I, Asshole.

One of the various "predictions" (or as I like to call it, "stating the obvious") I had made going way back, is that when the edge of the cliff finally came close, there would be a spiraling collective and individuated insanity that would spread like wildfire, almost exponentially, until it became every man (woman) for him/herself.

Judging from people's behavior over the past month, online and off, I'm thinking we are well into the beginning stages of it. The election was a pretty big milestone in and of itself, but I've watched people acting out in a variety of ways lately...and divide into smaller and smaller factions as part of it. Everyone is having their biases tested (myself included) and some are reacting by opening up and trying to reach a deeper level of understanding, while most are retrenching and clinging to whatever serves as a life raft for their prior set of assumptions

Pretty disheartening, but inevitable. Oddly enough, I've found myself becoming calmer in the midst of this. Maybe it's that I've worried about it so long that now that it seems to be here, I can let the worry finally subside and accept whatever fate has in store for me...and for all of us.

All I can really say as a "solution" to it...as there IS no actual solution...is try to be kind to one another...and patient...we are ALL assholes in our own special ways...none of us is infallible, myself included. Myself especially.

And don't put your faith in anyone, especially some other asshole. They will let you down...and the level of faith people put in some guru or leader is roughly commensurate to the level of disappointment they will induce in their followers when their pedestal collapses.

Be your own asshole.

Take the Money and Run, You Whore (A song about capitalism and ethics.)

John Ludi sings the Blues...

is that even biologically possible?!?

YOU be the judge!!!

New Ludi & Fitzpatrick song: Fall Autumn Leaves, Fall

The second installment of our Ludi & Fitzpatrick recording project is another lovely and poignant song about lost love by Mr. Fitzpatrick, who also sings the lead on this one. Really happy with how this turned out. Those of you who may have heard us play this one around the area might notice a bit of a change in the arrangement in favor of a dynamic build.

Why I Bitch.

A fair amount of people in the area where I currently call home seemingly have had a difficult time understanding my motivations.  "You're a tough nut to crack, Ludi", is a comment I heard recently. The normal things that motivate people are not of much interest to me...mainly because I view physical life as a mere mote...a blip in the continuum of consciousness...but an important blip if one feels that what one does here impacts their greater development..as I do.

My primary drive as an artist has been to bring the dark to light. Exposing the things that people generally labor to deny or avoid. It's my calling. I'm sort of like a diagnostician of civilization and it's behaviors. The doctor is the one who gets to tell the unhappy patient that they have a tumor, the purpose being that it gives the patient the ability to do something about it, if something is to be done. People are generally not filled with gratitude towards the doctor when they get that news...quite the opposite, in fact: they tend to blame the messenger.

A lot of my friends in most places where I've lived (and most of my online friends)“get” that about me. In the Driftless, an area where a lot of the culture is geared towards new age positive thinking, I can be a bitter pill for some to swallow. People don't want to hear (for example) that systemic flaws in our individual and collective behavior (that can only be rectified by a difficult amount of constant vigilance and raw honesty) are causing our own destruction as a species (and the entire planet, by extension). That tends to be a bit of a buzzkill.

My calling has made a lightning rod of me at times, which has been sad-making...but “to thine own self be true”...it's just who I am. It's who I was coming out of the womb, coupled with a serious influence from the Buddhism I steeped myself in in my teens. It has doomed me to being out of step with the greater world and a dissonant voice in the choir...when I make my voice loud enough to actually be heard...which is not often.  I'm not that impressive.  Perhaps I should have been taller.

For me, awareness is the goal, far over happiness or comfort. Consciousness becoming more conscious...THAT to me, is God.  THAT is my motivator.  

For me, the “good” (for lack of a better term) is that which develops and expands our consciousness, and that is of the down side of life just as much as the up side. The totality of the human condition, the human experience (and beyond), is what I try to encompass with my tiny little brain. The “bad” is that which does the opposite: it diminishes awareness, stunts it, stultifies it. It gives people the pill to cure all that ails them...at the cost of a deeper understanding of themselves and the universe they live in. That is why I find people like Trump so deeply troubling: he is a purveyor and result of a slovenly, slug-like unconsciousness...a force that exists to add to the general dulling of the psyche that has been our trajectory for the past few decades. It is against this that I fight so desperately at times.

So my criticism and complaining often has a higher purpose attached to it...it's not always motivated by my personal discontents (though being a petty little human being, sometimes it actually is). When I complain about something so relatively minor an issue as where I see the arts headed in the little area I live in, for example, I'm not just motivated as an artist who has found no place to be a voice here, it's also because I see a stunting occurring, most of which has been brought about with the very best of intentions.

My ultimate dream is of a world where humans have transcended their self-imposed limits and are in a constant immaterial expansion mode...dedicated to growing emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Given that we are probably in hospice-mode as a species, I gravely doubt that we will get to that beautiful place I've dreamed about and longed for all my life...but I still fight for it all the same.

In the end, for me it is the only fight worth fighting.  It's why I bitch.

Hope that clears a few things up.

New tune from Ludi & Fitzpatrick (first of many studio recordings)!

New song by John Ludi: Whisper in the Wind.