Evil So Perfectly Evil

2012-07-23 - Evil So Perfectly Evil

By now you’ve had a little time to process the emotions surrounding latest round of “senseless” shootings.  The Aurora Colorado scenario seems too like so many others in the news...  Only the names & places have changed.  But not the hurt – not the pain.  For the families left behind, there is nothing that can be said to console or compensate for this type of personal injury.  For them, numbness and disbelief must pass into rage and anger before acceptance and healing can begin.  And this will be a life long process.

I feel compelled to bring about a more peaceful and equitable world.  One light in the darkness lights up the whole place, so I take my music into those places too.  It’s my job.

RADIATE was written shortly after one highly publicized public shooting, nearly identical to Aurora. Makes me wonder: can this ever be stopped?  

What strikes me like a bullet to the brain is the paradoxical nature intrinsic to an incident like this: in an instant everything changes and yet everything remains the same.

Certainly everything changes for the survivors of this trauma – the moms & dads, sisters & brothers, girlfriends & boyfriends the friends & classmates - their lives will never ever be the same.  In many ways there lives are over.  Even us silent media voyeurs loose something in ourselves, just like they did.

But nothing also happens.  Dare I say – there won’t be any new-n-improved gun control laws.  The interests of manufactures, share holders & owners rights to bear such devices would scream a sick ironic bloody murder if “regulation” were to cut into their quarterly profits or gun touting freedom.  And all too often, the officials elected to protect and serve the public interest were not really elected for that purpose at all.  That is part of the myth of our “democracy”. Many officials are unofficially representing corporate brand names. After all, corporations are people too.

These are the “Bastards”, that writer Hunter S. Thompson tried to warn us about.  The “War Profiteers” will never decide to stop profiteering. 

I use the word war here because there is a war going on – right here in this country – in your town - in your living room – on your computer – smart phone and in your heart.  Call it good vs. evil if you want.

Believe me when I say, I have no sympathy or tolerance for the shooters.  For me, it is a little more than difficult to love an enemy like this…

War is waged on us using our own primal fear as the weapon of mass distraction.  Nearly every media moment is about killing, shooting, war, rape, fammon, drought, too cold, too much heat.  Freaking ice sheets twice the size of Manhattan breaking off Greenland…
I feel afraid – don’t you?

Makes any normal “sane” person reach for the emergency break – except - we all know deep down - there isn’t one.  We feel, the helplessness, the heart beat rises as the speed picks up – like an out of control roller coaster ride - knowing that the whole thing can de-rail any second.  We don’t even have any seatbelts on here!

Being completely overwhelmed and distracted in mass is what keeps the evil so perfectly evil.

Somehow, buy means of faith, spiritual practice, or out and out numbness, most of us deal and go on with life as it is.

Unfortunately the weaker minded among us are even more venerable and less able to cope than we are.  The results are clear.

One light in the darkness lights up the whole place….

But you can’t stop perfectly perfect wickedness with a splash of water from tainted plastic bottle with a fake picture of mountains on it.

Feeling the fear and letting it go.  This is the first step to re-claiming your power and over coming the fear.  Notice I didn’t say ignore the fear.  Feeling it is a moment by moment process – learning to be focused instead of being distracted.

RADIATE LOVE instead and change your world. The world as it could be.

Realize that you are powerful and your dollars are powerful.  Small spending choices will change the way companies & organizations behave.  

Your money does not care where you spend it, but you should. If a company or organization is lying to you, stop giving them your money.

Have a look at your investment portfolio sometime.  Are your mutual funds investing in war, processed food, chemicals, oil & gas?  The super evil banking industry? (I love my teller though)

If so, consider researching and changing your funds to companies that are “B” rated. (Corporations that have by charter promised to up hold their moral obligation to protect the planet, the workers and still make a profit for the shareholders).  What Kind of food do you buy? Check out natural organic food growers & distributors.  Look into companies that are building the sustainable future in solar, electric cars, LED lights etc.  And definitely eliminate the war & banking sectors.   We can take away the power of evil by how we spend and invest our money.

I’m asking you to help me with this project because it is making a difference and with your help will continue…

Above all – RADIATE Love.  It will change everything.

Project In Progress Listening Spot:
http://www.nimbitmusic.com/rickdenzien   Listen and I'm adding lyrics too...
http://www.rockethub.com/projects/8875-radiate-a-new-rick-denzien-cd

Rick Denzien

© MMXII todate Rick Denzien - Slot One Entertainment, Inc. - All Rights Reserved - Used By Permission

On one of the Europe Tours

During one of my European tours, we rolled into town as usual,  and went directly to the venue – this time under a huge outdoor circus-looking tent.  There we found a crew busy at work tweaking the sound and light systems.  We were introduced to everyone on the crew and then, after coffee break, went on stage for a quick sound check.  The promoter in charge was a stocky, burly, fisherman-type looking man named Victor. People in the last town had warned me about Victor. But, I thought to myself, how bad can this guy be? It was nearly show time, sound checked OK, but I noticed, and made the mistake of, mentioning that the lights were all magenta on the right side. Victor went off like a Forthof July rocket. "Typical prima-donna rock star American," he ranted loudly, as he flicked his hand-rolled cigarette to the ground and stomped out of the tent.   The lights did not get adjusted. Later on, my sound man Joe & I sat down to a group meal - some sort of stew - cooked right there stage side.  Everyone got a plate and a spoon and dug in.  It was really good.  Victor came over to me and said, "Not good enough for you, uh, American?"  But I was already on my second helping. I was scheduled to do 116 concerts on this tour, and we were at the halfway point.  The daily routine now actually seemed normal. A typical day was:  Get up by 7AM - do the morning critique meeting regarding the show the night before, sing a little - hit the noon hour street concert location, usually at a crowed café in the town center - set up the sound, sing for an hour and a half, pack up, grab lunch - go to the guest house to shower and have dinner (we were always a guest somewhere).  Then - head to the concert location spot for a full 2 set show - pack up and head to the next venue and do a club set – and then, back to the guest house to crash for the night. We were playing 3 to 4 gigs a day.  Sundays were easy, with only 2 or 3 church services to do. But, while in Victor’s domain, I got the added joy of hearing him take pot shots at me at every opportunity, “Hey, American” this and that, "you Americans are so full of yourselves.”  He might have been right, but all I did to piss this guy off was observe that all the lights were magenta during sound check - I didn't really even care! After a few days, he gave us an afternoon off.  He said we were going on a boat ride.   “Cool, maybe he is making-up,” I thought.  We got to the docks where it was a boater’s dream come true --  sweet rides, like jet skis, 40-foot speed boats, all the top “names” were well represented. I'm thinking, “Wow, this is going to be great - do some water skiing, maybe some jetting...” as Victor walks past all these boats, all the way to the end of the dock, to a fleet of little blue, 8-foot dingy row boats. "Here we are," he said. OK, then (WTF!!).  So crew, the other band members, well-wishers, fans, and Victor (about 40 of us, filling 8 boats) get in these small dingys, and “row, row, row your boat!” For two hours, I’d hear Victor smear, "How do you like our boat ride, American? Is this too much work for you, American? How do you like the view American?”  All he wanted to do was race row boats!  Mind you, we were on a Dutch canal.  Narrow and straight and way below any land.  All you could see to the front and rear was an endless column of water, and to the sides, one meter (about 3 feet) of grass rising up.  It became clear to me in that moment that Victor was going to torture everyone because he hated me, hated me as an American, or maybe (I wondered) he just hated me because I was a tall American.  At 6’6”, I have a better view and hit my head more than most.  Victor might have been four foot eleven, and it was all MY fault. It was hot; we were tired and thirsty, so to ease the insanity about 10 of us (2 boats) pulled our “racing” row boats to the “shore”. We climbed out and up the grass to see what was on top there.  It was a grazing pasture with 50 sheep on it, surrounded by water canals that were interconnected with little wooden bridges and a windmill way off in the distance. It was about the size of a football field, so we did the only thing we could do -- played a game of “chase and tackle” the sheep. And the sheep won – OK, so you had to be there – but, turns out that sheep are hard to tackle.   We covered five miles, give or take, and came finally intersected with a huge river with lots of shipping traffic on it.  The other boats from our group were already on the other side, about a quarter mile away at some sort of dock. So, out we rowed into the rough waters of the river channel.  I had not heard an insult from Victor for almost an hour, but as we tied-up to the dock, he looked down on me and yelled, "Hey American, this water is too dirty for you to swim." That was it.  I'd had it with this pipsqueak Victor guy.  So, as soon as we got up on the dock, I did a one-and-a-half gainer (forward flip) into the water - about a 10 foot jump.  (I was a competitive swimmer in high school, so was in my element here!) Victor cannon-balled in after me.  There we were, face to face, bobbing up and down on this river.  We both looked toward mid-channel, and about 200 yards out was a marker pylon.  We looked back at each other, and instantaneously, we both start racing towards the marker.  As I got closer, I could see this thing was really some sort of pipe, about 5-feet in diameter, painted alternate black and white rings every 3-feet.  It had rungs welded to the side, but, up too high to reach.  I waited for a ship wave to lift me up and caught the first rung.  Once up, I reached back to give Victor a hand and caught his arm and pulled him to the first rung.  After that it was a race climbing to the top of this tower. On the climb up, I looked out over toward my group of rowing friends. They looked so small, waving at us – and they weren’t waving hello!  I guess they knew what I could not know in that moment - that we were about to do a dangerous trick – jumping 50 plus feet back down into that cold, dark water.   Victor and I locked glances, and without saying a word, jumped and smashed into the water.   We got back to the boats and no one could believe that we had done that jump.  “Man, you guys are crazy,” I kept hearing.  After that, Victor was my best friend for the rest of the tour.  No more insults, no more smears.  All he could do was bask and brag about how we jumped off that friggen tower thing - heard it over and over on the 5-mile row back.  That night at the gig - like magic - the magenta gels on the right side had been replaced and the lights were perfectly balanced. Project In Progress Listening Spot: http://www.nimbitmusic.com/rickdenzien Listen and I'm adding lyrics too...   Rick Denzien © MMXII todate Rick Denzien - Slot One Entertainment, Inc. - All Rights Reserved - Used By Permission