It was you

[Song repost, new video]

This is a letter
From God to Man.
It says:

Hey There, how’s it going?
Long time no see.
I-- I haven’t been around much lately
But… it didn’t seem like you wanted me to be
The last time I sent down a message you nailed it to the cross
So I figured I’d just leave you to it, let you be your own boss

But I’ve been keeping an eye on you, I have, and it’s amazing how you’ve grown.
With your technological advances and the problems you’ve overthrown,
And all the beautiful art you’ve created with such grace and such finesse,
But I admit there are a few things I’m afraid have impressed me less.

So I’m writing to apologize for all the horrors committed in my name,
Although that was never what I intended, I feel I should take my share of the blame.
All the good I tried to do was corrupted when organized religion got into full swing,
What I thought were quite clear messages were taken to unusual extremes.
My teachings were taken out of context to meet the agendas of others,
Interpretations taken to many different ways and hidden meanings discovered

Religion became a tool, for the weak to control the strong
With all these new morals and ethics, survival of the fittest was gone
No longer could the biggest man simply take whatever he needed
‘cause damnation was the price if certain rules were not heeded

Some of the deeds committed in my name made me wonder were I went wrong.
Back at the start when I created this, the foundation seemed so strong.
See all the elements were already here, long before I began, I just kind of put it all together
I didn’t really think out a long-term plan.

I made the sun an appropriate distance and laid the stars across the sky
So you could navigate the globe or simply watch the sun rise
I covered the earth with plants and fruits,
Some for sustenance and some for beauty
I made the sun shine and the clouds rain so their maintenance wasn’t your duty
I tried to give each creature its own attributes without making them enveloped
I gave you all you all your own space to grow and in your own way space to develop

I didn’t know such development would cause rifts and jealousy
Cause you to war against each other and leave marks on this planet indelibly
You see, I wasn’t really the creator, I was just the curator of nature
I want to get something straight with homosexuals right now: I don’t hate ya
I was a simple being that happened to be the first to wield such powers
I just laid the ground, it was You that built the towers

It was You that invented bombs, and the fear that comes with them
And it was You that invented money, and the corrupt economic systems
You invented terms like just-war and terms like friendly fire
And it was You that didn’t know when to stop digging deeper, when to stop building higher
It was You that exhausted the resources I carefully laid out on this earth,
And it was You that even saw these problems coming but accredited them little worth
It was You that used my teachings for your own personal gain
And it was You that committed such tragedies, even though they were in my name

So I apologize for my mistakes and when my words misconstrued
But this apology is to mother nature, 'cause I created you.

A Letter From God to Man by Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip

If you’re a C

My boyfriend says he will leave me,
should I A: get down on your knees
should I B: tell him where to go
or should I C: kiss him until it shows

Your boyfriends got no fashion sense,
Should you A: Try not to take offense
Should you B: Tell him to go to Next
Or should you C: Kiss him and forget

If you’re an A you will see you get chucked and end up unhappy.
If you’re a B you will find that’s cool but hey don’t be so unkind.
If you’re a C you will end up like me.

And love will ball you over
if you’re a C you’ll end up like me
Don’t play games if you’re broken hearted
Don’t try to finish what you ego started
and if you’ve got problems then don’t bring them to me


My girlfriends getting sick of me,
Should I A: change your personality
Should I B: put her love to the test
Should I C: kiss her until she is obsessed


You’re girlfriend fancies your best friend
Should you A: stick around with them
Should you B: tell them that’s just fine
Should you C: kiss her until she’s mine

If you’re an A you will see you get chucked and end up unhappy.
If you’re a B you will find that’s cool but hey don’t be too unkind.
If you’re a C will end up like me.

And love will ball you over
if you’re a C you’ll end up like me
Don’t play games if you’re broken hearted
Don’t try to finish what you ego started
and if you’ve got problems then don’t bring them to me

you looking at me like you only half believe my story
how can I purse my lips and kiss when I’m in such a fury
they think my heart is jumping and stomping through the floor
oh my its true
but I need you
the smile that I put on to mask a face is more than nervous
its never hard when I recall that I just don’t deserve this
they think my heart is breaking shaking breaking over but-
it’s what I must do
if I want you

If you’re an A you will see you get chucked and end up unhappy.
If you’re a B you will find that’s cool but hey don’t be too unkind.
If you’re a C you will end up like me.

And love will ball you over
if you’re a C you’ll end up like me
Don’t play games if you’re broken hearted
Don’t try to finish what you ego started
and if you’ve got problems then don’t bring them to me

C- C- C- C- C- C- C is the heavenly option

C is the Heavenly Option by Los Campesinos!

Let the right one in

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

From Blossoms by Li-Young Lee

I didn't want to wake you up.

Where The Wild Things Are by Spike Jonze

one person aching in one place alone untouched unspoken to

too much too little

too fat
too thin
or nobody.

laughter or
tears

haters
lovers

strangers with faces like
the backs of
thumb tacks

armies running through
streets of blood
waving winebottles
bayoneting and fucking
virgins.

an old guy in a cheap room
with a photograph of M. Monroe.

there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock

people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.

people just are not good to each other
one on one.

the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners

it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.

or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone

untouched
unspoken to

watering a plant.

people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.

I suppose they never will be.
I don't ask them to be.

but sometimes I think about
it.

the beads will swing
the clouds will cloud
and the killer will behead the child
like taking a bite out of an ice cream cone.

too much
too little

too fat
too thin
or nobody

more haters than lovers.

people are not good to each other.
perhaps if they were
our deaths would not be so sad.

meanwhile I look at young girls
stems
flowers of chance.

there must be a way.

surely there must be a way that we have not yet
thought of.

who put this brain inside of me?

it cries
it demands
it says that there is a chance.

it will not say
"no."

The Crunch by Charles Bukowski

Oh the glory when he took our place, but he took my shoulders and he shook my face - and he takes, and he takes, and he takes.

There are some emotions
that don’t have words
And others that don’t even have sounds.

Like when the mother of a murderer
and the mother of the person murdered
sit across from each other
in a crowded courtroom
and wonder how.

Adding/Subtracting by Dallas Clayton

I've made a lot of mistakes

Chicago (by Sufjan Stevens) cover by The Sweethearts

I can't get her out of my mind... When there is a moment of peace, I know that I'm merely passing through the eye of the storm.

"During their storied duel in 1612, the legendary samurai Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro were dematerialized due to a phenomenon known as the Bangalter effect and transported to the city of Hollywood, CA and the year 2008. Realizing that spiritual warfare now occurred in the sonic rather than the material realm, they traded in their swords for sawtooth waves and began their assault against the forces of evil that had followed them to the present day."

Nite Cells


Eletone (Nite Cells Let Go) remixed by Nite Cells

Soft fog dips and weaves itself into this beach city like a gentle knit.

How often you got up in the middle of the night
when one of your children had a bad dream,

and sometimes you woke because you thought
you heard a cry but they were all sleeping,

so you stood in the moonlight just listening
to their breathing, and you didn't mention

that you were an expert at putting toothpaste
on tiny toothbrushes and bending down to wiggle

the toothbrush ten times on each tooth while
you sang the words to songs from Annie, and

who would suspect that you know the fingerings
to the songs in the first four books of the Suzuki

Violin Method and that you can do the voices
of Pooh and Piglet especially well, though

your absolute favorite thing to read out loud is
Bedtime for Frances and that you picked

up your way of reading it from Glynnis Johns,
and it is, now that you think of it, rather impressive

that you read all of Narnia and all of the Ring Trilogy
(and others too many to mention here) to them

before they went to bed and on way out to
Yellowstone, which is another thing you don't put

on the resumé: how you took them to the ocean
and the mountains and brought them safely home.

Things You Didn't Put On Your Resumé by Joyce Sutphen

But only you can make me happy when I'm sad

I was young once. I dug holes
near a canal and almost drowned.
I filled notebooks with words
as carefully as a hunter loads his shotgun.
I had a father also, and I came second to an addiction.
I spent a summer swallowing seeds
and nothing ever grew in my stomach.
Every woman I kissed,
I kissed as if I loved her.
My left and right hands were rivals.
After I hit puberty, I was kicked out of my parents’ house
at least twice a year. No matter when you receive this
there was music playing now.
Your grandfather isn’t
my father. I chose to do something with my life
that I knew I could fail at.
I spent my whole life walking
and hid such colorful wings.

Things My Son Should Know After I've Died by Brian Trimboli

Manipulated living

I sit beside the fire and think
Of all that I have seen,
Of meadow-flowers and butterflies
In summers that have been.

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
In autumns that there were,
With morning mist and silver sun
And wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think
Of how the world will be
When winter comes without a spring
That I shall ever see.

For still there are so many things
That I have never seen.
In every wood, in every spring
There is a different green.

I sit beside the fire and think
Of people long ago,
And people who will see a world
That I shall never know.

But all the while I sit and think
Of the times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
And voices at the door.

Fireside Poem by J.R.R. Tolkien

There's one in all of us

In my opinion, the existence of life is a highly overrated phenomenon.

Sunshine Cleaning by Christine Jeffs

You shall, you shall. I'll remember your name and face

Two shall be born, the whole wide world apart,
And speak in different tongues and have no thought
Each of the other's being, and no heed.
And these, o'er unknown seas, to unknown lands
Shall cross, escaping wreck, defying death;
And all unconsciously shape every act
And bend each wandering step to this one end -
That, one day, out of darkness they shall meet
And read life's meaning in each other's eyes.

And two shall walk some narrow way of life
So nearly side by side that, should one turn
Ever so little space to left or right,
They needs must stand acknowledged, face to face.
And, yet, with wistful eyes that never meet
And groping hands that never clasp and lips
Calling in vain to ears that never hear,
They seek each other all their weary days
And die unsatisfied - and this is Fate!

Fate by Susan Marr Spalding

And he said to me, with so much hatred and reckless rage, "Hail the land of the free and the freedom fighter throughout the world!"

Hunger by Steve McQueen

So how have you been? I heard about your problems.

The Ecstasy of Gold

The movie The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly by Sergio Leone, the music The Ecstasy of Gold by Ennio Morricone.

And from that point on I knew you'd be alright. You'd be okay.

Just lying on the couch and being happy.
Only humming a little, the quiet sound in the head.
Trouble is busy elsewhere at the moment, it has
so much to do in the world.

People who might judge are mostly asleep; they can’t
monitor you all the time, and sometimes they forget.
When dawn flows over the hedge you can
get up and act busy.

Little corners like this, pieces of Heaven
left lying around, can be picked up and saved.
People won’t even see that you have them,
they are so light and easy to hide.

Later in the day you can act like the others.
You can shake your head. You can frown.

Any Morning by William Stafford

"And she too will just leave me," the bear let out in a big sigh.

The Saddest Bear of All by David Guy tells the heartening story of a bear in low spirits who learns what it takes to smile once again.

So I figured I'd never stand a chance

Once upon a time there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work. One day he was walking along the shore. As he looked down the beach, he saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself to think of someone who would dance to the day. So he began to walk faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he saw that it was a young man and the young man wasn't dancing, but instead he was reaching down to the shore, picking up something and very gently throwing it into the ocean.

As he got closer he called out, "Good morning! What are you doing?"

The young man paused, looked up and replied, "Throwing starfish in the ocean."

"I guess I should have asked, why are you throwing starfish in the ocean?"

"The sun is up and the tide is going out. And if I don't throw them in they'll die."

"But, young man, don't you realize that there are miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it. You can't possibly make a difference!"

The young man listened politely. Then bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea, past the breaking waves and said- "It made a difference for that one."

Starfish by an unknown author.

And I don't think I can run from the ties we have started, from the sins that we've become.

sometimes i take a Shower
with the lights off.
but before i even finish showering, i turn the lights back On,
because i remember how afraid of the dark i am.

sometimes i go to the Airport
and just sit in there for a few hours.
because i like watching people Reunite.

sometimes i cut my Fingernails way too short.
like, down to the quicks.
because it’s an odd feeling, the way my fingertips Hurt
every time i touch something.

sometimes i go out in public without my Shoes,
because i like feeling the Real ground,
not just the inside of my shoes.

sometimes i re-arrange my Bedroom,
but then i change it right back
because everyone knows that there isn’t a single person
in the world that isn’t afraid of Change.

sometimes i try reading books Upside-down
because i think thats what it would be like if i couldn’t
Read
at all.

sometimes i just sit and watch the Grass grow,
because we’re lucky that it even grows in the First
place.

sometimes i do things.
sometimes i don’t.

Untitled by dearhonestyx from redbubble

Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms.

Waiting in line at a taco stand for my number to be called
I started talking to a six-year-old kid kicking his little foot against
A curb and waiting for his dad to come out of the bathroom.
And he said, “Why do you cough so much?”
And I said, “Because I have cancer.”
And he said, “Bummer.”
And I said, “Yep.”
And he said, “Does it hurt?”
And I said, “Only when I breathe.”
And he said, “Why don’t you hold your breath?”
And I puffed out my cheeks like Lois Armstrong and
Let him see it and held it for as long as I could
Before exploding into a hacking eruption of
Stupid sounds and saliva.
And he laughed.
And I coughed and laughed.
And he said, “Feel better?”
And I said, “A bit.”
And I showed him how much better with my
Thumb and index finger. And pointed at a green thread
of mucous that had dribbled out onto my chin
He said, “Gross.” And wiping it off
I said, “Yep.”
And he said, “My granddaddy had cancer before he died on the hospital.”
And I said, “You mean in the hospital?”
And he said, “Yeah on the hospital.”
And I said, “Oh, yeah?”
And he said, “He used to give me candy all of the times I ever saw him.”
And I said, “Sorry kid, I don’t have any candy.”
And, deflated, he said, “Are you gonna die on the hospital?”
And I said, “You mean in the hospital?”
And he said, “Yea, are you gonna die on the hospital?”
And I said, “Probably.”
And he said, “OK.”
And, upon giving that gracious consent, the boy’s dad came out and
The boy said, “Well, bye!” And I said, “See ya.”
And he ran off.
And, for a while, between the two of us,
Dying became so very ordinary, like candy or tacos or semantics,
And death itself suddenly just this obnoxious third-wheel
A pitiful nuisance with nothing better to do with his time
Than to tag along with me and this six-year-old kid.
And I sat smiling in the sun and imagining death at the moment,
A sad sack of lonely-self slumped somewhere in the distance,
As I waited for my number to come up.

Death and Tacos by Nathaniel Whittemore

These images have no meaning beyond “I look pretty from this angle” or “I’m wasted” or “look who my new boyfriend is.”

This essay is utter genius. It sums up entirely how I feel about Facebook and our "Look at Me Generation." My patience for you self-picture taking narcissists is growing thin.

I quit months ago. When will you?

In march, at the peak of Facebook popularity, I quit. with four swift clicks of the mouse, I canceled my account. Gone was the entire online persona I had created for myself – profile pictures, interests and activities, work history, friends acquired – all carefully thought out to showcase to the world the very best version of me, all now deleted.

Ironically, the decision to destroy my carefully built-up virtual image came as a result of wanting to enhance my profile. All that particular week I’d been hungry for new quotes on my page, something to reflect the week I’d been having: something introspective. I perused a quotes website and found this one attributed to Aristotle:

“We are what we repeatedly do.”

I became despondent. What, then, was I? If my time was spent changing my profile picture on Facebook, thinking of a clever status update for Facebook, checking my profile again to see if anyone had commented on my page, Is this what I am? A person who re-visits her own thoughts and images for hours each day? And so what do I amount to? An egotist? A voyeur?

Whatever the label, I was unhappy and feeling empty. The amount of time I spent on Facebook had pushed me into an existential crisis. It wasn’t the time-wasting, per se, that bothered me. It was the nature of the obsession – namely self-obsession. Enough was enough. I left Facebook.

In the past, my feelings toward Facebook and similar social networking sites had swung between a genuine sense of connection and community to the uncomfortable awareness that what all of our blogs, online journals and personal profiles really amounted to was serious narcissism. As my feelings of over-exposure continued to mount, the obvious solution would have been to set limits on my Facebook time – yet I still found myself sucked in for longer periods every time I visited. In part, it was the hundreds of little links to and hints about other people’s lives that kept me coming back. But even more addicting were the never-ending possibilities to introduce, enhance and reveal more of myself.

The baby-boomers were at one time thought to be the most self-absorbed generation in American history and carried the label of the Me Generation. In recent years this title has been appropriated, twisted and reassigned to the babies of those same boomers – born in the 80s and 90s – now called Generation Me or the Look at Me Generation. Author Jean Twenge, an Associate Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University and herself a member of Generation Me – spent ten years doing research on this group’s sense of entitlement and self-absorption. She attributed it to the radical individualism that was engendered by baby-boomer parents and educators focused on instilling self-esteem in children beginning in the 1970s. American and Canadian youth were raised on aphorisms such as “express yourself” and “just be yourself.”

To further illustrate her point, Twenge also found a large increase in self-reference words like “I,” “me,” “mine” and “myself” in news stories published in the 80s and 90s. These words replaced collective words such as “we,” “us,” “humanity,” “country” or “crowd” found in the stories of a similar nature in the 50s and 60s. This generation might be the least thoughtful, community-oriented and conscientious one in North American history.

In the end, what does all this online, arms-length self-promotion ultimately provide? Perhaps it’s merely one component of the pursuit to alleviate some of the blackness encountered in the existential vacuum of modern life. As Schopenhauer once projected, modern humans may be doomed to eternally vacillate between distress and boredom. For the vast majority of people experiencing the fragmented, fast-paced modern world of 2008, a Sunday pause at the end of a hectic week may cause them to become all too aware of the lack of content in their lives. So we update our online profiles and tell ourselves that we are reaching out.

And yet, the time we waste on Facebook only makes our search for comfort and community more elusive. Online networking sites are marketed as facilitators of community-orientation but when I think about the millions of people – myself included – who spend large portions of their waking lives feeding off an exchange of thousands of computerized, fragmented images, it doesn’t add up to community-engagement. These images have no meaning beyond “I look pretty from this angle” or “I’m wasted” or “look who my new boyfriend is.” And as we continue to chase even harder – accessing Facebook at work, uploading images from our cell phones – we spend our money on constantly upgraded electronic gadgets marketed to our tendency to self-obsess and present particularly uninteresting and repetitive images of ourselves. There’s got to be more than this.

And so I quit…

After I left Facebook, I wondered what all my friends, family and acquaintances were going to think when they noticed I’d disappeared off the Facebook earth. So some of my Facebook narcissism – am I being noticed, am I being missed – remains. But I’m also asking myself some new questions. How do I find balance between my online life and my “real” life? How much exposure is healthy? How do I act responsibly for myself and engage with those I love? These are still “me” thoughts but they feel different than before. As I sit here, keyboard under palm, eyes on screen, I try to remind myself that my hands and eyes need to venture out into the community and look and touch the truly tangible that lies just beyond that other big screen: my window.

Quit Facebook by Carmen Joy King

Find it here.

I'm the boy, I know where your secrets hurt

I see you nearly everyday
I see you, but you don't see me
I wish I had something clever to say
And I wish I had something better I could be

We touched hands by the coffee machine the other day
I know you've forgotten already
But I'm gonna take that moment to the grave
To the grave

'Cause I just wanna walk you home
I just wanna walk you home
Oh, yea

And I see you nearly every night
I see you when you're down in your house
With my night vision binoculars
And I creep quiet as a mouse

Well I get jealous when I see you stroking his hair
But it's okay, I tell myself because I know
It's only 'cause I'm not there
I'm not there

'Cause I just wanna walk you home
I just wanna walk you home
Well I just need some time alone
I just need some time alone

I'm the boy who watches the phone
I'm the boy who eats lunch on his own
I'm the boy with the monotone
I'm the boy who still lives at home
I'm the boy with the ironed shirt
I'm the boy who watches you work
I know where you keep your skirts
I know where your secrets hurt
I'm the boy that's calling your house
I'm the boy that's freaking you out
With my thermal flask of tea
Up there in your neighbor's tree
I'm the boy that's crossing boarders
I'm the boy with social disorders
I'm the boy with restraining orders
I'm the boy, yeah

'Cause I just wanna walk you home
I just wanna walk you home
And I know that's it not right to creep
But I just wanna watch you sleep alone

'Cause I just wanna walk you home
I just wanna walk you home

Walk You Home (UK) / Night Vision Binoculars (US) by Passenger

Why I'd ever want to stay

Our latest single, Arizona, was just released. Check it out and let me know what you think! It's the song from the lyrics I posted a few days ago.



The Sweethearts

She was a beautiful broad. The fellow who married her was impotent and he killed himself. I would have done the same thing.

"[Howard] Hughes was the only man I ever knew who had to die to prove he had been alive."

— Walter Kane

It might be days

I’ve gone too far from loved ones
I’ve grown too intimate with sin
It won’t be long ‘til I get home
And goddamn the day I leave again

I forget why I came here
Or why I’d ever want to stay

I hate the states between us
But soon there will be none
I make mistakes every moment of everyday
But I know this isn’t the one

I haven't heard from you in days
And lately I've kept my head down
But I swear that you'll be in my arms
Before the frost melts off the ground
I know that I have wronged you
Worse now than I ever have before
But all I need is half a chance
To make you fall for me once more

My plane lands in the morning
But it might be days 'til I arrive

I hate the states between us
But soon there will be none
I make mistakes every moment of everyday
But I know this isn’t the one

I hate the states between us
But soon there will be none
I make mistakes every moment of everyday
But I know this isn’t the one

Arizona by The Sweethearts

Now I ride as dawn is breaking

Calvin and The Sweethearts

I know that I have wronged you

Seldom now do I have thoughts of home
That I feel are of worse times
Old photos bring me closer to you
In hopes one day I'll arrive

It might be days by Calvin

I make mistakes every moment of everyday, but I know this isn't one

Portraits remind me of days better spent
With each look I feel a little more held back
Thoughts of yesterday’s memories
Still lingering in my head

Time with you by the lake
Is slowly fading
And I’m reminded
That nothing ever lasts

Portraits by Calvin