Super Tuesday Super SCHMOOZEday for Hellary 2016

I try to stay positive about women's lib, and truly believe we are well overdue for a female President. When the right one steps up of course. Women's liberation lies with the candidate who is for EVERYONE'S rights, not one who separates us by saying, "For a lot of well-meaning, open-minded white people, the sight of a young black man in a hoodie still evokes a twinge of fear." (I don't quote without fact-checking; I heard and watched her say this in SC on film.) If that's her idea of an open mind, she's closed herself off from all who truly have one. I'm more terrified of her liar fire eyes than any of my friends who match this description.

Hillary Clinton is extremely close to home for me. Like lives around the corner from my aunt and cousins in Chappaqua, New York. And although I was behind Obama from the very beginning of my first eligible election to vote in 2008, I maintained respect for her as a solid woman who could take a lot of punches. No fucking more. I live in Maine now. And Bernie is my homie.

After watching the CBS live stream of her campaign rally speech last night in Florida, I contend that my respect for her as a political woman with integrity has completely diminished.

What I heard was basically a poorly plagiarized rendition of Bernie Sanders' Twitter feed. What I heard was a complete spew of hypocritical lies. How dare she speak like a democratic socialist to those who do not have the progressive Facebook friends to be exposed to the true, untelevised political revolution at hand. To have a complete foothold in corporate funding and pretend to speak for the 99% would be laughable if it weren't so damn manipulative and despicable. All I heard was a Monsanto Muppet forging her concern for the American people while since the '90s, she been poisoning them (see Hillary link below).

If Clinton could run a clean campaign owning up to the dynamics of how she is running it, I could see myself voting for her if she becomes the Democratic candidate. But to imitate Sanders' lifelong genuine care for the justice of humanity is inexcusable. She suddenly talks democratic socialism while for the past 50 years, Bernie has been LIVING IT. It saddens my soul to watch her masquerade his values to a population that has not witnessed his truth, as Hillary has all these reporters on her payroll, and Bernie is 100% funded by supporters like me, a working student single mom who can only afford to contribute $10 a week. That being said, he's hit record breaking individual donation amounts because he is the voice of the people.

Politics are inextricably linked with history. Check Bernie's. Check Hillary's. Check in with yourself and VOTE, not for the privileged, not for special interests, but for all of US. People say Hillary has "evolved," but she's merely morphed to imitate Sanders' stances without backing them up. Hillary pretends to be for the "few" to manipulate the Democrats who haven't experienced the full breadth that Bernie's campaign has to offer. If Hillary is indeed the candidate, you are welcome to sail away with me. Because there is no way my 2 year old daughter nor I can be a part of a county that's called "United" with a figurehead  based on deceit and division. 

THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING.

Sometimes You Listen to Phish Because You Know What's Best For The Soul. Other Times, You Support the Candidate Who Is, Too

http://liveforlivemusic.com/news/bernie-sanders-just-called-phish-one-of-the-great-bands-in-this-country/

How To Be a Responsible Smoker

Easy. First of all of anything, smoke American Spirits. If you’ve been smoking the past decade as I have, you’ve tried the rainbow spectral Camels and Marlboros, the 99s and the 72s and of course the 27s. Kamel with a ‘K,’ Camel Crush with a poppable listerine ball in the filter. Reds, Blues, Turkish Silvers, Golds, Lights and Super Lights. It’s all highly toxic commercial shit that raises the nicotine content within each cigarette a year. So American Spirits. No fancy names, just colors. And the colors coordinate to the quality and feel of each blend. Mellow Yellow. Light Blue, Cool You. Organic Teal, Fullness Feel. Dark Blue, Rich With It. And MMM Black, Perique Magnifique…the Fruity Shadow Cigarette (obviously my choice blend).

American Spirits. No brainer. American grown, organic option, no additives, they last so long you don’t need to smoke tarry paper back to back to back for the illusion of reduced stress. In that case, it’s simply misplaced.

Next, never drop your butts. Always trash them, stub them into an ash tray, put them out and in your pocket, in your shoe, whatever will keep you from flushing them into the gutters and the ocean. Definitely, you’d be a philistine-ass smoker to mark your cigarette spots.

Also, don’t be afraid to clean up dirty butts. In one of my hometowns Red Bank, New Jersey, I did lots of cocaine with a lovely smoker vegan, who would make a note to pick up ALLL the butts and throw them away, wherever we were. Chances were, being in the most densely populated state, there would be lots of butts, and lots of trash cans. Watching her as an emerging smoking 16 year-old was a great inspiration through my long-winded journey to Maine, where I can be seen cleaning up the contents of rednecks’ ashtrays at the beach. If you don’t take responsibility, who will?

Scooping up butts at Pemaquid Point, ME. Because we're outside in 10 degree weather anyway, and these ones haven't made it to the ocean yet. And though prepared with fingerless mits, I had no trash bag, and instead, dug an empty pack of baby-wipes out of my co-daddy's car. Aww.

 This takes a responsible smoker and elevates he or she into a vibrant smoker, as that good energy of not leeching plastic filters to stunt the small fish population per three gallons of water will infatuate that whole area with your loving care. People care in an area, it shows, it vibes, it loves, and people can only pick up on that communal love. We take care of our own butts, and we’ll take care of yours too. Sure we know smoking isn’t all that ethical, but we can generate our own ethics and engage in a more dignified generation of smokers. Which obviously correlates to not smoking indoors.

Cars, roll down the windows. And don’t flick a fucking one of them.

Otherwise, don’t be a fucking idiot. Know that you are exposing yourself to a carcinogenic addiction. You should probably live in a medical state where Rick Simpson Oil is offered  by way of free medicine (Canada, California, Colorado, Maine). Just in case you do get a tumor, you can rest assured there are healers on hand who can stop its growth.

Engage in cardio. You find me one muscley marathon motherfucker who smokes and has gotten lung cancer. I haven’t met any. Seems like swimmers and runners and bikers who smoke have it pretty well made. Exercising makes my heart feel a lot less tight when I want to have a cigarette with my morning coffee. So from experience, I can viscerally tell you, if you’re going to be hedonistic, you’ll do a lot damn better if you’re also an athlete.

In all due respect to nonsmokers, such as my seriously anti-cigarette boss, carry around essential oils so you don't stink like a half-charred ashtray. To avoid offending her with the smell of smoke, I spray my hands, neck and hair with rose hydrosol to deionize the smoke, and have a couple drops of tea tree oil to really kill anything dirty. It's considerate for those who choose not to poison their lungs. Bonus points for peppermint or spearmint oils for your tongue (I tend to dab on the back of my band and lick.) 

This blog post is not meant to encourage or discourage smoking. I am merely encouraging in those of us who do smoke, let’s be as peaceful as possible for our indulgences. And really, I’m a lot more peaceful when my nicotine cravings are not stressful. Noninvasive, responsible smoking allows that. 

Like I said, I’ve been doing this a decade. So now, I don’t put on a coat or grab a purse that doesn’t have a Black pack of Spirits in it, even if there are only three left. Just happened ten minutes ago when I put on my bathrobe, and I smiled and gave Past Me a hell of a hug for remembering Now Me. Cus you never know when you might be hitchhiking for two hours, or what you might be wearing. And if you’re stuck somewhere, at least you have that one cigarette. And so long as it’s an American Spirit and you don’t stain the planet with its filter, you’re gonna enjoy the fuck out of every drag.

How do you like your Dead?

These days, you can get Grateful with the Dead any way you like it. Phishified with Trey. Slow and bass-heavy with Phil and his friends. Fucked up and falling over on Ratdog. Nostalgic recreations of entire shows by Dark Star. Even pop-bluesy with Mr. John Mayer. Not to mention the rap mixes for the bling-custy niche that only listens to rap and Jerry. And, even if you missed the Furthur runs in which they incorporated new old man songs about the rain and other elder hippie business, you can still catch the funkity blue mastery of Joe Russo's Almost Dead. And in all likelihood, you will dance harder.

Like I can't stop dancing and have to pee everywhere but will drink everyone in the vicinity's water to keep fucking dancing hard. You don't want to miss a riff.

JRAD has brought the fire back to my mountain since I saw them this summer at the Great North festival. Now the Dead has been alive in me for nearly half my life, but I had never danced so hard at any orientation of the GD as I have at JRAD. Holy jamtastic. It's like Medeski, Martin, & Wood began blaring the jam classics in that creep-along jazz, funksplosive phenomena fantastica. Oh that Terrapin in Portland. The weebly warps of spookily space. The searing splooge of hyper-stimulated folk. The songs that have been a sacred auditory landscape for generations of jammers come to such an energized pinnacle and high point with every note. If you haven't seen Almost Dead, go forth Gratefully and catch them live....the music has still never stopped.

Pisces Band Fulfills Scorpion Desires, Blows All Else Out of All Water

If you missed the 2015’s most kickass orchestration of the year, that’s cus it happened at the very end if you weren’t one of the 10,000 jamsters at MSG, you were probably skankin’ elsewhere. Thing is, I know you felt it. Phish’s first jam first night of the New Years run, I knew EVERYONE felt it. There is truly nothing in life like getting real down on that gushy smile level with someone, that diggity dirty, funk flingin groove, all that Phishy absurdity oozing out every communal pore, like AHHHHHHH, really! REALly!!!!!...yep, this is still Mike's Song right now.

Like really, we danced as hard as those narrow cement tiers allowed us, funxtreme-tastica in every spoodley lick. And really, if you had showed me what the set-list would be for the first night of the MSG run, I would have nodded like I had heard all those songs a million times, because I have. But not like that. Each jam opened up into vibrating jams that opened and flowed and flounced so deeply and friskily in the moment and then the next. I haven’t missed an MSG run yet, and the hype’s true about this one. Every jam exemplified an ecstatic propulsion of art. And everyone felt it.

Phish reallh reaches all those under-water layers. Breaking through the Piscean chaos into the ️Neptunian love spell it has to offer, and bleeding, rippling, raging through the Scorpion/Plutonian core of if all. I swear. I felt it.

I always feel it.

Every head got so down on the whimsy, flitting “Bathtub” splanks, so thrilled thrashy wild as it built up and up and out for 15 minutes The whole show was riddled with the incessant sparks and tickle of the Phish crowd culminating again. So like wowwww, Phish totally is The band of the Scorpion Pluto generation, keeping us vibing, crawling, chasing their spirals under the rug, til they sting us with zaps of funk and splizzam lasers into zings and zongs we feel, love, rage and radiate. Yup. Phish has lured and played, pampered and swayed us all under the same covers. Where it’s dark, mysterious, and helplessly rainbow, so every cell in the midst of it is smiling so can’t-help-it-groovy.

I posted forever ago about my skepticism travelling to the city during such a chaotic time, but caught a ride with my daugther’s sister and her mom on their way back to Phili; thank the beauty of blended families. My excitement completely blinded me from initial hesitance, even through the metal detector and flashlights digging through my bag as one patted down my freckled friend in denim cut-off shorts and a “PURE SEX” button gleaming on her Mexican blanket coat, I was still unconcerened and completely shut off to the possibility of risk. But the cab driver on the way to my dad’s from the train reminded me.

“I hope security was tight,” he said, “ya never know what those nuts will do after that shit in Paris.”

At first I was like, “Come on, really…”, inclined to say something like, “Then we can blame all nuts for fear of the unknown, not an allocated few.” But before speaking, I let the intention behind his sentiment linger, and I remembered my gratitude. I prayed protection barriers for everyone dancing and celebrating music and art in beauty and love.

And to me at that point still, it was all very Phishy and drippy and teeth-clenching exciting to get home and drink so much water I wouldn't have to slip someone a dollar then duck away for it not being two...and have a cigarette and pass out with my toddler, replaying replaying replaying that bass-slapping energy, that build, that force of everyone singing “Character Zero,” knowing it was the last song; knowing in a breath, the boys would leave the stage and be gone. Until tomorrow, for most of them. Until Mexico, for the fortunate ones. The lesson here is urging everyone I know to get ready for summer tour, because Phish is gonna blast all our hats off. And also, all are welcome and encouraged to continue beaming love and protection for the jammin’ masses. We couldn’t have momentum without all of us making moves.

Don't Stop Not Sleeping, NYC: Awaken Together

There are some really great cultures uprising right now, and it’s totally important for my 11^th house uptonian hopes and dreams, let alone the collective Uranian liberation. But for the first time, I’m hesitant to return to Manhattan for Phish New Years. Vulnerable island, high population, international crisis...Of course I will go; I haven’t missed a year since...whenever this five or more or less year-run began. Of course. Go home to begin the New Year, finish the rest somewhere else. Of course. So what's really going on in the city? Am I afraid? Or I am no longer called?

 

Yes, hipster loft parties are fun, but at what point do mystical animal-named bands start sounding the same? At what point do you stop trusting $2 well drinks that have you lose your fairy wings and make out with a caterpillar twice your age on a rooftop? At what point do rooftops cease feeling infinite and largely become entrapping?

 

So move to the woodland rocky coastline in Maine an hour from a smaller city, five minutes from one of the country’s best breweries? Hear the coyotes all night and see David Grisman the next? Be encompassed by tourmaline dripping mountains and near-blinded by the stars? In a community of self-sustaining homesteaders who haul their spring water, chop their wood, and grow their own food? Anyway. What are the spiritually inclined New Yorkers doing to free their brethern’s spirits in this universal time of chaos and fear?

 

Aside from sacrificing more trees to print more conspiracies to shove in strangers’ faces. Aside from wearing underwear in the subway for the sake of nonchalant publicity. Aside from manipulating gluten and calling it vegan. Is everyone defying conformist capitalism sleeping in the L-Train terminal? Bleeding more music into tunnels? Growing pot in boarded up warehouses and charging triple its worth to the corporate class? Or are they all going to overdose underfed in a mask-wearing society that doesn’t see them or anyone for what we are…One.

 

Not that I didn’t quote my father’s tear-jerking, emphatic memory of how united the city was when he was cleaning up Ground Zero for a decade. Not that I didn’t feel that total communion with our heartland, not that anyone didn’t feel it, experience it, and live it together. But does it have to take another tragedy to forget the space between natives and tourists or the Upper and Lower East Side? Why is it only okay to make eye contact and nod in simple recognition of another on a bus or train after a communal tragedy? Why is it otherwise common law to look away and pretend to be alone?

 

We are not alone. The freegans have a strong, beautiful platform. They take care of each other with selfless Free Store offerings and dumpster diving wealth distribution. And it’s good pickin’s. There is truly a lot going to waste that is bountiful to share. But while the freegans are enamoring and quite openly nurturing, I cannot got swept away. And upon my last cigarette dancing to “Mambo Italiano” under the blinding Maine stars, I randomly came up with the analogy of why.

 

They are the seagulls. Quite beautiful and bright, sometimes loud and laughy: “Ha! Ha! Ha!” they caw, take what they want, and fly off to vibe off the ocean and what can be felt/experienced/consumed there. And they always come back. There’s always a lil more.

 

It’s like this one ethereally beautiful woman I know, who converted from vegan to freegan to avoid as much waste as she could in a throw-away culture. “Would you like some mussels?” a mutual friend offered her in her home, where she had prepared the garlic, butter herb dressing a regulated vegan would refuse, along with the idea of shellfish altogether.

 

“If there are any left,” the freegan said, smiling with neither a nod nor a shake.

 

“Would you like some?” the other offered again, this time with a small plate extended. The freegan didn’t shake her head, she simply swooped it diagonally outward in denial of the plate.

 

“I would certainly not let you throw any away, but as of now, I am good,” the freegan explained.

 

Nothing was accomplished. Nothing was satisfied. It was a total miscommunication in which one party felt the other was unappreciative while that party felt the other was being pushy. And I doubt the seagull ever returned, feeling more comfortable scavenging with the flock who seemed to understand her.

New York is money. New York is time. New York is everything. New York sets the stage, turns the dial, drops the ball for the rest of our teetering country. And there are ample mediums, guides, teachers, yogis, mostly individuals in this warp to bring it together for all the boroughs. But it's not giving and taking. It's not handing out or keeping. It's not seagulls and king rats.

 

I empathize with both sides. I am both sides. But really, I shy away from being the seagull as well as the mothering crab, because I’d much rather go by butterfly. Cocoon all winter in a world of my own and emerge with more expansive colors every spring. That’s why I’m on the craggy beach, in the woods, ideal distance from the city. Because who knows where each new year will guide these wings? 

Yes, Phish in my own Ground Zero has always fulfilled my blast off into my own calibration. Still I feel safe and rested in Maine, with the room and support yet space to be One with it all. So assuming I do make it down for Phish…I’ll be vibing that into our incessant Manhattan Earth, an apex, the climax, our culmination—hopefully of universal creation. To make a brand new start of it...in old New York!

Last Tour Ever To Follow Up With Another "And Company": "Not that bad"

To be fair, I am totally one of those haters who can't get over "Your Body is a Wonderland" to view John Mayer as a serious guitarist, but admit Furthur tour got very repetitive. Heard mostly nothing but positive feedback about the Last Ever Dead tour, now spanked with a pop guitarist and billed as "And Company." 

Okay, okay, okay, I've never given his version of the blues a chance, and some muscians I respect defend it. And I did even groove to him doing a song with Buddy Guy on some jam montage movie thing once. I believe though, that working in a health food store that played that corny whispery Wonderland song multiple times a day on the satellite radio, that I am tainted forever. Much like all the country pop songs of summers 2009-10 when I worked for a tobacco farm heiress. I regress. I resent that I know all the lyrics to songs that now make me cringe. I've had to mentally strive to get the redundant looping out of my head. So thank the real Dead for jam.

None of my friends in Maine who intended to see the latest Dead congregations actually made it to Worchester, as ticket prices lept to 5"" bucks. My dearest Venutian sister from the south shore went, and chiller than the crispest cucumber ever--when I asked her how the show was--her eyes lit right up, she pursed her lips and nodded, like her pupils were expanding again. Still nodding, she said, "Not that bad."

Of course Show Magic Meggy on the Jersey shore flounced her way into the city, happened upon a miracle ticket into MSG, and had the band's setlist snuck to her from a security guard. But those stupendously how-great connections were the biggest aspects of the show she expounded upon, and when I asked about the music, it was an echo of her whole gooeyly stoked vibe: "IT WAS SO GREAT!"

Granted, not every jammer is gonna say, "The style was this!" or "the danceabilify was that!" And to be fair, my amazing coparent companion who's been touring since the '80s can hardly ever tell you what anyone plays, 'cus if it's the Phish or a Dead spinoff, he'll always gleam, "This is my Favorite Song!" and skip away like a dancing Pan in the forest having his heart fluted to, and if you ask him what they played afterwards, all he can ever say is, "ALL MY FAVORITES!"

He didn't make the pre-$500 Worchester tickets, but he saw David Grisman last night in Portland, and Dark Star Orchestra the night before. Of course when I asked him what DSO played, he started giggling and shimmying, through laughter at my irritation, he got it together enough to explain--at first the whole set sounded really familiar, then he realized he was AT that show they were covering, perhaps September 24th though wait a minute he forgot the year - and all of the songs.

"Ya know, I was IN it," he said, shrugging and sinking into another knee-bending spoodle of laughter, show vibes tickling his aura, which tickled me in return. Even though I can't phathom simply "forgetting" songs, and can probably name at least one or two songs from the +/-30 Phish shows I've seen, i mean at least the openers and encores and THEY PLAYED WHAAAAT moments. But he really vibes the show, Til the next day. So that's a damn good show. And I am epically curious with wonder whether he would have been so enthusiastic about John Mayer, who he knows nothing about.

But I do know we raged the electric jammin funk out of Joe Russo's Almost Dead. Are you serious? Their show at Great North this September was THEE hardest I've danced at any love Dead anything. And really, who wouldn't take that amped up, charismatic raging of the whole freerange Dead spirit over that (sorry) throaty floaty song Furthur wrote about the Rain? I mean, that dimly sparked subtle swaying at best.

The potential with every new Dead arrangement is where that culminating energy is tapped into within the show as a whole. The vibration of the band with their current city, the energy of the crowd receiving the sacred musical communion. I love the Dead. And glad that I've only heard of good experiences, I am grateful for Joe Russo as my winter prelude Dead experience, vs Mr. Mayer taking Trey's place. Trey totally channeled Jerry but maintained his own guitar "voice," like if you closed your eyes, you'd know it was Trey. Ahhhh.....yeah. Let Trey Sing.