neverbeuseless

I met Good Asian Drivers in Green Bay at Pride, and I'm very grateful for that. They write and sing and speak and slam about issues that are important to our lives. This particular piece is... honest.  As much as I love the queer community, and I love the diversity of the people in the community, the community has it quirks and symbols, hankies and rainbows, and it's such a rich community, and not only in terms of the pink dollar. But there are SO many things that need to be corrected, there are SO many things that can be improved, and there are SO many things that we feel we are immune from, and because of that feeling they are not acknowledged, and they fester and grow and become even more insidious. 

Listen to it, tell me what you think.

( Lyrics )

Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap

I've been having many conversations about trusting other people, and this song, so beautiful, speaks to me about the pain of broken trust and almost a resigned disappointment.

Working on the weekends has killed my internet catch up time, so this is short.

Here's some lyrics:

( Lyrics )

And this is what I have for you from Pride. Meet Toby, an Australian lesbian with locks and a mean set of skills on guitar. With surprising vocals and strong music, she's your lesbian artist with an ausie accent. From what I hear, she's really popular in Australia.

This track, "Run", was one of the best in terms of sound I could find. She's on MySpace if you want to check her out. http://www.myspace.com/tobybeard

So I was called a pacifist this week. It wasn't a label I assigned to myself, really, so it caught me off guard a little, which in turn made me think about it. With that in mind, I've decided that Garth Brooks' We Shall Be Free will be the music posting for this week.

So, lets start at the beginning, the definition. Pacifisim: opposition to war or violence as a means of settling disputes.

Entirely true. I believe war and violence as means to settle disputes is a flaw of human behavior. I'm not dumb enough to say that I believe we can just shut down war and military tomorrow, I know that to lay down arms when your opposition does not is to set yourself up for slaughter. However, I do not believe in being the aggressor. Defense is the only acceptable form of violence, for me, because it's not really violence.

I believe that greed, hate, prejudice, and ignorance are the roots of war, and if we come to our brothers and sisters of humanity with contentment, love, respect, and knowledge, we will be able to work toward peace and balance for everyone. We need to stop trying to control the world, because the world does not belong to us, it is not ours to control. We are just part of her history. If global warming goes to the extent that it wipes out humanity, it is just her way of finding balance for herself, purging herself of the impurity our "taker" culture is. We need to stop trying to change her, but rather fit into the world she has for us before she goes to the extent she needs to on her own. I don't believe this means learning to harness her, or manipulate her, but rather living with her, moving back to a "leaver" culture.

I digress. Pacifism. I believe violence solves nothing, not in personal, cultural, or national conversations or disputes, it just feeds the disagreement, creates victims seeking retribution. When Germany lost WWI it gave Hitler the opportunity to harness the feelings of destitution and humiliation of the German people to focus on his dream of the thousand-year Reich and WWII. If you fight the violence of current neo-Nazi's protest at a pride event with squirt guns of bleach, you will not persuade them to stop committing hate crimes, they will just feel more justified in their attacks and do so, more then likely, with more vigar. This is not to say you could also sit down with them, or to condone their behavior in anyway, but to say that your energy and planning would find more use educating the young and supporting the people at the pride event.

I do not believe to be a pacifist you must submit to every argument, or that healthy debate is not in a pacifists belief set, it is debate and disagreement that takes us further in life, but that the disagreement must be respectful and understanding, and with the knowledge that we are all human beings.

So now, with conviction, I can say I am a pacifist.

But, if you want to wrestle, any time, let me know. :)

Oh Daphne Willis. My musical crush. So much talent in this crew, which for this song, not everyone's there - so you should check them out because there really is a lot of talent in the Daphne Willis & Co. crew.

Love and Hate

True summer music. I look forward to this album. I don't even know what else to say about it. Just enjoy it.

So here's the idea I have. In order to start posting more, because I know I've been slacking, I've added an event to my Google Calender. Weekly(typically Sundays at 7pm) I will post a song and my thoughts on that particular track.


Okay, so there's a lot in this track. Obviously I won't be able to cover it all, so I'll pick out the obvious major theme. Don't be Afraid. lol.

I really like this track because it goes beyond what most of my music collection focuses on, personal relationships. This isn't a love song, or a "my girl left me and i'm hurtin song' or a "fuck you and your untouchable face" song. This has a wider scope then that. Those songs are important and valuable, and make up most of my collection because they are important to me, and help me find expression for what I'm feeling, but this goes beyond that and fills another part of how I need to express.

This song isn't talking about being afraid of going out there and meeting people. It is best summed up by a quote at the end of the track that was cut off for the video, which is depressing. Anyway, the quote is:

That fear, that is what is used to perpetuate the cycle. We sit around and think, man this is horrible, we should change this, and when we get to thinking about what that change should look like and how we can create it, we become afraid of "what if it doesn't work?" or "what if it's worse?" Are we so afraid of change, of negative repercussions that we will reject changing something netative for the fear that it could become worse? What kind of logic is that? If it gets worse, then we should change it again until it gets better, rather then just live with a negative situation.

There's so much more in this song. What resonates with you?


( Lyrics )