Peppermint Dreams

Peppermint dreams layered like scenes from a film;
Being dragged out of bed wrapped in blankets from no one-
There’s the sound of a vacuum cleaner
And double vision of a voice saying “what’s wrong with you?”

Size nines are stepping on my lungs again,
That sick feeling of weight, doubt, and uncertainty;
Of unforced errors and worthless risk
That climbs from stomach to throat
But there’s no food to throw up

The forever triage – decisions decisions,
Move away from this, move toward that,
Cut away at the parts that make you nervous
And let what allows you to be happy wash over what’s left

Glimpses of the future get shorter
More down trodden and trodden down
Squished into muddy rained-on grass
What you thought was not,
And what wasn’t thought just as well may be

Rebuild, rebuild, but without tools or materials.
Only what you can imagine into being.
How well can you think of an umbrella to keep the sky from falling on you?

Rx-4/26/2010

Hypnosis, Dreams & Powertools

Hypnosis, Dreams & Powertools

The little connections between one thing and the next never cease to amaze me. It all started with a wonderful friend from the past. After several years incognito, we re-found each other, and she immediately told me a story of listening to tapes that send subliminal messages inside nature noises to rid herself of grief, which worked so well that she ordered one for “renewing hopefulness “. The next time she went out, even the thought of a drink made her want to throw up. On further inspection, she found she had been sent the subliminal messages for “alcoholism” instead.

The irony and humor led me to check out self-hypnosis material, a path which through a small informational left turn had me looking through various guided meditation programs, just to see what the fuss was about.

Another friend had just bought me the best gift ever, a little orange pillow with a tiny speaker in the middle of it. All you had to do was plug a tiny white jack into your iPod and you were good to go, a single mono speaker whispering like a ghost of radio past.

So, guided meditation meets mobile orange speaker pillow. Such a small meeting of the materials. Trivial, really, you’d think.

Except, how drastically life changes when you start sleeping.

Like everybody, I’ve got a lot on my mind. And the brain gears turn in the evening when the world gets quiet. Perpetual, nonsensical, emotionally composite nights full of restless, uncomfortable, conflicted thoughts, about anything and everything. Unsolvable riddles. Questions with no answers. Goals with no way to get there. Plans – but no time to start or finish them.

And then, when the body forces the body to sleep, the dreams start. Total insanity, almost every night, of varying sorts. I’ll wake up in the morning, heart pounding, veins full of adrenaline, sometimes startling myself straight up and looking around, not always recognizing where I am. I can typically remember the dreams, but I try to let them fade; no reason to hold on. For as long as remember, there have always been the dreams, though there have been a few period in my life where they’ve gone away temporarily.

I’ve pretty much just given into the fact that they will always be there.

But the silly orange pillow. And the silly guided meditation series.

From the very first day I listened as I fell asleep, about releasing anger and frustration – the dreams left. I slept through the night, woke up comfortably, and started my day. And it’s been an amazing change since then. Every night I go to sleep listening to the voices that give me a way to exude whatever is bothering me, and I sleep without dreaming. The voices aren’t about right and wrong, good and bad; they are about facing problems and issues squarely and recognizing that there is nothing you can do about them when you’re sleeping. So. Just. Sleep. And I have been for almost two months now.

Until last night.

Even as I was lying down, I felt something bothering me more than usual. I listened all the way through one 20 minute session. No sleep. Another different 20 minute session. Still awake.

Then I shot up awake, this morning, the dream in full hypercolor still, if I had been quick enough I may even have been able to catch it as it escaped out of the room.

I had been in a hospital of some sort, for an emergency surgery. Something was wrong with my throat. Maybe I couldn’t breathe. Maybe there was something stuck. I was on a gurney being rolled through a hallway. There were at least five people around, but the only one I could focus on was a doctor with short dark hair and glasses, looking at me. One of the other people around the gurney had a hypodermic needle. She stuck it in my left arm, and I heard someone say as the light dimmed – “he’ll be out in a second”.

I can’t say that I’ve ever been drugged and passed out during a dream before. That was a new experience.

Almost immediately, the light started fading back in, and I saw everyone’s faces register shock. “He’s coming back!” The doctor was still there. “All right then, let’s go, quick. Quick!” And then I could see and hear, but not feel, while the doctor put some sort of power tool down my throat and started cutting and sawing. He would make a cut, and then push some sort of pinching device down in my mouth and grab out whatever it was he just cut out. I watched him throw pieces of gray, pink and white fleshy stuff into a tin bucket. I’m in full panic, but I still can’t feel anything, and it looks like I’m strapped down.

By the time he removes four of five big chunks of whatever he’s taking out from inside my throat, I can see more clearly. He backs away, takes his gloves off, and says “let him go”. All but one person leaves, and this person wheels me out a door, unstraps me, and puts me on my feet.

I can’t walk, I can barely stand. I feel my legs jerking and my back and shoulders spasm while I’ll try to stay balanced. I am starting to be able to feel my hands and my feet, but I still can’t feel my face.

I see myself from a separate perspective. I see myself having a seizure while I fall face first on the concrete. It’s a sunny day. The sky is blue.

And then I wake up.

Good thing it’s not like that every night anymore. I was getting tired of all that.

Ryan Xristopher’s Tiny Review of Acid Circus @ The Electric Tea Garden

Ryan Xristopher’s Tiny Review of Acid Circus @ The Electric Tea Garden

Acid Circus in Seattle? No way. How did this happen? And how was it going to turn out? Visited their website, listened to their tunes on Soundcloud and their podcast on Projektion. Read some more about Droid Behavior. Ah ha! So let’s bring some of the West Coast sound, to the West Coast. Seattle, October 25th, 2009. I rolled into the Electric Tea Garden right around 12:20am. Same bouncer as the last time I went there to see Derek Plaslaiko at the Sweatbox afterhours for the Decibel Festival. One extra rule though, this time. There had been noise complaints, so if you were going to be outside, you had to be very, very quiet … The Music Kristina Childs was on right when I walked in. The last time I’d seen her play was maybe three years ago spinning some abstract ambient tunes at a venue I don’t remember. Since then, I’ve seen her walking around at events, but not heard her play. Her set this evening was from 11:30 until 1, so I only caught the last half hour or so – and I truly wish I would have been there at the beginning. It was a pretty self-conscious crowd with their feet glued to the dancefloor when I got there, the ratio of guys to girl at its typical techno slant of 50:1, and nobody had broken through the invisible barrier into that dangerous semi-circle in front of the DJ reserved for the people who belong there. But the music! Rowdy, multiple-tempo layers of grimy techno, whoa.  I was set for the next 40 minutes. Awesome track selection and sequencing, straight-forward mixing, letting the music speak for itself. Tough, intelligent techno; melodic beats, breaks, fills and build-ups built into the tracks, one or two that I recognized for sure. When the music got going, Kristina’s stage presence was in full effect, too, dancing behind the decks with her red hair flying. Bring it. For her part of the evening, she was working with vinyl-control Serato on a Mac through a Pioneer DJM600. As much as I appreciate the precision of spinning CD’s, the value of seeing a DJ play a record on a turntable, even if it is just a control disc, is huge.  Techno presentation – put the needle on the record! Acid Circus jumped on right at 1 o’clock, shifting gears down a little bit from the Kristina’s peak-hour flavor and finding a deeper groove right away. The sound they present is hard to describe, other than by saying that its techno for techno-heads. It’s danceable, but it’s not really dance music. It’s usually not musically complicated, but the two brothers are constantly making changes to the effects processing, the samples, the layers, the hits, the rhythms; they pave a road of sound for you to follow, but it’s more like a path into a jungle rather than a highway to a destination. Their sound is primarily based on techno, but you can hear influence from other genres, and they  make especially deep nods to bouncy Chicago house, old school electro, hip-hop and even some progressive melodic sound washes every once in a while. My only divergences from their set were that their semi-signature tone and timing house synth stabs on top of the techno-minimal percussion structure are sometimes a little too thought-provoking for me (think white toast and apricot jam with coconut sprinkles on top – that kind of thought-provoking); and at one point early in the show, everything got really stripped down, almost to just a drum line, and I lost my way. It was a little like getting trapped in a cave and feeling around for where to put my feet next. There were plenty of times I wished I could have just stood behind them while they were performing, too, to see what was happening on their computers. There were periods where a whole lot was going on musically, but all they were doing was pushing the channel levels on the mixer up and down, and there were other periods where they were doing all kinds of button pushing and knob-twisting, but the music didn’t seem to be changing much. Note that Acid Circus is a true live performance. Out in front of them, they each had a Mac and a Native Instruments Maschine controller. Both of their setups were connected to channels on an Allen & Heath Xone:92 mixer that was in between them. As far as I could tell, Vidal was running Ableton on his side and doing most of the mixer work. On the other side, Vangelis was running Traktor Pro, as well as working with an Elektron Machinedrum and an M-Audio Evolution. It was one of the more complicated hardware/software/midi setups I’ve seen, especially for two people to coordinate playing on at the same time. At one point I stopped dancing to paying attention and watch Vangelis working the drum sequencer on the fly. He was going through the drum sequences sample by sample and putting in and taking out hits for each drum as the sequence was playing. These are incredibly subtle, live changes, almost impossible to pick up on unless you see what the performer is doing and can key in on which sounds are changing as they go. It was a new experience for me to see this live. Nice. It was also an experience watching the two of them work together. When they were on, they were on. There were moments in the mix when the two of them would move together, unscripted, each working on their own devices, all four channels on the mixer bumping green and blue; moments when they weren’t talking, they just knew what was collectively going on. These were the moments that the crowd had the best interactions with the performance, when the vibe was at its best. These moments were the reason that you came to see Acid Circus. My knowledge of the gear they were using is pretty limited, and I have no idea their methodology, their planning, or even if they have either of those. But to my thinking, to have two artists synch that well together, I imagine that when technology catches up to what they are capable of as performers, producers and programmers, the techno world is going to get a full dose of what it mean to live inside of music. Watch out. Jeromy Nail was the closer for the night, and after Acid Circus played a quick encore track, he started off was some dark, dirty, dancey techo. Rad. This is how we finish the night! But, about three tracks in, there was a stutter and he changed gears into more general house tunes. After that I lost the vibe. At 3:30 in the morning, when I’ve been sent on a journey into groove-driven techno, I want the closer to really explore the shadowy edges of what music is – I don’t want to head back to safe ground. This is when I want to hear you take some risks. The crowd was definitely into it though, so I glided around for a little longer and then rolled out at about 3:40. The Show I like the Electric Tea Garden. It’s comfortable, intimate, there’s seating on one side of the place where it’s a little quieter; the candlelit art gallery, book-ish decorations are cool. I really like the fact that it stays open past 1:45, which has been a stranglehold on the Seattle music scene in more mainstream places for a while now. But I have some issues with the ETG, especially with an event like this. First of all, the sound. Part of what makes techno unique is its spectral depth, its textures, and its dynamics. To let techno breathe, you have to be able to produce the full frequency and dynamic range. You truly need the full 20Hz -20,000Hz audio range, and ideally, you should never have to turn your amps, processors, and mixers up to more than 50% of their power range.  For karaoke bars and weddings you can cut corners. For hip-hop, rock, and top 40 music, the sound quality doesn’t really matter that much. For techno, the music is the sound quality. Many people will mistake ‘loud’ for ‘good’, and they’ll turn a system up to try to make it sound ‘better’. What happens is that it will actually sound worse. The midrange speakers will stress and start sound shrill (when the snare hits and vocals start to shriek and distort), and the bass will start to sound headachey and hollow. Yes, the volume goes up, but the energy level actually goes down, because the physical limiting from the speakers loses even more of the spectral range. You know when a sound system is being stressed because at that point, you have to shout to be able to be heard by the person right next to you. Listening to a full, clean soundsystem, the bass frequencies can rattle your teeth but you can still talk to the person next to you, the vocals will sound like someone is singing or talking, not shouting at you, and your ears won’t ring the next day. The sound that the venue provided for this show did not support the talent of the artists who performed. The volume levels were set right when Kristina was playing, but I watched someone (owner/promoter?) 15 minutes after Acid Circus came on turn the volume level up directly on the Xone:92 main out, and the music suffered for it the rest of the night. All the subbass frequencies disappeared, as that’s the first thing that happens when you push QSC and Mackie active speakers; the ‘smiley-face’ internal processing kicks in, and now you have what sounds like a big boombox. All sound is not created equal; you get what you pay for; don’t buy a wedding dress at Wal-mart. Second, the lighting. What lighting, you say? You have a group named “Acid Circus”, which is one of the most visually appealing names I’ve ever heard, a week before Halloween, and the visuals at the venue consisted of turning off all of the overhead lights except a single red lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. That’s a shame. Having a cornerstone of the thriving Los Angeles techno scene come in and play like this is sort of like presenting someone gourmet food and fine wine on a paper plate and in a dirty styrofoam sippy cup. The actual quality of the food can be amazing, but the experience is not the same without the right presentation. Put the needle on the record! And lastly, for any more than a few dozen people present at a show, please, for the love of God, invest in some Port-o-Johns outside.  Two single restrooms inside are a huge irritant, and you can look at the line of annoyed and fidgety people who spend a half hour each time they have to use a restroom, waiting, drinks in their hands, and know that something is functionally wrong. Ryan Xristopher’s Tiny Conclusion Overall, I had a great time. The booking was amazing, Kristina Childs and Acid Circus played fantastic music, and Jeromy Nail closed it down proper for the dance crowd. My only comment is that if you want to create something special at an event, there has to be a lot more attention paid to details. People can get so used to plastic sporks, they don’t know what else is out there; just wait until someone serves them with a silver spoon … -Ryan Xristopher Comments or corrections: email ryan.xristopher(at)gmail.com

Ryan Xristopher’s tiny review of Decibel Festival 2009

Decibel Festival 2009 review:
http://confinedmedia.com/DecibelFestival2009/decibel_festival_2009_review.html

Enjoy!
-rx

10 artists to check out this week …

10 Artists – Oct 15, 2009

10 Artists on Repeat this Week – Oct 15, 2009 Very much influenced by the performances I saw at the Decibel Festival, here are the artists I’ve put on repeat this week, not in any particular order. – Ryan Xristopher

1. Flying Lotus Los Angeles – I’ve probably listened to this album once per day, just to reset my ears. I’ve never heard anything quite like it. It defies even a basic description, so you’re going to have to figure this one out on your own. 2. Daedelus A Gent Agent – Baroque electronica, barely-controlled noise, forget any conceptions you have about tempo and style, heavily processed sampling, occasionally feeling like sheet music got thrown into a industrial clothes dryer. Don’t be scared. Have at it. 3. Mary Anne Hobbs Wild Angels – Some of the tracks in here are a little much for me, but I found myself putting this album on again and again, listening for combinations of textures that are outside of my normal realm of musical-emotional experience. These are the stutters and shudders of people looking for something new… 4. The Gaslamp Killer & Mary Anne Hobbs Low End Theory Podcast Episode #7- This is another one of those non-explainable ones. You’ll love it or you’ll hate it; but you’ll miss out if you ignore it. 5. Noah Pred Thoughtless Transmissions podcast – For those of you looking for more thoughtful and less cookie-cutter melodic sets, check out these podcasts. Some are a little rough around the edges, others touch on truly exceptional … Thoughtless Music also has some excellent releases available on Beatport. 6. Nosaj Thing Drift – Your few first few listens might find this album a little plain, but the further you dig in, the more you can get out of it. “Caves” is a good representation of the depths possible that midtempo grooves can take you to. 7. Damian Lazarus Smoke the Monster Out – Listening to this album was my main inspiration to create a set if artist albums more concerned with expression than status quo. It is easily my favorite album of 2009. “Neverending” is as amazing as it is raw. Be sure to check out Damian’s “Lazpod” if you haven’t already listened to them all. 8. Danny Howells Renaissance: The Mix Collection – This 2CD set from a while back is a reminder about what makes some music classic. A few of the tracks miss the mark a little, but overall, Danny takes you on a balanced journey, showcasing music that stands the test of time. 9. Christian Martin FACT Mix 73 – This one came out a little while ago, but it’s still a standby for me. This is probably my favorite mix of Christian’s to date. The Dirtybirds found their sound, and that sound makes me happy. Listen for the track at around 35 minutes in … ! 10. Dethklok Dethalbum II – Brendon Small holds a unique place within my basket of musical icons. The fact that his latest album is the 15th best selling CD in the country right now is a testament to his vision. I’ll let you all figure out why Dethklok’s success is particularly inspiring. Happy digging! A quick quote from Brendon - “I’m both happy and humiliated that DETHALBUM 2 reached number 15.  Happy because we beat the first DETHALBUM numbers and humiliated to have been beaten by our second album numbers by ourselves. Either way we’re still not as good as the Archies and I never want to forget that. Having said all of that, dear god I am fantastic and talented.”

Big Dumb Grins …

The sun shines down today with a different heat …
Big dumb grins on the faces of the people we meet;
Take to the highway, or take to the street -
Slide down the rainbow on the soles of your feet …

Take my hand, we can
sit or stand -
What good is it to lose,
if we didn’t cheat?

There’s always the other side of a story you know …
Sometimes holding on is the way to let go;
Seems like life is the speed of light -
We can’t ever stop, but we can move slow …

Take my hand, until we
understand -
what good is it to lose,
if we didn’t grow?

-rx

Dolls and Suits …

These are three of my new brainchildren … Enjoy … !

rx

Business

You Didn’t Help Me – (some theme music here)

Do not doubt
And maintain no illusion;
You have abandoned me in my time of need.

True colors are painted not when you have found your own joy,
But during those times when other people are in pain.

I knew:
The deadness in your voice with the first words
Was a mirror to the hollow, eaten soul behind it.

I am not one to say “I hate you”
With ready tears in my eyes.
I am not one to use my jealousy to systematically dismantle
The things you enjoy that do not focus on me –
Though I do know people who do that dance.

I am merely a causal puppet with a muffled opinion;
I do not and have never belonged;
There is nothing left to protect,
No more reason to hold back;
No sweet or dire situation –
Now it’s time to get down to business.

The Money Chase …

Oh, money money money.

Oh, banks banks banks.

I woke up yesterday and saw that an 800 number had called, but left no message. Interesting.

Today, that same 800 number called, and I answered.

It was Chase Bank.

The voice on the other end said that I had negative $530.95.

WHAT?!

Apparently I had been overdrafting for the last two weeks with my $2, $5 and $10 purchases, and it had added up to being $500 on the whole. I had not received any notification, I’d used my pin number during this whole time; no indication of anything wrong. Obviously, it is a rule of banks that you don’t spend money you don’t have. Obviously, I was not paying attention. But I have *never heard of a case where a bank will let you keep overdrafting for *two weeks without saying anything. My debit card, in truth, had been denied the day before, which, I figured, meant that I did not have the $10 in my account that was required for the purchase of the Aspirin and the juice that I was buying. In fact, now I believe that it was denied because I was more than $500 overdrafted.

Now, I don’t have $500 available. I can’t really *get $500 right now. And I didn’t know that this type of situation could happen. Really? Banks just keep giving you money, knowing that you don’t have any? When did this happen?

So the dude on the phone tells me that’s what I owe. I tell him that I don’t understand how it could have happened. He told me that he wasn’t sure how notifying me “slipped through the cracks”. I tell him I’ll pay the bank what I owe, but that the overdraft fees were ridiculous considering the situation. He said there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He was generally amicable and sounded a little stressed at this point, so I asked for his name, and then for his manager.

I’m not stupid, I’m not a pushover. I realize I broke the rules, that it was my fault I wasn’t paying attention, but there would have to be a compromise. I give money to the bank so that they can keep it safe for me use it to make a profit for themselves. Me paying the entire amount of this fee did not seem reasonable under the circumstances. Padriac, employee #F131537, did his job. Keep it up.

Then his manager came on the line. Almost before I finished explaining the situation, she was interrupting me, telling me that it was my fault and my responsibility, that it was my error, not the bank’s, and that  there was nothing she could do for me. She told me I should have known how much was in my account when “I was spending all that money” and that I “signed up for these fees when I opened my account”. I told her I was going to close my account. She told me that after I cleared the fees, to go ahead. Whoa.

Now mind you, I am *far more sensitive to *how people say things than what they say. Human beings are liars and fakers, and I’m not so big on believing words just because they’re words. In any case, I’m not completely sure whatever else this woman said, but the way she said it made me want to stretch my arms through the phone line and smack her in her pretentious head. And the thing is, maybe she didn’t mean it, maybe she was having a bad day, maybe my tone frustrated her. I don’t know. But the fact is, I *remember her as being disrespectful, rude, and unhelpful, and it was a strong enough reaction of mine to write about it, and I truly hope she gets fired, or at least never allowed to answer customer service phone calls again.  Money from people like me is what pays you.  Don’t forget that. I got her name, and asked for her manager. Maddy (sp?) Blake, you did not do your job.

Next up was what sounded like an older man. Right away, he gave me the same answers as Ms. Blake, telling me it was my fault. Trying to explain the situation again, he was initially more respectful than the earlier lady, but quickly started getting gruff, telling me there was nothing he could do. I told him, “Look, if this is how Chase Bank operates, than I will make it a point to write about this and make sure that every family member or friend I have knows about this. I’m a journalist in this community, and I think this is ridiculous.” Now, that’s a little bend of the truth. I’m a writer – with a journalism degree. I was just trying to make the point that dismissing me before I was happy with the solution was a bad idea, and implying that maybe he should be *sure there was nothing he could do for me. His response to that was – “Now you’re threatening to slander Chase Bank. I’m taking that as a threat, and I will not reverse your overdraft fees”. I got his name, and asked for his manager. Travis Weng – you did not do your job. Like Ms. Blake, I hope you get fired, or are not allowed to do customer service again. And so you know, Travis, “slander” only happens when a story is not true.

Next up. Right away, this gentleman’s voice was relaxed and calming. With the other three, I could either feel stress and anger or even see the sneers on their faces. This was much more casual. I imagine he was in a nice leather office chair, leaning back, with me on speakerphone. The other three were talking *at me, this person was talking *to me. He went through, step by step with me, what happened and why the charges were so high. He explained to me that some of the transactions were on the weekend, and there were so many charges because of small purchases at different places, etc. Then he said that they have some sort of overdraft matrix, and he’d see how much he could waive, depending on how long I’d been with the bank and if there had been other issues before. He said he could get rid of some exact number, like $262.40, or something like that. I asked him if he felt that was reasonable. He took another moment and said to hold on, and went through the overdraft charges, one by one, and decided that the situation did not warrant that high of a number, either. He even busted out a calculator. Finally, he says, “tell you what, I’ll get rid of all this, and make it like you made all these purchases on two days, instead of 14, and charge you 70 bucks.”

Now that, Chase Bank et al., is customer service. I did something wrong. I screwed up. But a human on the other end of a phone line looked at the situation independently, and took care of it. I *deserve to get charged $70 for not paying attention. I know that. I’m not supposed to spend money I don’t have. I *don’t, however, deserve to be charged $400 – I don’t care what the guidelines are; that number was bunk because of the situation at hand, especially being a first-time offense (though apparently I’ve overdrafted a few times before that I was unaware of when it was still Washington Mutual) and me obviously not knowing that I could overdraft that many times without being notified. (This, by the way, is called “protection from embarrassment”. I want you to know, Mr. Corporate Bank, that I would rather be “embarrassed” with a debit card denial than charged fees like this. Perhaps make it an option, rather than a sneaky fee?) This manager was smart enough to analyze the situation and act appropriately. He gave me his name and his direct line in case the waiver didn’t work; told me everything should be fine by Monday. And he made me promise that I would sign up for a service on the Chase online website that sends you a text when your bank account balance gets below a certain point.  Situation complete.  Mr. Jeff Eberling, you did your job. Thank you.

I, however, told him to please talk to Ms. Blake and Mr. Weng about how they dealt with me. He said he would pull the phone call and check it. He may or may not, and in all truth, maybe things didn’t go down like I remember it. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe I was pushing their buttons. However, that doesn’t change the fact that they failed where Mr. Eberling and Padraic succeeded, in making the customer satisfied with a solution to a problem.

The point is of this, though, is that this narrative is how I remember this morning. My direct quotes are as accurate as I can recall in order to tell the story. If they choose, Chase’s main office can go through the call and decide if I’m a maniac or not. But for better or worse, after I clear the fees, I will be closing my bank account with Chase, and suggest that others do the same. I would also recommend that Mr. Eberling work to fix his employer’s “protection from embarrassment” practice, or at least give customers an option; or that he find a job working for a different company. Good people don’t need to work for lousy corporations.

The bottom line is that I don’t believe that banks should operate like Chase apparently does, based on the situation this morning, and I will be taking my money elsewhere in the future.

My Species – Time Will Tell

Humans are my species.

But I find it interesting, though, that despite having ears, no one ever listens until it’s too late.

Take, for instance, the conversation that I have with every one of my friends at some point.

If you choose to have certain habits, if you choose them, knowing that they have certain ugly consequences in the future; at the time those consequences show themselves, you will be erased from my life. For example, if you smoke cigarettes to the degree that your health is affected, the very second you are diagnosed with cancer: lung cancer, throat cancer, breast cancer, whatever; I will laugh at you. I will not support your recovery, I will not visit you in the hospital, I will not attend your funeral. You suffer because of your decisions when you knew what the repercussions would be. It doesn’t matter if you are my parent, my wife, my child, or a friend. As you lie dying, in pain or doped up and incoherent, I will be on vacation, swimming with the dolphins. I will not think of you, I will not speak of you, I will not mourn for you. Essentially, I will grieve for you in advance, as I’m watching you destroy yourself from the inside out.

The same goes for drug habits. If you get stoned too often and lose your sense of reality and your ability to concentrate; as you slip farther away – I will not help you. If you do too much coke and start to look old, if you do meth and your teeth fall out, same deal. Getting fucked up too much means you will be sick later. What is ‘too much’? Well, that’s something you have to figure out for yourself. But the more you alter yourself now, the more you’ll feel the backlash later. That’s the balance. That’s the trade-off. Be smart.

Same for alcohol. You know the consequences of liver damage, and you know the consequences for drinking and driving. I will not visit you in jail. And if you hurt someone while drinking and driving, there’s a very small but powerful button in my mind that looks a lot like this – ‘Delete’.

And it’s not that I will like you less as a person. I just won’t feel any sympathy or empathy. There will be no anger, and there will be no love. There will be no “I told you so”, there will be no forgiveness. This is no bluff, and there will be no exceptions.

It’s interesting though; that I can have this conversation with people, straightforward and direct, and it makes absolutely no difference to them at all. Dozens of times, hundreds of times, I’ve had this conversation, and I’m pretty sure that people hear me. But I wonder – are they listening? I doubt it.

I take that back, though – one person did listen to me once, my best friend at the time. Her friends were filing out of a living room to go outside, and she stayed back to talk to me alone for a second.

“I want you to know,” she said, “that if we were together, I would quit smoking. I know what that means to you.”

She took hold of my wrist, looked into my eyes and said, “I will never smoke again, once we are together.”
And then she turned and followed to where everyone else went, leaving me to put my records back in their sleeves.

It was a beautiful moment, and I treasure it. It’s nice to know that someone listened.

Maybe others will in the future.

Time will tell.