Leitzin-the final chapter

In the life of every blogger there comes a time of crisis, when she is running out of Leitzin and the depression comes creeping back in. When her friends are getting addicted to the same little natural happy pills and proposing that taking them with a glass of Cognac will give you a better buzz. I took a break from taking the h0meopathic accupuncturistic new age little effin healthy dust capsules (which taste like horse feed on an empty stomach) in the beginning of September. Around the time of my last blogpost, whenever that was.

I kept a good handful in case I'd have a really bad monkey on my back, and it was fun plowing back into them to get over a little relapse I had the other day when hanging out with some rockstars I don't want to mention by name. That incident had me purging, smelling like Keith Richards after shave and being uncontrollably blissed out yet sick for 2 days.

This is what I found out from not taking Leitzin for 2 months: I get depressed if I stop taking them, but it's ok to be depressed sometimes. Sometimes. A healthy depression is a sign that you are working your way thru some things that have to be worked through, better face it head on, get depressed for real. Or start taking Leitzin again.

When you are done being depressed, when you're done drinking, done doing cocaine,

takin it easy on the downers like weed and heroin, avoid hanging out with goal oriented people

who make you feel like a looser for just existing, then take some Leitzin. Get a lot of sleep read some good books, cook yourself some food, start running, buy a bike, start practicing the piano, learn the guitar and try to memorize some folk songs. take some Leitzin. You should be fine. I am not getting paid for this, I just want more Leitzin. Please. I need it to blog, I need it so I can shoot goals with my left foot against teams of brazilian percussionists, Ineed it so I can play Bach on the flute and Monk on the piano, I need it because I am an addict for fun and illicit drugs are to expensive. This is organic Prozac, or Ritalin , addictive as a day at the beach, buzz inducing like winning a string of pick up futsal games, focussing like the first hit of Leitzin. HHHmmmm. Leitzin. Buy some now. it will change your life. u dig?

What Zebra’s, Bonobo’s, Baboons and Professor Sapolsky have in common

What Zebra’s, Bonobo’s, Baboons and Professor Sapolsky have in common

Let’s start at the end and the beginning at the same time, Professor Robert Sapolsky
, author of “ Why Zebra’s don’t get Ulcers”, points out that even though Zebras are essentially mamals like humans, they do not tend to get diabetes, heart disease,
or ulcers for that matter and they and Professor Sapolski are pretty relaxed about it, so that's what they have in common. The difference between a less relaxed huma and and a Zebra might be that while a Zebra might shut down it’s immune system and digestive system and speed up it’s heart rate to run away from a lion once in a blue moon, humans tend to launch their stress responses on a permanent basis. It’s important to note that someone’s stressor might be somebody elses way of calming down. Not everybody likes to skydive, surf big waves or snowboard off of unchartered mountainpeaks in Alaska, but some people do so quiet joyfully. Nevertheless, industrial work stress is severe and if it is just trying to look likie you are doing something when u get paid to do nothing essentially. Enormous stress. Robbing banks kind of stress.
Bonobo’s don’t have that many choices for stressors or stress relief, but they tend to have a reputation to know how to let five hang.In the rare case that they do have a problem-they make out. Three ways, if necessary. A little penis fight or clit rubbing session and they are all set. They know they have enough resources to last thru the day and there’s really not much reason to fight over a Banana if there is hundrets more growing right over your head. But Bonobo’s get agressive in captivity. Who would have thought? While most animals just get lethargic and arrange themseves with their captor’s in a smart way that get’s them priviledges like extra fish, Bonobo’sget pissed off. They might think it’s not so cool to have to stop making out at the Zoo just cuz a bunch of children and old ladies are watching. They know their Ryder said nothing about a PG-13 audience.
Bonobo’s are smart. They know that those monkeys that get around the jungle the most have the best stories to tell and the most interesting foodstuffs to share.
Back to Robert Sapolski. he’s about as entertaining and funny as a biological neuroscientist could be, lectures at Stanford University and spends every summer for about 25 years with tribes of Baboons in the Savanah of Africa. He tells us that
it takes them only about 3 hours to forage for food, so they have another 9 daylight hours to drive each other absolutely mad and miserable. Prof. Sapolski has a meticulous way of keeping track of these monkeys hormone and seratonin and whatnot levels and notes their ranking in the tribe as well as who is doing what to who.
In an epidemic of tuberculosis one summer half the Baboons died and he noticed that the ones that had died were the ones that had been very high or very low in ranking. In other words, the monkeys that had to constantly guard against challange from below and the one’s that would have to act as punshing bags for whoever lost a fight were the one’s with the weakest immune system and had no reserves of energy left to fight of the disease. The one’s who run off to sulk alone in the woods did not do well either.
The one’s that had a buddy to pick their lice and rub their back survived. No stress. I gotta go out more. You dig?

Biodrux Guineapig Blogject Post 5

Biodrux Guineapig Blogject Post 5
I got the first feedback about the Biodrux blog from Valentina, who commented that not only from reading my blog but also from seeing me change moods she was convinced that the mixture must be working. I am glad I am not imagining things. Now I only hope I won’t have any other monkey but a Bonobo sitting on my shoulders when the pills run out.
Talking about depression, I also recently dicovered that my man-struation is cloosely related to the moon phases. On a waxing moon I am full of ideas energy and enthusiasm. It all leads up to an explosion of energy around the full moon.
To be followed by a period of recovery after the full into the new moon. The best time to start projects seems to be the new moon and this last moon I literally felt like someone put a shift stick from neutral into drive Autobahn By the way, we are in the lunar moon of Challenge in the Mayan calendar ;-) U dig?

Dinner at Tiffanys on 7th Street

My new downstairs neighbor is this really proper young lady, whose dad helped her move in and washed her windows. She is facing the little ‘courtyard’ (basically a cage, too small to have a fight in) outside my building and seems to have gotten a key to it. When I just left the building, I smelled crepes, heard classical music, and saw my neighbor sit there with her dad, munching away on a nice dinner with a bottle of Wine, right next to the trashcans and two doors down from that family that keeps their dogs outside their basement apartement, where Hasso and Chiquita piss and shit at their own leisure. mind u, when I moved into the building 14 years ago, there was a guy selling dope until 6 every morning in the same spot where girlfriend and her dad were having dinner now. This was a cool block.m the laundromat was the hottest dope spot in the city. This town has become so boring. Paying the rent. Gentrification. You gotta love it. She likes my piano playing, it’s the best on saturday mornings. makes me wanna snort some heroin and play my fender bass thru that Rumble-Amp on friday night. maybe. not. I am getting to old for rebellion for its own sake. shit. did I say old? U dig?

Biodrux Guineapig Blogject 4

Biodrux Guineapig Post 4

Lost track of what day of the experiment it is. Got distracted having to good a time and
maybe forgot to take the little suckers one or the other time. Hey, i did not say my Guineapig body was a blank piece of paper that u can just get a clear picture out of.
It’s more like a kaleidoskope, colorfull, but undefined. And so fun to look at introspectively and with loving kindness while u are staring a whole in the floor. Arrghhh!
Well, I can’t say the Biodrux are not working for me, but I have not had an epiphany like , this is just what my abused, aging body needed to make it out of the valley of death and destruction that is the abuse one has enjoyed in 18 years of living in the supposedly most happening place on the global grid. New York City.
I got interrupted here by some junkie who is urging me to dig up some change for
his Ponzi scheme, gotta go, U dig?

The Biodrux Guineapig Blogject

Day 15 I neglected my duty to report to the Biodrux. For good reasons. I was too busy running around and getting sorted out for my most recent recording session with my band ' Senor Bonobo'. I even forgot to take the damn pills for a few days. Nevertheless, I can report that my mood has been more upbeat and my energy levels more stable since I started taking the little helpers. I can't report an absolute absence of feelings of doubt, hopelessness and depression, but all in all the last couple of weeks have been a good run for me. I wrote some new material for a session that got planned with 2 weeks notice and was able to pull thru of two days of recording without throwing in the towel when Murphy's Law hit with full force. I have noticed a edge of clarity when practicing sight-reading and playing instruments I am not so familiar with. Tennis is another area where I can sense a certain increase in clarity, longer rallies are possible and I am more focussed on the ball than the thoughts in my head. U dig?

The Biodrux Guineapig Blogject

The Biodrux Guineapig Blogject


Day 1 I’ll do anything for free drugs. Especially if they are supposed to alleviate depression, lethargy and irritability.With no side-effects. For that prospect I will whore myself out to the newest pusher of natural mood enhancers for a free sample and then write about the experience on EVOLVER. If that proposition sounds almost as exciting to you as having direct shipments of natural product arriving on your doorstep, poppies from Kabul and Coca leaves from Medellin for example, with the prospect of reviewing the effects in writing in a public forum, then we are on the same page. They recommend 4 capsules a day, 3 times daily and I think I will trust them on that and not eat the whole shipment at once to see if it will make me euphoric or something. They promise to alleviate the Lethargy and here I am, typing away with the speed of all my ten fingers dancing excitedly about my keyboard, not bad. And i’ve only had one dosis so far since I opened the pill-bottle.That might just be a pavlovian effect. Seing a bottle and all.
The Blogject comes in handy to document the final stages of my fixing up my body and mind from a drug and alcohol- fueled rollercoaster ride that lasted for ..., hmmmm?
Can’t really remember, but about a decade.
The only bad habit I did not have was smoking tabacco. The only one I am planning to
keep is praising Yah with a regular sacrifice of a five fingered leaf or two.
____
Day 3 of my herbal cleansing run and I gotta say, I have not been dissapointed!
While in the evening of the first day the pills arrived I was still in a somewhat beat and self-defeatist mode, struggling to defend my inability to end procratination to Drew, who had come to get me psyched about making ‘my’ record. I’ve kind of- not quite given up on that idea and don’t really feel like explaining why, but I also kind of don’t ever give up on things, I just change my persective and keep hoping soething will come of nopthing as long as u do nothing to stop nothing from happening. U dig?
This morning I felt a definite sensation of morning-adrenalin hitting me after getting up, having my four capsules and drinking some water. Well, I got the flash when I picked up the guitar to play Aguas de Marco by Jobim a couple times over. Ialso noticed a different clarity when I was reading a book yesterday, somehow I feel more focussed and am able to follow up on ideas more concisely. Like getting on the phone after deciding to have a recording session, something that seems logical to anyone, but does not always flow with a manic-depressive artist state of mind based in self destructive
behaviour and self loathing. Which btw reminds me that it is time to stop blogging and get back to making phone calls. U dig?
coming next week - Biodrux Leiztin- legal herbal extacy?

Bikram Yoga

This morning I went to check out Bikram Yoga on Allen Street to see if I could cure my aching neck with a little stretching and heat. My friends Valentina and Manuela recommended that I come along for a session some time, since to them Bikram is like the best thing since sliced bread. Tricia, the Lady running the joint is supercool and down to earth and without any pretense.The staff hooked me up with towels and a yoga mat and off we went to start the first few asanas. It was intense, to say the least, but not unbearably strenuous.Until we got about an hour into the session and I realized that the class was going to last longer than that. The last 20 minutes were tough even though the exercises we did in the end required a lot less coordination and balance than the first run of swan-poses that seemed to last forever and then a little longer after the sun hit’s the horizon, effendi, without water this desert is uncrossable, I hope you have a camel, think I might be hallucinating, I am a frog, I am a scorpion in the desert sand argh, no, a locust, no a lotus, just breathe thru your nose.....
After an hour and a half I finally stumbled out and enjoyed the ‘cool’ air outside, where the hottest day of the summer was scorching up the city. They play mellow worldmusic and funny queer bar jazz in a superchill mix in the lobby and it really fits with the feeling of having walked out of the desert with the help of a Mad Max style Amazon that makes sure you suffer but won’t let you die before the movie is over.
Manu had promised that this was almost as good as doing an ayuasca ceremony and I must admit that I’ve had a few pangs of joy going down my spine today, must have sweated out a lot of toxins in the session. I feel light and refreshed, even though I am somewhat exhausted.
I don’t think I’d do ayuasca more than 2 or three times a year, but this is definitely habit-forming-worthy. I will definitely keep going and try to incorporate stretching into my workout routine, the benefit’s can’t be ingnored..
Bikram Yoga’s deal is a introductory week for 21 bucks for a week of unlimited classes or their summer special, 30 days for 30 bucks, it makes the heat a lot more bearable, after you bear it well. I am nbot getting anything out of this, I am merely promoting this place because i liked it. U dig?
Thanks Manu, Valentina and Maike for sharing your lovely little spot with me.

http://bikramyogales.com

Carl Craig at watertaxi beach

Headed up to 34 th street to catch the free watertaxi to meet Mat and check out Carl Craig last night. I was the first on board so it took a minute until we pulled of the dock but once we got goin the free ride was worth the wait.
Unfortunately I can't say that I am to exiced about Water taxi beach any more. U can't Smoke up because there is so much security and they won't let u come back in if you'd try to step out for a toke. Boring!
A bunch of squares hanging put, tourists, bridge and tunnel, jersey housewifes whose biggest aspiration is to be on a daytime tv show some day.
As redundant as the music seemed to me, Mat pointed out that this type of electonica was hard to produce because it actually grooved. Whatever he meant was lost on me, it would probably all have made sense had I had some shrooms before sitting down under the fluorescinating palmttees facing the new York midtown skyline.
I want to become more minimalist in my approach to music, as my minimalist mentor mat the mad waves inventor is recommending. At least that is easier than fattening up my sound. It's always easier to loose stuff than to gain it. Unless u are trying to loose pounds and drinking beer every night. Well in that case it's all in the I of the Bierholder.

This just in: based on my post about ayuasca I got chosen to become a blogger on alternative health products for the community building evolver network. I was at the evolver townhall meeting a few weeks ago and I must say I am happy to be considered qualified to voice my opinion among so many visionary thinkers and writers.
Check out evolver.net and look out for upcoming blogs on my experience with biodrux! Just love to experiment! FrankenTillzkin!

the end of WIFI as I knew it

My downstairs neighbor moved out this last weekend and with her computer went the beautifully unprotected WIFI she was providing for half a year, a move that finally lands me where I wanted to be at all this time: free of the always inviting option to piss away time by surfing the web following no particular thread at all and pathologically checking e-mail even though nobody really communicates with me that way.
It’s nice. kinda like going back to Germany and realizing that if I can’t get New YORK GRADE kind bud in my godforsaken little hometown, then I am pretty happy without.
But put an ounce of Humboldt County grown Sour Diesel in front of me back here in the City and that shit is gone in a few hours.
When I cancelled my DSL last year I was doing it to spite Verizon (like it would matter
to them) and I was determinded to stick it out until I would find a friendly ISP without endless waiting in line, listening to Kenny G or Naje, not to mention the unfriendly, dumb-as-bread and condescending people that would pick up the other end of the line when I eventually got thru to somebody after 2 hours waiting. I hate Verizon. and AT&T. and Time Warner Cable....
Anytime I see one of their trucks, I wanna puke. But then I realized that there is NO alternative. U wanna get connected, u will deal with some big monolithic monster of a company, meant to make shareholders money and hiring people who don’t cost more than lab-mice to replace when they don’t fullfill their quota. So I decided to go cold turkey and try to make my way into cyberspace via free access points at cafes and maybe a stray signal here and there. Then I realized that I had a neighbor who did not password-proitect her WIFI and I was back internet-junking like I never quit. So this is attempt number 2. Or maybe phase 2. It’s not so much about saving money, but a social attempt to make my need to connect get me out of the house, instead of keeping me there and maybe also to try to focuss my daddling time into a creative and pro-active
participation instead of just consuming an endless flow of information that I would not care for if it wasn’t right there, yelling at me to be noticed. let’s see how long I will last.
PS this last week I finished reading two novels. Hardcover. Real Books. Nice.

Jazz Tennis

Jazz Tennis was invented by my friend Torsten Bender aka Tosca Winterson, a cool, bohemian, tall dude from Germany that I met while Organic Combustion was doing a weekly run at the bar he was working at. Tosca had become a bartender after briefly pursuing a career as a professional tennis player after putting himself thru college with his serve and volley. He told me that at this point he was not even into giving tennis lessons any more, cuz it just annoyed the shit out of him. The whole winner takes all attitude of many clubhouses with overeager tennis moms and broken egos and inflated personalities all around had turned him off. Somehow I talked him into going out on the court a few years later after we had run into each other on the subway, just to show me how it's done. I had not played in 14 years and was in a state of health of a 55 year old at 28 years of age. Liqour, booze, drugs, little sleep, bad nutrition, you name it. From the huge discrepancy in the level of playing and the fact that you are not supposed to give lessons in Central Park resulted a very funny style of playing. We were basically both to jaded to wanna pick up balls, Tosca's skill level being high enough to always get the ball to where I could reach it; and my excitement about being on the tennis court after all these years; and hitting with a PRO just for the heck off it made me feel incredibly elated. I got so into it, I was blowing. I played better than I felt I had played when I was 14 when I stopped being that I thought I had to concentrate only on music to be able to hang in life.
When we walked of the court, Tosca sez, 'that was some nice jazz tennis we played there', and off we went, inventing a whole set of rules for Jazz tennis, which I now forgot but essentially it is all about making each other look good by not playing against each other, but with each other, constantly trying to find the 'swing' the pop and crackle when the balls fly just so and you nail it for a few more hits then you thought you had in you, you set each other up for shots and solos and you take a break and you say, let's hit another set, that felt good. u dig? Jazz Tennis.

Ayuasca update

Let me sum up the whole Ayuasca story with a couple of examples that I have used to try to explain the way the medicine worked on me, one is kinda technical. Doing an
Ayuasca ceremonny is a little bit like cleaning up you harddrive on the system level,
emptyiong the caches and throwing out the trash etc. You have a chance to sort out
your documents folder and get rid of duplicates. Of course if your system is seriously corrupted, it might take a few cleanings and maybe some extra maintenance to get rid of
whatever cookies you have eaten that slow down your startup time now.
Sounds like a sales pitch? Well kinda. Off course it also impies that if your system is running fine and you are happy with your drive’s performance, you might be able to skip the puking and the backrub.
But eventually you always want to upgrade your System.

Example number two is a bit more earthy: imagine your mind and your ego as two little kids who have been locked up in a room for a long time. Ego is beating up on Mind and of course Ego always wins, because whenever Mind is threatening to win, Ego is changin the rules.
If that does not work Ego, just takes a baseballbat to beat Mind into submission.
Then the benevolent Mother Earth enters, wearing a Ayuasca outfit with feathers and
rattling bells and whistles. She says: “children, why did you stop playing?”
And they start blaming each other and crying and so on and ego suddenly realizes that
if it won’t let mind win sometimes, there is no games to be played that would be fun if the same ‘person’ always wins.
Exept maybe kickboxing.

For a little while after Mother Earth walks out, Mind and ego are able to play quietly and friendly again, until they resume their childish dance, a never ending blind Mazurka peformed at the speed of whirling sufi dervishes.
MMhh, yes, I am talking about my personal experience doing Ayuasca here, this
ia a subjective account of a hallucinogenic healing experience, not of a exotic drug trip or
some kind of esoteric rave party. U dig?

Recession special at ramen setagaya miso ramen for 7.50 yum!

Disco Meditationz 4 - Ceremony

We arrived at the Waterfall House early in the afternoon with plenty of time to kill before the ceremony. I got a taste of the Shamans on the bus ride upstate. Nando was sitting upfront and helping Jonathan to navigate the way and Taito Jose was sitting in front of me, holding up a lively conversation with the colombian architect turned massage-therapist sitting next to me. He obviously has a brilliant sense of humor, because he made her crack up all the time. Another one of those moments I wished my Spanish was more than rudimentary. All in all they both seemed to have no special demeanor or attitude that would have let you know they had any kind of special status in the group.
After our arrival we explored the ground a bit, I snuck out to the Waterfall and had a puff of macoña, we had been instructed to refrain from drinking, smoking weed and eating dairy for a few days before sitting with the medicine. I had decided that if I could go without two out of the three, I'd be doing better than ever, so I had a way of justifying jeopardizing my experience with another toke. The place was beautiful and the people arriving by and by all seemed to be open minded, interesting and all in all fairly balanced types. After I caught my buzz, I had a chat with Joao and then grabbed my guitar to use the time for some woodshedding. Played some flute too as I watched people arrive. Another transgression, someone arrived with some bread and butter and I joined in on the feast, having fasted all day ( fruit salad in the morning), until one of the helpers saw us and reprimanded us that we were not supposed to be eating right before the ceremony. Mental Note to blame it on Lamia if the trip does not get me off. So more waiting. Then suddenly it is after nine and everybody is sitting in the meditation hall with their little corner secured and laid out with blankets and cushions. After a little looking around I find some things to make as spread and settle into my corner. Nando and Taito Juan take over an hour to explain to us what to expect and how to allow the conversation with the plant, how not to look for anything but to let it come, they pass around an enormous tabacco 'cigarette' off which everybody is supposed to take 4 puffs, then a solution of tabacco water that u suck up your nostrils to cleanse your nasal cavity and prevent swelling of your sinuses ( my guess). I receive my medicine and bum some tobacco from Joao, realizing that we are allowed to smoke during the ceremoney to enhance the plants workings. Time passes and I see people around me getting nauseous, purging, starting to rock back and forth, moaning and laughing, all the signs of them 'getting off'. I tell myself to let loose, give in to the plant, nothing. After the second cup it seems like it all washed thru to my intestines and I suddenly have to go take a dump, but still no nausea or hallucinations. I try to concentrate on the flickering of the candle on the ceiling. I get upset at the elder playing a harmonica, it sounds like the first sounds a kid would play on the thing after u hand it to him, then repeating over and over, like a NY ice-cream-truck. I am making a note to make fun of this the next day, then get sucked into judging Kathi for 'faking' singing in tongues, even though her singing is angelic, my jealous little ego is telling me that she is just putting it on, no way a german girl from South Africa is going to rip it in tongues and impress me. Ha. Might as well show me a 15 year old japanese kid playing like Charlie Parker. I want the real shit.
I want the elder to play a wooden flute or sing, something- indigenous-like. I think, this is a good show, I wish I could be part of it and get paid. I calculate 35 times 170 times 3 and wonder how the loot is split up. All that kind of judgemental BS. Then I realize I still have not got any Visions. 3rd cup. Now I finally have to vomit. but it takes about 2 minutes, a short purging and I am back to waiting. It's getting light outside and I am giving up , one last cup. Nando asks me if I am driving the next day and after I tell him someone else is, he lets me have another cup. I throw up right away this time, but nothing. Kathi comes over to pull me in the middle for the cleansing of the newbies. An elaborate procedure starts, Nando and Juan are dancing, stomping around us chanting in tongues, Kathi is off to the side, massaging us one by one while she is singing a lovely little abstract song that goes with the heart massage and lifting of bad energies. I remember thinking, great, now you've paid 170 bucks, to shit yourself ( almost) puke out your heart and then let a guy in a funny costume spit on you.
I have to admit though that despite my well practiced arrogance, by the time Taito was straightening out my spine and Kathi had exorcised my bad energies I had given up resistance and felt thankful for their efforts. Nevertheless I needed to get of the hard floor and found myself a corner off to the side where a couch was offering a better snoozing-experience. Just as I heard them announcing that the ceremony was now officially over, I grabbed the guitar and stole myself off to a spot in the sun to do some playing and contemplate the things that had transpired in my head during the night. That is when it all started to make sense. The first thing I played was a beautiful sounding mistake. I repeated it and worked out the kinks. then played it over and over. Like an ice-cream truck!

Disco Meditations 3

So before you do an Ayuasca ceremony you are supposed to reflect on your intentions for your conversation with the plant. An official Statement was required for the back of the Medical Form that you have to fill out to free the organizers of the responsibility over your healing-trip.

My official statement was somewhat shortened to make it easy on Kathi, but after leafing thru 

mountains of notes that I'd made during various nights of uninhibited drug and alcohol fueled soul searching I was not able to narrow it down more that to these 8 Statements-

1. Need to make my choices and move into my fishbowl.

2. Gotta stop drinking cuz I can't afford the brain damage,

gotta stop thinking, cuz no one is to blame, damn it.

3.Want to tap into the pleasure pathway with my

 dopaminergic auto-acoustic reflexes.

4. Want to dare to do the new, that's when I grow.

5. like to work on the sexiest, dirtiest, sweetest, honestest ( !),

steampunkest, musically diversest collection of sound I can come up with

without using a single cussword ( Andy won't master it otherwise ;-0)

6.Old School new School we all gotta learn more,

burn baby burn like a disco inferno.

7.want to overcome addictive habituation, resolve accumulated burdens and become an active participant in joyful life, drinking that endless river in one single gulp. ( from I ching)

8.They got suicide bombers, bailouts and tax hikes,

we with the Baker's the cookers, the makers, the homesteaders and track bikes.

Stay tuned for an actual account of  my night of 'purging' with the plant and how it all started to make sense the next day. 

Disco Meditations 2

Ayuasca

After reading Jeremy Narby's 'The Cosmic Serpent - DNA and the origins of knowledge about three years ago I had always wanted to try participating in an Ayuasca Ceremony. But due to my pretty heavy involvement with alcohol and narcotics at the time, a weekend with a bunch of hippies and new age professionals seemed a little to out of place for me to fit in, in my dionysian state of mind. Give it a few years, an aging body that let's you know there is a limit to the amount of stuff u can sweat out by sitting around and doing nothing and - if you don't get of your ass and do something you will bore yourself to death and die- is just one recurring mantra besides many. Thankfully I discovered that I am still exited to run around like a little kid, playing tennis, skateboarding and even picking up the weights lately to get ready for some surfing this summer. So suddenly I am fairly clean, still a little cloudy in the head because the corner bar is just a little to close to home, but drug abuse seems to be a word from the past and the drinking is civilized if somewhat regular. Still missing the kick off, having the perfect morning

every morning kind of thing going on. So along comes Joao and offers me a chance to participate in this genuine ceremony upstate where I might get my intentions evaluated by the plant and find some solutions with the medicine if I open myself up enough to let some healing happen. OK. So this is what has happened in a nutshell:

I spent the most blissful time at the Waterfall house. 

the medicine is working for sure and I am 

totally at peace with who I am and where I am at.

I feel clear headed, even though I am drunk with 

the Love of Life.

The following morning I had the most peaceful 

conversation with

my father, something that I have not been able to do

since I am a little child, it was almost like the plant had 

talked to both of us. 

I wish there was an express track to initiation

because I realized that what i would really like to do

is be part of the healing side of things if I do this again.

It sounds a little preposterous I guess,

 I don';t think I need to take more medicine to get visions

or to hallucinate. i would like to feel what it's like

to be as ‘sober’ as I was and to be comforting people,

with music, with being there. I felt like I was watching

a really good show and I wanted to be part of it, 

not as a spectator , but as a participant,

 who helps make things right when they get out of balance.

I also felt like I need to do some Yoga ;-)

I found

that if i use my gifts, the smiles and thank you's 

I get are more rewarding than any kind of intoxication

a drug could bring me. That seems to include the 

medicine, so the plant refused to make me drunk or hallucinating because it was telling me that the high I was looking for was being high on life. Unlike a lot of those around me, I did not need that much healing. most of it I had taken care of myself in the last few years. u sit and meditate in a cave and smoke marihuana seeds and coca leaves, I guess u can call that an initiation if you use your time well. I will get back to the experience and would be interested what you think about looking for answers in plants that are supposed to communicate with us on DNA level.

Driftwoodstock Boathouse Crew

So after a day of rest and contemplation following the Ceremony Upstate I went out to fire Island with my friend Mark who has been going there for 25 years to look at this really beautiful house that he wants to rent for the summer. He is an interesting character with a funny smile that let's you know he's always up to something. So it did not take much to make me imagine a house filled with friends, jamming on the beach, really creating a little Burningman on the beach that lasts all summer long. And is not as exhausting to get to. Paying forward, leaving no trace behind and being a participant rather than a spectator should be a prerogative for every Shipping magnate, Captain, Pirate, Beach Looter or Seagull that is staying at the Driftwoodstock Boathouse. We might want to start implementing a local currency, the Driftwoodstock-Buck that is a currency that you can trade for your time and talents on a 'local' market. I am getting carried away. I spent the last two days trying to drum up people for the house, so my brain is a little extra jumpy. So much about Driftwoodstock, leave me some comments if you read this and if you click on the title, you can actually join the driftwoodstock  facebook-group. see u soon

Bato the Yugo Tuesdays @ Kafana

Listening to Bato the Yugo and his guys singing and playing serbo-kroatian 'schlager' at Kafana. Awesome poppy, folksy organic jams that just make you wanna know Serbian so you could sing along. Or maybe it's better not to know Serbian, after a while they are prolly just 'Schlager'.

 Next week I will bring my minidisc-recorder and give all of you who can't come out here a taste of what it sounds like. Give me a city that has Serbian, German, Cajun, BraZilian, Turkish, American, Puerto Rican, Italian, Chinese , Russian, French, Maroccan, Aegyptian, Korean, Japanese- run places all in a three block radius? 

My Block feels multikulti even for NY Standards.

The serbs have worked themselves into singing along with every song now, it really feels like hanging out in the Balkans here especially if u like zijebanica and chiwapi .

Been working with Bato on recording some of his songs here at my house and I guess I need to brush up on my mixing skillz, i got some badass performers coming thru and laying down trax these days. Well, u learn as u do I guess.

Disco Meditations 1

This weekend I went up to Upstate New York to participate in a Ayuasca Ceremony that was led by a Shaman from Putumayo, Colombia and organized by a friend of mine, Kathi who has travelled the world studying people's ways. Also participating in the healing ritual was an elder from Colombia, Taito Juan. The ritual took place in a beautiful old house on top of a gorge with a bunch of  really interesting people in attendance. One of them was Jim, aka DJ Small Change. He was going back early to do a gig at Studio 8 playing for a roller disco and was going to give me a ride back to NYC. As we were sitting in the sun by the beautiful waterfall that was right behind the house he mentioned that he might take a disco nap if he'd have enough time before his gig, after driving home. I heard myself ask, did u ever try to take a DiscoMeditation? We were both cracking up at the thought of it and decided to collaborate on a Project Album mixing disco beats with meditative music trying to see what it's worth.

Besides those plans I also decided to start a blog today, after returning to NY and after analyzing my 'interaction' with the plant. The plant let me know that I should pursue exactly the things I've always wanted to do , to not be afraid of letting my voice and music be heard. I will try to relate to you later how the plant has informed my thinking during the ceremony.

So in this blog I want to share my thoughts on music, spirituality, love, life , networking, and whatever else comes to mind as well as my riffing on live music in NYC and recordings that move me. Hopefully this blolg will document a journey as well as a life well lived, which is all I am aspiring to do at this point. I thank the Plant for giving me the power to recognize my responsibility to live my life truly independently in order to fully realize my potential to help, share and maybe even heal those around me. Intentions are powerful enough by themselves,if you throw in a little effort and focus, there is really no failings. only new beginnings. We know ALL the answers, but it's only when we are able to listen, that we can truly apply them. It is only after we apply them that we can go out and answer other seeker's questions without being asked. So in that spirit I would like everyone who ends up reading this blog to feel encouraged to share their opinions on my Ongoing BLAH, as I need to work on my listening skillz. I will try to write before heading out of the house to go hear music in NYC and/or after coming back home, in order to pay some tribute to the Blog's Origin's. till8tr