207

The American Dream is not dead. As twenty-aught-six draws to a close she crawls along. Her body beaten and broken, her legs crushed beneath years of broken promises and broken ideals, forsaken everythings and squandered kinetics. Exsanguinated, almost, her skull mostly shattered and with syphilis and scurvy closing in on whatever is left she pulls herself forward with her one good arm. And good, here, is a relative term, what with the other one left somewhere in 1999 lopped off for one reason or other. She can’t seem to recall. Ages old before her time and dirty from a hundred thousand lies and a thousand score wrong decisions made badly on purpose, all for the allure of being bad, wrinkled and soured by unkindness she might catch her reflection in a nearby cesspool (they’re, like, everywhere these days) and wonder, for a moment, when she got so damn ugly. So holy fuck, burning-shed-of-rabbit-shit-stuffed-with-dead-dogs-ugly. She might wonder that, but she knows. She knows it happened when she slit her friend’s throat for a new boyfriend she was tired of the next week and a piece of cheese at the end of a poorly constructed cardboard labyrinth, even though she’s lactose intolerant. (she is most-everything intolerant, though, so…) Knows it happened when her new friends slit her throat for no reason except they were bored and she was boring, what with always trying to be exciting. Because they didn’t like her stenciled on smile or her MS Paint scars or her stretch marks or whatever clusterfuck-bronze-star she was sporting most proudly that day. Maybe just because she has a throat and these friends are like the Sir Edmond Hillarys of hate. She knows it happened when she paid thirty-dollars a half hour for skin cancer and four dollars a pack for emphysema and black lungs and yellow teeth. One hundred dollars a month for cable TV and when she prostituted herself for a hit of whatever that was, she can’t even remember. She knows it happened when she read US magazine and asked herself what the hell Ben Affleck was thinking when he did whatever it is he does. She knows it happened over and over and over again but couldn’t bring herself to give a damn. Because not giving a damn was her niche. Her clique, nearly 7 Billion strong. She knew it was because she was awful. She knew. She just didn’t notice until now because she is very practiced at turning her head. But she’s forgetful and she’s forgotten how to care even about her torn, exposed rib cages and her gangrenous spirit. And she pulls herself forward. Her life a meaningless blur of bar-stools and economy-sedans, credit card debt and shoes. Of too-fast years and too-long days and too many drugs and too little ardor. Meaningless except, maybe, to have given birth to even less meaning somewhere along the way. Meaningless except to have finally, finally overcome her greatest fear of getting lost in a crowd of nothings. She doesn’t know when it happened, but she must have risen above it. Because even with all the blood-stains and tear-stains and shit-stains that she wears as everyday accessories you couldn’t pick the American Dream out of a line-up of one with six chances and some kind of color coding. A chart of some kind. She must have conquered her fear to be this ordinary. And she is not dead. And she has not lost a match in years because it has been years since she tried to do anything at all. It has been years since she turned the world, but the world spins on, and that, it seems, is good enough. Momentum is momentum and hell is maybe just a Sandals resort with a bad press agent. She pauses here and there to clutch the cavernous cavity that once meant something to someone, the chasm where her heart once was. And with a purely trivial interest she asks herself, for a moment, what is powering her circulatory system. Or if she even has one anymore. She’s given so much of herself away so often without thinking she might have left it behind any number of times. The American Dream, she probably wrote about this loss in her journal when she noticed it but she is forgetful and she has long since forgotten now. And it’s not as though she has the luxury of caring. God, no. If she even tried who knows what would happen. But she is not dead. And so she keeps moving, rolling, now, more than pulling herself which is just as well. It’s been downhill for a long, long time and she is tired. But she is not dead. And though she no longer remembers how to speak her mind, or if she left that on a nightstand, too, someone has written down some things for her to say and she is nothing if not well rehearsed. And the American Dream, she is not dead. As we, the few, the hard, the brilliant and unflinchingly brutal stare stone faced and feet-planted toward a new year, she is not dead.

 

And this is a time for heroes.

 

A time for clean hands to bring us clean art. A time for statesman and poets. A time for each of us to, with one voice, demand greatness of ourselves. A time for revolution.

 

This year, may your New Years resolution be resolve. May you wish on every falling star for a finer world. May you with clear heads and filled hearts go full tilt toward anything and refuse to apologize for your ambition, not to the Buddhists, not to the right side of the isle or the left, to ministers or mothers or boys or girls or even yourself. May you divine what you most want in this life and be sleepless until you find and grab it with both hands. And once you have whatever the fuck it is, may you give it away gleefully. May you be charitable and dogged. May you never tire and never ever be complacent. This year I hope “comfortable” is completely removed from your lexicon just as “sheepdip” was ripped from the dictionary all those years ago.

 

Thomas Carlyle told us that “The history of the world is but the biography of great men.” And just this past week Time magazine suggested that, with the advent of web 2.0 history may indeed become the biography of many ordinary ones.

 

And fuck both of you.

 

This is a time for heroes. Line up beside me this year and in all our years and show the world that history can be a record of both the many and the great.

 

Stand up. Stand out. Walk far and return unafraid.

 

This year and in all your years may you never succumb to an ordinary life.

 

This is a time for heroes.

 

Demand greatness, please. Demand truth and kindness. Demand that we all be better.

 

At your next high school reunion may you fit in not at all.

 

May you remember that tomorrow is an inherently good idea, that the American Dream is not dead, just a little fucked up. May you be her doctor and have her back on her feet in no time. May you reattach her arm.

 

May you be beautiful.

 

This year may you revive the spirit of all things awesome and fashion your own zeitgeist.

 

This is a time for heroes.

 

May 2007 be the year of 207 for each and every one of us.

 

Get a beverage of your choice and kick some ass all year long.

 

E

 

p.s. as a side note, my older sister got engaged last week and that event, most joyous, has absolutely nothing to do with the title of this blog (I swear) or my general outlook at the moment. Congratulations Erin, I love you a silly amount.

 

I finally went and did it ladies and Gents. I took a dive off my high-horse into the pit that is myspace. It is a move motivated partly by curiosity, partly by boredom, but mostly by good keen business sense. For all the crap i give myspace it’s been a good space to use space to get our movies from E’s place to your face and then in a space in your dvd case. Somebody put a beat to that.

NEW greatest page EVAR

And of course, don’t forget about the myspace “mirror site” for our very own 207 Pictures.

Next to greatest page EVAR!

If you haven’t already done so, you’ll be able to link up with all the 207 gang through either of those pages. Step right up, step right up! We’ve got it all ladies and gents! We’ve got the original Craig, man behind the goofy bastard! Olivia “poop” Superchick, driving force behind keeping E alive and functioning as a member of society! What’s that? E? You bet folks! We’ve got E, the Prophet, himself. We got C, the Saint, and now joins the Beast, T. We got the amazing G “Stemage” Henry, bottomless well of talent! Musical contributor, and all around cool guy, Joey! It’s a thousand thrills a second with 207 folks!

So there’s my pitch. Forgive the relative bareness of my page. I’m working on getting some more pictures and have ideas for some exclusive 207 related stuff if i can get approval from the board. Welcome to Myspace! Let’s all suffer together!

T

All right. My turn. I don’t know about everyone else, but the thing I look for most in my music is quality lyrics, so rather than long explanations, I’ve sampled some lyrics for the following. Check the music on iTunes.

With due respect, E, here’s some real music.

Track: Take the Long Way
Artist: Po’ Girl
Album: Vagabond Lullabies

I can’t think of anything more ridiculous than a blue grassy band mixing in hip-hop, but somehow Po’ Girl—off shoot band from The Be Good Tanyas—pulls it off. The lyrics speak for themselves.

“I brush my teeth like kool keith. I paint in watercolours like georgia o’keefe.
My graffiti flex kill and that’s keepin it brief.
Those who got will get even more. If you don’t waste you gifts you’ll get another four.
Be a spirit not a ghost on the west coast; listen to patti smith and as the clouds shift,
sun down, big sur, the view is killer by the old homestead of henry miller.
Don’t worry bout your final destination you’ll get there soon;
Stare at the stars, they’re the children of the sun and the moon.”

Track: All of My Days
Artist: Alexi Murdoch
Album: Time Without Consequence

A guy and his guitar. My favorite kind of music. I had the privilege of seeing this cat play in New York this summer. Afterward, I thanked him for the show and he said, “Thanks, mate.” Did you get that? Me and Alexi Murdoch—we’re mates. This song is a good introduction to a phenomenal musician.

Track: To Love and To Be Loved
Artist: Bright Eyes
Album: Lifted

How do you classify Bright Eyes? You can listen to this song for content, or you can listen to it for his rhymes. The only thing you can’t listen to it for is Conner’s voice, which is like Dylan’s in that it’s compelling in its humanity if not its quality. Check these lyrics and watch the rhymes:

“The animals laugh from the dark of the wilderness;
a baby cries hard in an apartment complex;
and I pass in a car buried under the influence.
The city’s driving me out of my mind.”

Track: Billy from the Hills
Artist: Greg Brown
Album: A Live One or Slant Six Mind

Guy. Guitar. My favorite musician of all time, singing about his father. Check these lyrics and tell me he’s not a poet of the highest caliber:

“Blood flows back and back and back and back,
Like a river from a secret source.
I feel a wild in me. I’ll pitch my camp at the fork
Where knowledge meets remorse.
Women singing me that song from the ancient choir
I just open my mouth and what comes out gives me chills.
I got my song from a secret place.
I got my face from Billy from the hills.”

Track: Yell Fire
Artist: Michael Franti and Spearhead
Album: Yell Fire

Reggae Hip Hop Funk? This whole anti-war album is brilliant, but here are some lyrics to drool over:

“They tellin’ you to never worry about the future
They tellin’ you to never worry about the torture
They tellin you that you’ll never see the horror
Spend it all today and we will bill you tomorrow
Three piece suits and bank accounts in Bahamas
Wall street crime will never send you to the slammer
Tell all the children in the arms of their mommas
The F-15 is a homicide bomber”

Track: G.B.A.
Artist: Xavier Rudd
Album: Solace

Guy. Guitar. Didgeridoo. If anyone can tell me what G.B.A. stands for, I’ll give them a cookie. If you google it, you’ll come up with the Game Boy Advance, Gay Business Association, and Global Business Asset. Interesting. Anywhere, lyrics:

“I know, i see, i feel and yes i fear it everyday
These ego’s—their minds and games
With all their power could end our days
Still the sun it shines and the moon it sinks with grace
It’s such a shame that all this shit exists
Here on this earth, this magical place.”

Track: Black Rain
Artist: Ben Harper
Album: Both Sides of the Gun

You got to love Ben Harper. The man’s the inheritor and embodiment of American Music. Rock, Reggae, Gospel, Folk, Funk, Jazz, and Blues. There’s no genre that the man won’t tackle. He’s returned to his political roots with this one. Kick ass song. Just check this opening:

“You left them swimming for their lives down in new orleans
Can’t afford a gallon of gasoline
With your useless degrees and contrary statistics
This government business is straight up sadistic”

Track: Chinese Translation
Artist: M. Ward
Album: Post-War

The guy’s brilliant, and if you pick up the album you can watch the video for this, which is wonderful. Lyrics:

“What do you do with the pieces of a broken heart;
and how can a man like me remain in the light;
and if life is really as short as they say,
then why is the night so long?”

Track: Speedy Delivery
Artist: Mr. McPheely and the Friendly Fucking Neighbors
Album: Single

All right, because Ethan was too much of a bastard to do it, here it is: The most masterful white guy rap ever sung from the perspective of Mr. Roger’s mailman. Lyrics:

“Yesterday at a game I heard some loser say,
‘With a name like McPheely, dude ya gotta be gay.’
I said, ‘Yo I handle packages but not in that way.’”

You can listen to it here.

Thanks for reading. And be ready, I’m working on a catch phrase that will be announced shortly.

-Christopher