No More Setbacks

(The picture has nothing to do with the post.)

Long ass time, no post huh? Needless to say I've been beyond busy and gone through a few things since my last blog. These past few days I've felt like the only way to get certain things off my chest would be to just go in on a post and vent. I don't see the point in lying on the internet so everything will be truthful. So sit back and enjoy.

I feel like this past year I kinda wasted my time and money on a relationship that I had to cut short. To be completely honest, I'm extremely happy with my life and the way things are going for me and this music shit. Aside from the little drama from the recently ended relationship that will be non existent soon everything is better than it has been in a long time. When you survive a serious life threatening accident that takes you about a year to be fully rehabilitated from you tend to be stronger than the weak. I find it funny how someone can swear up and down they love you more than anything and make so many promises when really they don't give a fuck about anything but themselves. Some people are so worried about fitting in and being cool that will do anything to be trendy and be accepted. Wack ass friends you have nothing in common with, wack ass music, wack everything just to be cool. These people don't fool me though. They are pretty transparent to be quite honest. You can't be yourself and you let your parents make your every move. Someone whom I use to care for a lot became very predictable and grew to be so selfish that I had to let them go. For me this is sorta like a proper goodbye lol.

Were you ashamed of me? I really needed to go to college to keep you? Your parents are hateful, judgmental, over controlling bullies. I will never let my life be led by another human being, let alone someone's parents whom I barely ever liked. Don't be afraid of what your parents or friends think. If something or someone truly makes you happy then you should be with them or do what makes you happy. It's so sad how people let others write their book of life for them. I do plan on going back to school but I'll get to that on my own time. I got so much going on that I can't even go in on right now because I don't want to spoil it. I'm doing what makes me happy. Have fun pretending and being a little robot. Don't expect things to ever be like they were. You had your chance. I hope you suffer and drown in sadness for the way you made things you're a selfish, confused little robot. Goodbye

Sidenote: The might "Growing Wings" is on in production right now. The cover will be done within a few days. I'm pretty excited for that because the guy who designed Raekwon's "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II" album cover is designing my cover. "Growing Wings" features Frank Ramz, TreaZon & the underground legend Copywrite. I got production from Charlie Hilton, Urban Noize, Copywrite and more. I'm not one to toot my own too much but it's gonna be pretty fucking dope. It's growth season biiiiiiitch.

7 Days Later

With tons of setbacks and delays it felt like my first project would never see the light of day. I had to take a seat and watch everyone release good music while all I could do is write music and wait. Waiting can be the cause of some serious issues, like insecurities, anger, and depression. Which I happened to suffer from all 3 but once the waiting was over I got off my ass and finished my EP. I wasn't gonna let that car crash keep me down forever.

Down2Earth was finally released last Monday and 7 days later the verdict is in. The project is a success. I didn't have any major expectations for this project. It was meant to be a little appetizer. It wasn't meant to be a classic or a game changer it was meant to be something to get my name out there to a few people. That's exactly what it did. And I'm successful by my own admission not by what any critic or blog says.

I wanna sincerely thank everyone who posted the EP. A big thank you to my big brother Frank Ramz and my brother Charlie Hilton. I also wanna thank Wordap.net, Fistfulofsound.com and Vick @ REUP Spot. And I wanna thank everybody who actually downloaded and listened to Down2Earth whether you liked it or not. I truly appreciate it. I promise my full length project "Growing Wings" will be better.

For those who haven't downloaded it yet, heres my debut EP Down2Earth
http://pigeonsandplanes.com/2010/08/new-wingspan-down2earth-ep.html

Why Did the Raccoon Cross the Road?

This will probably come off as self-serving and more than a little cheesy.

*First, a bit of exposition.

I am, and have been for the past 3 to 4 years, severely depressed. My greatest strength and my greatest weakness is my memory, the sharpness of my intellect. My once boundless optimism (I am, admittedly, a dreamer and a hopeless romantic) has begun to be replaced by a bitter, jaded, cynicism. My hatred for this place, for this greedy, selfish, mindless society is only outweighed by my all-encompassing self-loathing. All of my greatest successes and failures haunt my waking dreams. The opposite happens in my dreams.

Honestly, I hate to dream. Well, to be fair, it's not the dreaming that I hate. It's the waking up. This is one of the many reasons that Inception was a film I was particularly interested in (and by "interested in," I mean, "marking the fuck out for"). I went to see the midnight showing at a theater not too far from my house, which sits outside city limits in what is the beginning of a vast expanse of farmland. Around an hour before I was to leave, my two beagles decided to run off into the night and explore. Beagles have a habit of doing this, once they find an interesting smell. If it happens during the day, we don't often worry, because they always come back. This is different at night, when Coyotes are on the prowl, Coyotes which would quite easily rip my dogs to shreds. Especially the fat one, the one who was still missing when I left (she came back later that night, while I was at the movie).

In a soon to be explained coincidence, my grandmother (who lives farther in city,) had been having problems with a family of Raccoons stealing her cat's food. My uncle and step-father caught a few, who soon died from the heat the next day. I wondered if I should feel pity for what must have been a terrible death, or if I should just disregard it. Raccoons are particularly mean creatures.

*Exposition over

Anyways, after seeing Inception (one of the most mentally and emotionally involving films I have ever seen in my entire life, and an unmitigated masterpiece,) I drove back home, along some dark, lonely roads (every road is dark and lonely at 3 in the morning). While listening to the final song on Radiohead's "Kid A" (Motion Picture Soundtrack) I saw a family of Raccoons crossing the road directly under a large streetlamp. I slowed down a little to make sure I didn't hit them, and felt a little sorrier for the three that had died the day before. Then I noticed what must have been the Father waiting on the far side of the road in my rear-view mirror. My car had scared it from crossing the road. I drove away.

Less than 10 seconds later, another car passed my going the other way. I off-handedly wondered if that car would hit the raccoon. For some reason this stuck with me, and a couple minutes later I turned around and headed back. When I got back, the raccoon was still sitting where I had left him, peeking around to see if he could cross. He saw my car and darted back. So I stopped, and shut my car off. In the middle of a relatively busy road in the dark. The Raccoon poked his head out and looked at me. Not at my car, but at me. After a few seconds, he worked up the courage to cross. It took him almost a minute (thinking back, I probably almost hit him the first time.) Right as he made it to the other side, I started my car. He freaked out and turned around to escape to the relative safety of the other side.

Instead of running around my car, he ran right up to my passenger's side door, stopped, looked at car, judged it no threat, and finished crossing to the other side. Then he left, without looking back. This is where my choice of music comes into play. As I wondered if he found his family, Thom Yorke's voice rang out with "I think you're crazy," which is something I often wonder. Am I crazy for trying to think every day? For caring more about my thoughts, my memories, my philosophies, than my wealth? Am I the crazy one, or is it everyone else?

Maybe this is what some people call a religious experience. A sign from a higher power communicating that everything will work out. Maybe. It has all the hallmarks (pun intended). I don't know. All I know is that for the first time in years, I felt good about something I had done. Not just satisfied, but good. Like I had done something most other people wouldn't have, and it didn't cause me to question my sanity. That's all religion is, in my opinion. An escape from the confines of the mind. If there's anything Inception taught me, it's that the mind will see what it wants to see. There is no more powerful parasite than an idea.

When I got home, right as I got out of my car, a Coyote howled in the distance. Understandably I hurried inside. Coyotes are particularly mean creatures. After getting inside, I realized that I had left my phone in the car. I decided not to go out and get it. I don't know if I'm ready to face that Coyote yet.

All I know is that for a few minutes on July 16th, 2010, Thom Yorke, Christopher Nolan and Raccoon saved my life.

A single idea from a human mind can build cities.-
Cosmis

Space Nukes

Citizens of the United States! On this, the day of the birth of our nation, we would like you to know that although we were capable of enveloping the Earth in the multicolored shroud of a hydrogen bomb in 1962, we are currently incapable of stopping an oil spill. Which we are responsible for. It has nothing to do with the fact that the oil being spilled is an excuse to hike up the cost of gasoline, money which indirectly finds its way into our pockets (or China's, as we'd like to have you believe).



Also, we have no idea who killed Kennedy and DEFINITELY put a man on the moon.

Salutations, from the government that both invented freedom and destroyed it.

P.S. Disregard this statement. Just watch this creative, original and well-written reality television and listen to this very talented singer who definitely wrote their own music. Your government is in control, don't worry.

You are free. To do what we tell you.


Governments shouldn't be in the business of governing-
Cosmis

Let Shyne Shine

During my absence from typing out my honest opinions and thoughts a lot of stuff has annoyed me, things which inspired this post.

Let's talk about a man whom I have a unbelievable amount of respect for. Let's talk about how a majority of people who go out of their way to say ridiculously negative things about Shyne are the same people who praise Gucci Mane and OJ Da Juiceman. Shyne did real time not no "2 months in daycare then 10 months on house arrest" like all these "real" rappers who did "time" and then bragged about it. After doing damn near 10 years in prison, Shyne gets released and guess what...he sounds different.
What?!?! No way? Is it horrible? No. It's much better than whats considered "hot" by the masses. His lyrics and beat selections are very good. He did his time and now he's making music.

He's matured, what, did you expect him to get out of jail and talk about how he's been trapping or dancing when he was in a cage for the past decade? Shyne is and will remain one of the most respected rappers by a lot of artists in this fucked up industry. So while you're hating on Shyne, that wack ass rapper who's balls are resting on your chin is wishing they had half the respect that Shyne has. What's wrong with maturing? Grow the fuck up society. Anyways I came here to get this off my chest and post Shyne's street single off his upcoming def jam album "Guess Who". The song is dope as fuck in my opinion. So download it and enjoy good music or pretend you heard it and just hate because it's the popular thing to do. You people do know it's ok to have your own opinon right?

Shyne - Roller Song (download)

Also here's his handwritten lyrics of the song.

According to Plan

You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan." - Heath Ledger as "The Joker" in The Dark Knight (2008)

There is an established order to the world. Since the beginnings of civilization, there always has been. Be it the Catholic Church, the British Empire or the American Government, there has always been some "higher" authority telling average men and women what they should and should not be. (Since the Western World considers itself superior, I'll deal only with it. Specifically America.)

With the inventions of the steam engine, airplane, automobile and television in the 19th and 20th Centuries, this began to change. Men began to think more for themselves and not their country. Philosophers like Sartre, Bergson, Nietzsche, Marx, Kierkegaard and Heidegger (along with other types of thinkers, such as Oscar Wilde and Voltaire) began to question the very nature of our existence to a point not seen since the Golden Age of the Greek Empire.

While the rise of technology gave birth to existentialism and other forms of free-minded expression, it also signaled the rise of war on a global scale. For the first time in our bloody history, men would have the means to completely obliterate his fellow man from the face of the Earth with the push of the button.



"Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."- J. Robert Oppenheimer, lead of the Manhattan Project (creators of the Atomic Bomb.)

The Second World War, along with the so-called "Cold War" that succeeded it, gave rise to a brand new and terrifying method of subjugation: the threat of global war. For posterity's sake, I will focus my lens on these dark times, when the threat of M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction) was all it took to keep an entire country under control. After the end of the Cold War, they realized that a more subtle method was in order. The television.



The advent of mass media in the 1950's combined with the Reagan Revolution of the 80's combined to a rise in anti-intellectualism in the United States, a trend that continued through the 90s and into the 2000s, which may have been the dumbest decade in recorded history. This is a country not just of ignorance, but of prideful ignorance.



This culture of ignorance is not accidental. Those in power, be they government or corporate, do not wish for an educated and intelligent populace. They would much rather prefer you quiet, stupid and interested in what they have to sell. You may be thinking me overly-critical, but ask yourself one question. When was the last time you can remember someone in power asking you to think, to analyze? They tell you what to think, what to believe. "Freedom is the right to say that two plus two equals four," Winston Smith said. But what happens when those in power tell you it doesn't? What happens when two plus two equals five? Do you have the ability to fight for it? Will you stick by something no one else will? Will you resist? To me, this is the true meaning of intelligence.



You might say that I am paranoid. You might say that I'm grasping at straws, or that I'm seeing connections where there are none. Maybe I am.

But maybe I'm not.

You are not paying attention.-
Cosmis

Theme Music

Everyone has their own personal theme music. A song that "gets them." It sounds really corny/cliche when you hear it from someone else, but it always seems to ring true for you. "No, really, you don't understand. Nobody else goes through the kind of shit I go through!"

Disillusionment/cynicism aside, here are my theme songs.

Pixies- Where is My Mind?


Thom Yorke- The Eraser



The more you try to erase me (the more, the more), the more that I appear-
Cosmis