Got Justice?

The court fell silent. The news was puzzling, it was so puzzling you could actually hear the jury making their judgments. Considering the status of the defendant, his wealth, and his place in the community his peers weren't sure what do think about such a situation.

He had dipped a doughnut in a glass of milk.

This was not the verdict, no, it was simply a fact. That the morning the crime was committed the defendants alibi was breakfast in his kitchen that very morning. His gardening boots were on the floor near the bar in his kitchen where stood a tall glass of cold milk and a chocolate covered doughnut.

One of the female jury members shrieked through the silence, "It takes an imbecile to dip something in a glass of milk!" Immediately she was placed in contempt of court for interrupting the preceding, but this left the rest of the jury unnerved and unable to come to a conclusion. The dipped doughnut was the crux of the alibi and there was no way to prove it one way or an other.

(Law and Order sound)

To be continued...  ?

Fall Facelift

So I just wrote an entire post about the new facelift of the blog and then Safari crashed. This is my life.

Well I will try to pick up where I left off... I have been thinking for some time about revamping my rather typical looking blog in to a more streamlined look. This may not be the final face of GetDecked, but I am certainly a step closer. I even included my own quote in the headline. Hey... it is MY blog after all.

Besides... look at the bottom. I have included all of my friend's blogs that I read on a regular basis. If you would like your to be added send me a comment, send an email, come by my FaceBook, write me a tweet @getdecked. However you desire.

I am looking very much forward to writing and interacting with you all a little more. Thank you for stopping by!

Tattoo this Blog.

Writing prompt: Write about a reality in which the only way to publish a book is on human skin.

This is what I wrote:

Good morning, you have 30 new updates. The shower cycle is: On. Please press: OK to continue your morning routine. Thank you. Calisthenics will begin in 30 seconds.

The morning news fills the room as Jared begins his morning routine. The yellow-green sunrise peaking through the metal shutters never seems to change any more. The faint memory of his grandfather enters his mind as his electronic art hanging in the narrow hallway switches to an image of him reading his favorite book. Jared didn’t know much about books and always maintained a puzzled memory of his grandfather reading.

A familiar clicking sound was beckoning him in the kitchen where his breakfast was made ready for him the minute his shower cycle had finished. His breakfast shake was ready and as soon as he finished he set about his day.

Music surrounds the hallway outside of his apartment. A familiar tune, he thinks to himself, as he hums along and walks to the front of his building. Today is the first day of his new job.

Jared has a new job every three days. Today he will be a Marketing Executive for Billcom, and industrial credit company, that employs only the finest Market Executives. Rehearsing his presentation that he is briefed on while on his way to work, there is a confident air about him and he knows that this job will land him at least 30 points. Fortunately, he thinks to himself, rent is covered for this week.

Immediately he arrives at the docking port for his new job and is greeted by the docking attendant. “Good Morning , Jared Han, please enter your identification card for job verification and office access.”

Swiping his card he can’t help but say aloud, “I don’t think I will ever get used to this.” The robotic doorman’s default response rings as always, “Very good Sir, thank you.”

Billcom was a monolithic structure, one of the new fly-rise buildings on the lower East Quadrant. Since 2045 the buildings have been getting higher and higher off the Terra and a giant like Billcom was one of the highest. Despite its unique enormity the lobby had the same tart citrus smell as every other place he has worked. Fortunately at an Executive level he won’t have to deal with the smell; his office will be his own.

Flashing to attention as he enters his office, three monitors click in to operation mode and begin displaying the Billcom logo and an electronic representation of the CEO’s voice begins.

“Good morning Mr. Han. You will find all of your necessary access codes on the tablet in your lower left-hand drawer. Please enter your access card in to the tablet to begin your morning download. You presentation is expected in 15 minutes. Your tablet will direct you to the appropriate meeting place. Thank you.”

To be continued?? 

(Probably not.)

The Game Plan

There are moments when all one can do is to escape. Built upon a lifetime of seeking comfort from everything painful teeters the ability to risk and survive. The day when you said something hurtful just to escape. The day you convinced yourself that the world wasn't right for you. Those times when your perfect plans crumble like volcanic ash because of one mistake. Perhaps it was many mistakes. The grueling hours you are forced to wait to apologize. The sleepless nights. The meals you all of a sudden had no taste for. The irony of the fact that your escape plan has led you to a place of exile. You avoided your choices, neglected your freedoms, and sacrificed your hope. Escape is never a plan to live by. Escape is your last option. It is silly to believe that this world is a prison. It is impossible. Everyone holds the keys that unlock doors of personal freedom. All men and women in their own ways must discover these doors. Living as a refugee, constantly trying to escape, hiding your keys and fearing the doors will never lead to freedom. Escape is never a plan to live by. Escape is your last option.

You to Me

I couldn't make up

I couldn't write down

A story untold

The world around

That special spark

To this smoldering ground

Requiring just me

My smile, my frown

With great torrents of love

Your unshaken faith

Brings solid ground

Where I lay my face

On the track just to hear

The train coming down

I have no need to worry

Since you are around

Pictures of Me

What will it take to raise the stakes
To release my heart out to the banks
To dive deep in to sweet love's lake
I stop at the shore to contemplate

For all that you are to me
Your eyes make me see
But strangely enough
It is my own eyes that set me free

Full-knowing my doubt and fear
Yet seeing my own face crystal clear
Fearful, dreading, even more
Of love I have never seen before

Not different to you this smile I bring
But to me it is sharp, calm, and comforting
For I above all know the looks of my face
Now blissfully changed and reflecting your grace

Mazing

When nothing can explain

No word, verse, or refrain

That I would take your pain

Like the sun takes up the rain

Many things I have had

For only a certain time

Life that is lived is truly life divine

And when what is lost you can no longer find

Hope for peace and quick release the burdens on your mind

For the heart is fickle in its many ways

Changing on a dime or two in hindsight-present haze

And love, not a feeling, but a thought, a gift, a gaze

Closer, farther, sooner, later a path within a maze

Untitled: Part 1

Spotlight hits the stage as she walks the bulb-lit path. She sashays intentionally towards the the crowded club and draws the microphone near. Swiftly she turns and catches a glimpse of the water condensing on her piano player's Whiskey drink as he hits the downbeat.

Were it only a few years before there would had been no club or spotlight to speak of. The past had nothing remotely musical to offer. Nobody ever said it but really that is why her music was something special. Singing her perseverance, dancing her strength, and projecting her victories by mouthing words of cheap love to a melody. "Rich lungs," her manager says while putting out a cigarette, "she was born with them."

Jazzy rhythms pulse through the crowded club. A glass breaks followed by sarcastic applause of a over-dressed man with a thin mustache at the end of the dim bar. "I hope that was his drink," says the singer, "because that is my applause." He receives the remark sardonically bowing and giving her his half-witted attention.

Swelling and stopping her voice holds captive the moment in time. Beads from her dress tapping at the microphone stand while she masterfully shifts back and forth to the rhythm. Were it simply music the crowd could casually live in yet another night but this night is no longer their own.

To the Painters

This excerpt was written by Richard Howard from his 1979 book, Misgivings. I wanted to use his words to dedicate attention to the Gulf Oil disaster currently polluting our precious ocean.

On the United States, Considered as a Landscape

Not a building, this earth, not a cage,

these waters: the country is

a body, to be treated so: when

the weather is mild, think

of the past, when the weather is mean,

think of the future. Men do

thus, and evolve a metropolis

from litter: leaves, straw, floating

bottles and boxes, a mainland which,

like anything else, cannot

be made all at once to drop its rags,

suddenly to stand naked,

fully disclosed. Time- it has taken

time to collect in wide pools

even the beginnings, skeleton

and cartilege, arteries

and bladder: if our Sublime cannot

rise above such things as beer

cans and plastic picnic forks, it is

not all we say, it cannot

really be the God in which we trust.

Image borrowed from: http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/Images/ixtox1.jpg

Piece.

Entertain my soul

Through the sounds and the sights

Shine through the depths

Of this tar covered night

Local Game to Hall of Fame: Plight of the Local Musician

Since the beginning of musicianship the plight of the musician carries almost a mythical air in the realm of professional careers. Composers being selected by kings, virtuosos packing opera houses, masters traveling the world sharing their passions. It is all a fantastic dream of pure expression and world-mending benevolence. But what about the local musicians? When Beethoven was selling out cathedrals who was at the local Brü Haus entertaining everyone else?

Either way, all musicians are entrepreneurs. Some have boards of directors, marketing teams, advertising teams, accountants, tour managers, and those cute people who bring custom M&M's backstage, but the local musician typically doesn't.

History has shown that record labels were the behemoth force behind taking an artist or artists and supplying them with their multi-billion dollar team to ensure world-wide success for each and every one of them. This is still true to a certain extent, but in recent years labels have been scrambling for endorsement money, abusing artists, and suing 13 year old girls for downloading music. Here in lies the plight of the modern musician: the local singer/songwriter movement.

Singer/songwriters are nothing new. The roots of Folk music, Blues, rock, and essentially everything we know and love has stemmed from the scion of the inspired solo artist. Somewhere along the way something changed. The pungent aroma of band culture took over. Rock gods replaced the humble hymns of meaningful lyrics, simple stories, and poems. Electric instruments beckoned hells fire and mounds of cocaine brought a new meaning to the renaissance artistry of the musician. Now as a result we all have anxiety, depression, and another democratic president.

Here enters the local singer/songwriter. Pure entrepreneurship in it most raw form. The local songwriter has tons of marketing tools, distribution tools, and live channels which to send his/her art through. In fact, there are so many musicians sending out so much music that it is impossible to keep track any more outside of a generalized genre of your own personal liking. The only problem for the musician now is making a living in a saturated world market on the brink of complete media overload. There is a chasm that must be crossed from the everyday level of market media to the big leagues or the cathedrals, if you will.

Long story semi-less long: There is a misconception about how local artists make money in this day and age. Most people don't understand that most of them lose money manufacturing CD's, they make dimes off of their merchandise, and some venues barely even pay their bar tabs. Often I hear people asking how they can help local musicians succeed because they are changed, touched, or inspired by their art and I have a few tips.

The best way to support artists is the most fun way. Go to their shows. Packed shows are the life blood of the modern musician. Talk to the artists; get involved with them. Sign the email contact sheet. If you like the music, buy a CD. Go on iTunes and write a short comment. Tell your friends. Rinse and repeat. That is it.

May the best Brü Haus players become Cathedral packing world changers from the ground up.

Sarah Jaffe- Suburban Nature

Thanks again to CountryMusicPride.com for publishing another one of my reviews! This one is for Sarah Jaffe's newest album due out May 18th called Suburban Nature. A wonderful singer/songwriter album that I immediately enjoyed. Sarah will be touring with Norah Jones and Midlake this year in the US and Europe and just rocked South by Southwest. Great music, give it a listen.

Hierbajos de Primavera

Los rojos más brillantes,

profundamente lilas,

rosado contra verde

vida y prosperidad sin esfuerzo

Viento con cuidado que pasa

Quitando calor al día asoleado

Familias con sólo diferencias sutiles

un jardín de ellos sin amo

que Cohabita aún tolerando derecho consuetudinario

que Sobrevive silenciosamente entre ellos

La belleza puede estar en el ojo del espectador

Pero la belleza engaña al inculto

Para los hierbajos crecer es tan facil

Engañoso y divisivo

Las raíces atan estas bellas hojas magulladas

Alguna vez más fuertes a la tierra

Su presencia se multiplica rápido

Pálidas, amarillas, y demacradas

Las abejas de miel no necesitan a su flor

sólo existen para ellas

Su sangre de leche nunca se acumula

Miembros de una cuadrilla que usurpan agua y luz.

Puedo considerar este jardín y ver sólo flores

Sin hacer caso de los hierbajos, olvidando su traición

Para disfrutar sólo de lo que es hermoso

Convencido que todas las cosas deben terminar tarde o temprano

Dejando a los hierbajos entre las flores, el trigo y la paja

entre las oveja y las cabras

En este jardín sin amo

No regare este jardín

el suelo permanecerá removido y

este jardín hermoso de primavera todavía permanecerá ( TU PASION)

Pero estos hierbajos tiran de mí

Burlándose de mi entre ellos

Haciendo alarde de sus flores y extensión de su semilla

Lleva a mi corazón la calma porque la belleza puede perderse

Ya Conozco algún hierbajo de una flor

A sus secos escondites y altivas flores

que Vuelan de otros jardines desatendidos y campos olvidados

Mis ojos están abiertos hacia este jardín

de hierbajos de flores

Donde una vez alguien colocó cada planta

Y los Hierbajos entraron sigilosamente entre y por detrás

Hijos e hijas de negligencia y casualidad

Inclinándose ante sus sólidos patriarcas

Sin importarles su entorno

Quedándose con lo que las flores deben compartir

Los hierbajos no tienen ninguna alianza y sólo la independencia

Las flores se reunirían

pueden convencer a cualquier profano de su belleza

ya que aún viven para ellas

Convincentemente agarrando el tronco del hierbajo

Rindiendose su cola como la del lagarto que se escapa bajo tierra

Tiro como puedo de las raíces profundas y fuertes

al menos este jardín sin tantos amos aparenta mejor

Esta primavera.

Country Music Pride

Please check out my newly published review at Countrymusicpride.com. It is for the Sadies newest album, Darker Circles. An interesting album by a Canadian Alt Country band who just made their previous album with John Doe from the legendary LA punk band, X.

Check out CMP.com and leave a comment if you like the article! Thank you. xoxox

Spring Weeds

Brightest reds, deep purples, pink against green

Living and thriving effortlessly

Wind gently passing through

Brushing sunny day heat away

Families with only subtle differences

A garden of them with no master

Cohabiting yet abiding common law

Surviving quietly with one another

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder

But beauty is deceiving to the unlearned

For weeds grow just as easily

Insidious and divisive

Roots tie these bruised leaf beauties

Ever stronger to the ground

Their presence multiplies quick

Dull, yellow, and emaciated

Honey bees have no need for their bloom

They only exist for themselves

Their milky blood ever hoarding

Gangly limbs usurping water and light.

I may look upon this garden

And see only flowers

Ignoring the weeds, forgetting their treachery

To enjoy only what is beautiful

Convinced that all things must end eventually

Leave the weeds amongst the flowers

Wheat and chaff amongst sheep and goats

In this garden with no master

I will not water this garden

The soil will remain unturned

And this beautiful Spring garden

Will still remain

But these weeds pull at me

Mocking me despite themselves

Flaunting their blooms and spreading their seed

Causing my heart to well for what beauty may be lost

For I know a weed from a flower

Their dry hides and lofty blooms

Flying from other untended gardens

And forgotten fields

My eyes are open towards this garden

The weeds amongst the flowers

Where once someone placed each plant

Weeds have crept in between and behind

Sons and daughters of neglect and happenstance

They bow below their sturdy patriarchs

Without care for their surroundings

Taking what the flowers must share

Weeds have no alliance and only independence

Would their blooms be gathered together

They may convince any layman of their beauty

Yet they live unto themselves

Forcefully grabbing the trunk of the weed

It gives up its tail as a slinky lizard it escapes underground

Pull as I may the roots are deep and the roots are strong

This masterless garden at least looks better

This Spring