Keeping It Honest

When I dubbed this gig “Unplugged” I did not know that I would actually need to be completely “Unplugged.” I should’ve sensed that something was up when my home PA malfunctioned by making a repeating, alarming, sweeping, ascending tonal sound… like what you might hear during an apocalyptic scenario. What the fuck?

I’ve been singing about going High or Low in a yet-to-be-released track, and as I’m writing this paragraph I am laughing out loud at the idea of a malfunctioning low to high ascending tone.

High Low

What the actual fuck? Like I say in C’est La Vie, “Ain’t it funny in hindsight. Shake it off, such is life is life.”

C’est La Vie

Okay, whatever. We all find parallels in daily life if we are willing to look, and pay attention. Mindfulness helps, and even when we’re not paying attention shit tends to slap you in the face when you least expect it. Of course, even though I search for good and pleasant inspirational parallels, I don’t always pay attention, mindfully, because of the nature of 21st Century life and the human condition in general. Technological distractions, malfunctions, ramming, prodding, vying for space. I just glanced at my phone and read another scary, nearly apocalyptic, headline involving a “brain eating amoeba” What the…

Apart from scary headlines, fear-based news in general, and other distractions, what else is up with mindfulness and better ways to delve into creative communication, sort of the point of this blog, Perspective In Sound?

I heard my song “Maybelline” on the radio earlier. Fuck yeah!

Broadcasting Live from Shannon’s Corner on Pine. KLBP 99.1 FM Long Beach, CA!

https://www.rileyhodges.com/new-music

Also, I heard Alyssa Nighswonger, friend and multi-talented artist, on KLBP 99.1 FM Long Beach, CA while writing… She asked, “What’s the point?” which is what drew me to say what the point of this blog was above.

This is how my brain works. Don’t eat me, amoebas! Please preserve my twisting, interconnected, multiple-outcome reality as blood pumps through my trillions of synapses to form growing positive connections!

What else? Well, making sense of all this in 2019 requires a high-speed broadband Internet connection and well-functioning CPU. My 2012 iMac has not been cutting it lately, but it’s not Mac’s fault… It is I, the master of my CPU, that is holding on to too much content. Lately, I’ve been sorting through old content since I started taking pictures of mostly nonsense from about 2000 (y2k, baby!) up until I moved to Barcelona, Spain in 2007 where I got a chance to photograph more creatively. Just before I left for Spain, I bought the re-popularized Holga toy camera made out of cheap components to give the user a flawed photographic experience that over-accentuates the natural beauty of the Universe. Colors, light leaks, overexposure, etc. all adds to what has now been replaced by your Instagram filter, or countless other ways in which you can manipulate the world around you to suit your liking.

When I was much younger, barely a teenager, I made a few time-lapse videos using legos, fire, a Santa Claus doll, whatever I could conveniently get my hands on. Later on, my sisters and I made a film, Killer In the House, Part 1 and Part 2…

The goal is to make it entertaining. For better or for worse, at the moment…

So as I’m cleaning up my Hard Drive, thereby improving my CPU, I am working on how to stay centered, mindful and patient…

Back to the gig on Saturday, the 14th after our Friday the 13th Full Harvest Moon Adventure into the Wasteland. I started noticing the pull of this rare full moon the night beforehand on Thursday the 12th as my PA was malfunctioning… then during our Wasteland Adventure, and up until the gig on Saturday I was still feeling as prickly as a Night Blooming Cactus. Of course, as I got on stage my guitar pickup malfunctioned… so we mic’d my acoustic guitar, Unplugged. It’s weird how the Universe does that to you.

Saturday the 14th @ Dipiazzas

Keeping It Honest is all about the stuff that is out of your control and you shall not fight, it is embracing the chaos around you so much so that you become the chaos, figuratively speaking, just so that you can see things from a different perspective, also known as Empathy. Courage, helps…

It’s been a ‘fun’ summer, learning these lessons, and I’m ready for Fall, falling into my next release series, including new music later this month, Live One!

Live One

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