Witches in Love - Lyrics

WITCHES IN LOVE BY JEROME LEBEL (OCTOBER 2008)

LYRICS

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1. MADNESS ON THE BALCONY

She loves herself on the balcony
Above the trees
Made so blue
by the neon spectres

Turning her head inside she sees a picture of God looking at the empty apartment
Looking at her, she feels
Feeling her wants, she feels
He could be
gripping her by her body
Throw her around
Not so far
Not at the end
Where we all live and all love and all hate
and most definitely end up unsure about reality itself

"I’ll always remember him" she says
"He drove so fast to get to my despair
poor man he was and is
no more money for the trips
no money for food
but he doesn’t need any
strange people might want his mind
his blood or whatever else
but they’ll never get it
not any of it"
"Madness makes me feel that way," she says
"That funny teary way
that funny teary way"

"Now that he is with everyone
madness makes me love everyone," she says
Now that he is with everyone

"Now that he is with everyone
madness makes me love everyone," she says
Now that he is with everyone

She loves herself on the balcony
Above the trees
Made so blue
by the neon spectres

"Now that he is with everyone
madness makes me love everyone," she says


© 2008 Jerome Lebel

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2. PRESS HARD

Desperation, desperation
As acne appears up on your face
So you press
So you press your lips against your mirror
then go to bed thinking about prostitutes in the nude waiting in a park at night

Go ahead
Pop your zits
Watch the blood
This is your blood
Love it
Love it
Be your only lover
Do what you do best
Masturbate
in your small pornographic room where the light that sometimes makes its way in
turns you into a choice maker
Masturbate
as you imagine
a neighbourhood of people
making tender love to you
perhaps making hateful nasty love to you instead as you strangely derive pleasure when they hate what you are or where your are from or, you know,
what your parents believe

Hide your blemishes
with your sister’s skin cream
She is dead
You don’t feel her spirit
Memory is all that the light provides
Your brain
your neurons
are all that you have

Scream at the night
The stars are so far away that it stretches you beyond your humanity
What is happening to your teeth?
They bite the inside of
your mouth and your tongue is swollen like your genitals were minutes ago
Open the window
and if you had thought about enhancing your masturbatory pleasures with a rope around your neck
the cool September air would have traces of you and it would be your place
it would be all yours, all yours

Next spring you will be so pretty
All this blood and pus
On your mind it will no longer be a surplus
Where you might go it will no longer be a surplus

Be your only lover

Next spring you will be so pretty
All this blood and pus
On your mind it will no longer be a surplus
Where you might go it will no longer be a surplus

Be your only lover

Next spring you will be so pretty

So pretty


© 2008 Jerome Lebel


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3. DRAGON FIRE

She would like to love
to like the dead dragon that fell close to the house
of a boy she would like to love with a love that burns

He would like to love
to like the dead dragon that fell close to the house
of a girl he would like to love with a love that burns

When her parents smile at her
The closeness almost makes her want to speak
Her ambitions and her fiery desire for secret affection
On Friday parties of poetry exchange the girls there
make her forget about indecisions

He is with the boys and he loves to be there
When walking on the pavement with girls he also loves
But not a love that burns like the fire of the dragon
But not a love that burns like the fire of the dragon

This summer a kitten was born behind the barn
Under a very tall and very green tree
When boys and girls look at themselves
Well they wonder
"Will it take us as much time as the life of the feline to accept the way we exist?"

This summer a kitten was born behind the barn
Under a very tall and very green tree
When boys and girls look at themselves
Well they wonder
"Will it take us as much time as the life of the feline to accept the way we exist?"


© 2008 Jerome Lebel


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4. ENDURE BEING PURE

You are so pure for yourself
So dedicated to invisible people
Malcontent with what they were, when they were alive
They eerily inhabit your body
They eerily make your face melt in shyness
Hot and red
When you are with people and it is time to touch them romantically and then go to bed
No intimacy
No love from others
No money
No love from others
No respect from others
But you are so pure and you have so much love
for yourself
The people living in your head have this precious burning
mission for you
You keep yourself so pure
they want your self-love to endure
Your self-love
Your self-love


© 2008 Jerome Lebel

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5. DARK BLUE

He is living in the basement
He has seen the cosmos
He has seen so many stars

So many stars
Outside all his windows
On the TV screen
On the TV shows

He has seen the stars
He has seen the sex stars
On screen

Living in mother’s basement
It is just like a sombre womb
Mouth wide open
Mouth wide open
Saliva, saliva dripping slowly in your bedroom
These women he sees having sex outside all his windows
Making paid and hard love on screen
"They speak to me" he says
"Ooh, the cosmos it speaks to me", he says

He has seen the dark blue colours of winter
The dark blue colours of death
His family is slowly dying and the kids and teenagers he knew,
so long ago, are getting older and greyer
They are flying to the future
To the grave
Where he feels he needs to be brave just to put his hand
on the door knob
and set a foot into another dimension

While he feels he needs to be brave just to put his hand
on the door knob
and set a foot into another dimension


© 2008 Jerome Lebel


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6. SWOLLEN (INSTRUMENTAL)

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7. NIGHT SMILE

Many cars were arriving at the heart of the city
I watched it all on an empty TV, disintegrating in poverty
Jesus was speaking inside my heart
Jesus only lives inside hearts because science rightfully put him there where he belongs and lives in peace
and speaks to the only organ that is fit for his messages
But I was not in peace, you see,
as I watched all of you on my mental screen
Psychologically these awful judgmental words came to me:

"I can smell the aroma of vanity from the dirty black box
You are sadly limitless
Beauty fixed many times all for your perception of a dull society that buys your glory
And let us not forget your purses
Beloved handbags
where you keep abundant money which allows for the pursuit of jewellery"
Hardwired machines of vanity

Slow depth
Perhaps no depth
Slow warmth
Perhaps no warmth
There may be nothing
Just lipstick
Just a night smile
If I were in a good position, I would refute you, I would refuse you and the hopelessness that comes with your vileness

Just a night smile
If I were in a good position, I would refute you, I would refuse you and the hopelessness that comes with you vileness


There may be nothing
Just lipstick
Just a night smile
If I were in a good position, I would refute you, I would refuse you and the hopelessness that comes with you vileness



© 2008 Jerome Lebel


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8. LOOPS OF TENDERNESS

Each and every muscle loves attention
A punch to release tension
Each and every muscle loves
its biology
It needs heat in order to feel pleasure
Given gently by brain chemistry

Each and every muscle is released
at the crepuscle
Owls are beautiful
Owls are beautiful

© 2008 Jerome Lebel

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9. WATCHING DREAMS AND GUILT

You have chosen to be electricity
Wires around your wrists, imposed by those who enjoyed their popularity
Fires, menstrual blood, monstrous blood are what you unleashed
First you let them
Yeah you let them do it to you

Joys
Joys of imaginary dreamy sickly love
with someone so far gone
so creepy that now she has become electricity
blasphemously dropping out of the system
but perversely staying there where I make some space for my feelings

Watching dreams is like watching guilt
You are there
shaking, vibrating, electric and malevolent in the way your body dances in movement
The girl that was electric and humanly indecent

Her eyes nervous, nervously wanting everything
I saw it in the flash of time it took me to see
the news reels featuring small stories about small lives,
there was a priest, a parapsychologist and people who were there to love her
love her in fear and suspicion

Her eyes
Nervous and contentious
Her eyes
Have set the fires at the school
Her eyes
Have set the fires at the party
where flesh is burned in retaliation for humiliation
As hands gently wrapped her face she may never admit her misdirection

Ooh female electricity that causes terror
Ooh female electricity that causes terror
Electric girl who caused terror
The electric girl who likes to provoke the fervour of terror


© 2008 Jerome Lebel

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10. CHESTER

I am not crazy
Teachers
Ouija boards
And obsessive compulsive disorders
I am normal please
Yes I am

I wish for schizophrenia
I wish for your love
I wish for illness
I hold a pen that illuminates my parents' life
but only them
I placed my heart in this place so dim
With a sick smile I felt a dim spirit
Possessing my life
I am poor of heart
Creepy chester friend
You are as damp as my mind is
I am poor of heart
Creepy chester friend

Candles that turn my hopes into eerie smoke
as you laugh inside my head

Probably laughing at humanity
and, evil spirit, at your own cruelty

Like children we will play games
No we won’t
Before the light slaps you and takes you out of my playground
As long as you hide my pills
I will always remember you

Distorting everything
Now you want to possess the sweet girl across my house
then undress robotically but without your disfiguring anger

I will never watch this
Not tonight
Not in five thousand years

As long as you hide my pills
I will always remember you


© 2008 Jerome Lebel

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http://www.jeromelebelmusic.com

To download all my work for free

Go to this address to download all my work for free:


http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=jerome%20lebel

Records in the work

I've got two projects going on these days. One is an EP titled "Fascination for Affection EP Remix Vol. 1" and it's going to be ready in a couple of months.

The other is a new LP titled "Witches in Love" ; again, due in a couple of months.

You can hear and download "Distant Parents remix" from "Fascination for Affection EP Remix Vol. 1" on my MySpace page. Also, you can hear and download "Madness on the Balcony" from "Witches In love" on my MySpace page.

SpiralFrog.com

SpiralFrog.com is getting better and better these days. More and more music is added constantly and the selection is becoming interesting.

The Gym and Stem Cells + Possum Christ (Marc Maron)

The Gym and Stem Cells



Possum Christ

Cats and Politics with Marc Maron

Dead cat in our backyard

On Friday the 13th of this month, a cat came to die in our small backyard. It was a stray cat that often came by our backyard. The cat was very skinny and was quite nervous, he would run around behind our small house and then leave as fast as he came in. On that Friday, in the afternoon, my parents and I saw him lying in the grass face down.

It was obvious that something wasn't right. As we approached, we saw flies all around his body and it was clear that he was dead... Gone... It was only my second time seeing a dead cat in real life, the first time was when my beloved first feline (a queen that had had many offspring) died when I was about 14 years old. This stray cat was probably ill with something as his body was not damaged or mutilated. My father and I dug a hole in the ground and buried it. It was out of the question for me to throw his remains with the garbage.

Marc Maron and his cats

Marc Maron, one of my favorite comedians.

Video for "A Theatre On Fire"

I've made a video for the song "A Theatre On Fire" using a couple of pictures along with some images I've made using MS Paint.

Me... Two

Originality?

I don't know if it's better to make something mediocre that comes from you than to be extremely skilled and able to copy genius. A derivative work can have value, I guess.
Making a painting that's an exact copy of the Mona Lisa certainly takes some talent and skills. But at the end of the day, it is a copy. Is it better to make something mediocre that comes from you than to copy a particular band/artist that's truly great and make a skilled but very derivative piece of work? I'm not sure...

Emo. Emotions. What's so wrong with people?

People are bizarre sometimes, I should know because I'm quite bizarre myself. There is a joke circulating online that goes like this: "I wish my lawn was emo so it would cut itself." Funny? Here is what I say (if you care): "Be grateful your lawn is not 'gangsta rap' or it would cut YOU, your MOTHER and your GRANDMOTHER TOO!


Why is it that online and on TV (particularly American TV) people mock teenage boys who cry, who are not afraid to say they care about their girlfriends and that they are emotionally hurt by breakups. We live in cynical times and regardless of emo music and what some think of it, we have to admit that, in some ways it is reassuring to see young people who still care about something, who are not afraid to cry. Instead of being cynical and laughing it off after a breakup, they let it all out. They cry tears instead of bullets. Isn't that nice? Roland Orzabal said "Shout! Shout! Let it all out!", Morrissey said "It's so easy to laugh, it's so easy to hate, it takes strength to be gentle and kind." Of course these 'emo' guys can seem ridiculous in a screwed-up culture where being a thug is more accepted than being sensitive or 'whiny' or whatever.



What would people prefer? A 'masculine' thug who walks into a school with a gun and kills a bunch of innocent people or a 'wussy' teenager who cuts his wrists in his bedroom?
Which one is more dangerous or more lovable for that matter? Why is having self-inflicted scars more contemptible or ridiculous than being a bully or a violent athlete who pushes people around. People need to wake up.
Troubled youths need help to turn their lives around and 'gangsta rap' should be banned in all countries that deem themselves civilized but for God's sake, stop mocking the harmless 'emo' guys who cut themselves in their bedrooms... And stop giving 'respect' to people who use violence and intimidation towards others, especially when these people are over the age of 12 and should know better.

Dan Naturman -- funny comedy routine

Me

I wish my skin was as thick as my eyeglasses.
Then again, maybe I don't care about that at all...
I never wear makeup by the way, so my medication-induced blemishes are there for all to see.

Giving your music away... Right or Wrong?

There are lots of musicians online who think giving your music away is "pathetic" and wrong. It makes you look "desperate" they say. There is so much music online, both from "official" artists, meaning those on labels... By the way I may be wrong on that one, maybe everyone who makes music can be considered "official" in some way. But I think that from the public's perspective, it makes a big difference when an artist/band is on a label. They take the artist or band more seriously. Getting reviewed on websites/newspapers/magazines also make you "someone" in the eyes of almost everyone.

So... There are a ton of bands/artists out there, both signed and unsigned, or those who don't care about being on a label, who don't mind giving it for free in the hopes of an audience, however small (I am probably one of them). When you factor in the almost unlimited volume of music online, who wouldn't get a bit "desperate" for an audience? Even a tiny audience can be quite hard to get. Giving your music away to stand even the slightest chance of being heard is not that bad of an idea if your ask me... I can only speak for myself but who am I to charge $10 for a CD when nobody knows me? Who am I to put a barrier between myself and the few people who might, just might be interested in my oddball, experimental and lo-fi record? Well, some people insist that you should value your music and putting a price tag on it values your material. Some music lovers would even turn down a CD made by an unknown artist that might be good but is sold at a low price tag because "it must be 'shit' if he's selling his record for less than X amount of dollars", they say: "show me you care about your music, up the price of that CD and I'll check it out." People who think like that are simply brainwashed to me. And... They're probably older too -- young people don't seem to enjoy music any less regardless of where they get it and for what amount they get it for. My guess is also that some musicians -- particularly older ones -- think that giving your music for free is "playing dirty." In a way they are right, but then again if some people are interested in what I do and I give it away, it means they have more money in their pockets for other people's music.

In a world where 60% of people chose to download a masterpiece like "In Rainbows" without paying a dime, the likelihood of a totally unknown unsigned artist selling high numbers of CD's or downloads off CDBaby or ITunes is low -- if you can sell any at all. If most people did not want to pay for Radiohead, I am sure they would not part with their money for my material and many other people's material. I am not saying this is a perfect situation, but this is the situation we are in now. Being heard by 100 people is more important to me than selling 10 CD's. Being heard by 1000 people is more important to me than selling 100 CD's. I am not judging the unknown unsigned artists who want who sell their music. If they can manage to sell records even when well known artists are having trouble selling theirs, more power to them. Just don't judge those who decide to do otherwise with their material. In many ways, the music industry is in dire condition but I'd rather try to surf the wave than to be drowned by it. My music is free to be shared by anyone who cares about it.

WIRED article -- Very important and thought-provoking article

The Rise and Fall of the Hit
The era of the blockbuster is so over. The niche is now king, and the entertainment industry – from music to movies to TV – will never be the same.
By Chris Anderson


On March 21, 2000, Jive Records released No Strings Attached, the much-anticipated second album from NSync. The album debuted strong. It sold 1.1 million copies its first day and 2.4 million in the first week, making it the fastest-selling album ever. It went on to top the charts for eight weeks, moving 10 million copies by the end of the year. The music industry had cracked the commercial code. With NSync, a pop-idol boy band fronted by the charismatic Justin Timberlake, Jive had perfected the elusive formula for making a hit. In retrospect it was so obvious: What worked for the Monkees could now be replicated on an industrial scale. It was all about looks and scripted personalities. The music itself, which was outsourced to a small army of professionals (there are 60 people credited with creating No Strings Attached), hardly mattered.

Labels were on a roll. Between 1990 and 2000, album sales had doubled, the fastest growth rate in the history of the industry. Half of the top-grossing 100 albums ever were sold during that decade.

But even as NSync was celebrating its huge launch, the ground was shifting. Total music sales fell during 2000, for only the second time in a decade. Over the next few years, even after the economy recovered, the music industry continued to suffer. Something fundamental had changed. Sales fell 2.5 percent in 2001, 6.8 percent in 2002, and just kept dropping. By the end of 2005 (down another 8.3 percent), album sales in the US had declined 20 percent from their 1999 peak. Twenty-one of the all-time top 100 albums were released in the five-year period between 1996 and 2000. The next five years produced only two – Norah Jones’ Come Away With Me and OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below – ranking 79 and 91, respectively.

It’s altogether possible that NSync’s first-week record may never be broken. The band could go down in history not just for launching Timberlake but also for marking the peak of the hit bubble – the last bit of manufactured pop to use the 20th century’s fine-tuned marketing machine to its fullest before the gears were stripped and the wheels fell off.

Music itself hasn’t gone out of favor – just the opposite. There has never been a better time to be an artist or a fan, and there has never been more music made or listened to. But the traditional model of marketing and selling music no longer works. The big players in the distribution system – major record labels, retail giants – depend on huge, platinum hits. These days, though, there are not nearly enough of those to support the industry in the style to which it has become accustomed. We are witnessing the end of an era.

What caused a generation of the industry’s best customers – fans in their teens and twenties – to abandon the record store? The labels cried piracy: Napster and other online file-sharing networks, along with CD burning and trading, had given rise to an underground economy of stolen music. Of course, there’s something to that. Despite countless record-industry lawsuits, traffic on the peer-to-peer file-trading networks has continued to grow, and about 10 million users now share music files each day.

But technology didn’t just allow fans to sidestep the cash register. It also offered massive, unprecedented choice in terms of what they could hear. The average file-trading network has more songs than any music store – by a factor of more than 100. Music fans had the opportunity for limitless choice, and they took it. Today, listeners have not only stopped buying as many CDs, they’re also losing their taste for the blockbuster hits that used to bring throngs into record stores on release day. If they have to choose between a packaged act and something new, more and more people are opting for exploration.

Technology also gave consumers a new way to buy music. Rather than having to purchase an entire album to get a couple of good tracks, they can buy songs à la carte for 99 cents each. The online music industry is primarily a singles business, which depresses album sales further. Meanwhile, the music marketing machine has lost its power. When consumers were buying mainly from record stores, prominent in-store displays could drive tremendous demand, which is why the labels paid so much for them. But now most of the largest record store chains, from Tower Records to Sam Goody, are either in bankruptcy or emerging from it with greatly diminished clout. MTV doesn’t play much music anymore, and money-losing Spin magazine was just, well, spun off for a fire-sale sum.

When it comes to lost marketing power, nothing compares to the decline of rock radio. In 1993, Americans spent an average of 23 hours and 15 minutes per week tuned to a local station. As of summer 2005, that figure had dropped to 19 hours and 15 minutes. Time spent listening to the radio is now at a 12-year low, and rock music is among the formats suffering the most. Since 1998, the rock radio audience has dropped 26 percent. What’s killing rock radio? A perfect storm of competition. Start with the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which added more than 700 FM stations to the dial. This fragmented the market and depressed the economics of the incumbents. At the same time, the limits of ownership in each market were relaxed, which led to a nationwide rollup by Clear Channel and Infinity, whose operating efficiencies included bringing cookie-cutter playlists to once-distinctive local stations.

Then came the cell phone, which gave people something else to do during their commutes. And finally, the iPod, the ultimate personal radio. With 10,000 of your favorite songs on tap, who needs FM?

Practically every other sector of mass media and entertainment has witnessed a similar shift away from hits. Last year the Hollywood box office take fell 6 percent, continuing a decline in attendance per capita that started in 2001. The average top 25 blockbusters in any given year so far this decade have accounted for 5 percent less of the total box office gross than in the 1990s, even as they’ve cost 57 percent more to make.

Network TV ratings continue to fall as viewers scatter to cable channels; since 1985, the networks’ share of the TV audience has dropped from three-quarters to less than half. Ratings of the top TV shows have fallen dramatically since the 1960s. Today’s top-rated show, American Idol, is watched by just 18 percent of households. During the ’70s, American Idol wouldn’t even have made it to the top 10 with that kind of market share. Collectively, the hundreds of cable channels have now surpassed the networks in total viewership. No single one dominates.

Even television mega-events have lost their allure. In 2005, the World Series had its worst TV ratings of all time, 30 percent lower than the previous year. Ratings for the NBA playoffs last year reached record lows as well, down 43 percent from 2004. The ratings for the Grammy Awards in 2006 were down 31 percent from two years ago. And the Winter Olympics this year had their lowest ratings in 38 years, down 36 percent from the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City.

The trend holds for other media. Just 52 percent of Americans read a daily newspaper, compared with 81 percent four decades ago. Magazine newsstand sales are at their lowest level since 1970. And the number of weeks the average best-selling novel remains at the top of the list has fallen by half over the past decade.

Before you shed too many tears for the declining hit, remember that the era of the blockbuster was an anomaly. Before the Industrial Revolution, culture was mostly local – niches were geographic. The economy was agrarian, which distributed populations as broadly as the land. Distance divided people, giving rise to such diversity as regional accents and folk music, and the lack of rapid transportation and communications limited the mixing of cultures and the propagation of ideas and trends.

Influences varied from town to town, because the vehicles for carrying common culture were so limited. There was a reason the church was the main cultural unifier in Western Europe: It had the best distribution infrastructure and, thanks to Gutenberg’s press, the most mass-produced item (the Bible).

But in the early 19th century, modern industry and the growth of the railroad system led to a wave of urbanization and the rise of Europe’s great cities. These new hives of commerce and hubs of transportation mixed people like never before, creating a powerful engine of new culture. All it needed was mass media to give it flight.

In the mid- to late 19th century, several technologies emerged to do just that. First commercial printing technology improved and went mainstream. Then the new “wet plate” technique made photography popular. Finally, in 1877, Edison invented the phonograph. These developments led to the first great wave of pop culture, carried by such media as newspapers and magazines, novels, printed sheet music, records, and children’s books.

Along with news, newspapers spread word of the latest fashions from the urban style centers of New York, London, and Paris. Then, at the end of the 19th century, the moving picture gave the stars of stage a way to play many towns simultaneously and reach a much wider audience. Such potent carriers of culture had the effect of linking people across time and space, effectively synchronizing society. For the first time, it was a safe bet that not only did your neighbors read the same news you read in the morning and know the same music and movies, people across the country did too.

We are a gregarious species, highly influenced by what others do. And film was a medium that could not only show us what other people were doing but could endow it with such an intoxicating glamour that it was hard to resist. It was the dawn of the celebrity age.

The arrival of broadcast media – first radio, then TV – homogenized our adulation even more. The power of electromagnetic waves is that they spread in all directions essentially for free, a trait that made them as mind-blowing when they were introduced as the Internet would be some 60 years later. Broadcast emerged as the best vehicle for stardom ever.

From 1935 through the 1950s, the Golden Age of Radio led to the rise of national broadcast celebrities like Edward R. Murrow. Then television took over. By 1953, an astounding 72 percent of TV households watched I Love Lucy on Monday night.

This marked the peak of the so-called water-cooler effect, the buzz in the office around a shared cultural event. In the 1950s and 1960s, nearly everyone you worked with had seen Walter Cronkite read the news the previous night, and then tuned in to whatever top program followed: The Beverly Hillbillies, Gunsmoke, The Andy Griffith Show.

Throughout the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, even as more channels arrived, television continued to be the great American unifier. Nearly every year, TV advertising set a new record as companies paid more and more for prime time. And why not? Prime-time TV defined the mainstream.

Then came the great unraveling. A new medium arose, one even more powerful than broadcast, and its distribution economics favored infinite niches, not one-size-fits-all fare. The Internet’s peer-to-peer architecture is optimized for a symmetrical traffic load, with as many senders as receivers and data transmissions spread out over geography and time. In other words, it’s the opposite of broadcast.

It will take decades for our entertainment industries to internalize the lessons of this shift. If your goal is to make a hit movie – but not necessarily a good movie – you must follow the Hollywood rules. Do pay as much as you can for the biggest-name star you can lure to the project. Don’t try to be “too smart.” Do have a happy ending. Don’t kill off the star. If it’s an action movie (and, all things being equal, it probably should be an action movie), more effects are better than fewer. Certainly it’s possible to break these rules and still have a hit, but why take chances? After all, you’re investing a lot of money.

This hit-driven mindset has leaked out of Hollywood boardrooms and into our national culture. We have been conditioned by the economic demands of the hit machine to expect nothing less. We have internalized the bookkeeping of entertainment risk capital. This is why we follow weekend box office results like we do professional sports – to keep score and separate the clear winners from the seemingly obvious losers.

Fixated on star power, we follow the absurd lives of A-listers with attention that far exceeds our interest in their work. From superstar athletes to celebrity CEOs, we ascribe disproportionate attention to the very top of the heap. We have been trained, in other words, to see the world through a hit-colored lens.

If it’s not a hit, then it’s a miss. It has failed the economic test and, therefore, never should have been made. This Hollywood mindset is now how we allocate space on store shelves, fill time slots on television, and build radio playlists. It’s all about allocating scarce resources to the most “deserving,” which is to say, the most popular.

Ultimately, our response to hit culture is to reinforce hit culture. The world of shelf space is a zero-sum game: One product displaces another. Forced to choose, each link in the entertainment industry naturally selects the most popular products, giving them privileged placement. By putting our commercial weight behind the big winners, we amplify the gap between them and everything else. Economically, this is the same as saying, “If there can be only a few rich, let them at least be super-rich.”

But now the audience is turning to a distribution medium that doesn’t favor the hits alone. We are abandoning the tyranny of the top and becoming a niche nation again, defined not by our geography but by our interests. Instead of the weak connections of the office water cooler, we’re increasingly forming our own tribes, groups bound together more by affinity and shared interests than by broadcast schedules. These days our water coolers are increasingly virtual – there are many different ones, and the people who gather around them are self-selected.

The mass market is yielding to a million minimarkets. Hits will always be with us, but they have lost their monopoly. Blockbusters must now compete with an infinite number of niche offerings, which can be distributed just as easily. Justin Timberlake still makes albums, but today he has thousands of bands on MySpace as rivals. The hierarchy of attention has inverted – credibility now rises from below. MTV and Tower Records no longer decide who will win. You do.

Adapted from The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More, copyright © 2006 Chris Anderson, to be published by Hyperion in July. Chris Anderson (canderson@wiredmag.com) is Wired's editor in chief.

Labels

If I was in better shape, socially and mentally, would I stand a chance of being on a label? NOT A DAMN CHANCE, like the vast majority of artists...

I sometimes browse through the TAXI listings to see what kind of artists/bands are wanted by the labels...

Well, all the labels that I look at (all indie labels, with which I would stand a better chance given my style) want so much it's almost funny. They want an artist/band with an already large established fan base, CD sales, live shows, a lot of internet buzz etc. I read a funny post the other day on a message board concerning labels and someone said that these days, a label is only interested in you if you are at a point where you almost don't need them. The label listings on TAXI often contain smile inducing contradictions. Label guys will say, for example, that they want someone well ahead of the current musical trend. An "avant-garde" artist. Then, you read a bit further and they backtrack on what they said. Example: "You have to be well ahead of the current musical trends" or be "quite original" BUT STAY WITHIN WHAT IS CURRENTLY POPULAR or YOU MUST BE RELEVANT TO TODAY'S SCENE. That's funny! And the labels all seem to want "strong hooks" and "good looks". After all, they want to "sell you" so that makes sense. They want artists/bands that sound like great bands though: Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Radiohead, The Shins, Wolf Parade etc. But something tells me they would much rather have the "The Bends" version of Radiohead than the "Kid A" version. They want "hooks" you know. Not that "The Bends" wasn't good, it was a true masterpiece but that's another topic.

Not a lot of them seem to want artists/bands that sound like Deerhunter or Fennesz. Too experimental. These artists are light-years ahead of me though...

Anybody can...

I sincerely believe that anybody can:

Write
Draw
Paint
Compose music


Anybody can make art. I can throw feces at the wall, you can throw feces at the wall, anybody can throw feces at the wall. And eventually something is going to stick. It's impossible that something, sooner or later, won't end up sticking on that wall. It might not be a big piece of feces. But it may be multiple tidbits and I or you or everyone can think they've ended up with something worth sharing. Is it worth sharing? I don't know... But I do know that everyone can write, paint, draw or compose music.

This blog is best viewed with Mozilla Firefox

My blog is really messed up when viewed with Internet Explorer.
Microsoft Internet Explorer is TRASH (or I can't code worth a dime:)).
There's no reason to use Explorer when a solid and great browser like FIREFOX is available.

Funny Woody Allen interview

Man tremendously high on meth... Very sad

From the show "COPS." This guy is totally out of his mind, totally amped on methamphetamine. On the positive side, at least one police officer seems to take good care of him.

Gorgeous cats...

Ronald David Laing -- Biography

Born in 1927 into a middle class Presbyterian family, Ronald David Laing spends his early life in Govanhill, Glasgow, attending the primary and secondary schools nearby. He has, essentially, a classical education becoming well versed in the cornerstones of Western intellectual thought. His early passions are reading and music and his first 'existential crisis' comes at the age of 5 when his parents reveal to him that Santa Claus is really them. This episode seems to resonate throughout the remainder of his life culminating in the title of the last book he was working on shortly before he died viz - The Lies of Love. There is contention as to how deprived these early years were, although there is general consensus that they were materially privileged, albeit, emotionally bleak. One saving grace in the equation seems to be the close musical relation that develops between Ronnie and his own father, David Park McNair, perhaps offsetting the more emotionally distant one with his mother, Amelia.

After completing secondary school, Laing attends Glasgow University (1945-51) studying medicine - ostensibly because it gives him access to the issues of birth and death - but simultaneously continues his philosophical education acquainting himself with the main contemporary thinkers, particularly in the continental tradition of phenomenology and existentialism. At the end of medical school his interests seem to be moving in the direction of neurology and psychiatry and his first post is for 6 months in the West of Scotland Neurosurgical Unit in nearby Killearn where the issue of lobotomy is a highly contentious and debated issue amongst the staff. At the end of this stint Ronnie conceives the idea of going to study with Karl Jaspers in Basel, but this is thwarted by his being called up into the British Army where he spends the next 2 years (1951-3) working as a psychiatrist. (It is here in Netley near Southhampton that he meets and marries his first wife, a nurse named Anne Hearne.) Thrust into a jungle of traditional psychiatric remedies - drugs, electroshoc., and insulin coma therapy - he begins to question the wisdom of these so-called 'treatments' - treatment he believes is how one treats another person - and rather spends his time listening to and talking with his patients, thus commencing his thinking that real treatment (real therapy) is an interpersonal phenomenon.

After leaving the army, Laing returns to Gartnavel Hospital in Glasgow (1953) where he completes his psychiatric training (1955) obtaining his Diploma in Psychological Medicine (or D.P.M., the forerunner of our present-day M.R.C.Psych - Member of the Royal College of Psychiatry) in early 1956. Here he conducts his first bit of research (known as the 'Rumpus Room') into what he was later to call 'social phenomenology' which provides some evidence for the hard fought lessons (re: the importance of interpersonal relations in the 'treatment' of 'chronic schizophrenia') learned in the army. In 1956 he takes up the post of senior registrar at the Southwestern Hospital under the tutelage of Professor Ferguson Rogers, and through the latter's link with Jock Sutherland, a Scottish psychoanalyst and director of the Tavistock clinic in London, Ronnie conceives the master plan of moving to tha big city, training as a psychoanalyst at the Institute, working as a registrar/senior registrar at the Tavistock Clinic and doing research into the families of 'schizophrenics' at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations. He arrives in London at the end of 1956, starts his training at the end of 1957 (completing it in 1960) going into analysis with Charles Rycroft (a member of the independent group) and having Marion Milner and Donald Winnicott as his supervisors. During this period he completes his first book The Divided Self An Existential Study of Madness and Sanity (completed at the end of 1957 and published in1960) which represents the culmination of his thinking over the previous 6 years, is based on the clinical studies he canied out in the army and subsequently in Glasgow, and focuses on the application of Existential/ phenomenological ideas to the so-called 'schizoid condition'. The author claims that Laing's overall aim at the end of this process is to be able to speak with the authority of a psychoanalyst, and, at the same time, to issue a challenge to the psychoanalytic movement by trying to persuade its members of the relevance of the existentia/phenomenological perspective to the understanding of mentally disturbed patients.

The years 1957-64 which prove to be a highly productive and intensely intellectual period in which Ronnie writes (either himself or as co-author) 6 highly influential books which would ultimately establish his growing reputation as a force to be reckoned with in the psychological field, and launch him on the road to fame. Beginning With The Divided Self 1960, ( a book which probably owes more to Kierkegaard than to Winnicott) and it's companion volume Self and Others, 1961, (the other half as it were, of The Divided Self) he moves on to co-author three books: (1) Sanity Madness and the Family, 1964, with fellow Glaswegian Aaron Esterson, which represents the results of their phenomenological research into the families of 'schizophrenics' at the Tavistock and gives rise, in the popular press, to the rather erroneous notion that what they were really saying was that families caused schizophrenia; (2) Interpersonal Perception (1966) with A.R. Lee and H. Phillipson - a rather important but somewhat less remembered work - which expands on his ideas about social (or interpersonal) phenomenology, provides the inspiration for his more popular book of a few years later (i.e. Knots, 1970, and is still used by the Tavistock today; (3) Reason and Violence: A decade of Sartre's philosophy 1950-60, 1964, a joint work with South African born fellow-psychiatrist David Cooper on the later works of Jean Paul Sartre. Sartre represents one of the main theoretical influences on Laing's thinking in the early 60's - the other one being the American studies on the communicational anomalies in the families of so-called 'schizophrenics'. By 1964, then, we see the beginning of the formation of Ronnie's public persona of guru and prophet, marked by a few appearances on national television, several articles about his work, and a number of talks and papers which he delivers at various conferences and are eventually brought together into a book entitled The Politics of Experience, 1967, a highly polemical selection which contains many of the quotations for which he became famous throughout the 60s and 70s. On the more personal side, it is during this period that Ronnie completes his first family - having 5 children in toto but as his public begins to ascend, so his private life begins to plummet.

The following years might be described as the period in Laing's life where he decides to put theory into practice (1965-71). After leaving the Tavi, and while still director of the Langham Clinic, he founded, with David Cooper, Aaron Esterson, John Heaton, Joan Cunnold, Sid Briskin, and Clancy Sigal a charitable organization, The Philadelphia Association, whose purpose is to provide true asylum for those people in such states of distress that they would otherwise receive treatment in a more traditional psychiatric hospital. Initially there are no formally structured therapeutic arrangements in the first household acquired (Kingsley Hall) and in fact there appears to be a deliberate attempt to break down the barrier between doctor and patient. Ronnie's hope is that the community will furnish evidence for his growing thesis that madness is not necessarily a breakdown, but may represent, potentially, a breakthrough into a more authentic way of being (i.e.- that it is a natural healing process with a beginning, middle, and end) re: the normal state of alienation to which the majority of us have succumbed. One resident of Kingsley Hall, Mary Barnes, seems to personify this central thesis of Laing's and writes about her experiences in a book she co-authors with her 'therapist', an American doctor named Joe Berke, entitled Two Accounts of A Journey Through Madness. This era, which sees Laing at the zenith of his fame, is also marked by the break-up of his first family and the commencement of his second with a young German woman, Jutta Werner. (He would eventually have three children with her). In addition the publication of The Politics of Experience, 1967, and his appearance in the same year at the Dialectics of Liberation conference organized by the Institute of Phenomenological Studies (represented by Cooper, Berke, and Redler) seems to confirm Ronnie's alleged membership in the New Left. But, in fact, he was angry with Cooper for having publicly identified him with the movement of 'anti-psychiatry' - a term coined by Cooper, (Adrian refers to this as the height of the 'Guru Wars') and just at the point where it was expected that Ronnie would write the definitive politics of mental health, he, in fact, withdraws from that domain - his interests becoming much more introspective and less concerned with schizophrenia, families, and radical psychiatry. Partly due to financial pressure, (according to the author), he publishes Knots, 1970, which becomes a highly successful book and acts as a transition for him to the more literary world of poetry. At this juncture Kingsley Hall closes and Laing decides the time is ripe for him to take a sabbatical year in Sri Lanka and India devoting himself to Theravedic Buddhist meditation. In preparation he closes his private practice in Wimpole St. (where, during the 60s, he had conducted sessions in LSD therapy), puts the finishing touches on The Politics of the Family, 1971, a small book containing a collection of talks given to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) in 1968, and essentially hands the reigns of the Philadelphia Association over to John Heaton (clinical supervision), Leon Redler (the study programme) and Sid Briskin (administration).

Then proceed Ronnie's life during the 70s and 80s. After his return from the east, he discovers that the London scene has changed. A new Philadelphia Association has virtually emerged (most of the original members having left and gone their separate ways), one which is somewhat less focused on families and schizophrenia and much more organized, with a wide-ranging study programme (drawing on the disciplines of phenomenology, psychoanalysis, anthropology (especially through the presence of Francis Huxley), yoga and meditation), and a training programme in individual and community psychotherapy. In addition, an 'RD.Laing industry' begins to emerge with a number of published secondary books in which the various authors jostle amongst themselves re: what R.D.Laing really meant and said (e.g.1.- A Fontana Modern Masters on Laing by Prof. Edgar Z. Friedenberg and 2.- Laing and Anti-psychiatry a Penguin compendium of articles edited by R Boyers and R Orrill). Laing decides that this is a good time to do a major lecture tour of the U.S. and when he returns his interests begin to crystallise around the politics of the birth process and the importance of intrauterine life. Inspired by the work of American psychotherapist Elizabeth Fehr, Ronnie begins to develop a team offering 'rebirthing workshops' in which one designated person chooses to re-experience the struggle of trying to break out of the birth canal represented by the remaining members of the group who surround him/her. This culminates in the publication of The Facts of Life, 1976, but without the same critical acclaim of some of his previous works (another work, The Politics of Birth, never sees the light of day), and with the identification of Ronnie as a proponent of natural birth.

By 1978, after the publication of Do You Really Love Me, 1977, and with two more small books on the way: Conversations with Children, 1978 and Sonnets, 1979, and with Ronnie's new interests taking him more into the orbit of humanistic psychology, the gulf between himself and those of his colleagues (Heaton, Chriss and Haya Oakley, Paul Zeal) within the Philadelphia Association more interested in a philosophically informed psychoanalysis begins to widen. The real turning point seems to come in 1980. Shortly after the death of one of his closest colleagues in the Philadelphia Association viz, Hugh Crawford, Ronnie attends a conference in Saragossa, Spain where, apparently, his wife has a short affair with a German lawyer, and when, he subsequently finds out about it 'all hell breaks loose', according to Adrian, and his drinking, which had increased throughout the 70s reaches 'unbearable new heights' (It is at this same conference that he meets American psychologist Roberta Russell who will eventually publish a book about him entitled RD.Laing and Me: Lessons in Love). After this, his behaviour, as experienced by a number of colleagues in the PA becomes intolerable and this culminates in his formal resignation as chairperson in 1981. In the aftermath of this Ronnie begins to gather a 'new crew' together and has in mind to start a new project, valiantly galvanized by Kevin O'Sullivan, and eventually called St. Oran's Trust'. He publishes The Voice of Experience in 1982 and the first half of his autobiography in Wisdom, Madness, and Folly in 1985. But by this point his marriage with Jutta has broken down and he spends the rest of his life together with his personal assistant of some 5 years standing Marguerita Romayne-­Kendon. They eventually move to the United States (1986) and return to a small town in Austria in 1988 where Ronnie spends his remaining days working on his last, and still unpublished, manuscript, The Lies of Love. By this point a number of incidents have led to his resignation from the General Medical Council (1987). He ultimately dies of a heart attack while playing tennis in the south of France.

All of the above is a rough synopsis of of the professional life of an extraordinarily spirited individual who saw through the sham, the love-lies, of so called normal, conventional, existence and envisioned (and enacted) a way of living and being that was much more truthful (and sometimes the truth hurts!) and authentic. (When he told David Cooper in the late 70s that there wasn't one of his so-called 'disciples' in the Philadelphia Association that was worth his or her salt, he meant it. And when he said, at the end of the 60s, as the author claims, that 'Kingsley Hall never happened' he probably meant that too). He challenged the orthodoxies (both in theory and in practice) of his profession and time precisely to the extent that they seemed to reinforce a desiccated version of quotidian existence. Of course this spiritedness potentially does have its dark or negative side. I hope I am not one of those 'die-hard Laingians' who appear to say that everything Ronnie Laing did and said was golden. But I do think it is important to appreciate the uniqueness of his spirit and the extraordinarily significant contribution he has made to psychiatry and psychology.

There remain a number of questions that are still unanswered. For example, what exactly was the evolution of Ronnie's critique of the whole medical model of psychiatry, i.e.- his challenge to the notion of 'mental illness' as such (not just the concept of schizophrenia). What precisely was Ronnie's approach to individual psychotherapy, a practice that he kept active alongside of his communal work in the PA? What can be derived from a close study of firsthand accounts of some of his 'patients' experience of therapy with him? The only published book I know of that describes his approach is Apollo Versus theEchomaker, 1992, by Anthony Lunt. Also what were the specific nature of those mysterious splits that led to the parting of the ways of people like Cooper, Schatzman, Berke, etc. And why did he ever decide to train in traditional psychoanalysis when he seems to have embraced more philosophical traditions? Even Charles Rycroft, Ronnie's analyst, in a recent public debate with Adrian admitted that it was still somewhat of a mystery to him why Ronnie had done so. These are certainly questions to which it would be nice to have answers.

by Stephen Ticktin,adapted from
a review of R.D. Laing: A Biography, by Adrian Laing


Chronology

7th October 1927. Born in Govanhill, Glasgow, Scotland. Only son of David McNair Laing and Amelia Laing nee Kirkwood. During the pregnancy, his mother constantly concealed the fact that she was pregnant by wearing a heavy overcoat whenever she went out. Ronald Laing claimed later to remember his moment of birth.

August 1932. Began to attend John Cuthbertson Primary School, Glasgow, aged four.

1936-1945. Attended Hutcheson's Boys' Grammar School, Glasgow, where he was an excellent student. Studied the Classics extensively. Learned Greek and Latin. Showed exceptional musical ability. Was elected as a Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music on 30th March 1944, and an associate of the Royal College of Music in April 1945. Read numerous works of philosophy while still at school, including Freud, Marx, Nietsche and especially Kierkegaard.

1945-51. Studied Medicine at Glasgow University. Prominent member of the university Debating Club and the Mountaineering Club. Met his first girlfriend, a French exchange student called Marcelle Vincent. Failed his final exams early 1950, which he successfully resat in December 1950. Spent a brief period as a houseman on a psychiatric ward, which inspired him to pursue psychiatry. During this period he met Aaron Esterson, with whom he later co-authored Sanity, Madness and the Family.

1951. Spent six months working as an internist at the Killearn Neurosurgical Unit, near Glasgow.

1951-53. Conscripted as an officer into the Royal Army Medical Corps. Posted to the British Army Psychiatric Unit, Netley, near Southampton, and then to the Military Hospital at Catterick, Yorkshire.

11th October 1952. Married his girlfriend Anne Hearne, who had become pregnant.

7th December 1952. His wife Anne gave birth to a girl whom they named, Fiona.

July 1953. Published a paper in the Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps - 'An Instance of the Ganser Syndrome.'

Late 1953-56. Left the army. Went to Gartnavel Royal Mental Hospital, Glasgow, to complete his psychiatric training. There he set up an experimental treatment setting - the 'Rumpus Room', where schizophrenic patients spent time in a comfortable room. Both staff and patients wore normal clothes, and patients were allowed to spent time doing activites such as cooking and art, the idea being to provide a setting where patients could respond to staff and each other in a social, rather than institutional setting. The patients all showed a noticable improvement in behaviour as a result of this. Later moved to a senior registrar's post at the Southern General Hospital.

September 1954. Laing's second daughter, Susan, was born.

November 1955. A third daughter, Karen, was born.

1st January 1956. Qualified as a psychiatrist.

May 1956. Read Colin Wilson's recently published book The Outsider, which he vowed to emulate. Began writing The Divided Self.

Late 1956. Appointed as a senior registrar at the Tavistock Clinic, London. Accepted for training as a psychoanalyst by the Institute of Psychoanalysis.

1957. A son, Paul was born.

1958. Began the research that led to Sanity, Madness and the Family. Also began a series of seminars that involved him with a number of people who were to go on to become important collaborators, including Aaron Esterson and David Cooper.

April 1958. Adrian Laing born.

1960. The Divided Self published by Tavistock Publications. The book received favourable reviews but at first did not sell well. Laing qualified as a psychoanalyst and set up a private practice at 21 Wimpole Street, London. Began to experiment with drugs, especially LSD.

1961. Self and Others published by Tavistock Publications.

Early 1962. Met Gregory Bateson, another important collaborator, while on a research trip in the United States. By this time his marriage was beginning to break up, and he began an affair with a Daily Express journalist called Sally Vincent. Appointed Clinical Director of the Langham Clinic in London.

1963. Began to appear in the popular media.

1964. Wrote most of the articles that were later compiled into The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise. Appeared on British television five times. Sanity, Madness and the Family, which had been co-authored with Aaron Esterson was published, as was Reason and Violence, which was co-authored with David Cooper. Met Timothy Leary in New York.

1965. Started another affair with a German graphics designer called Jutta Werner. The Divided Self, reissued by Penguin Books, became an immediate bestseller. Opened the Kingsley Hall project with Aaron Esterson, David Cooper and others. This was an experimental, non-hierarchical community, were schizophrenics were given space to work through their psychoses without resort to drugs, ECT or surgery. Inspiration came from Laing's 'Rumpus Room' project, Cooper's 'Villa 21', a community for schizophrenics with no distinctions made between staff and patients, and Esterson's experiences of a kibbutz for schizophrenics in Israel.

15th to 30th July 1967. Took part in the Dialectics of Liberation Congress, intended to bring together left wing politics and pschoanalysis. Gave a speech entitled 'The Obvious', which was later published in an anthology of speeches from the congress.

1967. The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise, his most commercially successful book, published by Penguin in Britain and Pantheon in the US.

September 1967. His girlfriend Jutta Werner gave birth to a son, Adam.

1970. The Kingsley Hall Project closed.

April 1970. Had a second child by Jutta Werner, a girl called Natasha.

1971. Knots published by Penguin in Britain and Pantheon in the US.

March 1971. Went to Ceylon with Werner and their two children, where he spent two months studying meditation in a Buddhist retreat. After their visas expired, they moved on to India, where Laing spent three weeks studying under Gangroti Baba, a Hindu ascetic, who initiated Laing into the cult of the Hindu goddess Kali. Also spent time learning Sanskrit and visiting Govinda Lama, who had been a guru to Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert.

April 1972. Returned to London.

5th November to 8th December 1972. Embarked on a lecture tour of the United States. Appeared on TV with Norman Mailer. Met Elizabeth Fehr, a psychotherapist who used 'rebirthing' psychodramas to treat patients. Laing would go on to adopt these rebirthing techniques himself.

Late 1973. Began running regular rebirthing sessions.

Valentine's Day, 1974. Married Jutta Werner.

24th June 1975. Max, his third child with Jutta, was born.

1976. Do You Love Me? and The Facts of Life published. These works sold poorly in Britain and America, but were popular in continental Europe.

March 1976. Susie Laing, his daughter from his first marriage, died of leukaemia.

1978. Conversations With Children published.

21st April 1978. Laing's father died at 5.15pm, the exact time of Laing's birth.

September 1980. Took part in a three week conference, 'The Psychotherapy of the Future', at Zaragosa, Spain. Other notable figures included Fritjof Capra, Stanislav Grof, Jean Houston and Rollo May.

15th September 1984. Ronald's 9th child, Benjamin, was born to his girlfriend Sue Sunkel.

February 1985. His autobiography, Wisdom, Madness and Folly, was published. A portrait of Laing was unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland.

1986. Divorced from Jutta Laing.

1987. Was forced into resigning from the medical register of the General Medical Council, effectively preventing him from practicing medicine.

6th January 1988. A son, Charles, was born to Marguerite (née Romayne-Kendon) and Ronald Laing

1988. Participated in a Canadian documentary entitled Did You Used to Be R.D. Laing?

23rd August 1989. Died of a heart attack while playing tennis in St. Tropez, France.

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Lyrics...

Lyrics from "Fascination For Affection"



DISTANT PARENTS

Sweetness was there but the breeze of love though felt did not stop my street from
becoming crowded
Everything will be gone
The Earth and warm life
There will be a time when the sun will no longer be ablaze
But you will disappear much sooner
And I will no longer feel that I’m loved forever
Both of you should have met the parents who lived inside of me
So we could all be together

Voices rising out of silence
Banging loudly on the gates of resistance

I will never be able to say
Always in a dream
What time is it today?


Reality makes me feel sorry
I've been wired improperly
My sorrow is there for no one to see

Everything is gone
For no other reason
Than ill disconnection

Mind of a schizophrenic
My heart is in a panic

Mind of a schizophrenic
My eyes are in tears
And my heart is in a panic

Strange voices rising out of silence
Banging loudly on the gates of resistance



© 2007 Jerome Lebel

---


TWENTIETH CENTURY DREAM



I’ve made my peace
So you think that makes sense

I did not make peace
Just sitting on a meaningless afternoon petting my cat

When I could have
Immaturity was too strong
Just as the universe is made wrong

I did not make peace
Sitting on the couch
On some 1995 afternoon petting my love
My cat who doesn’t understand but who responds

So I was a part of everything
Immaturity was too strong
So I was a part
The universe is made wrong




© 2007 Jerome Lebel

---


SHE WAIVED AT ME … I WAS TOO SHY TO RESPOND


I can’t say goodbye because I am afraid to say hello
You cannot be so happy in this world
You cannot appear so happy as you waive at me
Golden girl

You know the universe is expanding
Each second that passes on this street
Moves us a bit closer to the ghosts
I just want to go home and hold my cat near my heart, I don’t know if you know but I
suffer from anxiety

It is eerie
Golden girl
To see you so happy

But still I love your joy
Mine is unwarranted and I don’t want to be perceived as dim-witted
So I leave it in my room below the light bulb
Idle smiles have no place in the valley of life
But I love your joy

It is eerie
Golden girl
To see you so happy
To see you waive at me
To see you smile and waive at me


© 2007 Jerome Lebel

---


CRUELTY


Sadistic
And I was not ready to understand
Ready to understand
The nightmarish violence of this stand


Sadistic
Like these souls were made of bricks
And I was not ready to understand
Not ready to understand
What was projected was so piercing and grand

Sadistic
I was not made of plastic
This contempt and lack of love hurt like an ice pick

Why is everyone laughing at me?
I am so shy

My mother said
Maybe their horns will recede one day
And wings will grow
On some of them

Sadistic
And I was not made of plastic
This contempt and lack of love hurt like an ice pick

And they were many
Many dull little dolls
Using their cruelty to mock me and my profound sensitivity
Many dull little dolls
All coming from the angry girly factory


© 2007 Jerome Lebel

--


MY SPIRIT ABOVE THE NIGHTLIFE


Friends I never knew I had disappeared
Friends I never knew I had disappeared
My mind is hypnotized by the yellow street lights
Existence and life
Are they for me?
I guess this is a plea
Each passing car gleams with divinity

I hate the fact that I hate my benevolence
I eagerly look out my window
And I hope to see the police or a girl
Please put on a show
I don't know about tenderness and love
I sense the thunderstorms hidden behind personal relations
Ripping my dreams and my limited condition
These dreams hurt, mother
But with my binoculars I am an efficient night watcher
So all the neighbourhood women will be captured by my voyeuristic endeavours

Love and life
Love and death
I am just a repressed Woody Allen
With an eternal burden

But I am still as repressed as someone can be
Mother don't you think it would be better if someone wanted to meet me?
I guess this is a plea
Each passing car gleams with divinity

Love and life
Love and death

Love and life
Love and death



© 2007 Jerome Lebel

---


SWEET PRETTY ART TEACHER



I broke my pen and I felt so little

Red came off my brush

And as I gazed at the blue sky and green trees
I felt erased

Sweet pretty art teacher
Self-esteem destroyer

Sweet pretty art teacher
Always praising beauty and superficiality
But I was kind of ugly
So I pictured her as a Nazi

If you could have seen my inner scenery
You would have seen ravenous cats eating at your beauty

I know the world is in her image
But sometimes I still cry in rage
Even though I occasionally like what I write on my page


If you could have seen my inner scenery
You would have seen ravenous cats eating at your beauty


I know the world is in her image
But sometimes I still cry in rage
Even though I occasionally like what I write on my page



© 2007 Jerome Lebel

---


THE TURTLE



Nature loves her
She wants to keep her forever

A part time life in her shell
A serene blank mind
No agony of nostalgia

Nature loves her
She will be there for a long, long, long time

Put your hands on her
Feed her some vegetables

A serene blank mind
No agony of nostalgia

I wish the people I love had their blood flowing for as long as the turtle
I wish peace would last as long as the turtle
And youth also
And summer also
If I loved myself I would like to be a turtle

I like to be in a shell
I like to be in a shell



© 2007 Jerome Lebel

--


A THEATRE ON FIRE


Looking at life on the screen
Ready to enjoy our imagination
Ready to dive into a state of dreamy fascination

Your tears will put off the flames
It's too late now to worry about the blames

So it is so sad
Because you were never bad

So it is so sad
Because this disintegration of emotions made us glad
And this apocalypse is all we have ever had

I admire your image
Against the pale blue and red colours

Flames and stars
That shine only for heart broken audiences
Flames and stars
That shine for everybody

I find your image inspiring like Christ who died of love
Against the blue and red colours

In the streets around us cats are gathering to look at the fires


© 2007 Jerome Lebel

--


FALLING OUT OF BED IN FRONT OF NEW FRIENDS


So much shyness and need for drama
Dramatic love and dramatic romance
Dramatic situations
Embrace me on top of a skyscraper
Fake blood and lights
Ooh phoney drama
Dramatic situations
I think somehow all of us need attention


There are bizarre clouds of tenderness
A strange affection that brings you back to yourself and your strange smile
The smile is strange
But the love is real
The smile is strange
But the love is real

Police helicopters buzzing around
Noisy indecency
They are paid to care


Police helicopters flying around, flying all around
In my heart I feel satisfied that finally I have new friends and they love me
It is so corny that these are the things I would only tell myself when I am tucked up in
bed
And ready to sleep



© 2007 Jerome Lebel

---


REGINALD’S KISS

This night is fuzzy and warm
Like my emotions
But yet I am so calm

Staggering in the parking lot of the screening room
While they're showing an old movie
The kind that are naive and full of beauty

Hi, police lady
How kind of you policewoman
Let me hold your hand

You're my first you know
I am so young and I drank tonight
This is not a prank, you know
I see your angry face but still I want you so
You can pepper spray me
Police lady
I am protected by my romance glasses
And I love you

Why these handcuffs?
Police lady
I thought you loved me
I was under the impression that you had affection for me
It feels like we are alone in this city
Blow a kiss in the air if you wish
The sirens are as red as my wandering and nervous heart
The sirens are as red as my wandering and unsure heart

© 2007 Jerome Lebel

---

BLOODY BEACH AND DANCING GIRLS


Sitting at your desk writing
Writing all those things you dislike about others and your own soul
Smearing the ink, the blood in the beach water

These shallow angels would never die for you under this summer sky

It was so long ago when time seemed as potent as a sea tide
There's a beautiful sunset outside
Bathing your former school and your made-up ghostly lovers
Who are dancing their youth away in far away nightclubs and oblivious
So oblivious to the fact that they were burning stars in the eyes and heart of an ocean
of affection and frustrations

Beautiful sunset outside
It’s laughable when your value only comes from the inside

These shallow angels would never die for you under this summer sky

In distant cities the young and beautiful and interesting , talking and laughing, neon lit
At dusk stray cats came asking for food as you laid down alone in the flowers
Deep down there is still blood in the beach water

These shallow angels would never die for you under this summer sky

You laugh about many things but not love

After all you were born warm
After all you were born warm

You laugh about many things but not love


© 2007 Jerome Lebel

--

A SONG ABOUT SOMETHING


I see it in everyone
I see it in no one

You could make it so small
The galaxies and all

God of naivety
God of childhood distress
God of immature distress
You may have saved Pascal from madness

Everything is made of questions
And subjective communications
After all we live in a world of personalization

I would like to set my cynical towers on fire
But I will always wonder what is in the hearts of others

God is love so let it be
A compassion that many will never see
God is love so let it be



© 2007 Jerome Lebel

Albert Jacquard -- A Video

Albert Jacquard

Toupinoscope" biographies of Toupie


Albert Jacquard Albert Jacquard

Scientifique et essayiste français Scientific and essayist french

né en 1925 Born in 1925
[Albert Jacquard]



Biographie d'Albert Jacquard Biography of Albert Jacquard

Après ses études à l'Ecole Polytechnique et à l'Institut des statistiques, Albert Jacquard travaille d'abord à la SEITA dont il fut aussi secrétaire général adjoint, puis au Ministère de la Santé. After studying at the Ecole Polytechnique and the Institute of Statistics, Albert Jacquard initially worked at the SEITA where he was also Deputy Secretary General, and then to the Ministry of Health.

En 1966, Albert Jacquard s'oriente vers une carrière de généticien et part étudier aux Etats-Unis. In 1966, Albert Jacquard moving toward a career as a geneticist and studying in the United States. En 1968, il est nommé responsable du service de génétique à l'Institut national d'études démographiques (INED). In 1968, he was appointed Head of Genetics at the National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED). Puis, titulaire d'un Doctorat d'Université de Génétique et d'un Doctorat d'Etat en Biologie Humaine, il devient expert en génétique auprès de l'OMS (Organisation mondiale de la santé). Then, holds a doctorate University Genetics and a PhD in Human Biology, he became an expert in genetics from WHO (World Health Organization).

Son travail lui vaut une reconnaissance nationale et internationale et de nombreuses distinctions. His work earned him national and international recognition and numerous awards. Il est nommé membre du Comité national d'éthique . He was appointed a member of the National Ethics Committee. Albert Jacquard consacre l’essentiel de son activité à un travail de vulgarisation scientifique ou d'essais dans lesquels il cherche à diffuser un discours humaniste destiné à favoriser l’ évolution de la conscience collective . Albert Jacquard spends most of its activity to a work of popular science and essays, in which he seeks to disseminate humanist discourse intended to encourage the evolution of the collective consciousness.

Engagé dans la défense des plus démunis, sorte "d'Abbé Pierre laïque" , Albert Jacquard participe à tous les combats qu'il estime justes, comme le droit au logement (il est président de l'association du même nom), la justice sociale , la lutte contre le racisme ... Involved in the defence of the poor, sort of "secular Abbé Pierre," Albert Jacquard participates in all fighting it considers just as the right to housing (he is chairman of the association of the same name), justice society, the fight against racism ... Pour lui, l'enjeu majeur du XXIe siècle et le véritable moteur du changement sont davantage l' éducation que la finance. For him, the major challenge of the new century and the real engine of change are further the education and finance. C'est ainsi qu'il parraine la Haute Ecole de Namur (Haute Ecole Albert Jacquard), en Belgique. For example, it sponsors the Haute Ecole de Namur (High School Albert Jacquard), Belgium.

Proche du mouvement altermondialiste , Albert Jacquard est un contributeur régulier du "Monde Diplomatique". Near globalization movement, Albert Jacquard is a regular contributor of the "Le Monde Diplomatique." Dans "J'accuse l'économie triomphante" , Albert Jacquard dénonce les méfaits du capitalisme et soulève les problèmes de la société moderne : pollution, gaspillage, insuffisance ou insalubrité des logements, nécessité d'un partage des ressources... In "J'accuse triumphant economy," Albert Jacquard denounces the evils of capitalism and raises the problems of modern society: pollution, waste, insufficient or poor housing, the need for a sharing of resources ...

Principales oeuvres : Key works:

* Éloge de la différence (1981) Praise the difference (1981)
* Moi et les autres (1983) Moi and others (1983)
* Cinq milliards d'hommes dans un vaisseau (1987) Five billion people in a vessel (1987)
* Abécédaire de l'ambiguïté (1989) ABC's ambiguity (1989)
* Voici le temps du monde fini (1991) This is the time of the finite world (1991)
* Un monde sans prisons ? A world without prisons? (1993)
* J'accuse l'économie triomphante (1995), J'accuse economy triumphant (1995),
* Petite philosophie à l'usage des non philosophes (1997) Small philosophy for the use of non-philosophers (1997)
* L'équation du nénuphar (1998) The equation of the water lily (1998)
* A toi qui n'es pas encore né (1998) To you who are not yet born (1998)
* Le souci des pauvres (1998) The concern of the poor (1998)
* La science à l'usage des non-scientifiques (2003) Science for use by non-scientists (2003)
* Dieu ? God? (2003)
* Tentative de lucidité : recueil de quelques-unes des chroniques diffusées sur France Culture (2003) Attempted lucidity: a compendium of some of chronic broadcast on France Culture (2003)
* Halte aux jeux ! Stop the games! (2004)
* Mon utopie (2006) My Utopia (2006)


>>> Citations : "J'accuse l'économie triomphante" , Albert Jacquard, Ed. >>> Citations: "I accuse the economy triumphant," Albert Jacquard, Ed Calmann-Lévy, 1995 Calmann-1995

>>> Citations : Mon Utopie , Albert Jacquard, Ed. >>> Citations: My Utopia, Albert Jacquard, Ed Stock, 2006 Stock, 2006

>>> Autres citations d'Albert Jacquard >>> Other quotes from Albert Jacquard

>>> "Droit de propriété : l'individu contre l'espèce" . >>> "Right of the individual against the species." Extrait de "J'accuse l'économie triomphante" (1995). From "J'accuse economy triumphant" (1995).

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Complete destruction of any possible ego one might have

I had a funny thought a while back...
I think it could completely destroy any ego somebody might have.


I, personally don't have a big ego. Screwed up French Canadians like myself don't have big egos.




But to everyone on this planet that has a big ego, think about what it means to be alive.


Think about what it means to have a conscience, to be able to think, to be aware of your existence and the surrounding world. Then, think about the human situation. Your conscience is trapped inside a perversely complex body that even the brightest scientists are very very far away from understanding completely. You think with a brain that only an extremely tiny part of is understood. Factor in the biology of the brain versus the emotions and the psychology... Which comes first? Emotions that create changes in biology, biology that changes emotions or a mixture of both?
Now think of your conscience not only trapped into a body and a brain that you don't understand as a layman but that even the most intelligent, knowledgeable and most gifted among us have only a slight understanding of.


Here is the best part: this perversely complex body that you inhabit resides on a planet that is part of an infinite and perversely complex universe...




Unless you are intelligent enough and erudite enough to fully understand the Human Brain and the Universe, YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS HAVING AN EGO!


Unless it's in a self aware, self deprecating way or as a coping mechanism against the overwhelming nature of existence itself.

My record "Fascination For Affection"

This is my first record...
Fascination For Affection...
Songs about lost youth, loneliness, mental illness... experimental, droning, electronic, lo-fi...
12 Tracks 70 minutes.


1/ Distant Parents
2/ Twentieth Century Dream
3/ She Waived At Me... I Was Too Shy To Respond
4/ Cruelty
5/ My Spirit Above The Nightlife
6/ Sweet Pretty Art Teacher
7/ The Turtle
8/ A Theatre On Fire
9/ Falling Out Of Bed In Front Of New Friends
10/ Reginald's Kiss
11/ Bloody Beach And Dancing Girls
12/ A Song About Something







Have a listen...

DOWNLOAD FOR FREE IN MP3 FORMAT 128kHERE
or www.mediafire.com


DOWNLOAD FOR FREE IN MP3 FORMAT 192kHERE
or www.mediafire.com


Thank you for downloading...

My gear

My gear:

Korg TR61 Workstation: my only musical instrument besides my mother's piano which I almost never play... I should learn how to program sounds on it one of these days...

Korg D3200 multi track recorder:
I use it to record the keyboard and my voice using a Behringer B-1 microphone.

I was totally inexperienced with these pieces of gear when I started and I still don't have a full grip on them... I was totally inexperienced with music in and of itself when I made "fascination for affection."

Pills, pills, pills

Has anyone ever taken "Effexor" or "Paxil" and felt like they were being pushed over the edge of madness...

Restless, tired, over-stimulated...

Some years ago, I tried those pills for a few days and it caused a shock to my nervous system.

It made me over-anxious and consequently tired. I would lay down in bed and I WAS NOT ABLE TO SLEEP!

The doctor who prescribed these medications was a general physician and he obviously forgot the fact that Effexor and Paxil can cause insomnia.

There is nothing worse than being tired and anxious and not being able to sleep.

Being tense in bed, sweating and not being able to find sleep.

Fortunately, I had clonazepam available so I was able to get by this horrible ordeal.

After having taken Effexor and Paxil for just a couple of days, it took me weeks to get back to normal. It had caused a shock to my nervous system and brain chemistry.

I have been taking Risperdal for years without any noticeable problems though...

Marc Maron

Check out Marc Maron, one of my favorite comedians.



His talents as a humorist are first rate. His humour is fascinating, dark and intelligent. He seems to be more of an artist than simply a comedian. And like many great abstract musicians and artists that don't always rely on structures or cheap hooks, his humour is not about cheap or easy punch lines.



He associates many different themes and makes a portrait of them that make you stop and think. No matter how bizarre and intriguing his monologues are, he is always on to something... Spirituality, psychology, fascinating neuroses (in a perverse way, I have so many of them myself), human nature, doubts, fears, society... And even if he wasn't on to something it would still be worth every second of listening and going along for the ride.



Marc Maron's metaphors leave a deep impression and mental image on many of his fans minds, I would guess.



They certainly leave a mark on my mind...





I still vividly remember plenty of his monologues and jokes that I saw on TV years ago...

www.marcmaron.com