Author: julien

Never Be Alone

I remember writing this song while walking home from Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Los Angeles. Obviously, L.A. is more than just a giant brothel, but for whatever reason, it does seem like relationships there take on more unsavory notes than they do in other places. Maybe due to Hollywood’s influence, maybe due to the fault lines, or maybe from the desert-like climate causing some of people’s emotions to evaporate. Personally, I think it is the latter, especially for white people who have less defense from the sun’s rays.

I think this is also the reason for L.A.’s greater interest in all things spiritual- the uplifting impact of the sun, which makes you feel that everything is wonderful and all things are possible- combined with water-loss from the dry air, which removes the heavy, sticky and complicated feelings that are the enemy of most religions.

Download MP3: Never Be Alone

Tags brothels, feelings, Los Angeles, spirituality, sun, Water

Los Angeles Music & Songs Red, Soldiers, & Fire

Fade Away

Hmmm… I don’t know what to say about this song. Generally, I write down a song exactly as I hear it, without questioning it’s meaning too much, because I have a lot of faith in the images that well up from our subconscious minds. In fact, I think the symbols of our minds are generally more literal than symbolic. They are our way of registering information we are not consciously aware of.

For example, we might say “He turned green with envy” and see that as a figure of speech, but what if the person did actually- on a subtle level- turn green due to envy? Or let’s say we have a dream in which a demon is chasing us; we may conclude that the demon symbolizes our horrible boss. But what if the boss is so horrible simply because he is possessed by a demon- the exact same demon we saw in our dream?

Download MP3: Fade Away

Tags demons, dreams, subconscious, symbols

Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Music & Songs Nashville The Odyssey

Telemachus’ Prelude

Another song from the Odyssey… one thing I love about the Odyssey is the theme of hope, and how long it is reasonable to keep hope alive. This book might suggest that people tend to give up hope prematurely, and are sometimes even encouraged to do so by those who would benefit from their defeat.

Download MP3: Telemachus’ Prelude

Tags hope, keep hope alive, Odyssey

Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Music & Songs Nashville The Odyssey

Telemachus’ Oration

Another song from the Odyssey… this one about Telemachus giving his speech to the councilmen, asking that they protect him from the bullies and freeloaders that have overrun his house in his father’s absence.

But, rather than helping Telemachus, the councilmen choose to not intervene, and instead place the blame on Telemachus’s mother.

Which is, supposedly, how things tend to go in real life. When people are bullied at work, for example, and tell their boss about it, in the vast majority of cases the boss sides with the bully. Why?

Download MP3: Telemachus’ Oration

Tags bullies, councilmen, freeloaders, Odyssey, Telemachus

Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Kentucky Music & Songs

Live in this World

After I wrote this song, a couple of Baptists told me they had been singing the chorus over and over again as they drove from Kentucky to Tennessee, and for me, that shed a lot of light on the song’s meaning.

Although I do think many, if not most, religions are mind control cults, the biggest cult of all is probably our mainstream culture which hypnotizes people into chasing meaningless dreams, valuing things that have no value, and seeing beauty where there isn’t any. It lures us into believing in a flat but challenging world, and casually dismisses as unreal every point of view that doesn’t come directly from our movies and universities. Nobody is really “of this world,” because the world as we understand it is a creation of our own minds. But we, ourselves, were created by a mind other than our own, and are part of a larger world that may be impossible for us to grasp and define.

So, at least, we could recognize that our view of reality is subjective, and not tell people to “get real” when they don’t buy into our ideas. Telling them to “get with the program” might be more appropriate.

Download MP3: Live in This World

Tags get real, get with the program, meaningless dreams, mind control cults, religion

Los Angeles Minerals, Mountains, Crystals, Ice, and White Music & Songs

Stone

Post author By julien
Post date January 5, 2014
No Comments on Stone

Mineral Aklei: A painting of nude lady with drip and rectangles on blue and purple background. — A painting called “Mineral Aklei.”

I wrote this while living in LA, before collecting stones became one of my favorite hobbies. At the time, my main association with stones was the world of inorganic beings from Carlos Castaneda’s books, a place where sorcerers would sometimes get trapped forever.

Download MP3: Stone

Tags Carlos Castaneda, collecting stones, inorganic beings, minerals, sorcerers

Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts New Hampshire

New Year’s Resolutions for the Group Mind

Post author By julien
Post date January 1, 2014
No Comments on New Year’s Resolutions for the Group Mind

In addition to personal resolutions, I like to make New Year’s resolutions for the group minds that I am connected to. I find they generally come true.

My group mind resolution for 2014 is that we release the idea that positivity is good and negativity is bad. Both positivity and negativity have equal ability to heal and to harm, depending on how they are used. Both can be vehicles for love.

Too often, positivity is used as a screen to hide problems and misdeeds. People who insist on positivity generally have behaviors they want to hide from others, or else painful feelings they want to hide from themselves. Jeffrey Dahmer was by all accounts a very positive person. In the book “1984”, positivity is used as a weapon to keep people from being able to express their true thoughts and feelings. The dark side of positivity is that it conceals and holds unhealthy realities in place.

Goodness is about caring and enabling people to thrive. Frequently this involves the willingness- and even eagerness- to plunge into negativity and stick with it for as long as it takes for actual change to happen. Looking at negativity brings wisdom and empathy. Discussing negativity makes transformation possible. Negativity brings depth to our goodness and keeps it from being an inch deep and a mile wide.

So, in 2014, let’s welcome the dark side into our lives and especially into our relationships, giving us the ability to be there for each other in ways that actually matter.

Tags 1984, dark side, goodness, Jeffrey Dahmer, negativity, positivity

Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Music & Songs Nashville Red, Soldiers, & Fire

Candy from a Baby

I wrote this song while living in Nashville, where- just as in L.A.– it was a great struggle to go out and perform every night while living in the grips of extreme shyness and stage fright.

In my Nashville apartment I had two bathrooms, so one of my anti-shyness therapies involved filling one bathtub with scalding hot water and one bathtub with ice cold water and then running back and forth between the two to submerge myself. It was not fun, but as usual I was hoping that causing myself physical pain would make performing less painful by comparison.

The one “therapy” that actually worked- at least in the short term- was putting sage oil on a handkerchief and breathing through it while driving to the venue. By the time I had reached my destination, inhibitions seemed to have magically vanished, and I could walk onto the stage with only a healthy handful of butterflies..But then I read that sage oil is toxic, and that was the end of that.

Download MP3: Candy from a Baby

Tags butterflies, ice cold water, inhibitions, Nashville, sage oil, stage fright

Minerals, Mountains, Crystals, Ice, and White Music & Songs New Hampshire Plants and the Emerald Kingdom Uncategorized

We Can Mate with Rabbits

I feel like I should apologize to the whole world for posting up so many paintings of people who aren’t wearing clothes. I can understand why people don’t like pictures of naked people, because generally I don’t like them myself.

Astrology believes that, on average, half of a person’s life is what they make of it, and the other half is in the control of outside forces. The exact ratio, however, varies from person to person. For some people, the majority of their life is a reflection of the choices they have made. For others, the majority of their life was completely outside of their control. Sometimes I feel that I fall slightly into the latter group.

So, although I don’t wish to tell the story of WHY I ended up painting naked people, I will say this- that I don’t generally enjoy being surrounded by nakedness, BUT once you have begun to paint naked people, it is only a matter of time before they no longer seem naked to you, and they just start to seem like people. Their bodies become a symbolic extension of their inner life and the workings of their minds. And once you reach this point, you have to be CAREFUL- because the figures that have become so harmless and normal in your own mind, still have the power to trip off ideas of perversity and lewdness in other people.

So, in closing, I would like to say that although nakedness is frequently interpreted as a symbol of moral slackness and crudity, sometimes people are naked just because there are no more clothes to wear.

Download MP3: We Can Mate with Rabbits

Tags astrology, clothes, morality, nakedness, perversity

Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Music & Songs New Hampshire

Starfishy

When I first moved to Portsmouth NH, it was summer, the season when Portsmouth is at its most dreamy and picturesque, and I was enthralled by the ocean, the seafood, and the whole nautical theme that takes over the town during peak tourist season. All I wanted to do was go to the beach, eat fried seafood, and most of all SHOP- for oceany trinkets and this and thats in every shade of blue.

I also read books- anything related to the ocean and this part of the country. I wrote this song, Starfishy, while reading “Among the Isles of Shoals” by Celia Thaxter, in which she describes the crazy hooligans who lived on the islands. She wrote about how they loved to sing long songs, with lots and lots of words, in high squeaky voices, and how one of them would always begin the song on a ridiculously high note until another one would say “Too high, too high, Jim… how about this?” and then suggest a note even higher… That is how it is with me, whenever I hear a song in my head and write it down, it is always ridiculously high, and then when it comes time to sing it I don’t know what I am supposed to do.

Download MP3: Starfishy

Tags Among the Isles of Shoals, Celia Thaxter, Isle of Shoals, nautical, New Hampshire, ocean, Portsmouth