The Imperial Orgy

2010-06-17T08:14:00.000-07:00

Caeser Pink will be reading and signing copies of his new new book The Murder Of The Holly King at Webster's Bookstore (128 S. Allen St. State College, PA) Monday June 21st at 6:30PM. He will also perform songs from The Imperial Orgy's new LP Four Legs Good, Two Legs Baaad! on acoustic guitar.

Caeser can also be heard on WBLF Radio 970AM Friday June 18th at 3pm. He will be interviewed by talk show host Steve Biddle.

You can check out Caeser's book by Clicking Here

Public Image Review

2010-05-21T04:08:00.000-07:00

After a seventeen-year hiatus Public Image Limited returned with a stop at the Music Hall Of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, NY. The concert and tour have given me reason to take this moment to re-evaluate PIL’s work and the John Lydon-Rotten legacy.

The show opened with Low Life from the band’s debut album, and Pop Tones from Second Edition, or Metal Box as it was originally titled. Johnny was in rare form. His voice stronger than ever before, almost operatic at times. Often sounding like an angry Nina Hagan.

Throughout the night the focus was on group’s first four releases, largely ignoring their later, more traditional rock albums. Their early work is easily some of the most avant garde rock music ever created. For being a guy who was discovered because he was wearing an “I hate Pink Floyd” T-shirt, Lydon’s music is a moody and dreamlike as anything by Pink Floyd.

The songs often had an off-kilter drum pattern that shifted underneath a heavy, repetitive bass line. Above it the guitar meandered spasmodically, fluctuating between strained ambiance and aggressive dissonance. The music tended to have an amorphous feel that flowed over the audience creating a trancelike groove. Song structures were never-quite clear. Although certainly there, based on the tight and sudden shifts and changes.

Given that the music has no traditional guitar solos or rock and roll blues licks, it is easy to miss the technical complexity of the music. The musicians were top-notch. Drummer Bruce Smith battered away while maintaining the odd, stilted rhythm patterns and tribal beats. Guitarist Lu Edmonds was a force of nature, reproducing original PIL guitarist Keith Levene’s mad genius with ease and energy. He played a variety of instruments, often favoring what seemed to be an electrified balalaika. During Four Enclosed Walls he played what looked like a 12-string banjo with a violin bow, creating eerie Middle Eastern tones.

From the first note Johnny was a consummate performer. His dance moves reminded one of a funky, marching Frankenstein monster. Each move, each gesture and facial expression radiated irony, almost parody. Yet still expressed defiance. Between songs he reprimanded an audience member, “Spitting is for your enemies, not your friends! I am your friend. I am not your enemy, and I never have been. Save your spitting for Sarah Palin and the Tea Party.”

Set highlights were This Is Not A Love Song and Tie Me To The Length Of That from This Is What You Want…This Is What You Get, Bag and Rise from Album, Flowers Of Romance from Flowers Of Romance, Analisa and Public Image from First Issue.

Before a soaring version of Religion II, Lydon screamed “I hate all religions! I hate all organized religions! I don’t need a religious institution standing between myself and my God!”

PIL’s music seemed to take on a new life in the live setting. Lydon’s connection and passion for the lyrical content became more apparent. His bellows, wails, caterwauls, and shrieks, were clearly cathartic. For all intent and purpose he seems to still “mean it man.”

For being the prototype of the angry punk, he radiated a positive attitude. After thanking his band and crew, he said of the audience, “It’s good to be among friends!”

Check out Caeser Pink's novel The Murder Of The Holly King��

Imperial Orgy performs Still The Gift - 1994

2010-05-09T14:49:00.000-07:00

Satorism Exhibition A Success

2009-05-26T04:00:00.000-07:00

I am happy to say that the Satorism exhibition was a success. Once it was placed on the wall, the work looked amazing and had a powerful impact on all those who came to view it. Satorism is a concept I created as a way to focus attention on art that communicates something meaningful. There is a lot of work being presented in New York that is so uninspired that it seems the artist's only motivation is to seek fame & fortune.

The name Satorism comes from the work Satori - An exhibition of art that inspires personal, political, or spiritual awakening.

The one day exhibition featured the artists Stephen Woods, Jorge Namerow, Jody Fallon, Jennie Booth, Liya Sheer, Keith Duncan, Helene Ruiz, Steve Geyer, Cheryl Fallon, and Danylo Pelonis.

It was a crazy day. We rented the gallery, which is located on 42nd street. A block away from the U.N. and a few blocks from Times Square. We started working at noon and we were still finishing up at 7PM when the doors opened. I had hoped to go home and get a shower before The Imperial Orgy performance began at 8PM, but had to settle for bathing in the bathroom sink at the gallery.

We had a good turnout and a very enthusiastic crowd. Below is some of the art that was presented:

American Joy Ride by Brooke McGowan

http://www.brookemcgowen.com

When Brutality & Honesty Plot by Stephen Woods

http://www.stephenwoodsartwork.com

Had Enough by Jody Fallon

www.JODYFALLON.com

Longings by Jorge Namerow

http://namerowdesigns.com

Scorpio Sting by Liya Sheer

http://www.liyasheer.com

A Map Of My Strange and Soulful Journey Thus Far

http://www.jenniebooth.com

Protestors by Dan Pelonis

http://www.danpelonis.com

The Window by Cheryl Fallon

www.CHERYLFALLON.com

Venus & The Art Lover by Caeser Pink

www.caeserpink.com

Brave New Hymn

2009-03-28T04:24:00.000-07:00

Last week I had a recoding session and we are close to a final mix for the song Brave New Hymn. We added a French Horn, some female choir vocals, and a little slide guitar. I think the French Horn and the Choir vocals could be turned up just a hair, but it is overall, just about completed.

Avon days, Acid nights
Letter perfect in the light
Nuclear, Static free
With liberty between the sheets
Garden hose mastadons
Peasants bask in golden rays
Prayer room bingo game
All bounty in his name

C'mon patriots wave your flags
If you don't cheer, then it's clear you're against us
Home of the brave, land of the free
Bow down to democracy

Jesus idol postage stamps
Back seat Chevy baby boom
Marilyn, JFK
Martyrs for the Brave New World
H-bomb bikini dream
It is sacred evermore
Drop out, peace is won
Hippie ventures come to naught

C'mon Christians believe as a child
The son of God will provide all the answers
Faith is blind, do you believe
Heaven waits, will you see?

Nihilist, underground
Johnny Rotten takes a bow
Reagan era confidence
The bully boys are swatting flies
Teenage slumber, MTV
Primal urge on sex machines
Pleasure flesh pantheon
Yet they say 'all you need is love'

And the working man desires delusion
The wife in the kitchen clings to the illusion
Freedom rings, can you hear it call?
Just don't question it at all

1994 - Caeser Pink

The Maine Campus

2009-03-26T02:26:00.001-07:00

CD: Caesar Pink

By Mario Moretto, Opinion Editor
Posted on 3/26/09 at 2:47 AM EST.

Print Email ShareThis

Courtesy of The Imperial Orgy

Working for the style section of The Maine Campus, we get many CDs in the mail. Usually they're new releases by artists we've at least heard of, but every once in a while, a weird artifact from the past shows up. Lewistown, Penn.'s Caeser Pink & The Imperial Orgy's 2006 opus "All God's Children" is one of those gems.

A little background info, courtesy of the interwebs. The Imperial Orgy is a cross-media art and activism project founded by Caeser Pink, lead songwriter and vocalist on the album.

The band's Web site says, "Whether musically or socially, the Imperial Orgy excludes the prejudiced. The music fan who limits their tastes to a particular style of rock and roll, or who are uncomfortable with a socially open environment, will surely find some aspect of the Imperial Orgy offensive. But for those who have no restraints to hold them back from savoring the feast ... the Imperial Orgy is waiting."

That sums it up better than I ever could. With that in mind, let's move on to the review portion of our programming.

Upon looking at the cover, which features a dinosaur, Mickey Mouse with a Nazi armband and a rather peeved-looking black child with an assault rifle, I thought I was in for lo-fi outsider music or post-punk insanity. Checking out the song lyrics before listening to the album only further supported my assumption. "All God's Children" includes lines such as "Goddamn, I don't understand / How your religion makes you kill a man / Jesus Christ, it just doesn't seem right / All God's children wanna fuss and fight / Holy s--- ain't it time to quit / If that's your religion don't believe in it."

Boy, was I wrong in speculating the sound about to hit my ears.

The first track, "Mickey Mouse World," exposes Caeser Pink's old-timey rock 'n' roll stylings. Caesar's voice is reasonably melodic, and the music is genuine danceable fun rock. There are even sultry female back-up vocals and "woo-ooohs."

All three songs - yes, three, it rings in just under 12 minutes - after the first track follow suit. Catchy pop-rock hooks, surf beats and homage to classic rock icons like Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith fill out this surprisingly fun do-it-yourself album.

The best song, by far, is "Dinosaurs (A True Story)," which may or may not be about a one-night stand with Robert Plant. Enough said.

Of all the words I could choose to describe Caeser Pink & The Imperial Orgy, I would choose "fun." Surprisingly, this album has gotten stuck in my head more than any other album I've listened to for a while. The thinly-veiled political messages aren't anything groundbreaking or shattering, but I'll be damned if it didn't have me tapping my foot and singing "My baby's in love with Robert Plant" at the top of my lungs.

Body Painting Film Shoot

2009-03-15T17:03:00.001-07:00

I recently directed a shoot for an experimental film series that I've been working on. They are part of a larger collection of films called "Meditations." The films are black and white and in slightly slowed motion. The idea is that the films are more like moving paintings than a film that you set and watch that tells a story. I call them Meditations because in order to watch them you have to slow your mind down and connect with a certain sensuality within the images.

The subset of films which the shoot was for features artists painting on the bodies of models. The shoot was done in PA. with a female artist painting on a female model. It was a pretty magical experience shooting the film. The experience seemed to really inspire all the participants to further creativity.

Here are a few stills from the shoot. The still were shot and manipulated by Steve Geyer. His work will be featured in an Imperial Orgy gallery exhibition in Manhattan in May. Click on the image to view the full sized photo

Prometheus Bound

2009-03-11T15:23:00.000-07:00

Last night we had a rehearsal preparing to start a new recording project. We worked on a new song called Prometheus Bound that came out really nice. It is a complicated song with a lot of parts so I thought it would take a while to pull it together, but it seemed to fall right into place pretty quickly.

To give you an idea of how we work - here is a guitar chart we were working from for the song:

Here are the song's lyrics:

Everywhere I look it's comin' down
The dogs are barkin' but there ain't no sound
I tell the truth even when I lie
Gotta see Jerusalem before I die

I talkin' loud and drinkin' fast
Tryin' to convince myself that good times can last
Got a parade float and a circus tent
But got no money to pay the rent

I stole a flame from the sun
Now I'm livin' life on the run
I guess I made a Devil's trade
But if I have my way he won't never get paid

Chickin Little said it hit his head
Superman yelled out, "Hey, I'm not dead!"
But Shakespeare's sonnets are crumpled on the floor"
And the raven sings "boy, you know the score"

The minister's driving a Mustang car
He says he goin' to heaven it ain't that far
But with the price of gas he can only coast
Instead of heaven he's headin' down below

Swing low swing high
The great one heaves a troubled sigh
Swing high swing low
Tiamat gives birth to the Earth below
Day in day out
We close out eyes and count to ten
Day out day in
We take a breath and start again

Y'know this ain't no reality show
The more is see the less I know
There's robots walkin' everywhere
They been had, but they don't care

I stole my baby a diamond ring
Then packed my bags and sold my things
I went to Memphis to see the king
Got caught up in a dirty low-down scheme

Policeman say I broke the law
But I ain't to blame I swear to god
When the newsman's calling out your name
Innocent or guilty it's all the same

She got candy cotton underwear
She said take a bite, but I don't dare
Now my sweet tooth is comin' loose
I'm diabetic, but my heads already in the noose

The emperor's brand new cloths
Are the latest fashion show
The supermodels strut and they sashay
But there ain't no secrets it's all out there on display

I burned my checks and my credit cards
Out here, life is tough, life is hard
Got caught up in the undertow
From now on baby we pay as we go

I seen those politicians wavin' flags
But I won't take a bullet for that rag
Cause the rich man's pullin' all the strings
He's makin' profit from everything
The rich man's pullin' all the strings
One thing he can't control is these words I sing
One thing he can't control is these words I sing
One thing he can't control is these words I sing

Concert Pics

2009-02-10T03:38:00.000-08:00

The Future Is Unwritten

2008-12-01T09:31:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the struggling artist life really wears me down. For the last few months we've been putting ourselves out to the mainstream public. Mainly to college radio and newspapers. The response had been an amazing amount of hate and contempt. The people who don't like what we do - don't just dislike it - they hate it passionately.

It is very surprising to me how conformist and conservative college aged people are. They seem to really resent anyone who questions the accepted mainstream views. There seems to be a general consensus that music is wallpaper. Just entertainment that does not make waves or rock the boat. It especially strange because so many people are very into "punk." But again they think punk is a hairdo or a manner of dress. They have no understanding of the core values that were behind the music. I often read blogs where punk fans state that music should not express political ideas.

One of the concepts were are trying to promote is that music is a serious artform that can communicate ideas and effect society. But within college radio and press there is a real distaste for that idea. Actually distaste it too subtle a word, they seem to be completely offended by the idea.

Usually I take it all with a grain of salt, but after months of being attacked and beaten down it starts to make you feel hopeless. With no access to media an artist has no way to communicate to the public. Your voice cannot be heard.

I was speaking with a high school friend yesterday and thinking about my teen years. Even then I was very conscious of feeling like an outcast because of my view of the world. My high school friends seemed to live in a bubble where nothing existed outside of their immediate lives.

Throughout most of my life I kept my views secret because I knew the price of expressing them. Where I came from questioning church and state could get your beaten physically, as well as being socially ostracized.

It seems to me that a lot of this conformity comes from some kind of infantilism. People want to be like children and believe that there are others looking out for their well being. Those others seem to be politicians, corporate executives, and religious deities. It is a nice cozy view of the world. Although I would argue irresponsible.

But if you make people question their values that childlike sense of security is threatened, and perhaps that may explain why people have such violent reactions to alternative viewpoints being expressed. Thinking is hard. Life is full of uncertainty. And the unknown is scary. It's much better to just think like a child and believe someone with power is taking care of you.

After months of bashing my head against the walls of conformist thinking I began to lose hope and the will to go on. My sense of alienation became more heightened than ever. I've lived my whole life within this circumstance so I know to stay strong, but I was weakening.

Saturday night I went to see the movie about the Clash's singer Joe Strummer. (The Future Is Unwritten) The film really revitalized me. It's really important to know there are others out there who share your values. That you're not insane.

In the old Soviet Union they placed political agitators in insane asylums. I can see why because even in the US people who don't adhere to the mainstream value system are treated like deviants, and treated like an enemy.

The one thing that helps me deal with it all is listening to how intelligently people speak. Usually the people who are fighting for protection of the status quo cannot speak intelligently.
This is certainly the case with college media outlets. On Other hand I find that artists and activists that I respect are also respected by others that I respect. It's not random. The Joe Strummer movie was a good example of this. The documentary was filled with great actors, directors, musicians, and artists, who were inspired by Strummer and The Clash.

Satorism

2008-11-24T10:26:00.001-08:00

Last Wednesday I had a productive recording session. We are doing another mix of All God's Children for the soon to be released full length CD titled "Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad." I laid down some heavy guitars and did a football chant in the middle by dubbing my voice 10 times at different vocal ranges.

Sunday I had a rehearsal session with the background singers at my place. I love those girls. They're so talented and fun to work with. We laid down some vocal tracks and built a Choir for the song Brave New Hymn by dubbing them 8 times in different keys. Then we reviewed the songs for the sets that we'll be performing in PA on Feb 7th.

I am also working starting a new artists collective based on a concept I created called Satorism. Based on the word Satori. Satorism is art that inspired personal, political, or spiritual awakening.

My first reason for wanting to promote the Satorism concept is because I feel like much of the art that I see really doesn't say anything. It seems that to most artists, the idea that art is a means of communicating ideas and effecting culture is alien to them. They don't seem to even think of their work in that light.

What I would like to do is find a group of artists in various mediums to work together and support each other. I've always been interested in the moments in history when groups of artists seemed to emerge at once and be intertwined. ie: France in the 1920s, the surrealist, the beat poets, etc. It seems odd that there has not been a movement or a meaningful scene in a very long time.

So far I've been contacted by some really interesting people in the New York City area. I plan to have a meeting date soon.

Spiritual songs abbout killing children?

2008-11-18T14:59:00.001-08:00

Recently a Myspace friend who is trying to convert me sent me a bible with my name (spelled wrong) inscribed on it. It has been over ten years since I've studied the Christian Bible so a read Joshua and Judges. Joshua always made a great impression on me. During this time God spends a lot of time telling the Isrealites to slaughter woman and children. One of their tricks is to send a few men to the gates of a city and attack. When the men inside the city come out the Isrealites run into the woods and the men chase after them. Meanwhile the rest of the Jewish men storm into the city and kill the women and children. Once the men see that their families have been murdered they lose the will to fight and the Isrealites finish them off.

It's all very strange and violent material. I can recall singing songs in church about the "walls come tumbling down." It seems bizarre to have such a spiritual song about killing children.

in your face and up your nose.

2008-09-21T20:15:00.000-07:00

BullFrogMusic Reviews -9/21/2008

It's been a while since I've heard any humourous protest or social commentary songs. This sort of thing seems to have been supplanted by conspiracy theorists or just plain nutty people singing badly about all the world's shortcomings. I miss hearing songs like "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag" or "I'd Rather Be Dead (Than Wet My Bed)".

So all hail Caeser Pink and The Imperial Orgy for putting the nasty fun back into social observation. Music has been too serious for too long. This little 4-song EP makes up in punch what it lacks in length. We have songs about the Disneyfication of the world, about religion, alienated young ëuns and a cheap shot at Robert Plant.

All this is delivered with the energy and punch of punk rock. The music reminds of the best material of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. There's a message in each song, but Pink doesn't water it down with politically correct mealy mouthed euphemisms. The words are in your face and up your nose.

Frist All God's Children Review

2008-06-16T02:54:00.001-07:00

Indie Music Review- June 2008 - by Gary Levinson

How refreshing to receive a neo-new wave, neo-punk disc! While checking it out, I came upon the lyrics. They were great:

"...so much stimulation yet I feel kinda numb
so much information yet I feel kinda dumb"

Isn't that how it is? And how is this for a comment on the present day confrontation between various religious ideologies:

"goddam, I don't understand
how your religion makes you kill a man
jesus christ it don't seem right
all god's children want to fuss & fight"

And so forth.

Their music is something like the B-52s, with somewhat harder lyrics, all the while quite fun. In the meantime, the vocals have an edgy, punky sound. caeser pink & the imperial orgy bring something important back to music, something that has been missing from the mainstream flow: a questioning of the basis of contemporary society, and an essential irreverent disregard for the ever present commercial authority.

Introducing Bonnie Bowers!

2008-06-07T05:54:00.000-07:00

Our longtime friend and bass player Kighkey DeyGogh has moved on to greener pastures. Literally! He left New York City and moved to Maine. He is also playing the big rooms from Vegas to Atlantic City with the classic do-wop band Anthony & The Imperials.

But we would like to introduce you to our lovely and very talented new bass player Bonnie Bowers!

Check her out at our next show July 24th at the Living Theater in the East Village.

Chicago 10

2008-04-03T07:13:00.001-07:00

Chicago 10 is a documentary about a group of activists who were put on trial on the accusations of conspiring to start riots at the 1968 democratic convention in Chicago. Among the accused were Abbie Hoffman, someday-to-be senator Tom Hayden, and Black Panther leader Bobby Seal.

I'm not sure documentary is quite the precise word for what this unique film is, parts are certainly documentary, yet other parts are more like an animated narrative movie.

The film is broken into two main story lines. The fist uses news footage to tell the story of the activists at the convention and the bloody police response. The others story line uses animation to bringg to life the actual court transcripts of the trial.

Among the things that make this film unique is that unlike most documentaries there are almost no talking head shots of people explaining the events that occurred. All the documentary footage is from news footage shot in 1968 and presented without voiceover interpretation.

Many parts of the film are hilarious. The proceedings of the court trial verge on the ridiculous. Excluding Bobby Seal, the accused referred to themselves as The Merry Pranksters and in-spite of the gravity of the charges refused to take the authority of the court seriously.

On the other hand the elderly judge seemed to be a relic of a bygone era and had little respect for the constitution or civil rights. His main concern seemed to be his own authority. He seemed completely baffled by the behavior of the accused and the overall assumption within the court was that the accused were social deviants and therefore guilty.

Among the absurdities of the trail were calling Allen Ginsberg to the stand (he was not one of the accused) and asking him to read selections of his erotic poems. Again the only purpose of this was to shock the jury into understanding what immoral people the yippies were.

As the trial progresses the humor of the proceedings soon evaporates. Bobby Seal demands his constitutional right to be his own layer and is denied by he judge. When he points to a painting of George Washington and calls him a slave owner, he is gagged and shackled. The cruel irony of placing a black leader in shackles seems to be lost on the judge, but it is shocking to witness, even in animation form.

The story of the 1968 convention is equally disturbing. In the early stages we see the disorganized activists trying to plan the protest. Their approach to the event was as lighthearted as their approach to the trial. On the first day the event was more of a concert with a few political speeches in the park. Teenage girls and middle aged mothers mixed freely with the hippies. It looked as peaceful as Woodstock.

When evening came the out-of-town people planned to camp in the park. Chicago’s mayor had other plans. As night fell police tried to run the people out of the park using tear gas and swinging batons. For three days straight the confrontation heated up.

On the last day a march was planned to lead towards the convention. The police came in with full riot gear, armed with bayonets and machine guns. Jeeps moved in line against the protestors, barbed wire strung in front of the vehicles to eviscerate anyone who came near. In the final minutes leading up to the riots the protesters sat on the street and sang “We Shall Overcome.” The police response was pure carnage. They threw teargas and then attacked. Clubbing men, woman, and kids alike. All with blind fury.

Chicago 10 is an important piece of American history that won’t be taught in your high school history class. It is also an engaging movie that is worth searching for in the cracks between the superhero movies and Hollywood romantic comedies

Ornette Coleman at Town Hall

2008-03-31T04:42:00.001-07:00

There aren't many of the great old jazz legends still alive, but Ornette Coleman certainly rates as one of them. I began listening to his music in the mid eighties when he released a CD called In All Languages. As a musician the sounds on that CD introduced me to many new ideas and taught me many things. The complex sounds on it created emotional responses that were equally complex. One might feel sad and at the same time confused and harried as layers of sound competed for your attention. It opened a new world of possibilities for what music could do.

In his younger days Ornette created a new musical theory called Harmolodics. I'm not sure I can define it, but it asks the musician to use his ear instead of following rules about keys and melody. It states that no one must hold down the rhythm or carry the melody. It frees the musicians, but also places a heavy burden on them.

There is a great story about the first time he attempted to put his theory into action. He was playing with a band and when his solo came he took off. The sound was so shocking that the band quit playing and the audience went silent. The bandleader fired him on the spot, and for good measure they beat him up in the parking lot afterwards and took his horn away.

But this is often how people react to revolutionary ideas.

Ornette took the stage at Town Hall in New York City, a somewhat frail elderly man dressed in a blue and white plaid suit. His band consisted of a drummer, a stand-up bass player, and an electric bass player.

There first sound the band unleashed was a chaotic flurry of notes that fell to a dead silence with razor sharp precision. That followed by the same frenetic melody line again followed by silence. Then the music began to flow. Although the sounds were unlike any other music, in a live setting it made more sense. Instead of being challenging, the free flow of notes cascaded over your ears creating a relaxing dream-like state.

Given that he has over 50 years of recorded music under his belt and I only know two or three of his albums I didn't expect to recognize much of what I heard, but that didn't matter because the music was entrancing. The musicians were not only excellent on a technical level, they also possessed an amount of instinct and creativity that was astonishing.

While never losing site of the tempo or groove, the drummer meandered from rhythm to rhythm as his whims took him, something rarely heard even in jazz. The upright bassist often played with a bow or switched back and forth within songs. The electric bassist played his instrument like a guitar, often playing chords and harmonics, or simply playing lead guitar type solos.

Ornette's Saxophone solos were as unique as his compositions. Usually starting each passage with a high-pitched sustained note that gave way to a bebop flurry that bounced back and forth down the scales. The other musicians kept their eyes riveted on him, at times following him, at others playing against him with a dazzling array of counter-melodies, but always tuned-in for a level back and forth interaction that very few musicians could achieve.

They each took turns visiting the main theme briefly before being whisked away in the torrent of their own improvisations. And just to remind us that they were in total control they would unite in the main melody without warning, or stop dead on the dime with incomprehensible timing.

Occasionally Ornette would lay down his saxophone for a few moments and pick up a trumpet and play lines that sounded like an elephant in distress. At other times he switched to violin and his playing became even more abstract.
During on such moment he bowed the instrument in a fast steady rhythm while slowly moving his fingers up and down the upper register of the neck. The upright bassist, also playing with a bow, began to follow him creating a strange harmonic that gave the music a surreal quality.

Throughout the night Ornette did not speak. Although playing with vigor he often sat on a high stool, somewhat hidden behind two music stands and a group of microphones. Between songs the upright bassist would come and leaf through Ornette’s sheet music to find the correct pages for him.

As the show came to an end the audience rose to their feet amid shouts of “Better than ever,” and “We love you.” Before the encore he spoke a few sentences with a low soft voice, none of which anyone could make out what he was saying, his words seemingly as mysterious as his music.

A Girl Named Violet

2008-03-24T21:09:00.001-07:00

Yesterday my leg fell off
Just from he knee down
I don't know why I didn't notice it
I can't imagine where I left it
At least it wasn't my head

Last Wednesday I went to my uncle's house for a picnic
The whole family was there
He said, this isn't right
There's a fly in the potato salad
It seemed like the world was coming to an end
Things couldn't get much darker
Everyone agreed

I've been very concerned about Brittany Spears
I can't get her off my mind
I can't get any work done
I've been losing sleep
I hope things work out for her

They don't have weather reports on the news anymore
Only extreme weather alerts
And dangerous weather outlooks
It's very nerve wracking
Sunny days just don't make headlines these days
Mushroom clouds would be sexier

I have a movie I have to take back to the video store
But I just can't find the gumption to get up and do it
It's really becoming a catastrophe
Each day it's like another shovel of dirt is thrown on my grave
I should have never rented that movie
But you can't change the past

I don't know any girls named violet
But I think about her all the time

I am a murderer

2008-03-18T10:30:00.001-07:00

I am a murderer
For the dream of America
In the name of Democracy
For unfettered capitalism
For us against them
I am a murderer

I am a murderer

My victims lie beneath the ground in lands my feet have never tread
Their hapless faces, I have never gazed upon
I have no knowledge of their actions
And can make no judgment of their deeds
They are countless and their names are not written down in any ledger

I am a murderer

My victims fell in El Salvador, Grenada, Nicaragua, Panama, Afghanistan,
Kuwait, Iraq, and places of which I do not even know

Because I pay taxes
I am a murderer
Because I do not run into the streets and shout
I am a murderer
Because I do not storm the halls of power
I am a murderer
Because I must confess, I do not even writer a letter in protest
I am a murderer

Perhaps if I lived under a cruel dictator
I could claim there is no blood on my hands
But alas, the facts of democracy allow no innocence
Except to serve the cause of self-deception

I am a murderer
A serial killer
Perhaps something even worse

Yet I rest in untroubled sleep
Where is my conscience?
Where is my morality?
Do I even lack humanity?

But my attention is lulled away by celebrity gossip controversies, game shows, and reality TV
My eyes are ever focused on expensive cars, new cloths, electronic gadgets, and good times
A carrot on a stick for a dimwitted mule

I may look back at the Jewish holocaust and say “never again”
Yet hypocrite that I am
I turn away as genocide in far away lands occur again without end

For a lifestyle of abundance beyond all human needs
Species are wiped out of existence on a daily basis

Right now I confess
To nature and man
To the myths of divinity
To the whispers of the ether
That this death is my legacy
This murder my page in history
This genocide my gift to future generations

I think of myself as a good person
I try not to cheat, lie, or steal
I am kind and respectful of others

Yet the undeniable truth is
I am a murderer

Dickinsonian Review

2008-03-08T15:30:00.001-08:00

Dickinsonian Newspaper- Brynn Steblay - March 2008

Caesar Pink and the Imperial Orgyóthe name is enough to make you lift an eyebrow. Imperial Orgy? And who is Caesar Pink? Well, he's no blushing Roman ruler. Pink is a man overflowing with experiences and emotions, as well as an artist who shamelessly shares his opinions.

Caesar Pink led a life wrought with desolation, depravation, and demonstration. From his youngest years, Pink was a misfit. For Pink, however, his outlet came in the form of music. When he was a teenager, Pink performed as amember of Friction, a group appropriately named for its radical political viewpoints.

It was not until 1994, after Pink had lived in a primitive cabin in the remote Appalachian woodlands, been in and out of jail, rid himself of all material possessions and most personal ties, and was ultimately chased out of his hometown, that the artist reached an all-time low, or "spiritual death."Not coincidentally, however, Pink's fall came at a time when Caesar Pink and the Imperial Orgy had just begun their journey in the musical world.

Pink's difficult past seems to serve the band well, fueling the group's shameless "celebration of life, love, sexuality and rebellion."

Their self-titled album is an intriguing collection of what group members call "gospel hymns for agnostics and atheists"ósongs whose nature changes as frequently and dramatically as Pink's own life previously did.

The first track on the album, titled "The Amazing Tenacity of Job and His Brethren," paints a grim picture of society. Pink's strained, wavering voice cries over a steady drumbeat: "There's no second chances / and no one forgives"óan assertion which alerts listeners that Caesar Pink and the Imperial Orgy will not be having any "tween" boy-band drama. Pink means business: the song's first line, apart from being grammatically incorrect, is a powerful statement, reminiscent of Pink's hard-lived life and failing religious faith.

While the first track has a punk rock feel, the second song, "In Praise of Shadows," is a much more upbeat, "rockerhymn." The song opens with a simple, catchy guitar beat similar in style to B.B. King's "Riding with the King." Female vocal accompaniment also adds an uplifting, church-chorus appeal,making this song seem less demoniac than "The Amazing Tenacity of Job and his Brethren." However, upon close listening, the lyrics are none the more comforting: "I heard a scream out in the dark," cries Pink, "Everybody's got a skeleton somewhere."

"So it is," the album's third track, is unlike any aforementioned song. The beat is a unique cross between a Mario Kart theme song (Rainbow Road, anyone?), a Hawaiian luau, and High School Musical's peppy song, "Bop to the Top."

Clearly, the sound is an extreme fluctuation from Pink's previous works; yet, the lyrics contain the same dismal outlook. "Happy Endings," the last song on the C.D., speaks about kids who smoke joints, sip wine by the water's edge, and pass time in a town with no name, satisfied with their lives because they are convinced "it's the best [they] can do." Such negativity clearly stems from Pink's troubled youth; however, despite the artist's sincerity, Pink's message is often looked down upon by others.

Caesar Pink and the Imperial Orgy has garnered much hatred from radio stations for its "ungodly, unethical" lyrics, according to WEXP Radio, a station which has banned the group from its own airwaves.

It is true, the group makes negative references to the Lord, Satan, and Jesus.

However, it is up to the listener to decide whether these comments are necessarily "insulting toGod," as some stations claim they are. One can agree that Pink's lyrics are depressing; in all fairness, however,whether or not you are a strong religious follower, there is something every listener can take away from Caesar Pink and the Imperial Orgy. Where would music be today if artists did not share their innermost thoughts and experiences? Pink has certainly led a life worth talking about, even if it is a bit depressing at times.

Success in Michigan

2008-03-07T04:47:00.001-08:00

Our battle with Portage TV in Michigan has ended with success!

To recap; the trouble started when the local TV station cancelled a planned broadcast of The Imperial Orgy TV Show series because "Two girls were looking at each other as if they couldn't wait to kiss."

The confrontation became increasingly more contentious until I communicated to the town's mayor and board of supervisors. The next morning the manager of the TV station called and had a whole new attitude and was happy to broadcast the show.

The Blessing Of Failure

2008-02-29T05:03:00.001-08:00

I feel a bit discouraged by American culture. today. I have been trying to do some activism work in the Michigan area concerning a case of anti-gay bigotry I ran into at a television station there. To this end I've been contacting people in the area asking for support and finding that even gay people are afraid to stand up against discrimination.

It makes me wonder what happened to the revolutionary spirit from the 60s that young people once had. A lot of people claim to be liberal minded, but when it comes down to putting themselves on the line and taking action, they are not willing to act. And when you don't fight institutionalized discrimination, it wins by default.

It seems at the end of the day people are conformist. People seem frightened to go against the system in even the smallest way. I can't understand why they are so timid. Is it the money? It seems people have a hard time imagining that some things are more important then money. They fear risking their materialistic lifestyles by making waves.

Ever since the Reagan years America has been focused on money as the highest goal. The fruits of this value system are clearly seen in our culture.

These days the front line in the battles against prejudice and bigotry are the small towns and cities across America where backward thinking still thrives. For this reason I have tried to focus my work with The Imperial Orgy on such places. In New York City we are preaching to the converted. There's no point in it.

But in Middle America we act as a lightning rod to bring discrimination to the surface, where it can then be confronted. This has been our mission for years.

Because we are often tangled up in such controversies people sometimes accuse us of using controversy as a way to make money. But after 15 years we have never made a cent of money. And it is likely we never will. In fact we spend our day job money to support the causes and art we believe in. We have the blessing of failure to free us. Since we have given up on the idea that we can be commercially viable, it frees us to think only of artistic and political concerns. It's a unique position that few artists attain these days.

Orgy TV comes to Portage, MIchigan

2008-02-20T05:34:00.001-08:00

The Imperial Orgy continues to do our part to help corrupt (ie:free) American Culture!!

The Imperial Orgy TV Show series will soon be broadcasting on channel 19 in Portage, Michigan.

The show is a fun filled arts variety shows that delivers experimental films, artist profiles, comedy skits, music videos, and documentary shorts.

For more info visit the show's website at www.orgytv.org.

The Imperial Orgy TV Show comes to Romeo, MI

2008-02-13T09:12:00.001-08:00

Beginning in March The Imperial Orgy TV Show series will begin airing on WBRW Channel 6 in Romeo, Michigan.

For more info on Orgy TV visit the show's website by
Click here

The Values We Hold

2008-02-12T05:28:00.001-08:00

Yesterday in my day job as a music promoter I was speaking to a wealthy lawyer who wrote some songs and got some other people to play and sing them, and now wants to promote them in hopes of selling them to a publisher. During the conversation he said to me, "I can't let my name be associated with this. I can't ruin my reputation for my serious work. People would think I was went nuts."

I think this comment says a lot about how people view the arts in America. Art is not serious work. The work of a lawyer has so much more value then that of an artist that it could ruin his reputation. In fact, to be involved in arts would make people think he was insane.

Of course his real motive is to tell his songs and make money off them. If art makes money, then it has value and you don't have to be ashamed of it.

Don't Look Back

2008-02-07T08:02:00.001-08:00

Monday night I went to see a new 35mm print of Don't Look Back, the Bob Dylan documentary from 1965. We arrived a half an hour early in order to get good seats, but even at that time there was a line out the door and down the block.

For those who haven't see it, the film is a cinema verite profile of the 1965 Dylan tour of England. At that time Dylan was being treated in the way that teenyboppers treat Justin Timberlake or Hannah Montanna. The difference being that Dylan was singing intensely poetic lyrics laden with social/political meaning.

Throughout the film the mainstream press swarmed around Dylan, often plying him with inane questions. Dylan usually reacted with humor, but at times became combative. There is a painfully uncomfortable scene with a clueless, and somewhat frightened looking Time Magazine reporter that incites nervous laughter from the audience.

On the lighter side Dylan and his entourage try to laugh their way through the boredom and chaos of touring life. Among the entourage are folk singer Joan Baez. In one scene she is seen wearing a too-small cowboy hat and nonchalantly eating a banana as she sings one of Dylan's hits while inserting the word "banana" into the lyrics.

After the film the director D.A. Pennebaker came out for a Q&A session with the audience. Although he usually never quite answered the question put to him, he always had an interesting perspective on filmmaking and his experiences. I believe the event was webcast, but I'm not sure where.

What Lies Beneath?

2008-02-04T12:07:00.000-08:00

Something Lies Beneath
I can feel it in my bones
If I can scratch away the air I am sure it will be revealed
But the air is too slippery
And the veil cannot be pierced

What lies beneath?
I can feel it vibrating when I am quiet
With a knife I slash away at the ocean
But the water is too wilely
It parts and then consumes my weapon
Not even a drop of blood?
Not even a spark of electricity?
I have failed again

I know it is there
There are times when I can almost see it
Perhaps it is a flash so bright it dissolves every thought?
Perhaps it is an explosion within the very atoms ?

I break rocks against concrete yet it remains hidden
I bite a grain of sand between my teeth but it simply dissolves
It taunts in the campfire flame
But when I reach into the flame to try to grasp it
My skin merely melt away

At night I lay silent hoping to catch it sneaking past my bed
But to no avail
In a silence that allows not even a single thought
I can almost hear it whisper
In the moment between waking and sleep it winks at me
But still its secret remains safe

Doc 1/28/07

2008-01-28T11:24:00.001-08:00

Last night I went to see a documentary called Doc, about a forgotten writer named H.L. Hume, or Doc as he was known.

He started life as a wiz-kid who was attending an Ivy League college by age 16. Soon though, he dropped out to become a beatnik in the late 50s. While in France he was one of the chief founders of the esteemed Paris Review literary magazine. A few years later he returned to the U.S. and married and had four daughters.

During these years he lived a bohemian life and tinkered with a variety of inventions. Among them designing paper houses for the United Nations that were meant for third world countries. Most of his projects were abandoned before reaching fruition.

On a dare he wrote a novel titled The Underground City that was critically acclaimed. Soon followed by a 2nd called Men Die that received equal praise and success. Around this time he became involved with a variety of activists causes and was jailed briefly. He also acted as Normal Mailer's campaign manager during Mailer's failed bid to become New York's mayor.

To escape his fear of the police Hume and his family moved to England where be began to write his third book. Before the writing got very far Hume became obsessed with the idea that the CIA was following him. His friends and family all believed this was a delusion, and as his paranoia became more acute it was assumed he was mentally ill.

Eventually his family returned to America in order to escape the situation. A few years later Hume began showing up on Ivy League campuses as a unofficial professor teaching Soctratic style lectures in public spaces. At one point he gave away $12,000, a hundred dollars at a time with the instruction that the receiver gives half of it to someone else.

Hume's lectures were a mix of visionary prophecies, anti-establishment wisdom, and flights of delusional fantasy. Some of his views, such as the belief that the media was being used to brainwash the public, seem completely lucid and even more true in the present day. While some of his other ideas were fairly deranged.

Despite the mixed blessings of his teachings, during the turmoil of the late 60's he amassed a sizable following of students who followed his teachings and lifestyle.

After his death his daughter Immy Hume began to make the documentary in review. After doing some research she found at that the CIA was in fact following him for over 30 years and at times watching his every move. This was because they believed that liberals who would create something like the Paris Review must certainly be communists.

The film made me think about mental illness. How much of it is simply a matter of conforming to popular belief systems? Is it possible to hold views that go against the mainstream and still be sane? In the old Soviet Union political dissidents were locked in insane asylums. It is not uncommon for people to believe that those who go against the social order are "maladjusted."

But for the person who holds a nonconformist view, what does that situation do to one psychologically? People often disparage homeless people by saying that they a just mentally ill people. After spending time with homeless people I came to the conclusion that the experience of being homeless makes one mentally ill. Could it be true that the experience of holding nonconformist views can also make one mentally ill? It is said that when Einstein discovered the theory of relativity he was frightened because he thought he might be seen as insane. If his ideas had not been supported by the scientific community perhaps he would have been seen as insane. Regardless of the empirical truth of his ideas.

There is another factor that plays into the scheme of things when someone is creative. Creative ideas often appear through the process of listening to the random noise that emerges from the unconscious mind. I think most people just ignore those thoughts, but a creative person may listen to those thoughts and consider their value. Most of them might be worthless, but a few might be brilliant. If the person speaks of these ideas as they work through them, might they not sound insane? Might much of their energy and time appear to be wasted in the eyes of those who do not understand this creative process?

These days we try to fix those who have what appear to be mental problems with fast acting psychotropic drugs. We see them advertised on TV commercials every day. One has to wonder what we might really be fixing away.

1/9/07 Video Shoot

2008-01-09T14:43:00.001-08:00

1/9/07
Last night I directed a video shoot. With nowhere else to shoot I tore apart my kitchen and covered the wall with green screen material. The shoot is for projection footage for a multimedia performance of a piece called Struggle The Void. (lyrics below)

I wore a black hood with the face covered with green screen material. This will allow me to insert other images where my face would be. Other shots included green screening out a hole in my bare chest so fire can be inserted. I also shot a nude female playing the violin with the head and hips and legs covered with green screen so it appears as only a torso.

Here are the lyrics to the piece:

Searching through the nothingness
The curse of birth has snarled me
Desire for objects, lust for flesh
Diversions steal each moment's truth
Bloated with complacency
The reptiles build the babel great
Copulation steams with neon lights
The primordial ooze brings forth its fruit

Close your eyes, float into sleep
On a lily branch a dove is perched
Walk with me, look to the sky
Hear the breathing universe
All is perfect, all is pleasure
Mother's breast is always near
A fire burns in nature's bosom
The heartless Earth opens her arms

Look into my eyes
Can you share my feelings?
Can you know my thoughts?
We are together, but we are alone
My heart is empty
The emptiness is a mirror
I see my face in the mirror
I see the lines on my face
I see the future
I am an animal condemned to futility
Time mocks my every breath

Time steals my breath away
The taste of blood is in my mouth
We labor for our daily bread
The ancestral echoes pull us home
Maggots feast on futility
Narcissus dreams of billboards high
The odor of sex moves marionettes
Within the atoms it endures

The raven brings us charity
A drop of semen in the womb
Detachment is a feather pillow
The garden beckons innocence
One day is just like another
A meal of honey and cornbread
The great one floats on silent waters
His indifference is our time to play

This is my hand
I can move it
I can feel the blood pulsing through my veins
Is this my self?
Is this what I am?
This mass of flesh, sinews, blood and bones?
There must be something more
I have a name and I am alive

The insectiles dance in endless circles
Within the current I am lost
Our goals are phantoms that devour
Death makes our labors meaningless
The white mask threatens with the truth
Satori is the savior we decline
The clutching womb calls out to mankind
But within we find just empty space

The illusion of forms fades into one
A million saviors dance beneath
A pure bath of electricity
Chaos gives birth to all potential
Open your eyes, stand on the mountain
Hear the song of the wild gander
All is nothing, all is illusion
Surrender to the contradiction

Standing on life's edge
Looking out into the darkness
How can one live in the face of death
Knowing all is nothingness?
I call out to you from the darkness
But you remain silent
Hiding in a mist of unspoken promises
Is there anyone out there? Speak to me
Reach out your hand
Reveal yourself
I want answers not faith
In our fear we make an image
A myth
A babble of insanity
I will tear you from my heart
And if in the final hour you are there
I will spit in your face
I am alive!
I search and I find nothing
Nothing
Nothing

Danny Williams 1/8/07

2008-01-08T05:59:00.000-08:00

Saturday night I went to see three experimental films by Danny Williams. Williams was a friend of Andy Warhol's who worked in the Factory Scene. In 1965 he disappeared, never to be heard from again. His niece made a documentary film about his disappearance titled "A Walk In The Sea."

William's family did not know he made films until recently when the Museum Of Modern Art found the three films mixed in with a collection of Warhol films that are awaiting restoration. None of the films had a soundtrack, but at the showing live musicians created a soundtrack for the longest of the three.

The films were in 16mm black and white and we edited in the camera. (A very hard thing to do) The used a lot of slow and fashion motion techniques. Most of the footage was of people working or partying at the factory. There is a long party scene that includes Edie Sedgewick and poet Gerard Malanga. The people are squeezed onto a couch with their limbs strew over each other as the drink champaign and laugh. Although they were obviously happy and having a good time, there was something eerie about the footage. Something melencholy about it. Almost ghostly.

The last of the three films was the earliest footage of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground. Lou looks like a scared boy who is in over his head in the factory scene.

The showing was only the fourth time the the films had been seen by the public. The audience included some of the old Factory people who I know from watching documentaries about the period. After was William's niece led a discussion Q&A with the audience. Both the film and the event were quite inspiring.

Love & hate

2007-11-20T04:00:00.000-08:00

This is how my day started yesterday. 2 new reviews that show the hate & love the press throws at us. It's enough to make you crazy.

Caeser Pink and the Imperial Orgy: Gospel Hymns for Agnostics and Atheists
Flora-ala Newspaper

So, I get this CD in the mail the other day from some band called "Caeser Pink and the Imperial Orgy" and it's called "Gospel Hymns for Agnostics and Athiests."

What choice did I have? I had to find out what this sounded like.

I wasn't sure whether to expect controversy or humor. Based on the EP's title, it could have been either one.

Reading the lyrics in the CD's jacket, I got both of these things. Listening to the CD itself, I got nothing.

Why? Because this is one of the worst demos I've ever heard.

From the outset I can tell this Mr. Pink should never get in front of a microphone unless he wants to announce the latest sale at Shoe Carnival.

Despite that there is a noticeable groove and comedic, repeating "Oh Lord" throughout the song, I can't get past this guy's voice.

Oh yeah, and those female back-ups aren't helping. It's obvious the band was going for a southern, '60s feel for the first two tracks, but it just sounds like a sloppy rehashing of old beats and old ideas.

Get the message here? There's nothing new about this band. Whether or not they belong in the '60s or the '90s, they're just too late for the sort of sound they were going for, even if it had sounded decent.

As with anything, however, there were occasional glimpses of actual talent. But these tidbits didn't last longer than it took for something to go horribly wrong-which was usually about three seconds.

The third track is just a mystery to me. It's like they went on vacation to Hawaii and thought they'd be cool and write a song island-style.

Again, it had been anyone else, this probably would have paid off. But Caeser and his misfit gang of orgy-obsessed imperialists butcher yet another genre.

So mark that one off the list and let's move on to the grand finale.

This song was done in the style of a heartfelt ballad from a teen movie from hell. Once more, Pinkie made me want to bash my brain against the wall, or at least his vocal cords.

Now, I'm completely open to the idea that these strange song-styles were done purposely and could also have been done as a joke. But the point remains, no matter what the Orgy was going for, they didn't pull it off.

There was a press release enclosed with this CD. In it, the band tried to play up their image by stating that no college radio station will play their songs because of their controversial lyrics. They even proudly list the stations that have banned their music.

Know what I think? I think most, if not all, of those stations have forbidden the Orgy from appearing on their airwaves not because of the lyrical content, but because they suck.

So, want your CD reviewed? Send it along with any press material to the Flor-Ala.

Let's see if you can top Caeser Pink. Come on music lovers, it's pretty much a guarantee.

Iconoclastic band fronted by mad social visionary calls for revolution
The Stoutonian Newspaper

Caeser Pink and the Imperial Orgy is unlike any musical phenomenon one could find. A band whose style has resonated old-school punk, psychedelic funk and experimental art rock, managed to stray from common alternative standards as well as their own for their album, “Gospel Hymns For Agnostics And Atheists.”

The title is most assured to commandeer one’s attention. It alone often starts the cycle of controversy surrounding the band. They have been banned from airplay for being “anti-religion,” “unethical” and “too political.” They’ve even canceled shows due to threats of extreme violence or the eruption of riots at the venue. And this isn’t from more conservative markets; even college radio and media has less than embraced the band’s tracks.

But there is nothing explicitly or implicitly blasphemous or heretic about it. It does not promote or defy any particular sect or faction of religion, but rather illustrates more universal truth.

The music has a folk twinge to it, with a traditional rock flow, and spiritually uplifting overtones. If Bob Dylan had started writing songs in this era, this is what he’d have written. Also, in the spirit of being truly unifying and cohesive, the third track “So It Is” derives its rhythms from the style of South African “Township Music.”

The truly original lyrical performance is brilliant; the words are not just lyrics to a song, but pure poetry. They are not just heard or read, they are felt and experienced. No one walks away untouched.

Perhaps this is why they have been repeated targets of censorship and protest.
Perhaps the reason that Pink and his orgy are often so fiendishly contested is because they present raw thoughts and ideas reflected from the very face of the human condition.

Rock ‘n’ roll has an association with drugs, and The Orgy does not disappoint with lines like “Pills can make you happy, I seen it on TV. So drug me with your video screens, S&M scenes and altered genes, drug me drug me drug me till I believe,” from the album’s first track “The Amazing Tenacity of Job & His Brethren.”

The song’s chorus follows, echoing, We preach what we lack, we curse what we sow, and people are the opposite of what they show.”

The controversy, the debate, the violence, the passion elicited by the sounds of this band tells us something vital. That this band does not just make music, they do not just make records; they create art.

Pink, the band’s enigmatic leader, feels, “Art is either revolutionary or conformity.” That being said, Pink is disturbed by trends in the censorship of expression on college radio. Depriving free access to the media deprives artists of a voice to reach people.

“It’s a sign of the conformist spirit that America has taken,” said Pink. “Americans have forgotten that music is an artform with which to express ideas, and that there was a time when rock music was a conduit for social change.”

These lyrics clearly do not condone reckless chemical consumption or active rebellion of any sort. They simply reflect some of the hypocrisy of common life. And that is why they are met with such malice. They challenge the power structure at its core ideas. They expose the overlooked.

In the song “Praise of Shadows” they profess that, “Everybody’s got a skeleton somewhere.” Maybe this is an example of what arouses such contempt; skeletons are where they are because people want them hidden. Later in that verse they ask, “What should we do now? Should we huddle in the corner, live with fear in our hearts?”

Do we hide from our skeletons, do we fear our truth? It would seem that many do.

Caeser Pink and the Imperial Orgy may offend because they make art and good art is made to offend. To be offended one must feel the foundation of their beliefs has been challenged or threatened.

This implies that not only does one possess a foundation of beliefs, but feels its preservation to be a priority. The artist’s goal is not to make friends, but to make thinkers.

This is what The Orgy does and this is why they rock.

They refer to the tracks as “Gospel Hymns” because the specific concoction of chords and comprehensive lyrics compose ballads of being. They say they’re for Agnostics and Atheists because they speak of a “Ubiquitous experience of spirit transcendent of any specific doctrine.”

Those with an open mind can dive deeper into the heart of The Orgy, for good or for ill, by visiting www.theimperialorgy.com.

What Would You Name Your Orgy?

2007-05-03T15:45:00.001-07:00

What Would You Name Your Orgy?

Imperial Orgy's frontman/leader Caesar Pink found his to be colonial. Though, nothing about the Civil War comes to my mind when I hear their new song "Oak King Blues." But the way they perform Pink looks neo-colonial. The Orgy is made up of over 100 performing artists, poets, and visual artists. This is not what is interesting about these guys & girls. Their music, performances, poetry, films, books, etc. not geared toward the normal advertising for band; are not celebrating themselves, they celebrate everything else. What exactly is everything else? Caesar Pink's vision.

After having a powerful religious vision he spent two years in the Appalachian foothills as a hermit. In New York, as The Orgy was gaining local success Pink underwent, what he calls, a "spiritual death." R.D Lang's "Politics of Experience", literally fell into his lap offering eastern oriented advice; some times mentally breaking down is a spiritual passage in consciousness.

The Imperial Orgy formed in 1994 at Penn State. In November of '98, sick of corporate America's dehumanizing affects Caesar & Co. dressed up in costumes and put loaves of bread on the street with notes from Satan offering to buy their souls in exchange for all the material objects one attains at a corporate job. What is being misunderstood is that people believe The Imperial Orgy is a Satanist group, or Anti-God. They're neither; their motive with the loaves of bread was to make people question something. Pink described the people as, "removed from introspection or their on spirituality." Controversy began over the release of 'Gospel Hymns for Agnostics and Atheists'. "Shows have been canceled due to terrorist threats from Christian organizations, their posters have been banned from college campuses, radio stations have banned their recordings and their Web site, theimperialorgy.com, was banned from its Web hosting company for being "an insult to God." (Myspace.com).

Musically, The Orgy is an amazing blend of 70's rock with 80's punk wrapped up in an Eastern/hippie tortilla. Their live shows are based on open sexuality. In the crowd, heavy petting with Pink and other Orgies mingling with the crowd, film clips, and psychedelic lights combine form an experience that will blow your mind.

Now, it's obvious that The Imperial Orgy is not just a band, performing artists, or a spiritual organization. There is no one title I can give these guys, unless it's revolutionaries. Their website (theimperialorgy.com) claims, "An open celebration of life, love, sexuality, and rebellion." Which, sounds better definition "free love". The music is 70's, and the way they play is reminiscent of the punk days of CBGB. "The intensity of [Pink's] stage presence lends an unpredictable edge to The Imperial Orgy's live performances." (CaesarPink.com)

For loves of theology, the 60's, 70's rock, or 80's punk definitely check out The Imperial Orgy, "[They] respectfully request that people who do not have an open mind do not enter The Imperial Orgy website.

New Music Weekly

2007-04-26T14:41:00.001-07:00

The Imperial Orgy Debut Is Most Talked About Indie CD Of The Last Year

LOS ANGELES (Top40 Charts/ Imperial Orgy Official Website/ www.theimperialorgy.com) - Caeser Pink & The Imperial Orgy's debut CD Gospel Hymns For Agnostic & Atheists has stirred up a wave of controversy and in the process become the most talked about CD of the twelve months since it's initial release.

The buzz building around the group has been spearheaded by a slew of press coverage that is rare, if not unprecedented, for an independently released CD. The coverage reached fever pitch this week when an article written by Janelle Eastridge for the Mustang Daily newspaper in San Luis Obispo, California was picked up for national syndication placing it in countless college newspapers across the U.S.

The buzz began when college radio stations began banning the CD for being too controversial for airplay. This quickly set into motion a debate about the censorship practices of college media. While Jenna Strom of the Spinnaker newspaper deemed the group 'downright sacrilegious,' Sally Calcara of the Northern Iowan newspaper defended the band, "Throughout history, music has been a source of revolutionary ideas and an expression of modern thought-Caesar Pink and the Imperial Orgy is no exception."

Other writers such as Raveen Battee of the Los Angeles Loyolan described The Imperial Orgy's music as, 'ingenious and creative, striving to push the envelope to another dimension.'

Although the Gospel Hymns CD is the band's first release, the group has a long history of activity in the New York underground. Besides their regular live performances The Imperial Orgy has presented street theater protests in front of the New York Stock exchange, created their own 12 episode TV series that has been broadcast across the U.S. and Europe, and held the legendary Imperial Orgy Erotic Masquerade Ball at Webster Hall in the East Village.

Excerpt from Apology 10/28/94

2007-04-14T08:14:00.000-07:00

10/28/94

I have finished my work at Filmspace and it is my last day in State College. Finally I will be free to begin my new life in New York City.

But everything is wrong. It seems that given two possible outcomes for any situation the negative one is always the one that happens. It has worked out that way so many times it defies the laws of chance. I am starting to wonder what I have done to deserve this run of bad luck. Questions that I thought I came to terms with years ago haunt me anew. The existence of morality? Good and Evil? Fate and determination? Past lives? All of these questions cloud my confused mind.

The recent weeks I have been in a dream state. A walking malaise. I have very little human contact. I work on editing the film on pharmacology during the night when no one is around. I work a few hours then pass out for a nap on the black leather couch in the back of the editing room. On and off, working and sleeping throughout the night, then I vacate before morning comes and the rest of the workers arrive.

For days I have been trying to seek help. Psychological help. Spiritual help. Any lind of help. Finally the darkness becomes too intense. I pick up the phone in the editing room and begin calling desperately, reaching out for anyone. Psychiatrists won’t speak to me because I have no money or insurance. I have called priests, preachers, gurus…yet I only reach answering machines or people who think I am crazy for actually asking metaphysical questions, for really thinking about the issues they are supposed to make their life’s work. Finally in desperation I call the suicide hotline. A recorded voice answers the phone, “This is the Pennsylvania suicide hotline. Many people consider suicide for a variety of reasons. If you are considering suicide here are a few things you should consider…”

An answering machine at the suicide hotline? I hang up the phone. It is laughable. Like a scene from a B grade movie. Gathering my strength I make the final dub of the edited film and lay down to sleep. This moment is the meridian between my new and old life and yet I find myself thinking of suicide.

The following morning I leave State college to begin my new life. I plan to visit Sasha on the way to New York. Our last evening together was both horrible and wonderful. The previous weekend I came to New York to audition for an off-Broadway show called the Blue Man Group. That evening Sasha and I were given free tickets to the show. As part of the audition we were assigned the task of going into the basement of the theater and talking into plastic tubes, the other ends of which emerged under the seats of the theater. We sere supposed to ad lib surreal conversations with the audience members who were waiting for the show to begin.

Once the show began we had a great time. We laughed and held each other throughout the performance. Afterward we went to a club where people slow danced to Latin music.

After our evening, as I drove back to her parent’s home she stripped naked as I drove. She said, “I want you inside of me.”

I slid my finger inside of her warm vagina as she masturbated. In the green haze from the dashboard lights I looked down over her lovely body. Her long hair flowing over my legs. The expression of passion on he face. Soon she shook with orgasm. As I watched her I was overcome with feelings of love. A love so deep and so intense that it shook me to the core. After her orgasm she began to cry quietly as her head rested on my lap.

“I’m so confused. Why do I have to be a woman? I feel like such an ugly person,” she said.

Her tears soon gave way to sobs, “I just don’t wanna lose my mother, I don’t wanna lose my mother..” she repeated between sobs. “I pray every night I’ll get in a car wreck and end it all.”

We pulled up in front of her parent’s upper middle class mansion. The neighborhood looked cold and sterile. We sat in front of the house and I held in her in my arms while she pulled herself together. She asked that we don’t speak for two weeks so that she has some time to regain her emotional balance.

She begged me to stay the night at her parent’s house so they don’t think there’s anything wrong between us. I refused and began the four hour drive back to State College with the night’s events weighing heavily on my mind.

After not speaking to her for a week, yesterday I got a message at Filmspace that her back was broken in a car accident. She is laid up in a brace, but can still move about a bit. When we spoke on the phone I said, “Do me a favor, don’t prey for anymore car wrecks.”

She was silent for a second. “I didn’t say that,” she replied indignantly. When I insisted that she did, she became hysterical. “I can’t talk to you anymore,” she blurted our and the phone line went dead.

On the drive to New York it is a warm and sunny autumn day. The nice weather help to protect my spirit from the hopelessness I feel inside.

When I arrive at Sasha’s house on the way to New York she lies in her bed propped up against the wall. A metal brace holds her from head to hips. Her hair is still matted against her forehead with dried blood. It is a ghastly site. Her beauty trapped in that mechanical metal contraption that looks like some kind of torture device.

She tells me it’s over. She needs a break from the pressure of the relationship so she can focus on healing.

I am broken, dead inside, but I feel so exhausted by the months of drama that I simply feel to beaten to protest. I bend down and kiss her hand reverently and say goodbye, never to enter her home again.

As the New York City skyline comes into view I realize it is the first day of my new life and I am homeless, jobless, for all practical purposes The Imperial Orgy is broken up. I feel humiliated. I have lost face to all. And most of all; I am taken by deep feelings of hopelessness that I have never known before.

As night falls and the chill of autumn begins to sting my skin, out of desperation I call Samantha. She and Dave Surreal are sharing and large apartment on Staten Island. I explain my desperate situation to her. As she chats cheerfully on the phone a P.J. Harvey song blares in the background. “You’re not rid of me, you’re not rid of me,” Harvey’s angry voice warns amid the distorted guitars. Is this a message? I am so confused that I can’t tell reality from superstition any longer. Samantha invites me to come and sleep on their basement floor. With nowhere else to turn I accept.

When I arrive at their house all is dark. Samantha greets me at the door wearing a green silk kimono. Inside at the dark house she hugs me and I realize she is naked under the now open kimono. With her leading the way we fall into a frenzied fuck on the hard living room floor.

My mind is so confused that this event feels like simply one more drama in a stream that takes me in its current. My body, as well as my soul have surrendered to the torrent of life. I am a whore to the amoral desires of fate and destiny. I have no will to fight it anymore.

Samantha is eager to please and uses her skills with a willful sense of purpose. She takes me in her mouth and rubs her lithe frame over my body. Finally she crawls atop me, my back pinned against the hard wooden floor. It seems she is eager to please, but in fact this is her moment of triumph. After all is said and done, she has vanquished her rival and conquered her pray. As I collapse after ejaculation her triumph is complete. I dissolve into nothingness, small like a raped widow or an abused child. She feels strong and contented.

As we thrashed about on the floor the one thing I couldn’t do is kiss her on the mouth. That is the one thing that would be too much of a lie for my soul to bear. It is my one oasis of purity that I won’t defile. Once I have known a kiss of deep, pure love, I just can’t pretend anymore. It is impossible. It is the one part of myself that protect as all else is surrendered to the cruel world that has taken me.

It is too later to fix a bed for me in the basement, so we fall sleep in her bed. I lay on my side looking out into the darkness of the unfamiliar room. Samantha lies behind me, her arm and leg draped over me. I feel a sense of smothered security. I feel like an errant child who went out into the world to find his dream and came back to mother with his tail between his legs. I feel grateful for her help in this hour of need, but I also feel disgraced and humiliated. I resent the price I will pay for accepting this help. Little do I know how this night will color my entire future for years to come.

Iggy Pop & The Stooges at the United Palace Theater.

2007-04-13T04:26:00.001-07:00

Iggy Pop & The Stooges at the United Palace Theater.

I went to the Stooges show with a bit of trepidation. My first concern was about how out of control the audience might become. Beyond that I always preferred Iggy’s Berlin era solo work to the less musically-sophisticated music produced by the Stooges. In the end I went just to experience the concert for their historical value as godfathers of punk.

The concert was way way uptown at the United Palace Theater on 175th street. The audience was an odd mix of young hipsters and middle-aged rockers, many with young children in tow.

The night started with an OK set by a girl trio called Sistas In The Pit who played Hendrix psychedelia meets punk. When the stooges took the stage the volume was so overwhelming that the next morning my ears are still ringing. Their music was the most primitive sound I have ever heard. The music was pure aggression. Iggy skipped around the stage with a knock-kneed gait. Often breaking into spastic go-go girl moves. His body was lean and hard, dressed only in a dropping pair of faded blue jeans.

Throughout the night Iggy’s stage performance was the most interesting thing about the show as he poured bottles of water and beer over his own head, crawled on top of amplifiers, and dove into the audience. Halfway through the show he invited the crowd onto the stage, causing total chaos as hundreds of fans mobbed him as a lone security guard struggled to keep him safe.

The band was tight, although the guitar and bass players stayed pinned up against their amps, seemingly only interested in staying out of Iggy’s way. During the final third of the concert the bass, drum and guitar lineup was implemented by the addition of a sex player. Unfortunately by that late hour the sound became so loud that it washed over one like an incomprehensible roar.

I was surprised by how little of the material I actually knew. Beyond a few classics like I Wanna Be Your Dog, 1969, No Fun, and TV Eye, the song selection was alien to me. Much of it might have come from the band’s new album. One song from that release which repeated the inane refrain, “My idea of fun, is killing everyone.”

When all is said and done, although I appreciate the Stooges role in rock history, it’s still Iggy which makes the band anything more than a million other punks bands. And when it comes to Iggy, I would prefer to have a little Lust For Life mixed in with my Search And Destroy.

Link

2007-04-10T06:15:00.000-07:00

Blog Listings

Anoushka Shankar

2007-04-09T05:17:00.001-07:00

Although I’ve listened to a lot of recorded Indian music over the years, except for the sitar players who sit in the window of the Indian restaurants on 6th Avenue, I have never seen an Indian music concert before this week when I went to see Anoushka Shankar perform at the Laguardia Performing Arts Center in Queens, NY.

Anoushka is the daughter of famed Sitar player Ravi Shankar, and began learning the complex instrument at age eight. By age fifteen she was recording with family friend George Harrison and made her solo debut as a recording artist soon after.

Her group consisted of a tabla player, a flutist, a trap drummer, an electric bass, a pianist, and another stringed instrument that I still haven’t figured out what it is. The show began with a couple pieces in the traditional Indian classical style.

As a musician, when I listen to music I am used to being able to understand the music structurally. With the Indian music, although I could understand the melodies and rhythms I couldn’t make any sense of the structures. To my ears it sounded as if it just flowed organically, but I believe there actually are complex structures guiding it that my ears could not recognize.

As the performance progressed Anoushka added more modern elements into the music. Bringing in the drum kit and the electric bass, and even some electronic sounds and rhythms provided by the pianist with a computer by her side.

One piece she explained was written with a Spanish composer and fused flamenco style piano with classical Indian music. Another crowd pleaser featured a technique called mouth percussion during which the percussionist and the flute player sang drum parts. It was very fast and very frenetic, and the complexity and energy made it very exciting to listen to.

For the final piece the musicians each took a solo section, a tradition that is very familiar to Western listeners. The musicians were all excellent, and Anoushka’s abilities were very impressive. The sitar is an instrument that is capable of making a wide variety of sounds simultaneously, and the speed and control with which she manipulated the unwieldy looking contraption was a bit dazzling. The only thing that seemed odd about the piece was that after each solo the music would come to a complete stop, and then the entire group would begin again in unison until the next solo began. In Western music the rhythm would always continue and the soloists would normally play their solos over top of the rhythm and the music would never come to a stop.

Between each song the musicians stopped to tune up their instruments. Before they began again Anoushka would pick up a small microphone and introduce the next song. Here demeanor was always gentle and always grateful for the audience’s approval.

The Mustang Daily

2007-04-05T15:52:00.001-07:00

The Mustang Daily
by Janelle Eastridge
- April 5, 2007

Caesar Pink banned from college radio

With the phrase "Gospel Hymns for Agnostics and Atheists" as the name of their debut album, it's not too much of a stretch to see how Caesar Pink and the Imperial Orgy (another so-called shockingly immoral name) is already shrouded in controversy.

But, that's OK: after all, the band's no stranger to controversy. In the past, the New York City-based band has had shows cancelled due to terrorist threats from radical religious groups, their Web site has been banned from its Web hosting company for being "an insult to God" and women's studies classes have debated how they present gender issues.

Though they may be virtually unknown on Cal Poly's campus, other universities and press outlets across the nation have deemed the band's music too controversial for the airwaves, and have even, in some cases, banned the songs from receiving any playtime.

College campuses from Washington, Delaware, New York and Georgia, to name a few, have vaguely labeled the music as "too controversial," "too political" and "anti-religion." Clearly, this isn't just an issue of the Bible Belt or religious extremists taking the reins on college campuses. Or maybe it is -but that's another issue.

"The music's good, the singing's good, the production's good, but we can't put it on the air," said Tamara Postles, music director for WDTS radio station in Georgetown, Del.

"I refuse to play that kind of sacrilegious music on my radio station. It is ungodly, unethical and just done to strike up the heartstrings of those who respect God and religion," said Adam Bagri, general manager of WEXP at La Salle University in Philadelphia, Penn.

Just as their music is an easygoing yet bold mixture of style, not really fitting into one specific genre, it seems the band itself has a unique mixture of counterculture ideas and unflinchingly powerful statements.

"To place the CD in context, although The Imperial Orgy's music usually consists of an "anything goes" mix of old-school punk, psychedelic funk and experimental art rock, the 'Gospel Hymns' CD spotlights a different slice of the group's creative pie The four songs are united by the use of blues and gospel lyrics to create a modern form of gospel music that does not promote any sect or religion, but expresses a more universal spiritual message," according to a recent press release from the band's label.

This is perhaps best represented in the CD's first song, "The Amazing Tenacity of Job & His Brethren." Lead singer Caesar Pink soulfully sings "cum-bye-yay lord(s)" as gospel singers back him up.

Yes, Pink does make some expected "controversial" religious statements, singing "There's nothin' you can count on/and nothin' comes for free/the devil speaks with a child's tongue/and if you believe in those na've dreams/his work will be complete."

But these lyrics (and more) are not entirely what Postles, Bagri and others would have us believe.

The idea isn't that religion is some big, bad monster out to devour people's minds. In fact, there's nothing that, from these lyrics at least, would even suggest such a thing. But rather the idea is that evil is accomplished when dreams and ideas are held na'vely.

Sure, there are numerous religious references in both the lyrics and the style of the music, but, like the band points out, these songs are not written to promote an agenda either for or against religion.

The CD also contains no foul language and no references to sex, drugs or violence.

For now, it seems as though a truly rare band with so much creativity is being turned away, not for the music they play, but rather for the initial, glance-at-the-cover message they portray.

As Pink said, "I think it all has to do with the CD's title. When people hear the word 'atheist' they seem to go insane. What bothers me is that they don't seem to listen to the music or read the lyrics, but because these stations get it into their heads that the CD reflects a different religious belief than their own, they are banning us from the airwaves."

And that is a sad, but telling, thing.

The so-called Sounds Of Satan - South Florida Oracle

2007-04-04T09:27:00.000-07:00

The Co-called Sounds Of Satan

Welcome to college. Most of you have made it this far by thinking for yourselves, but some colleges don't think you can handle "sacreligious" music. Apparently you can handle homework and paying bills, but once exposed to music that contradicts any sort of orthodox religious lifestyle, you're a goner.

Caeser Pink and the Imperial Orgy's Gospel Hymns for Agnostics and Atheists has not only received negative commentary from religious groups, but its CD has been banned from many college radio stations for sacrilegious and ungodly messages. One listen could make a person a bit unnerved to think that certain people have the sort of power to decide what the masses should and should not hear.

In order to understand how these claims could be made about Caeser Pink and the Imperial Orgy, the CD and band need to be thoroughly inspected.

First of all, the music is not the cause of the censorship. While it's not exactly a Top 40 album, it's something you would expect to hear on 88.5 WMNF, Tampa's local community radio station. It's an easy rock sound with funk undertones.

Furthermore, dissection of the lyrics revealed nothing. Hardly blasphemous, the lyrics promote faith and freedom of thought, with no God-bashing in sight. It's practically *NSYNC compared to some of Marilyn Manson's music. Some of the scrutinized lyrics include: "We preach what we lack / we curse what we sow," and, "let the sinless pray for redemption / let the hopeless dream of tomorrows / let it wash over you." These are pathetic attempts at claiming an anti-God or anti-religion stance. If anything, these promote strength in faith and attempt to speak the truth about people in general (the classic "practice what you preach" idiom comes to mind).

Further exploration turned up the root of the problem: Lead singer Caeser Pink is a self-proclaimed "guru of Pagan pan-sexuality." To briefly digress, pagan means outside of the world's religions, and pan-sexuality means of no sexual orientation and open to any and all types of people. Also, the Imperial Orgy has been promoting sexual freedom and exploration since the early '90s.

So it seems the devil is in the details. These radio stations are not banning the band's music because of the message, but because of the unscrupulous lifestyles of both Caeser Pink and the Imperial Orgy.

In response to all of this, Caeser Pink posted in an online blog: "This trend towards censoring expression is disturbing. For an artist, if you don't have access to the media, you have no voice with which to reach people. It's a sign of the conformist spirit that has taken America. It's odd because these days, you can be as outrageous as you want when it comes to sex and violence and no one gets too excited, but ideas are what tend to get censored. If you dare to suggest that people should think for themselves and not blindly accept the dictates of church and state, that is when people get nervous and try to shut you up. Rock music has become so safe and vacuous that young Americans have forgotten that music is an art-form with which to express ideas, and that there was a time when rock music was a conduit for social change."

Regardless of whether you like the music or agree with the message, there should not be a censor placed on music based on personal discrimination. College students are old enough and mature enough to separate entertainment from reality or make their own realistic connections therein. If we still hear Michael Jackson on the radio after repeated sexual offense allegations, Snoop Dogg after several drug charges or Eminem after allegations of wife-beating - all lyrics aside - then this little indie band should not be undergoing so much scrutiny. The point is to make your own decisions, so see what they're all about for yourself: Caesarpink.com or Imperialorgymusic.com.

The Northern Iowan

2007-03-27T17:54:00.001-07:00

Caesar Pink and the Imperial Orgy

Sally Calcara
NI Lifestyles Writer

Throughout history, music has been a source of revolutionary ideas and an expression of modern thought—Caesar Pink and the Imperial Orgy is no exception. Bringing about widespread controversy, the band’s 2005 album, “Gospel Hymns for Agnostics and Atheists,” opposes organized religion and western conventionalism with four anthems of similarly paradoxical titles and lyrics accompanying multiple genres of creative sound.

Born into the once-dubbed “all-American” city of Lewistown, Pennsylvania, Caesar Pink grew up at a time when his town began facing a spiritual deviation from the religious, conservative right toward a whirlwind of drugs and violence that led many of its inhabitants to self-destruction in the 1970s.

As if the spiral of a devastated environment were not enough to drastically shape the perceptions of a young man, Pink followed generations of men with varying spiritual experiences and hallucinations, which was sure to leave a mark on his initial thoughts about spirituality and society. He felt oppressed as a social misfit in an extremist community and flew into a frenzy of sex, drugs and alcohol by his late teens as he began his music career with his garage band “Friction” in a first attempt to affect social change.

Seized by a supernatural revelation, Caesar Pink spent the next few years living in contemplation and poverty until he struck it rich from a government lottery, after which he began another twister of trouble with the law and drugs and women that eventually landed him in a state of what Pink himself calls a spiritual death. Now at ground zero, he stumbled across a book by R.D. Lang that suggested his mental breakdown might actually be a sort of spiritual transformation.

Caesar Pink now resides in Brooklyn, New York, where he writes music reflecting his anti-religious, nihilistic views on life as well as thoughts on pan-sexuality and political and social change.

The first song titled “The Amazing Tenacity of Job and His Brethren” has a “gospel” rock style infused with industrial guitar riffs. Pink satirically touches on the persistent strains of the church and the apparent hypocrisy of Christian people.

“We preach what we lack, we curse what we sow, and people are the opposite of what they show,” the band sings in chorus, pointing to the unresolved efforts of the church, preaching a righteousness that it cannot attain, condemning pleasures as sinful acts and claiming a purity of character to which it doesn’t adhere.

The song establishes a foundation of atheism and reveals the ideals that follow from a worldview absent of God with lines such as “there’s no second chances, and no one forgives,” and mocking religious sentiment in “we say hail Mary’s till we’re sore, Satan’s got a handgun and no one’s keeping score.”

The second song on the album, “In Praise of Shadows,” Pink literally praises the darkness of not knowing and rocks to the nonexistence of religious and moral ideals. He points to these things as merely figments of the imagination. He preaches dismal ideas, but uses undoubtedly poignant imagery. For example, Pink says that “destiny is a crossword puzzle written on a chain link fence” and “compassion is a parable spoken by a tongueless monk.”

He suggests a comfort in the ambiguities of the agnostic life, singing in reprise, “lay down, lay down, rest your head, what is, it shall be.”

The tropical reggae feel of “So It Is” shows the versatility of the group members, and in “Our Happy Endings,” the fourth hymn on the album, Pink introduces a slower, blues tempo with a touch of western twang.

In the latter and final hymn, Pink pokes fun at fairy tale dreams of a rosy life and points to the daily ins and outs of the average blue collar worker as a happy enough ending.

“These are our happy endings, it’s the best we can do,” he sings. “Always thought that smile on your face was a lie. I see trailer parks and roadside diners, my feet are tired, but I keep movin’ on.”

The off-kilter impression of Caesar Pink is joined by his band, composed of six other musicians with a similar knack for creating new religious and sexual doctrine to catchy melodies and funky guitar riffs. The group often faces controversy and opposition from Christian, feminist and political groups who occasionally boycott their shows or demand cancellation.

INSight magazine said that Caesar Pink and the Imperial Orgy would make “even Marilyn Manson” scratch his head. Rush Limbaugh called his work anti-establishment propaganda. The Daily Collegian called the band “a blazing beacon of originality” giving “hope to those searching for real rock and roll.”

Whatever the group might be labeled, their message is definitely not for the narrow-minded. Even Caesar Pink’s website bears the warning: “We respectfully request that people who do not have an open mind do not enter this site.

The Michigan Journal

2007-03-23T06:57:00.000-07:00

The Michigan Journal

The Imperial Orgy sparks controversy
Four out of five stars
by Rene' Cizio

Listeners and audiences alike have extreme love-or-hate reactions to the message contained in the music of Caeser Pink and The Imperial Orgy. It's not just the name of the band that caused this controversy; it seems to be everything about them.

Their album, Gospel Hymns for Agnostics and Atheists has caused them to be banned and picketed nearly everywhere they perform. Shows have been canceled due to terrorist threats from Christian organizations, their posters have been banned from college campuses, radio stations have banned their recordings and their Web site, theimperialorgy.com, was banned from its Web hosting company for being "an insult to God."

The Imperial Orgy began in 1994 at Penn State University's film department and was soon mixed up in controversy for its nonconformist message. The Imperial Orgy's musical message quickly transformed into a lifestyle as the band's fans began to form a multi-cultural community exploring sexuality, alternative spirituality and social activism.

While most bands create recordings and perform concerts, The Imperial Orgy and their network of fans have also presented street theater protests, as well as created their own underground TV series and a network of unique Web sites to create an interactive experience for a "journey of spiritual self discovery."

On multiple occasions, Caeser Pink, the band's leader, has been physically attacked by audience members who were enraged by the band's performances. However, the hate reactions have garnered them quite a bit more press than the love has.

It's not only the title of the album, it's the lyrics they "preach." They point out the flaws of society and claim a Godless world with lyrics such as, "We preach what we lack, we curse what we sow, and people are the opposite of what they show."

"It's no longer graphic content that's controversial, but nonconformist ideas which people find offensive," they claim on their Web site. "It's caused an uproar from those who oppose freedom of thought."

At Penn State University, the band battled over censorship of their flyers, which were banned because "they were offensive to some students." But Penn State isn't the only college that has banned them. The CD has been banned from airplay by stations across the country. Other stations chose to play the CD, but only under the condition that the band only be referred to as Caeser Pink.

"I don't really see what the controversy is all about," said band frontman Pink. "I think it all has to do with the CD's title. When people hear the word 'atheist' they seem to go insane. What bothers me is that they don't seem to listen to the music or read the lyrics, but because these stations get it into their heads that the CD reflects a different religious belief than their own, they are banning us from the airwaves."

The Imperial Orgy's music consists of a variety of musical genres, often mixing elements of different styles to create new sounds. It's not something you'd likely hear on the radio, it isn't "pop" or rap or rock or gospel - it's a mixture.

The Imperial Orgy's live show is also a mixture. It combines music, performance art, video projections, theater, dance and poetry. It's described as "part tent-show revival-meeting, part political rally and part tribal fertility ceremony."

It may be different than audiences are used to, but should it be banned?

"This trend towards censoring expression is disturbing," Pink stated on a Web blog. "For an artist, if you don't have access to the media, you have no voice with which to reach people. It's a sign of the conformist spirit that has taken America. It's odd because these days, you can be as outrageous as you want when it comes to sex and violence and no one gets too excited, but ideas are what tend to get censored. If you dare to suggest that people should think for themselves and not blindly accept the dictates of church and state, that is when people get nervous and try to shut you up. Rock music has become so safe and vacuous that young Americans have forgotten that music is an art-form with which to express ideas, and that there was a time when rock music was a conduit for social change."

The Los Angeles Loyolan

2007-03-04T12:09:00.000-08:00

The Los Angeles Loyolan

Caeser Pink & the Imperial Orgy Challenge the Norm
- by Raveen Battee - 3/1/2007

"Gospel Hymns for Agnostics and Atheists" -- these words strung together alone could give many readers pause. But I urge you to continue reading for the sheer randomness and unconventionality of it all. In all my life I never thought I'd see the day when gospel hymns might become linked with agnostics and atheists, but here we are.

Who is behind all this, you ask? Caeser Pink & The Imperial Orgy, that's who. I assure you the name is real. Spawned at Penn State University's Film Department in 1994, they have never been strangers to controversy. The group has had posters and songs banned from college campuses that find the material too political, too controversial and anti-religious and have had cancelled shows due to threats from Christian organizations. Nevertheless, the idea is quite ingenious and creative, striving to push the envelope to another dimension. How far is too far? The answer is completely left to the listener.

Lead singer Caeser Pink has come to a likely conclusion that "it all has to do with the CD's title. When people hear 'atheist' they seem to go insane. What bothers me is that they don't seem to listen to the music or read the lyrics...these stations get it into their heads that the CD reflects a different religious belief than their ownÖ[and] they are banning us from the airwaves."

I too find the problem purely based in the terminology, though not solely in the word "atheist," but in the word "gospel" as well. The general population has come to see these words in a distinct light and used in a specific context to which Caeser Pink & The Imperial Orgy have not conformed. Most people are familiar with the gospels of the Bible, and so the word "gospel" presented in any other way is seen as a perversion of the word.

But this is not so. "Gospel" is a generic term that, according to the dictionary, simply means the essential beliefs or principles of a person or group of people. Logically, Orgy's usage of the word is correct. Yet, because of the word's natural connotation with religion and figures such as Jesus, misinterpretations often result.

One might call this album the gospel of life or truth, because Imperial Orgy effectively points out and satirizes those things which build us up and tear us down. The songs are hymn-esque in their hypnotizing mixture of soul-clenching lyrics and a melodic, danceable beat. In its title track "The Amazing Tenacity of Job & his Brethren," the group sings "Pills can make you happy / I seen it on TV / so drug me with your video screens / S&M scenes and altered genes / Drug me, drug me, drug me 'til I believe."

The first conclusion is that this song is praising drug use and S&M lovers, but to conclude such a superficial analysis would only scratch the surface of the underlying message. In these lyrics, there is a reflection of the general self that exists today-we enthrall ourselves in television and magazine propaganda which tells us how to look, act and live.

Catchy music and thought-provoking lyrics are definitely excellent reasons to stay tuned into Caeser Pink & The Imperial Orgy. That is, if you dare.

2/8/07

2007-02-08T18:49:00.000-08:00

Last night I had a mixing session and we finished up the next EP CD. It will be sent out to be mastered on Monday. We also finished the track Rabid.

I also just completed theCD cover for the EP:

Pan's Labrynth

2007-02-04T08:40:00.000-08:00

Pan's Labrynth is a visceral piece of filmmaking by director Guillermo del Toro. Set in Spain at the end of World War II as the fascist dictator Franco is consolidating his power. As the movie opens, a widowed woman and her teenage daughter travel to a forest military outpost where they are to live with the widow's new husband who is an army captain. The Captain's duty, and it seems his pleasure, is to track down and often torture a group of rebels in live in the forest.

The film superimposes the fantasy world of the young daughter over the harsh reality of the civil war. R rated for violence, as the movie progresses the violence becomes increasingly intense. It is a great piece of filmmaking, but it offers no relief from the violence of war and the sadism of the Captain, except through the escape found in the fantasies of the film's heroine.

Pan Labrynth has a gritty look to it as if it were made in an earlier age. The fantasy sequences owe more to the imagery of European surrealism than Hollywood fairy tales. The fairies, fauns, and fantastic monsters inhabit a world that echoes with shades Europe's pagan past. The film rests on a psychological foundation of lost fathers and princesses locked in castles that are common in ancient mythologies. This is a type of movie that would rarely come from inside the Hollywood mainstream.

Rolling In The Mud

2007-02-02T11:10:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from Apology - Rolling In The Mud

The next day Sasha comes to State College to help me move. Actually "move" is not quite the right word for it. Perhaps vacate is more accurate as I have no place to move to. My belongings are stashed haphazardly with friends and family. Dave and Samantha have my couch, Papasan chair, and TV. Sasha will be taking my CDs and art collection.

It is a strange feeling to know I will be homeless. I am sure I will be able to find someplace to sleep and shower, but I am not one who feels comfortable as a guest and I need a space to call my own. I feel as if I'm stuck in a floating purgatory. From morning to night I wander the streets or work at the university computer labs. This writing fills my time and gives be a vague sense of purpose that helps keep me from sinking into deeper depression.

It is the first time I have seen Sasha since the incident with Ornelia and I have to try to explain why there are bite marks all over my body. I explain the situation to her and am surprised to see how understanding she is about it. Although I have learned with Sasha that things are likely to come out in unexpected ways.

It sometimes seems like we are in a contest to make each other jealous. And all that we really achieve is making the other more insecure and uncertain about the relationship. It is complicated by the free love issue. It complicated by the fact theat both Sasha and I see ourselves as writers collecting life experiences. This often becomes an excuse for debauchery in the name of art.

That evening we are planning to meet Ornelia and Mina to go to dinner at the Café 210. We arrive at Ornelia's house where Sasha decides to change clothes. As I sit on a bench in the hallway all three women are trying on clothes and debating with each other about what to wear. Sasha comes out the door of Ornelia's room wearing a short tight dress. It is a style of dress I've never seen her in and she looks just a tiny bit slutty, a fact that I am happy to embrace.

As the four of us walk out the door Sasha nonchalantly asks Ornelia, "So what's the deal with biting my boyfriend?"

Ornelia does not reply and the issue is dropped.

Soon all four of us are sitting at the outdoor café. The early evening sun lights the sky and the air is warm and pleasant. Everyone is cheerful and engaged in small talk. Everyone accept me.

On one level it is a perfect moment. Lovely weather, nice surroundings, and three beautiful women as my company, yet my mind gravitates towards the hypocrisy of the situation. The sexual tension that lies just below the surface is not spoken of. The women are masterful when it comes to putting the carnal truths out of mind. Everything is civilized. Everything is nice as peaches and cream.

I look at each of them. My emotions are so confused and confounded by these three sirens. Sasha is animated and seems happy, but I know her well enough to see there is a touch of anger simmering beneath her façade. She looks beautiful as ever. Her golden skin and sharp features glow as she holds her head high. Her energy seems condensed into her small form and gives her a presence that is too large to be ignored.

In contrast Ornelia is a tall strong looking woman. He fiery mane surrounds her face like the flames that surround the heads of the gods and goddesses on Tibetan religious paintings. I must admit that Ornelia's attack was one of the most erotic situations I have ever experienced. It has inflamed my mind.
Ornelia shares the same Polish/Irish blood as that which courses through my veins. We are the same. Sometime when we are alone and not speaking, I know her. I know her through and through. I can imagine her as my wife and leading a long life with her by my side. A life much as our ancestors must have lived throughout countless ages.

Mina seems the most unsure about the situation, but she is also the least ensnarled. Her appearance is similar to Sasha's except her skin is a bit lighter, and her features are a little softer, but her presence in not as bold.

Over recent weeks Mina and I have become closer and closer. As Sasha and I struggle through the complex problems in our relationship I have turned to Mina in hopes that another Indian woman could help me understand the cultural issues I am dealing with. But sharing such intimacies has led us to have a close emotional tie. I feel happy when I am with Mina. One characteristic that she has that Sasha lacks is a playful sense of humor. Mina is one of the few women I have ever met who came make me laugh, and humor and fun are an important thing to me.

As I watch the three of them chatting I have an urge to tear through the veil of civility and force the underlying reality into the open. I would rather have anger, tears, lust, pain, desire, all of it expressed and released rather than carry on with charade.

But the feminine power of mendacity holds sway. This trinity of witches, these three graces are more powerful than I. Although I may be the source of the tensions, I am weak, almost insignificant in their combined presence. And each moment of forced civility is their way of making that fact clear to me. In all directions men turn their heads to gaze at these shining sirens. Their unity, their sophistication is a reminder both to me, and to themselves that their feminine power trumps that of one lowly rogue, regardless of what romantic web he may have weaved around these three pure and virginal edifices of divine womanhood.

Throughout the evening a competition seems to arise as to just how much attention they can bring. Sasha and Ornelia both know everyone in the scene and as we move from bar to bar there is an endless parade of over-exuberant greetings from them half-drunken men that haunt these locales. Mina seems outside this competition and soon tires and leaves. By midnight Sasha looks weary of the game.

As for myself I am bored with the whole thing and couldn't care less. With the smoke, loud music, and endless babblings of college-aged drunks I just want to get out of the entire scene.

When the evening comes to an end Sasha and I walk back to my car that is at a parking lot on the edge of town. As we near the car we walk across a small field with a few scattered trees. As we walk under one of the trees Sasha's high-heeled shoes get stuck in the mud. When I go to help her she pulls me close and kisses me. It has been a long exhausting evening and I can taste the alcohol on her breath.

"Throw me down. I want you to take me in the mud," she instructs.

I lay her down on the ground which is covered in thick brown mud. Her new dress is immediately ruined. I pulled down the top of the dress and expose her breasts. The more passion with which I grasp her body the more she becomes covered with mud. Her face, her neck and shoulders, even her breasts become streaked with wet clay.

I pull off her underwear and drop them to be abandoned in the dirt. With my pants pulled down to my knees I enter her. I pin her arms above her head as I thrust with slow deep jabs. Her face, now caked with a mixture of dried and wet mud, reveals an expression of heavenly resignation. Her eyes are peaceful yet desperate. As if this degradation is the perfect release from all the emotions she felt throughout the evening. Her insecurities, her feelings of inadequacy and self-reproach are both proven and released by allowing herself to be debased in this dirty form of sexual ecstasy.

I flip her over and pull her to her knees with her back against my chest. Her hair is matted and heavy. I run my filthy hands down the curves of her neck and between her breasts as her heads falls back in submission against my shoulder. Then pushing her down on her hands and knees I lift the mud-caked material of her dress up onto her back so that her ass is exposed. I begin to pummel her from behind. The smacking sound magnified by the wet mud that coats her behind. Soon her moans give way to shaking. Her arms and legs quiver until she collapses with her face and breast in the thick wet earth. With orgasm I collapse atop her. Both of us weak and depleted, we lie still without speaking.

Finally we pull ourselves up and get into the car without concern for the mess we make of the seats. We ride home in silence. As we enter the house, Dave my roommate is walking into his bedroom. Although his eyes widen at the spectacle we present, he asks no questions and enters his room and closes the door tightly.

Still without speaking we peel off our mud covered cloths and step into the shower. The warm water slowly melts away the layers of clay. We wash each other's bodies with care. Her skin begins to emerge from behind the dirt and appears fresh and vital. Now clean we hold each other as the water rains down upon us. Still no words are spoken. Nothing needs to be said. We lay down to sleep feeling the first tastes of trust and unity that most couples begin to experience only after years of life together.

On Sunday afternoon Sasha and I are doing the last of the moving chores. At 3:00 she must leave for home and I am due to leave on a ten-day shoot, giving me time to think of someplace to stay when I return. The house is nearly empty. I am forced to abandon my clothes dryer and an oriental carpet for lack of anywhere to store them. We clean the house as much as time will allow and leave the rest for Dave. It is a gray, gloomy day and as I load my art collection into Sasha's car a burst of rain pours down. We say an extended good-bye and go our separate ways. Driving away from the house is loaded with meaning for me because I know I am driving away for the last time and moving forward into a future full of doubt and uncertainty.

"Homeless." It is hard to associate the word with myself. When life is secure it seems like an unimaginable possibility. But here I am. Reduced to zero.

Zero. "How did I come to this?" I wonder to myself as the plane lifts off the runway as we began our journey for the film shoot. Far below on the ground I view the rows of tiny houses and the toy-like cars and trucks. Human life appears like a game that I am no longer a part of. I am floating, propelled through space without a sense of belonging to anyplace or anyone. In the three decades of my life what do I have to show for myself? We pass through the clouds and the human world disappears through the soft blankets of white haze.

War at BB Kings

2007-01-11T12:01:00.000-08:00

I never really listened to WAR during their heyday in the 1970s. Although as a kid I do recall thinking Cisco Kid and Why Can’t We Be Friends we cool songs when they played on the local top-40 station. A bit later when Cheech & Chong movies brought Low Rider blaring into my consciousness it seemed a perfect anthem for the drug counterculture.

Many years later when I moved to New York I began to notice that any time a funky War song came on the sound system at hipster loft parties the entire room was energized. Just a couple years ago I finally checked out the band when I picked up their greatest hits CD.

I went to their BB King performance on a whim, but was nicely surprised by how good the show was. I really didn’t realize how many bug hits the band had. The hour and a half concert was pretty much a hit package from beginning to end. While they were playing hits that were decades old, the song usually acted as a framework for extended funk jams. Usually I am not a big fan of jams bands, but a combination of musical virtuosity and old-fashioned showbiz antics kept the performance fun and interesting even during long jams.

Lead singer and keyboardist Lonnie Jordan brought humor and charisma as front-man. Each musician had his moment in the spotlight and was able to take control of the stage and capture the audience’s attention with presence to spare. Of particular note was the band’s saxophonist/flutist (Whose name I couldn’t find, even on their website) During an extended solo section he wandered through audience playing to people and hamming it up all the way.

One of the unique things about War’s sound is the use of the blues harmonica as an element of the horn section. While a funk horn section usually features at least a minimum of two saxophones and a trumpet, War’s section consisted of one sax and the harp. The combination was surprisingly potent and provided a distinct sound that upon reflection, I realize I unconsciously associate with ‘Latina funk.’

Among the hits they played were Cisco Kid, Spill The Wine, Low Rider, Why Can’t We Be Friends, and The World Is A Ghetto. Low Rider the final song of the set and was used to introduce the band and let each player take a solo. Each solo section transformed into a brief segment from another song. The harp player’s solo transformed into a slow blues groove, the bass player’s into Cream’s Sunshine Of Your Love, the percussionist’s into Santana “Lava,” and the guitar player’s into “Iron Man.”

Throughout the show I kept thinking how fun and creative the music and performance were, and comparing that to how boring most young bands that I see are. On one hand rock musicians have seemed to lost contact with showbiz sthick. They see it as too corny to think of themselves as entertainers. Unfortunately with that a lot of fun and humor is lost. Musically the desire to break out of genre formulas and mix and match styles has made much of the new music dreadfully boring. War freely mixed Latin, rock, funk, and jazz into a potpourri that made each song sound fresh to the ear. Their best songs featured exciting rhythms, strong melodies, meaningful lyrics, and catchy vocal harmonies.

1113/06

2006-11-13T04:29:00.000-08:00

I've been up since 4AM. Can't get back to sleep. Yesteday I strained my back a bit doing Hatha Yoga.

Saturday night I went to see the Borat movie. It's a very funny movie, you laugh even as your stomach churns. And I am not a fan of Jackass or Gross-out type humor. Although I left the film a bit disturbed. The real genuis of Borat is that he goads people ionto revealing their own prejudices. From frat boys who long for a return to the days of slavery, to Texans who want to hang gay people, Borat manages to hold a mirror up to American culture and what he reveals is often depressing. There is nothing like seeing a crowd of rodeo fans cheering for the murder of all Muslim women and children. God bless America!?!

The actors also go to dangerous and humiliating lengths to get laughs. There is a nude fight scene with a fat man that ends up in a business convention at a hotel that is so outrageous you can't believe your eyes. That is, if you can keep from covering them with your hands it is at times to unpleasant to watch.

Borat is the kind of entertainment we don't see too often in these political correct days. He raises consciousness while making us laugh. The film is edgy and some might be tempted to blame him for the things he says and does into order to shake the racists, sexists, and religous fanataics out of the woodwork, but those people are simply not getting it.

In one very strange scene Borat attends a Christian revival meeting where people are speaking in tongues and being healed. It is a real freak show. In between, they rant about ending the seperation of church and state and attack the idea of evolution. Fantacism can be a scarey thing.

I have also been woking on composing a complex prog-rock style instrumental bridge for an old song called Struggle The Void. My ability to read and write sheet music is somewhat limited so I have been simultaneously working on writing the music, developing my ability to notate music, and trying to figure out the midi computer program that I using to do the composing on. At times I want to pull out my hair, but overall it has been progressing well on all fronts.

The remodeling of the Imperial Orgy Experience website is also going well. Some of the pages of the site I haven't looked at in years so I am really seeing it with fresh eyes.

Today it is back to the business grind. A lot of pressures right now. I wish I could afford to get out of New York for a few days and escape it all.

11/8/06

2006-11-09T08:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning I awoke and went straight to cnn.com to get the good news about the democratic sweep of the house. Hopefully this will the beginning of better days in the US. These last six years have been pretty creepy.

It was a rainy day in NYC. In the morning I had a therapy session. We talked about a strange dream I had and talked alot about the relative meaning of success.

In the afternoon I went to a yoga session in Sunnyside, Queens. It was Kundalina yoga, and although a very challenging session, also very detoxifying.

Afterwards I came home and crashed for awhile. In the evening I had a recording/mixing session at Tin Man Studios. It was our first session in almost a year as we waited for the studio to reopen. It is now located in the Bronx. It's quite a drive, but it is really nice.

We worked on All God's Children and the mixed progressed very well. it could be a really good, funny, and carries a message that is very importsant to me. It was a song I wrote right after 9/11.

Here are the lyrics.

Hindu's killing Sikhs in the Punjab state
Protestants and Catholics fill Irish graves
Jews killing Muslims to get their space
Muslims killing everyone all over the place

Everyone's religion is the one true religion
Will you spread your faith with an iron fist?
Burn the pagans, kill the infidels
Follow your creed or burn in hell

Goddamn - I don't understand
How your religion tells you to kill a man
Jesus Christ -it don't seem right
All God's children want to fuss and fight
Holy Shit - ain't it time to quit?
If that's your religion I don't believe in it

R-E-L-I-G-I-O-N
I thought God was supposed to bring us together
But these religions got us killing each other
R-E-L-I-G-I-O-N
God must sure hate your fucking religions

At the session I met a very interesting guy who is a fellow Frank Zappa. He is a old bio-chemist, but also a reader of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell.

Today it is a sunny day in NYC. I wish I could do out and play instead of sitting in front of the computer. I didn't get much sleep I felt pretty anxious this morning, but feel better now.

I am slwoly working on redoing the origianl Imperial Orgy website. It's a fun project. One of the things I am doing is integrating video into the pages, thanks to Youtube. Another thing that is being done is that the websitge has forms where visitors have to answer very personal questions in order to move on to the next payer of the site. I am now adding the ability for visitors to read some of the answers of previous visitors. It is something that meant to be done since the site was created many years ago.

It is interesting, at the time I made the site the internet was in it infancy and there was a lot of debate about what it would become. Many artists discussed the idea that it might become a new artistic medium. Not just a place to show art, but a medium in itself. Of course, all these years later, to a large extent the internet is ruled by commercial websites and the idea of a new medium of art is long forgotten. Which makes the Imperial Orgy site that much more unique. The site is an interactive mutlimedia spiritual journey of self-dscovery designed to offer the visitor a process of self-knowledge based on the techniques in Eastern religions.

The project still has a long way to go, but once it is done we plan to relauch the site.

Zappa At Madison Square

2006-11-06T04:31:00.000-08:00

Zappa At Madison Square

In 1993 musician Frank Zappa died of cancer, leaving behind a momentous body of work that ranged from comedic pop satire to full blown orchestral compositions designed to be performed on rock instrumentation. This year his son, Dweezil Zappa put together a band consisting of talented young musicians and a few special-guest alumni from his father's band to bring the elder Zappa's work back to the stage.

On October 31st I attended one of these performances at the theater at Madison Square Garden. The concert had special significance because Frank Zappa had a tradition of performing in New York City on Halloween night. One of these concerts during the late 1970's was immortalized in the film Baby Snakes.

When attending performances I often complain that concerts don't have the same feel that they did during my youth. They seem to lack the sense of communal celebration that concerts used to possess. On this night, perhaps owing to the elderly status of so many of the likely X-hippies in attendance, the concert did have a sense of open friendliness where strangers chatted and shared covertly passed pot pipes with one another. Plus there was a level of enthusiasm for the music and performers that one rarely sees at concerts today.

Precisely at 8PM the band took the stage to begin a three-hour performance. The large band consisting of a drummer, a percussionist/marimba player, two keyboardists who also played trumpet and saxophone, a bass players, a singer and saxophonist named Napoleon Murphy Brock who was one of the alumni of former Zappa bands, and two guitarists that included the younger Zappa. Plus special guests drummer/singer Terry Bozzio and famed guitarists Steve Vai.

The extraordinary technical ability of the musicianship required to perform Zappa's music is far beyond the level of most players. 99.9 per cent of your favorite pop rock bands would never be able to cut it.

The song selection focused on Zappa's recordings from the 1960's and 70's. The band performed the complex compositions with meticulous precision. Dweezil managed to copy his father's unique soling styles with enough accuracy to lend credibility to the role he inherited. What he lacked was his father's stage presence. Frank Zappa acted as ringleader for a musical circus. Further, Frank carried a large chip on his shoulder that fueled his artistic output. His disdain for the inanity of pop culture gave his music and performances its satirical edge.

In compassion, Dweezil's stage presence was understated. Onstage his attitude was respectful of the music he was attempting to bring to the world in hopes of securing his father's legacy as a great modern composer. At times, before beginning a song he and other band members would describe the conditions under which it was originally composed, treating the compositions as historical artifacts that they seemed to be in awe of.

While music performed was certainly challenging to any listeners, the three-hour concert had a well thought out flow with a few show business flourishes to make the event exciting to the audience. The first section of the concert focused on some of Frank's older comedic material such as Don't Eat The Yellow Snow and I Am The Slime From Your Video.

By midway through the show Zappa alumni and founder of the 80's pop band Missing Persons, Terry Bozzio was added to the ensemble to sing three disco era songs, I'm So Cute, Tryin' To Grow A Chin, and Punky Meadows. Then while sitting behind a second drum kit, Bozzio and Dweezil discussed the infamous composition known as The Black Page. Titled as such because there was so many notes written on the sheet music that the page was filled from top to bottom with black specs.

From this point the music shifted into a segment of incredibly complex music that showed exactly how innovative Zappa's compositions actually are. As an endless barrage of frenetic melody lines flowed over the crowd one felt like you were listening to music from another dimension. Zappa's use of unusual modalities for his melodic scales made the melodies seem alien to the ear, which for most people is accustomed to only hearing music in a traditional and blues scales. At one point the sounds filling my head were so overwhelmingly complex that mind was unable to comprehend it all. It gave one a feeling of jubilant madness. The creative freedom and imagination in those compositions were a harsh reminder of just how conformist and safe rock music has become over the last twenty years.

Then just as the audience might be on the verge of exhaustion guitarist Steve Vai (Known for his work with David Lee Roth, Whitesnake, Public Image Limited, and a string of solo albums) took the stage to provide some star power to the event. Vai looked like a rock and roll archetype with his tall lanky body, leather pants and long stringy locks of blonde hair.

Taking over lead guitar duties for the next three songs he quickly showed why his broad vocabulary has allowed him to distinguished himself as something much more than just another heavy metal guitarist. His technique displayed a wide range of stylistic approaches. When playing he seemed to completely lose himself in every note he played both body and soul. Before leaving the stage he traded solo lines back and forth with Dweezil in a friendly guitar duel.

Throughout the show singer Napoleon Murphy Brock not only handled Zappa's vocals parts with dexterity, his energetic performance and often comedic dancing added an extra visual element to the proceedings. He was obviously having a great time and enjoying every moment onstage.

The show ended with the Haloween appropriate The Torture Never Stops, a song that allowed Dweezil ample time to improvise during the extended solos. For the final solo he seemed to break away from his father's style and fall into his own more traditional soloing style.

For the encore the full band, including Bozzio and Vai took the stage for two last numbers. Throughout the night much of the material was unfamiliar to me, and given the complexity, was challenging even for a longtime fan. Most popular songwriters have a goal a finding a simple melody that sticks in your head the first time you hear it. Doing so is considered the key to having a hit record and making lots of money. The problem with simple melodies is that they quickly grow tiresome to the ear. Frank Zappa did not share those goals. Although his music was filled with strong melodies, his aims led towards innovation and creative exploration.

On the final song of the night, although it too had many complex melodies and rhythmic changes, it was a song I had been listening to for many years and was familiar with it from beginning to end. As the song played it occurred to me that these complex arrangement are just as easy to listen to as a simple melody once one takes the time to become familiar with them, but unlike a simple melody, Zappa's compositions offer the rewards of a deeper level of musical pleasure and stimulating entertainment.

Beck at Madison Square Theater 10/18/06

2006-10-21T08:32:00.000-07:00

Beck at Madison Square Theater 10/18/06

On the way into the theater at Madison Square I realized that this would be the fifth time I have seem Beck and except for a clunky show at the beginning to the Midnight Vultures tour when some of the bugs weren’t worked out in the technical end of the staging, Beck’s performances are always superb.

This night’s show began when the lights went down and the audience roared. Instead of the band taking the stage a video began to play that featured marionette puppets of the band members seeming to sing Beck’s early hit “Loser.”

About half way through the song the real band members took the stage and completed the tune. Once the stage was lit I realized that at the back of the stage was a small puppet stage where the marionettes, all dressed like the musicians onstage were mimicking the live performance. Meanwhile instead of the performers, it was the puppets that were projected onto the video screen. The actions and all the stage setting were copies meticulously throughout the night, adding a level of humor to the entire concert.

Beck started the night by tearing through a short set of popular favorites that included Devil’s Haircut, Black Tambourine, and Mixed Business. The band was so tight they were able to be loose in the way great funk bands can be. Many of the musicians played multiple instruments and moved around the stage to different instruments. While Beck’s performance was a bit low-key, the band members were high energy throughout the entire night.

Adding to the spectacle was the geeky male dancer in a white button down shirt and black tie who brought a Napoleon Dynamite feel to the show with his over-exaggerated 80’s dance moves and misplaced confidence.

After the short set of hits Beck broke into a long selection of tracks from his album The Information which was only released and few days earlier, and was unfamiliar to most of the audience. While the new material maintained Beck’s usual melodic pop sensibility, it also bounced between noisy assault and spacey ambiance. The lyrics seemed a bit heavier than one might expect after the lighthearted Guiro.

As he continued to play songs unfamiliar to the audience I began to think about what an artist asks of an audience when they focus on new material instead of old hits. Michael Jackson would not play any songs from the albums he was touring to promote until the song reached the top 10 as a single. On the other hand when David Bowie vowed to quit playing his hits and greeted fans with a concert’s worth of challenging music from his Outside album, although a lot of fans walked out I found it to be one of the most exciting concerts I ever experienced.

As the show came to an end he began to pepper the new music with favorites such as Where It’s At and The New Pollution. As with every Beck show there was a short acoustic set that dug back into his catalog for the bluesy One Foot In The Grave and a percussion filled version of Tropicalia from the Mutations CD. The acoustic set was loose and playful. At one point doing bits of old country songs and singing “we don’t know the words” when they stumbled on the lyrics.

When the show came to the end, after a few cheers for an encore the video screen came back on and a hilarious short film where the puppets traveled through the streets of New York and returned to Madison Square to trash Beck’s dressing room. This lead the real band back into the stage. This time Beck and another band members were costumed in brown bear suits and began to wrestle on the stage, knocking down one of the drum kits in the process.

As always with Beck, excellent musicianship is matched by innovative performance and Dadaistic humor. He always keeps it fresh and always has a surprise or two.

10/17/06

2006-10-17T10:40:00.002-07:00

I haven't been doing any journal writing in awhile. Partly because I have been working on the 2nd draft of my novel, and partly because I have had some unfortunate events occur in recent months that have made life a bit of a daily struggle, and I don't feel like writing about the negative so much.

It's a rainy gray day in New York City. Last night I went to a little roof party at my neigbor's house. My neighbors being Mhina Dada and Lilah who used to be in The Imperial Orgy. I was so tired before I left that I almost bagged, but I went over looking disheveled and unkept.

When I arrived I was surprised to see a woman I have known for quite a few years but haven't seen in a couple years. Her name is Tracy. As soon as I saw her I felt attracted to her. She's smart and energetic, but down to earth. She is a furniture designer and interior decorator who is struggling to make it as a independent business woman.

It was cool and clear out and from the roof you could see all across Manhattan. The party was really only about five people, allowing me lots of time to hang and chat with Tracy. When I came home and went to bed I couldn't get her off my mind. I felt sick inside I had such yearnings for her. I awoke at 4:30 am and have been up since then.

2006-10-17T10:40:00.000-07:00

Excerpt from Apology 9/3/94

2006-09-07T21:34:00.001-07:00

Excerpt from Apology 9/3/94

Aug. 3, 1994

It is 11:00 and I am running late for work. If I show up late there is no doubt I will be fired. To try to save time I take what I hope is a short cut through Lancaster. The speedometer reads 75 and the heat gauge is in the red. To my dismay I find myself in a seven-mile strip of road construction. After an hour of 30 mile per hour driving I emerge to find myself thoroughly lost. Checking the road atlas Sasha just donated to me, I find I am miles off my path. I pound the steering wheel angrily. This is the last straw. I have definitely lost the job now. I have completely fucked myself.

I arrive at the factory hours late. There's no use in even going inside. Plus I receive word that the strikers had rioted that morning, attacking the cars of the scab workers as they drove through the factory gate.

Everything in my life is wrapped so tight that the slightest incident is elevated to a major disaster. A few hours lost on the highway has put me in a situation that could leave me living on the streets.

I have one more paycheck that should have been delivered to Samanthas house over the weekend, so I stay around town to get it from her after she leaves the factory. At 10:30 in the evening I call her from the phone booth in front of the Burger King. She is cold on the phone. She says the check did not arrive.

I am feeling so isolated and destitute that I ask her to meet me so we can talk. Despite her cruel moments I still think of her as a friend and wish to ask her advice and perhaps receive some comforting words. Much of the time she is caring and kind, and in some ways she has really helped me through these troubled times. We meet in a small playground behind a church near her house. We sit on a bench beneath a tree. In her usual way she chatters inanely.

"I can't wait to get out of here. It's a really cool apartment. I have to study the subway maps. It takes ten minutes to get to the ferry then I'll ride that across to Manhattan."

She turns to me as if she just noticed my sullen presence, "I'm sorry I keep taking about this, but if you're not going to say anything I'll just keep talking."

I sit quietly. It seems all I have to say has been said before. Even I am tired of hearing my own complaints. She continues willfully.

"Michael said he'd be my friend up there. His chickbabe Denise too. Boy I sure was walkin' around with my booty swingin' down in the village. My parent sure would be mad if they found out what a bad neighborhood Michael lives in.

Suddenly she pauses, Are you gonna talk or not?"

We sit in silence. The crickets call out. A green maple leaf floats down suddenly unhinged from its limb. I reach out my hand and it lands directly within. In the close stillness of the night heat I crumble it absentmindedly. The crackle of the crisp foliage reverberates in my ears with a violent amplification.

"I just want to thank you for all you've done and I'm sorry for everything that's happened."
She is not impressed by my worn out apology.

"I just don't know what to do. I fucked up everything. I'm just a fucking failure! People try to help me and I let them all down." My voice has begun rising in pitch and passion as I sink into self-pity.

She speaks calmly, "If I had a million dollars..."

"I don't want a million dollars, I exude.

"I wouldn't give you a million dollars, but I might help you," she asserts, now clearly irritated.

I stand up and pace around the bench. "If I had just a little hope. My entire future depends on getting to New York and I don't stand a chance."

"Well you should've thought ahead", she retorts.

"I did think ahead! I thought I was going to be living with you and Dave. It's so expensive to get an apartment on your own. You guys really put me in a bad situation!"

She responds defensively, "You dumped me. What do you expect?"

"We're in the band and we're friends. I thought we'd look out for each other. And why am I the one that gets shut out?" my voice betrays anger.

"Probably Dave knows I'll clean up after him. I don't know. Maybe he is in love with me."

My mind sinks into childish depths of self-pity while my mouth attacks, "You guys wouldn't even be friends if it wasn't for the band I started, and now you get together and turn your backs on me!"

"Well Dave sees you've been outta work, he probably doesn't trust you!"

I shout with venom, "Trust me? I've worked my whole goddamned life, against struggles none of you have ever known, and you all have your rich parents to fall back on. Now I have one bad time and I'm untrustworthy. I hope just one time you guys find out what it's like. Poverty sucks you down in a hole and the further down you go the more the hole constricts so you can never escape. Because when you're down people won't give you a break.

I'll have to pay more for a fucking flophouse than you'll be paying for your rent, I continue to rave. And that's all because on my own I can't afford the deposits and fees. When Dave and I moved into that house and I put up all my artwork he was so proud he brought all his friends around to see how he was living. You know how he lived before that, dirt and filth everywhere. I've got a stupid art collection worth thousands of dollars which I can't sell fast, yet I've got no money and no prospects. It just boggles my mind. I just can't understand how this happened and I never thought my friends would judge me like this!"

She begins shouting also, "What do you want? Do you want to live with me? Is that it?"

I pace frantically, running my hands through my hair, "No! It just hurts. You people were supposed to be my friends. Michael lived with me for eight months and never paid a cent. You lived for free for almost a year. Doesn't that mean anything? I just didn't realize the world was so cruel."

What do you want? she screams.

"I just want a chance, I stop in front of her.

"You'll never even be able to get past the credit check. You'll never be able to get an apartment there on your own, she glares at me. In childish rage I kick the back of the wooden bench as we shout simultaneously.

"I try to help you... she pleads

"I might as well... I interrupt.

and you just yell at me!" she completes her sentence in frustration.

just fuckin' give up now!" I shout.

Catching hold of myself I freeze in place. Samantha stands and begins walking towards her home hurriedly. I follow behind trying to keep pace. My voice is mild now, "I wasn't yelling at you. I just get frustrated. This stuff drives me nuts."

She enters her living room and shuts the door quickly. Worried that I will wake her parents I knock quietly. She peaks through the curtain on the glass door. I must look pathetic because she tries to suppress her laughter when she looks at my face. Opening the door I whisper, "Could I sleep on your floor tonight? I'll be gone tomorrow."

On the basement floor I feel gratified to be able to stretch my legs instead of being cramped in the back seat of the car. In the morning I will face despair. Tonight I am too exhausted to care and I sleep deeply. No dreaming. Refreshing nullity.

In the middle of the night I am awakened by a warm feeling on my back. I lie on my stomach and I feel a hand gently sliding between my buttocks outside the biker shorts I am wearing. I am too groggy to comprehend the situation as Samantha's fingers squeeze my balls through the elastic material. Coming to, I reprimand her, "Samantha...No!"

She stops and I return to unconsciousness. Soon she begins again. She attempts to reach between my legs and grab my penis from under my belly. Still only half aware I press my body against the floor making it impossible for her to touch me. She runs her fingertips softly against my inner thighs giving me an erection against my will. I lie still for a moment, forcing my will. For the first time in years I am practicing fidelity and I don't want that to change. She makes a second futile attempt to grab my erection from underneath my weight.

"Samantha, please? I'm trying to do the right thing for once, I plead.

"Just one time. It's not the right thing to have sex with me?" she coos with a girlish voice.

"No. I don't think it is, I try to respond firmly.

She rolls unto her back and spreads her legs, rolling her hips slightly as she fingers her vagina and rubs her breasts. "C'mon don't you want to?" she moans.

I sit up. Staring at her half-asleep and wondering if I am dreaming or awake. Her thin lips sparkle as she spreads them slightly, revealing deepening shades of pink. Animal lust battles love's resolve. She reaches for my cock with both hands. With my left hand I pin both of her arms brutally against her waist. Her hips still writhe and she places her foot on my stomach and moves her toes down to my crotch.

I lay down on my back rubbing my eyes with my fingers trying to gain some clarity of mind. She mounts me, slicking my penis inside her and writhing in hips in circle as she sits atop me.

At this point I surrender. The last thing I want to do is be unfaithful to Sasha, but I suppose I have done so just by taking this job in York and sleeping in Samanthas house. It is futile to fight it now.

Samantha lays down flat on my chest and begins to kiss me. Somehow the kiss angers me. I roll her over so I am on top of her and fuck her angrily. It feels more like a rape than lovemaking, but I am not sure who has been raped. She seems to take my anger calmly. When I come, not just my body, but my entire spirit collapses. Samantha holds me in her arms with a faraway look in her eyes. Her face reads that although this is some sort of victory for her, it is a hollow one. Her body feels warm and familiar to me. We both know this might that last time we ever lay like this together. After a few minutes she walk through the dark basement to the bed where she sleeps, and I am left alone on the floor.

I lay in darkness. One of the greatest things about my relationship with Sasha is our total honesty. We have shared everything from our darkest secrets to our most private journals. But I am ashamed of this night. My weakness created this event.

The rest of the night gives little relief from my troubled thoughts. I am still awake to hear the first bird songs and see the emerging morning light. It glows through the tiny basement window. First gray. Then blue. Now blazing white. My breathing is a measured questioning sigh. A new day.

In the morning last night's events are thankfully not spoken of. Neither can I forget them. By mid morning the sky has turned appropriately gray and gloomy. Samantha and I sit on the deck while I make calls trying to locate my missing paycheck. It seems to have vanished and neither the post office or the temp service who hired me will take responsibility. I feel I have reached a new low. The immediate cash seems vital for survival. There seems to be no options left to hang my hopes on.

I am exhausted by my own anger. I cannot bear feeling hostility towards my friends. Everything I know about the band members has been filtered through Samantha and I can't trust her honesty right now. She seems to be using her influence with them to torment me. Often she tells me nasty things they've said, then a day later contradicts herself. To relieve my own stress I wipe the slate clean and forgive all. It is a relief.

In timely fashion the phone rings and it is Dave. He wants to speak to me. One of the major complications of my financial situation has been that I have a lease for an apartment I share with Dave. I don't live there but I still pay $400 a month in rent. The lease is over in two weeks and I owe him almost $800 in back rent. All my earnings from the factory go to repaying him. When I speak to him on the phone he is extremely understanding. We agree he will hold my Dali lithograph until I take care of the dept. He says to make sure I have money to move to New York before I pay him. I suddenly feel shame for my previous anger. It crosses my mind that as soon as I let go I receive.

When I hang up the phone Samantha is in an unexplainable rage. "I want you to get your stuff and get out of here for good!" she hisses.

I am completely perplexed. "What's wrong? What'd I do now?"

"The way I see it you dumped me when I needed you. Why should I, or anyone do anything for you? All you want is a free ride. Remember last week when I told you that you were the most talented man I ever met? It was all a lie. You're a joke!"

"Samantha. Why..." I don't have the will to match her steaming energy.
Her eyes glare and she gestures dramatically. "If you want somebody to go to, go to your little Indian bitch. But you can't because she doesn't want to hear it and neither do I! She doesn't give a fuck about you and nobody else does either. Why should they? If she loved you, you could go to her. Everyone's sick of you. Why don't you just kill yourself and it will be a relief to everyone?"

I am stupefied. "Samantha I'm a human being, I plead

"Just go ahead and do it," she challenges me.

"Samantha I'm ..." I whine.

"Just kill yourself! You don't have the nerve. Do you? Kill yourself! Kill yourself!" she screams.

For an instant there is a total logic to her diatribe. All collapses in confusion. It would be the most dignified thing I could do. It would be as simple as making the decision.

In panic I run off the deck, through the yard, and jump into my car. I drive off. As I move down the highway it is as if I am administered a healing dose of nepenthe from a long ignored internal source. I suddenly feel serene even while her words echo among my thoughts.

I have no direction. All about me cars, trucks, and busses charge towards their destinations. Construction workers build. Factories shoot steam into the sky as they create their wares. Each human works to fulfill their desires. Their goals lead them through their days. The swarm passes me, but I have become unhinged. For this moment I am not a part of this world. I am on a mountaintop looking down as the insectiles blindly create a frenzied, delirious maelstrom.

The Protestant work ethic clasps hands with greed. Corporate kings hire ad execs to condition the statistical consumers into delusions of need for products that lend nothing to life. Darwin's theories are proven by the whirling activities of the free market.

But I am moving slower. The cars pass by as indecipherable blurs. The people race by like a kinescope in hyper drive. I can no longer distinguish man or object for it all moves too fast. All colors fade into white. All sound congeals into a thunderous Aum. The galaxy is a ripple in space moving outwards from the sun. The stars paint a bed of ecstatic white heat. Einstein's theory moves in reverse. Maya bows her head. Heaven exhibits itself with a tightrope walk on the cusp of two worlds revealed as one. The world has not changed, only my perspective on it. Inside I am still.

Adrian Belew at BB King August 8, 2006

2006-08-18T14:05:00.000-07:00

Adrian Belew at BB King August 8, 2006

One cannot really separate a concert experience from the venue in which it takes place. In this case the venue was B.B. Kings on Times Square. In some ways it is a nice, intimate club where you can see great artist up close, in other ways the places makes me want to set the tables on fire.

B.B. Kings usually features artists whose hey-day has long passed, anyone from Peter Frampton to Little Richard. This means the club usually caters to an older clientele. Most shows have dining tables lined right up to the edge of the stage. The waitresses try to force strangers to cram into these tables so tightly that you can’t move your knees or elbows without bumping your neighbor. Sometime the place seems so aimed at emptying the wallets of yuppies and tourists that it makes one nauseas.

One this night, before Adrian took the stage I ordered a skirt steak and a glass of red wine. I was still working on the food when the warm up act came on. It was a lone guy with a guitar whose name I have forgotten. The current trend is that all warm-up acts are a guy with a guitar and no band, since this is inexpensive and requires little set up.

This night’s guy with a guitar was inoffensive and completely mediocre. During his set a very large man at the table behind me passed out, his table falling away as he landed face first on a chair on the opposite side of the table. As he lay there everyone, including his friends moved away and stood staring. My date who happened to be heading for the ladies room bent down and asked him if he was alright. He responded by giving her a thumbs up, yet made no effort to move from where he had fallen. Finally a couple of large bouncers came and took him away.

When Adrian finally took the stage he was flanked by a young brother and sister team on bass and drums. Both were excellent musicians, and the 19 year old drummer was an extraordinary monster behind the kit.

For those not familiar with Adrian Belew’s history, he was discovered playing in a blues bar in Ohio by Frank Zappa, who asked Adrian to record and tour with him. After a couple years with Zappa he began recording and touring with David Bowie. From there he joined the Talking Heads on their Remain In Light album and the tour that followed. That was followed by working on the Tom Tom Club’s hit debut album.

Around that time Robert Fripp invited Adrian to join a reformed King Crimson as lead singer and second guitarist. The three albums he recorded with Crimson in the early 1980’s represent some of both his and the band’s best work. Especially their groundbreaking Discipline album that blended prog rock technical acumen with punk rock minimalism.

During they 80’s Adrian also recorded a string of solo albums as well as earning the titled of most valuable studio musician by working with everyone from Laurie Anderson to Bette Midler.

In the 90’s King Crimson reformed with an expanded line up, but with less satisfying results. Their new work tended to be more cerebral and lacking in the primal grooves and tight structures of the 80’s albums.

Adrian’s claim to fame arose from his guitar virtuosity. Like Hendrix before him, he approached the guitar from every angle as he tried to discover new ways to create sounds from the instrument. Likewise his use of electronic devices to color and distort the sound was taken to heights no other guitarist has ever approached.

Given Adrian’s extensive output over the years I entered the concert assuming I would only be familiar with a small amount of the material he played. The first four or five songs were upbeat rockers, although each one was made unique by using unusual chord progressions or unexpected rhythmic techniques. The only song I recognized was “Dinosaurs,” one of the better tracks from Crimsons 90’s work.

The middle section of the concert focused on instrumental pieces where Adrian was able to expand on his soloing. His solos were often a surprise from phrase to phrase. Each line seeming to jump from one stylistic technique to another, or radically changing the sound quality between in each line.

Often the guitar squonked and squealed as he tickled the whammy bar, bent the instrument’s neck, and plucked the strings above and below the bridges. One of the high points was a section where the rhythm section left the stage and Adrian sat down on what looked like an old-fashioned diner counter stool. He then laid down an ambient sound loop then began to solo over it. At one point making the guitar sound like an Indian sitar then playing the melody line from George Harrison’s Beatle’s classic “Within And Without.”

The final section of the concert was the crowd pleaser, starting with two early solo album tracks, Lone Rhino and Big Electric Cat. Both of which featured guitar solos that imitated the animals named in the titles.

The show finished with four Crimson favorites; Elephant Talk, Three Of A Perfect Pair, and an encore of Frame By Frame, and Thela Hun Ginjeet. These final songs were explosive and tribal, complex yet hook-laden, employing repeated patterns while building to results that felt chaotic and out of control.

During the final solo of Thela Hun Ginjeet Adrian was on his knees simultaneously tweaking gadgets while assaulting his guitar with plucks, pulls, slaps, shakes, and bends. The result was a violent, psychedelic, chaotically mind-blowing expression of post-modern rock and roll passion.

When it was over the middle-aged audience rose to its feet for a much-deserved standing ovation while the musicians stood center stage taking bows. Adrian looked happy as could be to be playing his music for this crowd. I left wondering why such exciting and innovative music is so lacking in mainstream recognition, even among rock fans.

Fiona Apple At Jones Beach

2006-07-23T20:07:00.000-07:00

When considering Fiona Apple one can’t help but to view her performance in the context of her strange career and image.

I first became aware of Fiona from the sexually provocative music videos from her first album. Her image then was of a distraught and vulnerable young woman who combined intelligence with promiscuity. Her first two hits were tense rockers full of anger for love gone wrong. When I heard the full album I was surprised to find it full of sulky girl on piano ballads that were OK, but nothing really special. It left me with the impression of a woman with a true artist’s sensibility, but had yet to reach her full potential.

When her second album came out it contained one upbeat single with some brilliantly phrased lyrics, but the rest of the album bordered on mediocrity, leaving one to wonder if she night never fulfill the potential her first album suggested.

Her image was further affected by her mental instability, of which she spoke openly of in interviews. It seemed every time she opened her mouth in public it was a disaster. He speech when winning a Grammy award was enough to make on cringe as she tried to be self-deprecating by saying “This is so stupid that I’m up here,” but somehow came off as sounding arrogant. Watching it one couldn’t help but feel embarrassed for her discomfort.

Then during her second tour she had a complete meltdown at a concert at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City. It started when she couldn’t hear her onstage monitor and walked off the stage crying. Only to return a few minutes later to curse out the press in the audience saying, “I’ll kill you if you fuckin’ screw me,” then collapse in a corner sobbing.

This latter disaster I blame on greedy music industry people. Fiona was signed to her first recording contract at age fifteen and by seventeen was playing large concert venues without ever having paid dues by playing in small clubs where broken sound systems are a nightly occurrence.

After that Fiona disappeared for a few years. Then the story began to circulate that she had recorded an avant-pop masterpiece but her record label was refusing to release it. Soon tracks from the unreleased disc began to show upon the Internet. Then fans began to protest in from of her labels office in New York demanding the CD be released.

Finally when Extraordinary Machine was released it was clear Fiona had fulfilled her potential. The CD was filled with witty lyrics, Beatlesque melodies, and unique structures and compositions. It was a quirky avant garde masterpiece that sounded as if George Martin and the Dust Brothers had collaborated on the production.

With this back-story trailing behind her Fiona took the stage at Jones Beach. Jones Beach is an outdoor amphitheater whose stage actually sits over the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. A cool ocean breeze blew across the audience and spats of rain moistened the buoyant crowd.

Fiona band consisted of two keyboard players, bass and drums. Apparently feeling no need for a guitar player. That in itself a brave choice in the rock era. Throughout the night Fiona went back and forth between sitting hidden behind a grand piano and standing frail and vulnerable looking at a center stage microphone. Dressed in a frumpy purple dress she seemed to be avoiding the provocative sexual image she portrayed in her early videos.

Her performance expressed angry passion. Her face often drooped with sorrow or contorted with expressions of pain. Beneath the grand piano her legs flapped wildly and her knees banged together as the emotion in her voice rose and fell. Her voice was rawer and rougher than on her recordings, but still able to subtlety and the fast vibrato that helps define her vocal style.

When center stage she often jerked spasmodically or knelt on the floor like a wounded animal. During instrumental breaks she danced in the shadows in a manner that was a hybrid of hippie-chick freak out and voodoo possession.

In a live setting it became clear how unique her songwriting compositions truly are. The keyboard players regularly employed the strange sounds of a 1960’s instrument called the Mellotron. Often shifting between askew melodies and explosions of noise. At times the rhythmic shifts were so dramatic it was startling. At other times the grooves were built on frenetic tribal rhythms merged with techno drum-loop intensity.

One of Fiona’s strongest assets are her lyrics which are intelligent, sarcastic and pathos filled, and usually set to sophisticated meters rarely heard in popular music. This likely thanks to her penchant for reading serious poets such as Maya Angelou.

At one point in the evening Fiona proclaimed her love for her step father who was in the audience, “He started dating my mom when I was four and he introduced me to the Beatles and the guitar and other great music, and he stayed around for almost twenty years.”

Then lifting he right fist into the air she yelled, “Here’s to a real man!”

Later in the night while seated behind the piano she said, “I haven’t had much luck finding real men in my own life…but it’s been interesting.”

Then seeming to falter she began hitting herself on the head saying “Shut up Fiona! Shut up Fiona!”

Then she whispered under her breath, “Christ why do I have to justify everything.”

One might assume that by now Fiona understands that her fans her instability is part of her theater and legend, but still one senses that she is a genuine artist. The truth in her lyrics, the struggle of intensity and vulnerability in her performance, all attests to this. While the pop stage is filled with performers posing as struggling artists, at least for the time being Fiona appears to be the real thing.

Free Thinking Is A Dangerous Thing

2006-06-21T05:42:00.000-07:00

I finally got my equipment working so I can start recording again. I did new backing vocals for Mickey Mouse World. The others we did with the girls were too good. To nice and pretty. They needed to be more sarcastic and a little bit ragged.

Lately I've been very discouraged about the state of American culture. Even the previews of upcoming movies depress me. I feel more aliented and more of an outcast than I did at 18.

The country seems to be more divided than ever. Given the violence in the words of people who support the radical right I wonder if we will end up with civil war. Or perhaps they'll just become terrorists if they can't maintain political control of the nation.

Both the left and right are so radicallized. I really beleive most Americans are more centrist, and have more common sense than the radicals on both sides. These days though it seems the radicals are in control of both political parties.

What is odd and unfortunate is that they are so dogmatic. Everything becomes black and white and no shades of gray can even be discussed. Try to talk to a radical liberal about the environment and if you question anything, any point, they become offended.

On the right none of the issues can be discussed or you are a traitor, a terrorist, or a communist. (Oddly the people on the right still call people communists) The language people on the right use is much more violent than on the left. In right wing discussion groups on myspace people often talk about killing hippies, or murdering anyone that disagrees with their radical views. In one a few days ago in a military group people were attacking black folks and defending their right to hate blacks.

Another odd thing in the right wing groups is there is a lot of name calling. Usually a discussing starts with someting like, "Fuck off you liberal idiot," or "I'll kill you, fucktard." 'Fucktard' seems to be a favorite insult with right wingers. The name calling thing seems so childish that it is hard to understand. I guess it has to do with a bully mentality. Assuming that the way to win an arguement is to scare someone into submission. (And we know how well that has worked for President Bush with Iran and Korea!)

The problem with bullying is that it doesn't scare anyone. (Especially over the internet.) If you're making a point in an debate and someone's response is "Fuck off Fucktard," it is laughable. Even if you could bully someone that way, you still wouldn't respect them because they obviously lack the ability to think and meet an arguement intelligently.

Last week I was watching the movie The Searchers with John Wayne. Throughout the movie he insulted people, hit them when he felt like it, and generally tried to bully people. I couldn't buy into the movie because his character was scuh a joke. In the movie everyone falls into obedience to his bullying, but if you met a person who behaved like that in real life you would laugh in their face, or tell them to fuck off, but very few people would bow down to a bully. In the end such a socially dysfunctional person would land in jail very quickly.

I sometime think about that in TV police dramas.The cops are always roughing up people in interregation rooms or yelling and insulting them, and then on the shows the criminals immediately spill their guts and confess. But in real life people would tell the cops to fuck off. I've been in that situation and done just that.

It's really a matter of principle. You must stand up to bullies. Although many are so ridiculous it's not worth the effort.

I think this bullying from people on the right might come down to a question of obedience. There are lots of people who don't want to think for themselves. They just want to do what they are told and not question. They are so unsure of their own beliefs that to question them at all is too frightening to consider. Perhaps inside they sense that any chip in the armor might make their entire belief system collapse. But then others are just too lazy to think for themselves.

The result of this is the outlook where if you question the government or the president you are anti-American, a traitor, terrorist, hippie, fucktard, etc. This outlooks also demands more respect for symbolism than the values of the constitution; Saluting the flag, the national anthem, uniforms... It suprising how many right wing people seem to hate freedom and much of what America stands for. I always think they would be happier in Cuba or communist China were blind obedience to authority is demanded and dissent is dealt with with an iron fist. People who think like this would never have taken part in the American Revolution, they would have been supporting the authority of the king of England.

The bullying tactics are a reflection of this tendacy towards blind obedience in that they think that if you bully someone they should automatically fall down and obey in the same way they do to authority.

Free thinking is still a dangerous thing. And hated more than ever.

An Inconvenient Truth

2006-06-04T06:47:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to see the movie “An Inconvenient Truth.” The movie lays out the argument that global warming is a real phenomenon created by human activities. Once you see the evidence it seems incontrovertible. There is information in the movie I have never seen before. (not that I’ve ever bothered to research the issue)

I, like most people thought there was some disagreement within the scientific community about this issue, it turns out that is because the Exxon corporation has been funding a fake scientific group to feed the media false information to create doubt in the public’s mind. One of the most ridiculous of these propaganda ploys can be seen on a TV commercial right now. It ends with the Orwellian tag line: “C02, some call it pollution, we call it life.”

It brings me back to my belief that our nation’s number one priority should be to find alternative energy resources. Many of our nation’s problems can be traced back to oil. Among those problems are terrorism, wars in the Middle East, environmental problems, and high gas prices that stifle the economy. I cannot feel we will ever have national security as long as our nation is dependent on Saudi Arabia for vital resources. I just heard a X-CIA agent on NPR explaining that Iran has a plan that if we bomb their nuclear facilities they will bomb oil facilities in various spots in the middle east with the aim of bringing oil prices up to $300 per barrel, and thus bringing the US economy to a standstill.

Untitled

2006-05-31T16:05:00.000-07:00

The thinkers and the doers are being trampled by the sheep
Who stampede to the slaughterhouse with righteous surety
For the danger’s not the butcher, it’s he who warns them of their fate
And no one is hated more than he who causes the sleepwalkers to awake

So perhaps I should lay down my pen
Lay down my head
And cry awhile
This curse of vision will make you insane I fear

The pontiff and the president dance slowly in the dark
They whisper their sweet promises of death till do us part
They go to the doctor of psychiatry to cure their co-dependency
He says for a marriage of convenience there can never be divorce

So turn down your cannons
Lay down your cross
I can no longer tell these things apart
And all lovers must consubstantiate

I stood at my mother’s gravesite with a hammer in my hand
I stole sawdust from the sawmill and threw a flame into the wind
I walked a noble savage through the Wal-Mart until he fell upon his knees
I gave shelter to a rich man, the poor child I showed the door

Cause freedom is as freedom does
And let no man be the wiser here
The shackles of the breadline make each man bow his head down low

I walked through the orchard down in Eden but my stomach it was full
I met a woman named Athena with her children by her side
I took her to the alter, made her my bride and then my wife
I abandoned her in Portland but I guess it was alright

I laid down my hat
I laid down my gun
I don’t have the will to run no more
And this gift of gab will make you a monster I am told

Jesus sat down at my table and took a Camel from his smock
He lit it with a burning bush and with a smirk he said
Sometimes a soul can be so shrunken that the eye of a needle isn’t small
And these days inheriting the Earth doesn’t seem such a good offer after all

I poured him a drink
He gave me a wink
We made a toast to the wind, the sky, prostitutes and vagabonds
We’re all God’s children after all he said

I walked into the hospital and told the nurse to medicate
She looked into my eyes and said my ailment it was plain
But the witchdoctor and the voodoo priest were on the golf course for the day
Then she lifted up her skirt and cradled my head upon her breast
She asked if my insurance would cover this and pay

She showed me the light
She showed me the sea
Show showed me re-runs on her cable TV
Sometime blood is thinner than the air we breathe

Now the sheep are in a frenzy, they smell the prophet in the wind
The run to the farmer for protection, behind the chopping block they hide
But the prophet he is weary, he’s been stoned too many times
And when the sheep they get their hackles up to protect conformity
Even the wolf will run for shelter in the forest dark and wild

I’ll lay down my heart
I’ll lay down in my grave and die awhile
This gift of vision makes you a pariah to the plebeians

Iraqi Massacre

2006-05-30T06:44:00.000-07:00

Reports are starting to turn up in the news of a massacre in Iraq. A group of US soldiers went on a rampage when one of their friends was killed by a roadside bomb. The Americans slaughtered between 24 and 30 people, including women and children. Another soldier who had to clean up the mess described how he was carrying a little girl in his arms who had been shot by our soldiers and her brains fell out onto his boots.

Now was can make ourselves feel better by excusing these murders as the work of a few people who simply lost their minds, but in the big picture, everything that has happened in the Middle East in the last 50 years; the two Iraq wars, Afghanistan, Iran, Saudia Arabia, the birth of Al Queda and 9/11, all were caused at least in part by our need for oil. If there was no oil, we would never be there. The Middle East would be ignored like Africa.

In the end it’s all so we can drive our cars, live our comfortable lives, and enjoy the greatest material abundance ever known to mankind. We all bear the guilt of these murders. I supported the war so I certainly include myself among the guilty. But either way, the killing of innocent people will go on until we find an alternative to oil.

5/28/06

2006-05-28T08:53:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to the Angelika to see the movie Water. It’s about a girl in India who is married at seven years old. Although she lives with her family and has no contact with the husband, when she is nine years old the husband dies. At nine she is a widow and must spend the rest of her life separated from society and living in poverty with other widows. She can never remarry or lead a life outside of the widow’s house.

Near the end of the movie Mahatma Gandhi makes an appearance. He says “I used to believe God is truth, now I believe truth is God.” I don’t know if this is really a quote from Gandhi, but it is an amazing and powerful statement. It is an idea that if followed by religious leaders would end so much strife and hate.

Afterwards I went to dinner at an Italian place in the West Village, right off Bleeker. We sat at a table on the sidewalk so we could watch the people strolling by. Later we walked around the village enjoying the warm weather. I have so many memories in that part of town. I think I have spent time there with every woman I have ever been involved with. The place is full of ghosts.

Y

2006-05-12T09:51:00.000-07:00

5/10/06

2006-05-10T07:54:00.000-07:00

I feel spiritually dead. I have no will to fight. I decided I should do some journal writing to try to get in touch with myself.

I am sitting in the park as a cold breeze blows over me. The sky is gray. I keep waiting for a good stretch of warm weather to come, but it hasn’t happened. I really don’t want to live in a cold climate anymore.

I am just plain in a low groove. Everything is down, physically, mentally, spiritually. I live each day with my tail between my legs.

This morning I awoke to find a nice email from a woman on myspace. It said, “Intelligent is sexy. You are beautiful. I hope you are doing something with that smile.”

I was such a nice way to start the morning. Much nicer than the hate mail I often awake to. And from a pretty stranger, makes it even nicer.

I want so much to just get in the car and drive. Play guitar on street corners and sell CDs for food money. My feelings these days remind me of how I felt in the days before I threw it all away in the early 90s. I have to struggle to stay and struggle to keep my head above water each day.

This could be a very creative time. I am in the exact opposite place of where I need to be, which is aggressive and business minded.

Even as I sit here I can feel myself fading out of this world. As I gaze around me at the trees and playground and empty factories, satori takes me. The concepts that filter our vision dissolve and I see raw objects. The strangeness of nature obscured by 90-degree angles and straight lines. Nature’s soothing chaos painted 3D over the crumbling order of the manmade environment.

The pigeons march aimless around me, in a never-ending search for food. This morning they seem as will-less as I do. Going through the motions because that’s what pigeons do.

Newspaper Interview

2006-04-26T08:28:00.000-07:00

This post is from an Email interview with a newspaper.

1. It's not everyday an EP is released with the title "Gospel Hymns for Agnostics and Atheists." Care to elaborate on the title?

Many of my friends and I love old time Christian gospel music because we love the music, even though many of them are Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, agnostic, etc. As a musician I try to mix ideas from different genres with modern rock in order to create new musical ideas and sounds. Without realizing it I had been drawing ideas from early 20th century gospel music and decided it would be nice to create a modern type of spiritual music that does not promote any religion or sect, but reaches for a more universal spiritual message.

The lyrical concept was to have blues based verses that speak of life's day to day struggles, then have the chorus respond with a spiritual answer. It is a technique common in old folk gospel and can be heard in Bob Marley's music as well.

2. What message do you hope to give to listeners?

Well on the EP, I was just trying to express my own feelings of frustration with the world we live in, (whether personally or politically) yet still reach for a way of looking at it that was not all negative.

The lyrics tend to mix phrases from gospel music with the kind of contradictory phrases one hears in Taoism or Zen Buddhism, such as "Let the headlines feed the hungry, let the sinless pray for redemption."

I think a common theme on the CD is a search for meaning for answers that ultimately can't be found with intellectual reasoning. Hence lyrics like, "Destiny is a crossword puzzle written on a chain link fence, Compassion is a parable spoken by a tongueless monk." Throughout the undercurrent is the dynamic of a never ending search for truth, against the desire to surrender reason to some level of faith, (in whatever form that takes)

So It Is was written many years ago when I was in college and hanging out with some Dead Head folks. The 3rd verse is very much about those kids. The rest of the song is inspired by South African township music and I tried to speak in those type of simple stories that mix a mundane story with a larger spiritual feeling.

Happy Endings is inspired by the tiny rural steel mill town I grew up in and my relationship to it. It's a place with little hope and lots of unemployment and drug and alcohol problems.

3. How do you feel about censorship in music and in the media in general?

When it comes to political and especially religious issues, things have gotten a lot worse in recent years. In the case of our CD it seems it's the word "Atheist" that is freaking people out. I thought of the title as a bit of a punk joke.

There was once a belief in rock and roll, and youth culture in general, that all authority and all values should be questioned, (So each person might think for themselves as individuals) and there was a general belief that conformity is something to be avoided. Rock was once about creative and personal freedom. These ideas are what made 1960's rock and early punk rock so exciting. These days college students seem to be very conformist. Radio stations are obsessed with "punk" rock but they don't have a clue what it was all about. They think it is a musical formula or a fashion trend.

For an artist you have to have access to the media or you can't get your message out to the public. Most media is controlled by large corporations, and music only gets played on commercial radio if a corporation pays of the stations. Usually about $10,000 per station to play a song.

There was a time when college radio really embraced the original rebellious free spirit of rock and roll, but now it seems to be pretty controlled by the corporations as well, or just reflects the conformist mindset of the students.

As for censorship I simply believe freedom of expression is one of the most important ideas that our country was founded on. Those that want to censorship free speech can wave the flag all they want, but their actions are still anti-American.

4. I read on your website that a number of radio stations have banned your music. What are you feelings on that? have they changed since then?

No. They haven't changed. As artists we just want people to hear our music and hopefully like it. What is frustrating is that I don't think they are really listening to the music or the lyrics. The lyrics present a pretty positive message, but people come at it with these prejudices and twist the lyrics in their heads and think we are satan worshippers or something.

What is strange to me is that most students in college radio and college newspapers don't seem to think censorship of music is an important issue.

What organizations do you support?

I have had a long working history with Amnesty International.

A big issue for me is religious intolerance, and it relates to why the CD is being banned. I spent the months after 9/11 working at ground zero and have a strong sense of what religious hate can lead to.

On other hand I grew up in a small town where if you had the wrong haircut the Christians said you were a Satan Worshipper. In recent years we have seen a wave of religious fundamentalism in America. There are many people who don't believe in the separation of church and state and want to use political institutions to force religious beliefs in others. Its the same philosophy the Taliban and Al Queda have.

In America we are very conscious of racism, sexism, etc, but there is little thought to Religious Intolerance. If a person days "If you don't follow my religion you are going to hell or you are a Satan Worshipper, or your are evil" that is very hateful, and such attitudes are very prevalent in middle America, and even in the media. I really believe it is an issue that needs to be discussed so we might learn to have respect and acceptance of each other's belief systems.

Because of what we express in The Imperial orgy, every day I get hate mail, often people threatening my life. All because they disagree with my ideas and Philip. This is America in 2006, and yet freedom of speech brings death threats to Rock bands?

5. Explain the first two tracks on the EP. What do they mean?

I chose the title for The Amazing Tenacity of Job & His Brethren because Job was given many trials and and yet held on to his values. The song is about surviving the trials of life in the modern world. Whether those trials are personal relationship (verses 1-3), or media overload (verse 4), or working degrading jobs for sustenance in a commercialized world (verse 5).

With the song "In Praise Of Shadows," the first verse was written many years ago but I could never come up with another verse or chorus. Then I was driving through the cornfields in Texas the day after 9/11 and the 2nd verse just poured out, and I think captured my mixed feelings about the state of the nation in that moment.

The chorus returns to the theme of spiritual surrender. "rest your head, what is, it shall be."

6. On the track "So it is," the song starts off with a singing part. What are you saying in the beginning, the lyrics don't say. And it repeats a couple times in the song.

That refrain is a bunch of African words arranged nonsensically. Sort of like the Beatles song, "Michelle My Belle," does with french lyrics. I think one phrase of the African words means, "I don't have money for the rent." I think of it as joyful Dada, or like a children rhyme.

7. When I read the lyrics to "Happy Endings," I felt different things. What are you trying to say in that song?

The first half of the verses tell stories of people who are living day by day without any larger dreams as they do in my hometown. The second half of the verse expresses my feelings of having left my hometown in search of something that I don't know quite what it is.

The third verse tells of a woman I let behind when I left.

The chorus "The are our happy endings, it's the best we can do," refers to the idea that ultimately we must find peace within whatever circumstances life hands us.

8. I see the band goes by Caesar Pink and The Imperial Orgy. How did they two groups get together?

It's really always been one group. Think "Sly & The Family Stone," or "Prince & The Revolution." The Imperial Orgy is also a larger community of artists and activists that formed around the group. Perhaps like the relationship of the Dead Heads to the Grateful Dead.

9. Where are you all originally from and how long have you been together?

I am from a small town called Lewistown, PA and the band formed at the Penn State University about ten year ago.

10. What are your musical influences?

This is most important to our sound, (and the EP only reflects a small sliver of our sound) but I try to draw influences from a wide variety of musical styles. I love great artists from any genre If you only listen to one style of music then the music you create will sound very generic, like most of the music you hear these days. Some artists I love are:

The Clash, James Brown, Talking Heads, David Bowie, Gang Of Four, Jimi Hendrix, King Sunny Ade, Fela Kuti, PJ Harvey, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Beck, Prince, Elvis Costello, Hank Williams SR, The Staple Singers, Mile Davis, Johnny Cash, Sonny Rollins, Parliment Funkadelic, The Residents, Sex Pistols, Roxy Music, Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Stones, Bob Marley, I could go one and on

11. Any tour plans in support of the EP?

Only in our region. We don't have money to tour and when we perform a lot of people are involved. It's very expensive.

12. Will there be a full length in the future?

Yes, the EP was a radio release and in the fall there will be a full length CD titled Mickey Mouse World and the 4 songs from the EP will be included.

13. Any misconceptions about the band pertaining to your lyrics, image and message?

Always, I think people look at the surface and if they are closeminded tend to react hysterically before they listen to what we are really about. To enjoy the Imperial Orgy you have to be both open to new musical sounds, and to considering new social and political ideas. If someone limits themselves to only listening to one kind of music, they won't like us, if people aren't able to think about ideas that are outside the straight mainstream, the won't like us.

14. Last words?

Thanks we really appreciate it!

The End Of Nations?

2006-04-21T07:12:00.000-07:00

The age of nations is coming to an end. As evidence we might take note than when Chinese president Hu came to the U.S, his first stop was not with president Bush, but with Bill Gates.
Each passing day multi-national corporation gain more power in the world, and increasingly national governments are falling into second place, with religious institutions assuming a distant third.

As anthropologist Joseph Campbell pointed out many years ago, when we look at the history of city architecture we can see the history power. In early cities the religious temples were the tallest buildings in every city, then in later times the government buildings were the tallest, now it is the financial institutions that have the tallest buildings in all major cities.

This trend has been apparent to anyone who was looking for the last 50 years, and the struggle for power between governments and corporations dates back as far as the founding of the United States, whose first settlers were in fact a corporation.

Now days, thanks to new technologies that make globalization possible, the national governments and their associated borders are becoming even more meaningless. And this will only accelerate in the coming years.

I do not mean to suggest that government will cease to exist, only that their power and important will be increasingly diminished.

China itself is attempting to reap the benefits of globalization while still maintaining its totalitarian control. But it’s a fool’s quest. They can use torture, they can jail those (with the help of Google and Yahoo) who search words such as Tiananmen Square or Fulan Gong, but the cat is out of the bag. The free flow of information and ideas cannot be stopped unless they close themselves off like North Korea, and that would bring a sudden halt to their booming economic growth.

I believe the United States has the most to lose from Globalization, because we are the ones who benefit most from having the good future to be born into this nation. As the playing field levels, and we must all compete for jobs with billions of Chinese and Indians, the standard of living for most U.S. citizens will likely deteriorate. It appears inevitable. The corporations benefit form access to cheap labor, so don’t expect globalization to stop.

The question then arises; why to we cling to our National identity as Americans? Would I really rather see someone on Ohio or Oklahoma have a job instead of an Indian peasant who might live in extreme poverty? They are all humans? For the believers in religious faiths they are all God’s children. Perhaps the time has come for American to sacrifice for greater good of humanity?

The Coptic Gospels

2006-04-20T04:17:00.000-07:00

Most major religions have two bodies of works that guide their teachings. The first consists of simple parables and mythological stories. These are primarily intended to control the populace and keep the sheep in their pen.

The second type of religious treatise are the metaphysical and mystical works that tend to focus be a more a philosophical search for truth. Usually attempting to understand the nature of reality and the meaning of existence. Often these works are more concerned with personal enlightenment instead of rewards for obedient behavior as in the former category of works.

It seems pretty clear that the first of these types of works are aimed at a less educated population and usually carry the unspoken message “There is no need for you to think to hard, just do what you are told and everything will be fine.” Hence the Christian dictum to “believe as children.”

The second type of works tend to place more responsibility on the individual, both for make moral judgments, and through finding salvation through personal enlightenment.

While most major religions have books that teach the latter more metaphysical and mystical teachings, it always struck me as odd that Christianity did not have such works. I have often hear rumors that such books exist, and that there are another more esoteric set of Christ’s teachings, but I have never seen any proof that these exist. The rumor was that the Catholic Church had these writings, but was suppressing them. I was always skeptical about all of this because it seemed hard to imagine that of they existed they wouldn’t have leaked out and become available commercially. But with the Catholic Church, who knows.

Recently this mystery was made clear to me when I learned that there is a body of Christian mystical works that date back to the writing of the original gospels, and which was suppressed by church leaders as early as 180 AD.

It turns out that there was as many as 30 gospels of Christ, including the gospel of Mary Magdalene. At least some of these have survived and are of a more metaphysical nature. Early church leaders, who were struggling with the social/political and marketing challenge of turning an obscure cult into a major religion, chose the four gospels we all know for the New Testament, and condemned the other gospels as heretical.

The four gospels chosen were those that focused on guiding the behavior of the followers and on the magic of Christ rising from the dead. The condemned gospels focused more on personal enlightenment and therefore left little need for church leaders and an organized religion.

Referred to as the Coptic Gospels, I don’t these gospels are really much of a secret, although I heard the name, I was not aware of what they really were, and it seems most followers of the Christian faith are not aware of their content.

Opening from Apology July 8, 1994

2006-04-13T04:19:00.000-07:00

July 8, 1994

Zero. It is down to this. God forbid one can exist in the minus. Zero is nothing enough. I am living in a rundown Mercury Topaz in a small town outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I am a stranger here and all I view is strange to me. I came here to be a scab worker during a factory strike at a company that makes construction machinery.

Living in a car makes you feel degraded to the level of an animal. No shower. No way to store or prepare food. Even brushing your teeth or finding a bathroom is a major task. Every day I ask myself, 'how did I come to this?'

not long ago I had a long term relationship with a beautiful woman, a home, a rental property, a fifty percent share in a small business, and was well on the way to a college degree. Now all that is gone. The cruel course of fate took the net of material security I had so laboriously created and revealed it to be a crepe paper illusion.

a few years ago at this time I was struggling to find money to eat. I vowed I would escape poverty forever. I worked, conned, connived, committed felonies to climb my way into the middle class. But once again I am reduced to the life of a peasant. Worse than this. The life of a vagabond.

The situation is exacerbated by the gnawing irony that for the first time all my hopes and dreams are a realistic possibility. Yet they lay right outside my grasp and I am unable to even enter the arena wherein I can begin the struggle to make those dreams a reality. And the truth be known it is not really money and wealth which I truly seek. Money is only a means to an end, and even then, what I desire cannot be bought.

Despite my circumstances, I feel clear sighted. The chaos of my life suddenly makes sense. I see that it was also ten years ago that I began a journey. A journey set sail with a momentary flash of light within my mind, and which is ending only now after a Homeric cycle of creation and destruction. I have nearly come full circle. Only time will tell whether this journey's end will bring a complete end to hope, or a beginning to the life I have always felt would start on some distant tomorrow.

From the beginning I already had a sense of what life had in store for me and what was existent within myself. Although unrealized, I already carried an understanding of the impenetrability of life's underlying mysteries, the goal of my desires, and that my destiny offered the extraordinary.

At the same time I also carried a sickness. An all-pervading bitterness for an evolution's worth of unfulfilled human potential. A bitterness for the unfulfilled potential in my own life which only the most naively idealistic and childlike mind could formulate.

Immediately I held the view that all of life was a game. Yet I played that game more seriously than any of those around me. The doctrine of inaction was apparent to me from the first breath. Yet I acted with more volition than all others. Even now I am often told that people feel uneasy when first meeting me because they can see 'something in my eyes.'

This bitterness soon grew into a murderous feeling of rage. Rage against God, country, human values, the cruelty of life, and most of all, myself.

I became a conundrum of the jive soul in search of perpetual resurrection. I was greedy to savor every drop of life's essence yet I constantly ignored life in hope of finding that day when I could begin living. I reach out, yet am described as unapproachable.

And it is the doctrine of inaction, the ever present awareness of futility, which fuels my self-hatred. Because this rage, at this very moment, mocks every word I place on paper. I accept that these words are purposeless, pointless, absurd, ridiculous and grossly egotistical. I continue because not to continue would be to lay down and die for all the sorrow and hopelessness that seems apparent in all I perceive.

And 'egotistic?' I am acutely aware that self-hatred is the highest form of egotism. It is this dilemma which is the final barrier for those seeking the zero. For those seeking annihilation of the self.

Excerpt from Apology 8/9/94

2006-04-06T12:23:00.000-07:00

8/9/94

Thursday night finds me drinking with Ornelia and her Indian roommate Mina. We are on the patio of Cafe 210 sharing a Carafe of red wine. An unanticipated rainstorm erupts and we move under the awning to avoid the downpour. I sit beside Mina, a small woman with beautiful sharp features who seems to have an impenetrable wall around her insides. As the wine disappears and the night goes on we are joined by Walter, a dubious suitor of Ornelia's who is accompanied by his girlfriend.

In my mind something about the atmosphere seems off kilter. Walter's girlfriend is shooting loathsome darts from her dark eyes. First at Ornelia, then Mina, then glaring at me as if a question mark is sitting atop her crown. Walter chatters to the wind, his attention obviously agitated by Ornelia's presence. Mina and I have gotten into an animated discussion on the trials of being a first generation Indian woman.

In the midst of the conversation I catch a glimpse of Ornelia. She sits quietly as if taken by a deep sadness. In that moment I feel like I can see through her. Simultaneously she appears like a lonely child, a tearful red-faced clown, and a worn old woman grasping at the beauty and gayety of youth.

But these are merely fleeting thoughts and the discussion on India continues. Walter has lapsed into a private conversation with his girlfriend. Again I notice Ornelia, only now her countenance is that of the cruel bitch.

Throughout the evening she has been making a gesture of keeping the smoke from her Marlboro cigarettes from wafting into the breathing space of the non-smoking Mina. Now, with a cool, empty expression on her face she blows a long, slow cloud directly into Mina's profile.

My thoughts disturb me. I can't decide whether I'm suffering from overactive imaginings, or I am in heightened perception discerning the ulterior motives of all present.

The next hour finds us at Zinos. Again there is a roaring crowd. Ornelia has become rambunctious. Her vocabulary has taken a vulgar tone. She, Mina, and I are crammed onto a small bench. Ornelia and I share a glass of wine as she speaks in disconnected spurts.

"There he is again", she points to a large, longhaired man who she shared a mostly sexual relationship with. "He always sees us together. I'm sure his filthy little mind thinks I'm gonna be fucking you tonight. Good! Let him. He lost his chance.

Mina is whispering to me hints of a lost love who broke her heart. I tell her she is intelligent and beautiful and could get lots of guys. To my surprise, and perhaps for the first time since I have met her, Minas shield seems to come down. She looks happy and grateful for the compliment. Her face seems to beam with happiness.

The alcohol is kicking in now and I try to conceal the stagger in my step as I head towards the mens room. Everything appears increasingly cock-eyed. Mina is craving pancakes-immediately! - so we move on to a nearby diner.

Walter had long ago departed. On the way to the diner we find he has dumped his girlfriend in order to accompany us on our way. Once in the diner Walter has ceased to exist. His words fill the air as he desperately interjects himself into the conversation, but I do not hear him.

Ornelia appears to me like a rampage of shattered crystal. I can't quite comprehend what anyone speaks about. The reticent Mina is giving me the thumbs up over the pancakes and there is an argument about the water smelling like worms and Clorox. The fey waiter is giving speeches. Ornelia is debating breaking her eight months of celibacy for the ex-beau at Zinos, Walter is mocking the women, and Mina can't remember the name of the Hindu god with the long angry tongue that haunted her childhood home.

It is a simple carefree evening out with friends. Why then does it seem filled with double meanings, sordid empathy, and misplaced desperation? This happy moment seems undercut with sadness and longing. I lay down to sleep feeling as if taken by madness. I see too much. And what I perceive behind the eyes and actions of my friends breaks my heart and makes socializing almost unbearable a

Excerpt from "Apology" August 15, 1994

2006-04-04T03:46:00.000-07:00

August 15, 1994

Friday morning I am awakened by a phone call. An authoritarian voice asks, 'Is Caeser Pink there?"

Thinking quickly I reply, 'He doesn't live here anymore. The last I heard he was living in his car in York, Pa."

"Is that right?" he says incredulously, "If you see him this is the sheriff's office and there's a warrant for his arrest stemming from a traffic citation in Altoona."

I hang up the phone and jump out of bed in a panic. If they find me I may never get out of jail. I decide to take a quick shower and avoid the premises for a few days. While in the shower there is a loud knock at the door. With my heart in my throat I wrap a towel around my waist and peak out the peephole on the door. To my relief it is only Rob Arnold, the X-bass player for The Imperial Orgy. His sight is a relief, but still an awkward situation considering that this is the first time I've seen him since I kicked him out of the band for drinking too much onstage.

Rob was the only band member whose working class roots, like my own, hailed from Lewistown. He is known in the area as a legendary wild man and alcoholic, but at heart and good and generous fellow. He was the band clown and added an element of insanity to the Imperial Orgy. His bass playing was never really up to par, although he was a master at inventing outrageously creative costumes. Sometimes taking the stage in wedding dresses, six-inch pink platform shoes, glitter coated drum major uniforms, or a pink nylon G-string.

Rob's curse was that when he drank, which was every day, he became another man altogether. In the backstage dressing dressing rooms he terrorized the rest of the band with his drunken humor.

While changing costumes he might strip naked and hide his penis between his squeezed together legs.

"Hey guys am I a pussy or what?" he would bellow demanding the attention of all.

He was fond of bringing his Budwieser laden breath close to one's face and gurgling bizarre intimacies, "Y'know I love you guys. I might be a drunken asshole, but I'm a wild man!"

A second later he has a familiar story he must tell the entire room. "Hey guys, hey guys, this asshole came to my place and pinched clothes pins on his nipples. I challenged him. I stood in the cold for twenty minutes with jumper cables clamped on my nipples. That fucker gave up! Did that hurt though! Shit! Hey, Mitch imagine what that would feel like clamped on your balls. Nadine, can you imagine what that would feel like clamped on your balls?"

Our first approach to Rob was to walk out of rehearsal when he drank to much to play his instrument. By the third set of every performance his abilities deteriorated relative to how many pitchers of cheap beer he gulped down. When it became clear he was holding back the quality of the music we told him he had to stop drinking onstage if he wanted to stay in the band. From then on he was filled with resentment and refused to put his heart into the music. At his last gig he would not wear a costume, complaining, "I don't get paid enough to change clothes." During the next to the last song he tore the strings off his bass and stormed offstage.

Since his expulsion I've heard rumors of his wrath with me. Referring to me as Caeser Stink and calling us 'back stabbers'. With this in mind I open the door. He has come to collect a few odd belongings and his attitude is friendly. We talk briefly and I update him on the chaos of my life, including my fear that his knock was the sheriff at my door. He gathers his assortment of cords and containers and we walk towards the door. As he places his hand on the knob I see the sheriff's car pull into the driveway.

"Shit!" I yell, "there he is."

Rob is calm, "Don't worry man, I'll get rid of him."

Still in my towel I hide in the basement hallway. The sheriff knocks and inquires about my whereabouts.

"I haven't seen that guy for weeks," Rob lies coolly, "I'd like to see him myself. I have a few things to settle with him too."

After what seems an eternity he leaves. It is ironic that after I boot him out of the band it is Rob who saves my ass. Rob and I both know what it is like to be in a desperate situation and this knowledge gives us a bond that cuts through the superficial bullshit when the chips are down.

I leave the house still in a panic. My first urge is to get the hell out of town. I have created such a financial mess here it seems I can never dig my way out. With unpaid fines and a ridiculously scarred driving record just being here is a risk. On the way out of town I stop at a phone booth to try to figure out how much the fine is for. I call the local D.A.'s office and am put on hold for an extended period. There are a steady series of electronic beeps as I hold the receiver anxiously and my paranoid mind begins to race, 'what if they are tracing my call? Maybe they're keeping me on hold because the sheriff's on the way here right now." I hang up the receiver and drive off in a rush. Catching hold of myself I stop at another phone booth and re-dial the number. The D.A. has no information about the fine and it takes five more calls to find anything out. I am assuaged to learn that it is only a small fine rather than the one thousand dollars plus I feared. I make arraignments for the fine and return home still shaken.

The next day Sasha comes to State College to help me move. Actually 'move' is not quite the right word for it. Perhaps vacate is more accurate as I have no place to move to. My belongings are stashed haphazardly with friends and family. Don and Jai have my couch, papasan, and TV. Sasha will be taking my CDs and art collection.

It is a strange feeling to know I will be homeless. I am sure I will be able to find someplace to sleep and shower, but I am not one who feels comfortable as a guest and I need a space to call my own. I feel as if I'm stuck in a floating purgatory. From morning to night I wander the streets or work at the university computer labs. This writing fills my time and gives be a vague sense of purpose that helps keep me from sinking into depression. Tomorrow I will leave on a ten day shoot for Filmspace giving me time to think of someplace to stay when I return.

On Sunday afternoon Sasha and I are doing the last of the moving chores. At 3:00 she must leave for home and I am due to leave for the film shoot. The house is nearly empty. I am forced to abandon my clothes dryer and an oriental carpet for lack of anywhere to store them. We clean the house as much as time will allow and leave the rest for Donald. It is a gray, gloomy day and I load my art collection into Sasha's car while rain pours down. We say an extended good-bye and go our separate ways. Driving away from the house is loaded with meaning because I know I am driving away for the last time, and moving forward into a future full of doubt and uncertainty.

'Homeless'. It is hard to associate the word with my self. When life is secure it seems like an unimaginable possibility. But here I am. Reduced to zero. Zero. 'How did I come to this?' -each page of this writing is a dig into the dirt of my life and slowly reveals the trail to my malaise. The plane lifts off the runway as we began our journey for the shoot. Far below on the ground I view the rows of tiny houses and the toy-like cars and trucks. Human life appears like a game that I am no longer a part of. I am floating, propelled through space without a sense of belonging to anyplace or anyone. In the three decades of my life what have I to show for myself? We pass through the clouds and the human world disappears through the soft blankets of white haze.

4/3/06

2006-04-03T06:45:00.000-07:00

Most days it's hard to remember that I am free. I could just get in the car and drive until the gas runs out.

I sit among the eight trees and slab of concrete we call a park and look out over the Manhattan skyline. The sun is warm but the air is a bit cool. MOst of the skyline is blocked by stacks of scrap metal that are piled along the river. I really want to get out of the city for a bit.

I spent the weekend working on a website for a new company I am startig called Global Village Workforce.

The Imperial Orgy now has about 60 stations playing our CD. We have about 6 that have banned it, although when questioned by press they always deny it. And the press always believe a college student over a band called The Imperial Orgy.

We have some people in India helping do internet promotion for us this week. It's been very successful.

Feeling stressed this morning by all the work and financial pressures. I wish I could just go play in the sun.

3/27/06 Journal Entry

2006-03-27T06:04:00.000-08:00

Finally it appears that spring might break. These last two months have been brutal. Nothing but work from morning to night. The grind makes you dead inside. No time to write, meditate, or even digest a thought or stand back and reflect on where you are. That’s how one gets lost.

When I am not doing business work I am working on Imperial Orgy promotion. The radio campaign is receiving a lukewarm response. We have about 50 stations playing the CD, but without much enthusiasm.

It is amazing how conservative college radio has become. College radio used to actively support artists who differed from the norm. Now there is a sound and a formula that you must adhere to. Every day we receive comments such as; “It just wouldn’t fit in.”

Why do mediocre minds always move towards and try to protect conformity? I suppose Nietzche would have a ready answer.

And although the CD contain no swear words, no references to sex, drugs, or violence, and no overt political references, it has been banned by many stations. Although when press goes to these stations to ask them about it they have not only denied banning it, they also denied ever seeing the CD or speaking to us about it. Even a station that was playing the CD denied seeing it or speaking to us about it when the press people spoke to them. They’re just cowards I suppose.

One station would only play it if they could call us “Caeser Pink.” They are too afraid of the FCC to say the name The Imperial Orgy.

Another station said they couldn’t play it because “DJs aren’t intelligent enough to say the word Orgy without giggling and saying something else they shouldn’t.”

It is a strange country we live in: land of the brave, home of the free. But don’t stand out or you’ll be beaten to a pulp.

3/12/06

2006-03-12T14:20:00.000-08:00

I am sitting in a yuppie cafe in State College, PA. Some ligth-lazz-weather-channel-muzak plays from the in-ceiling speaker system at a comfortable volume. Everything is a tan and maroon, soothing earth tones, nothing to excite the heart rate of the graying clientele.

The round-headed old fellow directly in front of me is eating a fancy over-priced tuna sandwich. Every time I glance in his direction he manages to have ever-more clumps of tuna clinging to his puffy cheeks. I try not to look, but it's like a car wreck and I can't help glancing back to see how bad it is this time.

A middle aged woman of Mongolian descent and her college aged daughter set up shop at two different tables before finally settling on a third "better table." Each time the daughter takes out and puts back away some electronic devices from her big bag. I'm not quite sure what it's all about.

The mothers with their toddlers point their noses in the air when I catch their glance. The mothers all look stern but easily bullied by the children who have angry faces and command their elders to obey their every whims. I fear that in the name of not crushing their precious little spirits these yuppies are raising a generation of tyrants who in adult life will spread their unhappiness to each other in marriages of misery.

New poetry/lyrics

2006-03-04T07:40:00.000-08:00

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night with this first verse in my head. I found a notebook and scribbled it in the dark, but the verses kept coming so I finally gave up and sat at the table and wrote them down as I watched the sun rise through my kitchen window. I wasn't planning to write anything, but like an unrecognized pregnancy, it was ready to be born.

The thinkers and the doers are being trampled by the sheep
Who stampede to the slaughter with righteous surety
For the danger's not the butcher, it's he who warns them of their fate
And no one is hated more than he who causes the sleepwalkers to awake

So perhaps I should lay down my pen
Lay down my head
And cry awhile

This curse of vision will make you insane I fear

The pontiff and the president dance slowly in the dark
The whisper sweet promises of death till do us part
Then to the doctor of psychiatry they go to cure their co-dependency
He says for a marriage of convenience there can never be divorce

So turn down your cannons
Lay down your cross
I can no longer tell these things apart

And all lovers must consubstantiate

I stood at my mother's gravesite with a hammer in my hand
I stole sawdust from the sawmill and threw a flame into the wind
I walked a noble savage through the Wal-Mart until he fell upon his knees
I gave shelter to a rich man, the poor child I showed the door

Cause freedom is as freedom does
And let no man be the wiser here

The shackles of the breadline make each man bow his head down low

I walked through the orchard down in Eden but my stomach it was full
I met a woman named Apollonia with her children by her side
I took her to the alter, made her my bride and then my wife
I abandoned her in Portland but I guess it all was for the best

I laid down my hat
I laid down my gun
I don't have the will to run no more

And this gift of gab will make you a monster

Jesus sat down at my table and took a Camel from his smock
He lit it with a burning bush, took a drag and with a smirk he said
Sometimes a soul can be so shrunken that the eye of a needle isn't small
And these days inheriting the Earth doesn't seem such a good offer after all

I poured him a drink
He gave me a wink
We made a toast to the wind, the sky, prostitutes and vagabonds

We're all God's children after all he said

I walked into the hospital and told the nurse to medicate
She looked into my eyes and said my ailment it was plain
But the witchdoctor and the voodoo priest were on the golf course for the day
Then she lifted up her skirt and cradled my head upon her breast
She asked if my insurance would cover this and pay

She showed me the light
She showed me the sea
Show showed me re-runs on her cable TV

Sometime blood is thinner than the air we breathe

Now the sheep are in a frenzy, they smell the prophet in the wind
The run to the farmer for protection, they hide beside the chopping block
But the prophet he is weary, he's been stoned too many times
And when they sheep they get their hackles up to protect conformity
Even the wolf will run for shelter in the forest dark and wild

I'll lay down my heart
I'll lay down in my grave and die awhile

This gift of vision makes you a pariah to the plebians

3/3/06

2006-03-03T08:30:00.001-08:00

Lately I have been full of electricity. Every time I touch the DVD player there is a big static shock and it shuts off the player. The same thing is happening with the laptop computer. The cat won�t come near me. Odd but true.

Yesterday evening was spent doing radio promotion. Heather was calling in requests to college stations across the country and I was doing myspace emails. I�m severely understaffed for this project.

So far we�ve got one station the put the CD into medium rotation and one that refused to play it at all.

Since last August I�ve been receiving sporadic emails from an X from many years ago. We were only together for a short time, but it was a very pivotal time in my life. Her�s too I believe. For ten years she would barely speak to me. She contacts me because she has some bone to pick with me each time, and we�ve managed to learn to speak on friendly terms, but there is still a lot of stress in the emails.

On Wednesday night she sent a fat email that, although cloaked in a friendly guise, seemed to make me feel defensive. It�s like a battle of egos when we communicate. I didn�t want to feel that way, or have any kind of unpleasant exchange with her, so I didn�t respond to the email.

Last night I got another large email. I didn�t have time to read it accept for a few lines, but it said that she realized she was disappointed that I didn�t return her email and that she know feels she�s let go of her anger over the past.

After ten years I would hope so, but either way I guess I am glad she feels some resolution. She was a lovely, and unique woman, and I have warm feeligns towards her, but it was so long ago, I see no need to have stress or dramas about the past.

This weekend I plan to meet a guy from India to discuss outsourcing.

3/01/06

2006-03-01T21:06:00.000-08:00

The pace of life has been brutal over recent months. Last week we sent out 680 Imperial Orgy CDs to college radio station across the US. Promoting to these stations is a gargantuan task.

We are using myspace extensively in the promo campaign. Due to this I have spent a lot of time looking at people’s profiles from across the U.S, and I must say it’s a little depressing how people present themselves. It amazing how many people connect themselves with violence of some sort. Lots of big guns, the word bitch is everywhere, all the white kids want to pretend they’re ghetto gangstas, check out the book favorites and you see how few people read,…our reality-TV culture is breeding idiocy.

I got some free tixs for a preview of an off Broadway play tonight. I was actually going to see the theatre which The Imperial Orgy is able to use for free, but the play was pretty good. I don’t know what the show was called though. The woman who played “Magda” on Sex & The City was in it.

I had a strange things happen last week when one of my few living relatives, an aunt who is a Christian, read an press article about me then went into the caeserpink.com website, and was very distressed. She sent a very accusatory email. I wouldn’t’ have expected anything else, but it was still unplasant.

When you are an artist, especially one who questions the pillars of church and state, you are putting yourself out there and every day you face attacks, rejection, and hate. Usually I drawl my strength from within and it doesn’t bother me, but you can’t be strong everyday, and sometime it gets to you. When it’s family members, it’s a little harder.

I have also been dealing with a X from long ago who is a little uptight. The character Sasha in my Apology writings are based on her and she is upset with some of my writings.

Last weekend I was supposed to meet a young woman I met in Pennsylvania, but my trip was postponed and I couldn’t meet her. That Friday night she posted a photo of herself that she took in the mirror. She was wearing a lovely peach outfit with a long scarf. He caption read, “I do strange things when I’m alone.”

For some reason I was entranced by the photo. She looked so nice, and the image of her dressed up and alone in her room at 11:30 on Friday night moved me.

The First Shots Fired In The Coming War

2006-02-11T05:17:00.000-08:00

Most people don’t realize that when they turn on their favorite radio station the sound they hear isn’t music, it’s the sound of money changing hands. People imagine that the music on the top 40 is there because it’s the best the world has to offer, or because it’s the most popular among music fans. But they are sorely mistaken.

The music played on commercial radios stations is there largely because big corporate record labels pay off the stations to play their artist. The labels spend hundreds of thousands of dollars paying off the stations to play a single song. In the business it is considered that the going price for a top 40 hot is about 200,000 dollars.

This payola system creates a complete lock-out that makes it impossible for unsigned artists to get commercial radio airplay. Radio airplay creates hundreds of millions of dollars in CD sales each year, so there is a lot at stake in this game. The big corporations want to maintain complete control of this cash-cow system and they sure don’t want people like me getting access to it and taking a slice of the pie.

Now that The Imperial Orgy has released our first CD we are trying to get radio airplay. We plan to use a combination of new technologies and grass roots pressure to try to break the system.

For a test run we focused on a small station in State College, PA, one of our hometowns. We thought we were off to a good start when one of the station’s major advertisers, who is also a fan of the Orgy’s, took the CD to the station and asked them to play it. We followed this up by asking Myspace people in the station’s area to request out song.

Despite this I knew something was askew when I tried to call the station’s music director multiple times and he refused to take my calls. What’s odd about this is that I do radio promo for my day job, so I spend all day talking to people like him at stations all across the country, yet this little backwoods-station music director is too arrogant to take my calls.

Then after about a week of people requesting the song I got an email from the music director asking us to “call off out minions.” “We get the picture” he said. He said they will play the song Sunday night at 10PM. While this sounds good, I know that Sunday night is the dumping ground where they play local bands song once then throw it in the garbage. We want to be in regular rotation and receiving 20 to 30 spins a week. Nothing else will do.

In his email he also said that requests will not cause the song to be played more at the station, which is to say that they don’t care what their listening audience wants to hear. You can’t fuck with the system.

While this is a frustrating situation, we have just begun our campaign. We know how to use tactics they will never expect. We know how to get the public going and we know how to manipulate the media to give them bad press. If I can’t beat this little passant station, I will never be able to get anywhere with a big station in New York City or Los Angeles where the big money is at stake.

Please help by either calling in a request to 1105.9 THE BUZZ at 814-272-BUZZ (2899)

Or email a request by clicking here

You might say or copy and paste this into the email:

Could you please play Job & His Brethren by Caeser Pink & The Imperial Orgy?

2/9/06 Grammy Party

2006-02-09T05:49:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to the party the Recording Academy holds for its members in New York. It’s kind of a boobie prize when the Grammys are in LA.

I got to the city at 6:30 and found a seven o’clock parking place, so I had to sit in my car for a half hour. (The things we do for parking in NYC)

I tried calling a few friends to chat with during my wait, but to no avail. While I was waiting a man came out of an apartment with a dog. The dog seemed like she couldn’t want to hit the street to urinate. She had the look in her eyes like a little kid who just makes it to the bathroom.

A few minutes later a woman comes walking by with a large dog. She isn’t paying any attention to the dog who stops to lick the puddle of urine the other dog left. The woman keeps walking while her dog has stopped. When she gets to the end of the leash she is surprise to be jerked backwards by the weight of her large dog.

So she scolds the dog and gets him walking. As he walks he is flicking is tongue as if he can’t get a bad taste out of his mouth. It all looks a little comical, until a few steps later a yuppie couple with their babe in arms comes from the other direction. The babe is wrapped up in a heavy snow jacket that makes its arms stick straight out to the sides. On its head is a powder blue knit hat that comes to a point on top with a fuzzy ball on the tip.

When they see the woman they want to show the babe the nice doggie. The yuppies and the dog walker stop and the yuppies stand the babe in front of the dog. The dog cheerfully licks the babe’s face and everyone smiles and laughs. The dog woman either forgot what the dog was doing a few seconds earlier or she is secretly getting her revenge on the yuppies with their happy relationship and their cute babe while she just has this piss licking dog to walk around with. In this case it’s truly enough to make you wanna gag!

When I get to the party, as I come near the door I am a little leery. As soon as I walk inside I can see the venue is kind of a dud. Last year’s party was in a great room with big screens everywhere, lots of booze, lots of beautiful people, filled with energy.

This new place is a long hallway, small TV screens, and everyone looks a little uncomfortable. I walk to the end and start looking for other floors that I hope will be a little more exciting. On the stairs I see Carlos Alamar who was David Bowie’s guitar player for many years.

The 2nd floor is the VIP section, the likes of me are not welcomes, and the third floor is another party room. The screens here are even smaller. I grab one of the few remaining seats and decide to wait it out for my friend Heather who is due to arrive an hour later.

As the screens shows the red carpet walk the room begins to fill with people. Fiona Apple is standing trying to pose while flashbulbs go off in her face. Each second she looks more distressed by the attention.

A pretty blonde girls sits down beside me who turns out to be a harpist who plays for Kanye West when he plays the East Coast.

As the room fills the place looks a little sad. It definitely looks like the B-List crowd. Everyone’s looking to be noticed. Sometimes wearing faded clothes that must have been shiny new stage costumes 5 years ago. Few have the look and walk of confidence that success brings.

I get a free Henieken and sit back down. The Grammy start and Kelly Clarkson is sweeping the awards. When she wins for best female pop song she makes a big scene about trying not to cry, after all she’s just the country girl who won the talent contest. It all seemed a little put on.

When a bit later she wins for best artist in the history of the universe she goes on a fast talking tirade of thank yous while still doing the trying not to cry bit. After her performance the camera cuts to Nichole Kidman in the audience who has a look of cynical disbelief on her face, her expression echoes my own feelings perfectly.

As the show goes on Heather is very late. I grow increasingly bored with the whole affair. The only thing keeping me here is the possibility that Sly Stone will come out of retirement and perform at a planned tribute.

I go back to the bar to get a vodka and seven and it is a mad house. They only have one bartender for the whole room. A great way to avoid giving out too much free booze. The harpist girl is holding my seat while I wait at the bar. A woman comes up beside me who has dark hair and a perfect face. Her breasts are stuck out like a desert tray and her fingernails are long and curled. The fingernails aren’t very nice looking but they say, “I don’t do work, the only thing I am good for is to look at.”

And she was good to look at, almost amazing. As she squeezes into the bar her face is just a few inches from mine. I try to ignore her at first, but it’s too much and I finally give in and just take her in with a leisurely gaze. She looks up at me briefly, obviously pleased that her appearance has had the intended effect on me.

Back at my seat I am growing more and more bored. You can tell the alcohol is kicking in all around the room. People seem to be closing down from each other. Everyone’s a little bored. To my right the girl from the bar sits beside another young woman who is sitting beside an elderly man. Soon the young women begin to wander away from their elderly escort and flirt with younger men at the bar. The elderly man sits alone looking dejected. Occasionally the young women come back and check on him briefly as a matter of duty.

As the night goes on the whole room is starting to wilt. Heather is hours late and I am growing really sick of the whole affair. As 10 O’clock nears the room is thinning out. Heather finally shows smelling of stale garlic from the Pizza she and he girlfriends were eating in Staten Island.

When the Sly Stone tribute finally comes on there is a swell of applause in the room. A bunch of pop stars whose names I don’t know are singing his hits. It’s all a bore, I just want to see Sly. As Marroon five sings Everyday people I began to lose hope. Finally during Dance To The Music Sly comes out dressed in a large silver jacket and wearing a gold Mohawk. He looks amazing, but he can’t seem to hold his head up. It faces down like his neck is unhinged. When he sings a few lines his voice sounds amazing, but after a few moments he turns and leaves the stage. It’s all very mysterious.

Sly and the Family Stone created the template for The Imperial Orgy. I’d love to see his make a comeback.

As soon as he leaves the stage, heather and I exit the party. Next year I’m going to the real Grammys. Fuck this depressing B-List shit.

2/8/06 Journal entry - Dirty Lenin

2006-02-08T05:52:00.000-08:00

It seems that for weeks I’ve done nothing but sit at the computer and do business work from mornign till night. Last night at 7PM I got an email that one of my clients, a band called ISM, was doing a showcase in Manhattan, a hour later at 8PM. I decided to just get up and go check it out.

It was at a club called Crash Mansion on the Bowery, right down the street from CBGB’s. First I had to talk my way through the door because I didn’t feel like paying the 8-dollar cover charge when I expected the bands to suck,

When I got there the bands were doing sound-check. I met their label exec, (who owes me a $1500 check) and soon the thing became a schmooze fest as he and his people drilled me for info about the music business and such.

I had a drink or two and the first band came on called Dirty Lenin. Click here for website They had two chick singers and some older guys on bass and drums. Usually when I go see bands at clubs they are all so boring that I can’t stand it, but this band was really fun. They had interesting song structures, good energy onstage, and I kind of zest that makes you feel excited.

By the time their set was over I was a bit buzzed from the Vodka. The lead singer chick, her name is Renee, came over to talk to me. She was attractive and nice, but with the loud music I just couldn’t hear a damn thing she was saying. She’s talking away and I’m nodding my head, but I got no idea what it’s all about.

I’m not sure why sometimes I push people away that I’m attracted to, I should have asked her to join me at a table away from the noise, but instead I cut her off and said, “It’s really nice to meet you, I’ll try to contact you through your website.’

Afterwards I went upstairs and out to the street to use the cellphone. I called my friend Marnie. On the streets the air was cold and I felt drunk and desperate and very alive. I left Marnie a hungry, incoherent message and went back down.

When ISM came on, I was quite surprised that I liked them as well. Usually I hate modern alternative stuff, but they had really good songwriting and great stage presence. I was really impressed.

Today it’s back to the computer, but tonight I am going to a Grammy party thrown by the recording academy. Lots of free booze and a room full of Wanna-Bees.Should be a good time all around.

July 18, 1994 Excerpt From "Apology"

2006-02-05T05:31:00.000-08:00

It's hard to continue sleeping once the sun begins to spill through the car windshield. I have been living in my beat-up Mercury Topaz while working as a scab worker at a factory in York, PA, to try to raise money to get to New York City.

Last night I parked in Jai's driveway. At least there I have less chance of being arrested for vagrancy or having the police find out that I am driving without a license.

Jai's parents are on vacation for a week leaving their luxurious house at her disposal. I don't feel comfortable spending time with her or accepting her assistance because she is constantly tormenting me with the deceptively cutting comments that roll off of her angry tongue. She is a master at floating remarks that sound innocent enough at first, but lay in unconscious wait, with razor sharp fangs and saber claws, to prey on moments of doubt and devour confidence with stealth precision.

Her half Thai lineage is seen on her face, which sits unexpectedly on a tall thin frame. It is morning and I sit on the opposite end of the kitchen table watching as she eats bagels and drinks orange juice. I went to sleep hungry and the aroma of the bagel re-awakens that hunger. My eyes are hypnotized by the richly inviting color of the juice. She drinks it out of a crystal wine glass as she chatters with a gay, childlike air. Underneath she is a woman scorned, and every bite of that sustaining bagel, and every generous draught of that juice is a calculated act of vengeance.

Usually her attacks are hidden beneath a veil of civility. On occasion the veil is lifted and she simply taunts me with names like 'asshole' and 'loser', or she chides Sasha-'why does she dance like her wrists are broken?', 'how can you love someone with a honker like that?'.

I always try to feel compassion for her situation even while she pummels my self-esteem. I tell myself 'I'm strong I can take it'. So I smile through the pain in my guts as she smears blue jam over the bottom half of the bagel, thankful to be sitting here out of the hot sun for awhile.

It was through Jai that I got the factory job. Her father is the head of the janitorial staff and she is also scab working. Being the only person I know in this town, I am forced to depend on her at times for matters of survival. The price I pay for this is placing myself within the domain of her manipulations.

After her breakfast we sit on the deck overlooking the community of small mansions from our position on top of a hill. The neighborhood is sterile. No signs of life. No trees. No children. On the next ridge seven tiny golf carts move to and fro, saving their passengers the burden of walking from tee to tee.

From the portable CD player the soundtrack to the film 'The Commitments' plays. Jai is a background singer and dancer in The Imperial Orgy. As such she idealizes the romanticized vision of her role that the film portrayed. Considering it was only a year ago that I convinced her to have confidence in herself and attempt the role of musician and performer, I suppose such naiveté is acceptable.

The music plays and she dances around the deck singing. As I gaze outward over the ridge I try not to notice the way her ass sticks out of her bikini-bottom, which she has pulled up between her cheeks like a G-string. She turns away from me and wiggles her bottom a few feet from the left of my vision.

"Do you think anyone would notice my boobies from the next house?" She asks as she pulls off her top and plops down on a lawn-chair. The once familiar sight of her small breasts leaves me disinterested. Since I struck out on breakfast I escape the situation by moving on to my second basic need.

"Could I get a shower?" I ask blandly.

"Can you make it quick?" she examines the tan line on her abdomen with a sensual stroke of her forefinger.

The shower is in the basement. After I undress she opens the door without knocking.

Handing me a bar of soap she says sarcastically, "Don't wash your dick with my washcloth. I don't want to get any Indian germs".

The shower doesn't have much pressure. The water is warm and washes away the dirt in noticeable streams of brown on the tub's bottom. Two days since my last shower. My body is showing the signs of ware from my unsanitary habits. My face has broken out and my legs have begun to rash behind the joints where I sweat.

It is the dirtiness that makes me feel sub-human. I would like to find a quiet stream where I could bathe daily. The area is a sprawl of concrete and geometric forms. Order; the hallmark of civilization. There are too many people to expect to find a private spot in nature. Nature has been reduced to the green patches between the shopping malls. And even if I could find a stream it would never be private enough to avoid the social shock of the nudity required for bathing.

Only a half hour left before it's time to go to the factory. The streams of water heading towards the drain are no longer brown. The water bounces off my face like a massage of warm needles. Sasha comes to my mind as she does every other moment. I wish I could call her, but I can't afford the call. Plus I don't want to annoy her by my lack of frugality. Our relationship has evolved into an almost childlike position for me. This may be a natural role for her based on what I see with her parents. She often scolds me quietly for the irresponsible way I handle my botched affairs. After years of hopelessness I am having a hard time returning to long term planning.

Somehow our positions have changed and I have become her suitor. It is I who holds ridiculous demands for future commitments, and she who remains logical. In order to prove my devotion I have prostrated myself before her and what is more boring then love handed over so easily.

On top of this the degradation of my financial mess and the humiliation of my living conditions has broken my pride, which makes it impossible for me to relate to her with my usual confidence. My mind is a pendulum swinging between turmoil and resolve. The insanity of my dark moments must surely apparent in these writings.

It was not always this way with us. In the beginning I was at my height of surety. The Imperial Orgy was showing the first small bloom of success. I was finally beginning to achieve what I had planned for so long. The thrill of working the emotions of the crowds gave me an immediate sensation of fulfillment and the attention began to heal the lacerations of my long battered ego.

At this time she came to me unheeded. Writing me poetry, sometimes nervous below my gaze. When I cried she called me a king. When I was weak she saw my openness as strength. She urged me to let go when I hesitated to feel deep emotions.

But it's been five months of chaos and struggle. In her writing she called me her 'Scorpion knight who laid down his armor'. To exist in this world one needs protection. When I placed my armor back on it was tarnished in her eyes. We are both fraught by our personal situations and are lrelationship shows signs of ware. Before I can hope to re-balance the situation I must first achieve some success in my own life.

With this thought I am brought back to reality by a piercing buzzer on the factory floor. The screech warns me that a conveyor belt is clogged and I scurry to climb the yellow ladder to clear it. I have no sense of what our labors here lead to nor do I care. Just give me my paltry paycheck and the meager hope that comes with it. This hope is the hope of a man clutching at straw.

1/30/06

2006-01-31T06:43:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a brutal day for business work. I must have called a hundred radio stations. By 6PM I was half delirious.

At 7PM I had a recording session. I think we got a final mix on Rabid and Brave New Hymn. We also began work on In America. I was get down to the final songs in the project it’s been exciting to find that the forgotten ones are coming out so well. We have to finish within 90 days when the studio moves locations. As years of working on the things it will be a relief.

A friend of mine in State College owns a large restaurant. He buys lots of ad space on the local radio stations. The local rock stations had been kissing his ass to start an expensive new ad campaign. He offered to use in influence to get the Orgy’s CD into rotation.

We’ve been emailing locals on Myspace to email requests to the station. The CD is so outside what’s usually played on commercial radio that it takes a lot of audacity to even think they would consider it. But I feel like acting on instinct, and moving on blind faith.

I heard from Jodi last night. Two years ago when she came to New York she fell asleep on the plane and some guy put his hand up her skirt. Yesterday the sentenced the guy to pay a $5,000 fine, 5 years probation, and 500 hours of community service.

She may be coming to New York soon. I hope so, it is always an adventure when she arrives.

I also heard from Joy yesterday and heavy duty Buddhist. She is now a yoga teacher. She thanked me for introducing her to Eastern religions back so long ago. I must admit I feel a bit bitter about that point. At a time when I really wanted to share that part of myself with someone, she turned a deaf ear to me. The social circle we were a part of were so sarcastic and mocking of such things that I kept it all very private.

These don’t I don’t seem to have the need to share in that way. What I choose to share, I share through art and music. I don’t look for anything in return or look for such things on a personal level.

1/30/06

2006-01-30T07:18:00.000-08:00

1/29/06

2006-01-29T15:17:00.000-08:00

Its a gloomy rainy day in New York City, but it fits my mood. As night falls I walk aimlessly around the streets listening to Bob Dylan on the iPod and feeling lonely. There is a small park near my house, the green haze from the streetlights reflects in the puddles of water that form on the concrete of the empty playground.

I lean against a wire mesh fence and look across the river at Manhattan. The air below is clear, giving a sharp image of the skyline. Behind the skyscrapers dark clouds of multiple shades of gray, white and black move by at an unnaturally fast speed. The Empire state building is lit in red and yellow. It is a regular pastime in NYC trying to figure out what obscure holiday the Empire is lit up to represent.

The moment has an eerie beauty to it. I wish I had someone to share it with. I call Deb for kicks, Jackie for friendship, and Marnie with a bit of desperation. No one answers at any of the numbers.

My plan was to go to the coffee shop to do a bit of writing, but when I get to the door something about it makes me turn away. On the streets other lonely people stand in front of the bodegas smoking cigarettes. I wish I could wear sunglasses so no one can see my eyes. I would rather be invisible.

As I near my building a new neighbor comes out the front door. I look at her to say hello, but she must not realize I live in the same small building and avoids eye contact.

I go in and sit in dark in front of the blank computer screen. My business line rings but I dont answer. I can't face hyping that bullshit. The room is lit by a few leftover Christmas lights, hung without care on the far wall. Everything feels a little meaningless right now. There are so many possibilities and so much potential before me at this time, but I don't feel excited or inspired. I dont have a clue what I want. I am hungry but I dont eat. Nothing seems appetizing. I would rather feel the emptiness and longing.

The Imperial Orgy in Central PA

2006-01-27T07:14:00.000-08:00

We had a pretty amazing night at The Imperial Orgy performance in State College. Making it happen was a bit of a nightmare. Every step of the way we seemed to hit a snag. Singers dropped out, horn players cancelled, transportation got very complicated. Trying to get 11 people and a ton of equipment to Pa. became very expensive. We took three cars and a van. My Explorer was filled to the bursting point.

We all stayed at the Super 8 Motel. I had a nice suite with couches and such. Heather and I went up the day before so I could rest and take care of some business the day of the show.

When we awoke Saturday morning the hotel room heater had turned the place into a hot dry oven. I stumbled to the heater and turned it off and fell back into the bed. Looking out the window at the sky, the edges of which were tinted pink above the mountain ridge, with a dry throat I mumbled “red at night, sailor’s delight, red in the morning, sailor’s warning.”

Heather awoke enough to blink in the direction of the window. She was dressed in underwear and an old T-Shirt. By way of a morning greeting I pulled off her panties and masturbated her to orgasm. I didn’t want to cum before the show, but the right amount of sexual tension is always good. The night before I took it as a good sign that my gaze was drawn towards every attractive woman that passed by.

I pulled Heather out of the bed and put her hands on the back of a chair by a desk that faced a mirror, then took her from behind. In the mirror I could see that there was a little tear on the collar of her T-shirt right at the center of the neck. As I continued to slide in and out of her I pulled the shirt from both directions tearing the front of her T-shirt open wide enough to allow her small breasts to pop out into the open, providing a delightful sight in the mirror.

This seemed to get Heather all the more excited. I pulled her hair just enough to lift her head up, then I ran my fingernail down the length of her back from the base of her neck to her behind, all the while pushing against her with a slow steady rhythm. The rhythm growing in tempo and intensity until the meeting of my pelvis with her bottom began to make a bright smacking sound that echoed off the hotel room ceiling. As her legs began to shake and she laid her head against the desk in front of her in surrender, just before orgasm I pulled back and fell back on the bed.

Afterwards we went to breakfast at the Ye Old College Diner, a place where ten years before, the morning after the first full Imperial Orgy show, I sat alone in that same diner reflecting on a night that had changed my life.

While we waited for our food I opened the local paper to read an article about The Orgy. Although it was a positive article I was a bit taken back when the first line described me as “a psychopath with the soul of a poet.”

Both of the local newspaper articles focused on the controversial elements of The Orgy, painting us as the voice of the fringe that was a pariah to the mainstream. Accurate enough I suppose, but the articles set things up as a confrontation, as if we might be lynched. I am well aware of the dynamic and the danger, but seeing it in print made me uneasy. It seemed like an invitation for thugs to come and kill somebody. The rest of the afternoon I felt worried about what the night would bring.

At 2PM we went to the club and began setting up the equipment. The band members began to arrive from NYC and by 6 we were back at the hotel with hours to kill. The tension of the coming performance was beginning to build and make me restless. Someone had programmed the hotel TV so that it only played sports channels and Fox news, a cruel sort of hell for me. Finally after some reconfiguring of the remote, the thing ended up on E television that was showing the Fashion Police show. So I spent an hour trying to be interested in glamorous actresses walking down runways while gay men trashed their outfits.

At around 8 I heard horns playing so I went to the room across the hall where Frank (our drummer) was directing a rehearsal for the horn section. As I walked in the trumpet player bleated out a sqonky version of Hail To The Chief.

I plopped on a chair in the corner and listened. The horn players sat on the bed with the music scores spread across the sheets. As they played an abstract jazz section of the tune Good Girl, I couldn’t help but feel excited and proud to have initiated all of this creative work.

I went from room to room saying a quick hello to everyone. In Tony’s room he an Erin were going over a version of the Billie Holiday civil right song Strange Fruit that she was going to do so solo on during the first set.

Back in my room Heather was laying half naked on the bed, her breasts still half exposed in the T-Shirt. For the second time that day I masturbated her to orgasm. Then she crawled atop me as I lay on my back, grinding against my half conscious erection while I watched TV with one eye, again stopping just before cumming.

I crawled into a hot bath in the small Jacuzzi tub. As I soaked in the hot water I held a moist set list in my left hand, running over the night’s show in my mind. Making mental notes on lighting cues and fog cues to mention to the light man.

At 9 we arrived at the club. Heather, Eric (bass) and Isabelle (Keys) were having dinner at the club. I tried to sit with them and engage in conversation, but my energy level was building and I couldn’t sit still. The soundman still hadn’t arrived yet to wire up the equipment. He is a really nice guy, but always a little behind the ball. I tuned my guitar and made some last minute adjustments. By 10PM the soundman was half finished with the set up and the room was already filled with people.

As he struggled with a wireless mic that wouldn’t work, I sat nervously on a chair in front of my keyboard. At 10:30 we were able to do a sound check with a room full of skeptical faces.

“I’m sorry, we’re running a bit late,” I announced. “We’re going to do a quick sound-check, then be back in a few minutes to get started. We played half of Exhibition and half of Mickey Mouse World. The band sounded tight but my voice was a little tense and not quite solid on the key.

Afterwards we all trouped into the dirty basement that we were using as a dressing room and began putting on our costumes. I was dressed in a long western style jacket with some nice leather-work decoration on it. Frank wore Spongebob boxer shorts, a superman T-Shirt and a cape made out of a children’s bed sheet. Tony wore black pants with baby-doll faces sewn unto them, a T-shirt with news headlines glued on, and devil horns on his forehead. Eric had black tights with florescent red rings around the legs that floated freely on string so that when he moved the rings bounced around his legs. The girls looked lovely in low cut lacey tops.

When the show started we had planned a complex multimedia performance opening that I wanted to be perfect. It was our third time doing it but we had never gotten it quite right. As the band was introduced the musicians walked onto the stage in he dark. A video collage of funny stuff about The Imperial orgy began to play. Isabelle was supposed to play an electronic rhythm underneath the video but got confused about her cue.

I stood at he back of the room at the sound-board cursing and feeling helpless. Finally halfway through it she came in with the rhythm. Near the end of the video piece the words “You have been brainwashed” flashed onto the screen in red letters, followed by George Bush with a sly smirk on face, and after that a fat fundamentalist preacher with a bible raised into the air. Over a swirling image of a black and white circle that is often used to hypnotize people, images faded in and out of logos for IBM, Exxon, and a host of weapons manufacturers. Then a robotic looking woman with metallic skin came unto the screen and said, “You have been brainwashed, but tonight we will try to undo this mind control.”

The screen went black and Frank walked into center stage wearing a ski masked with a red LED light stuck to his forehead. On the red screen of the LED light the words “Fuck Conformity” scrolled past. On the video screen George Bush said. “It would be a heck of a lot easier if it were a dictatorship.” Then the entire band came in with a 12 beat barrage of atonal noise, only to stop dead on the beat. In the silence Brittney Spears came into the video screen. She smacks gum and talks and looks like a ditzy brat, “I think we should just trust whatever out president says and just have faith in what he does”

Her quote is greeted by another barrage of atonal noise. During the noise the video screen shows a fast speed video of myself wearing a stiff-boy ska-suit and a stocking over my head as I do spastic, frenetic dances while lighting bolts shoot into my body.

When the band cuts to silence, George Bush takes the screen again. “I’m a war president. I look at foreign policy with war on my mind”

After the last barrage of noise Frank walked to the drum kits and plays a straight beat on the bass drum. On the video screen and woman’s face digitized with psychedelic effects says “It’s a revolution you can dance to,” and the band broke into an instrumental funk jam. Isabelle took a solo using a weird 1970’s snyth sound, then Tony took a guitar solo, then each of the three horn players.

As the jam came to an end the group faded into a pretty piano interlude. Images of outer space filled the video screen and the faces of the background singers faded in and out of the void. On the screen they said, “Do you wanna know a secret?” “We’re all innocent here.” “One, two, three, forever as one,” “Never just one, show me the way.”

At that point Eric began a funky bassline for the song Backwoods Soulshaker. The girls took the stage for the first time and sang in a gospel harmony, “Caeser Pink. Caeser Pink,”

I walked onto the stage and looked out over the audience, scanning the crowd with slow deliberate movements. Then with a motion of my arm the band broke into the full groove. The girls sang, “C’mon C’mon C’mon C’mon people C’mon C’mon C’mon!”

I followed with an aggressive rap,:

I come up from a white-trash small-town
But that don't mean that I ain't been around
I seen things that you'd never believe
What I done most men only dream
I'm-your-backwoods-soul-shaker-zealot-street-freak
You better understand that I got a plan
The prophet, the poet, the pop-punk-priest
Tantra vodoo-guru, ooh can you say my name?

If you don't conform you pay a mighty high price
If you stand tall they wanna knock you down
The brighter you shine the smaller that they feel
Until it fills them with the urge to kill.
I'm clenched-fist, yeah, stickin' by my guns
You can bet that I fought for everything I got
The shaker, the maker, the hard line taker
I tear it down to the ground with this sound
And that's my game, can you say my name?

Next we went into three rock songs in which I played guitar. During the next Erica put a set of Mickey Mouse ears on my head and the video screen filled with images of Brittney Spears, Ashley Simpson, boys bands, and teen beat magazines.

One time back in the stone-age
Someone made a chalk drawing on the wall
Here we are 5,000 years later with 300 channels of cable TV
So much stimulation but I feel kind of numb
So much information yet I feel kind of dumb
I know it's supposed to be fun
But sometimes I feel I wanna reach for a gun

Caramel covered, margarine coated
Sugar and spice, everything's so nice
Lots of pretty boys and girls so feast your eyes

During the first three rock songs I was playing guitar and seemed to be struggling with it all. Sometimes you can practice it to death and know it by heart, but still have a bad night. By the third one, a ballad called Happy Endings, I could tell we had the audience’s attention, but we didn’t have them on their feet yet.

The next tune, Bleed Your Love, was a slow funk groove that brought the horn section back into the action. I invited the women in the audience to come up front and dance. As the song progressed I wandered out into the floor and sang to people, sometimes pulling them to the front of the stage to dance with me.

That was followed by Mamma Down, a full funky pop tune. As it came to an end I could see we finally had the crowd up and dancing. The next tune in the set was a moody spoken word piece that would lose the dancers so I made a quick change in the set and added another funk groove Exhibition. During the bridge the music broke down to a quiet groove. The tenor sax player followed me through the thick crowd as I searched for a woman to sing to. I chose I slightly overweight black girl who was sitting in her chair. I got down on my knees and looked into her eyes. After each line I sang the sax player responded with a sultry melody.

As I sang to her I noticed she looked scared, then her eyes became wet, then tears began to stream down her face. Then suddenly she stood up boldly and began to dance in a sexy manner. I leaned to her ear and whispered, “You’re beautiful”

It was an amazing sight to see. It was like watching a butterfly emerge from a cocoon.

Having won the audience over with some funky grooves I felt safe to take them into more subversive territory. The band began playing ambient swells and I read out of a black notebook.

In the big picture
Behind the scenes
America is changing

But slow changes are hard to see
Our feeble memories blind us to the difference between then and now
The regiment of day-to-day life lulls us into numbness
And a million mindless diversions steal our attention

They give us video games, prime-time-softore-porn, and homeland security fears in exchange for our very souls

Like a magician’s slight-of-hand they feed us slogans to chant
while they take away our freedom

Behind me Erica sat on a stool and Erin wrapped her in an American flag as if it was a shawl that covered her head and shoulders. Then she placed a large bomb in her arms. Erica cradled and rocked the bomb as if it were a baby and she was the Madonna comforting the Christ child.

We march into 1984 with a smile on our faces.

The factory workers and fast food servers
are told to cheer or be accused of moral treason.

The American dream’s been sold for media dollars
paid for by CEO’s who keep politicians on short-leash-dog-collars.

You might say it’s not true that you’re free as can be!
But Madison Avenue ad executives make no secret of the way they wash our brains.
Our values are created by media-giants who keep entertainment safe.
Clear Channel controls what you hear and Disney and Viacom tell us not what, but how to think.

Between lines I would make wild hand gestures that the musicians would respond to with blasts of chaotic noise that imitated my gestures.

Those in power speak openly of their deceit because they are confident we are so completely controlled that we won’t pay attention while we’re bought and sold.

And every day we prove them right.
We proclaim our freedom while we embrace conformity
And enforce obedience

But put your ear to the wind, read their books, listen to their speeches.
And suddenly they presidents promises have a more ominous meaning

“Greed is good” they say
Democracy should go to the highest bidder.
Every-man-for-himself.
Let power rule the day.

In the big picture
Behind the scenes
America is changing

As the song came to an end I introduced Erin. She took the center stage as the lights dimmed to a single white spot. With just a quiet jazz guitar behind her she sang the potent lyrics to Strange Fruit, a haunting ballad about lynching made famous by Billie Holiday. It truly sent chills down my spine listening to her passionate singing and the brutal lyrics.

While she sang I put on a ski mask and thick jacket. With my appearance looking pretty creepy with the ski mask over my head, as I sang Dancing Now I looked deep into the eyes of both men and women in the audience. In past experience this has caused fists to be thrown so I am always a little leery of it, but I also know that it has a powerful effect on people.

During the end of the song I crawled on the stage with a toy machine gun. The female singers put on businessmen jackets and hats and pulled string from the shoulders of my jacket so they could control me like a puppet. They would point at people in the audience and I would pretend to shoot the machine gun at them. When I would make shooting motions with the gun the keyboard player would trigger a loud sample of a machine gun that would echo through the room.

As I made my way back to the dressing room during the break a college girl yelled at me, “You guys really suck!”

During the 2nd set we blasted the crowd with funk. For some reason the show was endorsed by the campus bi/lesbian organization and the place was filled with them. And these girls know how to cut loose and party. They really made the night a lot of fun.

The second song was Good Girl, a big P-funk type jam with innovative musical ideas that included an electronic theremin solo over tribal drums, a jazzy New Orleans-march horn section, and at the end the entire band formed a drum line. I played timbales and did a call and response with the band members who had drums slung over their shoulders.

By halfway through the set the audience was in a frenzy. For Yeah Yeah Yeah we all wore signs over our chests that had racial or other epitaphs on them. Erica wore “Cunt,” Frank was “Wop” Eric was “Kike” Tony was “Honkey,” Erin was “The N Word” and mine had three unfolding flaps that said “White beugouise(?) male with oedipal complex, oppressor of the patriarch.”

During the last verse I handed out signs to the audience members to wear. Among them were “Hick, slut, pothead, spic, chink, etc.”

It was a great moment that seemed to fill the audience with a sense of community. For the last song “Sex Salvation” I went out into the audience and women were eagerly biting from the apple that I held in my hand. During the guitar solo Erica and I pushed Tony to the floor and rolled atop him. Then I grabbed his leg and pulled him across the floor.

During a quiet breakdown I pulled my old friend Marnie Bailey into the center stage. Marnie was a beautiful girl who was the dream-girl of my youth, although in all the years I knew her I never laid a finger on her, or told her how I felt.

After years of not seeing her we reconnected a few months before and immediately those old feeling re-emerged. As she stood before me I looked into her eyes and added some new lyrics to the song,

“Your eyes tell a story of a woman waiting to begin
No one appreciates how much you've got to give
When you close your eyes you dream of a life you've never known
Where soft touch gives way to passion waiting to explode

I see what you really are

With my kiss upon your neck
My touch upon your skin
I'll lick your lips before I taste you
Slowly...I want to savor this”

During the bridge the song built to a full funk/gospel climax. I began pulling people onto the stage so they could dance with the musicians. The room was filled with excitement. We had half the women in the audience onstage with us and the groove had the whole room dancing. I pulled Marnie onto the stage, but in her half drunken state and high shoes, she fell on the edge of the stage. In response she began to run away and fell again. When I tried to help her she yelled in a teary voice. “Fuck you, fuck you, you did this to me,” then ran back to her seat. I tried to go to her and apologize but she yelled, “Just leave me alone.”

I was taken aback by the drama and had never seen her behave in this way, but I felt terrible about making her fall.

When the song came to and end I yelled “I wanna be your dog,” and the band broke into a grinding version of the Iggy Pop underground classic. By this time the room was swollen with sexual tension. During the third verse I crawled through the audience on my hands and knees before falling onto my back. As I sang “So messed up and I need you here. In my room I need you here,” two women lay atop me and begin to rub them bodies against me. A third woman in a skirt stood with her legs on each side of my face doing a lascivious dance above me.

As the song came to an end I made the band play faster and faster until it transformed into frenetic hardcore punk and then dissolved into total chaos. As the cacophony ground to a halt the guitar player and bass player lay on the floor on a pile and I rested atop them.

After the show the band went into dirty basement to change out of our costumes. They were full of excitement.

“That wasn’t a gig, that was a rock show!” Frank enthused.

When we went back upstairs a crowd had gathered to ask me to sign T-shirts. One woman said, “Write something dirty,” but for the life of me a couldn’t come up with anything on the spot so I wrote, “Thanks for joining the Orgy.” She looked very disappointed when she read it.

On her way out the door Marnie gave me a painfully tight embrace and said, “I’m sorry about how I acted. Seeing you with those other girls rubbed me the wrong way.”

It’s funny, after a night like that you can feel like a rock star, but when it’s all over and your lugging out equipment, it knocks such arrogances right out of you.

We were followed back to my hotel suite by four of the bi/lesbian girls. One of them I had met on Myspace and I was quite attracted to. Another had long red curls that streamed over her face and shoulders. I think three of the four were ready for sexual adventures, but before anything could get started the rest of the band came in and partied till 4:30 AM. By that time everyone was too tired for any debauchery.

The next morning at about 10AM the musicians began to wander into the hotel lounge for the free continental breakfast. The guys all looked like they’d been through the wringer. But the last to arrive were the girls who looked as fresh as spring daisies and walked in like goddesses among geeks.

I didn’t really know the horn players that well. Adrian is from Switzerland and Stephan from Sweden. We sat around and talked about Europe and the previous night’s events.

As Heather and I headed for NYC the Monday morning 9-5 reality loomed before me like an albatross. It was such a weekend of excitement and fun that it made day-to-day life seem dreadfully boring.

The Imperial Orgy had come a long way since it’s inception ten-plus years ago. We finally seemed able to actually create the original vision I had in my head. Saturday night’s show felt musically and artistically right. We were expressing a message I believed in and people were hearing it and finding meaning and a sense of community within it. What more can an artist ask for?

I no longer expect to make money from artistic endeavors, I only search fro ways to find money to fund those endeavors.

Band challenges norms, audience

2006-01-25T17:30:00.000-08:00

By Paul Thompson
Collegian Staff Writer

As their drummer Frank Picarazzi tells it, State College hasn't always been hospitable to the radical sexual politics that are part of Caeser Plnk and the Imperial Orgy's music.

"Last time we played in State College, there was some big muscular guy who must've taken some umbrage with what Caeser was singing about and came up and started yelling at us pretty viciously," Picarazzi said. "But, you know, it happens. We like to be lightning rods."

There will indeed be something stirring up Saturday night, as Penn State alum Caeser Pink and his band, The Imperial Orgy, will take the stage at Café 210 West, 210 W. College.

The envelope-pushing band explores sexual norms and rocks hard while doing it. As Pink said, the Imperial Orgy's music and his message go hand in hand.

"It's very hard for me to separate the two," Pink said. "Music is what I use to express what I need to say, but in music, there's both the literal meaning of the lyrics and the message I try to convey, and then there's the instrumental aspect of it."

The band is familiar with the local downtown scene and Pink said he's not convinced State College is ready for the controversial content of some of the Imperial Orgy's music, but he's glad to offer anyone the chance to find out for themselves.

"The political environment on the national map has certainly grown more conservative," Pink said. "And in State College in particular, you have a bulk of the people who are mainstream conservative. But then, with the college, you have all these groups, the gay group and other sorts of groups. Most of the entertainment in town is geared toward that mainstream audience, but we try to offer something for those who might feel disenfranchised from that mainstream group."

Besides, as Pink said, he's not just trying to shock, he's trying to educate and entertain, too.

"The thing is, when a lot of people hear the name Imperial Orgy, they're outraged," Pink said. "But we're very serious about what we do, and if you take the time to look past the superficial things, you see that there's a really positive message at the core of the music."

As guitarist Tony Coque said, Pink's music doesn't offer a particularly partisan message so much as it challenges its audience to think for themselves.

"I just think it's basically social commentary," Coque said. "It questions the current administration and the things they're doing, sure, but it's not a liberal message or a conservative message. It's really just trying to encourage people to think about their liberties."

The Imperial Orgy, with group members numbering in the double digits, might seem a bit hefty for the tiny stage at Café 210.

So does the rock 'n' roll explosion the Orgy offers work within the constraints of the space at the Café?

"From a technical point of view, not at all," Pink said. "This is music that ideally needs to be performed in some sort of theater setting, instead of cramming 10 people onto a little stage. But as far as what happens between the band and the audience, it's pretty amazing. People come in and see something going on that's very different than what they're used to. But we draw them in, seduce them as the night goes on."

Drummer Piccarazzi seems to think Pink's got another reason for choosing the band's regular homecoming spot for their upcoming concert.

"One thing that strikes me as odd is that it's sort of a sports bar," Picarazzi said of Café 210 West. "But I think there's some method behind that madness. I mean, the demographic there isn't exactly the kind to buy a Caeser Pink CD. But I think that charges Caeser up and gives him a chance to either convert them or piss them off."

Whatever the crowd's reaction, Picarazzi feels Imperial Orgy's show is a memorable experience.

"Even now, when we go back, people from State College, Lewistown and the surrounding areas, they all remember the band," Picarazzi said. "It makes it more special to play here than, you know, just some place in Jersey."

Centre Daily Times Article

2006-01-24T18:38:00.000-08:00

An orgy of trouble: Caesar Pink and band to hold CD release party

By Dennis Fallon

For the CDT

With the mind of a psychopath, the soul of a poet and the bad attitude of a punk rocker, performance artist Caesar Pink returns to State College this weekend with his band, the Imperial Orgy, to release the band's first-ever CD and book of poetry. As always, Pink brings with him an earful of sex, rock 'n' roll and controversy.

"Gospel Hymns for Agnostics and Atheists" is the first CD from a band that has been around since the early 1990s. How do you have a band that stays popular without ever releasing a CD? Controversy and lots of it.

"I just look at the world and feel really bored. I just want to stir things up," Pink said, speaking from his home in New York. "I think as an artist, it is part of the game in a way. You know, you express something and you want to get a reaction."

Surrounding himself with a multicultural cast, Pink's shows are awash in sexual imagery, religious icons and political satire. Since its formation at Penn State in 1993, the band has been surrounded by not only controversy but a fringe community of artists, activists and outcasts.

Their posters were banned by the university. Gigs were cancelled due to threats of violence from Christian organizations. Women's-studies classes debated and protested the meaning of Pink's lyrics. Even the band's Web sites have been taken down because their servers found their messages insulting and blasphemous.

"When we came out, it was crazy. It was like an explosion. People were protesting. It was a big mess, with lawyers and everything," Pink said. "The band's early days in State College were a crazy time. What's interesting is that in the early days, two of our biggest fan bases were Indian women and Catholic girls. Both groups were going through a phase in their lives when they were exploring lesbianism. You've got to love that."

Despite his band's wild sound and the mysterious and controversial aura surrounding him, Pink is soft spoken, mild mannered and friendly, still carrying a hint of his Lewistown accent with him all the way to New York.

Every year the Imperial Orgy returns to State College, and Pink is happy to get back to his roots.

"It's just a personal thing. I grew up in Lewistown and went to school at Penn State. Performing in State College is certainly not for career reasons, that's for sure. But, it's almost always fantastic. We get a very enthusiastic response. Occasionally, you will have the odd person who didn't know what they were in for and gets freaked out about our show."

With lyrics rich in sexual liberation, rife with left-wing politics, and laden with religious references, Pink has made no bones about how he feels, and his performances reflect that.

There is a dichotomy in everything about Pink: He offends and entices, disgusts and attracts. His preaching of social responsibility is buffeted by a hedonistic and rock 'n' roll mentality, his words straddle the fence between poetry and the profane, and he's mild-mannered in person but a raving lunatic while performing.

"We do a multimedia show with video and performance art, theater, music and spoken word. It has everything. It definitely hits the audience," he said. "There's a lot of audience interaction. In central Pennsylvania, most entertainment is aimed at a pretty mainstream audience. This is something different, and everybody is invited."

Journal Entry 1/11/06

2006-01-11T00:59:00.001-08:00

I am wide awake at 3:30 in the morning. It�s been a hectic couple of weeks preparing for our show in State College. I think I might have bit off more than I can chew trying to take 11 people out for a road trip. It�s been a mess trying to nail down a horn section and getting the female vocals together. Scheduling that many people is a nightmare and the cost of this is bankrupting me.

Last night though we had a really hot rehearsal. It started with some crossed wires as I was trying to pick up the singers at the subway and Erica ended up at the wrong place at the wrong time. Erin was very sick with the flu. But everything sounded amazing. It�s so great to work with talented people. Sometimes I think I am the weakest link in the whole mess.

If we can pull it all together, the music we�re going to present will blow people�s minds. Between the complex vocal harmonies, and the horn arrangements, and some of the adventurous musical ideas, it�s really something above what you hear from a club band. We practiced a bit last night where we go into a Latin groove and all the musicians plays drums in a drum line. I play timbales and we do a call and response. It sounds really great. It makes you feel happy.

On top of all this I�ve been trying to pull together staging, costumes, and video projection. Last weekend I went to Coney Island to film some video. It was freezing cold and I went down to the beach and put a cylinder of black cardboard over my head with some eyes and lips cut out of a magazine pasted on the front and then ran around the beach. The video came out really funny. It is for the song In Praise Of Shadows.

I�ve been trying to get some press coverage to promote the show, but it hasn�t went to well. It�s funny, I spend all this effort and money to bring something special back to my hometown, and all the press can think about is that the word �orgy� is in the name. Too controversial to touch. It�s crazy.

America Essaus Pt XI - Love After The Fall

2005-11-23T06:59:00.000-08:00

The next morning I awoke and got back on the road. The desert finally began to give way to green. After about an hour I pulled over by a riverbank and stripped down naked.

One pleasant surprise I have found on my trip is that there are clean, cheap showers available at truck stops all across the country. Usually for five or six bucks you can get a hot shower and most are surprisingly clean.

During the desert drive there were no truck stops, no travel centers. My body felt grimy with highway dust and with the sweat of my troubled thoughts. I used a paper cup from McDonalds and dipped it into the stream and poured the cold fresh water over my head and back. The cold water was a revitalizing shock to my body that was warm in the hot sun.

By the end of the day I would be in San Francisco, the city I marked as the goal point of the journey. It was a long journey, the joy of it undercut by the shock of 9/11, but I didn’t feel road-weary. I felt strong. I could have kept on going for months to come if the world would have allowed it.

As I stood naked on the riverbank washing my body with a bar of Dove soap and a blue washcloth, the highway was just behind me. A little too close for comfort really, but beggars can’t be choosers. A few yards away a yellow steamroller sat nestled among the trees. The little sanctuary was already threatened by the proximity of concrete and combustions engines, perhaps soon they would be plowing the whole place under.

It’s funny how boys are attracted to construction equipment. I never quite got it, although I suppose it might be cool to drive that big thing and maybe run over a few things for fun. Maybe flatten over America and make a fresh start? When David Letterman’s show was young and irreverent he used to run over stuff with a steamroller; six packs of beer, TVs, packs of hot dogs… It seemed hilarious at the time, but perhaps it is the time of humor that only guys find funny. Like the Three Stooges poking each other in the eye.

Despite my tales of struggle and woe, humor has always been a big part of my life. I suppose it comes from my father who had an abstract and surreal sense of humor. He was like an Andy Kauffman-type of performance artists. Usually his own goofiness was the butt of his jokes. Although at times there was an edge to it that kept you guessing.

When I was a little kid I used to ride with him in his tractor-trailer truck. The cabs of the trucks are high in the air. When I would go to jump out he would tell me, “Now remember Caeser never trust anyone, not even your father. Now go ahead and jump I’ll catch you.”

Everything he said, you had to think twice about it. You always had to stay sharp or he’d suck you into one of his farces.

At a later age I used to travel with him as he shuttled overweight loads of steel between Pittsburgh and Philly. Hanging out with the truckers was a trip like no other. Once I went bowling with a bunch of them just outside Philly. These guys were a hurricane of beer-swilling bad behavior. First they got the lightest bowling balls they could find, then they hurled them through the air like baseballs, usually landing on top of the pins from above instead of rolling down the lane. Often the pins would explode with such force that they would land four lanes over and the attendant would have to come and clear the lanes by hand.

Their loud mouths and foul language must have terrorized the other patrons. The truckers seemed completely oblivious to their own behavior. They were like a bunch of schoolboys run-amuck.

Their practical jokes were over-the-top and borderline dangerous. When they left the bowling alley they quickly began dismantling each other’s trucks. Pulling the pins so that when they pulled out the trailers would be left behind, or taking off the tall silver smokestacks and hiding them in a nearby dumpster. It was total bedlam.

That night I sat in the cab as my father slept. The trucks were lined up in a row by a dirty truck terminal. All night long white prostitutes with puffy blonde afros, blue foil hot pants, silver halter tops, and high platform shoes prowled among the trucks. As a twelve year old virgin the sight of them about made me cum on my pants they looked so lecherously enticing.

The next morning a small explosive device was thrown in the passenger window and greeted us with a deafening bank. It seemed the truckers also liked to play with fireworks. But no Chinese firecrackers for these boys, they hurled quarter sticks of dynamite at each other.

The fireworks were illegal in Pennsylvania, but the truckers would buy them on trips down south where anything that goes bang is protected by the law. I took this opportunity to start a side business selling the smaller firecrackers to my school chums. The demand was amazing. I had an eighty per cent profit margin and couldn’t stay stocked with product to meet the customer demand.

At one point nine of my classmates got suspended for the things in one day. Although they ratted me out like a flock of canaries, because my little business transactions commenced outside of school property they couldn’t suspend me.

The school principle called my father in hopes of discussing the matter with a concerned parent. When the phone rang, as a joke my father picked it up and answered, “Maggie’s Whore House.”

When he heard the principle on the phone he hemmed and hawed and explained that he was expecting a call from a friend. He assured he principle that he would curtail my business practices and hung up the phone. My mother laughed and said, “Well, maybe ya learned a lesson, didn’t ya?”

“Yes Dad, what if it would have been one of my friend’s calling?” my sister reprimanded.

I think my father was secretly proud of my go-getter entrepreneurial spirit, but at my mother’s insistence my fireworks supply soon began to dry up.

I think my childhood was a golden era for comedy. Richard Pryor could make you angry, laugh and cry, and in the end leave you enlightened and hopeful. He spoke of racism and poverty, yet brought people together in the process. George Carlin was brilliant in his prime. The comedians seemed to be reaching for something more than just delivering one-liners. They were philosophers and social commentators who helped bring self-awareness to a society struggling with social change.

In its early days Saturday Night Live seemed revolutionary. It was a national catharsis that spoke the unspeakable. They were really letting the cat out of the bag. Every one of them seemed to have a major chip on their shoulders. The truth they expressed with their humor, as often as not, made you want to holler out “Amen” and “Halleluiah.” They wielded comedy like an axe, cutting away at hypocrisy, commercialism, and rampant materialism. On that show the drug culture walked right out of the closet and the moral majority just about had a hemorrhage.

When I finally reached California I crossed the border on a highway that seemed to be suspended in the air. To my right was a tall cliff from which very tall pine trees shot into the air. The highway seemed to float among the tops of the trees. The scenery was majestic. Deep green covered the landscape and the sun was warm and bright.

Ten or twenty miles into the state I got off the highway to have lunch in a little college town whose name I have forgotten. It was very clean and immaculately groomed as college campuses are apt to be. Lots of walkways lined with green. I walked around looking for a friendly place to eat. The houses had an old fashioned quality about them. Potted plants hung from wooden porch trellises.

I settled on a boheme-café with outdoor tables. It had been quite awhile since I had any human contact and was feeling rather lonely, hungry for some stimulating conversation. The students came and went enveloped in their own worlds. This clearly wasn’t a place for a stranger to make new friends. After forcing down half of a bland sandwich I got back on the highway.

Driving with one hand I scrolled through the phone book in my cell phone, searching for someone to call. During the trip I found myself reconnecting with friends I hadn’t spoke to years, thanks to long lonely highways and the magic of cell phones. This time I chose Dan Spigelmeyer.

“Hallow?” he answered the phone as if asking a question.

“Dan, what’s happening?” I asked.

“Caeser? Aaahhhll, not too much. Are you in Town?”

Dan spoke with a bemused drawl. Most people took it for the sound of a depressed man, but I recognized it as carrying a tinge of sarcastic humor. He way a guy who always perceived life’s absurdities even as he labored under them. He was a broken clock that continued to tell time for the sake of others, even though he was secretly an initiate into the cult of those who know the futility of such delineations.

“Oh, I’ve been getting’ some overtime in. One day they say they might be closin’ down, the next we have to work weekends to catch up,” he explained when asked about his days.

Dan worked at the old steel mill that Lewistown was founded upon. The town grew from a bunch of row houses the factory built in order to entice workers to the area. Dan had a wife and a couple of kids, and built a house in a lot beside his parent’s home.

“What do you do fun these days?” I inquire.

“I really don’t get out too much,” he explains a bit woefully, “ahh, Y’know with the babysitters and all. I go fishin’ every now and then, and went huntin’ a few times.”

I was searching for away to pierce he façade of his humdrum existence and tap into the more rebellious spirit that I knew was hidden there, but all my jousts failed to connect.

“When I came through town I noticed that they are trying to reopen the old Embassy Theater,” I put forth, “Remember that time we snuck all those Malt Duck into that horror movie and caused a ruckus?”

“Oh yeah, I remember that,” he repeated with a little more energy. “You stood up and yelled ‘what the fuck is wrong with you people watchin’ this shit. You disgust me,’ then we ran out the fire exit,” he laughs.

“I won’t admit to anything,” I counter with a giggle.

His tone again sinking, he asked with a sigh, “What was wrong with us, doing that shit? Do you know?”

“I think we were just alive,” I offer.

This seems to hit a little too close to the bone. “Oh yeaaaah,” he responds with a long drawn out sigh.

Dan and I became friends in high school when we sat near each other in a history class. Just before I met him he got suspended for making a bomb threat to the school Soon afterwards he had a nervous breakdown and refused to come to school for many months. He later told me he was walking down the hall in school and began to hallucinate. He said felt like he was walking on the moon, and each step was a giant bounce. After that he was stricken with debilitating anxiety attacks.

We became friends as cohorts in bad classroom behavior. I don’t think anyone was doing much learning in that place anyway, but we sure didn’t make it nay easier. And if you’re going to be a class clown it’s always good to have someone to play off of.

After high school we became drinking buddies. We would hang out in front of a beer joint and wait for someone over 21 who would buy us a few six packs of Genesee beer. Then we would spend the evening driving around getting drunk and listening to the tape deck. We would cruise the dark streets of our nowhere town looking for excitement, wishing we knew how to meet girls.

Dan had a penchant for getting his hands slapped by the authorities. Once while we were driving drunk a cop pulled us over on a dark country road. Dan threw a can of beer out the passenger window in hopes of avoiding an underage drinking charge. When the cop came to my window, even though I was driving and obviously wasted, Dan got a $300 fine for littering and I got off scott-free.

On another occasion we were drunk and walking down the street when we passed a ‘no parking’ sign that some other vandal had bent into a U shape. For no apparent reason Dan decided to straighten the sign. It was a rare good deed on his part. As soon as he put his hands on the sign we heard sirens.

“Mr. Spigelmeyer, why do you feel the need to destroy public property?” the officer asked.

Dan protested that he was fixing the sign, not destroying it, but they weren’t buying his story. The more he talked the deeper he got into it with them. I couldn’t stop laughing the whole thing was so ironic.

When Friction formed Dan became our first court jester. Dan would follow the group and entertain us with his antics. These were the days when Quaaludes were the drug of choice and
Dan would eat a couple of them and then invent crazy new dances while the band played with a blitzed look in his eyes.

During those days Dan and I worked at a government run tree nursery hidden high in the mountains up in Amish country. On any given morning we would start the day by grinding a couple horse-pill sized Quaaludes into a chunky powers and then shooting it up our noses with a cocaine bullet. (A pocket-sized contraption that blasts powder into your nose.)

The shit made you an instant moron. If you could stay on your feet it was a minor miracle. In fact I hear that one of the miracles under consideration in John Paul II’s bid for sainthood includes walking a straight line after eating a Quaalude.

Of course, the brain trusts that we were, in this state we would arrive at work and climb tall rickety old ladder to paint the government buildings and garages. That we survived is a mystery that defies logic.

Except for one gay party-boy named Joe Slemons, and a violent drug addict named Randy Himes, our co-workers at the nursery were mountain Mennonites and hillbilly rednecks. Dan and I had a habit of saying surreal things to freak out the crew. The first day that we worked with Randy Himes I casually remarked, “Man, I shouldn’t have eaten those last three hits of acid. I’m getting’ the heeby-jeebies.”

It was total nonsense, I hadn’t eaten any acid, and the implied four hits seemed like suicide to me. To my surprise Himes replied “Do you have some? I ate three hits, but could do another!”

It’s hard to imagine that a guy would do acid on his first day on the job, but three hits really was crazy. But Himes was a crazy guy all around. He was way-too into violent action films and often came to work with a tall tale of the previous night’s adventures.

“Ooh man, last night I was walking along route 522 and these four big guys pulled over and came after me. I pulled a reflector post out of the ground and took them all on fuckin’ ninja style. I split this one guys head wide open.”

Himes was always good-natured with us, but on one occasion he took off his shirt to impress us with his manly physique. Dan responded by plucking one his chest hairs. Suddenly Himes got a look in his eyes that spoke or murder. He made it clear the affront was no laughing matter. It was a Jekyll and Hyde switch that left me warning friends that one day he would kill someone.

One morning he told us that the night before he had went to a gas station with a ski mask and a hunting knife. His story was hilariously absurd and I assumed it was just one of his tall-tales. It sounds like something from “The World’s Stupidest Criminals.”

“I took the gas-station guy into the office,” he said, “then I showed him the knife and told him to open the safe. He was dickin’ around with the safe and a fuckin’ car pulls up at the pump. I told him to go pump the gas and not say a word or I would kill him. So he pumps the gas and comes back and starts fuckin’ around with the safe again and another fuckin’ car pulls up! I tell him again, ‘go pump the gas but don’t say a word or I’ll stab ya.’ So he pumps the gas and come back and starts messin’ with the safe and another car pulls up. I finally just left without the money, what a bunch of fuckin’ shit,’ his voice trailed off with disgust.

It was such a nutty story that I didn’t think anything more about it, but about a week later the cops came and took him away. They should have locked him up for good because a few years later my murder prophecy came true. First he threatened his parents with an axe, then set the garage on fire. When the firemen came he shot and killed one of the firemen and wounded another. When the police came he shot and wounded one of them. The last time I saw him he was in shackles being led from the courthouse to the county lock-up. He now resides in the state pen and should be there for a long time to come.

The boss of the tree nursery was a crusty old marine that carried himself like a peg-legged pirate. One day he came into the room, stopped in his tracks, and took a long look at Joe Slemons the gay Party-boy. Spying his earring he came up to him and yelled, “You fuckin’ faggot! You see that? You fuckin’ queer. I used to have one of those and it got torn out of my ear by some motherfucker, look at this.”

He pointed to a shredded ear that looked like a piece of chewed-up beef jerky. Turning away he said with a cold laugh, “I’ve got you pegged you fuckin’ queer.”

The workers were a ratty collection of hicks if ever I saw one, and I’ve seen way too many. There was a big bloated Mennonite kid who used to brag about harassing his Amish kin. His favorite hobby was to drive up behind their buggies and push his car bumper against the buggy wheel. It must have been a frightening form of harassment for the Amish. At least once a year some hot rod white-boy ploughs down one of the buggies on a dark country road.

Dan and I used to egg the bastards on just to see what kind of racist rednecks they really were. We’d usually start by making a racist statement then waiting until they felt comfortable enough that they were among likeminded-company to show their true colors. Then once we got them riled up and revealing what a band of bigots they really were, we would take it further and further until our statements were so mind bogglingly idiotic that it began to dawn on the dimwits that either we were completely out of our minds, or were playing them for fools the whole time. Needless to say we weren’t making a lot of friends among our country cousins.

Among our co-workers was a crippled Mennonite named Rob. I’m not sure what happened to him, but his spine was bent up and his feet pointed in such cockeyed directions it was a wonder that he could walk as well as he did. When he spoke, his speech was a little slurred, kind of like a deaf person’s tends to be.

He didn’t say much anyways, but he worked harder than anyone. No laughing or joking around, down to business all the way. I think he was the only honest one of out of the entire bunch, bosses or workers alike, present company included. I always respected the guy because no matter how absurd the situation became he tried to keep his faith in an honest day’s work. And I’m sure that wasn’t easy given that the entire job was a bit of a farce.

The state gave us the jobs to ‘provide a positive work experience.’ The problem with the thing was that the nursery no longer planted trees, and therefore there was no real work to be done. Our bosses would scrounge up any menial tasks they could find, then think of the most ass-backwards way to do it, so that it took as long as possible. Because of this, no one took the job seriously. Except Rob, who refused to admit that the whole thing was a farce and no one really cared about a job well done.

Finally near the end of it all, after a weekend of rain a large mud puddle formed in the lower side of one of the fields. Our task was to remove the water from the field. To achieve this goal they gave us a couple of shallow shovels and a handful of garden rakes. Now in the unlikely event you’ve ever tried to move water with a garden rake, you would quickly learn that it just ain’t gonna happen.

The group spent the day in the hot sun half-heartedly shoveling and raking the water. Through it all we bitched and moaned while Rob went about his work as earnestly as ever. Then about two in the afternoon something seemed to snap. Rob threw down his rake and ran into the middle of the mud puddle and began to jump and down, splashing in the muddy water while flapping his arms like a trained seal and braying “Fuaaackkkk, fuuuaaackkk!”

At first the rest of us stood shocked and a bit stupefied, but soon we broke into applause and cheers. After a few moments he picked up his rake and quietly returned to his Sisyphean task as if nothing had happened.

It was funny as hell to see him finally admit that he saw the absurdity of it all, even if it was just for a few sweet moments. Afterwards he warmed up to us just a little bit. I think he knew that although Dan and I were a different breed, even while we harassed the others, we accorded him a little bit of unspoken respect.

The tree nursery job was seasonal and not long after we left, Dan married a local girl who had pretensions of becoming a rich sophisticate, and Dan and I soon began to drift apart. Quite a few years later he went home one day to find that his wife had unexpectedly left and took the furniture with her. It appears she felt that even though Dan always held down a steady job, that he wasn’t motivated to strive for great wealth.

By chance, at the same time I was ending my relationship with Leilani, and for a few short weeks Dan and I spent our weekend nights as bachelors prowling the local dives, looking for girls and having bizarre adventures with the oddball yokels we would meet.

I thought it was great fun but it seemed Dan couldn’t wait to return to the security of domestic life. The first girl he managed to hook up with, he quickly married, and soon had a couple kids.

I’m not sure why after a certain age people seem to panic if they are not married. With each year more and more friends join the breeder ranks. Men who were once full of fire quickly dissolve into contented homebodies, working their days to support their broods then collapsing each evening in front of the idiot box. The qualities that made them unique characters seem to evaporate in conjugal bliss.

For some even mentioning their bachelor days is taboo, like alcoholics who fear that a nip of the sauce will knock them off the wagon. One of my friends refuses to come see The Imperial Orgy perform because he fears that if he steps inside a barroom he will revert to his bad boy ways.

People seem to think that to be a single adult is a disaster. Once I ran into a female friend in line to buy popcorn at a movie theater.

“Are you married,” she asked.

“No, not yet,” I smiled back.

“Ooh, you couldn’t find anyone,” she intoned with a sympathetic frown.

I nodded my head and smiled, but was secretly thinking, “couldn’t find anyone?” Christ, I think it’s great to be single. The freedom and independence, the pleasure of discovery and adventure, and it keeps one hungry and vital. Contentment is a dangerous thing in life. While it may feel nice, it is also a form of surrender. Happily ever after means the battle is won, one can rest on their laurels, grow fat and prosper.

For me, even being in a long-term relationship seems to steal away my very will to live. I grow numb way too quickly. I once heard someone say that for a man, being in love is to always be saying, “I’m sorry.”

For me there is nothing like a lonely night to fill me with the urge to fight, to take on the world, to work harder, reach further, strive for loftier heights.

It was once believed that male animals fought each other for the best females. After some study it was learned that most animals fight over real estate or dominance in the social hierarchy. Then the guy with the best piece of land, or who is the top dog in the pack, gets the bests females based on his achievements.

The world of human interactions is far more complex, but essentially the same. I must admit that when I find myself as a single male in a public gathering with a beautiful woman in the room that I can’t have, a subtle taste of rage seeps unto my tongue. A primitive instinct beckons from within. This little fire makes my spine grown stiff and my eyes acquire a steely gaze. There’s no time for merriment. I would rather work, struggle, fight, be smarter, more creative, more aggressive, more wiley, more cunning, more vicious.

This feeling in public has often led to no good. I can often become a trouble starter at a party. Pushing people to misbehave, seducing and antagonizing them into losing their cool composures and behaving with uncouth manners. Every now and then it’s good to have something to regret in the morning.

Anthropologist Margaret Mead expressed a theory that it took eons of social conditioning to make men devote themselves to a family unit and help care for offspring. It is a modification that benefits the species, but goes against a male’s more primordial instinct to spread his DNA far and wide.

In the waning days of the year 2005, as I write these words, I testify that this tug-of-war between the two instincts still goes on within me. There are times when I see cute little black, Asian, and Indian children I feel the pangs of desire for fatherhood.

There is also a constant social pressure, a herd instinct to conform, to settle down and breed. It’s funny that often when people tell a man to grow up, what they really mean is to settle down with a family. It seems that people think you can’t be a mature adult unless you are married with children.

It seems a single adult male makes married people a little uneasy. To them it is a dangerous social aberration. The universe will always be off-balance until he finds a nice girl and moves into a house with a white picket fence.

Meanwhile each year I see my friends fade into the woodwork. Once they marry they cease to exist. They permanently retire from the roaming pack of wild dogs that once inhabited.

I am left feeling like the last man standing, making this strange left hand path I have chosen a little more lonely. My married male friends can quite decide whether I am a tragic figure or their secret hero.

A couple of years after I got to New York I picked up a book my roommate Samantha was reading. It was a pop psychology book that made the claim that personal happiness can be hampered by a person’s inability to make a psychological break from the mother and become a whole independent individual.

The author told a story of how little children often run from their mothers as a way of testing their independence, but they always look back, confident that their mothers will run and catch them. In fact, will save them from going too far.

When I read this it brought to mind a re-occurring dream I often have of being chased, but never being able to get away. I have heard it is a dream that many people have.

That night I had another re-occurring dream. In this dream the motif is always that either people mistakenly think that I have killed someone, or sometime in the past I have accidentally killed someone and now it has been discovered. It is usually a strange situation where it is a long buried memory that I now recall with a sense of dread. I was never been able to figure out this dream, but I always awoke filled with anxiety.

On this night the person I killed in the dream was John Lennon. I awoke with my heart racing.
As I tried to calm down I pondered the strange dream. Then it occurred to me that John Lennon is someone I identify with. Therefore, perhaps the person I am killing is a symbol of my self.

This idea seemed to give way to a rapid succession of thoughts that burst forth out of my head in a torrent. As troubled as my childhood was, I always felt like I came out of it without any unresolved issues with my parents. Especially with my mother, who gave me a lot of independence from a very young age. She was a woman who gave a lot and asked very little in return.

But with this eruption of thoughts there came some long buried feelings, I can’t even call them memories, from a very young age. As a child of two or three I must have sensed a need in my mother, a need that made me feel very guilty about asserting my independence. I think at that young age I must have felt a bit smothered, but soon after that I became very independent and she accorded me an inordinate amount of freedom.

I also realized that this dynamic has carried through and colored my feelings towards relationships with women. In relationships I have always felt a sense of being smothered and dreadful feelings of guilt for wanting my independence.

It was at this moment in life that I realized I really don’t like being in long-term relationships, and I must say, from that moment forward my relationships with women tilted in my favor.

Guilt has always been a factor in my relationships. I could never quite be what women wanted me to be, and they could never accept me for what I am. Usually my sense of failure was associated with money. I grew up in a traditional household and have always felt a failure because I couldn’t support a wife and children, although few men can these days.

But as an adult my financial troubles are all connected with being a musician and artist. I would likely be a millionaire if I wasn’t an artist. As an artist one has a separate goal that defies the demands of family. And again the pressure arises to get serious, grow up, and drop all this artist nonsense.

It’s funny how you can tell a woman exactly who and what you are, and they will nod their heads and say they can accept that, then soon after do everything they can to change you.

In my younger years I would try to explain right off the top that I was a musician and artist and wouldn’t be changing my ways. I guess they wouldn’t really think through what that meant because soon they would realize that they needed someone with a more stable lifestyle in order to have a happy domestic life.

I recent years I tell them up front that I don’t want to be married, that I don’t want to even be in a relationship, women will nod their heads in understanding then completely ignore everything I said. I can say it a hundred times, but they seem to be able to put that out of their minds. As one female friend warned me, ‘they always think they can change you.’ One of the things I appreciate about Jodi is that she accepts me as I am.

It’s odd how we grow up with these traditional ideas about life and love. People assume love automatically leads to a lifetime commitment. Possession is inherent in most people’s understanding of love.

I don’t believe that in-itself love has anything to do with possession, or marriage, or even sex. Love is something more pure and simple, something that is born and dies in each moment. All the baggage we hang on love limits our ability to love, and limits the amount of love in the world.

People tend to see a difference between the love one feels for family and friends, and the love one feels for a lover. I really don’t see that distinction. To me it all springs from the same source. The fact that you have a sexual relationship with someone, or make some kind of commitment to them, are separate practical issues. Love is not practical. It is inspired and purely spiritual.

I might see a withered old man from across the street as he is sitting on a stoop watching the traffic go by with a bored look in his eyes, and be filled with love.

As I write these words I sit at my usual table at the back of the Greenpoint Café. A young woman is at the counter. It is a gray, gloomy, wet November day. Everything feels like it is moving in slow motion.

Although it is fairly warm out the girl at the counter wears a long heavy winter coat. Her brown hair is tucked underneath a knit cap. From the tangled strands that fell out from under it, it appears the cap was meant to hide the fact that she didn’t bother to brush her hair before she ran out for the morning coffee. She looks tired, and her hands look so small as she reaches for her cup. Although I will likely never know her name, and might not even wish to make love to her if the opportunity were to arise, but in this moment I feel awash in love for her. I feel inspired by her ragged beauty, I feel a paternal sympathy for her weary expression on this dark day.

Tantrists believe that the material world is the body of God, and to love another is to Worship God. Our ability to love is boundless, but too much love threatens the social order, so love is bound and shackled by religious edicts, social taboos, and legal sanctions. Love, like truth, can destroy the old order and brings revolutions both in societies and in the hearts of men and women. Love is a dangerous thing, more threatening to the status quo than a terrorist’s bomb. If it isn’t carefully kept in check the walls might tumble down, and God only knows what might be left after the fall.