Silence and the Wave...

Silence. Nothing can give me such polar emotions than silence. Silence will bring you relief and instill worry. "Aahhh..." Exhaling and releasing the remains of the day, only to be left in wonderment of "Why so silent? Is there a reason or a force at work that is creating this silence, and in fact...something wicked this way comes?"

Is silence simply a mirror of my insecurities? Some days nothing but a pure and wonderful emptiness, and other days a universe-size wave builds up to a crest and breaks upon my head, leaving me dumbstruck and paralyzed for days.

The chariots don't seem to swing low enough to carry me away, and my mountaintops aren't high enough for me to reach the threshold of the next. Even the Universe has a sound. Is there anything more unnatural than silence? Hence the pleasurable foreboding it invokes in me. In silence I turn inward. Looking at myself, I am mostly happy, and what is left might be the hope of what could be. Regret is just a compass point to navigate away from to find your true path. You need it to know where you don't want to go again...

8-Track Mind...

My mind is like an 8-track today. Lots of things to do, many hats to wear. I'm a Truckee Brother getting our stuff together to begin new days and adventure in the land of Truckeedom. I'm Atom Orr sending my new EP Los Feliz to VH1 for some hopeful synchronization use in one of their shows. I'm Christopher Hoffee scanning my lawsuit brought on by my credit card company because I'm simply not earning enough money to pay them from the economy that they ruined. I'm Cady/Hoff to my mate Patrick/Peat doing some business and brotherly things...a little file transfer here, a trip to the coffee shop here, some website html/php/java here and an escape to the matinee movies for air-conditioning and a summer blockbuster...emphasis on the "bust".

I know that's only four, but I operate in stereophonic sound, so that makes 8 tracks!

My first 8 track I bought...hmmm...maybe Van Halen I, or Styx "Pieces of Eight". Yea... that's right, I'm not gonna lie and say I got Brian Eno's "Music For Airports" instead. Too many wanna-be cool people these days pitch-correcting their lives into some kinda perfect nightmare.

Now what to do....hmmm...well I won't be using Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies Cards that cost $50.00 to help me decide... I'm gonna flip a coin or maybe use my own imagination...yep...I see an air-conditioned dark place with a convenient cup holder by my hand in my very near future.

Sorry Brian...I'm not picking on you. You're cool...Really you are.

Starlight...Lite Brite...

I miss my little budding-psychedelic-DIY-light-show-toy Lite Brite...oooh...and my Spin Art machine....a ooh and my Spirograph! Yea! I wanna make my next album cover from a Spirograph! Oh the physical world...the world of touch, the connection, the pleasure and the pain. I miss you too. Everyone's scared of getting their hands dirty these days. Let's get out the water hose spray down the lawn, make mud pies, sling dirt clods, hook up the Slip-N-Slide, fire off the water rockets that come down in a parachute, have Evel Knievel motorcycle races on someone's Yamaha 125, jump homemade ramps on our Huffy bikes with the big banana seats, climb that tree on the vacant corner lot where all the broken beer bottles are from the older kids hanging there at night, while I'm chasing fire flies and catching them and putting them in my jelly jar with some holes poked in the top made with a ball point pen...or hell...just smear the fire flies on my jeans so I glow in the dark for a few minutes....then we'll set up a tent in the back yard and get our flashlights, books, the PlaySkool record player and spin our 45's, eat strawberry and cinnamon Pop-Tarts until our parents tell us to shut up and go to sleep...but we don't. We quietly slide out our sleeping bags and star at the stars, make wishes, look for the big and little dipper and slowly fall asleep...

At least someone make an app for my Blackberry...I hear they have an Etch-A-Sketch one.

Mean Joe Green and Alvin...

"Angie" by the Rolling Stones and "Midnight Train to Georgia" by Gladys Knight and the Pips were on the top of the charts... I was 6 years of age and living in Pittsburgh, PA wearing my #75 Steelers jersey for my favorite football player Mean Joe Green. I had a neighbor next door to me...his name was Alvin. He was a teacher with a beautiful wife. They'd let me come in their duplex anytime I wanted. He taught me how to play chess. Took me to museums, the zoo, and the planetarium. He was a tall black man and I was a little blond haired, light brown-eyed boy holding his hand walking everywhere together. He used to love the way people would look at him when he took me out for our little field trips. This was 1973. This was a big deal. He was a brave, intelligent, and caring man. Someone to be proud of. I was, and still am. I wish I knew where he was. Maybe we could get in a game of chess and laugh about those uptight "Archie Bunker" types that seemed to rule the world back then.

Goeth Easteth...

Goeth Easteth thouest man of sprite age! That's what this white bearded old man told me. Oh wait, that was me talking into my bathroom mirror! Well...I am going East today for a short jaunt around the Southwestern region of the United States, thumping and plucking stringed instruments to the tune of delusional Poltzified dreams and stream of consciousness utterances of a crazy man. In other words...fun! The road, my heaven and nirvana. BOTH. That's right both! They are different things your know. Heaven is a "place" and Nirvana is in your "mind". So open up the roads and the car pool lanes! Lower the bridges and move the blockades! I'm bound and packed for high adventure!

**Trumpets sound! Timpani pound! Spirits soar...and stomachs roar!**

"How much money we got for some Southwestern Mexi?"

Zombies and Stains...

I love zombies..."Night of the Living Dead", "The Serpent and the Rainbow", Robert Rodriguez's "Planet Terror", to Zora Neale Hurston's "Tell My Horse", and now out... "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies"! I wanna see that book made into a movie! I even love the 60's band The Zombies...you know the song..."Time of the Season". Do I love them as much as Rob Zombie? No. There is a limit...and that limit one zombie flick a year. But when it comes it's awesome!

I think I like zombies because it feels good to battle death...stopping those bastards in their tracks. Yea they keep coming...but we keep battling. Nothing like a good struggle. To quote Nikos Kazantzakis... "It is in man's struggle that we find salvation." It's not one of his more famous quotes, but I think it was his most important. I personally don't believe in death, but nor do I subscribe to the belief of Heaven and Hell. Our mortality, or rather ending our life as we know it, is our biggest fear, the unknown. Truly. I think "change" is a better word than death. We will no longer be as we once were...but is that so bad? Accepting our nature, and Nature is like the idea of someone holding your arms so you cannot move. You can perceive that you are being held against your will and it is a sort of Hell, or you can believe someone is giving you a hug and you could just stand there and be held forever in Heaven. Perception. I know I shouldn't use those words Heaven/Hell since I don't believe in them in the religious sense...but being raised Roman Catholic, one gets stained from their upbringing and religion. Especially something so ritualistic, visual and sensual as Catholicism. All those candles, incense, images, blood, and pent-up sexuality. Nothing will remove that stain until I'm gone, different beliefs and philosophical/moral conflicts will not wash it away.

I was talking about zombies wasn't I?

*smile*

Latency Ain't All That Bad...

The "Gotta Have Its" and the "Nows" need to chill out. There's something to be said about latency, the wait. Latency has such a negative connotation these days, but you know, sometimes we all need a little time for things to settle in, before we make up our mind, or have a tizzy fit about some technological slow down. This goes for everything, art, technology, relationships, nature, politics...ugh...don't get me started on politics.

The next time you freak out about how long you have to wait for a web page to load on their computer/cell phone think about it. It goes to a tower, to outer space, back to another tower, to a mainframe that then goes back to a tower, to outer space, to another tower then to you! The next time you get upset that your plane is delayed an hour or two, think about what it took for people to travel across n this country of ours on a covered wagon, going 3 miles an hour for 6 months and may or may not make it alive! The next time you hear a song or an album and after 20 seconds you've skipped on to something else, or a movie something like Stanley Kubrick made, or a book like Ulysses by James Joyce that would be panned immediately and then hailed later as a master piece. Remember all things are not made and should not be made for instant love and likability.

You gotta let these things breath and give sometime for it to sink inside you and stir around for a while. You may not know how happy you could let yourself be if you just gave it some time.

No...this was not inspired by anything personal, but merely observational, which I sometimes get lost in when while calming my own mind down or just having a real good bowel movement. I've saved the world many a time during it.

*laughing and couching*

Set the Canons Ablaze!

The Los Feliz EP is finished! I just posted the latest and final song "Cul-De-Sac" up in the webland for consumption..."magic brownie" consumption! *laughing* I don't know what happened but my mind must have had a "in-the-desert-magic-brownie-flashback"! I was not right in the head when I wrote and recorded this...but then I rarely am these days.

*sigh*

Yes....a sigh. A sense of relief and trepidation of finalizing a work and also to begin to start the train of exposition, distribution, and the masochistic desire of opinion and criticism. I've been up all day and night yesterday, up early this morning and by this afternoon I feel a little delirious... *staring at my hand for a few minutes before I realize I have been staring at my hand for a few minutes*

Ummmm...okay...it's time for a comfy couch, a fan blowing on my face, a mindless movie, and a snack of some sort....Damn! I forgot about food. I don't have any. It's a hard choice...food? Or the couch?

Here's the link for the new song if you are so inclined. It will be temporarily available for download, then you'll just have to wait for the official release sometime in the next 7 weeks.

Cul-De-Sac

Off to the store....

Los Feliz...

Photos courtesy of Frank Lee Frennen

I was talking to my Frank Lee Drennen last night on the phone for a few hours. I never had a brother, but I consider Frank one of my three brothers I've adopted later in my twisted life. I used to visit him up in Los Feliz, it's an area of Los Angeles and where old Hollywood used to reside after the cameras were turned off. The times I've had with him and the neighborhood became an inspiration for my little drum machine EP "Los Feliz". He is an amazing photographer/song-writer/artist and he just sent me a few photos he took on his iPhone of ol' L.F. Already I'm getting ideas of the next and final song of the series. The song will be called "Cul-De-Sac". I'll post a link to it when it's finished. Until then here are the photos that Frank shared with me.

Photos courtesy of Frank Lee Frennen

Friends Fur Life...

I finished a new song for my "Los Feliz" EP today. It's called "Friends Fur Life", a story about a guy who wants to be more than friends with his girl friend, and they both happen to be into Furry Fandom. If you don't know what that is, I heartily encourage you to do some research. It's quite fascinating.

The music was inspired by 70's television like the "Rockford Files", "Charlie's Angels", and "Starsky and Hutch" with some contemporary twists. Having fun is the name of the game!

This also reminds me of when my Mom and Step-dad went out of town for the weekend and my stepbrother and me had found their porn and marijuana stash underneath our parents bathroom sink behind the tampons...or was the marijuana inside the tampon box...hmmm....something like that. Well that afternoon scarred me for life. I watched one of the worst porn's in porn history and it was my first porn. I can't tell you the title of it, but unfortunately I can tell you the plot. I only saw it the one time and it was when I was 13.

The plot goes like this...a Latin Dictator who looked an awful lot like Fidel Castro decided to poison the world's water supply that would make all men impotent. His evil plot to take over the world was succeeding, when the Alien Federation of the Universe finds out, and sends their most powerful agent, a hot momma with a laser inside her vagina. Needles to say, her, some midgets and snake, a giant frozen blue dong laser cannon and some battles and she saves the day. Please do not search out this film! You will be scarred for life! Especially is you smoked your parents stash of skunk weed. They never said anything about their missing supply...

*laughing*

Here's the link to the song if you wanna hear it. Friends Fur Life

Here are the lyrics too:

Friends Fur Life

"No, no, no we're just friends!"

She laughed and pushed me away.

D-D-D-Don't call me sweet dear, don't call me nice

I don't have the nerve to say, to say that

I wanna be your lover.

I don't wanna be your friend.

"No, no, no!" You keep saying.

I'm tired of this game.

I'll put on this furry head for you honey,

I'll be your bear and you'll be my bunny.

I wanna be your lover.

I don't wanna be your friend.

Christopher Hoffee Copyright 2009

I am weird...I know this. *grin*

July 4th, 1976...

It was July 4th, 1976. "Silly Love Songs" by Wings was all over the radio. I lived in Pensacola, Florida. I was a cub scout. I was in the city parade. I was informed I would be the one to carry the American flag for our troop. I was told not to let the flag touch the ground, or it would be a sacrilege. I was proud of the honor. It was hot, in the 90's, very humid. It was Pensacola after all. We started walking...and walking...and walking. The music keeping our pace. After an hour, the weight of the flag was starting to get unbearable. I suddenly realized, I was not being honored to carry the flag, but punished. "Don't let the flag touch the ground...it will be a sacrilege." The phrase kept echoing through my mind. Sweat oozing out of every pore, and dizzy I mumbled, "This heat is killing me and the flag is gonna touch the ground. No. I'll pass out first." I winced...

Well I did it! I made it! No American sacrilege was made by our troop! George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Spencer Tracy, and John Wayne we're not disappointed in me. I imagined them all silently nodding in approval with wearing slight smiles. Yes!!!

I promptly drank as many cups of lemonade as my stomach could hold and promptly threw it up. I would not learn from this mishap for a few more years. I had to repeat it a few more times. I needed scientific verification by repeating said procedure to get true results! *laughing*

At the end of the parade were all going to be given our rewards for our candy sales we made during the Spring. I was to receive a leather wallet for my efforts. I was the lead seller. Our Den Mother passed out the rewards, except mine. Matter-of-factly she said, "Your wallet never came in. Sorry." I was speechless. What do you say to that? *sigh* That's how the cookie crumbles. A while later, drinking Kool-Aid with the rest of my troop, our Den Mother's son had a brand new leather wallet sticking out from his back pocket. Coincidence? I never said anything. Though I quit going to cub scouts after that day.

All Aboard! Beauty Queens and Vaseline...

I had no idea. Beauty Queens putting Vaseline on their teeth to keep those smiles bright and shiny through the whole night. Who knew? Apparently...everyone but me. When I think of beauty queens, I think of baton twirling. And when I think of baton twirling, I think of Lee Remick in "A Face in the Crowd". When I think of "A Face in the Crowd", I think of Andy Griffith, which makes me think of the Andy Griffith Show, which then makes me think of whistling, that reminds me of this obscure whistling 45 of a Danish whistler I have, which makes me think of Amsterdam and that brings to mind the "coffee shop" Dampkring, which looked like a hobbit house, so Froddo comes to mind, which makes me think of Greg Freidman (Ott Truckee) because he looks like the actor Elijah Wood, which then makes me think of Sin City the movie, which then makes me think of Shilah from the Sin City Social Club. I love you Shilah, you rock!

Ahhh...the train of thought and the tracks to where they lead. *smile*