Close Our Eyes...

in keeping with my current tastes, it seems this years Top Chef, isn’t as good as last season. the quality of the cooking doesn’t look that appealing and the contestants aren’t separate enough to be unique in their own right. even though i fuss about this, i can’t find a better show to watch on a wednesday night. (until South Park starts back up that is…) anyway, top chef is a reminder that people can create works of art out of nothing. in this case, food is the material and it’s a hard form to handle. (i know i’m not capable of making such fantastic food…)

during the week, top chef has become the beacon of hope in an otherwise dreadful slump. sure there’s always church on the same night, and i’m eternally grateful for that, but when it comes to wanting something a bit more in my area of artistic inspiration, top chef hits the mark. it makes me want to create, which my current use of writing seems to be filling in for. going back, there was a time when i used to draw really good. (at least in my mind it was good…) but yeah, i was a self proclaimed lover of the arts and i wanted to draw comics and paint epic scenes of my inner most thoughts. after high school, i stopped completely. my excuse for this decision is that my art didn’t develop past making rip-offs of Dragon Ball Z and Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. i want to kick myself right now for quitting because after a few doodles, my style has become much worse and i can’t even draw a face hardly. i’d like to take a few classes just to freshen up, but i honestly don’t know how well that would work. i guess there’s no harm in trying, but what use do i have of it??? i’m so far into writing that going back to that old dream seems like a rash decision on my part, and something i can’t afford to spend my time on. (i keep feeling like the end is near for me…)

besides wanting to make my own comics, i also wanted to make movies. i always had these bizarre ideas in my head that i desperately had to produce. i know nothing of the form, besides crafting awkward reviews, so i can’t begin to describe my style for it and reasons behind the madness. i guess this is why i started writing in the first place. i knew, and so did everyone else, that writing down my crazy stories is the only way for them to be possibly recognized, and even then, i was taking a long shot. (who reads anymore???) oh boy, those early days were full of so much doubt and suffering on my part. as for anybody just starting out, you have some of the biggest hurdles to conquer, one of them being confidence and another being pride. maybe those two are related, but i like to separate them because they both represent me during my early writing stages. not like i’m some super awesome writer now, but i do know i have progressed greatly since my scrappy beginning.

when i got accepted into art school, i felt like a king. i was so proud and, honestly, i thought i was something special. “they picked me out of tons of applications!!! that must mean i’m awesome!!!” well… I was quite WRONG!!! my butt was handed to me that first year. just about everything i did was torn apart by the older students and it totally made me loose all hope i originally had in myself. over the course of the next four years, my feelings towards art changed, as well as me personally and physically, and in the end i left that school with mixed feelings. i studied myself crazy and passed with good grades, but for what purpose??? (i often think that…) i currently have a desk job and blog almost everyday to keep the flame alive. the flame of creativeness i’m still inspired to use…

and like the wind, constantly moving, inspiration comes at any time. here today is a little band that took inspiration and made their own ideas come alive. they were called, Anatomy of A Ghost.



anatomy of a ghost had a cool name. seriously, i love it!!! there was a time when i used to read rock magazines like crazy, and this band would seldom pop up in various ads. i never paid them much attention, but after hearing their song called, “on to morning stars” i quickly caught on. the band apparently started back in 2002 and ended in 2004. i think they were from portland, oregon and also had members from wasilla, alaska. the music they made was typical post-hardcore/emo/screamo stuff from the early 2000’s, and because of this, was often written off as typical flavor of the month tripe. (the band emerged right around the time Saosin and From First to Last got popular…) since this was the case, most people never got the chance to experience their music or see them live, me being one of them. (they came to okahoma in 2003 or 2004, but i disregarded that show as crappy stuff and skipped it like a bad street in the ghetto…)

my bad!!! so anyway, to better describe the bands sound i’m going to have to name drop a few references. think of the guitar work of Coheed and Cambria during their early years as well as At-the Drive In, and then mix that with a little bit of Thursday’s background screaming style and the soft focus of, say a band like Further Seems Forever and you might be near to what i’m hearing in my head. and like i said, they weren’t as well received when they first came out, but after several years of laying dormant, the band has sort of risen to legendary status. their style resembles the stages of midwest 90’s style emo, where it was all about the substance and not the style. the band, arguably, tears through their music with gusto and non-egotistical notions towards making it not seem bigger than what it was, but nonetheless full of young angst. the music still sounds distinct and inspirational in that, “i can make music too!!!” sort of way. (i like to remember Desaparecidos when talking like that. If there was any sort of band that maked me wanna go out and make music for the sake of it, they took the cake.)

and so the music is finally upon us. to this day, anatomy of a ghost only released one album, and it's called Evanesce. it's pretty much the only recorded documentation out there of the band besides live bootlegs maybe. yeah, this might be a bit sad that it's only what they have to offer, but raise your head up because not all is lost!!! if you happen to really like their music, then i highly suggest to travel along and check out the band called, Portugal. The Man. this group emerged from the ashes of anatomy of a ghost and have been on a killing streak ever since. it's the same vocalist and same bass player and, to this day, the band has released over six albums and five ep's!!! i might get to them at a later time, but for now enjoy some of the past because we all start out with scrappy beginnings, and eventually we emerge as hopefully something better if we stick with it. ya dig???


http://www.mediafire.com/?3zdtdd14qib


We flail on to morning stars
We'll offer all of ourselves just not to close our eyes
Seize onto the sun as it rises in the east
Ascend to open doors hanging heavenly
Suspended in the superlunary even broken you'll be back to still stand

I'll shatter the silence to tell you we won't last long
If this canopy crashes down, crushing us
That's the only way to break this apart

And although the moon is falling down on us
Don't expect this day to end
Do you see that star?
Well, I'll meet you there
When you read this you'll be well on your way
Please write soon, so I know that you have gotten home safe
And please don't forget me

How I worked hearts molded in mache to some mended way of beating before we behold them break and both
Painting pictures that will never fade still they crack
Clutched at the crushing in our chests dizzy we'll see stars dazzle like glass shards sparkle shatter
(The violence in destroyed frames)

And if the sheltering sky will slip to sever us
We'll receive it
We will reap it
Always remember