Song Of The Day: Green Man / XTC
Word Of The Day: Sarmassation / Love play

Well, my new album is done. It's been recorded, mixed, and at least pre-mastered. The final song list is (in the currently preferred order):

Good Weird
AC / DC
Easter
Dirty Purity
3 Way
Parker Posey
Murder Suicide
Before Beyond
Voodoo Dolls
Rape Game
What
Glass

Of course completing this album is just the beginning. I am now trying to solidify my new management deal, which I hope to have concluded this week, and that will hopefully quickly lead to deal with a label and a publisher. Business, business. But it's all fun. And it's really time for me to do something different, new, and bigger with my career if at all possible. I have always produced a great deal of material in very short periods of time. I put an album out every year, tour tour tour, put out another album, tour tour tour. But the possibility of that formula has to some extent been realized. In my heart of hearts, I feel that my role as a practitioner and artist is to make this music available to as many people as possible, and until it shows up on the radar (distribution, radio, t.v., print, etc etc) somewhere, that is just not going to happen. To continue in my previous mode would act to undermine the potential of this music to have a meaningful place in more people's lives. In order to navigate the transition to the next phase, it's required for me to remain focused and engaged in securing the right management, the right record label, the right publisher, and once anchored in that regard, implement a coherent strategy to introduce this music to the people out there who would love it but haven't had a chance to discovere it.

Upon finishing this album and listening to it at Henson Studios during the listening party, something strikes me deeply, and the idea that this album -which I truly feel is my best one yet, and marks a whole new stage of the art- the notion that this album would just be put out independently, no distribution, no promotion, no radio, and evaporate after selling a few thousand copies, well that fucking makes me nauseous. I can't stand the thought. This has GOT to get out into the World, and not because I want to become famous (I've written at length before on the idiosynchrasies of my preference, if anything my fantasies are of running off to a monastery, but no, it's not meant to be...), but because this is OUR Dharma. This is really, truly a "WE" thing. When I consider the fucking mind-blowing, brilliant work producer Alex Gibson did on this project, how he devoted months and months working for NO money, insane hours, and created this expertly crafted Aural Mandala, every moment fully cognizant of its function as surrender and devotion to the work of Love, when I consider THAT I am filled with a sense of urgency and drive to ensure this one does not dissolve on the periphery of the "biz". When I think of everything Nate Jenkins has done in the same ways, with the same fervent passion for this music's strange magnetism to the ~!~?~!~, I can't stomach the idea that it would just fade away. And then we Rupert Hine, who has ushered the project from the beginning, and was with us every day of the mix, pouring his clear attention over every detail, every sound, every moment, an assiduous ear for how the body of the album is holding the interior, internal dimensions of the song. This entire team, all the musicians who played on it, everyone who worked on production, everyone stewerding it to the next level- has been dedicated from a very deep place, simply wanting to bring something into the World that brings meaning and value to people's lives.

But that's the tip of the ice berg. From the very beginning, YOU, the people who have bought music at shows, from the web site, Ken Wilber and all the investors who've put up their hard earned money to fund the recording of albums, everyone who made bids in the Rock Auction to finance this new one, all the people who worked with my label Dharma Pop, all the punk monks and volunteers, our tireless Bodhisattva of a web master Matt Westgate (who's extended effort selflessly without complaint or hesitation for YEARS to keep this site fluid and beautiful), Dave Tolmie, Rob Berg, Kismet Smith, Chad Phillips running the organization on love and moxy, Tripp Lanier, Graham English, Brian Dillon playing their asses off in the band, Andy Mcewen giving his heart and soul to record the first version of the album, and basically the 10,000+ supporters of this music who continually step up and give their time, talen, and money to support this art in the World.

It is no exaggeration to say there are right now THOUSANDS of people directly, immediately involved in ushering this music in the World. They are all kinds in all places; Lawyers working on helping me with contracts, pro's in the entertainment industry, business moguls, college kids, Zen teachers and students setting their intention toward cultivating this art and its role in the Dharma, Christians, Sufis, Kabbalists, psychics, artists, an integral vortex of methodologies and practitioners consecrating the whole affair as a work in the Family.

And that's the point, it's our music, and there is a great momentum, both from our community of people on Earth and also those not incarnated in-body. The community has set its intention, and things are aligning in accordance. Even ME!

That's right. A few months ago, I had a meeting with a Spiritual teacher, a shaman. She did a "journey" for me, where she goes into the subtle dimensions and basically interacts with perspectives from those domains to get a bigger read on your circumstances and conditions. I had gone to her specifically with some questions about my music career. I was wondering whether or not to pursue any record labels, or whether I should continue on with my indie approach. She came back from her journey and told me there were literally hundreds of entities in the spiritual dimensions, from all different traditions, who were expending a great deal of positive energy and intention to ensure this music found its way into millions of people's lives. She said that this music was meant for many more people than presently had access to it, and there is basically an array of beings working in concert to see it finds its way into the World in a big way. The point of this was not that I was some ultra special person, or having anything to do with my ego, but simply that this music is going to be useful to the Work of Love. And in fact, I was the one fucking holding up the game, inhibiting its potential, because of my selfish reservations with not wanting to "share" my life by being more famous, etc, and especially with my grossly incorrect assumptions about the entertainment business and Hollywood.

This, she said, was critical for me to understand: I had been living my life and directing my career under inaccurate assumptions about what integrity and spiritual practice are. She said I equate fame, celebrity, and the whole Hollywood scene with lack of integrity, selling out, and avarice, when in fact there are literally, actually DOZENS of pure, sincere operatives in the Mystery waiting in Hollywood for me, including my producers and others, who deeply understand this music, its mission, and how to bring it to the World in the service of Love. But my distorted ideas of what that World is about are undermining the affair. On top of it all, my presuming judgements are incongruent with my practice as a student of Zen, beginner's mind, big mind, and all the methodologies I claim to value. She stated flatly I needed to forget everything I was assuming, it is crucial for me to drop all my ideas and simply make myself available completely to the Work, trusting fully in my lineage, the community, and to the Meta-narrative which I may or may not be able to perceive at different stages of my involvement. It's not about me becoming famous. It's all fucking dust. We will all be dead faster than we can possibly imagine. We are already dead. While we have the incredible, rare opportunity of the precious human vehicle, we have to strive with our fullest to fully inhabit and unfold Love, to just let what already is shine through a little more, and a little more. All the dirt, the bruises, the transfiguring light, the ecstatic consecration of reality-as-it-is- no part of God left out of the ever-evolving "I AM".