This I Believe

Yeah, hum, uh, errr. Yeah.

Sorry, I don't believe in anything anymore. If you think that's hard to hear, think about how hard it is to say, polesmoker. You think I think it's cool to not believe in fucking anything? Man, I'm not fifteen. It's cool to not believe in anything when you're fifteen or even maybe 21.

See, I don't not believe in anything because it's cool. I'm actually not particularly immature, believe it or not. I don't believe in anything because I come from believin' in shit a whole bunch and having it prove to be a lie.

A lot of it is cultural, man. I try to not cast much of an eye to our culture at all, except to ridicule it and masturbate to it. What I want to see is people get places because they possess talent or ability or passion or whatever. Yeah, I know. That provokes laughter, right? That's Not Good, man.

Look at the fucking president, man. Look at anybody rich or famous. They're the worst kind of assholes, right? So, how does one succeed in one of the many, many definitions of success? By being an asshole? I guess. I guess. By sucking th' lifeforce out of others. By stinking shit up so bad that it's a headline. By being born to the right blueblood robber baron scumbag motherfucking piece of shit, right? By parading your neurotic fucked-up-ness in front of cameras. Sweet, man. The american fucking dream, man. Sorry- I can't bring myself to capitalize america anymore.

So, what do I do? Well, there's therapy, right? But here's th' deal with therapy- it can't make me feel one millimeter less disgusted. All it can do is make me O.K. with being disgusted. that's not fucking enough. I'm not stupid enough for that, man.

What was it like for my parents? Did they actually believe in things? My dad was in th' Foreign Service. Did he actually believe there was a point in it or was he just thinkin' it was a topnotch way to score skirt? Huh? Can you believe in a world so fairytale-like that a person of reasonable I.Q. could think there was a point in being a diplomat?

So many questions! I just get scared that my time is running out. See, I could still believe in something. I believe in that I could still believe in something. But time's running out for that. Pretty soon it'll be too late- I'll be too far gone into Nihilon. I'll be too sick of being lied to. You have to not lie to anyone that matters. I'm fucking dead serious. Just don't. Have enough balls to stand on your own fucking merits and be prepared to not be liked.

How do people get up in the morning? How do they do it? Jesus Christ it takes me more and more time. I open my eyes and I start th' litany- something worthwhile will happen today. I'll make someone momentarily happy today. I'll get kissed really good today. I'll meet someone who actually has something to impart to me today instead of the usual bloodsucking vampires. I'll meet someone smarter than me. I'll meet someone who gives ME a fucking grain of wisdom or a new way to play a Eb dominant 11. Instead of being fucking sucked dry by th' Usual Suspects.

I'll fucking learn something today.

Love? You believe in love? Do You Believe In A Thing Called Love? Dude, I divide th' women in my past into two categories: those who fucked me on purpose and those who fucked me by mistake. That's about how it breaks down, man. And it comes to me so late in th' game that it would have behooved everyone if I'd just cared a little less. If I'd just taken my fucking pleasure and moved the fuck on. Because that's what They wanted. They didn't want all my protestations of undying fucking bullshit.

Women are pragmatic, man. It is very, very much in one's interest to treat them with the proper pragmatism. They're not romantic creatures, my friend. They want worms and a nest for their chicks, my friend. Anything you think they want or that they say they want is, in some confusing, Lady Macbethish way, in service of nests and worms, baby. Do NOT make the mistake of thinking otherwise.

Music? Yeah, I still believe in music. Maybe the answer is in there somewhere. I know for a fact that music is what has kept me sane which is actually sort of a punishment but there it is. In the course of my life, whenever I've thought I was about to die my thoughts have been of music. I feel like I've only scratched the surface of music, you know?

Thing is, man- music is like cooking. It needs an audience or it falls in th' woods and doesn't make a sound. Every time I create something worthwhile and throw it online and eight people really dig it it kills me inside a little. So, I'm supposed to promote myself and my music which is the biggest fucking joke of all. We're getting back into a thread of a 'graph or four ago.

People don't want good, accomplished, passionate, thought-provoking music. They want easy music that goes down like Kool kool koolaide. Dude, I've been in th' business of it with people throwing fucking bread around and greasin' palms and I know how that shit works. I've been reivewed in enough big rags that I know they're reviewing you because you're buying a fucking full-page ad, man. At the end of the day it's the fucker with the biggest ego and the biggest hard-on about tellin' everybody about how fucking great they are that gets somewhere.

And I just can't get it up for that. I don't respect people enough, really. I guess that's it. Or most of th' people I meet of a Friday night. There's a bunch of cyberfolks I respect a whole lot, that's true. But you guys are like a zillionth of a percent, you know? People on the whole aren't any wiser about what they put in their ears as they are about what they shove in their fucking pieholes which is pretty toxic and air-filled.

I really do want to fuckin' believe in something. Like a girlie wants a prince on a fucking horse. But it's a hazardous, hazardous pursuit. You lose your motivation, man. The danger of getting older is that you start to know th' outcome. And that makes it dead-fucking-hard to take on the fucking world. I don't want to get old and die fucking angry. That would suck. I want sunshine and tequila and flowers and pussy. Why can't I fucking have that? Why can't I fucking have that? Don't anyone dare try to make me feel bad for wanting that. There's nothing fucking wrong with me for wanting that.

That's what I fucking believe.

Motherfuckin' Wang Chung Tonite

Jesus, I've been unproductive as shit for a spell here. It's because everything I need to do is so epically biblical that it's tough to dig in. Fuck, I'll get there. I just need a psychic hardon moment and I'll be flying.

when I start doing shit for pure yucks I know I've got a touch o' spring fever and might as well give in to it. Good for the heart. So, you heard my brilliant ad. Then, today I got a email from Universal Audio whose list I'm on. They're a manufacturer of high-end audio stuff, plug-ins and hardware for recording and mastering.

There's a thing where you can submit a song and if the panel of judges likes it they put it on their website and give you a reacharound or something but you HAVE TO SAY THAT YOU USED SOME UA PRODUCT and how you used it. That kind of irked me, I mean, I guess it's O.K. but the way it works is if you want a musician of pedigree to endorse your shit you GIVE THEM SOME FREE crap.

So I submitted a song and told them I used the DVD case of their wonderful mastering suite to clean pot on.

Then I meet this band! Fuckin' A, man. I'm trolling musician classifieds at MySpace to see if, you know, there's any cool string players around here or if anyone wants to do a Tenacious D tribute. And here's CRAZE, man. They're all like 18 and they have this classified that sez "we DARE you to write and sing a lyric to this song". They're looking for a singer, you know? And they want to find their Vedder so I linked to the song and of course it's just brilliant. So I run it off onto my multitrack and I sing THIS LITTLE TREAT to it and off it goes!!!! Oh, you won't want to miss a second of this little four-minute treat. It's almost frighteningly brilliant. I about hacked up a lung listening to this. Could be a high point. Also, I'd like to pay tribute to my influences on this one- Corey Hart, Wang Chung, Men At Work, Jefferson Starship, Neil Diamond, The D (particularly "Explosivo") and of course Sepultura and Metal Church.

I think they'll like it. I'm going to send them the link now at their MySpace and see what happens.

I can't imagine what I did before I had a blog to be lazily amusing on of a night off. Oh, yeah- I hung out with friends. I knew it was some shit like that.

Your Source For Crap

Musicians have to do fuckin' ads sometimes. Hey, fuck you a guy gets hungry. This one's for a grocery chain in Hartford CT. Please don't tell them about this take. The engineer (me) rolled tape when th' producer (me) was getting a Dove bar and the singer (me) threw this quick version of th' jingle down.

Fuckers didn't like th' bluegrass one. That was the cool one. Sorry, Ned. So they get this.

Some Words Of Encouragement

I just wanted to mention a fuckin' thing I was thinking about today because it's extremely true and it's good news in these trying fuckin' times.

When I was 22 I figured I was over the hill to be Rock 'N' Roll Choadface Idol. At 26 I laughed at the ridiculous and uselessly undermining thoughts of my younger self, knowing however that by now it was too late for me to be a Defining Voice Of My Generation.

When I was 32 I looked back (in retrospect) and realized what a whingeing puss my younger self had been, knowing however that by now I was beyond the wheelhouse age of being An Established But Ever-Innovating pop chameleon.

Et-fuckin'-cetera.

See what I'm getting at here? I'll try to be a little less knobberific if you will.

Here's m'band fiction's last three studio recordings from th' big label days. Probably early '00. Icily competent stuff, this. This is being done by a group that's pretty assured of its own ascendancy and the material came from the stage where you're scribbling on tour and running through arrangements during soundchecks. The band was a trio and we recorded as live as we could but there's obviously the old Lightfoot touch at work in th' harmonies. We had the tensile thing together by then, the less-is-more going on. That all comes from being tired on stage, by the way. You can't help but want a song you can reach for your beer during.

The drummer, I'll call him Hank Dooley, is just fucking frighteningly precise. He was also fucking precisely an asshole and we could only handle him for so long. Big pussy, this dude. But listen to him play. I would much rather've made more records with him and not spent three months in a van with him.

We ended up calling this "The Rebecca EP". We only got rough mixes but they're pretty epic.

"Love Reaches Out" was written on tour in '98 in Lake Tahoe, CA. "Rebecca Understands Me" was written in a field on a summer day in '99 in Bowling Green KY (as evidenced by the first line, "Sitting in a field in Bowling Green"). The song is a funny sort of meobius strip of a narrative about a man's implausible fantasy of the perfect woman. I had to find a loop to use for the drums during the verses and I didn't have much time and I ended up ripping the intro from a Sarah McLachlan song on Fumbling Towards Ecstacy (I'm far more aquainted with fumbling away from Ecstacy to be honest) and slowing it way down. Thanks Missus.

"Call On Me" was written on tour in New England in Octember '98. This one's supposed to put some dry leaves under yer boots. The high note that I hold at the end for 27 seconds is not in any way fucked with by a computer or anything. And it's doubled. Wa-CHAAA.

This is interesting music. It's kind of leaning into that whole Talentmetal thing a little, that whole Kings X thing with the keyboard-precise harmonies. But I think there's enough new wave to it (the pointillist Police guitars on "Call On Me", the slinky open spaces of "Love Reaches Out") that it doesn't fall in.

Um, oh, yeah- fuck George Bush, that cunt.

Lightfoot Musician Jokes 1: WORSE THAN BASS SOLO

A guy arrives at a tropical airport. Along with the heat and the sea breezes and the aroma of spice, he hears the incessant pounding of bass guitar. BOOM boom boom boom. BOOM boom boom boom.

He asks the baggage handler, "So, what's up with the bass?"

The sloe-eyed fellow quickly looked left, then right. "The bass, mon, it very important. Nothing must stop the bass."

Puzzled, our traveller hailed a taxi. The rhythm of the native bass was incessant.

He asked the cabbie, "Yo, bro, what up with the bass?"

The cabbie sucked on a spliff the size of a cheroot and gasped, "Oh, mon. We love the bass. If it ever stop, it will be a great catastrophe. Jah has written it."

The visitor disembarked at his luxury hotel. Despite the grand marble and gold surroundings, the throbbing of the bass was even louder. An obsequious bellhop sidled up to assist the guest with his bags. Wanting to get full value for his tip, the visitor brandished a $20 dollar bill and said to the bellboy, "There's another one just like this for you if you can do me a favor."

Quick like a bunny, the double sawbuck was palmed. "What is it you wish, meester? Dope? Girls? Boys?"

"Nothing like that," said the wealthy Americano. I just want to know about the bass."

"Ohhh, senor has noticed the urgent tropical rhythm of the bass. It is very special. Nothing must stop the bass."

Frustrated with curiousity, ur hero caould hold back no longer.

"What happens if the drums stop?"

The bellboy bared his palm, waiting for the other $20. "If the bass stop, it will be terrible.......after the bass stop.....THEN COME TROMBONE SOLO."

Don't Put On Any Polesmoking Airs When You're Down On Rue Morgue Avenue.

July 4 2000, Los Angeles CA:

God damn it if we didn't get into the fucking Whiskey, man. Bloody red sun of fantastic L.A., man.

Ohhhh, oh, you're going to bitch about me again now. You're going to bitch about me and my fuckin' thing because I talk the way I do and write smooth and dirty and you're going to lean against that wall and call me on stuff because man you're so pragmatic. But I'm not going to pull rank at a party and I'm not going to command th' room when you've got baby pictures to show. See, I'm wanting to be left alone. I'm wanting to be at home. Now I am, anyway.

See how it fucking works? I'm not going to do any of that shit just because my failure was so picturesque or pretty. And so lengthy. And there were so many moments when it seemed like such a fuckin' shoe-in. So many pretty meetings at Capitol and PolyGram and A&M. So many 4 AMs drivin' south on th' Pacific Coast Highway and hitting Dana Point when the sun was soaking th' Sierras and it was so good to be going somewhere for fucking once. You know how that fucking feels.

See, I'm not going to assume that you don't just because you suffer from Pragmatizm. You know the fuck how it feels when sunrise meets motion. I wish I could give you what they scripted me for my Pragmatitis. It feels weird going in but man it's really good and when you start to come on to it you're thinking Dana Point, CA. You're thinking Venice motherfucking Italy, dearie.



April 28 1982, Venice Italy:

They let us off th' ferry from the train station and it's that jetty right on San Marcos. We get a pernod in th' square and Erica is high and goes and lies out in the square until she disappears under a carpet of pigeons. And the bill comes and it's a zillion lire so we just up and leg it. That's usually how I get my best sense of a city when I'm seventeen is getting chased through it.

I catch up with the other students and Monica Brinton and ask her to have tea with me and she does and it's fuckin'-A great but the girl mixes th' lemon and the cream and you know that's not a pretty outcome.

And I never forget the way it looks in her teacup, like jizz in a punchbowl, yeah. And those little strands, swimming around with a weird animus that you can't figure out what th' engine is. I can see them huge, I can see them up in the sky like bigass clouds fixing to open up and rain dna the fuck on your parade. That's what it looks like, yeah you've seen it.

Yeah, that's right, Mssr. Pragmatique. Into every life a little dna must fall and if you don't listen don't come back to me later. And you can't avoid it doing what you're doing, man. It's not going to work. Their are no clear guidelines to who gets fucked and who doesn't but I always walk around feeling like the other exceeeedingly large shoe is goin' ta fix ta comin' down.

And three days later when I'm looking at that knife in La Spezie and trying to get my watch off I'm looking over the dudes's shoulder and his head is blocking out the sun and I can see, yes, off to th' west. I can see 'em moving in. It's like Jesus poured the fucking tea and Zeus pissed in it all over the sky.

That's what it looks like, man. Do I really have to tell you? You've put th' lemon in the cream. It's how you learn. And to even have the chance to stand at a window in the early fall and watch your babies play in th' yard is one in a zillion. There's so many other ways it could have been.

And that's the odds of fuckin' everything. Don't give me any of this 7 to 10 nonsense. The Chance Of Anything is one in a fuckin' zillion. One in a zillion that the dice are dice and not primordial crustaceans on planet De3eihg. One in a zillion that you're driving a car to the casino and not gleurding a truxkll. Follow? One in a zillion that I'm sitting here well you get what I'm gleurding at.

Th' odds aren't important. Only th' outcome is important and there's always an outcome and when you think about it, on a cosmic scale, well, that's pretty generous. Generous.