“Maps Only: Radical Cartography in Contemporary Art”

I thought I was going to talk about something that wasn’t so preachy. Something a bit lighter, maybe on the story-telling side. But life has a way of moving you around from place to place without ever asking your permission. It’s funny that way, so I guess this will be a bit of all things.

On the 26^th of this month (May-for those of you who are just as confused as I am), I have been asked to participate in an art opening in the mission. The show is called:

“Maps Only: Radical Cartography in Contemporary Art”.

The map. Who in hell, does a show about maps? Rand McNally, Fodor’s, Mapquest?

But when I started to think about the idea of the map and my place in this world/universe/self, I began to feel the truth of the concept.

Where the hell am I? How the hell, do I get home?

I ask these question all of the time and if I had a map, I would be thrilled!

We are a lost people. We look to our leaders for guidance, for a way home. We look to the hero’s of our time, but find them lacking in any real substance. We look to our god’s for some clue as to where we belong. Knowing we will generally get no answers. So we make maps.

Maps tell us where the poles are.

Maps tell us where the states are.

Maps tell us how much rain there is anywhere in the world, how much poverty and how much wealth.

Maps are a good thing, I think.

So, I decided to make a map of my search. At the very least, I could leave some breadcrumbs on the ground, so I would know, not to walk back this way. OR maybe someone will come along and find me in the brush by the side of the road, bloodied and beaten.

I wondered how I could do this? How can I create a map the human soul (so to speak)? It’s a bit arrogant to think that a schmuck like me could even think of doing this, but I am, because I am.

A schmuck.

Thus, my challenge: Does music live in a dimension? Does the spirit for that matter?

I guess you could say that sound waves travel through the air and create a sympathetic vibration in our ears, causing our brain to perceive sound. I guess you could, but I won’t. Music is a fundamentally different experience then sound, although they share some of the same mechanisms. Music can speak to the soul, where sound can carry information. (Scientists, go ahead and have a field day!)

It then occurred to me that music indeed occupies dimensions, although they may not be the same ones that we give attributions to. It most certainly has a physical point of origin, (the sound source), and we (my band) as players exist in a 3 dimensional world. But where does this map live? What am I trying to show you? Where do we need to go?

The piece is called “True North: A Consecration of Polar Dimensions. The confluence of disparate ideologies in a Five Dimensional Space.”

But that’s just ArtSpeak.

I like to think of it as a tale of two cities; The town of Loss and the town of Hope.

Join us there. It’s free and easy with some amazing artists showing their talent and work.

Location;  7:30 PM at Back to the Picture, 934 Valencia Street SF CA

https://www.facebook.com/events/402345233138342/

Selah

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The Long Dark

For the briefest of moments, I stood in the light.

Bathed in the eternal sunshine of grace, I was fulfilled.

It was a joy to experience. It was crushing to lose.

I think about it now in a hazy dream state.

Did it ever really exist?

Did I completely imagine it?

The long dark is now all I see

I thought the heavens had exacted their toll.

I was wrong, so very wrong.

It seems there is not an end to the price we pay for our actions

Be it in this life or the last.

I will remember the light; it’s warm arms that caressed me.

But walls crumble as walls do and life takes its turn down the long dark alley.

The price I for my transgressions, for my blinding commitment to the battle.

 

Selah

A Call To Arms

In the years that have past, I have seen many things that gave me cause to guess if I was in a dream state or in reality. They blur and blend over time. What seemed to be a slight remark became an all out war and what was a glorious evening was just a dream.
My nightmares have become real and the dead seem to talk to me. My daydreams have become my nightmares and sleep, well that has become a luxury. After a few thousand years what can you expect? Too many friends have died, too many wars have failed, and too many hearts have broken under the crushing blow of a single word.
What are you gonna do?
The point of this somber bit of discourse is some of my actions of the recent past. As you may or may not have figured out by now, I believe in activism. I believe in getting off of one’s ass and fixing it. The action does not have to be massive, but just large enough to move a grain of sand or a bed…
I have spent the last few weeks helping over at A Woman’s Place homeless shelters. My friends over at Potrero Post are doing a documentary on it and I wanted to lend a hand.
Here are women from all walks of life who come together in this time because of a single unifying experience. They are homeless and out of options. Their dreams are no longer real and their worst nightmares have become their life. This I understand.
But beyond that, it was not what I expected. It was a much deeper, sadder and richer experience than I could have imagined, with a myriad of grey, as it’s main emotional color. Maybe I am a man who could only up till this point believe that it was a black and white issue. But the overriding emotion of my time there was;
Shame.
How could I have let this happen? Did I not see this coming about over the course of my long stay here on this earth?
Shame, that I wasn’t doing enough for them?
Shame, that I did not know enough about them?
Shame, that I felt relived not to be one of them, the homeless, the forgotten, the abused?

So I lifted and carried, listened and cried and tried my best to understand their stories, so I could tell their story to others. To lift my own shame from out of he shadows where it stood hiding all this time.
To that end, on June 7th at the Cova Hotel in San Francisco there is a benefit for A Woman’s Place and I urge you all to come. Learn more about the plight of these women in San Francisco and all over the country. They could be your mothers, sisters, friends and wives. But don’t just come to visit; come to take part in the solution.
Give of yourself!
Give money, their funding gets cut every year as a matter of course. Women seem not to matter in our society except as mothers and concubines.
Give time, they need volunteers to do everything from help with clients, fixing, painting and driving.
Give things, items like blankets, shades, TV’s, Clothes anything that you can, will make a difference in their lives.
Give love, be part of the answer and separate fantasy from reality.

Selah