“Who the hell spearfish’s?” was my first thought when my good friend Danny told me about his past weekend. It’s such a random sport to be passionate about, yet a definite light comes across his face with some sparkles in his eyes, making the situation even more curious to me. To understand why Danny loves spearfishing, I think one needs to know some things about him.
Danny is the craziest friend I’ve ever made. I say this confidently because no one else in my 21 years of life has reminded me so much of Kramer from Seinfeld. He truly does walk in unannounced. Often. He truly does light a cigarette from your stove, drunk and stoned on his birthday at 3:30 a.m., disregarding the fact that you are clearly asleep. He is also truly intelligent, especially in finance and mathematics, mixed with some serious voltage of ADHD. But I do love him. Danny’s the sweetest kid you will ever meet with an unbelievably optimistic outlook on life, living and love. It’s hard for even me to imagine this is true, though because he has one hell of a rough ride through his childhood:
His parents separated before he ever even learned to walk. When he was barely into school, his father died. His mother then, could not take care or control of him and decided to send him to military school. Yes, Danny went to military school, thoroughly disciplined and trained. So Danny went to military school and he loves spearfishing. It makes sense now.
As he’s trying to talk to me about spearfishing, he keeps going off topic. I ask him, “So, Danny, how did you get into spearfishing? What made you want to pick up that speargun, dive into some deep waters and spearfish?” He replies, “Spearfishing’s awesome. It’s such a thrill. I just love living.” I pause and say, “Danny that’s great but, how did you get yourself into spearfishing?” He disregards me yet again and goes off to talking about his dream of finding Nicole.
Who’s Nicole, you ask? Nicole is a great white shark who has broken speed and distance records, according to National Geographic. This marine animal swam from Africa to Australia and back again at record speed; a phenomenal feat for such an animal, but a great achievement as well for those scientists who were able to keep track of her. The scientists following Nicole (named after Nicole Kidman--apparently a shark lover) could now begin to examine and prove the fact that fish are not aimless, but actually systematic in their ventures.
The funny part of all this research I did was when I noticed the article dates. This all happened in 2005-2006. All I could say at the time was, “oh, Danny…”. This kid actually believes that one day Nicole will make it out across the Atlantic Ocean, to the eastern coast of North America, where he will miraculously snorkel upon this almighty great white while he fearlessly spearfishes.
Attempting to research and pry into Danny’s life yet another time around seemed ridiculous to me. I was in no way about to try to uncover his deep, subconscious desire for spearfishing. I wouldn’t have found it as interesting or entertaining as his subconscious desires and dreams of Nicole. So instead, I present you Danny: the coolest kid at Pace University who just so happens to spearfish and has this perverse fetish for powerful great white sharks.
07 May 2009
Mama, I'm Swollen.......
for my feature writing class we had to do an album review...
Who am I? What have I become? Or rather more importantly: Who are we? What have we become? Questions like this can torment a man, wring him dry of all his worth. But there are no answers. Some may shruggingly suggest that this is just the way life has panned out. One can choose to accept, refuse or maintain their ignorance, the foremost seemingly being the wisest of choices. But then there are those rare individuals who seek to question, criticize and hopefully, perhaps even quite forcibly, open some pining eyes to this unsettling nature of our reality (or reality of our nature?).
This is the path the Omaha-based band, Cursive, willed to wander (or stagger) desperately down with their newest project, Mama, I’m Swollen.
While consistently being disappointed by our generation’s stream of popular music, the meaningless trash regurgitated from incompetent ‘hot new artists’, and then all of a sudden hearing Cursive’s lead singer, Tim Kasher, sing was like hearing the voice of a fallen angel unleashed for the first time.
To have song upon song and lyric after lyric grip onto one another with such raw ingenuity, exposing a reality so harsh and inadequate through the eyes of such an artist, is stunningly unexpected and beautifully heartbreaking.
The message the album struggles to project is this idea of devolving; devolving into simpler beings, thriving off our animal instincts. Lost in this complex and evil world, Kasher has lost his faith. His faith in god; faith in humanity; faith in himself, all his senses and instincts: everything. This spiraling outlook of life is written very bluntly, making it impossible for one to invent ambiguities in its meaning. These songs are songs of substance, no doubt.
Mama, I’m Swollen is the definition of confliction. Humanity sees things one way, when it is meant to be the other. It’s a deceitful game we are playing in which there are no winners; the game just self-destructs when the timer goes off:
Simplicity vs. Complexity: our corporate consumer society has transformed our lives into such an unfathomably complex system and is now impossible to imagine the back-peddle to our ancestry’s primitive lifestyle. To own material objects fed into desire was non-existent then and to this day remains unnecessary and unimportant, to an extent. It has been engrained in us to want and want and want regardless the outcome or who will fail in turn. This idea is expressed in a lyric from the song, Caveman: “the taller we become the more dollars we can grab from that highest branch and then step on your back given the chance…I’m no high society man”. This sense of greed in which we have faithfully adopted is imprisoning us from more sustainable aspects of life such as relationships and the experience of life.
Evolution and Devolution: “Let my instincts take the lead, don’t need no upward mobility” expresses so powerfully this notion that our human instincts were always enough to bring about prosperity and great developments. This maintenance and evolvement of upward motion within the class or society has lead to a lustful greed and a deadening desire for more and more money and material; all things we are righteously granted, though it is excess that is our problem. There is no moderation.
Pure vs. Evil: There is a saddening extinction in effect for those who exercise purity of heart. The creators and advocates of evil have become unbearably overpopulated. In the song, Mama, I’m Satan, there is a pinching lyric which describes this point: the darkness of mankind stirs in us all. A little earlier he sings, “The world was built on an ego, it was built on slaves, it was built on a tickle between our legs” all things considered evil or unlawful. He preaches this notion that there never was a soul truly pure of heart and so creates an unstoppable evil.
Education vs. Instinct: who is to say what we have learned thus far has been what we are supposed to know? One lyric on one hand says, “I want to unlearn what I’ve learned” and a bit before this he sings, “I want to let my instincts take the lead”. It is such an honest feeling that, to empathize with him seems only fair and just. Preserving this notion, he states, “and I wish we that we had never talked, our hips had said it all…it’s the only way to feel alive”. So sad and true how this holds to today’s society. We have become so lost in the translations, lost within the tangles of our own words. It is through our hips and bodies and feelings that we come to feel alive again, even if for a short time. All else is seemingly useless.
With so many evils lurking quietly, the search for good becomes a tiresome, endless journey. It is difficult to sustain the positivity we are meant to hold for this world and what it has to offer. Hopefully, maybe, his lyrics have struck a few chords in another’s mind. His words hold a real sense of power. They hold onto a chance at change, an honest change. It’s not meant to be a battle, not meant to be a fight. One can change humanity; one can change society by first changing the mindset. And that’s all this artist’s simple song could ever ask for.
Who am I? What have I become? Or rather more importantly: Who are we? What have we become? Questions like this can torment a man, wring him dry of all his worth. But there are no answers. Some may shruggingly suggest that this is just the way life has panned out. One can choose to accept, refuse or maintain their ignorance, the foremost seemingly being the wisest of choices. But then there are those rare individuals who seek to question, criticize and hopefully, perhaps even quite forcibly, open some pining eyes to this unsettling nature of our reality (or reality of our nature?).
This is the path the Omaha-based band, Cursive, willed to wander (or stagger) desperately down with their newest project, Mama, I’m Swollen.
While consistently being disappointed by our generation’s stream of popular music, the meaningless trash regurgitated from incompetent ‘hot new artists’, and then all of a sudden hearing Cursive’s lead singer, Tim Kasher, sing was like hearing the voice of a fallen angel unleashed for the first time.
To have song upon song and lyric after lyric grip onto one another with such raw ingenuity, exposing a reality so harsh and inadequate through the eyes of such an artist, is stunningly unexpected and beautifully heartbreaking.
The message the album struggles to project is this idea of devolving; devolving into simpler beings, thriving off our animal instincts. Lost in this complex and evil world, Kasher has lost his faith. His faith in god; faith in humanity; faith in himself, all his senses and instincts: everything. This spiraling outlook of life is written very bluntly, making it impossible for one to invent ambiguities in its meaning. These songs are songs of substance, no doubt.
Mama, I’m Swollen is the definition of confliction. Humanity sees things one way, when it is meant to be the other. It’s a deceitful game we are playing in which there are no winners; the game just self-destructs when the timer goes off:
Simplicity vs. Complexity: our corporate consumer society has transformed our lives into such an unfathomably complex system and is now impossible to imagine the back-peddle to our ancestry’s primitive lifestyle. To own material objects fed into desire was non-existent then and to this day remains unnecessary and unimportant, to an extent. It has been engrained in us to want and want and want regardless the outcome or who will fail in turn. This idea is expressed in a lyric from the song, Caveman: “the taller we become the more dollars we can grab from that highest branch and then step on your back given the chance…I’m no high society man”. This sense of greed in which we have faithfully adopted is imprisoning us from more sustainable aspects of life such as relationships and the experience of life.
Evolution and Devolution: “Let my instincts take the lead, don’t need no upward mobility” expresses so powerfully this notion that our human instincts were always enough to bring about prosperity and great developments. This maintenance and evolvement of upward motion within the class or society has lead to a lustful greed and a deadening desire for more and more money and material; all things we are righteously granted, though it is excess that is our problem. There is no moderation.
Pure vs. Evil: There is a saddening extinction in effect for those who exercise purity of heart. The creators and advocates of evil have become unbearably overpopulated. In the song, Mama, I’m Satan, there is a pinching lyric which describes this point: the darkness of mankind stirs in us all. A little earlier he sings, “The world was built on an ego, it was built on slaves, it was built on a tickle between our legs” all things considered evil or unlawful. He preaches this notion that there never was a soul truly pure of heart and so creates an unstoppable evil.
Education vs. Instinct: who is to say what we have learned thus far has been what we are supposed to know? One lyric on one hand says, “I want to unlearn what I’ve learned” and a bit before this he sings, “I want to let my instincts take the lead”. It is such an honest feeling that, to empathize with him seems only fair and just. Preserving this notion, he states, “and I wish we that we had never talked, our hips had said it all…it’s the only way to feel alive”. So sad and true how this holds to today’s society. We have become so lost in the translations, lost within the tangles of our own words. It is through our hips and bodies and feelings that we come to feel alive again, even if for a short time. All else is seemingly useless.
With so many evils lurking quietly, the search for good becomes a tiresome, endless journey. It is difficult to sustain the positivity we are meant to hold for this world and what it has to offer. Hopefully, maybe, his lyrics have struck a few chords in another’s mind. His words hold a real sense of power. They hold onto a chance at change, an honest change. It’s not meant to be a battle, not meant to be a fight. One can change humanity; one can change society by first changing the mindset. And that’s all this artist’s simple song could ever ask for.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
