Category: News

  • Waymore Random

    Waymore Random

    Music: Al Gromer Khan (“Conga Jog”) Words and Remix: Willi Brown

    leaving aside all evidence 

    that discipline is a drag

    Let’s assume that humans

    all want some kind of goal 

    Then the question is how we get there

    and, the input along the way

    that changes your objective 

    and modulates your soul

    Wish I could claim divine inspiration 

    Could unfold a tattered map

    Some ragged paper catcher of my dreams

    then i could point to some direction

    Like I’m the master of my plan

    But this is way more Random than it seems

    Yeah, it’s waymore random than it seems

    14 billion light years argue 

    against the limited local view

    So I’m of the mind to wonder what’s the point 

    But unless I’m in depression 

    I’m always rolling somewhere 

    Even if it’s just another joint

    I claim to be a poet 

    and it protects me from the game 

    all competitive and thrashing up the stream

    I’m all “just dreams and vague directions” (Gorka) too cool 😎 for…  school

    But yeah possibly less random than it seems

    Oh yeah, totally, less random than it seems

    So when your heart begins to notice

    Some doubt and hesitation

    Just breathe and make a friend with another change 

    Whether you march ahead, 

    or you juke and dance around

    May your trip be light and always long and strange

  • Climate Inaction is Wisdom

    Climate Inaction is Wisdom

    I’ve decided that “it” is inevitable and has momentum like a motor car rolling downhill. Climate collapse – death of water bodies, coasts, forests, humans, animals, insects, etc. – is happening now! And humans holding meetings and legislating carbon reduction targets is just theater arising from collective shame. We blew it. 

    It is conceivable (non-zero possibility) that letting it blow is the wisdom action. I could list possible outcomes of that – we get scared straight and prepare, we escape to the stars, we (most life on Earth) just die out – but pondering those outcomes misses the point. We live on a planet in one galaxy that has billions of stars. Doesn’t seem too much stretch to conclude, “big deal if we die”. 🤷 

    A dying Earth might be “right” and proper in the evolution of this Universe. The big picture of consequence is too large, distant and complex for us to have an accurate understanding of the universal impact. 

    But hey climate action feels good! Working and changing our behavior in order to preserve this magical Eden. It is a way of expressing our gratitude and love of our Mother Earth and compassion for all the living beings human and otherwise who are threatened by climate collapse. Right?

    But isn’t it insane hypocrisy to take a bus downtown to participate in a march for Climate Action… or a plane to Brazil for COP30? Our complicity is all pervasive. Just my jeans and tshirt are a carbon footprint embarrassment. True there are big bad players like BP, Shell and Exxon but… we are them. The enemy is us. We buy a gallon of gas (or a tshirt) and the system goes round and round. 

    Animals use (and are) energy. The answer to climate collapse is clean and renewable. So get your solar panels and move to the wooded hills and turn your car into a chicken coop. But get ready for wild fires. And masses of desperate new refugee neighbors increasing yearly.

    God we want to look hopeful. We want to be seen as cheerful, industrious and positive. A “going concern”. You want to look at your children and feel that you are working to protect their future.

    What if a dying Earth prevents the death of 2 other Milky Way planets? Would that convince you? 

    “Nope. I’m all about me and mine right now and in the future.”

    Again the bias. Even in a hypothetical.

    The bodhisattva vows to eschew enlightenment while one sentient being yet suffers. Even if that being is a mass murderer? Yes! Because the bodshisattva can’t split hairs and abide in dualistic thinking. All phenomena is interdependent. The light, the mirror, the dust, the reflection, the eye. It’s called compounded phenomena for a reason.

    So, do nothing. You don’t know what you’re doing. But do something.

  • Vanish (demo rough)

    Vanish (demo rough)

    In the thick of this / I miss my drift 

    In this crowded city / I cannot gift

     

    Try to swallow my life / Try to disappear in the fog 

    You can only follow my coattail / I’m only wagging the dog

     

    I’m leaving town / Driven by the overwhelm

    I’m leaving town / Though my heart just finally got here 

    I’m leaving town / Watch me disappear 

    Yeah I’m leaving / as I watch me disappear

     

    The world so loud / I cannot think 

    It all gets skinny / become either green or pink

     

    Try to swallow my life / Try to disappear in the fog / You can only follow my coatail / I’m only wagging the dog

     

    I’m leaving town / Driven by untreated bullshit 

    I’m leaving town / Though my heart just barely got here 

    I’m leaving town / so watch me disappear 

    Yeah, I’m leaving / as I watch me disappear

     

    I reappear, in another place

    dissolve into my own form. 

    Could I join this party, 

    find shelter in this storm?

    I’m leaving town…

    So watch me disappear 

  • Journal entry 31oct25 

    Who will read this? Me? Doubtful! The urge to write is strong. The drive to tell the story as a way of appreciation, a way of savoring the bright white contrails of a plane, heading east in pure blue – stealing time from the Earth rolling slowly in the same direction – and now, far past the mountain peak, like just the disappearing tail of a cloud. 

    Sure, I can sit and look, breathe it all in, the desert hills washed in shrubs, succulents and spiny life. The mountains like teeth, the lower jaw of a prehistoric giant. But pre to whose history? Not mine.

    For my passage is so brief and fleeting, like the rare, delicate wind blown yellow, butterfly (moth?) tracing wavy changing trails through the bush. We say, it might as well have never happened. It was without enough consequence to mark.

    Sure, I sit here in my camp chair on BLM land, “dispersed camping” it’s called. Boondocking. With my notebook and pen and a good lot of my worldly in my van. Mountain bike beside me like a loyal steed. iPhone 15 on a camp table. It’s just stuff having its own adventure as I pass through the possession phase.

    Last week I sold a drum for $150 to a man from Ghana in a McDonald’s parking lot in Hutto Texas. I bought that drum at the market in Bamako in 1995. Hauled it back to Seattle on Air France, checked in its own duffel. Was it worth $150? In my history, it was a millionaire. Having resounded its deep bright voice across the country for 30 years. Drums keep time. I let it go.

  • Evolución (safe after dark)

    Evolución (safe after dark)

    acoustik version

    Words and Music by Willi Brown

    I introduce myself
    in a modernly sensitive way
    but I can’t help but feel
    hypocritical…
    because i want you

    (and respect you beautiful)

    But I don't want you to be bugged honey 
    and a-think i'm just a-hittin' on you
    i think it's a drag that a girl don't feel...
    Safe. After. Dark.
        {Evolution seems like a failure}

      A six pack of pride swallowed tonight
      when i spoke to you / at the slam dance
      it’s always our job to make the first move
      and buy the flowers

      Chorus

      Nah know I’m not your Jesus Christ
      and he ain’t no axe muderer neither
      I ain’t the cream of the wheat / or the cream of the crop

      I’m just confused!

      Memory is that this was written in Seattle around 1994 when I was going to the Crocodile cafe every other night to drink and hit on girls. After reading an article in the Stranger (some feminist propoganda thing *jk*) I wrote these words in a cheap spiral.

    • Independence Day

      Well future stepped into my field…


      Uke version Dechen Dancehall Wimberley, TX 16apr22

      Independence Day written by Vic Chesnutt

      From the album “Little” produced by Michael Stipe.

      For a long time I thought in the last verse the line was “untouchable as the undocumented self”

    • Genuine Heart of Sadness

      Genuine Heart of Sadness

      Elvis Came Home Today Word Jazz Dub Tribute

      a few years ago 2013 to be frank
      in San Francisco fall weather is like summer
      and thinking about the state of things
      culture environment
      and surfing the web late one night
      mashing up things on photoshop
      he emerged…
      thrust hips on his toes
      the abandon of the arms
      his serious face

      So this weekend it felt like time to print and frame. Enjoy!

      Prints are available: $66 for 12×24, $99 for 24×36.

    • Double Dub

      Double Dub avec beatz

      Seems everybody is just too stunned to look back
      And the look-ahead holds just a mountain of graveyard black
      Yet my watch tells me I got an appointment in the morning
      I don’t need a needle to tell me – morning may never come

      When this year started I said the ’19 can go to hell
      Something didn’t die but it would’ve been just as well
      I got the penalty box for riding out there into harm’s way
      …pain’s easier to face with an option to look away

      *
      They say it always gets better baby
      but I think I’ll just pass
      You can take double dub (2020) and…
      tattoo my ass

      There was friendship for days and a mountain of golden sunshine
      People coming together singing “Time’s up!“ all down the line
      But then the Suits with the news, they started dumping their shares
      Controlling the story so the people would be unawares

      So we had a paranoid spring and summer confusion kicked in
      And the rich got so richer and casualties kept pouring in
      Yeah the West Coast was burning and cops kept murdering black men
      Yeah the west kept burning and cops kept murdering black women

      *
      They say it always gets better
      but baby I think I’ll just pass
      You can take double dub
      And tattoo my ass

      Tired of surviving dog eat dogging all day?
      Consumer cellular Netflix those thoughts all away
      Comfort is killer, sugar always comes with a price
      It’s time to take two the hard way first let me add us some spice

      *
      They say it always gets better
      but baby I think I’ll just pass
      You can take double dub
      And tattoo my ass

      It can always get worse
      I can’t breathe … the past
      Don’t call it 2020
      I can’t see through all this ash

      They say it always gets better
      but baby I think I’ll just pass
      You can take double dub
      And tattoo my ass … goodbye 👋

      Double Dub spoke.word

    • under ball

      life’s strange now / packing for australya /

      drather head for yosemite / get lost frost bite /

      sigh white privilege packs / startup biz trip /

      like disney / strange acid tools /

      all corporate now / rollerball 3000 /

      suck it and see /

    • the bar

      we humans   scurry…
      from commodity to place
      to consume & waste
      & develop             more desire
      then repeat the cycle / then repeat the cycle
      hunting
      hungry
      for the next / for the next
      ice cream bar     whiskey bar
      beyond the bar
      to a place
      of seeing

      the desire arise
      slowing the film
      curious
      seeing
      even deeper
      but not
      “biting the hook”

       

       

      (march 2017 santa rosa)