More Livin in the 00ze

Saturday I'd been thinking about global warming and working on Livin in the 00ze (new draft of the audio here - have a listen while you read on - where I was last week on the song is talked about and recorded here).

I'd gone back to the original nightmare lyrically, partially, coming up with a way to bring easter island in, and trying to tell more of the story in the song in the song rather than in me writing about it around the song. Still, I'm hard at work here, writing around the song...

On Easter Island/Moai turns to man/With your technology/Why are you with me?

I'm always trying to wedge too much stuff into one song (take Rhysling and Me, for instance. Please)

Sunday I went to the Betania church in Adelaide.

I tend to go to church wherever I am. I find spiritual practice comforting - I always feel a lot better shifting some of my burden onto the object of worship of the moment - be it some brand of Jesus, Jehovah, Mohammed, Buddha, or Shiva. I like to think I'm being respectful to my hosts by going, and I try very hard (usually) to blend in with maximum Zeligness - my "acceptance mode" - and I'm always hopeful that at one of these sessions, somewhere, enlightenment would strike, and stick. I've experienced religious ecstasy in a variety of environments. Briefly. Sometimes the ecstasy lasts til Tuesday, but usually... not past noon. I've been getting by on some basic Buddhism ("desire is the source of all unhappiness") for a year now. No desire, not much unhappiness, no ecstasy.

I liked this church initially- It's like a bumpin black baptist church but translated into Italian/Australian accents. Missing is all the Catholic idol ism: Christ bleeding on a cross, ornate statuary and stained glass... Just a podium on a platform, and one helluva heckuva divine backup band.

Betania's band is the best band I've heard in church in years - drummer (encased in plexiglas), bassist, two guitarists, two synthesizers, and a four (gorgeous) girl backing group. The lead singer resembles Jim Morrison...

Rock and Roll has come full circle - originally derided as the tool of the devil - it's been tamed and harnessed in the service of the Lord - None of the spiritualism of Bach or Grecian chants are found here. When services start, and the power chords kick in - people's heads start boppin, they raise their hands up high and they start shaking their booty!

When I think about what it would cost for a band this big to tour my head hurts, but there they are, up on stage, every Sunday, with a steady gig... and when I'm not in my "acceptance mode", I reflect, bitterly, on how the exact same manipulation techniques are used in church, in advertising, and in politics... But...

The first song up - "Oh Happy Day" - a bouncing gospel number - managed to completely erase "00ze" from my head - a good thing, as I had tiresome snippets of it looping there still from Saturday. (when you edit audio you tend to loop very short clips of it while you line up beats. They stay with you until you find something to drive them out)

Everybody starts singing more or less in unison and everybody's spirits, including mine, are lifted way up. When involved with music I feel closest to god, my neoclassical pieces are all spiritually influenced, and this is good music, no matter the lyrical content, it just rocks! They play it again. Then the band starts playing a slower, more spiritual number, I don't remember the name, but in it was a theme about only wanting one thing from Jesus - to be with him. Very nice, very spiritual, I can dig it, I'm having a good time...

And then the third song, while I get rid of my spare change during the offering, leaves me cold, brings me back to the planet with a jerk - because (as best as I can remember) it's about also wanting Jesus to "give us the nations" - which but, um, a song back - wasn't what "we" wanted at all... and my rational mind comes back from wherever I've banished it the last 6 Sundays... just before the pastor comes on stage to elaborate on that point... he repeats... "give us the nations... "give us the nations..." "give us the nations...."

My song was gone, but my head was still full of the causes of global warming, not least of which is all the hot air emitted by humans... but let me digress for a couple minutes. Here, have another song...

---

I grew up with an encyclopedia in my bedroom. I became a rabid and willfully ignorant atheist at the age of five, a total convert to science - in a deeply religious town. This left me ill equipped to reconcile the attitudes I absorbed from the generally religious people around me. I didn't have any reference points. I didn't have anything to tie attitude to idea, and vice versa. This was one source of my subsequent social isolation. I didn't watch cartoons on Saturdays, and I didn't go to church on Sundays. Conversation starters on Mondays were few and far between. But there was that encyclopedia...

When I was 15 I took a huge test that tested my level of general knowledge about the world. I scored off the chart. I only missed two questions. I can't remember one, but the other was: "What is the first chapter of the Bible"?

Yea, I was so willfully ignorant of religion then that I didn't know that answer was Genesis - but I looked that up in my encyclopedia when I got home. I resolved to remedy that ignorance, so in the following weeks I read the Bible (King James Version) and for good measure, read the Koran, AND the Torah, and tossed in Albert Speer's biography and the Kinsey Report for some variety.

I could have used some help in digesting all that, but a short visit to a local Bible study class had me arguing for evolution immediately - I had very little tact then, and less patience. There were no non-Christian religions in town - and I didn't know anyone that could talk about the stuff in the Kinsey report, either. So all that information just sort of sat there in my head, without a whole lot of comprehension, for years and years.

Today, well, I could use a lot of bible study, but I'd prefer to be in a situation where getting confrontational with the group of believers would be ok - like a bar, while I was under a false name - in a place I would never visit again. The pressure to conform in these study classes is intense, and, well, I'd like to have safe place to go or something good to drink while trying to digest it, and otherwise not have to distress my immediate neighbors for having such a heretic in their midst. I've always been perfectly happy to leave my neighbors to their beliefs if they didn't muck with mine.

These days I have a wise rabbi in Florida that I email when I'm dealing with the crazy stuff. Sometimes he mails me back.

What I remember from being 15 was that the Old Testament reverberated with me a lot more than than the new. Perhaps that was reinforced by almost simultaneously reading the Koran, but I don't remember. I thought then (and still think) that the King James version of the creation myth was one of the most powerful ever put into words.

In the years since I studied Norse and Greek mythology, and also got interested in Sumerian after Neal Stephenson made a compelling set of references to it in Snow Crash. Greek mythology sticks with me the best, though, as even the shortest journey through our solar system brings up a whole lot of that.

To this day I think about the other question I missed in that test at 15. What was it? I know it was also religious in nature. I don't know what that question was, and thus, not the answer.

After life smacked me over the head one too many times - I guess I was around 29 - I became agnostic, a seeker, rather than a non-believer. I know, now, that I know too much, and understand too little.

I've always kind of wondered if people offered bible study via instant messaging. That would get rid of the control and conflict elements inherent of such a group, and also make it possible to look up things online. A Biblebot might be a good thing.

---

I have great difficulties with concept of miracles, and getting guidance via burning bushes, and the like.

That doesn't mean that my life isn't filled with coincidences that get downright spooky. I turned to wikipedia while writing this (march 12th) to lookup creation myths - and what's their featured article? Cretaceous Tertiary Extinction Event - what I've been more or less writing about in living in the 00ze. What made them choose today to write about this? Asteroid appreciation day was 12 days ago!?

Further, Doc Searls - on the other side of the planet from me - today wrote about mankind messing up the planet, and near the end of his piece came up with a rhyme for "ooze" that I hadn't thought of, and may well use at some point...

"push the bar on snooze"

Tonight, at 8:54PM Adelaide time, crossing across the bottom of a cursive Y like star formation, something glimmered in the night. It was moving too flat to be a meteor and didn't change in brightness, and seemingly too high up to be an airplane, and was visible only for a few seconds. It was moving at a clip suitable for a satellite - but so bright? At that inclination? I'll have to look it up....

---

Out in the night/Just out of sight/A star overhead/And soon we'll be...
Back to the 00ze (although I can still hum oh happy day having only heard it twice) a whole bunch of 3 related numbers started going through my head, as they almost match the syllables in the 00ze song...

BF533 - BFP533 - UB313

Which are, respectively, the processor I've been working on, Hans Reiser's prisoner number, and the original designation the dwarf planet Eris (it's larger than Pluto!) out in the Trans Neptune region of our solar system. Along with the satellite, "Dysnomia", it may be responsible for perturbing a few cometary orbits...

Another phrase that rhymes with all that is Holy Trinity. - which in my internal frame of reference is far less about religion than the bomb - but it all ties together somehow.

Some people get apocalyptic visions every weekend. They even tithe for the privilege, or come back for a second helping on wednesdays. I only have to cope with one apocalyptic vision every couple of years. Maybe constant exposure to the concept of the great shout would make finishing this song easier... make it more possible to welcome the demise of the people watching the cameras at the traffic lights... the end of the spammers... etc... yea...

---

Give us the nations - the pastor said. What the heck did he mean by that? As best as I could tell from listening to the sermon it meant that it was good that nations like Russia and Indonesia were open to missionaries now, and that the existing nations could be ruled by the righteous (meaning Jesus followers) one day, and that their religious education could sweep across all the lands... everyone would be converted... and then there will be peace!

Something in me snaps, and in response to something the pastor says, I say... no, while everyone around me is shouting yes...

I say, louder Peace cannot be predicated on whether or not people accept Jesus, or there will be war. Peace, then, will only be found by the dead.

Now, I've spent months rubbing blue mud into my belly-button and bonding with my hosts and in general trying to get along, and you know, people start looking at you funny when you are in church disagreeing with the pastor from pew 42 so I shut up and tried to keep my mind at bay...

I'm reminded by Bush's recent briefing on Iran and foreign policy which had a great number of religious people present and was punctuated by frequent cries of Amen!, and Praise the lord! And I am especially reminded (today) of Fox Fallon stepping down from US Central command shortly after that briefing. Maybe these events are related for my current state of worry...

As the pastor closed up his fiery sermon the band kicked in with another inspirational song and the the audience fills with people babbling in tongues and crying out to Jesus - Oh, Jesus! Thank you Jesus! ol al ma be la lo be la le le la YES Jesus!, Oh Jesus! ol al ma be la lo be la le le la Jeeessusssss... Jeeeesus

Did I mention that this church is pentecostal? That means that speaking in tongues, especially on Sundays, is socially acceptable, almost required. It's kind of comforting to know that this is acceptable behavior somewhere, because I do it (especially when singing to a wordless tune) or when I'm completely frustrated - or underwater - or as these people are - in the throes of ecstasy. The babble seems to tie into some deep pre-cogent verbal human process. I've never done it with other people tho and as the pastor revs up the volume I kind of do a review of my deteriorating mental state... So, let's see...

Oh, Jesus! Thank you Jesus! ol al ma be la lo be la le le la YES Lord!, Oh Jesus! ol al ma be la lo be la le le la Jeeessusssss... Jeeeesus

I just blogged a long piece about emphasizing with a programmer that's being tried for murder, while thumbing my nose at authority about riding my bicycle on the sidewalk... while writing something scary about Clinton - while simultaneously working on a post-apocalyptic song filled with maniacal laughter... these are all reactions to my present environment. I've swallowed enough of it. Zelig can't handle it anymore. I think it's time to move on.

ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la....

I've sometimes wished that the groups of people that go into public places and freeze in place for two minutes would go into a strange place and babble like this into their cellphones, but I'm not sure if anybody would notice.

ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la....

I mentioned in the last blog entry that I ran google with safesearch off.

Oh, Jesus! Thank you Jesus! ol al ma be la lo be la le le la YES Jesus!, Oh Lord! ol al ma be la lo be la le le la Jeeessusssss... Jeeeesus

I don't like other people - or machines - filtering my inputs, without my control, or input into how they were shaping my inputs. I like my data raw, my people raw, whenever possible. I try to embrace the moment and the new to the fullest, yet (eventually) I do filter things heavily with my mind and using my own tools - like privoxy and firefox adblock - and always exhibit a great deal of scepticism regarding the purpose of the people spinning a secondhand story. I have one filter that changes every occurrence of the phrase "cut taxes" into "increase deficit spending", for example.

ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le la....

My mental filters snapped back into place... and I was back to thinking again about global warming, and the similarities between marketing and church verbal manipulation techniques - and what I started hearing in my head was:

Oh Chrysler! Thank you, CHRYSLER! ol al ma be la lo be la le le la Thank you CHRYSLER. Oh, FORD! Yes, CHRYSLER! ol al ma be la lo be la le le la... CHRYSLERRRRRRRRRRR.... CHRYSLEERRR!

Word substitution of this sort continued until the end of the service. Feel free to fill in the key words for yourself.

---

I'm pretty sure that when this happens to a regular churchgoer they are filled with remorse, and, were I catholic, would have to be followed by an immediate confession and penance. Me, after the service, I went for a very long walk. Something of a run, actually... I needed to get out of there.

Long ago I found one sure way to end a conversation with a true believer in almost any modern religion. I'll start talking rapidly about my deep reverence for the greek goddess Athena, and about how her springing fully formed from Zeus's forehead just blew away the Virgin Mary story... how much that I admired that she was a god of war, equipped mostly with a shield... etc. - and inside of a few minutes, they wander away, mind blown by an apparently unrepentant pantheist, without a reference point to further discussion on.

I've got a lot more tactful in my old age. Recently I successfully endured a 4 hours of a bible literalist (same sect) describing his elaborate explanation for why God created the world apparently old, but that it was still - really - only 6000 years old, just like the bible said... before I invoked the Athena defense. He hasn't spoken to me since. Too bad - he was otherwise a pretty nice guy, worth drinking a beer with. I think I have to come up with a way of switching the subject before I get to that point.

I know that one day, were I come to trial for something, that well over half of the "jury of my peers" would consist of people that were utterly alien in their belief systems to me - and I to them. I have met many good religious people - many, many, many - in person they are wonderful - in groups, though, they scare the (sorry) bejesus out of me.

I can't think of one religious person, ever, that bothered to look up the story of Athena, after I dissed the Virgin Mary. That really bothers me. Athena is cool....

It was good to take that walk. It cleared my head up of all this apocalyptic crap, I managed to work on some code for most of the week, and type bits of this story up, trying to figure out how to make it all coherent, and realizing that I probably had to publish two pieces I'd held back because I'd had it with holding my tongue on what I really thought, and I didn't care anymore what some people thought of me because I was leaving soon.

So here I go, trying to tie all this back into the original nightmare... and the present world...

I needed to assemble the remaining components of the song - the two voice overs, and the bit about peanut butter and jellyfish... I got David Rowe's daughter to perform that part. I gave her a mic and and got her to say, over and over again, "I just love my plankton and jellyfish" - "again!" - "I just LOVE my plankton and jellyfish" - "Say it like you mean it!" "I JUST LOVE MY PLANKTON and JELLYFISH" "Think of something that you really love and say it!" "I HATE SEAFOOD!" "Well, PRETEND!" "I just LOVE my plankton and jellyfish"...

She broke down into giggles repeatedly, and waste not, want not - one of those giggles is getting used as a rhythmic element now in the song.

She asked me later upon hearing the mix what the song was about and I said it was about survival after a giant asteroid had smacked into the planet, that the same people that get busted for selling grow-lights today would get called upon to raise plankton and jellyfish after that to feed little girls... and she told me (again) how much she hated seafood.

I'm not happy with the two "news report voiceovers" but thematically they seem to fit in a "le la ol al ma be la lo be la le le" sort of way so I'm leaving them in until I come up with something better to say (and a more genuine newscaster voice)....

I LOVE how she said plankton and jellyfish on the exit to the song, tho....

Livin in the 00ze (as of March 12th)

Drums and Bass kick in

[repeat] Piano Kicks in

[overdub of weather announcer kicks in]
 bsst! Weather today - hot, rainy - Bikinis were spotted as far north as greenland...
 bsstt!  some tiny little details bsst!
 today's shuttle launch was canceled due to atomspheric disturbances]

on easter island
Moai turns to man
"With your technology - 
 why are you with me?"

you'll soon be livin in the 00ze

[announcer]
[some stuff about global warming]
[Wait... this just in...]

Out in the night
Just out of sight
There's a star overhead
And soon we'll be... 

(Chorus)
Livin in the 00ze - UB313
Livin in the 00ze - UB313
Livin in the 00ze - UB313

far above the beach
Just out of reach
bordered in black
It's a Meteor Attack ack ack ack...

And now we're living in the 00ze
Yes, we're living in the 00ze
Livin in the 00ze

[solos, more overdubs]

Out on the beach
Just out of reach
Mind melting heat
Nothing to eat

[weather announcer 

Weather today. Cold. Rainy. The
last few remaining people in washington state
looked up at that terrible sky and 
decided to give up entirely. We haven't
heard from them in a week.
Next up, our special "Glaciers on the Move"
... If there is anyone still listening... ]

[chorus]

Yea we're living in the 00ze
and we don't have any shoes
and we're turning corn to booze
Because we're livin in the 00ze.

[Girl's voice: I just LOVE my plankton and jellyfish]

                Yea.

One link that couldn't fit into this piece: Oh, happy day as performed in India.

Labels: election 2008, music, religion

  ¶ 4:40 AM