I had someone find my blog when they searched for “You can’t step in the same stream Twice.” That phrase wasn’t actually anywhere in the blog entry that they ended up reading, though, which made me laugh a little. Anyway, that phrase is a philosophical thought first posed by a classical philosopher named Hericlitus: it refers to the idea that the water is moving and so even though you may step in the stream bed, you can’t step in the stream itself again.

That makes me wonder about stepping into old relationships. Allow me to give you a hypothetical example:

Hypothetically, I’m in love with a girl and have been for a long time. Hypothetically, this is someone that I already destroyed an even longer time ago. Hypothetically, I know I’m in love because I over-analyze everything and came to realize that she was a litmus test I’d been using against other girls. Hypothetically, she’s been to hell and back in relationships since then. Hypothetically, sometimes I’m very worried that given a second chance, this whole thing would blow up in my face this time.

Hypothetical enough? Good. My point being I can step into that relationship again, but the girl that was in love with me so long ago may have already moved down the river. Maybe she just doesn’t know it.

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http://www.josephkosinski.com/projects/movs/BABY_640×360.mp4

That incredible song in the background is by a guy named Oren Lavie. It’s called Her Morning Elegance. I was listening to that song after figuring out who it was. Then, as I usually do, I decided to listen to the rest of the tracks on Oren’s Myspace page. I wasn’t nearly as impressed. Not that it was bad, it’s just that Oren isn’t my cup of tea. The funny thing was that earlier that day my brother and I were having a discussion about music and Sara Bareilles came up. If you aren’t familiar with Sara Bareilles, then you should check her out in the links at the end of this post.

Anyway, my brother was saying how he only really liked her single (Love Song), and didn’t care for anything else of hers really. So this is where art gets murky. The debate over subjectivity and objectivity. I will always argue that when it comes to art, it’s not completely subjective. I think there is a great amount of objectivity in deciding what is good when it comes to art. In other words, I don’t think art should be left up to everyone’s opinion. That’s stupid and wishy-washy.

In our culture today, though, all we preach is tolerance. We’ve preached it so much that most people don’t even know what they believe anymore. there’s no conviction because you don’t want to offend anyone. That’s a conversation for a different day though.

It’s because of this, I believe, that so many people think music is completely about the listener: Whether or not it’s good is up to each individual listener. Bullshit. For one, my music is about me. I’m glad that you like it, but I don’t write songs so that you will like them. And two, I’ll pass all the judgment I want on trash that masquerades for art in the music world. Why? Because it is awful. You can’t listen to Tom Waits, The Wall Flowers, and Britney Spears and not hear the digression as you go along.

Pay attention when you’re listening. This is why things are critical successes but not commercial successes; because the casual listener takes whatever they are told to listen to. If you aren’t proactive about what is fed you, that can be a very dangerous thing: physically, emotionally, politically, and spiritually.

-L

For music mentioned:

Oren Lavie

Sarah Bareilles

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I realized eventually, that music is more important to me than I had realized. I hate to be cliche and talk about how music is a form of expression and blah blah blah, but it is. What’s more is that I realized that it’s not just expression: it’s a release valve. If you have read the Relationships 101 blog, then you are hip to something that happened recently with me. Well, writing a song about that situation allowed me to just shut it down. Mostly, because the song was not a pining-for-a-past-love song, but more of a putting-this-behind-me-and-realizing-it-was-wrong song.

It just shut it off. Like magic. The problem is that it takes me too long to have to write those songs. I have to wait until I have gathered a fair amount of perspective on the subject, like a dam waiting until the water is a certain level and then releasing the water making way for new water (in my case I would, of course, be making more room for future potential problems and annoyances).

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http://www.breakthruradio.com/index.php?show=3063

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Regardless, the one thing you need to understand in order to make any sense of this blog, is that I recently sort of started dating and then un-dating a friend of mine. It really moved that quick. It was like 0-15 MPH then back to zero again…in a month. I’m mostly annoyed though because anyone who has known me for any length of time knows that prior to this I had taken sabbatical from dating altogether. So to get pulled off furlough in order to deal with a half-assed excuse for “seeing someone” is silly. What it ended up doing was causing me to realize that it’s a pain in the ass being a cynical romantic.

That’s not an oxymoron, by the way. You see, deep down, I have hope that things work out while at the same time knowing they won’t. I’m pretty much only like this when it comes to romance and politics though. I guess I got a great song out of the whole mess (at least there’s that). It’s a duet. I haven’t ever written one of those before. I’ll be giving it a grand reveal at my show in a couple days. The lovely Misty Boyce will be helping out with this one.

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Break Thru Radio

I’ll soon be posting tracks on my myspace from the show, but if you go and listen to the show you can hear the whole show as well as a ten minute interview with me Ryan Vaughn, and Chris anderson.

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Maybe it’s not enough to know it, actually, maybe you have to be able to accept it. That’s the problem. On one end of the spectrum, you have people that are too stupid to realize any problems. They’re happy. On the other end of the spectrum you have the people that recognize the sad reality of life and accept it. They make the best of it. They’re happy. Somewhere between the extremes is the rest of us, with varying degrees of acceptance and denial. We also have varying degrees of happiness.

I think about all the shit I need to deal with on a daily basis, and wonder Why in God’s name do other people need to make my life more difficult? I know, I know, I do it to myself. I can’t always see it coming though, not always. I know that when I finish writing this blog, I am going to go outside and smoke a cigarette and make a phone call to someone who is annoying the shit out of me…

I need to quit smoking and possibly pare down my group of friends. Instead of having a giant bunch that includes some real leeches, maybe I should just have like two. The two I know for sure don’t suck. And I’ll just stop returning the phone calls of the rest. The very act of doing that means I have to cut out two things I enjoy: smoking and hanging out with lots of people. Something’s gotta give.

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I was having a party in my parents front yard and everyone from school was there (probably 30 or 40 kids). My older brother Jacob and my dad were walking through the crowd and sticking pins on all of my friends’ shirts, and the moment they did, my friends would turn evil. Soon enough, they were all evil and they started chasing me down the street. I kept tripping, but they still couldn’t catch me (like a bad horror flick). Finally, I got to the other end of the street and climbed up on a house. As I stood on the peak of the roof, they would charge up at me and I would tear their pin off and then toss them off the roof (tearing the pin off rendered them non-evil, so I am not really sure why I felt the need to be pushing them off the roof also). Finally it was just down to my brother and my dad and I made a break for it. There was a big greyhound bus parked on the street (which is strange because that kind of vehicle is never even driving down an out-of-the-way residential neighborhood street). I got into the greyhound bus, and it was full to the brim with logs cut into fire wood. I sat down into the driver seat, and then I noticed there was no ignition, but there was a gaping hole where my feet would go. I was going to have to run start the bus a la The Flintstones. I did and eventually pulled into a supermarket. At this point my brother comes riding up on his ten speed bike and reaches in the window and grabs the keys, turning the ignition (that wasn’t there before) off. I woke up.

Lately I have been remembering dreams a lot though. What worries me is that they are all relatively normal. Last night I had a dream that I couldn’t find my jacket which is where my cigarettes were, so that I could smoke. Two nights I ago I dreamed that two of my friends that hadn’t talked since the one moved away from the city, had finally talked. Last week I had a dream about a friend who moved to L.A. Now he was back in NYC and he had a hair cut and he was a total ladies’ man.

I don’t mind not remembering my dreams that often, but what the hell does it mean when you start having normal dreams and they are still dreams that stress you out? All of these dreams are causing an anxiety that persists well after I wake up. Any ideas?

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When I woke up, I headed into Rockwood Music Hall to catch a couple of acts. I saw Zach Williams and Old Springs Pike. They are both really incredible, and if you get the chance you should check them out.

That’s all, I’ll let you guys know when the radio show will air…which should be in a week or two.

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