(Why is it odd that) the longer I keep spinning around this planet, the more interested, intrigued and enchanted I become in, by, and with... people?
We're definitely a strange and haunted tribe, but I love talking with and relating to my fellow humanoids, finding out who they are and what they care about, having a laugh, hearing about their dreams. Speaking, relating, intimacy, fun.
When the mood strikes, I love to travel. Santa Fé, Taos, The French Quarter, the Garden District, Greenwich Village and Little Italy, Chicago, the Northwest, Maui, Kauai, Oaxaca, Veracruz, The Alhambra, the Albaizin and the rest of Andalusia, Barcelona, Antwerp, the Left Bank and the Right, and Portobello Road all stand out in my memory. I've spent quite a few hours wandering around the canals in Amsterdam. I have many more future travels and adventures in mind.
Speaking of which, I do hope we get this little matter of Time Travel sorted out ASAP!
Art. Creativity. Dreams, fantasy, potentials and chimera. That's what keeps everything happening, no?
I spent a major chunk of this little ol' incarnation as a singer/songwriter, and I definitely see music as one of the main keys of life. If you're interested, you can check out my own musical projects here:
Good food is a pleasure, especially when it's Thai, Indian, Japanese, Ethiopian etc. A great meal in a nice, intimate ambience is fun, but I'm just as happy going to an out of the way, slightly divey Mexican restaurant if the food is great.
I walk just about every chance I get, on city streets, out among the trees, uphill, down vale. It's meditative, and a lot better on your knees than running.
I'm into games of all sorts. I'm a pretty bad poker player, and a real chess player could checkmate me by accident, but I got mad Apples to Apples skilz and I can steal a game of Risk now and then (if you spot me Australia).
Mind Games? hmm... OK, as long as both sides know the rules.
I've always liked basketball and go to NBA games once in a while.
If the chemistry is right and the music is good, I definitely like a good party.
I think it was Dr. Johnson or possibly Sappho (or maybe Ray Davies?) who offered the following advice: "Everything in moderation... including moderation".
Music
At any given moment you might find me listening to: those Siouxsie & the Banshees reissues; Ethiopiques; Miles/Gil Evans stuff, Joanna Newsom, The Stooges, certain morning ragas (even at night); Augustus Pablo/King Tubby, Scott Walker, Six Organs of Admittance, Moroccan Joujouka, My Bloody Valentine, Guided By Voices, John Coletrane, Alice Coletrane, Everly Brothers, DeBussy, Terry Riley, Julian Bream, Lightnin Hopkins, Skip James, Jimi Hendrix, L Cohen, Jobim, John Cale, 13th Floor Elevators, Serge Gainsbourg, John Fahey, Incredible String Band, Boards of Canada, early-to-mid-era Neil Young, Brian Jones-era Stones, Roy Harper, Television, Bowie (esp. circa Diamond Dogs), Throwing Muses, Cocteau Twins, Dinah Washington, The Moore Brothers, Paula Frazer, Nico, The Hunter Gets Captured By the Game, T-Rex, Kurt Weill, Piper at the Gates of Dawn... and on and on and on.
Um, I mentioned Cocteau Twins, right?
So, like, I assume we're all agreed that The Beatles were the single biggest, brightest cultural meteorite to blaze across Western Civ, since, oh, let's say Sir Francis Bacon? Hey, I know it's a cliché, and it was long ago, but when four kids straight out of a dank cellar in Lower Nowheresville are so creative and tuned-in and resonant that they actually, profoundly and gracefully Change The World with their music and their is-ness, that oughtta count for something, so The Beatles were and remain numero uno.
Years ago we spent three straight weeks listening constantly to (and nothing but) Eno's Shutov Assembly. That was, uh, interesting.
And I recall hearing in an Amsterdam coffeeshop I happened to be frequenting some very deep chill/trance music...never caught the artist's name (or maybe I just kept forgetting it) but I wouldn't mind hearing that stuff again. Ah, well...
... oh, and the above depicted Marianne Faithfull is a bit of all right, don't you agree?
Movies
Well, I've watched a lot of 'em, that's for sure. Some semi-random faves:
Magnolia, Amores Perros, Mulholland Drive, You and Me & Everyone We Know were great. Spirited Away: amazing. Lost in Translation was sweet and beautifully shot. Dead Man, The Anniversary Party, Secretary, Being John Malkovich, Talk to Her, The Science of Sleep.
I really like classic stuff like The Third Man, Out of the Past and similar old film noir, The Marx Brothers, or maybe some lovely old Hollywood black and white film with like Greta Garbo or Ingrid Bergman that catches you off guard. One Eyed Jacks, Juliet of the Spirits, Chinatown, The Harder They Come, Down By Law, Children of Paradise, Wings of Desire.
I luv the old school geniuses like Luis Buñuel (pictured above). L'Age D'or, Belle De Jour, Simon of the Desert, That Obscure Object of Desire...
Then ya got yer Stanley Kubrick. 2001, Dr. Strangelove, The Shining, The Killing, Barry Lyndon... I'm into just about all of his brilliant films. (Eyes Wide Shut is underrated, by the way, IMHO);
And let's not forget Antonioni. Films like Blow Up and The Passenger are pretty well known (and amazing) but those weird puzzle-box social/emotional dramas starring Monica Vitti like L'Avventura, and L'Eclisse are also haunting and beautiful to watch:
I've seen maybe a dozen of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's films, but the guy made like forty or fifty (!!!) in a span of fourteen years or something like that, so I guess I've got a ways to go.
The Holy Mountain, Meshes of the Afternoon, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, and Cocteau's Orpheus all did a major whammy on my psyche.
... um, on the other hand, I've seen Zoolander and Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit (etc) three times, if that tells you anything. Basically, I just generally like eating popcorn and watching movies.
Television
Er, this is a photo of Peter Cook. He's been called by some extremely hilarious people "... The Funniest Man Who Ever Lived". Might be true. He was on British television back in the 1960's and '70's, but mainly he's shown here because he was great.
To be honest, although like every other kid growing up in the suburbs I was glued to the tube, and later there was that big Twin Peaks phase, I don't really watch TV that much now days, except on DVD, where I've seen all of The Sopranos and Da Ali G Show, some of Six Feet Under, Stranger's With Candy and like that. Ever see Fishing With John?
Anyway, you might wanna go check out Mr. Cook in (the original) Bedazzled, or if you can find them, check out Beyond the Fringe, Behind the Fridge, Not Only But Also and other sundry bits of comedic genius. You shan't be disappointed.
In the future everyone will have their own TV show, right?
Books
My Irish/French blood might explain some of the authors and books I love, and I'm also (according to Grandma) one-sixteenth Cherokee. So what say we tip our hats to Sequoyah, inventor of the Cherokee alphabet (and one mighty sharp dresser!)
OK, now let's talk lit... as a boy I was a serious reading junkie: Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll, Spiderman. Also when I was a kid they used to print these weird but exciting Classics Illustrated comics, which would condense the entirety of like Moby Dick or A Tale of Two Cities down to about forty pages, (which was mostly really cool artwork, plus ads for X-Ray spex in the back).
In my teens and twenties it was all about Kerouac, Burroughs, and The Beats, Rimbaud, Kafka, Hesse, Fitzgerald, Kesey, Hunter S Thompson and such. And Dostoevsky, for sure. When I was at Berkeley I saw Ginsberg, Corso, McClure, Robert Duncan, and poetry heavyweights like that read at the Greek Theatre. (In fact I haltingly went up to the author of Howl and shook his weird, genius hand). Also discovered Pynchon around then... that was fun! Borges was a revelation, and those odd translations of ancient Chinese poetry by Pound tripped me out.
I once lived in a cheap hotel on University Avenue for a few weeks with only a fat hardback collection of the old beatnik bible, The Evergreen Review to keep me company. From there I found out about Celine, Camus, Djuna Barnes, Anais Nin, The Story of O, Terry Southern, the Surrealist poets like Eluard and Desnos, and the New York School, especially Ashbery.
A handful of essays by Aldous Huxley and Susan Sontag changed my head quite a bit, and I can definitely relate to certain things Joan Didion writes. Raymond Chandler, JG Ballard, Phillip K Dick, Robert Anton Wilson will all give your brain a very entertaining work-out. All the PG Wodehouse Wooster & Jeeves stories are jolly good!
Oh, hey, I mentioned The Beatles up above, and there's an incredible book on the Fab Four called Revolution in the Head by Ian McDonald. I think it's out of print, but you oughtta check it out via Amazon etc.. The Botany of Desire and Fast Food Nation are relatively recent books that'll likewise get the wheels turning. Just got a fantastic book about Wallace Berman (do you know him?), and his inspiring circle of fellow Rebels With a Cause called Semina Culture.
I guess if push came to shove my most favorite-ist all-time novelists would be Henry James, Nabakov, and Flaubert. Oh, and Joyce. Definitely poor old blind Jimmy Joyce.
Heroes
That would be the late, great Terence McKenna hovering blythly above this sentence. Is everybody here hip to Terence's contribution to Next Millenium thinking?
If not, here's a sample:
Anyway, I highly recommend you check out his wikipedia entry, or maybe go here:
...then do yourself a favor (really, it's strange fun) and find some of his recorded talks scattered around the internet and elsewhere. (The books are OK, but it's better to listen.) Then, if and when you get a feel for what McKenna's saying, this next little item can be more interesting than trying to roll those two little bbs in the clown's eyes:
Immerse yourself in this little invention of T McK's for a while and I betcha you and I will have s0m3 5TufF to talk about. That said, I'd like to add that I had the pleasure to know Terence slightly, and I'm pretty sure he would have scoffed and laughed at the notion of anybody seriously considering him a "hero".
People like Quanah Parker, Mary Wollstonecraft, Daniel Berrigan or Rosa Parks, these are real heroes, right? Fighting the good fight, and understanding that risking everything when it's the only course your spirit can accept is no risk at all. Or how about Harry Smith? A modern day alchemist disguised as a weirdo ragpicker who magically altered the course of Western Civilization by transforming it's unwanted trash into musical gold, (then turned Allen Ginsberg on to pot for an encore). That's pretty heroic.
Anyway, it's rather a loaded term. When I was a kid, I guess Muhammed Ali was a hero, and so was Bob Dylan. Later I pinned pictures of Johnny Rotten and Shelley on the dashboard of my car. I used to idealize historical figures like William Blake and Baudelaire; and visionary 20th century thinkers like Jung, Norman O. Brown, and Noam Chomsky have probably influenced the way I see life and this world.
I'm thinking maybe it'd be unwise to have any heroes at this stage, but I definitely do admire people who have a bit of vision and courage, and are willing to use it toward challenging the status quo, (assuming of course they're not standing in quicksand themselves).
I also have BIG respect for any person's attempts to transform his or her self by raising their own awareness, reaching toward new levels of being and expression. Whether successfully or struggling along at the task day by day. By that standard there are many, many people worthy of being considered "heroes".
OK, well... just so we understand each other, I'm not nearly as serious as this profile is gonna make me appear. I mean, nobody can go on about themselves like this without looking just a little absurd. But it's cool, so when you read this, maybe picture me smiling. (And/or crossing my fingers).
Personality-wise, file me under: natural introvert who has managed to balance out that tendency with a few extrovert excercises such as singing in front of crowds of people, hosting festivals, etc.
I'm generally optimistic; with occasional bouts of shoulder shrugging and exclamations of "What fools these mortals be!"
I'd say I'm very loyal, sometimes to a fault, and like to be generous whenever possible.
According to the Enneagram thingy, I'm a 2 with like a 4 rising (or however that works). I don't really know much about it, but I do throw the I Ching from time to time.
By nature I root for (and identify with) the underdog, and am drawn to those who feel the same.
Admirable, crab-like Cancerican tenacity... or just plain stubborn? You be the judge.
Please keep me far, far way from intolerant proselytizing, grasping selfishness, authoritarian bluster and willful ignorance.
Once in a blue moon you'll find me getting up on my high horse and leading the charge... (paints quite a picture, eh?!)
I tend to keep late hours.
Like DaVinci, Jimi Hendrix and, uh, Sparky Lyle, I'm left-handed.
I realize that, to a large degree, I'm a product of West Coast culture of late 20th century America. I was educated at Berkeley, I lived in Los Angeles for a dozen years, and my spirit feels most at home in California, particularly the northern half of the state, where I was born and where I've returned. I find the combination of social tolerance, culture, weather, and natural beauty pretty hard to top.
I've fallen very much in love with my adopted hometown of Nevada City. I'd sing it's praises, but we like to keep it a secret around here. And just a few hours drive in this direction or that you'll find yourself arriving in equally amazing places like Big Sur, Point Reyes, Napa, the redwood forests, etc.
I also retain an emotional connection to the Central Valley of California where I grew up; the long, flat, fog-shrouded horizons in winter dotted by gnarly, broad-limbed, sage-looking old oaks, a mellow night-breeze blowing off the delta after a scorching, triple-digit summer day.
OK, so I have a tendency to romanticize things, but I can laugh about it all (and myself) at the same time.
I feel that I am learning to embrace contradiction, and unlearning the "either/or" mindset.
Not to pretend we can sum everything up in a nice, neat package, but when I'm able to get my mind in that "certain place" I sometimes can view life as a fantastic, Arabian Nights-type story that we're all simultaneously telling and being told.
If you sometimes see it that way too, there's a good chance you and I would get along just fine.
hmmm. MySpace is pretty darn smart! We DO have friends in common AND my Grandfather, father and younger sister were all born in Nevada City.. I lived in Grass Valley for a short time and spent ALOT of time in Nevada City growing up. Not to mention, Jerry, Linda, are Eric are like familly to me and I was a brides maid in Kelly's wedding. Yeah, we have probably met at some point. Thanks for the friend request! ~Ashli
jeffrey-san! the new album is fantastic! honored to be a part of it. such good times at prairie sun flashing back while listening. beautiful!! save me a seat at the mecca...
Jeffrey ,Thank you SO much for all your hard work and hospitality this past weekend! It was wonderful to meet you and all the folks in your community! I feel blessed and you are a real saint! I look forward to my next visit to your magical town and hanging out with you and all your groovy friends! Blessings to you!
It was a rare treat beholding you the other night! I wish that'd happen a bit more... Hope you had a grand night at Old Eye and dew drop in sooner rather than later!
hello my dear friend!!! thanks so much for all your support and encouragement..esp recently as i seem to be climbing through several rungs of Hell. ha ha. here is a close-up of the latest painting....come check out the rest of it on my page. Sam xx detail from SEGUE, 48" x 64", oil and varnish on canvas, 2008.
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