Weightless

Scientists in the UK did scientific tests, and concluded that this song is the most relaxing song ever made--so good, in fact, that even Enya can't touch it.  It's a song so powerful, that it lowers brain activity, cuts anxiety, slows your heart-rate, and is even effective at inducing sleep.

Clocking in at a glacial 60bpm, "Weightless" by Marconi Union, is a song that was engineered with sound therapists from the start to be the most relaxing song known to mankind.  Unlike conventional songs, it has no consistent melody, which prevents your brain from trying to anticipate changes in structure.  This unusual decision, along with a host of other tricks that I'm too lazy to explain or understand, come together in a song that is definitely drug-like.

Don't Date a Girl that Travels // A Response

This article--or blog post rather--popped into my facebook newsfeed the other day, and caught my attention.  It's a manifesto of sorts--a kind of self-affirmation piece written by a woman for an imaginary male audience.  In reality, it was written by women for women.  It lists, sardonically, the reasons you shouldn't date a girl that travels.

Although it's gotten a lot of attention on the internet (translated into 20+ languages?), it rubs me the wrong way.  I think it makes more than a few assumptions about the imaginary, collective male audience it is addressed to--building a kind of female empowerment that's shaky at best.  I couldn't help but feel that if a man had written the same thing, it would have either languished in obscurity, or been quickly dismissed as sexist and chauvinistic.  But somehow it has resonated--perhaps for a combination of good and bad reasons.  And because I had some free time, I thought I'd take a crack at unpacking and translating the monologue--mocking, wherever I can, the sardonic voice of the original.

If it sounds sexist--if I swing too hard in the other direction, I apologize in advance.  Maybe my own insecurities are to blame, and my reaction vindicates the original on some level.

But ultimately it's the tone of this article, and not the gender that I'm knocking.  Anyways, let's tear this one open:

Don't Date a Girl Who Travels

She's the one with the messy, unkempt hair colored by the sun. Her skin is now far from fair like it once was. Not even sun kissed. It's burnt with multiple tan lines, wounds and bites here and there. But for every flaw on her skin, she has an interesting story to tell.

Don't date a girl who travels.  She lives outdoors, and you would be both awed and appalled by her wounds, bites and burns.  They are the souvenirs of a life more exciting than yours.  Your domesticated lifestyle and media-driven beauty standards aren't worthy of an exciting, authentic woman like her.

Don't date a girl who travels. She is hard to please. The usual dinner-movie date at the mall will suck the life out of her. Her soul craves for new experiences and adventures. She will be unimpressed with your new car and your expensive watch. She would rather climb a rock or jump out of an airplane than hear you brag about it.

Don't date a girl who travels.  She has high standards, and your provincial dating rituals will bore--no--literally kill her.  She envies your possessions--the modest achievements of hard work--and will dismiss you as materialistic to soothe her anxieties.  She lacks the patience to sit down and have an intimate conversation, preferring instead the simpler (and stereotypically exciting) things like rock climbing and skydiving.  She won't brag about it, but you can bet the farm that shit's going on facebook.

Don't date a girl who travels because she will bug you to book a flight every time there's an airline seat sale. She won't party at Republiq. And she will never pay over $100 for Avicii because she knows that one weekend of clubbing is equivalent to one week somewhere far more exciting.

Don't date a girl that travels, as she has refined taste, and would never stoop to the crude tastes of the masses.  She'd much rather buy herself a week's worth of slum-tourism in an ethnic exciting country.

Chances are, she can't hold a steady job. Or she's probably daydreaming about quitting. She doesn't want to keep working her ass off for someone else's dream. She has her own and is working towards it. She is a freelancer. She makes money from designing, writing, photography or something that requires creativity and imagination. Don't waste her time complaining about your boring job.

Don't date a girl who travels.  Chances are she can't hold a steady job, and doesn't want to, since she eschews responsibility beyond those to herself.  She gawks at the idea of working for the man like the rest of you, but is happy to freelance for the man if the price is right.  

Don't date a girl who travels.  Though she lacks the discipline to plan a career for herself, her creativity allows her to imagine one for herself.  She doesn't understand how you could ever work the kind of soulless job that pays the bills and keeps the world running.  Why aren't you following your passion--doing what you love?  Don't you know we could all have exciting jobs and a thriving economy if everyone was doing the work that really mattered--work that requires creativity and imagination?  Don't waste her time with your logic, your pragmatism.  She's a bohemian, an artist.  You just wouldn't understand.

Don't date a girl who travels. She might have wasted her college degree and switched careers entirely. She is now a dive instructor or a yoga teacher. She's not sure when the next paycheck is coming. But she doesn't work like a robot all day, she goes out and takes what life has to offer and challenges you to do the same.

Don't date a girl who travels.  She's known money her entire life, but not the slightest about where it actually comes from.  She's not about to figure it out now.  

She's a free spirit, not a robot chasing a paycheck.  A girl like her lives life one day at a time--about as far as her foresight allows.  She loudly challenges you to live her lifestyle, but stays quiet on the trust fund that allows it.  

Don't date a girl who travels for she has chosen a life of uncertainty. She doesn't have a plan or a permanent address. She goes with the flow and follows her heart. She dances to the beat of her own drum. She doesn't wear a watch. Her days are ruled by the sun and the moon. When the waves are calling, life stops and she will be oblivious to everything else for a moment. But she has learned that the most important thing in life isn't surfing.

Don't date a girl that travels.  She's a risk-taker, and you're milquetoast.  Planning is for squares.  Watches are for squares.  Responsibilities are for squares.  Doing anything except what your heart and the moon demand of you...well that's for squares.  You gotta march to the beat of your own drum, live by the sun and moon, and surf whenever the waves are good.  

Don't date a girl who travels as she tends to speak her mind. She will never try to impress your parents or friends. She knows respect, but isn't afraid to hold a debate about global issues or social responsibility.

Don't date a girl who travels.  She won't deign to impress your family and friends, and her strained air of cool indifference will leave everyone feeling a bit uneasy.  Unlike girls who don't travel, she has a brain and a set of opinions.  You men would never want that, and you couldn't handle it anyways.  

Don't date a girl who travels.  She knows more than you about social responsibility--and is deeply  committed to the issues plaguing whichever third world slum she's now prancing around taking selfies in.  A girl like her is brave--and not afraid to moralize, with explanations of how the materialistic lifestyle you've chosen is causing global warming, but doesn't think twice about the carbon costs of a lifestyle built on plane travel.  

She will never need you. She knows how to pitch a tent and screw her own fins without your help. She cooks well and doesn't need you to pay for her meals. She is too independent and wont care whether you travel with her or not. She will forget to check in with you when she arrives at her destination. She's busy living in the present. She talks to strangers. She will meet many interesting, like-minded people from around the world who share her passion and dreams. She will be bored with you.

Don't date a girl who travels.  You are rendered useless by the fact that she basic, practical skills.  If a girl can pitch her own tent and screw in her own fins, why on earth would she need a man in her life?  I mean, when I learned how to make my own sandwiches, I realized I didn't need women in my life.  Guys are really only good for killing spiders and changing oil.  They're crutches, crutches for weak girls.  Girls who don't travel.

Don't date a girl who travels.  Unlike you, she's too busy living in the present.  She's so present, in fact, that she will barely notice you as you travel together.  You can't rely on her to handle difficult tasks, so make sure to check in for yourself when arriving at new destinations.  If you try to buy her dinner, she will know you're a chauvinist, and talk passions and dreams with complete strangers instead.  Buy hey, at least they're more exiting than you--you boring fuck.  

So never date a girl who travels unless you can keep up with her. And if you unintentionally fall in love with one, don't you dare keep her. Let her go.

Don't date a girl who travels.  She's too busy being a half-decent writer and man-shatteringly independent. Her fear of intimacy keeps her on the run, and chances are nobody's gonna catch her anytime soon.  Don't even try.

Visit Adi's blog www.lovethesearch.com for over 20 translated versions of this post, and more writing like this.

My Art is Worth Money // or Why Artists Fail

The other day I had a friend of my brother's contact me, asking how he could get acquire one my work.  This friend--let's say he's more an acquaintance is a nice enough kid.  He comes from a family with money, but he's living the Santa Cruz trust-fund lifestyle, and devotes a lot of time and energy to hanging out with hippies, fire dancing and making his annual pilgrimage to Burning Man.

His message looked something like this:

hey there

i was just wondering how i could get my hands on a piece by you?

money trades favors love? let me know...

To this I replied:

Hi _____, I'm glad you like the work.

I'm trying to get in the habit of selling work, since it's the best way to grow my reputation as viable artist. If you buy from me, you'll be one of my first legitimate customers. For my 9x12" pen drawings, I think $40 plus shipping is a fair asking price. I have a sizable collection of recent work, so you'd have plenty to choose from. If you want the piece framed (which I recommend you do in any case, since it protects and enhances the drawing), I can frame (black or white) and ship you the piece for a clean $60. 

Let me know if you're interested.

Since then it's been radio silence, and I haven't heard from him since.  Presumably because I am not interested in giving away my work to someone I only barely know for "Love," it has become a bad deal in his eyes.  Yeah, maybe I was a bit too upfront around pricing (in sales you should come to the price at the very end), but too many artists aren't confident selling their work--valuing it in monetary terms (myself included)--and I don't want to go down the path of giving away all of my work or permanently underpricing it.  I've been drawing for nearly two decades, and I have my own (fairly recognizable) style.  My art is worth money.

Maybe $40, or $60 is steep for his budget, but if he wants my work he needs to pay.  It may sound ruthless, but it actually benefits  both of us.  In addition to compensating someone for their time, when you buy work by an artist, you are telling the artist you value their work--that it brings you pleasure enough to warrant payment.  And by paying for the work, you will not only value it more highly in the long run (since you had to sacrifice something to acquire it), you will also take better care of it.  You paid for it, so there's less risk that it will end up in the garbage can when you change up the decoration on your walls. And with any luck the work will appreciate over time--by the same process you participated in--people buying the work.  

Artists should stand up for themselves.  Charging money for your work does not mean you are extrinsically motivated.  It means you have confidence in the value of your work, the foresight to grow the value of your work, and the pragmatism to pay for the everyday--so that you can continue making the work.  The fact that many don't is lamentable.

Freckled Vagina

There was a girl I once dated.  Before we first started fooling around, she pulled me aside and in a whisper told me she had something very embarrassing to tell me.  It was a freckle she had, a freckle on her vagina.

In the dim fluorescent light of her campus room, she showed me the freckle.  It was nothing.  Circular, and no bigger than than a pencil lead, I shrugged it off and got down to business.  I wouldn't have noticed it if she hadn't told me.  And even after she did, it was the last thing on mind.  A single freckle, hidden in folds of her vagina, was enough for her to feel insecure.

Everyone has a freckle on their vagina.  Don't sweat it.  Life's too goddamn short.

Green Eyed Love

I missed the boat on this track, since it's from 2009, but I heard it recently at the tail end of a mix Duke Dumont made for BBC Radio 1 and it won me over.  This Classixx remix of a Mayer Hawthorne track (?) is a dreamy, glittery vicodin pill--five minutes of campy nirvana.  Take one, and come floating with me.

005: Oil

Volatile blood of modern civilization.
Everywhere, all the time, it burns.

Everything was Chillwave

and nothing hurt.

Found image + Photoshop

Smartphones

Finally got a smartphone and I can't say it isn't nice.  Even though i was okay with my old, dumb phone, the new iPhone takes the cake.  It's funny how quickly I've made the adjustment.  Technologically I don't feel like an outsider anymore.  I used to grumble when I saw peoples' faces glued to their phones...on the bus, at parties, sitting in coffee shops.  I told myself I'd never be like them--those sheep.  In hindsight I felt left out and was trying to compensate with a veil of ideological superiority. It has been shown that belief flows from action, and not the reverse.  Had I owned a smartphone early on I'm sure I never would have felt that way.  Right now I'm updating my blog from my phone at a bus stop.  Talk about swinging hard in the opposite direction.  Hi my name is millennial.  We'll If you can't beat em, join em.  The relentless march of technology stops for nobody. The best we can do is try to keep up.

French Snake Moan

Photo: Emmanuel Le Guellec

Original story here

Completed in 2012, Serpent d’océan is a giant aluminum sea serpent skeleton by artist Huang Yong Ping(previously) situated off the shore of the Loire River where it empties into the Bay of Biscay just outside of Nantes, France. Measuring nearly 425 feet (130 meters) in length the curving skeleton mirrors the curves of the nearby Saint-Nazaire bridge and was created as a permanent work for the final Estuaire contemporary art exhibition in 2012. Via Nantes Tourisme:  

This is sculpture.  Grand.  Mysterious.  Dark.  Minimal.  It achieves the things I seek in my own work.  

I installed a similar sculpture in 2010 above the Cliffs that abut the canyon running down to Black's beach from La Jolla Farms Road.  It's an invisible sculpture, which is why few know about it.  Described by some as a ghost of the sea, it appears to be the skeletal remains of a blue whale, suspended 200 feet in the air above the edge of the cliffs.  At night the rib cage glows, and in the cold salty fog of the Pacific, it drifts peacefully over the hilltop mansions.   

It is more mysterious and beautiful than anything you or I have ever seen.  Even if you don't see it at first, it's there.  Trust me ; )

COLORS

There's two bulls standing on top of a mountain. 
The younger one says to the older one: "Hey pop, let's say we run down there and fuck one of them cows". 
The older one says: "No son. Lets walk down and fuck 'em all."

Man Skills

Today I worked the family truck.  We have an V8 ford F150.  The oil was dirty.  I replaced the oil and the oil filter.  Small feat, no doubt, but I've never done it and it was oddly satisfying.  Fixing and maintaining things--feeling control over decay--and doing stereotypical 'man work'--I recommend it.   It's a good feeling.

I watched a youtube video on how to do it.  Then I had to slide around on the asphalt under the truck and position myself correctly to change the filter.  You have to use a strap wrench under a truck to tighten the oil filter, positioning it just so through the wheel-well and suspension.  It's not easy and you have to stay patient.  When your under a car, and oil is pouring over your hand and the filter isn't threading as you try turning it--you can only take a deep breath and relax.  If you get frustrated chances are you'll hurt yourself.  Under a car, there are dozens of angular metal pieces to throw your beautiful head/face/teeth into.  One head-jerk in frustration is all it takes.    

Anyways, my shirt got oily and my neck got pretty sore craning around under the car, but with some creativity and patience I got the job done.  It taught me something.

(A) be patient.  When I had finally gotten under the car, the crescent wrench I wasn't long enough (lacked the torque) to undo the oil pan bolt.  I had to slide back out, and spend 10 minutes looking through a messy tool-bag for a 5/8 socket, and a wrench large enough to loop over the socket-wrench handle (for leverage).  But once I had the right tools it was easy.  It was a classic case of "work smart, not hard."  Brute force wouldn't have done it.  

(B) don't get overwhelmed by the mass of parts.  Cars are full of parts, but if you only focus on the ones that are pertinent to your job, you realize that each component or sub-system is relatively simple.  It is only when you [mistakenly] look at the entire car as a single, unified entity that things get overwhelming.

Anyways, I must really be rolling in the man skills right now.  Two days ago I used a chainsaw for the first time.  Swansong would be proud.

Mr. Flesh

Mr. Flesh