i sleep with my guitar
because i have no dog
and i am scared to love

Again…

Large View

This coming June, I will be launching “Simplify Music”. It’s my aim to provide music media in a broad array of formats.

In order to Simplify the mold, I’ll ensure that every possible fulfillment option is available on our website. If you like iTunes, we’ll deliver. If you prefer a physical copy instead, I’ll mail one out to you. Even if somebody wants to download our music for free with torrent seeds, Simplify will provide the link.

Donations are to be accepted, and all of our finances will be transparent, so you can check the website and see how much support your favorite artists are receiving from their fans.

Lastly, a “Simplify” clothing brand is to provide plain, comfortable, and environmentally friendly t-shirts, hoodies, and accessories. The “simplify” logo will be intentionally omitted from any visible surfaces, because I believe it’s time for an alternative to all this flashy, neon bullshit everyone seems to be wearing.

Thank you for taking the time to read about my vision.
I hope you’ll stick around and see it realized.

(P.S. I apologize to anyone I may have offended with the “flashy, neon bullshit” bit…)

This sonnet speaks to a current junction in my personal life… I won’t elaborate on why, but I would like to share it. If you’ve ever been wronged by somebody, or have had the opportunity to engage in petty confrontation but chose not to, then maybe it will hold similar meaning for you.

They that have power to hurt and will do none
William Shakespeare

They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;
They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces
And husband nature’s riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.
The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

All my life I’ve been told to seek happiness, and I’m realizing now that I may have been misdirected. I’d always envisioned a grand epiphany, you know, with blinding white lights and rivers of gold. I thought it would be like an everlasting orgasm.

I’m now thinking, what if happiness was never like that at all: enduring and transcendent?

Maybe it’s always been more of a treat, like a small candy moment to be savored. And perhaps, instead of setting our sights on the eventual climax, we might fare better by learning to be contented with the whole.

I guess that’s just common sense, but sometimes it helps to put it all down in writing. I might remember it better that way…

(Oh, and the title of this post is a reference to splash mountain, a Disney Land ride, and a related movie The Laughing Place )