THOUGHTS: What does it all mean?

I had a very vivid dream last night. I dreamed that I was at a Walgreens right next to where I lived in downtown Denver. This Walgreens had an escalator inside. I was riding down the escalator with a good friend of mine since childhood, noticing the line up ahead was pretty long. We waited in line and checked out, and walked around the parking lot. As we were walking, the parking lot and the city vanished, and we were suddenly in a very recognizable place caught in a crossfire with some ver unrecognizable military forces. I jumped into an abandoned tank while my friend ran into an old camping trailer, our destination. I turned the tanks guns on both sides battling on this little swath of land, and, once I drew their fire, abandoned it and ran toward the caper myself. Once inside, it was dark. My friend was playing with some toys, and my son was running around in there, getting into stuff, totally oblivious to the loud explosions going on just outside. I knew we had to go, but I had no idea where. I didn't want to get killed in this damn camper...

Then I woke up. I have no idea what the brain is doing. Is it trying to tel me something, or is it just flexing it's creativity muscles in a thrilling and exciting way?

Wow.

RADIO: Happiness: We're All In It Together

Tonight I read an exerpt from a blog I posted a little while back. Since it's difficult for me to post everything on Facebook via text messaging, I figure i'd just skip the middleman and post a playlist on the blog itself. Here's what I'm playing tonight:

Interpol "Take You On A Cruise"
We vs. Death "Mother and Father and Me"
The Helium Arch "Countdown"
Ulrich Schnauss "A Letter from Home"
The American Dollar "Shadows"
Dashboard Confessional "The End of an Anchor (UK Bonus)"
Caspian "Of Foam and Wave"
El Ten Eleven "Bye Mom"
Cloudkicker "Everthing's Mirrors"
Explosions in the Sky "Last Known Surroundings"
Death Cab For Cutie "Stable Song"
Maserati "There Will Always Be Someone Behind You"
The Mercury Program "The Church of Cause and Effect"
This Will Destroy You "Happiness: We're All In It Together"
Incubus "Echo"
Mogwai "Killing All The Files"
Ratatat "Nostrand"
Sasha "Requiem"
Saxon Shore "How We Conquered The Western World on Horseback"
Band of Horses "For Annabelle"
Tickles "Today The Sky Is Blue And Has A Spectacular View"
Tired Tape Machine "Like Glass"
Pinback "Bloods On Fire"
Tortoise "Monica"
Tristeza "Macrame"

That rounds out the show tonight. I'm looking to start interviews with post-rock/ambient artists on the show soon. Keep listening and enjoy he awesomeness!

CHRONICLES: The BattleWagon Chronicles on KRBD Ketchikan/THOUGHTS: We're Not Ready for Socialism

As you're probably aware, I've been blogging about doing a radio show of this same name on the air, www.krbd.org, and, if you're in the Ketchikan area 105.3, 107.1, 101.7, 90.7, and 90.1 (depending on if you're on Revillagigedo Island or Prince of Wales Island). Tonight, I'm going to go purely instrumental post-rock, featuring (but not limited to) Explosions in the Sky, Caspian, Maserati, Cloudkicker, Saxon Shore, Red Sparrowes, Tristeza, The Mercury Program, The American Dollar, and The Helium Arch.

It should be a good show. I'm going to try to talk a little bit about the background of some of the bands I play, but hopefully, it winds up being very chill and helps people unwind after the rigors of a hard Monday. I sometimes feel like Mondays are shockers, days that catch us off guard after a relaxing or productive weekend. We find ourself on Mondays at work, taking orders from bosses or customers or both, a humble reminder that we are dependent and enslaved in a way to this capitalist system.

The real shocker for me, though, is that, given our society's current level of sociological maturity, capitalism is probably our best bet. I can understand the utopian aspect of socialism, but that requires complete consensus amongst the population, something that we humans will likely never have. We are selfish creatures. We want to protect outselves, to keep the wealth and the food and the medicine for us and ours, and let everyone else figure it out.

Wow. What began as a shameless plug for some good music turned into a philosophical/political rant. Umm... yeah, The BattleWagon Chronicles on www.krbd.org. Tune in!

CHRONICLES:

Today, I've been taking it easy. Yesterday I came down with this horrible tomach bug. I feel a lot better today, but I think it was largely due to the fact that I fell asleep on my recliner around 7 last night. I only got up to hit the lights and go upstairs at midnight. I slept until 7 this morning. So now I'm rested, and the bug seems to have passed.

All of the glorious snow we had over the past couple of weeks is all but gone. It's been raining since Friday, and that rain has washed all of the small, un-piled snow away. There are a couple of tall piles of dirty slush around town, but that's about it.  In a way, it's very disappointing. I love the snow. However, I really missed the rain. The rain I what makes Ketchikan so inviting. I feel as if it's back to normal, and there's something to be said for normal. It's comfortable, inspirational to productivity, both of which are good.

This week will be an interesting one. I'm going to experiment with making a maple-bacon topped pastry as a "welcome home" gift for Lyss and Malcolm. Hopefully, Alaskan and Proud will be carrying the pastries I desire for optimal bacon usage. They're the long-John types (I've also heard them called Bismarcks, but I think those have cream inside, whereas long-Johns do not). The maple-bacon has bee an accidental blessing to so many of my recipes, including a take of a Fiery Habañero Red Chili that is extra delicious.

The sad part is that on Tuesday, I'll get to do February's budget, and I'm actually excited to do it. Bizzare, to be sure, but I get an odd sense of control from crunching numbers like that. I believe at some point it would make me an excellent business owner.

Sigh... here goes. Bring it on, February.

CHRONICLES: Just Keep Snowing, Snowing, Snowing...

I've lived in Colorado for virtually all my life. With the exception of my time here and a brief, three-month stint in San Antonio (thank God the Air Force and I didn't get along), Colorado has been my home.

The times I seemed to look forward to the most were snow days. I loved when we'd get a big snow storm, and as the sun set, the whole world lit up with a dull, pink light. I loved how the world seemed quiet, that when a car came up the street, you could only hear it when it was right by you. As soon as it drove away, it could have vanished. I loved the spring snows especially, with the big, wet flakes that would just cover everything like a monster. One time, I remember walking the streets of downtown Denver in an evening snowstorm, seeing the clouds light up and hearing thunder as I walked back to my quaint, cozy studio apartment.

But I can't remember a time where I've lived in a place where it's just snowed like it is here this year. I hear from the locals that this isn't normal. Normally, it snows, and then it rains and washes it all away. Well, we got a huge snow last week. It was plowed and shovelled, and then we got another snow. And another. Currently, with about a foot still left on untouched ground and feet in piles at the ends of driveways, we're in a Winter Weather Advisory. My boss, Steve, just got done plowing my driveway. When it warms up enough to rain, it just makes everything slushy. Then it snows again.

This... is... awesome!

CHRONICLES: Here Comes The Sun

After a week of snow and freezing temperatures, here's the sun!

The snow started Monday or Tuesday. We were forecast to get one to three inches. After a few hours, we had almost ten inches. So we plowed the driveway, and got it as clear as we could before the temperature dropped. It did drop. Boy did it drop.

I've found that four degrees next to the ocean feels a hell of a lot colder than four degrees at a dry elevation of seven thousand feet. I had heard that it's the humidity that gets into your bones and chills you.

At any rate, after shovelling and taking all of the appropriate measures, I found myself longing for a nice, warm shower followed by a bowl of chili. I got all ready for my shower, when I turned the knob in the bath tub. An ominous gurgling sound followed, accompanied by nothing. The pipes were frozen.

From my time spent in the van, I always have a water bottle on me, so I wasn't worried about making it through the evening. The next day, I took every water bottle I had to work and filled them all up. As a last resort, I could always melt some snow and boil it. It never came to that, though. I had plenty of water for dishes, drinking, and hand washing. And since I'm a guy, stepping out to use the facilities was no big deal.

After a week of shovelling a total of three feet of snow, sliding around on the slick roads, donning gloves and a beanie, turning on the water and hoping, after all of that, the temperature warmed up. The rain began to fall. The snow washed off the shoveled ground. The pipes thawed out, and today, ah today, the sun shone through the clouds.

Perhaps the only regret I have was that there was an intense solar flare, the largest one since 2005, which could have lit up our sky with a beautiful
Aurora Borealis had it not been for the cloud cover. Still, it's been an incredible week!

PROPHESY: The Waking Dream

I have not yet slept, though my thoughts have left my heart weary in this cold Alaskan night. The thermometer holds a single, solitary degree on the Farenheit scale, a thirty-one degrees below where water becomes a metal, and I gaze out upon the sleeping town, envisioning a grand metaphysical blanket gently tucking itself into every chilly nook of the dimly-lit streets.

In this, I feel love. It's not a love that involves action as much as it's one that involves surrender, the surrender a sleeping child gives its mother, a love defined by trust and innocense.

There is a plan for us, o sleeping children, that when we awaken we will begin our lives anew, for each day, the world is a lump of wet clay, longing to be shaped and molded by us into whatever we need to provide us with health and serenity in our lives. Though we may not always see this, the clay and the tools with which to sculpt it are all around us. Whether we have a large wealth or borrowed clothing, we all have access to the same tools every day.

Hard times lay ahead, the kinds of times that test one's resolve in the face of seemingly overwhelming adversity, and yet, through all of this, we innocent children, every day, are given the means to control our individual destiny. This is given to us with the freedom to use our imaginations, not only to create practical and logical ways to negotiate our journey, but to have the joy and trust that if we choose to ake a lap of faith and do something simply for the essence of happiness, that this, too, is a miracle, and will be rewarded by good tidings in the days to come.

The challenge is to realize all of the parts of who you are that have already fought desparately to create these ingenious ways to let go of our complex constructs of what is fed to us as reality, all of these parts that want to be free, that want to accept the gifts, that want to accept real and unconditional love back into our lives. Some of us have worked very hard in our mature lies to bury or scare away this trust, but it is never really gone. It's ours to own, and yet it owns us, like a mystic parent, holding us in its arms when we are hurt and cheering us on when we're competing for some sembalence of a victory.

Tomorrow is a wonderful miracle, but it's only earned when you realize that both yesterday and today were, too.