prop h8
26, May 2009
so what was a beautiful morning in san francisco has been tainted by the california supreme court’s decision to uphold prop 8. their choice to leave the 18,000 marriages that took place before november as legal is bittersweet in comparison to the prop 8 ruling. at about 10:03am rumblings made their way through the press and into the crowd (pictured above) about the decision which erupted into booing and chanting “shame on you!” followed by a sit-in blocking traffic by city hall.
now i’m not a california citizen but i am a human so it’s my problem too. it is really overwhelming to hear a supreme court decision that supports the bigotry of the masses. since when did democracy become more important than human rights? potheads have more rights in this state than the LGBT community. this is all very angering but the sorrow that pacifies me is to see not only how disorganized the movement is but how few people cared or came out.
here is where i get hypocritical. as musician it is difficult for me to justify why playing a show tonite is worth more than me getting arrested in an act of civil disobedience with the rest of the rally. how much can i convince myself that music actually changes anything?
the only thing keeping me from quitting and doing something responsible with my brain and body is that this isn’t the end all be all. everyday i am made aware that life is short. so goes the philosphy of “don’t waste life not being happy”, but i am reminded of my friend julian’s question to his buddhist father, “is it zen? or is it apathy?”
please do your part : check out decision day events here
glad to see that not only are you guys making some great music, but you are also aware of what’s going on around the country.
play in philly?
i have always thought that zen was a lot like apathy
”how much can i convince myself that music actually changes anything?”
For what it’s worth, the music you make does change things. The effects may be unseen by you, but here are some that happen across the Atlantic:
little changes taking place on bus-rides and tube journeys that cross-hatch London; tiny changes of chords and word choices that travel via white iPod strings into ears and shimmer across neural pathways, landing on the face with a smile.
The pleasure of words, and music, and the simple fact of there being someone out there who can articulate the feelings that one felt isolated and struck-dumb by…this is not just a small pleasure, it’s not ‘just’ entertanment, it’s a feeling of being connected to the great web of humanity again.
It’s listening to what someone else has made, and being reminded (and inspired by) what humans are capable of (magical acts of creation). It’s being reminded that we can share experiences that will, despite never perfectly reflecting, still resonate, even if we’ve never met the creator.
Not to make too bold a claim here, but if we could all remember, all the time, that we are all more the same than we are different (even if it’s just at the emotional & genetic level) there’d be a lot less tension in the world.
Black, white, gay, straight, religious, or not: if we found it easier to remember our shared identity as ‘human’ perhaps we’d find it easier to throw off our cultural shackles and just be nicer to each other.
Believe me, unseen isn’t the same as non-existant. The changes are happening. To make another person’s day better is not nothing. In this sense, you are doing something very ‘responsible’ with your ‘brain and body’ — you are (presumably) making yourself content, (which is one’s first duty, as it’s the best way to ensure we don’t make others miserable); and moreover, in doing so, you are giving moments of pleasure and joy (rare enough) and of feeling re-connected, to people that you have never even met.
That is pretty special! (and you can also make a convincing argument that being true to, and happy within, yourself is a radical thing to do in today’s misery-inducing-media saturated world. Not sure in Thoreau would agree with me on that one, but then he didn’t have ‘Vogue’ shrieking at him that he was too fat, or that his necktie was, like, so 1848).
Anyway, a slightly more light-hearted way of saying all the above is captured in this webcomic (not my creation by the way, just a fortuitous discovery whilst doing some web-based procrastinating)
http://www.darcomic.org/2009/03/10/high-achievers/
I teach small kids, and one of the things I try to do for them is to model what being a ‘perfectly imperfect’ person looks like. Since children (and people for that matter) tend to pay more attention to what you *do* than what you say, or say you do; living a truly authentic life (in which you’re not mean or bigoted to other people) is in itself, an important, and radical act.
And as for getting arrested vs being up on a stage … Dude… You’re *on a stage*.
People are listening to you. Sweet, well-intentioned people who already think you’re ‘cool’ by association. Have a little rant between songs, spout a little polemic. Hoist your pro-rainbow flag up the mast, and have a good old warble.
‘Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.’ (Love’s Labours Lost, Act 3, Sc. 1. Shakespeare)