Persona Obscura...

Oh the web we weave. Or rather the weaving the web makes. I'm constantly inundated with Viagra, Cialis, Acai, Getting my Bachelor's Degree, and Rolex watches in my inbox. My anti-spam catches most of this, thankfully. But it makes me wonder..."Is that what we want? A hard penis that lasts for hours, losing weight by Amazonian berries, a paper degree for a hope of a better job, and a really expensive watch that isn't really expensive? Is that our culture in an email-nut-shell?"

I sometimes wish I could not be found. To be left alone in obscurity. Sometimes. *laughing* I certainly don't want to be left alone if I write blogs, participate in Facebook, Twitter, (MySpace is Dead), and whatever other thing I can do to connect with people. But sometimes...mmmmm.

In this same internet can be found precious jewels of insanity or boxes of just plain Coo-Coo For Cocoa Puffs!

The wonderful crazies that I love and that make this world a better place. Captain Beefheart, Daniel Johnston, Brian Wilson, Wild Man Fischer and my new favorites Elton and Betty White come to mind. There are obvious many more and more who would argue about my short-top-of-my-head list. So be it. My point is that, if I really have one, is that "going it alone" in the dark edges of our minds is dangerous, and many have fallen of the the edge, but there can be a beauty and fire of a billion hearth fires, of a thousand holocausts that can shine on the rest for us and remind us how breath-taking our lives and this world is.

Long live the weirdos, crazies and delusionals. I'd much rather have them than the heartless, greedy, and selfish.

Through the lens...

Ever see the movie camera effect of zooming in and at the same time the camera is pulling away? Hitchcock was famous for it in "Vertigo". Many other directors have used this camera slight of hand through the years. What happens is that the perspective changes with any apparent moving. Of course this is not what really happens, but the illusion of it. It is in this illusion I seemingly live my life. Moving without moving. Change without change. Perception.

Perception is everything and well...nothing. It is not tangible, but in it is the power to change the tangible reality. It is in this that is my reality. This is my power. With a wave of my hand I can change my world. A blink of my eye and what was there is now gone.

I think this is kinda what John Lennon meant by "Mind Games".

"So keep on playing those mind games forever..."

I Had a Milk Farm in Africa and Set Fire to 45's...

I had a milk farm in Africa...I had a milk farm in Africa... Well...one of my friends had a dream I did. And apparently all I cared about was my milk farm. "I'm sorry...but I can't really hang out and talk right now, I must return to my milk farm...the cows need milking." *laughing* Then I was in another dream where I was performing a show and instead of singing songs I set fire to a bunch of 45's on a record player.

Awesome!!! That's a much more fun show than singing a set of love songs! I think I'm gonna book a show right now and perambulate to M-Theory Music for some used 45's!

*sigh*

I can't do it. I can't set fire to vinyl. Even really bad vinyl. Vinyl is made to be played/played with.

Maybe I'm just someone's dream and when they wake up...poof!!! I'm gone. Maybe they're in a coma on life support and I'll be able to live for years and years. Maybe they just keep dreaming about me everyday and when I think I'm sleeping they're awake. Maybe I should just put down the pomegranate flavored gummy-bears because they're laced with some form of sugar THC...

Nah...

Into the Looking Glass...

When someone dies, I immediately look back on my life. What am I doing? Not Doing? Am I happy? Big problems suddenly become small. I do a reckoning of sorts about myself. Michael Jackson...Farrah Fawcett...wow. Damn I feel old. I remember Michael Jackson coming in and single-handedly save the music industry from dire straights (not the band) with "Billy Jean" helped with the cool long format zombie MTV video. I remember all my friends having the infamous Farrah Fawcett poster on their walls to dream and drool over. I didn't, my favorite angel was Jacklyn Smith, then later Cheryl Ladd. So many woman, girls, even all my baby-sitters had the Farrah hair-do. Moon-walking, blond hair flipping, single-glove wearing, wide white pearly teeth smiling wanna-be's came out from all walks of life, all over the world strutting their stuff. It made you smile.

However they lived their imperfect lives, their ripple touched millions of people. I am grateful for my imperfect life and I hope that I can someday "have a justified life", quoting from the Sam Peckinpah film "Ride the High Country".

In the Name of the Father...

Being in a family that split up when I was young. I was bounced back and forth between parents, I watched a lot of television so my parental figures sometimes sadly or happily were old movie characters. My list of fathers were of course my real one, then Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, and Robert Mitchum. Robert Mitchum?! Yes! I know he played a lot of dark characters, or at least one's of low moral fiber, but damn I loved it! He's my favorite movie dad. What does this say about me? Hell....I don't know....and I don't care. Hmmm...sounds like something dad would say. *laughing*

Here are some of my motto's I live by from my movie fathers:

Gary Cooper: "Looked like she was a cold dish with a man until you got her pants down, then she'd explode."

Spencer Tracy: "It is up to us to give ourselves recognition. If we wait for it to come from others, we feel resentful when it doesn't, and when it does, we may well reject it."

Humphrey Bogart: "A hot dog at the game beats roast beef at the Ritz." "I was born when you kissed me. I died when you left me. I lived a few weeks while you loved me." "The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind."

John Wayne: "Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway." "If you've got them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow." "Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday."

Robert Mitchum: "Every two or three years I knock off for a while. That way I'm constantly the new girl in the whorehouse." "People think I have an interesting walk. Hell, I'm just trying to hold my gut in." "There just isn't any pleasing some people. The trick is to stop trying." "There are all kinds of rumors about. And they're all true. You can make some up if you want."

Happy late Father's Day Pops!

Biscuits and Music...

I like to think writing/recording music is like making biscuits. If you knead the dough too much, you're gonna have one awful hard biscuit. You wanna just mix and knead the dough enough that it's together and cohesive. Then leave it alone! You're done! Don't touch it and put in it the oven!

I'm from Memphis, TN. We are serious about our biscuits and our music. *laughing* Here's my recipe that I use:

Yummy Biscuits

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups “White Lily” Flour. Hard to find out west, I've got to import it. It’s extra fine, light, and heavily processed!

1 tsp Salt

1 tbsp Sugar

4 tsp Baking Powder

1/3 cup Shortening

1 1/4 cups of Milk ‘Whole, not skim!’

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.

2. Mix as gently as possible. Cut in the shortening with a pastry knife.

3. Knead as little as possible, but make sure to put enough folds in it. That’s how you get flaky biscuits!

4. Roll out to a 1/2 inch and cut circles with a “pre-greased and powdered” juice glass.

5. Put on a good greased metal pan and bake for 8-10 minutes. Get out the “real” butter and preserves and don’t leave any leftovers!

Getting Politically Corrected....and further more.

Today...er umm..yesterday (It's late/early in the morning) I posted a blog about the "green avatar" Twitter phenom about the Iranian elections. I wrote about how they won't help the Iranian people and that they just are attempts to show others publicly that we care. Just like wearing a flag pin on our jackets. Is someone more American if they do? Or is that what the empty inference hopes to achieve in public perception? Anyway, I've deleted my earlier post, because it just wasn't written well. It was too emotional. Emotions are great except when trying to make logical points about a highly political subject. *laughing*

To better sum up what I tried to say earlier, I think that this country and this world needs people to care and do something about the injustices that happen millions times a day, just don't expect much change from a couple of clicks on photoshop to turn a JPEG green. We can and need to do a lot more than that.

Sweet dreams everyone...it's nighty-night-beddy-bo-time for me.

Schizophrenic Encyclopediac...

I am a Schizophrenic Encyclopediac. That's right, you heard me. Most everyday I feel like I'm Odysseus with the Gods thwarting my every move and other Gods helping me out of a jam. I feel like I'm Arturo Bandini walking the streets and asking the dust. I feel I'm lost in a Borges labyrinth only to find myself at the beginning. I feel I'm Raskolnikov who just bashed in someone's brains and trying to get back home. I feel like I'm Keith Talent and I just blew the dart tournament. I feel I'm Ishmael and Ahab is about to take us all down to the jowls of the white whale. I feel like I'm Felix Krull and I just got found out. I feel like I'm Tomas and I'm just trying to get across the border. I feel like Musashi after the great learning period about to strike out on his own. I feel like Chinaski who just lost another horse race but is content to just listen to Wagner on the radio. I feel like Herodotus observing the world and writing stories and points of interest down on electronic papyrus. I feel like Van Gogh miserable in his room but life-ravenous in the fields. I....I feel like Christopher...not knowing what to feel, but feeling it just the same. It's like a swimming pool. You can stare at it all day but you don't really know a thing until you jump in.

Jump.

In a bad fake German accent: "Ya...zee vater's fine!"

Cholita...

Well...I finished my "Cholita" song for the Los Feliz EP. I'm posting the lyrics here for fun if anyone is interested. *grin*

Cholita

Standing on the corner of Sunset

Where the street meets the heat and the beat hits the one

You can listen to what I'm telling and move to what I'm selling

'bout a girl, a woman, a goddess of the sun.

Wearing brown leather boots that were calf high

And a tattooed dagger on her inner thigh

She's throwing signs "La Raza" will beat ya!

She's my funky hot mamma Cholita.

That's what I'm sayin'.

She's ambivalent. A stimulant. Emanating, penetrating,

undulating-hip-shaking, black mascara wearing,

Hair styled, Farrah swearing, laser beam eyes that got a bead

on me, even if her eyebrows are drawn with a Sharpie,

you know...you're good for me because you can destroy me

like an earthquake could sink California.

Oh...Cholita, Cholita be mine.

Oh...Cholita, Cholita be mine.

Won't you give me all your love?

And I will give it back to you.

Say you will. Say you will be mine.

When it comes to push and shovin',

You know there's only one kind of lovin'

for my Miss "Master of Faster than a Natural Disaster".

Yea...she's superstitious, mmm...bubblicious, diggin' those

frazy nails quite vicious, she's got more color than a rainbow,

She drops lines like Summer..."No Class".

Oh...Cholita, Cholita be mine.

Oh...Cholita, Cholita be mine.

Won't you give me all your love?

And I will give it back to you.

Say you will. Say you will be mine.

That's all I'm sayin'.

Christopher Hoffee Copyright 2009

If you wanna listen to it...here's the link to my Reverbnation page.

Exotic Moods...

I'm sitting here listening to Les Baxter. I close my eyes and feel transported to an alien-space jungle with dancing green women, blue mojitos, purple oceans roaring, warmed by the dual suns in sky and my rocket ship still cooling down from the flight.

Still working on my next song for the Los Feliz EP, the music is done. It's the lyrics that are left. AS ALWAYS. Damn lyrics. They are the last to show. I'm doing a little research on "Cholitas"...since my song is called "Cholita", this pinche huero better learn all he can. *laughing*

The trees are swaying a little and all the leaves are like fingers and hands waving hello. "Hello Trees! What's shakin'? What's bakin'?....Hopefully not you! Ha!" Wisely the Trees aren't talking. They know what happens if they talk. It's the hatchet, ax and saw for them. Unless you're in the H.R. Pufnstuff television show, then they'll try to take your golden flute from you. "Watch out Jimmy!!!!"

Yes...I was a child raised on 70's television and old movies. Like having my brain soaked in absinthe too long, I am scarred but proud to show it off. "See? Here on my left knee is my scar from arthroscopic surgery, my right hand a knife wound and a glass cut, my chest...a cigarette burn....and deep in my grey matter are thousands of movies and T.V. shows swimming and feeding on my synapses. I'm very proud of those ones."

Gone are the days of having to get up and flip sides of my records...except for those rare rainy Sundays when I spread out my pillows on the floor and have a vinyl marathon. My iPod keeps the music flowing...my mouth is humming...my foot is tapping, and my mind is turned to channel 13 watching "Attack of the Mushroom People"....

Yes. I'm sober. It's all Les Baxter's fault.

Strange Territory...

I've entered into a strange territory this week. I'm writing/recording (I typically write and record as I go, then learn the song when it's mixed. *laughing* ) a song that is totally not what I do. These last few weeks I've been writing and recording songs for a little funky EP "Los Feliz", based on the Los Feliz neighborhood in Los Angeles. Spending time up there visiting my friends Frank, Cindy, Annissa, Erika, and Glen I really got attached to the area. A combination of 1930's Hollywood, with restaurants that have been around since the 50's, bars from the 70's, taqueria stands, mostly L.A. hipsters, but with a real strong Latino presence.

What the hell does that sound like? Well...the first 3 songs ( "Goth Coke Dealer", "So Alive" , "Los Feliz" ) have been pretty close to it. The one I'm working on now has sounds of Ennio Morricone, disco, rap, and Latin dance music. Anyone familiar with the music I usually write, this is a stretch! But it's good to stretch! I've grown a little from this Los Feliz experiment and I like it. I only hope that during my stretching I don't pop an ear-string and hurt myself with a song that sucks! *really laughing*

(Notice I *laugh* a lot? Yea...well, if you saw my bank account you would too!)

Why Do I like You?

Why do I like you? I like you because you smell and taste good. If I don't like you, it's because you're probably a Brussels sprout, cauliflower, or some kind of melon (I simply cringe at having to eat them...). It's just how it is. You like something or you don't. You don't even have a choice about it. Chemistry. We are all walking chemistry sets that when mixed with other chemistry sets produce positive or negative results. Can you think of someone whom you like that, by in large, aren't that great of a person and someone else who is always nice and sweet and you are repelled by? I can. (No I'm not telling. *spank*) Then there are always some exceptions like "acquired tastes". It took me years to like spinach. Now I love it. Perhaps my chemistry changed? Adults like different food than children. Adult food is more complex with strange and bitter qualities. Such things a child would just spit out. However much you might be "half-squinting" your eyes at me for this bullshit tinged diatribe in disbelief for equating the like of types of food to people, I think there is really something to it. Not in so much as finding out with our tongues, but acknowledging a deeper chemical connection to people and our environment. If we could logically choose our mates and friends we would, but we don't. It's by circumstance and chemistry. That's the ticket to a-pair-of-dice! *laughing*

Delirium at 103 Degrees.

Yesterday suddenly I was taken over with a high fever and chills. Like I was taken into a Hieronymus Bosch painting, except not the "The Garden of Earthly Delights" but more like "Hell". I've had these rare high temperature onslaughts all my life. They rarely happen but when they do, they come down upon me like a hammer with a million volts of electricity.

Today is the calm, half-in and half-out world of the aftermath. Birds singing. The sound of my heartbeat. Inhale. Exhale. Life. Nothing makes me want to create more than when life is appreciated. Maybe tomorrow I'll pick up the guitar or pen, but for now I'm just gonna lay here and listen to what these birds have to say. Maybe this time I'll understand...

Sunny...70...and...the Floodplains of America

It's sunny, 70 degrees, and I've run out. Empty. Vented. Drained. It has all been flowed, poured, sluiced, gushed, spouted and spewed. The reservoir has run dry and the tap is tapped. I want to be filled again. Filled to the brim. Chock full of nuts. An overflowing dam that will set the valley awash in flood. The cow's on the roof. The ice cream man is in a canoe. The tumbleweeds are tumbling downstream to a distant land that has not been laid low by a wave in 30 years. It will know again the feeling of soaked thoughts and drenched dreams. For if nothing the flood plains along the Mississippi have taught us is where it once flowed, it will flow again...

BElieVE...

I believe that everything is connected...I believe there is no death...I believe in destiny made by free will...I believe a double cheeseburger is always better than a single cheeseburger...I believe everyone should follow their heart and their brain will eventually follow...I believe in Karma because if I don't, I won't be able to keep bad things from happening to a minimum...I believe everything has a cost and can only live so long on credit...I believe that it's the silences that have the most to say...I believe if I get paid peanuts I can still eat them...I don't know what I believe, but I know there is more than I know, which makes anything possible...

Fountains of Fountainhead!

Yesterday while nursing an untimely scratchy throat, seeing that I had an Atom Orr show last night, I was watching "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand. I love this movie with Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal. The ideas and ideals that Ayn stirs up in her book and screenplay are like a vitamin B12 shot and a half tab of Viagra at the same time. "GRRROOOWWWLLGRRRR!!!!"

The speech Howard Roark makes at the trial...ooohhhh!

Thousands of years ago the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light, but he left them a gift they had not conceived of, and he lifted darkness off the earth. Through out the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision. The great creators, the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors, stood alone against the men of their time. Every new thought was opposed. Every new invention was denounced. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered, and they paid - but they won.

No creator was prompted by a desire to please his brothers. His brothers hated the gift he offered. His truth was his only motive. His work was his only goal. His work, not those who used it, his creation, not the benefits others derived from it. The creation which gave form to his truth. He held his truth above all things, and against all men. He went ahead whether others agreed with him or not. With his integrity as his only banner. He served nothing, and no one. He lived for himself. And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement.

Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. But the mind is an attribute of the individual, there is no such thing as a collective brain. The man who thinks must think and act on his own. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot not be subordinated to the needs, opinions, or wishes of others. It is not an object of sacrifice.

The creator stands on his own judgment. The parasite follows the opinions of others. The creator thinks, the parasite copies. The creator produces, the parasite loots. The creator's concern is the conquest of nature - the parasite's concern is the conquest of men. The creator requires independence, he neither serves nor rules. He deals with men by free exchange and voluntary choice. The parasite seeks power, he wants to bind all men together in common action and common slavery. He claims that man is only a tool for the use of others. That he must think as they think, act as they act, and live is selfless, joyless servitude to any need but his own. Look at history. Everything thing we have, every great achievement has come from the independent work of some independent mind. Every horror and destruction came from attempts to force men into a herd of brainless, soulless robots. Without personal rights, without personal ambition, without will, hope, or dignity. It is an ancient conflict. It has another name: the individual against the collective.

Did you make it to the end without skipping? If you did, then you know what I mean about the B12 and Viagra, if you didn't then you probably aren't reading this and have skipped to find out the latest high jinks of Paris Hilton or Dick Cheney. (Notice I equated the two.) *laughing* Anyway, all that legal-CinemaScope-stimulant got me through my show last night. I only messed up once with "Happy Accidents"...figures. *grin*

Absurd World...

Kwai Chang Caine killed himself today. Or at least the actor that played him did, David Carradine. Hunter S. Thompson did too. Many have. Suicide. I have friends who bandy this word around now and again. I am always filled with empathy when it's talked about. Empathy requires understanding. I understand. I just don't agree. I am in more agreement with Camus' thoughts on suicide, in his book "The Myth of Sisyphus". Paraphrasing..."the struggle is enough to fill a man's heart." Though, Camus would likely admonish me for the hope I always seem to have. Hope he says, brings nostalgia and nostalgia brings misery. Yes. It's true, but he ignores the fact that with EVERYTHING, there are two sides. Positive and negative. There is value in both. Having a sunny beautiful day everyday will lose it's luster. The dark rainy days are needed, so when the sun finally comes out, it has a brightness never before seen. For happiness we need sadness. Struggle and live!

Free Will and Fate

Hope and Acceptance

I freely choose my path, but in knowing my myself and my nature, it is pre-determined.

Wow...I saw way too much Kung Fu on television when I was a kid! Rest in peace David, Hunter, Sigmund, Ernest, Ian... Of course, I don't believe in death either, but I'll save that for another post later. *laughing*

Thunderstorms and Warm Rain...

It's a day of thunderstorms and warm rain today. I am instantly home sick for Memphis, Tennessee. There, it is a normal occurrence. In San Diego, where I now reside, it is a rare thing. Just even hearing thunder might be a once a year thing. I am whirled away to the south, thick trees, the smell of honeysuckle blooms, the air is dense and hovering with humidity. The strong smell of rain. No need to get inside, the rain's just fine. Warm and pleasant. Playfully stabbing the puddles on the asphalt. Putting the tears on my face I never thought I'd have again. Pounding down through the sky, washing and wiping away the memories of yesterday. All that's left is now. Now.

Flipping Through the Stations...

Swirl, swirl, mish-mash, wince...I dreamt I was in jail, no thanks to Bukowski no doubt. Imagining doing a radio show, playing crazy ass music that makes me grin in devilish delight. Visions of Donnie and Marie Osmond at Disneyland....and the Delta stewardess I met on the airplane and the two-step champion of Indianapolis during my stage/tour manager summer during Donnie's comeback year in 1992...Donnie...actually Donald. Donald Osmond doesn't have the same ring to it does it? What songs would I play on my radio show? I would probably play Marty Robbins, Electric Six, Grizzly Bear, Les Baxter, Marlon Brando singing in Guys and Dolls, The Dead Milkmen, Neil Diamond, Eagles of Death Metal, Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn, and Ennio Morricone... Ooooh...if only you could be in my head right now...

Still Rolling Em' After All These Years...

Have you ever read "Roll the Dice" by Charles Bukowski? It's my pep talk, my slap in the face, ice down my pants, my knowing smile, my kick in the ass, my ejection seat to the street, my "stop your friggin' whining" card, my hand in my pocket, my "pick me up, dust me off, and put me back in the dirt" surrogate father speech.
I didn't need it today. Every once in a long while I do, but not today. Today I'm just sharing what many people already may know, but it's good to hear again and again. This elixir of the artistically damned does it for me like a new box of Kleenex. *laughing* Why you ask? A new box of Kleenex smells exactly like my first guitar case when I was 15. A whole new world was sucking and taking me into it's arms...making everything exciting, fresh, wide-eyed with no limits and untold possibilities.

Roll the Dice
if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
otherwise, don’t even start.

if you’re going to try, go all the
way. this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.

go all the way.
it could mean not eating for 3 or
4 days.
it could mean freezing on a
park bench.
it could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,
isolation.
isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your
endurance, of
how much you really want to
do it.
and you’ll do it
despite rejection and the
worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine.

if you’re going to try,
go all the way.
there is no other feeling like
that.
you will be alone with the
gods
and the nights will flame with
fire.

do it, do it, do it.
do it.

all the way
all the way.
you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter,
it’s the only good fight
there is.