posted Feb 27, 2011, 2:36 PM by Spencer Blake
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updated Feb 27, 2011, 2:51 PM
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Adam Long's Account of the Hashemite Kingdom PT. II The Middle East never looked so intrinsic. Enjoy.
I woke up this morning to the sound of a bird outside my window. He wasn’t a bird I know. He’s not in the Audubon book of North American Birds that sits by the window in the house I grew up. He sounded Arab; impassioned, persistent, and unfamiliar. I would never call his song pretty, not like the finches back home. It sounded rough and urgent; like the car horns ubiquitous in this part of the world. I’m sure that if someone could write his song down it would be beautiful, but the sight doesn’t match up with the sound of his language.
Of course, a bird is much nicer than the gunfire which did the same thing a week ago. Twelfth graders found out if they got into college last week, and many celebrated throughout the day by firing into the air. This is an event that I’m sure provided Fox News with some excellent B-roll of terrifying, young Arabs. It will look great playing next to Glenn Beck as he completely misreads the events of the past month and claims a wave of protests for increased democracy will lead to the restoration of the Caliphate. Sorry. I went off on a thing there. The events which will be spun as a terrifying show of rage directed at the United States and your feeble grandmother are really just teenagers celebrating the fact that they can continue their education and just maybe pull their country pushed itself out of the third world. It’s shocking to discover how similar we are to the students in Jordan. We all do the same thing. We all have our own spots to congregate on campus. We all make crude jokes when no one of the opposite sex is around. And we all have to tiptoe around the opposite sex to hide feelings that create complications. That careful maneuvering is just amplified here. We all just want to relax for a night and have a drink.
I ate dinner in my friend’s house last night. His brothers acted as in any home. The youngest spent the entire time crawling around under chairs, fulfilling the need that all young boys feel to explore everything in sight; that need that never really goes away. It’s just suppressed by the need to be cool and act like nothing is unknown. His other brother, one of 6 took the time to pull out his cell phone and show the girls videos of his martial arts exploits; fulfilling that need that all boys feel to impress girls. That one never even diminishes.
Tonight, as I walked out my door, I looked up into the sky and saw Orion. It’s the same constellation I see when I look up in between the garage and the porch of the house I grew up in. It’s the same constellation that my mother will see when the sky gets dark in eight hours and she gets out of the car to walk inside and turn on the news. She will walk straight to the TV to see what’s happening in the Middle East because all mothers, whether they wear a Hijab or not, worry about their children. She will see the same stars, because as different as this city looks and smells and sounds, it rests on the same Earth. It is populated by all the same people. That is why I’m here. |
posted Feb 15, 2011, 7:32 AM by Ardis Tilson
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updated Feb 15, 2011, 12:04 PM
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Spencer made a film that is the most accurate reflection of living in Murfreesboro I've seen in some time.
In his words:
"Funny enough, this video represents the contents of a single mini DV tape. Edited down of course. TETSUO at the Walnut House, and the infamous mosque protest. Rock music and complete irrationality. I guess Murfreesboro has SOME character."
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posted Feb 7, 2011, 4:24 PM by Spencer Blake
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updated Feb 7, 2011, 4:58 PM
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STRAIGHT FROM THE COUNTRY OF JORDAN, HERE'S
ADAM LONG'S ACCOUNT OF THE HASHEMITE KINGDOM.
That's right, Jordan. Enjoy.
There’s no experience like this to make you realize how much you don’t know. I don’t know the streets. I don’t know what is appropriate. I don’t really even know where I’m sitting right now. I can tell you the name of the neighborhood. It’s Ramieah, but I can’t find it on the map. I guess that’s fitting though. I think they did this to us on purpose. I have to find out where I am. I have to figure out where I belong in this world which is so alien to the one I grew up in. I don’t mean it in the college freshman sense of “I have to go find myself.” It’s more like when a new part of the map opens up in Zelda and you realize that you are much smaller and much farther from the center than it seemed before.
I realize how strongly the fear of Muslims and Arabs in particular can affect you. I consider myself open minded and at least fairly knowledgeable about Islam and the Arab world, but when I saw a man in a kufiyah(that checkered scarf and head covering thing. I don’t want to leave anyone behind) walking past our bus yesterday, my stomach tightened for a second. Of course nothing happened. He was just going to work as a tour guide. Twenty minutes after I got off of the plane, I saw a woman in a full burqa. She was covered from head to toe, and I could see only her eyes. She glided across the floor like a black ghost, detached from the rest of the world except for the toddler in a stroller she was pushing. She went back and forth between begging him to stay in his seat and forcefully shoving him down. I’ve seen that behavior before, except last time the mom had a “SEE ROCK CITY” shirt and elastic waisted jeans.
-Adam Long |
posted Jan 18, 2011, 8:52 AM by Austin Coppage
School. I guess it's needed for Americans (It is, but how much do we need?). I'm afraid of Americans though, I'm surrounded by them right now at the Smyrna community college. Though I also like that Reznor/Bowie colab. titled, "I'm afraid of Americans". Video consist of Reznor lurkin behind Bowie as he makes his way through NY. Reznor is always lurkin though, in These Crystals Don't Burn, in J Crew, my drum style.
Hella is paving, has been paving, the way for our generations confused chaotic outlook on life. Though for them, they have mapped out and learned to control this chaos (what the fuck am I talking about?). It just seems we all want to create something original but synchronization and typical song structure has beared its burden on us. Yet people were feeling this way in the 60's, 70's, aaannnnddd sooooo onnnn. So to truely get this pure originality we have to be a machine that has a soul. Maybe machine isn't the right word but then again I listened to too much NIN.
Giovanni di Stefano aka The Devil’s Advocate, is going to free that poor soul and I'm going to have sex with him. Manson, not the lawyer.
I hope Brock Ojeda is doing well.
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posted Dec 27, 2010, 7:16 PM by Spencer Blake
It all leads back to Black Sheep. If you rub a cat's fur the wrong way you risk a hiss and a scratch. If you slide your fingers across a plank of wood you risk a hand covered in splinters. Such is Tetsuo. Such also is the atom bomb country we slurp around in. A mushroom cloud need not form to create mass destruction of civilization. It happened when the credit card was formed. A golden rectangle- the longest running joke for profit. But who is profiting from your rectangles?? I don't just mean oblong square. I'm talking 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 377 600. Some Fibonacci shit. It attracts your eye whether you know it or not. It's the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, et cetera. Credit cards are the same shape as the doors you walk through... the doors which supposedly equate opportunity, right? But the shape is ripping our country apart. Nobody can see straight anymore. They only see in images flashing by. But the focus required for these artforms (which have been painstakingly crafted)... Jesus, nobody has the patience to sit for a half hour without some excitement, right? Sit in silence for a single minute. See what comes from it. Bob's playing some bluesy shit on MOT. I wish he still played the real psycho jazz like he used to, the avant garde shit. I haven't even heard him play Mingus and I listened to Bob's show every night for years. But I respect him for clinging to jazz in a time when few care. I mean that in the most general sense. You can scream your lungs out and the public only scoffs and walks out. These fuckin bands are boring. Hollywood is just a big ass joke. So what? SO WHAT? If the kids were disenfranchised 80 years ago I dunno what their situation is now. The four of us are still pissed, at least. We still have issues with our society which refuse to resolve. The first step is to accept this. Then you spit in its face. Excuse us for not playing the kiss ass game of our contemporaries. Art soars on a higher plane thatn congeniality and glad-handing and there are those who would believe that rock music has crashed and is smouldering.... It's all in favor of laptop D's and country pop acoustic shit. Doesn't this country's war drive anyone nuts? Doesn't the public education system push anyone to action? Well, before I pass judgment, I'll say that Tetsuo hasn't contributed much in the way of social reform and charity. BECAUSE We spend every waking hour scraping together a living a pleasing our fucking professors. But it's all a sham. We all jumped to higher education to better ourselves but we've only bittered ourselves. So twice a month we get together to try desperately to fight this wayward gold-plated feudal system with music. Four people can't do this alone. You wanna be in our clan? There's only one rule: NO FUCKIN HALF STEPPIN. We place one foot a good distance in fronta the other. We don't shuffle and we don't stop. We're making strides and unless a force of faces (including yours) joins the ranks and walks with us, we can't proceed. Our race will continue to sweep itself under the rug it bought from the internet. Do you see? We gotta see your faces. Gotta see your heads nod. We wann fuckin get down, right? But it ain't no fun playin duck duck goose with three ducks. My neighbor has a fountain in his front yard. I can't wait till it freezes over and the sound of gurgling water turns into the sound of water splashing against ice. It all turns to ice after a while. But our particles are movin' Ain't yours?! "Not that I like talking of the things that I posess I know that some have more, while others do have less It's just that I wanna say, I live a life in a day Didnt have to wait till I was lonely old and gray I simply put my foot forward in a direction That's called a step then I follow with the next one Kept on steppin, no matter what happened Kept my eyes open, and kept hands clappin Did what I had to do when I had to do it Didn't wanna say ho when I surely knew it" -DRES |
posted Dec 25, 2010, 10:16 PM by Austin Coppage
Now everyone is going to want to read our blog! |
posted Dec 25, 2010, 9:40 PM by Ardis Tilson
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updated Dec 25, 2010, 9:41 PM
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Now we don't have to rely on Facebook and Myspace and other stuff that sucks. |
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