Hello

My name is Charlie. I write. I am writing a novel. The first three chapters have been written.

I am scared to continue. Fear sucks.

That’s it.

Update + Filament (A poem)

I started this post a couple of weeks ago

What is it about about Sufjan Stevens that his music connects me to a place of serenity, of rest and peace in God? As I woke yesterday and found myself facing the morning Sufjan was there to caress my ears. I opened up his album Seven Swans and listened to the songs many times in two days. And earlier, when I did finally return home, I sat down to learn to play a personal favorite, Abraham. If you have never heard this song you should listen to him play it in the video below. The lyrics are here, too:

Abraham
Abraham, worth a righteous one.
Take up on the wood,
put it on your son.
Lake or lamb.
There is none to harm.
When the angel came,
you had raised your arm.

Abraham, put off on your son.
Take instead the ram
until Jesus comes

And seeing how some may be unfamiliar with this account from Abraham’s life, here is a link to it in Genesis 22 (ESV) Genesis 22

A solemn account of true worship is told in this chapter. Abraham, knowing God to be holy, and just, was promised once that he would see himself blessed by God with offspring that outnumber the stars. He was told that God would bless every nation through his children. And in an instant, in the quiet of the night, the Lord is before him, asking Abraham to sacrifice his son to him.

Oh Abraham. What you must have thought?!

Sufjan Stevens takes this moment, where Abraham is before God in complete reverence and fear. I cannot say that I have ever experienced the sheer transparency, the exposure before God. Abraham could hide nothing in this moment, and he knew it.

So I guess, now that I finish this post, I would be willing to go before God completely exposed. Willing to hide nothing, even if it’s razor sharp and cuts me apart to speak. May the Lord help me.

And, may you read a new poem I wrote. My assignment was to write an erotic poem. This is more than erotic poetry for the sake of erotic poetry. This poem is written in an attempt to spin something normal, something we are used to, and put it in a new light. Thanks for reading, friends.

Filament
By: Charles Bleisch

Touching you, slow and gentle.
Become emblazoned no more, but
hang lightly above your lover.

Taking your warmth became
sheer joy; our blissful time
illuminated to the depths of
this man’s kind.

So that now with you
burned out, unrelenting, a
cold perverse torture upon
me, I must quit.
You live no more.

Patience tells me that
if I wait I might turn
you on again, yet
your shambled skeleton
revolves in my hand

broken.

And in this loving way
I’ll take you down.
Amongst the languish of
last nights dinner and
plastic wrap petulance
you’ll shatter at the curbside.

While I go to the cupboard
and find another to
screw anew.

Then flick, she is alive
and warm again.

Illegal File Sharing – The Oppression of the RIAA

As students at Grand Valley State university (GVSU) we are reminded each semester via e-mail that to share materials online is illegal. File sharing is wrong, a no-no, and is looked down upon. However, is it true? I received that e-mail today and it cheesed me off. To think that my GVSU is submitting to the RIAA. Well, I decided to write the sender of that e-mail with my concerns, and here they are:

Illegal File Sharing – The Oppression of the RIAA

Dear Mr. _____________,

My name is Charles Bleisch. Currently I am a student at GVSU and have been so since 2006. Each semester I have received an e-mail from you or your office informing me of the violation of creative rights that is committed when students or people “illegally” share music and other media with one another. At the bottom of this e-mail was this e-mail address and a line encouraging me to give you an e-mail with any concerns, and I would like to voice those concerns now.

As a writer, artist, and musician I can appreciate GVSU’s attempts at preserving the rights of those who use their creative devices. It is our duty, guaranteed by our nation’s standards, to protect those rights so that artists may continue prospering from the work they produce. In this I can not argue. My concern is in a different direction. As a person who seeks to maintain creative integrity and not be insulted by the record industry I must point out that affiliating with the RIAA is a dangerously oppressive move to make. As a university we should not encourage an organization that threatens to stifle the creative rights and sharing of those creations with the world.

The organization that goes by the name Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has become a group that relies on bully tactics to gain a quick buck. At their website (link 1 below) we read in the RIAA’s “What We Do” page that they seek to, “foster a business and legal climate that supports and promotes our members’ creative and financial vitality.” Now that sounds like a worthy cause, but who exactly are the members that the RIAA wants to protect. The sentence after that reveals, “Its members are the record companies that comprise the most vibrant national music industry in the world.” It goes on to say that these industries comprise 85% of the worlds music. In the end the RIAA is another group seeking to back record companies. The money they fight for does not even go to artists, but rather the pockets of those suits in the record industry who already have it made. And what about the other groups? The other 15% of the world’s truly “diverse” music. They stand unprotected, their music totally available for the world. But who’s to say that’s a bad thing?

One study reported on by TorrentFreak.com (link 2) reveals that the decline in music sales reported by the RIAA and recording industry is not as drastic as it is made out to be. This study done by a PhD student at Harvard, a Mr. Blackburn, continues and shows that while the top 25% of the most popular artists saw a decline in profits from file sharing the remaining 75% actually witnessed an increase in profits. In other articles cited by Rufus Pollock, an economist at Cambridge University, he reports (links 3 and 4) on studies done by both the Canadian and Dutch nations showing a net positive increase in music purchases by those who “illegally” share files. Others claim that more research must be done, but so far it has been shown that overall those who download illegally are the same people who invest money in the music being sold either legitimately online or in cd sales, and yet that does not stop the RIAA from bullying the public with scare tactics.

In recent years they have been a major force that continues to drive the “battle” or exclusive media rights. On numerous occasions they have levied excessive fines on individuals for sharing copyrighted materials online. As an example, the case of Jammie Thomas-Rasset remains a cornerstone in this battle (link 5). The summary of this suit is that Jammie Thomas-Rasset had downloaded many files illegally. 24 songs were chosen as a representative amount and the RIAA sued at a per song penalty of $80,000 when the initial amount per song was $750. This forced a final fine of $1.92 million. In another case Joel Tenenbaum, a student, went on trial for sharing 30 songs (link 6). How much was the original fine? $150,000/song. After the trial the RIAA announced that they would use their winnings to fund more trials, and for what? 30 songs? The money being won didn’t even go to the artists whose materials were stolen. But guess what, it does not end there.

Gizmodo.com, a reputable technology blog, has been tracking the RIAA’s scandalous behavior for a while now. In one of their articles titled, “Second Degree Murder and Six Other Crimes Cheaper than Pirating Music” reveals that you can abduct a child, or burn someone’s house down and be fined less than Jammie and Joel (link 7).

In the end, the RIAA is an organization bent on monopolizing the music industry. They don’t care about the artists, and they don’t care about civilian rights. All they are interested in is getting some more money for “The Man.” And it has been this way for years. These are the same people who said the cassette tape would ruin the music industry. They threw a tantrum over the VCR and had a fit when the CD burner and MP3 players were created. And hey, even now if you legally own music protected via DRM it becomes likely that you’ll still end up a criminal. If you lose your collection and try to recover it, or if new technology comes along outdating your old library, you could be guilty of violating DMCA 1201 which makes it illegal to use technology that “circumvents copy protection,” (link 8).

As a university we should not submit the pressures of one group for the profit of a few. I understand you may just be “covering your asses,” but in the end it would be a shame for GVSU to lose its backbone over this issue. Once we prided ourselves on being a diverse university seeking to give student’s a “liberal education.” All I can see is that we are submitting to a bully.

One of my favorite genres of music is one of the only arts forms created in the United Stated. This is of course the blues. Blues music was born out of the freedom slaves fought for in an oppressive nation, our nation. The sweet melodies cry deep down to the soul and make you feel for a people. We artists are being slapped in the face by the RIAA and those who seek to share the music that they have with their friends are being told that what they learned in kindergarten was wrong. Sharing is no longer caring, but breaking the law. We should not support the blatant lies of a bully and the tyrants of the music industries.

I thank you for your time, good sir.

Sincerely,

~Charles Bleisch

Link 1: http://riaa.org/whatwedo.php

Link 2: http://torrentfreak.com/why-most-artists-profit-from-piracy/

Link 3: http://www.rufuspollock.org/tags/filesharing/

Link 4 (Dutch article on filesharring): http://www.tno.nl/content.cfm?context=overtno&content=nieuwsbericht&laag1=37&laag2=2&item_id=2009-01-16%2012:57:23.0

Link 5: http://gizmodo.com/5296249/court-orders-file+sharer-to-pay-80000-per-song-to-riaa

Link 6: http://gizmodo.com/5327995/student-forced-to-pay-675000-to-riaa-for-sharing-30-songs

Link 7: http://gizmodo.com/5344159/second-degree-murder-and-six-other-crimes-cheaper-than-pirating-music

Link 8: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/D/DMCA_1201.html

My Writing Process

In an effort for non-poetry writers and others to understand my writing process I decided to dedicate a post to this mysterious endeavor.

The assignment was to write a poem with one of the following three prompts as a source of inspiration:
1) A childhood game;
2) A poem in our book titled “The Zen of Housework”;
3) Look out a window.

Each of them being extremely… limiting, I wondered if I could actually write anything, but in the midst of this doubt our once a month potluck came upon my community house. As the events of the afternoon unfolded there was a point where my bottom was firmly attached to a chair and my eyes found their way out the window, gazing upon the porch that adorns the front of our house.

Swinging back and forth was a balloon that had been clothes-pinned to a clothes-line. In fact, there were numerous of these floating orbs swaying up and down, and as I gazed, transfixed by them, my mental conversation remarked how the point on the end of the balloons looked (keep in mind, this is me being completely honest) an awful lot like a nipple.

I wrote the thought off being inappropriate, and decided not to think much about the poem until later. When I found myself outside on our porch talking with friend, I was a little surprised to remember what I had thought earlier and started jotting a few words down in my notebook, a little disappointed that my mind had gone to words like “breasts” and “swaying.”

Oh honesty.

Now fast forward. The love feast is over and I sit thinking in a chair in the living room. Everyone has gone, and I am the last person awake, as usual. Looking at the words I have written down it seemed very hard to think of anything worth writing. Instead, I let my mind wander. I thought about breast implants for a moment as well as latex balloons. Then I started thinking about milk and how I have never seen the cow my mild comes from. My memory also reminded me that someone once said there are a lot of ingredients that is added to the mild we buy.

And then it struck me. Most of what was coming to my mind in some way shape or form had been changed, or altered by man. It had been twisted and warped and as a result is not natural, or is fake. It was all of these steps that had me write this poem:

Artifice

Witness the artifice:
Magnificent intentions scoff at man’s
inventions of ease which might not ever
please this cry my soul must no longer
deny.

Can you smell (sh) It in the wind?

That is the poem, or at least a final copy of it. In an attempt to catch the true essence of non-orginality I wrote a short poem, using even the format to do so. My goal was to address our pursuit of artificiality in a straightforward manner, not building it up with an excess of language. In addition the number of syllables in a few of the lines are equal in a way to show that it is possible for us to purposely change our communication in an effort to portray a fake meaning.

In the end I wrote something creative (in my mind, ironically) that stemmed from very mundane observances. While the inspiration seemed awkward, even foolish, something larger presented itself to me through the world. Now I am glad that I gave it a chance and can share with you what I went through. I hope you like it.

~Charlie Bleisch / Liam Bleisch / Yours Truly

Found Out

I’m in an intermediate poem writing class at Grand Valley. This is one of the poems I have written. It is due in a couple of hours. The title is:

Found Out

At 1 in the morning,
cold basement floor,
the sound of sawing,
sometimes it’s hard to believe the stars exist.

But they watched. They saw the kitten
climb into the warm purring skeleton
on the side of the road; left where
the days of youth carried children
who knew they must say something brilliant.

Something as if, “You’ll still be with me.”
Or even, “We’re the same body, just in different places.”

But by that time the kitten was stuck,
on a different agenda, they too, were stuck.
At the end of the road, coaxing a voice
not visible, but powerful.

In the end the kitten went along for the ride.

And now it occurs to me, some 4 years later,
that that kitten is still with me.
It does not haunt me, or perturb me,
rather it has clawed into me somewhere,
not letting go.

I once crawled into a warm space.
To hide from the stars, even, the rush
of footsteps all around as drummers beat
sounds I never matched. And the kitten
reminds me of that. It shows me.
It has found me out.

~Yours Truly

It’s Still Going!

Yes, not only am I still here, invisibly it may seem, but my hair is also going, too! Go team bald.

Alright, how has life been lately? Pretty frakin’ epic, if I must say so. For those unaware, which I doubt you are, I have been invited to play lead guitar in my friend, Zach’s, band. At this point we have played at a local venue, Mixtape Cafe, a couple times. Just recently (tonight in fact) we performed our first acoustic gig (the drummer was… away). You can check out there website to see when next we play there.

In addition to playing there it seems our bassist, and my good friend, Stewart, has been in communication with the folks over at The Intersection (another popular music venue in GR). We haven’t established a date to play there, yet. As time goes on I hope to record an ep/album with the guys to mail out to places across Michigan to get some words spreadin’ and hopefully some more shows across the state. If there is a place you want us to play, please, let me know. Just pop over to our site at Era Everafter.com to contact one of us or just send an e-mail to “whatevertheheckyouwant”@eraeverafter.com. You can replace the part in quotes with anything and it will get to us.

In the meantime classes for the semester are starting back up for college students. This sort of occurence usually incites panic across the nation as every retailer of those foldy circular chairs goes out of stock and lose their minds. But no worries, those chairs suck and hammocks are a much better option.

With that, I am off. Please, keep staying in touch and periodically checking out this page for updated about my life and the band.

~Yours Truly

Waking Up

There are a few good reasons to wake up, such as a job interview, or you are meeting a friend for coffee. However there are some not so good reasons for waking up as well. This includes things like the neighbors launching off fireworks until 5 in the morning, you are starving, or you really have to pee.

I’ve discovered that the only one of these things I can control is the “having to pee” one. You see, the fact that my neighbors are ridiculous is never going to change. Their priorities (where the heck do they get money for fireworks?! everyone here is poor!) are way outta whack and that wont change anytime soon. As for the whole eating thing… well it’s hard to eat anything when 1) You, too, are poor, and 2) There is nothing in your house that you really can/want to eat.

So that opens up the peeing thing again. The only thing to do when you awake because you have to use the “facilities” is to go back to sleep. Really. The advantage to this scenario is that you are able to sleep in more, yes, but also that you don’t sleep too much longer. It is much like putting an alarm clock on snooze for another 15 minutes. Bladders don’t just disappear, nor do their contents, so it is a guarantee that in at least a half an hour you’ll be waking back up with a) wet sheets, or b) a toilet to run to.

In other news, I obtained a couple new instruments to play around with. You can see one here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&item=200357066696

This harmonica is originally worth $130 so $19.99 on ebay is not a bad deal at all. I hope to play around with them as the band gets together and practices. In addition I intend to develop a blues skill with them.

The harmonica is truly one of the greatest instruments invented. It permeates nearly every style of music, it is the only instrument that can be played while inhaling, and it is pocket sized. All of this means the harmonica is a universal instrument. Name me one situation in which a harmonica cannot improve it and I will show you a smirf… Exactly. No one want to see any of those little blue things mucking about.

One of the main contributing factors to my harmonic purchase that isn’t listed above is simply that I have been watching through Cowboy Bebop again. There is one episode in specific in which the characters are after a bounty that gets shot in the beginning of the show. As they try to get to the bottom of their monetary loss they discover a freakish child who was injured during an interstellar accident that stops his whole aging process. The episode concludes when Spike shoots the child with a stone containing a vast amount of energy which restores the boy’s body’s ability to age, which it does, and he falls over and dies.

Ok, so that didn’t explain the harmonica, but this will. The boy plays one. Remember that bounty I mentioned? Spike and Jet start off the show looking for him in an old blues bar where the kid/man/thing is playing the harmonica. Spike is surprised that Jet likes the blues and Jet says, “I started wailing the blues when the doctor whacked my bottom on the day I was born.” The quaint, soul stirring blues melodies surround the entire episode. Cowboy Bebop never fails to deliver great scenarios, and The Seatbelts, who did the music for it, never fail to bring out the nuances of those scenarios with their funky jams.

Things that I am excited about: finishing my guitar, rocking with the band, cookies (mmmm oatmeal chocolate chip), and this:

http://benheck.com/07-01-2009/new-xbox-360-portable-revision-3#more-568

Ben Heckendorn's xBox 360 model 3 http://benheck.com/07-01-2009/new-xbox-360-portable-revision-3#more-568

I really want to build it! I figure it wouldn’t be terribly difficult. The most troublesome thing to handle would probably be the monitor. I can’t seem to find the one he mentioned on eBay but I am sure it is around. As for the case… there are some websites out there that will create custom built plastic housing for electronics, so I bet I could do that. I think the top would be best with plexiglass, you got it, but this is a project for the future, not today.

I think that is enough info for the day. I told you I would update more often.

~Liam B.

P.S. My housemates held an intervention for me today. It made me feel like crap. I should probably let them know that.

So Much To Do

I woke up after a great night with friends and Settlers. Two games = two more wins, and then the house and friends spent time on the porch talking about movies and (gulp) sports. It was pleasant.

Meijer scheduled me to work today from 4:30 to 11, but for some reason I don’t really mind. It is a bummer that I wont be on the roof watching the fireworks at 10, but I will be making over $9/hour tonight, so that makes up for it in my mind.

Good news: I hope to post more… I don’t know what that means, still. I really wish that I could customize this blog more than I can, but alas, you must pay to use the advanced CSS options.

In other news… With the arrival of a new used cell phone and bluetooth (ouch. that poor tooth) I am staying more organized and up to date. This means that I should stay on schedule with the things I actually want to do, include my Stratocaster Paint Project II! I snapped a couple photos of my progress and applied some more primer today, so I look forward to finishing the whole thing up by the end of the week.

That’s it for right now. I hope to get back on before the night is over.

~Liam B.

Pop Poetry

It wasn’t long ago when I took a drive. Or rather, it was a trip – a road trip – to a far off land: Pittsburgh. Perhaps it isn’t as far off as California (that is planned for August) but the city is around 7 hours away.

Last Thursday I scheduled departure after having pushed it back. Some setbacks were faced and it happened that I took the trip alone.

Not to draw the story out, on the way back I was driving the Ohio Turnpike again. My radio doesn’t work sometimes (old cars have minds of their own) so as I thought instead of listened, I wrote a poem in my head. It goes like this:

Pop Poetry

I was driving yesterday.
I saw a cloud high in the sky.
It looked an awful lot like a condom.
I mean, it looked a little like a dolphin, too.
But, really, it looked like a condom.

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t trying to be perverted when I wrote this, and it really did happen. I looked into the sky and noticed a cloud that, in fact, looked very much like that latex noun.

So, I guess some may ask what is the poem really about. This was an attempt to truly write some poetry. I remember my lit class and how often the poems we read had their message tucked away just deeper than the common person would look and dig. It was a treasure there for someone who actually wanted to seek it out and get a little dirty. In the same way I worked a message into this poem.

In essence, what I wrote was my way of portraying that as people we can view an object or scene and walk away with one completely different experience than another person might or even we might at a different time. Also, I want to point out that it is about innocence and how I find myself, having been exposed to sexual things (wooohooo high school sex ed), know how easily one thought/visual can impress itself upon my thoughts above all others, or even the desire for other thoughts.

I hope that, maybe as some read this poem and others, they’ll take the time to ask questions about what it means and then to discuss those thoughts openly with friends. Share what you read and philosophize over the possible ramifications of the meaning laying within that poetry. This is truly how we grow as artists, writers, and even people.

It is an experience. Thank you for experiencing this.

~Liam

Sinking

The nights winds down and I am alone. Around me work piles up, gradually reaching out like arms from the River of Styx. Attempting to pull me along with their torment, I expend all energy I can just to get away. Tomorrow might be different, but if my eyes stay shut I would be happy, even in a blink, or a wink, or that kind of, “Hey, you know what I mean,” sort of thing.

Do you know how early it is? It is so late that it is early. No caffeine at this hour; nuh-uh.

~Liam