Month: March 2014

Categories
Brooklyn Music & Songs

Lucky One

 

Pygmy with acanthus leaf, bones, and stars.In the movie Brooklyn’s Finest, a Brooklyn cop goes on a killing spree in order afford a safer home for his family. I can totally relate to his feelings, and yet, I kept wanting to yell at him, “Move to Indiana! Why don’t you just move to Indiana!! Don’t you realize there is cheaper housing there?!?”

Why does Brooklyn even exist- why doesn’t everyone just move to Indiana? What is the upside to Brooklyn? As far as I can tell, there isn’t more stuff to do, there isn’t greater earning potential… so, what gives?

At any rate, this is another song I wrote while struggling to keep my head above water in the belly of that concrete monster. As I’ve mentioned before, one of the hardest things to deal with was feeling deprived of all the things that make life feel happy and comfortable, like friends, nature, a happy home, a slice of pizza that hasn’t been held in a stranger’s dirty hands. My mind would spin around and around trying to think of ways I could bring this lost pastoral energy back into my life (Because somehow, just as in Brooklyn’s Finest, the idea that I could simply leave never seemed to enter my mind.)

At one point, I was convinced that the color orange was the answer. I saw Brooklyn as basically being the Kingdom of Gray, and thought orange might be the color that could cut through the thick dullness that gray represented, and bring in the energy of the Harvest, that time when all your efforts are rewarded and all the seeds you have planted come to fruition.

So, not having much money to spend on the color orange, I bought a basketball, a pair of orange high top shoes (the only orange shoes I could find for $9), plus some orange tissue paper and candles. I taped the orange paper to my wall and lit the orange candles beneath it. But when I opened my door, the paper caught fire and flew across the room like a giant orange monster, landing on the floor where I stomped it out (and then extinguished the wall). I decided to put the orange candles on my kitchen table instead, and let them burn through the night so I could wake up and enjoy my harvest in the morning. Instead, I was woken by a strange sound that turned out to be the entire surface of my kitchen table burning. The spirits of the harvest at work!

 

Download MP3: Lucky One

Categories
Music & Songs Santa Fe

Crystalline Flame

 

 

Bell-weather Paul MacLean with bell on neck guiding a flock of white sheep. No!!

When I lived in Santa Fe, a man asked me out for a drink. He was a slime ball and I was married, so I knew it was a bad idea. And YET, my (horrible) philosophy was to say yes to everything lest I accidentally miss a golden opportunity in disguise. How could I be certain he wasn’t really a magical unicorn planning on teaching me the secrets of the universe?

Still, I had been around the block enough to recognize a predatorial man when I saw one, and I knew I should take some action to protect myself. Being a practical person, I decided the best protection would be to fill my apartment (a weekly motel suite) to the brim with giant pink pyramids topped with bunny rabbits. I figured he would walk in, see all these pyramids topped with rabbits, and then… well, I just figured he wouldn’t mess with me after that.

So I spent the next week walking to a nearby lumberyard to buy bricks, which I carried home, painted pink, covered with iridescent silver stars, and then stacked into pyramids. I ended up making seven pyramids (in a very small motel room), each one topped with a candle, a crystal, and a rabbit figurine. It took the whole week and all my money.

When the big day arrived, the man didn’t even show up. I wasn’t surprised, actually, since standing people up is a hallmark of this particular breed of predators. They forget an engagement, the jilted party calls them (angrily) to remind them, they apologize and ask to make it up to you, and then the two people meet again, with the predator on slightly higher footing. My disappointment (after all this work!) was equal to my relief, and all in all I took it as a sign that the rabbit pyramids had protected me, just as I’d hoped.

Later, while living in Brooklyn, I saw a movie this man had made which described his romantic philosophy of cutting people’s pride in order to seem more desirable to them. A very low down approach to life, but still, probably better than saying yes to everything.

Download MP3: Crystalline Flame

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Brooklyn Music & Songs

Every River

 

Probably the most traumatic part of living in Brooklyn was the cockroaches. When you lose control of your personal space, and cannot make it safe and clean despite your best efforts, you lose a part of your mind.

Portrait of black man with red shirt and red background.
Moses was a black man, and his favorite color was red.

The first time I saw one I didn’t think it was real. I had just turned on the bathroom light in my newly rented apartment when a three inch long creature- that looked to me like an Egyptian scarab- quickly scampered down the drain. I didn’t see what a magical scarab would be doing in my apartment, and I didn’t see how something that large could have disappeared down the drain, so I figured it must have been a hallucination- and hopefully a sign of good luck! I thought- like the phoenix- it was the sort of creature I would only see once in a lifetime.

But unfortunately, it was just one member of a very, very, VERY large tribe, that tormented me day and night, and that is about all I can say on this subject without losing the contents of my stomach. Suffice it to say, this was just one more element of my life which felt intolerable, out of control, and left me turning to magic for answers.

Perhaps because I lived in a black part of town, most of the magic I learned seemed to have African-American origins, like Hoodoo for example. One book I read was called the 8th, 9th, and 10th Books of Moses. In the preface, it refers to Moses (if I remember correctly) as the Great Hoodoo Man of the Bible. It caused me to see Moses in a totally new light. Before, I had always thought of him as someone chosen by God to do God’s bidding with little will or volition of his own. Which isn’t very relatable, since most of us don’t have burning bushes to turn to for advice and have to figure out life for ourselves. But in the hoodoo version of Moses, he was more of a self-made man- a powerful, wise magician who led his people to freedom through his own knowledge, strength and cunning. Which makes sense when you consider that “God helps those who help themselves.”

 

Download MP3: Every River

Categories
Brooklyn Music & Songs

Countrified

 

Kevin Srebnick in checkered shirt drinking coffee.

To be countrified means to be made of stone and earth.

My life in Brooklyn was a constant struggle to avoid being countrified, but in a world so hard and gray that was pretty much impossible. Maybe, when it is your time to die, you should just do it peacefully.

But instead, I chose to rage against the dying of the light. Whenever I had a dollar, I headed straight to the neighborhood discount party supply store, where I would spend as much time as I could gazing (inconspicuously, I hoped) at the plastic party decorations in every color of the rainbow. In the end, I would usually settle on a plastic tablecloth in a color I had never bought before, which I would then take home and nail to my wall. Why? Because I was convinced there was one color out there who could magically change my life for the better. And once I found this color and nailed him to my wall- BAM! the world would transform in an instant.

When I had several dollars to spend, I went to a  discount greeting card shop, where, once again, I would nonchalantly loiter for as long as possible, before buying as many cards as I could afford and taking them home to stuff with glitter and feathers. I mailed these cards to everyone I knew- no matter how distantly- and learned there is no better way to alienate an acquaintance than a string of “I’m Glad We’re Friends!” cards with cute baby ducks on the front.

 

Download MP3: Countrified