Where You Want To Be

Yanked from the great Acid Sweat Lodge

Love This

from DP on Vimeo. Gotta love Kid Cudi

What Does Your Soul Look Like

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Back again. With the school machine slowly cranking up again, the windows of opportunity to keep things colourful slowly get smaller. The day's standardized actions numbs away at the imagination. Today was still the very first day and yet there I was, all folded up in a desk with eighty sleepy folks in a less stimulated but still very listless, thinking about the days when I stood up for myself and what I believed in. Life does move faster everywhere else but here, in all the gorgeous tropical adventure zones my gal Rachel is about to find herself in. Yeah, I'm living vicariously in southeast Asia for a little while, but without losing  heart up here in the not heartless or doomed Bowling Green, which really isn't deserving of any mean words. My guns are only pointed towards the classroom, certainly not college at all. It's just hard to see the big picture unfold and its not wise to admit, but it does seem like there really is no plan to it all. Like it's 27th inning feeling of what the fuck am I doing here? But putting aside instant gratification for the sake of future gain is the trait that separates us from the beasts. Rationality. One can't rationalize everything though, because then there is no room for mystery, love, grace, and everything that lacks a simple explanation. Any venture taken towards those unknowns is a true learning experience. You always learn something. You can't learn less. In a classroom, sure the mind connects dots and make sense of the material being presented. But true learning and higher education happens on a much more interactive level. It's a very personal experience, getting out and taking risks with heavy consequences on the line. If learning is the ultimate goal though, failure is never a possibility. You can't ever learn less. Something is to be taught in the lowest of falls, which makes it ultimately worth the risk of being vulnerable and seeing yourself at the most honest state. What do your soul look like? Worth a shot get off the internet make it happen go live life and trust the process. As for journeys in the deep and matters of trust, check out this soulful edit from the early house giant Romanthony. Too solid.

Romanthony-Trust (Original Mix Re-Mastered)

Love You In The New Year (Reflection)

Back from the dead. Happy 2010. Here at the castle, we live with a mighty spirit of hope and anticipation in regards to the new year. We're blessed with the chance to be able to share bits of good tidings to the kind folks looking in, the kindred spirits that congregate here who know much more than we do. Our hope is that Feel Good Lost continues to be a place where thoughts, ideas, resources, reflections, vibes, rambles, inspiration, cares, visions, dreams, and revelations are tossed around, little minutes of your time that act to set in motion and promote the harmony of the common good. Thank anyone and everyone that's sent me a line, commented, showed me a fantastic new something online, or talked about this here site with me. Mail from random strangers makes my day and I love conversation. Let's get in a groove for 2010, kick out the jams in epically reckless abandon, rise above and kill it. However, 2009 was full of joy and if anything, epic. To reflect....

All Gone

(pic:Threadless)

Hiatus is over, exams are through, and here now is the room to celebrate. Don't sit still too much over Christmas or you'll get swept overboard by the dizzy waves of sentiment that abound in December. I'm the Grinch though, fuck what you heard.

Monocle's Top 25 for Travel.

Yale said yes, four times for one family.

Is geography the new history?

Gawker.tv's fantastic end of the year video list

Someday

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Exams are a crush and the wind is bitter cold outside, even though it looks warm looking out the window. To sit still and study the one single thing on the desk in front of me goes completely against my human nature, which explains why studying equates out to be combat, real time combat like a titantic wrestling match between twin giants, with my soul at stake. Anyways, it's soul sucking to sit still and study for so long and when it's all over, I feel like I've just been gruelly interrogated. But what's worth that awful feeeeeeling is the incentive. It wouldn't even be bothered with if it wasn't worth it.

In the Wall Street Journal today, they ask this author of a new biography on Winston Churchill a few questions. I forget the guy's name, but he's an older british gentleman that is said to have written the smartest, concise biography of the man in only 196 pages, which says something. Apparently, this guy met Churchill when he was twelve or something and asked him, "What do you attribute to your success over the years?" Churchill looked at him and said "Economy of Effort. Never stand up when you can sit down and never sit down when you can sleep." To note as well, Churchill's father died at the age of 45, which lead Churchill to believe that since he too would die at a young age, he'd better get going on making his mark in the world. Three years later, he lead his regiment's polo team to three straight tournament victories while deployed in India. Four years later, while on a scouting expedition in South Africa during the Boer War, Churchill was captured by enemy troops and sent to a POW camp, only to later escape and travel through nearly 300 miles of enemy territory to safety.

I can't wait for Christmaspen. Also, my house someday will look like that there picture up above. You heard it here first.

Where You Want To Be

Early morning on the Amazon

Beauty

Only As Deep As I Look Can I See

Roll Tide

I mean, I can't hate anyone in the SEC, not even Florida. They don't look good in white and they haven't lost a game since September of last year. It is only natural to loathe who's on top (ie Harvard, Duke basketball, Washington DC) but as history goes, nothing gold can stay. As much as I hate houndstooth beer mugs and all the talk about "Bear and the good ole days", Alabama is going to win this game. If both teams do their job, it will be a grudge match of a great game and the first conference title game to match undefeated teams together. Plus, you've got the two best defenses in the nation. The matchup will also dictate the first time a team in the Top 3 will lose since early September. 

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Alabama's out for blood from last year's title game and is rolling off an incredible game against Auburn in the Iron Bowl. I still can't hate Florida though, even the UT in me. Florida is faster than fast. Tebow will be facing a defense determined to stop his run and he'll be forced the throw the ball. Florida will still dominate the short third downs and play strong football, even if its a bit one dimensional. Strong football isn't desperate football though, and if they find themselves in a jam, they'll have to gamble and they haven't had to do that in a long while. On offense, Alabama's got a host of backs that could start just about anywhere and they'll run to high heaven. They'll pull everything out to combat Florida's fantastic defense. The secret weapon is Bama's tight end who they've used to mix up their offensive scheming all season. But who knows? That's the best part about it. It's the SEC. Ingram for Heisman. Roll Tide. 

Cudoki

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Steve Aoki just remixed Kid Cudi's Pursuit of Happiness and it's a sound that can only come from a place we can't see. Somewhere on the most E soaked cloud of your imagination, you can't lose and it's lush. You just ran a kickoff back for a touchdown and it was nothing more than an obstacle course, coming at you in slow motion. Ease in high definition. Only you know it though. The Superdome is absolutely losing it, noise is deafening, and beach balls are dropping by the thousands from the ceiling to commence the end of the game and the beginning of a night that will take no prisoners, with a day at the beach come morning. There is no time for sleep. This song makes me want to go knock all these book shelves over because they're not moving or dancing. Nobody in here is doing anything besides studying, thinking and that would just fuck everyone else's studies up, plus the mousey looking girl probably named Dorothy shelving the fucking world behind me would do the right thing and pull the fire alarm, throwing us all outside to face the fucking elements. Nah, I'm happy rightcher feigning my studies to look up giant snakes in the Amazon but mostly mining energy off thoughts of better places in the world and this fucking triumphant astral space rave of a song.

Kid Cudi feat. MGMT-Pursuit of Happiness (Steve Aoki remix)(via)

No Worries

“It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.” G. K. Chesterton

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When life gets chaotic, its only natural to crave order. Hard times can suppress a good man's common sense and in desperate moments, people will turn to anything in search of meaning and purpose. It was during the last Great Depression that horoscopes in newspapers and tarot cards exploded into the mainstream. As the financial world continues its crumbling and the weather gets gloomier, our search for order should be towards the tangible rather than the obtuse, especially now since school stress is on the upwards. Things aren't ever as bad as they seem.
Have Mercy on yourself, you're beautiful.
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The Strokes- Mercy Mercy Me

Almost

Are you happy yet?

Monday Blues

Brian Eno writes about the death of uncool.

The Guardian's Albums of the Decade is worth agreeing with.

How did Tiger Woods spend his Thanksgiving?

Happy Thanksgiving

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.

-Buddha

Mornings

A bunch of folks crashed at a friend's house in Nashville after Deadmau5 last night and I woke up today with my jeans on. Mornings when the sun wakes you up are always best because they aren't rude, unless you're camping. The best is waking up laughing. I'm sprawled out in a chair this morning, wrapped up in a Native American blanket looking picnic spread thing I wound up with last night, sitting by a window and my buddy Joe tells this story. A bunch of friends were sprawled out in the grass, watching the sun set in Central Park one evening. It's the weekend of some festival and music is sounded not too far away. Folks are milling around the park in high spirits and the friends lounging in this particular group are rolling hard and gloriously fucked up. This gal in the group recently got a cute little puppy, well trained and purebred but still goofy like all little dogs are and it's bounding around the group, chasing grapes and loving on everyone. But pretty soon it takes off after a squirrel. In the spirit of the day, this guy scrambles up and runs after it in goofy fashion. He's a pretty big guy and he's running after it down a hill, bend over a bit with his hands out, calling it in his little doggie voice. But he suddenly trips and falls on top of the cute little puppy. The dog convulses and dies. The guy then picks up the dog BY THE TAIL, walks it back to the group, and lays it on the ground by the girl who just got it, who see's the dog and immediately starts throwing up, everywhere. The group flat out loses itself. Everyone's fucked up and the sudden surge of death & bad energy immediately stampedes the good feels of the day and everyone flips out. Tears, spills, stains, yelling and mad chaos ensue. The girl is still throwing up and her dead dog is laying next to her, with the guy hunched on all four, crying his eyes out.

Everyone else rolls away from the picnic, unable to bear what's happening.

Joe takes his shirt off and ties it around his eyes, to blind himself from seeing anything else.

I laughed so hard, I don't even need to run today.

Mao

The funny thing about this is that, in China, this a good thing. Mao is kitschy and cool, in ironic fashion. Of course, some folks in the United States will eat this up, declaring to the heavens the woes and rot that are sure to befall our blessed nation thanks to the Obama administration are not unlike the atrocities that befall the East under Mao Tse-Tung. Mao was a monster but his likeness has aged into a different set of imagery, which won't be understood by the right wangers who think the word "kitschy" is Hebrew or something.

Not two days after Obama dared to speak about free markets and an open internet in Beijing, the government locks down a nationwide ban against the sale of Maobama shirts. This begs the question, how long before the same thing happens here?

Hassle Free

Utopia (via)

You Can Fly

Hell Yeah

Great Men

Richard Francis Burton

"Of the gladdest moments in human life, methinks is the departure upon a distant journey to unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of habit, the leaden weight of Routine, the cloak of many Cares and the Slavery of Home, man feels once more happy. The blood flows with the fast circulation of childhood….afresh dawns the morn of life…”

Journal entry from Zanzibar, 1856

Caves

I went golfing the other day for the first time ever and the best part of the day had nothing to do with me golfing, but rather caves. My friend showed me this cave entrance (!) off the ways a little bit, back in the woods. I could have crawled through the entrance. Kentucky apparently has the largest cave system in the world. That's crazy. Caves are older than forever as well, who's to say What in the world is in these caves? King Juba's treasure? Farmer's gold? God I'm suppose to be writing a paper and just can't write academically right now. Let's get lost.

This song will fuck with your head, it's not even a great song, Its just all lazers and they trance around while you have the time of your life chasing down a fucking beachball in Ibiza.

DJ Cleo- Hands Up (Edit)

Don't Worry

Action as we are using the work does not mean activism, busyness, or do-goodism. Action does mean a decisive commitment toward involvement and engagement in the social order. Issues will not be resolved by mere reflection, discussion or even prayer. God works together with all those who love (Romans 8:28). By contemplation, we mean the deliberate seeking of God through a willingness to detach from the passing self, the tyranny of emotions, and the addiction to self-image and the false promises of this world.

Contemplation is the Divine therapy and the perennial clearinghouse for the soul. It is important that we continue to clarify and hold to these two pivots of our lives. Rightly sought, action and contemplation will always regulate, balance and convert one another. Separately, they are dead-ended and trapped in personality. The clear goal of our center is to meet people where they are and help them trust where they are not.

-Richard Rohr, Radical Grace

White People

The routines of tourism are even more monotonous than those of daily life.

-Mason Cooley-

Big Plans

Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once.

-Albert Einstein-

There is not a natural sense of urgency here in Bowling Green, so I'm a bit out of place sometimes with my dashing around. Maybe it's just the small town comfortable feel to things here. Not pressed for time, no rush, doesn't take long to get here or there, folks waving from their front porch. The police here are at a loss too because nothing obviously felonious going on, which is why they make everything they call out a grand fucking spectacle. But whatever. There's a breeze when you're walking, but it's hot when propped up in the sun, like Southern California. It's easy going here, which is can be for better or for worst. I mean, it's gorgeous outside and I love taking my time, but behind every minute of every day anywhere is a pressing urgency. Not a big deal or anything, but there isn't a moment to lose during the day.

If things are too comfortable, time wastes away.

Some people become more aware of this phenomena in times of struggle or weak moments where the odds aren't stacked in favour. Time suddenly becomes of the essence when two papers are due and a test is coming up, or when you're lining up out of the shotgun on third & eight in the fourth quarter. Those seconds are always longer than others, while a weekend with friends flies by, which just proves its relative nature. Time was considered to be absolute and to flow equably for all observers until Einstein came along and suggested that "distances appear compressed and time intervals appear lengthened for events associated with objects in motion relative to an inertial (still) observer."

So what?

Time will seem like more, in a sense, for the person who keeps moving. By learning to live at peace with natural speed of life, the ebb and flow of the actions and interactions of everyday won't seem so drastic when the pressure's on and things get difficult. Everything won't seem so hasty and stressed in a way. Situations will get their deserving amount of attention paid and the big picture won't be lost amongst little pressing needs that are eventually unnecessary, like messed up food orders, dramatics, jealousy, lost sunglasses, forgetting books for class. All those things can be solved by taking a deep breath and widening the moment's lense a little bit.

This is something strange but it has been in mind recently, in thinking about future endeavors, opportunities, and pursuits. I question the legitimacy or purpose of being here in school, in class sitting, listening, and fidgeting. I feel like a more pro-active approach must be taken towards making things happen. School does enable one to go further towards achieving a certain set of goals in life like the ones I've drafted up, so I'm learning to trust the process and be cool with the pace of the moment, while not letting my mind wander toward the ridiculous What If's the imagination thinks up.

It's a whole lotta at once, but it is a good thing to do battle with every day.

Keep me on my toes.

Slow Your Roll

First, I hate people that complain. So I will do my best not to complain or mope about things.

I don't post much on here, at least not nearly as much as I used to. It's not to say I'm over it or anything, I just haven't been feeling it. Motivation is hard to come by sometimes, and I struggle mustering up some to get even the most simplest, routine things done. Even the things I love to do, like read and write, get passed over due to a lack of calling and urgency and whatever it is. Inspiration is something completely different. Inspiration is everywhere and you don't find it as much as it finds you. But inspiration is like philosophy in a sense that it's useless without application. Action is essential, absolutely necessary. Nothing happens without it. Talk is one thing but getting the ball rolling is something else completely different.

There is lots on the table right now and the last thing I want to happen is for windows of opportunity to close thanks to inaction. What's hard is keeping that spirit alive when looking a mountain of schoolwork or a blank canvas. The fact is that motivation naturally escapes me. I've grown to discover that the spark to solving the problem isn't a secret at all, it's just focus.

I'm pretty lazy sometimes and it's hard to write when stuck in a rut. But all it takes is a little practice and with a little help through the initial struggle, it's all down hill after that. Let the Good Times Roll.

Sound System

http://ghettobassquake.blogspot.com/

Death From Above

Let's do the math about the album Your A Woman, I'm a Machine.

Power ballads: None

Whining: None

Lyrics about feelings: None

Acoustic guitars: None

Guitars, period: None

Socially redeeming value: none

Pretentiousness: None

Percentage of this album's running time that makes me bang my head, tap my foot, or even make me attempt something bearing a passing resemblance to dancing: 100

With a breakdown like that, it's easy to see why Death From Above 1979 were able to lend a brief injection of vitality to the too often dull and self-important world of rock. There may not be any guitars on this album, but the monster riffs and screeching feedback of Jesse F. Keeler's bass and the pummeling, frantic drums of Sebastian Granger intertwine to create some of the most infectious, memorable, and downright fucking amazing music released so far this decade, regardless of genre. Sure, every song sounds basically the same, with some faster and thrashier and some slower and more pummeling, but at 11 tracks covering about thiry minutes You're a Woman, I'm a Machine isn't around long enough to wear out its welcome. From opening to closing, Death From Above's debut full-length (and apparently their valedictory as well) is populated exclusively with sweaty, swaggering, libidinous tunes, topped by lyrics about the girls along for the ride.

One could, if one were so inclined, go ahead and analyze the individual songs on this album, but that would miss the point completely. This is not an album to be analyzed; it's an album to be felt, enjoyed, experienced, and remembered; whose songs will bounce around in your head for days after hearing it and make your grin your face off as well. I can't tell you how much I love this album.

Where You Want To Be

The Eastern Himalayas

Reign In Blood

This is a fantastic article about hard times and death metal from the Happy Days section of the New York Times. Because I read too much, Slayer's masterpiece "Reign In Blood" was the first album I ever bought, in Borders while my Dad was in the restroom. I read about it in a Rolling Stone article, which said it had the most energy of any album of all time. That suited my fancy just fine in fourth grade.

Dance With The Devil

by Josh Max

Being downsized stinks, as the millions of Americans who’ve been canned in the past year know. My own employment debacle involved getting laid off, getting another gig, losing that one, then getting and losing another and another as each company I found employment with went out of business in the tanking economy, almost on cue as I arrived. It seemed like a sick joke. But I wasn’t laughing.

I’m a musician and writer and haven’t had a “real job” since 1988, though in lean times I did paint apartments and once sang “Blue Suede Shoes” dressed as the ’68 Elvis at a Korean birthday party. Gigs weren’t too hard to get when I wanted them because I play a few instruments and know the words and music to something like 3,000 songs comprised of blues, jazz, classic rock, rockabilly, standards, Broadway, television commercials, novelty music and my own stuff. Rap’s O.K. with me; ditto hip-hop and salsa. The only music I never really got into was metal. That is, until my personal economy collapsed.

As a lifelong gun-for-hire, I had been used to, and O.K. with, not knowing what tomorrow would bring. I could live creatively on little dough if necessary and managed to get to India, Bali, Maui, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Central Park Summerstage and anywhere else adventure, fun or a story or gig awaited. But I had also gotten used to the steady, healthy paycheck of the daily columnist’s job I’d accepted at a newspaper in 2006.

Though I was still technically a freelancer, without benefits, vacation or a contract, the assignment afforded me perks galore, massively amped my writing chops and paid me quadruple what I’d been used to making in a year. I had, I thought, arrived, six years after deciding to make a living with words and music.

I opened a Roth I.R.A., banked half my paycheck each week, bought my wife an iPod for Valentine’s day, fixed my front teeth, finished the album I’d been recording since 2004 and recorded another disc in 2008 with a producer and eight musicians. If I met a homeless person whose tale of woe moved me, I might give him a ten after talking to them. That’s how good things were.
But in September 2008, a supervisor at the paper sat me down and said, “The company is hemorrhaging money. We can’t afford to pay you anymore.” They couldn’t afford to pay another 50 people in the newsroom, either. Two weeks later, I cleared out my desk and pocketed a letter of reference from the deputy publisher. At least I hadn’t been fired for incompetence, I told myself. And I’d saved more than six months’ salary, as the experts said you should.

But it was still a monumental shock, the end of a very exciting period of life, and it shook me like a death. My father, also a writer, had died suddenly almost exactly two years before. Losing my job felt familiar to that life-shattering event; disbelief, panic, grief, and immediate action required. I told no one except my immediate family what had happened.

Two weeks later, I secured a writing job with another company, for less work and better money. Way to go, I thought — that’s hittin’ ‘em, kid.

That company folded within a month, laying off dozens. As winter rolled on, three magazines I used to write for went out of business, and each first of the month brought a gasp and gulp as I saw the numbers in my bank account plunge.

I fought back, of course. I hadn’t spent five months meditating in an Indian ashram for nothing. I talked, wrote, baked, yelled, bawled, laughed, shared and kept on e-mailing, calling, networking and seeking paying work of any kind.

But I’m not a winter guy. No matter what else is going on in my life, if the sun is out and it’s 70 degrees, the possibilities are endless. During the freezing days and nights of January, February and March of 2009, I began waking up before dawn, nauseated. Soon, fear, doubt, self-pity and resistance to facts boiled down into a ball of almost-constant frustration and anger.

I found a therapist, thankfully covered by my wife’s insurance, and tore a rotator cuff smashing a giant cloth cube with a bat in the doctor’s office. The shoulder healed but I felt no better mentally and emotionally after two months of weekly sessions, so I quit. What I wanted was paying work. Without that, there wasn’t anything to talk about. I started taking it personally. My situation seemed no less than a betrayal from God or Zeus or Yahweh or whoever takes care of what can’t be seen to by human efforts.

One freezing day in March, Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s version of Alberto Ginastera’s “Toccata” came on my iPod. I hadn’t listened to this song since I was a teen. For some reason, “Toccata” compelled me as never before, especially the intense, frenetic, pounding ending.

Intense. Frenetic. Pounding.

I sent a drummer friend an e-mail: “What is, in your opinion, the absolute heaviest, banging-est, most insane, loudest, stupidest music of all time?”

“What a great question,” he replied. “My answer for you is the 1986 classic album by Slayer “Reign in Blood.” It’s the greatest album ever made. If you need any more help, let me know. 666.”
I downloaded “Reign in Blood” and waited to listen until I could give the album my complete attention later that day. The first song was “Angel of Death.”

I was carried off into a boiling sonic river of brutal, obscene, blasphemous noise that blasted me like a cannon out of my depressed cave and directly into the fury I was experiencing each waking day. For the next three weeks, all other music disappeared from my world. I listened to “Piece by Piece” as I dropped off to sleep at night, and the first thing I did in the morning, en route to the john, was cue up “Angel of Death.” Any gap of spare time during the day, no matter how small, was filled with “Post Mortem,” “Epidemic,” “Jesus Saves” and especially “Raining Blood.” Every other type of music seemed silly, trivial, light and useless.I didn’t bother listening very closely to the lyrics, either, despite my lifelong Ira Gershwin obsession. In fact, the less I could understand, the better. All I connected with were the screams.

After 30 days of Slayer saturation, I downloaded a blizzard of Death Metal onto a single iPod; 171 songs. Pantera. Anthrax. Venom. Cannibal Corpse. Devil Driver. If I previewed a band at iTunes and there wasn’t a WARNING: EXPLICIT label there or the tempo wasn’t insanely fast, I wasn’t interested.

Something was happening beyond the mind, the emotions and the circumstances. Music, for the first time in my life, was penetrating my body and shaking it. The force of Death Metal moved me out of my mind and into my arms, legs, head and belly. It compelled me to pull over in the car and bang the steering wheel, to run faster and farther in the freezing cold, to lift more weights and smash the heavy bag at the gym with renewed ferocity, and massively upped the intensity in everything I said, did and felt.

It also made me feel powerful enough to fight back against the injustice the world had delivered to me, to meet and embrace that inner demon who had always been told, since I was a little boy, “Smile.” “Be nice.” “Look at the bright side.” “Be reasonable.” “Don’t be angry.” Death Metal didn’t smile, wasn’t nice and there was no bright side to it. By going into my fear and anger via music, I didn’t damage myself or anyone else, and I was able to face each day again. I kept jabbing and punching furiously back at the world, at depression and rage and that low-down, no-good, rotten son of a bitch, Unemployment. Finally, the S.O.B. fell.

Spring came, and I got a licensing deal from a music publishing company for the disc I’d completed in 2007, then another, similar deal for the other CD with another publishing company. Things started loosening up: a job here, a job there. Finally, I was able to make the monthly bills from new checks instead of once again hemorrhaging savings, and I got to go to Paris to write a travel article for a new magazine in July. On my first day there, I rose at dawn, walked to the Eiffel Tower, stood directly under it, cued up “Angel of Death” on my iPod and pictured Nazi tanks rolling through. A nightmare that didn’t last, I thought. Like mine. Two weeks ago, I accepted a year’s contract writing for a media organization.

Zeus hadn’t dropped me, I finally figured out. He’d just handed me off to the devil for a few months.

Red Dust Over Sydney

Some fantastic photographs over Sydney by David Morgan Mar