From the hand to the heart.

Edmund talks about the meaning of his peak experiences at sea.
I was set free!
I dissolved in the sea,
became white sails and flying spray,
became beauty and rhythm,
became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky.
For a second you see
and seeing the secret are the secret.
For a second there is meaning.

Act 4 from A Long Days Journey into Night
by Eugene O’Neill

Eugene O’Neill went to sea when he was younger. What he wrote in the play was a description of an actual experience he had one night at sea. He spent the rest of his life writing tragic plays like Long Days Journey Into Night and trying to re experience that transcendent moment from his youth.
From what I have heard he suffered from depression and in his plays wrote about the struggle human beings had in finding a meaning for life in a meaningless existence. One theme was how people kept on repeating themselves. Repeating there mistakes and held on to illusions about themselves and there lives. It's been said that he believed they did this because with out there illusions (The term "pipe dreams" in the play The Ice Man Cometh) all they would have was the hell of existence. What Eugene O’Neil felt about life was expressed by the same character quoted above in the lines below from the same play.

Edmund speaks of his feelings as he walked home in the fog.

Everything looked and sounded unreal. Nothing was what it is.
That’s what I wanted
to be alone with myself in another world
where truth is untrue and life can hide from itself.

Act 4 from A Long Days Journey Into Night

”Where life can hide from itself.” I understand that desire.

The lesson he puts forth for me is how difficult it is to confront the things you believe to be true. But what resonates with me was the experience of transcendence he had at sea. Other artists describe experiences like it. They seem to be able to embrace them more fully and carry them along through there lives.

"I was climbing the long ridge west of Mount Clark. It was one of those mornings where the sunlight is burnished with a keen wind and long feathers of cloud move in a lofty sky. The silver light turned every blade of grass and every particle of sand into a luminous metallic splendor; there was nothing, however small, that did not clash in the bright wind, that did not send arrows of light through the glassy air. I was suddenly arrested in the long crunching path up the ridge by an exceedingly pointed awareness of the light. The moment I paused, the full impact of the mood was upon me; I saw more clearly than I have ever seen before or since the minute detail of the grasses ...the small flotsam of the forest, the motion of the high clouds streaming above the peaks... I dreamed that for a moment time stood quietly, and the vision became but the shadow of an infinitely greater world -- and I had within the grasp of consciousness a transcendental experience."
Ansel Adams

A few years back I drew a cover for a friend’s zine. His name is Jeff Junker. We were on the phone and after volunteering my talents I sat and took notes of what he had in mind. I quickly made sketches on some blank sheets of paper and after hanging up started working on the cover. After three days I mailed off a photo copy for his suggestions.

He wrote back “More Mohawks.” I obliged.
When I received his approval of the changes I mailed it off to him.
The next day I crashed emotionally. For three days I would lay on the sofa with tears in my eyes. In a time gone bye I would have been described as having a “mercurial personality.” Today I have what they call a “Bi Polar Disorder.”

I got a phone call from my friend Jeff Junker after he got the package with my drawing.
He told me it was “...the coolest looking thing...” he ever saw. I don’t know about that.
But what I did realized as I heard the joy in his voice was that my “depression” wasn’t the cost I had to pay for my creativity.
It was what I now call emotional exhaustion.
And the pleasure I heard in Jiff’s voice was the very pleasure
I had felt while drawing the cover for his zine.
It was if the happiness I experienced had been transferred from me to him through my work.
Since then I have learned to pace myself when I get into a creative mood. And I now no longer experience “writers block”.
No matter what it is I’m writing I imagine that it’s a letter to a friend that I love.
And what ever it is that needs to be heard find’s its way through
my hand to the page; as it is now.

___________

Dear Cedric. A strange thing happened to me today.I saw a big thundercloud move down over Half Dome, and it was so big and clear and brilliant that it made me see many things that were drifting around inside of me; things that relate to those who are loved and those who are real friends.
For the first time I know what love is; what friends are; and what art should be.
Love is a seeking for a way of life; the way that cannot be followed alone;
the resonance of all spiritual and physical things...Friendship is another form of love -- more passive perhaps, but full of the transmitting and acceptances of things like thunderclouds and grass and the clean granite of reality.
Art is both love and friendship and understanding: the desire to give.
It is not charity, which is the giving of things.
It is more than kindness, which is the giving of self.
It is both the taking and giving of beauty,
the turning out to the light of the inner folds of the awareness of the spirit.
It is a recreation on another plane of the realities of the world;
the tragic and wonderful realities of earth and men,
and of all the interrelations of these.

Ansel Adams

Interview with Dan Doverspike of the band First Offence and founder of Step Up Records.

Dan Doverspike is the singer and main song writer of the band First Offense.
This is Dan’s first live face to face interview. All before this were done over e-mail. From Ohio I got to hang out with the Step Up Records founders at The East Coast Oi! Fest which took place over the Memorial Day weekend of 12007.
After Dan spelled his name for me I asked another guy sitting with us for his name and he declined. This is Dan’s brother who will be referred to in the interview as “said stranger.”

Pedro Serrano

_________________________________________

PS: How about a short history of First Offense?

DD: It started with him and said stranger. He’s my brother and we started playing in bands. We started getting more serious about it. We loved Punk Rock it was fun to do bands.

PS: What bands did you first listen to that got you into Punk Rock?

DD: At first old English stuff. Reissues Subhumans, The Exploited. And then the American more pop stuff like Rancid and the Bouncing Souls stuff like that. But especially the English re-issues. I think a lot of people our age grew up on the re-issues and then the pop stuff. Yea I know the Bouncing Souls and they used to listen to Sham 69, The Business and those old British Punk Bands.

PS: Do you think kids today are aware of those old bands?

DD: Definitely. I think there more aware of the past then they are of the present unfortunately. Like I mean every catalog you buy weather it’s Two Tone or Angry, Young, and Poor here’s hundreds of releases by bands that haven’t existed in twenty years but there’s not as many bands today and you know that’s fine cause people should know there history. I’d love to see better distro for newer bands.

PS: That’s always been a problem. I remember that’s always been a big stumbling block for bands: just getting the stuff out. Has the internet been a help in getting the word out? Has the internet been of much help in getting your stuff out?

DD: The internet and unfortunately My Space. (Laughs) But that’s been a huge help. I think that the whole American scene is night and day pre myspace to after. Touring became much easier. Meeting people became much easier. They call them social networks for a reason. It works for us.

PS: What do you write about in your songs?

DD: Uh, You know. Um… Booze, brawls and broken hearts I guess. Classic Punk Rock subjects. You know we get a little political sometimes. Not much, you know, because that’s not the way we hang. Were mid western corn fed kids and we’re all different. We have two vegetarians in the band, a straight edge guy, and a hillbilly more or less.

PS: Woo HOO!!!

(laughs) DD: So it’s a pretty diverse group of people.

PS: When you say you’re political at does that mean to you? How do you define that?

DD: We’ve done some songs dealing with foreign policy, obviously anti Bush. I’m proud of it because we did it right after 9-11 when every body hoped on the flag waving band wagon. And don’t get me wrong, I believe in the flag waving thing as long as it’s done in the Bruce Springsteen way not the Leonard Skinard way.

PS: My definition of patriotism is based on, well,This one women on this show,…Um… You know how they say that if women ran the world everything would be peacefull. Well I used to believe that, and then, I started watching The View! And I’m thinking four months after women take over after every ones menstrual cycle synchs up, the world will end up a burned out charcoal briquette orbiting the sun! And they have this blond republican operative. And I heard her say that George W. Bush is “the leader” and we need to do what ever the leader says. And I’m thinking “Where did this child get her education?” George W. Bush isn’t the leader of this country. He’s the President, the “Chief Executive”. He’s an employee. And he can be fired. He gets a paycheck, a nice place to live and once a year he has to report to the legislative branch and give a report; “the State of the Union”. He’s an employee not a leader. Joseph Stalin was a leader, Chairman Mao, was a leader, Hitler, was a leader. To me patriotism means have responsibilities. What you refer to as the flag waving thing, like Bruce Springsteen to me it’s about responsibilities, and I should shut up now.

DD: No, I agree with you.

PS: You started Step Up Records. Good Stuff. When and why did you start the label?

DD: Cause if you’re not doing anything, you’re wasting space. You know what I mean? You know being in a band is great you know but. I tried to do a zine for a while and as I’m sure you knew paper is expensive. I’m not that great at grammar or spelling and all that. So you know, but I think a label works well I help other people get stuff out through my trial and error I’ve learned a lot about putting out records. I’m sure there’s a lot more to learn. So I just try to learn as much as I can and help other bands if I can in addition to putting out records I’ve helped other bands along the way. Like there’s this really great hardcore band from Kent Ohio called Skies Bleed Black. We’re helping them get there 7” record out right now. So I try to do as much as I can and that’s what Step Up is about.

PS: What advice would you give? What mistakes did you make that you would suggest folks avoid?

DD: Well this is just a trivial one but when you get seven inch records make sure there all the same color. Because you have to pay the set up prices twice you do. Like limited edition colored vinyl, that was a big one for us on his first record. When we figured out how much extra we spent just to do a hundred extra blue vinyls it was shooting ourselves in the foot, you know what I mean. I hope it helps some one who’s thinking about it. If you have the extra money, it’s a fun thing to do. But who does?

PS: Why vinyl? Haven’t you heard of these CD things?

DD: You know I have, on this record “Stranded in the Combat Zone” we made it vinyl because we don’t know how many chances we have to still do vinyl. Unfortunately even Punk Rock kids aren’t buying vinyl. When our first record “The Army of Youth” it sold more briskly then this one has. But that’s Ok we have a CD out with comp tracks and that’s sold well and we really feel that this record is a lot better but it doesn’t sell as well because it’s vinyl. Which is unfortunate but we all knew that this might be the last chance for us to do vinyl. It could hit resurgence, you never know. Vinyl’s really great too because you get to be more involved then CD’s. With CD’s you put the art work together you do this you do that but really you just send it off. When we do records it’s us cutting and pasting at the Copy Max!

PS: It’s a craft.

DD: Yea, it’s a way for us to step back. Our little homage to the 80’s, standing there at the copy store with our scissors and glue sticks. PS: One day Martha Stewart will do a show about putting out your own seven inch record. DD: We’ve had a lot of help with art work. We’ve had a lot of great art work that I want to give props to if I can. “The Bastards Choir” art work is great. Folks should check it out. And Josh Wright from the band “Brutal Solution” did the “They Can’t Shut Us Up” compilation cover. And Jeff Lamb from the Pittsburg 80’s band “Half Life” did some art work for the back of the seven inch as well as doing our T-shirts and some other “First Offence” related stuff. So we’ve been lucky to work with some great people on that stuff too.

PS: What kind of effect do you want to have on the scene?

DD: That’s hard to say. What kind of effect. I was thinking if we get more people involved in more then just wearing the cloths and going through the motions, I mean obviously it would be a better scene for every body.

PS: What do you man by “going through the motions?”

DD: It’d be great if every body could just do something, even if it’s just going to a show for Gods sakes. It doesn’t have to be much but go to a show! I’m from Akron Ohio and it’s not the biggest place in the world but there’s probably a couple hundred punk rock kids but every show only gets thirty of forty. Because you know there at home “Duh, I wish there was something to do. Gimmee the 40.” Which is great, I know it’s cool to sit around have a couple of beers with your bros but…

PS: Yea I have a friend who was complaining about something like this. And he said “Boy I hope this is just regional.” Going to a show is a social thing. You go to a show and you meet people that you didn’t know before. Last year at the OI! Fest I got to meet folks from all over. I remember when the Business first came to America and the Alaska skinheads came. Both of them. But they came from Alaska to see a band. But it’s a social thing. I don’t know why people would stay home.

DD: Actually we’ve had some good luck with places where you didn’t think there was even a scene. Like Point Pleasant West Virginia, we had a couple of hundred kids come out. If any body’s ever been through Point Pleasant West Virginia it’s not much you know. We’ve always heard, I’ve never been there but we’ve always heard that North Dakota and South Dakota hundreds of kids come out every show. That’s great. I don’t know why in the mid sized bigger cities it doesn’t work but…

PS: Ah there spoiled! Kids today! Grrr!!! I’m trying to be the old cantankerous old guy.

DD: I’m a young guy but I always wonder when I’m looking at kids a couple of years younger then me, “who’s going to do this if I have to move away?”

PS: Well actually, when I published my zine I gave a copy to my nephew and a friend of his saw it. He was trying to do a zine. And he looked through it and he said it inspired his friend to finish his zine. Kids see you do something: “Here’s my compilation, I have a record label, and this is the CD we put out. And they’ll think “Wow you did this?”

DD: Anybody can do it!

PS: Yes! Anybody can do it.

DD: I think doing stuff in general helps you out. For instance we didn’t get invited to play (The East Coast OI! Fest) last year. But this year we’ve been making a little bit more noise and we got the invite.

(Said Stranger) Next year there going to be turning it down to play the Warp Tour. (Laughter all around)

DD: I think not. My thoughts on the Warp Tour are pretty neutral. They don’t invite Punk bands any more. I don’t even know who’s playing this year.

PS: So do you have a web site?

DD: Oh yea, of course. Step Up Records has a web site. It’s www.stepupoi.com. If any band is reading this we’re not specifically OI! that’s just what was available as a URL.
Were not specifically OI! That’s just what was available as a URL thing, and www.myspace.com/firstoffence.

PS: Thanks a lot. This has been great.

Martin of the band LIMP WRIST Part #1

Below is the first half af an interview with Martin (pronounced Mar-teen)
of the band LIMP WRIST.
My first question is about the band he had before LIMP WRIST called
LOS CRUDOS
The explination reveals a lot about Martin and his priorities.

==================================

PS: What did Los Crudos mean?

MS: Los Crudos has a double meaning. It means "The hangovers".
it’s a slang term for Hung Over. It also means raw. And when we started that band we took it for both those meanings.
But it was more of a socio political thing for us because being
hung over in the sense of you know with what we dealt with topic wise as a band and where we were from our community, things we were facing as young Latinos and living in the U.S. and all that. We felt that some shit was so heavy for us it felt like being hung over, just trying to see clearly. And that’s why we took that name. And we liked the raw aspect because it was just nasty and raw. (laughs)

PS: Los Crudos were really popular. People would be saying "Oh there fucking awesome." Then you came out of the closet. How did you come out to the scene?

MS: Well I think it all really started with my telling a few really close friends. And then when we went on one of our tours I started to come out at shows. And the last place I came out to was Chicago and that’s because it was home.
You know it’s easy to drive by and do a drive by coming out and you don’t know how people really reacted to it or not. And I was gone before I could really hear about it; the reactions.
But when I got home I knew I had to live with the reactions to that.
When I did it at the show a lot of people jumped up on the stage and hugged me it was really awesome. And over time I heard like "Fuck that shit." "Martins a fag!" and my
response to that was if you thought you were into Los Crudos before I came out and now your not then you weren't really paying attention.
It was a little bit of a let down but you know it made things a even bit better for us because we were about being really hardcore punk and that’s about being honest about stuff and real so for me it was the right way to go.

PS: I interviewed David Carter. He wrote "Stonewall: the Riots That Sparked The Gay Revolution." He was concerned about how the Gay Communities aren’t aware of there history and how you can’t have a community that doesn’t have a history. In the Punk rock scene kids know the lyrics to bands that broke up before they were even born. So there’s this conection to the past and I've seen kids activated by that. So You’re a homo and a part of the Punk scene and connected some how to the Gay scene. What diffrences and similarities do you see between the Gay and Punk Rock scene culture and history wise?

MS: It's a hard question to ansewer because what i find with the punks is ther's an ubbielievable amount of luyalty that punks have to people of the past in punk for people who were around and active. Even in Punk there are things that get lost over time. so it you know we have done such an unbelieveable amount of work on the grass roots leval at documenting what is happened in punk so if you realy wanted to do your home work and research on it you can find stuff
where as Gay history is harder because of so much fear and things got lost over time there was such a stigma for so long and I think like a lot of the history we're probubly going to lok at doesn't go to far back. There's people who have done realy great work. I was at the University of Chicago for this big conference and people were presenting some exelent papers on history and that was realy facinating for me. I think mainstream gay culture doesn't realy dig enough or realy present enough of just how rich the culture realy is. There's a lot of doors being shut on anything that kind of falls out side of what is OK by the mainstreams standard of what is gay and it realy fucks us all up. So many voices go unheard and it's realy tragic. Why add another tragedy to what sometimes an already tragic scene at times. Being Gay sometimes for some people is kind of scary and tragic but do we have to keep on doing it?

PS: Part of what it means to have a history is to have examples you can set your life by. And I've talked to Gay and Lesbian people who didn't know what Stonewall was. This one women said she found out what Stonewall was from taking a class in college. To have to go to college or to have to go to a conference to find out what your history is... I don't understand how that happened.

MS: I'm teaching that in high school this coming semester. I teach at an alternative high school and do radical queer kind of history class and I'm going to do a little home work on my end to pick some nice things and Stonewall is definatly one of them that's in there. My high school kids range from freshmen to senior are going to b learning that this year. I wish more people were able to do that but on a high school leval it's so hard in this country in this day and age to do anything that kind of goes outside of the boundries of what is acceptable education.

PS: I think it's an important story to tell not just for Gay kids because America was a different place before Stonewall. It was literaly a different country.

MS: Yea. America is still a very different place. There are some powerfull people that controll what is bing pushed out there and America is still not what they tell us it is. We realy know because we live it. It's much more then what is presented to us. And it's up to us I think and people like us who are into what we're doing that keep on pushing and promoting other stuff that bends a little bit out side of the norm.

PS: I volleteer at WBAi ad help out with the Gay program there Out-FM . We did a news segment and in this one story, I think it had something to do with a court defeat in Gay marriage. It was a white Gay guy and he said it made him feel like being moved to the back of the bus. And the women who was going to read the story felt the need to edit that comment out because it made him look bad.
I agreed. Your not a strong black women your a white Gay man and you should embraace that. And the reason he said that I think was first he wanted to translate Gay oppression to the cival rights movement in the 60's. The other reason is he's not aware of his history. There's a Gay history that he could be mining and using as for examples of what we've had to put up with over the decades. And that way people would know how far we've come as well. And I think that's part of the importance of knowing our history.

MS: Absolutly. I agree. I don't realy know how to comment on something like that because that kind of comment, I think what he was trying to do was, as you said, to relate it to something that everybody can supposedly can relate to. It's tricky. I mean I wouldn't use that as an analogy or comparison. That's not what I would have done but, I mean I don't think we have to go that route. We just have to tell our stories and how we feel. We don't have to relate it so people can understand and on a kind of greater leval. And I'm trying to be clear about this I think the way we tell our stories should be a unique way of telling our story. We are today. We are now. We are living in the now. And lets present thigs in a way that are important and relevent to now. And not have to try and pull from some palce else. I mean people do that all the time. But you know, my story doesn't nessaceraly, I think it has comonalitiyes with other peoples struggles and other peoples stroies but it's not always exactly the same and I don't think they should be cause that means we havn't grown, we havn't gone any where.

PS: How are people going to know what our commonality is if we arn't sharing our expierience. People can go "Oh Yea I see. That thing that you personaly went through I can relate to that."
When did Limp Wrist form?

MS: Limp Wrist started like soon after Los Crudos was coming to an end. And um... ypu know is was just me and ne of the guys, one of the band members I was just like "You know it would be so amazing to do a real hard core punk gay band. you know and we liked the idea and we atsrted kind of brain storming who were other people we could get. And it realy was kind of sad because in order to find somebody and the people who would be realy into it and understood where we we were coming from unfortunatly lived in all different cities. You know, and um... but we managed to like scrambled and pulled it togeathe and This guys in Philly, I'm in Chicago your in upstate New York and it all came togeather. And we just talked to them and they loved the idea and we started doing it you know. So that's how limp wrist happened.

PS: How do you manage rehersals. Do you phone each other?

MS: OH I will call my guiotarist and hum things into his cell phone messages and I'm like get this down you know and he'll go and play it and record it into his computer just so w can remember that riff. And then when we come togeather we try to work on it. So when we do a tour there's time we'll sit down and write music or do something like that.

PS: That's amazing. Why the name Limp Wrist?

MS: Limp Wrist. We're Fags. You know, Lets do it. We're not afraid of that you know what I'm saying? I'm not afraid to say yea I'm a faggot you know or I suck Dick you know. I embrace that you know. I'm not afraid of it. So Limp Wrist made sence because it confuses people.
I've been in leather bars and I say "yea I'm in a band called Limp Wrist." And most of the guys are "Ewww. It's so fem." And I'm like 'Yea, You see us live, you'll trip the fuck out!" you know? I don't mind playing with that.

PS: It's great in the sence that it's a Hardcore punk rock band called Limp Wrist and you go to a show and it's not pink too-toos up on stage.

MS: It could be! Because we may do that. Because smetimes the Punk Rock scene could be realy hard and agressive and maybe I will come out in a pink to-to to fuck with those kids that are that show.
So we'll go all over with it. We don't care.

"Activism is about no compromise. Politics is all about compromise."

Bayard Rustin

When I heard the quote by Bayard Rustin I felt that he was not being judgmental. He was relating his experience in the civil rights movement as his life inside the political realm. It's something I consider when voting.

Of the candidates, I see presently running I see John Edwards running for the Chief Executive job and Barak Obama or Ms Clinton as Vice President.
My reasons have little to do with what I personally want.
It is based on my understanding of human nature.
If Barak or Hillery are vice president that gives the American population 4 to 8 years to get used to seeing a women and a man of African Decent in a position of power. The uncertainty and just plain old fear would be eroded down through experience by the time there turn at bat came up in 2016.
I find Hillary to be uninspiring when she speaks but her time on the Armed Services committee was well spent. She would be a familiar face to other politic leaders of other nations. Barak has experience in activism and politics. He may have a better understanding between compromising and being compromised. Also, an African American face would send a substantial signal top the world about where the United States is going. It could give the new president a honeymoon period of up to six months!!!!
There is a lot of disappointment in folks who voted for George W. Bush, (Twice!) but folks though they do not see him as being a good president still support him. Why? ; Human nature.
I think that is a topic for another thread.
John Edwards is the only candidate being attacked for helping the poor.
The Noise Machine has stooped to talking about how expensive his haircuts have been.
Why his hair? Because it is all they have.
The arguments have been “He has money and dares to speak out about poverty in the U.S.A. What a hypocrite!”
If that’s all they have to throw out at him, he has a shot.
P.S.
I'll be hosting Out-FM monday the 9th of July.The program is the Progressive Gay radio programwhich broadcasts fromm 11:am till Noon on WBAI 99.5 fm and streams live at
www.wbai.org