL ESTATE between left and right--between "normal" and "counter-culture", between your mind and your body. UNLIMITED. >. (That means greater than not "I'm a smiling bird"--see isn't this complicated enough to have to explain?).

And this is one time I'm not exaggerating. It's as if there were UNLIMITED waterfront property in downtown Manhattan for the taking. For free. How much would you like Mrs. Robins? The paperwork is a bit of doing. But the resources are there. And it's what you want. Both spiritually and materially. The work is free. The body the map. Your hunger the compass.

I always wanted to live on the water. To do so and get to show the folks who brought me up--who inspired me--how to get their groove twice as tight--sorry that's the old, multiplicative world--take their groove to the second power--well, if I never sing one song well enough for other people to pay $14 for it, if I never get out of my mom's house, if no one ever feels my book, if nothing ever happens again--that will be more than enough.

Love to the love. Oh, and by the way, if you're in Chicago check out the Keiskamma Altarpiece at St. James, it's beautiful.