THE BRAKE LIGHTS TOLL-FREE HELP-LINE

BIG BANG BIG BOOM

Jason — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 14:47:16 +0000

Everything is Possible

BIG BANG BIG BOOM – the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

New Millenium Demonstrations

Jason — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 14:33:59 +0000

I love it when the younger version of myself hooks up my current self. In this case, I made my friend Jason Croce a CD of my old songs in 2004 called NEW MILLENIUM DEMONSTRATIONS. This CD is a treasure trove of lost The Brake Lights material that includes a great 5-song demo I recorded at Clay Creek Studio with some old friends as well as demo recordings of songs that comprise the MUSICAL NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND & BEYOND!!! album.

I will post some audio as soon as I get a chance to convert the files into MP3′s. I will make the earlier demos available for download and the same can be said for MUSICAL NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND & BEYOND!!!

This is an extraordinarily busy time of the year for me but I am also working on some new drawings that I plan on posting very soon. Keep your eyes and ears peeled!

Deactivating Facebook

Jason — Mon, 17 May 2010 15:44:39 +0000

There’s buzz all over the Internet about Facebook’s privacy settings and creating a groundswell to deactivate and promote social networking alternatives. And I have to admit, I too am about ready to deactivate my Facebook account for reasons all so many of us can understand:

Mafia Wars
Farmville
“I just ate a Snickers bar”-style updates
Friend Requests
Tagged Photos
Ever-changing privacy features that seek to profit from users’ openness

What’s the future of social networking? Well, if the death of AOL-Keyword and Myspace are any indicators, Facebook will face a decidedly abrupt decline in user activity when a newer, shinier social network comes to light. The backlash against Facebook will only increase as their site outgrows its community and becomes just another profit-seeking institution.

Mongolia

Jason — Tue, 11 May 2010 18:07:58 +0000

Not worried about Twitter feeds

I want to go to Mongolia. Living in a yurt, falconing the green plains under crystal blue skies, not worrying about traffic, no Manhattan Projects, no population, just Life. It’s not Facebook that makes people like you. Twitter isn’t making the world more fascinating.

Leaving Philadelphia was a wise decision. You can only glue so many experiences together in one locale with the same folks before the pastiche gets blurred to black. When that happens, the world gets dark. Cops and ambulances, sirens and violence. Freeways filled with Hummers with OBX oval stickers. If you want to change the human world, you must first leave it behind.

Grandpa’s Buried in the Rocks

Jason — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 18:40:46 +0000

Grandpa died last week and now he’s buried in the rocks
But everybody still talks about how badly they were shocked
But me, I expected it to happen, I knew he’d lost control
When he built a fire on Main Street and shot it full of holes

Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again – Bob Dylan

Listening to Blonde on Blonde on Peaked Mountain Road the other day, I could almost feel the American utopia of some better yesteryear resonate deep within a core I didn’t even know I had. Leaves are growing. The green canopy of the forest is reemerging. Growth is abundant.

Yet still, crazy ways are evident in the world-at-large. The things we hate about ourselves seem to time and time again manifest themselves in corporate misconduct, elected liars yelling “FIRE!” in a bellicose political puppet theater, needy Facebook messages pleading with strangers to attend events far away. You can make your own list.

An electronic manifestation of the Void

Albert Einstein has that famous quote about insane people doing the same things over again and again and expecting different results. Humanity needs to begin exploring new avenues to the future. Boulevards. 12-lane expressways of creativity and community rather than the congestion leading to nowhere.

Grandpa’s buried in the rocks. The old man lived in a different day, using different ways. The old ways won’t work anymore. Intentional living is what some call it. Deliberate living. It’s OK to realize that you were wasting time, breathing from your mouth, pronouncing banal improperly. That’s growth. Despite Earth’s overabundance, too many live in misery. Until creative solutions are put into practice, nothing will change. The first change starts with yourself. Are you contributing to a better world? I hope so. We only have one Mother. Happy Earth Day.

Six Songs for Spring

Jason — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:01:52 +0000

Springtime, Vermont

Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love! – Chief Sitting Bull

The Talking Heads – Once in a Lifetime

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Animal Collective – Who Could Win a Rabbit?

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The New Pornographers – The Laws Have Changed

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The Hold Steady – Chips Ahoy! (Live From Lollapalooza 2007)

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Rilo Kiley – Silver Lining

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Refused – New Noise (Live)

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The Brake Lights Revisit the Fire – March 1st, 2010

Jason — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 19:42:57 +0000

I used to play The Fire every Monday night with all kinds of great musicians. Here’s a video of me performing two of my old songs when I revisited my friends recently – A Declaration of Truth and All My Letters.

The guitar is a little out of tune and so’s my voice, but I seldom perform live these days. Thanks to Physical Illusion for posting this!

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The Tan Satchel

Jason — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:49:39 +0000

There's a little bit of poetry in it, and lots of blood.

No science in politics and no art to war. No instructions for life or time for truth in the countdown to extinction. Not enough whiskey to shoulder the coldness of humanity. Nor enough coldness to freeze the indifferent toxins of exploitation. What began as the emperor’s new clothes has morphed into the world’s biggest nudist colony.

Because the world is aflame and everyone is lying for money, I take to my Walkman and a handle of bourbon. We’re all pushing each other around until it comes time to ask for a helping hand. The lucky should be thankful to find loyalty. Amos says, if the market is guided by an invisible hand, that hand is surely attached to an invisible douchebag.

Mountainside bromides. Background of total black night. Drinking without thinking about the amount of cans filling these construction bags. Truth is, I need more than 5 minutes between jobs to write; I need a patron, some coin, some advantage. Something. And yet something in a David Bowie melody could come forth and grip me; alcohol could warm me, Aladdin Sane would try to warn me, but I’d ignore the narrative for just a few minutes of feeling.

I once had a tan satchel and within it, the means to nourish myself: water, granola, journal, camera, bandanna. A plain tin flask filled with whiskey or brandy. Chug chug chug, pick up my stuff, keep moving. Northern Liberties. There were homeless people everywhere and I knew all of their names. I had invented them myself on the bus headed into New Jersey.

You can hear the consanguinity of life through a seashell or the heartbeat of an alpaca, but you can’t ignore the ongoing history of competition among all things fighting merely to exist. There’s a little bit of poetry in it, and lots of blood. Somewhere in the combustion we impose our love and hate onto unassuming things. We impose morality where we discern cruelty, seeking an otherwise unattainable divinity through what we call ‘compassion’. But in the end, the War rages forward, silently minding the eyes of the dreaming saints, our drunken eventides, these sleepy eyes, weeping towards eternity, ever-aglow for tomorrow with glorious visions of love and epiphany.

Shen Plum Illustration

Jason — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:37:59 +0000

I found the work of Shen Plum via the Juxtapoz Magazine website a while ago. The playfulness of her anthropomorphic critters, use of neon colors in her detail, and creative use of whitespace in her design bring a sense of wonder and curiosity that is ever-present among my favorite works. Check out some of her work below.

Three Poems

Jason — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:27:52 +0000

Knit and Purl

I talk through you & filter subjects
Little sunsets flare out from your wings
Our words burn out
Pondering surface tension
Kicking eggs into oxygen
A new fragmented experience
They talk through you - abrasive notions
Your wings fold back
Having no home
Gravity guides freefall
Reason can be a string of logical ideas
Or a person perched above an oyster’s pearl

Walkman

My poems mosey wayward
Order a double whiskey
Dousing flames with petrodollars
A canon of words
Feuds with the jukebox
I spur
When the poems start stumbling
Preferring a Walkman to talking

Musical Notes

Everyone says they have the best sex
Like they’ve planned a grand opera
Speaking in symphonies
Are little crumpled up musical notes
Lying beneath your crumpled up clothes
Waiting to be used – incompletely decomposed

THE BRAKE LIGHTS TOLL-FREE HELP-LINE

BIG BANG BIG BOOM

New Millenium Demonstrations

Deactivating Facebook

Mongolia

Grandpa’s Buried in the Rocks

Grandpa died last week and now he’s buried in the rocks But everybody still talks about how badly they were shocked But me, I expected it to happen, I knew he’d lost control When he built a fire on Main Street and shot it full of holes

Six Songs for Spring

Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love! – Chief Sitting Bull

The Brake Lights Revisit the Fire – March 1st, 2010

The Tan Satchel

Shen Plum Illustration

Three Poems

Grandpa died last week and now he’s buried in the rocks
But everybody still talks about how badly they were shocked
But me, I expected it to happen, I knew he’d lost control
When he built a fire on Main Street and shot it full of holes