Fire   
Earth  
Metal  
Water  
Wood   

Now, I could be wrong, but I see nothing but Fire with these guys.  Eugene Hutz himself – dude is all Fire.  Listening to them makes me want to get up and dance and smile and connect with pretty girls and sweat and be outside in the rain and enjoy the summer heat.  At their concerts, people are laughing and taking in the show and dancing and cheering.  Everyone is THERE!  We’re all in it together, isn’t life GREAT?!

I see no Earth at all.  Same goes for Metal, Water, and Wood.

They make me want to shake my fist in the air – not to damn some man, not to show my support, I want to JOIN THE REVOLUTION, MAN!  I want to be part of all the fun and sex and drunken laughter that feels totally appropriate at these shows.  Would that happen at a Sufjan Stevens concert?

Fire   
Earth  
Metal  
Water  
Wood   

The first album I ever heard by these guys.  My buddy James introduced them to me.  A couple weeks ago I had it in my mind to meditate in the dark while listening to this album.  To be honest, it was terrifying.  You can read about it here.

They already had a 5-star Water rating from me before that experience – but it confirmed it.

They get no stars for Fire because, well, let’s face it – no one wants to dance and have a good time and connect with others with this in the background.

They also get no stars for Earth because no part of this album makes me want to curl into my mother’s arms – at least not to cuddle or be fed.

I gave this album 3 stars for Metal, mostly because a lot of metal sounds to me like it has left minerals behind in favor of retaining toxins, and this album is no different.  That’s a function of the colon – and it feels like it may be pathologically retaining things it shouldn’t.  I could be wrong about that.

So why do I think this album is so Water?  When I listen to it even in the daytime (ha!) it still feels terrifying.  Some metal sounds plain angry to me – not these guys.  This album sounds like it was composed and recorded under the crushing weight of the ocean depths.  From the first note of the guitar, I feel a deep, dark, all-consuming fear.  And I know he doesn’t say this, but to me the first lyric sounds like “I am the terror” and oh, I believe it.

Lastly, I gave them one star for Wood because of the way I picture the singer’s face as he growls.  While his voice mostly conveys fear to me, there is some amount of anger.  I can imagine it in his face as he growls.

Silversun Pickups
David Bazan
Deathspell Omega
Arkhon Infaustus
Origin
The Faint
Feist
Mike Doughty
Gogol Bordello
Don Caballero

I don’t suspect many people out there are even vaguely interested in how much Wood vs. Water is in some technical-brutal-grindcore-symphonic metal band – but I am!

I’m the eldest in my family, but thanks to David Bazan I’ve felt like I’ve had some sort of older brother in my life for years.

I was a Christian for many years and had many of the same questions he seemed to grapple with during his stint with Pedro the Lion.  Back then, my understanding is that he was trying to be both smart and Christian at the same time (two things I’m pretty sure are mutually exclusive).  Naturally this would cause some sort of separation.  In his struggle trying to be both, he ended up turning to booze.  Maybe not the healthiest move in the world, but certainly part of his evolution as a human and as an artist.

Before turning to booze, I imagine he was in the unity phase of the blue vmeme (which corresponds to CV15 in Five Element acupuncture if I remember correctly).  In Spiral Dynamics, blue is where we learn the value of order, that there are consequences to “bad” things we do.  The justice system and dogmatic church are both institutions that arose out of the blue vmeme.  As David began to evolve beyond this, he came into some stage of unity with blue and into separation with orange, which shows up in the album “Control”.  Orange is about breaking free from blue’s pathologies – breaking out of the dogma and rigidity that comes along with it, and into a place where an individual can become powerful again.  The rebellion against orange in “Control” is clear – “All of the experts say you ought to start them young / that way they’ll naturally love the taste of corporate cum.”

If he continues along this path, we might see him rebel against hippies (green meme), and then after that there’s nothing left to rebel.

For some reason 99% of art seems to be created in this place of separation – this place at the outside arc of the caduceus.  Maybe that’s separation’s gift – if we can approach it from a place of exploration it becomes an outlet for our creativity.  When we swing back to center – there just ain’t nothing interesting to write about.  It just feels too good to be there. 

David currently seems to be in a place where the Christian community welcomes him again, but he’s greatly changed from last time.  (Contrast this with a contemporary Christian band like Third Day or something, who appears never to stray from blue’s path.)  And he’s learned to transcend and include better than I have because he doesn’t really seem to want to punch Christians in the face.

In short, I think this is why I, and so many others, love him so much – he evolves.  Many people seem to find a spot that’s comfortable enough and stay there.  Some rock stars stick to alcoholism.  Some are happy to sing about love-gone-wrong over and over again.  But David keeps moving.

In cities you can’t even see Earth unless a city planner specifically designs a place for it in an effort to make the city look prettier.  Earth is supporting the whole city, but again, we don’t even notice.  We notice the tall, pretty buildings.

Earth is also moved around by Fire below – in the planet’s belly is a burning fire, eruptions, shaping the landscape.  So Earth gets stepped on above, and exploded all over the place from below.  It doesn’t get any gratification from pushing anyone around.  Earth just literally sits there and takes it.  Where DOES Earth get respect?  What does it own?

I think it comes down to this element of nurturing.  Earth MUST get off on being nurturing.  Animals burrow homes in Earth.  Trees wouldn’t grow without it.  Again this is all without Earth’s permission, but Earth has to be okay with that, in fact, Earth needs to revel in it and gain personal nourishment from it.  It seems to get NO respect from outside.  It doesn’t even get nourished by the sun.  The sun just turns it to desert when Water’s not around.

What IS Earth taking in?

Dead things.  Earth is replenished when living things die.

Seriously, is that it?  If so, damn that’s cool.

With winter there comes darkness – more than in the other seasons.  Winter encourages humans to go inside, hibernate, think.  Our hearts are not open.  In warmer climates, Jamaica for instance (lots of fire), there is music that encourages community.  Does reggae make you want to go lock yourself in your bedroom with your eyes closed?  Probably not .  You want to get out, dance, make heart connections with pretty women.

But spin some black metal – if you can stand it for 30 seconds and appreciate its worth – it’ll make you want to go inside, shut the door, turn off the lights, and look inside.

Coincidence?  I think not!

So I think a lot of death/black metal is rooted in Water – probably a big reason I have taken such a liking to it.

Don Juan said something to the effect of “man’s power can be found in darkness” and there is no more darkness than in winter.

Orange is what this group is rebelling against – in Orange we see breaking free from Blue’s organization.  Think about how a group like this might react if in the same room as a CEO of a large corporation. 

I would be really surprised if it was a pleasant interaction.  In the first tier memes, there’s still this idea that “my way is the right way.”  In this case, it’s a “we’re all one” sort of thing, but somehow that excludes anyone in the Orange vmeme .

it dawned on me recently that my best friend is a water CF (i am one too).  as a result i started thinking about water a bit, both in terms of his personality and aspirations, and also in terms of nature itself. 

everyone knows the ocean can be dangerous; we know it’s deep, we know tsunamis come out of it from time to time, we know gigantic swells have swallowed ships throughout history, we know enormous creatures lurk its depths.  so we all innately recognize this deadly potential of water, but if you are living somewhere near the shoreline, most of the time the ocean is a pretty harmless and calm looking thing.  until a tsunami hits.  tsunamis begin in the depths, where no one can see; gigantic fissures in the earth open up, releasing the earth’s madness and flame miles beneath the ocean’s surface.  by the time you see a tsunami it is too late for you.  you probably didn’t see it coming.  but now that it’s here – there’s no escape.

the character raiden from mortal kombat represents the same energy - he is a water CF, i’m convinced.  you think he is a harmless old man, then POW, he leaps across the room and tackles you to the ground before you even realize he isn’t drunk. 

not so with fire – before fire there is smoke.  you have some warning.  if raiden was a fire CF he would lock eyes with you from across the room, then the steam flowing from his ears would propel him towards you, at which point you’d likely get a series of punches to the face.  you knew he was coming – and you knew you deserved it.  but there’d still be an opportunity to fight back, an opportunity to best him.  with a water CF – you’re just plain fucked before you even know it.

The old man said, “Well, that’s about when the kachinas came down into the mountains and then the thunderheads built up around the San Francisco peaks and then we sing and those clouds come out across the desert and it rains on the gardens and we have food for our children.”

And the old man sang him another song.  And the anthro said, “What was that song about?”

The old man answered, “That song was about when my wife goes down to the sacred spring to get water to prepare food for us and to prepare the medicines because without that sacred spring we wouldn’t live very long.”

And so it went all afternoon.  Every time the old man would sing a song, the anthro would say, “What’s that about?”  And the old man would explain it.  It’s about something or other – a river, rain, water.

Eventually this anthro was getting a little short-tempered.  He said, “Is water all you people sing about down here?”

And the old man said, “Yes.”  He explained, “For thousands of years in this country we’ve learned to live here.  Because our need for this water is so great to our families and to our people, to our nations, most of our songs are about our greatest need.  I listen to a lot of American music.  Seems like most American music is about love.”  He asked, “Is that why?  Is that because you don’t have very much?”

——

This anecdote hit home when I first read it, and the more I learn about love, the more sense it makes.  Our current cultural landscape values some things that are not necessarily breeding grounds for real love.  It values youth above almost everything.  (Craig Ferguson has a great rant about this.)  Sexual gratification, often with as many partners as possible, is valued more than a partnership.  Sometimes I think that having numerous sexual partners is part of having a real partnership, but I’m not convinced that that’s actually the case.

In any case, once you start understanding love and partnership you start seeing how wrong our artists often have it.  For whatever reason it’s very difficult to explore true partnerships in art.  As if a true partnership cannot be explained – it must be experienced.  And then once it’s experienced, it’s not written about.

I have no idea why this is, but I would love to see it change.

My teacher has this type of true partnership, so he lives as an example for me, but when he dies, what happens to that example if it is not written down?  He seems tickled by the idea of an “oral tradition”, that is, one that is not written down.  One that must be experienced.  There is no doubt that this way has its advantages, but I can’t help but think our culture could use some more outward, recorded expression of his type of relationship.

—

Links: 
Thea Elijah’s “Six Stages of Love Induced Disorder” – a beautiful study of the path to true partnership.
Craig Ferguson’s rant on youth – really awesome summary of why, in his words, everything sucks .

I watched six straight episodes with Heather yesterday, begging the question, how much is too much Carnivale?  I don’t think we’ve come up with that answer yet.  Given the opportunity I bet we could do twice that in one day.  Maybe more.  We’re both Scorpios and can pretty much set our minds to doing whatever we want.

What has been going through my mind throughout the series is the Chinese Five Elements.  And I wonder… how metal is Justin Crowe?

There are a couple reasons I think he’s metal as hell:
1. Dude wants nothing but a connection to the divine.  He begs God, arms outstretched (just like in the above photo), for answers, for divine guidance many times throughout season one.
2. Dude can snap another dude’s neck like *that*.  There seems to be some water here too – you can tell he’s got energy in reserves that he’s just aching to find a reason to use.  He’s charmingly disturbing when he snarls Maybe I already have at the warden.
3. While serving time homeless, he confesses angrily around a campfire I lost my God.