if this is me...

who the hell are you?

you introduced me to this song. sitting beside me in the car on our roadtrip you turned up the stereo playing your handcrafted mixtape & said "this is you" as i drove us, roof down 120 kms an hour into the uplifting winter breeze, hair flying. away from the city.

it's now the highest rotation track playing in the studio while i pretend to work, fastidiously analyzing lyrics, thinking about the sometime subjugation of independence when personalities come together, thinking about us. thinking about you. imagining psychotic as sexy. it is a sexy song.

you say you don't want to be you plus someone else. you want to be yourself. as if i would argue, i like you as you. surely we two don't have to be mutually exclusive.

history reveals that relationships can steal personal identity. that one must surrender independent self when fusing with another. but it's not a given. there need not be a reduction. even if egalitarianism is brushed under the carpet, the converse is equally valid.

why not embrace emotionally supportive growth & mutual betterment & inspiration FFS! our friendship, an inimitable foundation, a lifelong conversation. my bubble need not be greater than yours. in the end we're all alone. each erratically breaking the other's silence. or noise.

i come to you. as you came to me. then went. now come back. if not forever, stay awhile. perhaps we'll see out a few more incarnations together. everlasting love need not be a hypocritical sliding scale. energy does not die. it merely changes & shifts with the tide. we can be the moon together. yet polarized stars bound by gravity. read D H lawrence. fuck the religious zealots, poppy choppers & hallmark.

even hedonistic fredrich agrees. marry your best friend ie. a person who helps you become a better person through a shared higher thirst for an ideal above. when you gaze into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. don't look down. hold on...

so dearest defiantly independent nihilist, is your cup half empty or half full? bend time to refer to as yet unwritten pages within the IDTC manual & place our higher operational plane there. you will find passages which will invalidate your "there is no forever" theorem. in short there are too many possible worlds. perception is a malleable force. as are we. you & i. collective & separate.

please take this electric litmus paper test & come run amok in übermensch with me. we can laugh at the abyss together. and take turns in the lead if we can't always be side by side.

i'd like to be your psychotic girl. you need not be the lost boy.

hey nietzsche! leave them kids alone!

a book launch with a difference...

it's only fitting that craig schuftan's follow up book from the culture club stays within the genre he has so aptly lodged himself within. like joan jett [and keats before her too] screamed to the heavens, "i love rock n roll". there's no doubt that schuftan shares their sentiment. he is a romantic in the true [or at least his recently abridged] sense of the word.

as the mythic deconstructor of artistic popular culture & rock and roll, schuftan bridges the 19th century romantic movement with the 20th/21st century of popular music ie. rock and roll. it's a credible connection which explores songs of melancholia [with just a little bit of "fuck you" thrown in for good measure] and their indescribable emo link with the breakout artists, thinkers and poets of the 1800s.

the romantics introduced to society great & noble expectations of love. our modern artists have continued to act as champions to the cause where global consciousness acknowledges & celebrates emotional misery. love, the human experiential rollercoaster which binds us all. misery loves company, none greater than one's own pen/guitar.

from byron to nietzsche to bowie to my chemical romance, the degrees of separation are not nearly as great as a layman's cursory glance might reveal.

a black historical sightseeing parade would have us wandering lost in tragic celebration for the death of calmar and orla whilst nietzsche conjures up music for byron's other rockstar manfred before sarah blasko bleats out that sweet broken version of david bowie's heartfelt heroes [just for one day].

and we're only just getting started... with ben of the devoted few singing haunting renditions of the smiths & the cure at sydney's hopetoun hotel on easter monday in homage to schuftan's book, one could be forgiven for thinking that maybe christ really had risen.

to find out more join the queue with me & read hey nietzsche! leave them kids alone!

i leave you with a my chemical romance, welcome to the black parade [the new bohemian rhapsody]excerpt:

a world that sends you reeling from decimated dreams

your misery and hate will kill us all

so paint it black and take it back

let's shout it loud and clear

defiant to the end we hear the call