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ddcassiere · 3 years ago

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BILE BEAR MANIFESTO

On July 13th on all digital platforms the album Bear Bile.

It's an instrumental work I composed last april under the moniker Bile Bear.

Soon few singles and videoclips.

BILE BEAR MANIFESTO

John Fahey music sets you free. You play his stuff and suddenly a lot of previously discarded notes jump back on your strings. As Alí Farka Touré's grandmother once told his nephew "even the Niafunke river speaks words"

Guitar picking sends you in a hypnotic state, like the one in which Gian Maria Volonté's Giordano Bruno fell, before dying on the stake.

Like the mysterious spell that bewitched people of Strasbourg during what has been called the dance plague of 1541.

Or again, like the trance dream-like state in which falls who can't be free but in his own imagination.

These are some of Bile Bear's coordinates. Between the America of Alan Lomax and the blues of North Africa. Born in the whereabouts of a dry creek, supposedly cold river, of Calabria region, deep south of Italy - West Coast. Where olive trees live longer than politicians, where dead turtle shells provide Orpheus teeth for blues and a fool called Pitagora, once gave birth to.. rebirth aka metal psychosis.

Bear Bile plays one instrument at the time, but all the time his instrument plays in his head, because it's a patriarchal society. And also, the Zampogna was never a Christmas instrument - ask about Eleusi..They are still all cannibals and deeply into ergotism.

Bear Bile is the feral transfiguration of the misunderstandings of a modern Fat Jesus. What the son of God paid in blood, Bile Bear pays in resonating bile. It's obvious that every pyramid has its slaves, just as every beautiful thing has its price. But while every donut has its hole, not every hole has a donut. And it's not without religion that Bile Bear goes about his world, as while still a cub, baptized in turbo capitalism later converted in History of presocratic Philosophy, monologues in a building that looked like the Ig Farben, to andalucian Duende, persian Sufism, romanian carnati dishes and again he thought he was a cotton picker from Mississippi, but that was just the follow up of a deja-vu around the figure of a mysterious italo american rich uncle named Jerry of New Jersey who used to wear a huge ring with the face of a native american on it.

So Bile Bear went to the local crossroad but instead of the Devil he met a very overwhelmed trash bin. When he came back home he was the same guitar player as before except that now he was taller than three Italians on top of each other while robbing a loquat tree. One day they told him his blind grandmother Marú was gone. It was a day of May, twenty years ago, just like she used to dream: I want to go in the month of red roses, in the month of the Madonna. She could peel an apple better than any seeing person and I was the only nephew who she never managed to see, because Marú lost her eyes a few months before I, the bearer of the bear, was born. The stories she used to tell me, talked about fishermen like my grandfather. One more, one more! I would cry. But she had to pray, so one evening, while she was away, bile bear, at the demonic age of six, threw all her rosaries out the window. I would go and recycle these stories, entertaining the hairy customers of my mother's gift shop. Give me 1000 lire for ice cream (you gotta serve somebody..) Today I hear these echoes of waves, reverberating in my old bones, while drowning fingers of mine, fish in the sea of the child I had to forget, but it's a guitar and I am hundred years old.

Memories and identities mix up as the bureaucratic but mythological name of the bearer is charged with so much leopard skin, grapevine, fat greek eunuch 80's singers, mama's boy and tons of paperwork. While history mixes up with the real happening, it's time for me, for us to make room.

Twenty years it's not too late to say I love you. It's not too late to say anything. And it's never too late to wish for somebody's freedom. If you are like a phoenix, you'll find out that when time is nigh, it's not in hell or heaven that one's life ends, but precisely in front of a Mc Donald in Prague.

Make room, dear friends, my atharassic torturers, my customers. Make room between Beethoven and tarantella, rasgueado and raga-drones, blues riff and persian radif, primitive and elementary Watson.. make room for Bile Bear. Here I come, as much unneeded as necessary, between your official sunday and your politheistic one. Make room in your parlour to this astral disciple of Timofei, Rumi and Son House, here I come to play the romantic soundtrack of our imagination, my duty is to go where you don't dare, here I come: Bile Bear.

Tracklist

1 Run Bear Run

2 Marú

3 Butterfly 1541

4 Trenodía per Ernesto De Martino

5 Alma H.

6 Birds Radif

7 Timofei

8 Maya pt I-II-III

9 Shadow (Swedish People)

10 Orpheus & Cicadas

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ddcassiere · 3 years ago

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This is Hungry Ghost, one of the three short stories I wrote for Matteo Ianni Palarchio zine "Eye Foreign Eye" .

The zine is sold in Singapore, you can order it online here:

The story is based on a photography that witnesses local singaporean tradition that takes place on the Day of the Deads. People leave food and beverages outside their doors to "feed" wandering souls, as it is believed to be of good auspicious.

Enjoy!

Hungry Ghost

There are these people. People you dont know. No idea who they are. You know their eyes as if they were more familiar to you than your own.

Infact, you look in the mirror and your eyes look back at you. Where is the mirror of your eyes?

The vertigo invites you in, but your sight crashes like a dumb bird right on the glass of your pupils. You are a skyscraper and you are a dumb shitting bird when you look at your façade in the mirror. It never gets you anywhere. Or does it?

So you keep meetin them again and again. Then one day you meet nobody's eyes and so you know that you are dead.

So that's it, Im a ghost since a year and a half. They deposed my body in a bag, got it out the hospital and I greeted goodbye just like you see in the movies. I am a real ghost. And supposedly a hungry one too. But now that I swallowed it I cant go back to food or anything else for what matters.

They say life is full of riddles. Riddles that only the dead can answer. Now that I am hundred percent dead I can assure you: life is full of misunderstandings. And also a horror to live if you are not rich.. these crumbles that people leave at their doorsteps can't feed us at all.

I wander through the Pek Kio market and I spit on the pavement just for the sake of feeling alive. It's such a dead view and I didn't deserve to die. Go tell now the alive ones that to feed us once a year after starving us for the rest of it, is not nice! They won't hear it, and even if they did hear it, nobody would care. So in this respect, it makes no difference for me to be alive or not.

As I wander through the market I shout: we want a free market of ideas! We want passion and warm blood and not a dish of pork! My ghost voice turns into an unusual breeze, the hat of a woman flies away, her dog barks and nobody hears me.

But I have the impression someone follows me. I keep no mind to it and continue to walk.

It's a dead-air damp day of March and I am trying to remember if in my previous life I was a woman or a man.

I am sure it did have an importance back then now but it's such a risible detail. I give up on my memory and I keep strolling. It comes to my mind (once again) that I can profit of my brand new status to sing all the dirty songs I learned at school. So I start singing, deadly out of tune, but soon after a couple of nasty rhymes, I stop and I am deadly tired. It's boring when there is nobody of your own kind to piss off.

I still have the impression of being followed. As I turn around I only see a photographer. He is trying to take a picture of someone without being noticed. I know the guy. He sits there drinking his water and smoking all day.

And I am sure if the photographer knew his story, he would be pleased of having made his portrait. I leave the photographer there and I keep strolling. I am fully energized and psyched at the same time and yet I am definetely not alive.

I am hungry they say, and I used to believe the same when I was a child. I used to feed my mum's Pork Satay to the hungry ghosts. The food would rot there for days and the sky would remain serious, diffident and official. I used to wander why ghosts were so unpolite as to refuse my mum's delicacy. Certain answers yes, you do find them when you die.

I sit on a bench cause now I am really exhausted. It's exactly like they say, you have to walk it off. I wander if I should go on like this for ethernity.

The photographer is still there, now taking picture of a pigeon who, scared, leaps away and lands on top of a statue. The pigeon poops on the head of it and then takes off to God knows where.

The photographer says - vandal pigeon uh?

I look around and there is nobody but me and him. He looks straight at me and in that fraction of a second I feel alive again. Something calls back at all my being and it summons me to breath. I feel I could answer, maybe come back to life. Instead I speed to the essence, to the original stone, to the nucleus from where my existence has been once sculpted by time and memory. I have been seen. Me, ghost, I have been acknowledged. Are you talking to me? I seem to say. But I am not, instead I am travelling in space and time back into the primordial vertigo that gives birth to everyhthing and in which everything returns. The universe is a recycling factory. I try to shout it:

The U N I V E RS i s a..

But the energy unleashed by the karma is taking my breath back, my thoughts, my humour. Everything I own or I had owned is now on the existencial metaphorical table of debts. And it speeds at billions miles a second toward the milky way, where I know it destined to be mixed with ghosts of other humans, animals, plants, plastic toys, everything animated or not, everything that lives and everything that dies, be it in our conjecturing minds, be out of it, be it in the iperuranic world and in the zorohastrian one too, through the internet and back from it to the factory of existence.

Now I am not dead, but I am not alive either, I am dissolved in everything and living different lives within other particles encapsuled in different lives.

My last thought for some reason goes to my mother, but she dissolves too, into other particles. I wave her goodbye into her blinking eye through my blinking eye that fades away.

The photographer looks at the picture he just took, I shout, the dog of a lady barks, the wind sweeps her hat off and as she pursue it, I hear the photographer say: someone please call an ambulance! This man here is dying!

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ddcassiere · 4 years ago

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you cant teach beauty

to an eye thats been blinded

by the electricity bill

its scary to be self sufficient

its scary the exact opposite too

in the doubt

most marry

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ddcassiere · 4 years ago

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SUSHI GIRL

said the frog to the duck

i must have betrayed my love

my lost innocence

is not completely lost

self medication is the word

and a bit of warmth

the right lights i need

the right clothes on

the right shapes

the right eyes

the right wet eyes

a toast to all girls in the room!

if she doesnt sleep her sleep

she gets moody like a baby

if she doesnt shower once a day

she is afflicted like a madonna

if she is tired

her eyes wander out the window of my father's car

over the calabrian fields

evocative green patches

interrupted here and there

by pixel buildings

and random trash

interrupted here and there

by mean, failing bars

abandoned villages

interrupted themselves

by curves and curves

and by the sea

interrupted

by her smile at the horizon.

She sleeps just like a nigiri sushi.

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ddcassiere · 4 years ago

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COLOGNE WATER

and with his cologne water

with his smile he charmed you

with sharp clothes

his eyes

would you follow me down that road?

im trying to keep it all together

the judge says: do you realize youve been charged with murder?

judge, what are you gonna do

about the other hundred I killed?

i will pass

from this life

like a dream

you never know

if that was a dream

or what was that?

Cologne water

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ddcassiere · 4 years ago

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INDIA

The sea has long fingernails.

They told me poetry has

no reason-why.

I sat on a trunk

brought by the winter sea

a fishbone crumbling in my hand

where is my dog?

They told me

the sea

has no reason-why

Guitar tapping has no reason-why!

The funerals you have been

taught you nothing at all.

They will tell you lot of things

dont you listen.

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ddcassiere · 4 years ago

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I cleaned my archive.

Thousand poems emerged.

It's all about looking at your horny body

while it gets old

and looking at your mind

as it gets slower

and looking at your heart

as it gets deeper

or colder.

It depends.

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ddcassiere · 5 years ago

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10 tips for Buskers

Before we proceed with tips for buskers I want to announce everyone that our saturday appointment with Fat Jesus - Time To Bleed Robot, 40 songs for 40 saurdays - is coming back tomorrow!

I’m very happy about the reception of this project that was supposed to be addressed only to few individuals spread around the world... I checked the download section and numbers of downloads are growing every day.

Thank you!

For the ones that havent downloaded yet any Fat Jesus’, here is the free link containing the first ten songs:

Time to Bleed Robot Vol I

Now, to us. These tips come from my personal experiences and mistakes. I dont intend in any way make you believe that this is the truth, but thats for sure my truth.

Hope you find this post useful, weather you are a busker or not..

Keep a diary. a diary of what you played in the last set, a diary about who you met on the street, a diary of what happened. The street is things happening all the time and it might be healthy for your psiche to write down things. If not to hold grab of an overwhelming sequence of encounters, at least to have something to read one day, to remind you how crazy and lively and heroic this all was.

busking in Prishtina - Kosovo

A busker is an ancient figure that deserves respect. It takes guts to put yourself and your music at the mercy of anyone who happens to pass by. The fact that you are doing it, in my opinion is already worth esteem. Dont ever be bothered by the ones who dont listen, or that look you down. You are playing for yourself and for those who are into what you are playing. The others, let them walk away. That leads us to point 3.

The best way to enjoy busking is to do it in a friendly environment. If the shop owner, the tenant of the nearest building, or the buskers around you, complain about the volume of your amplifier, or about the music you are playing.. well you have to move somewhere else. It wont do anybody good to elbow your songs where they are not needed/wanted.

In my opinion the best pitch for playing is where is best for you. In few years I have seen many buskers playing in super loud spots, cranking their equipment over the noise in order to profit of the high number of people traffic. This is not my cup of tea.

It pays much more to be somewhere quiet with only few people going by. It is more satisfying for you to enjoy the sound of your show and it creates a better and more intimate link between you and the listeners. The city is yours, go and find a place where you feel good energy, where is quiet. It can be few metres from the loudest and crowded main street and it might be exactly what you were looking for.

In Istiklal Street, Istanbul

This is not an easy advice but it’s a true one: never close your eyes. I have been robbed few times, mostly in Europe. And it’s not funny to see your money going away after few hours of playing. If you are, like me, one of those who falls into a trance-like state while playing, you will learn how to reach that state and keep your eyes open. You will not be entirely awake, transported by the power of music somewhere else, but your open eyes will discourage cheap thiefs from your cash. It seems impossible at first but you will make it work eventually.

great singer, she. Prishtina, Kosovo

Before making your way to the busking experience, learn as many tunes as possible. So that you will be able to change your set as much as you can. I didnt do it enough and at a certain point of my journey, I was playing the same things over and over. If you have the chance, stop for a few weeks and renew your set. This will be good for you and for everybody around.

This is the most important advice: be friendly. Be nice to everyody. Especially to the ones that annoy you, drunkards asking for you to play wonder wall.. police officers and so on. Be good to the other buskers, be good to shop owners and anybody that is around you. Busking is an act of love and courage and it can work only under the condition that there is no spite or rancor in you heart. Let it go or be dragged.

Wroclaw, Poland

It’s difficult, if not impossible, to be an artist and to conform. But a dignified and proud way of presenting yourself will give you the chance to connect to a wider audience and to enrich someone else’s life with your music. Be yourself but also dont forget that light travels faster than music. It’s not by chance that Jimi Hendrix or Bowie would give as much importance to their music as to their dressing style. They are both means of beauty and you want to use them all to achieve a moment of awe into anybody who is passing by.

Again Wroclaw

You are on the street to present your music and to connect to your potential audience. One of the mistakes that I made in my years of busking is that I barely promoted my name, doing it only in the last few months of busking. I seldom used socials and I just cared of having a good time, selling few albums and make my day.

As beautiful as it is, it’s not as satsfying as keeping your fans updated on your projects. Inspiration is triggered by feedback. It’s a tricky game to be played with vanity but it’s not by blinding yourself to this game that you will overcome the trap of playing what people like the most. So, my advice is: don’t be shy to advertise your name with a piece of paper that link socials. Make people enter your journey, share your dream and your everyday life. If not for your career, this can inspire others to follow their own dreams.

Great guitar player, she. Sarajevo, Bosnia H.

My last advice is about magic. Have your own luck routine. Each busker has some. Mine was that I would tip myself 2euro before getting started. Some would have his coffee to go. Others would have other strange rituals. Choose yours and repeat it everytime before you start playing. It will make you company in every busking session and it will give you courage like an amulet. Never underestimate the power of magic.

Try bycicle busking! It’s healthy! Porto, Portugal.

That’s all for today. I hope that this post inspired you to walk your own artistic path with courage and joy.. See you next friday!

Love Love Love

Denis

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ddcassiere · 5 years ago

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10 Tips for Hitchikers

Today we are going to talk about something that I thought it might be useful to alternative travellers. And not only, seeing that the general opinion in Europe about hithhiking is relatively ambiguous on how trustworthy is it for moving around and also on how safe is it for both travellers and drivers.

Before we continue I want to say a quick thing, that is:

the least economically progressed is the country in which you travel, the more are the chances you actually get to meet new friends. Here it is: we discovered hot water!

Joking apart, in terms of human interaction, I felt an incredible shift from Croatia - west-ward.

For who doesnt know about my most recent experience in hitchhiking, I travelled from Iran to central Europe in a journey of two years. All by thumb for exception of one or two buses for minor movements.

Hitch Hiking with new friends in the south of Iran

The change of scenario that I experienced from the balcans to Croatia revealed itself in the matter of people being eloquently suspicious, scared and overall, in my humble opinion, nevrotic.

When I reached Poland, I couldnt stress enough this point with my friends, that what I was seeing, by just looking around after a year in the est of Europe and in middle east, looked to me like a horror movie.

People glazing jars of confecture like hypnotized at the supermarket, people reaching to their phone as soon as they were alone, people looking at my rugged clothes as if I had leprosis.. and so on.

For the first time in one year of travel I felt so self conscious about my appeareance and my general behaviour.

It was as if the power of dividing humans was not anymore a prerogative of money, but if people themselves had became money.

Never the less I remained in Europe for a while, just to live there and eventually to adapt and normalize myself, Till everything that now I see is normal, or just ok, or it doesnt matter anyway.

Saying this, I definetely love Bosnia Hercegovina, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro.. I enjoyed my breathing and my being in flow as I rarely had before.

When the driver invites you home and you stay there for days. In the countryside of Banja Luka, Bosnia Hercegovina.

Paranoid is not an issue over there, yet.

Or if it is, well, I can tell that in central Europe the state of fear and diffidence toward the human being is much worse.

Now my 10 tips for the good hitchiker. I hope you find them useful.

I believe these tips are interesting not only for the traveller, but also for suspicious drivers, as they might realize that after all, its just human beings standing there on the side of the road. And that these human beings, more often than not, are as much as scared as the drivers themself. Of being kidnapped, cutted in piece, raped, eaten, dissolved.. not necessarily in the order.

Now,

Heading to Albania from Kosovo

nr 1

If you are at your first experiences, I would plan a trip in countries where hitchiking is the normal thing, as diffused and accepted as bus drives. Then, once the confidence is boosted you can bring the Verb of the Thumb to other countries and spread the custom. Do it in the balcans or in Romania for example, where if you are lucky, you wont have to wait longer than few minutes for a ride. But remember that most drivers there expect a symbolic payment after the ride is over. That’s called hay tax, as the tradition roots back to long ago. This lead us to point number

Always ask, before getting in the car, if the ride is for free. And if you dont want to pay, make it clear from the beginning. Otherwise, its not only unfair, but it can be troublesome.

If you have been told it’s for free, dont let the driver scare you into paying. In hundreds of rides, this happened to me only once, but still it wont help you to show fear as this might easily lead you into being actually robbed.

Truck drivers are your best friends! They are definetely scary when you drive by them, but trust these words, there is seldom good people around as truck drivers. Their heart is huge. It would take me several pages to name all the good I have received from truck drivers! Shared meals, cigarettes, long talks, music, laughs, I have been even spontaneously donated money sometimes! If you learn some russian or slavic language this will definetely help in Europe as most truck drivers, at least in my experience, come from slavic countries and they are genuinely happy to have someone to talk to. Be nice, and...

Cool Uzbek truck driver in Turkey

Bring some food to share! Nuts, crackers, sweets.. anything that your new friend can grab a bit of. An old calabrian proverb says that you can call someone a friend only when you have shared meals enough to consume a ton of salt. Even though this proverb clearly states that you never know anyone unless you spend huge amount of time together , this also says that you have to eat with a person to became friends. Or if not, just hand a cigarette, a little present.. anything that would actually show a bit of respect and gratitude.

Use Wikinomad! In there you will find the hitchhiking section, organized city by city. So for example, if you are in Prague and you want to go to Wroclaw, it tells you which spots are the hottest and it also contains the reports of previous hitch hikers who have used those spots, by even adding their average waiting time!

For me this was definetely useful, not only for the directions, that anyway you can find them yourself on google map.. but more than anything for the sake of knowing that there is actually a community and a tradition of travellers .. and that you are not the only madhead.

Water is never enough. Especially in summers. If you go a long way and you find yourself stranded in the middle of nowhere, bring at least a 1.5 litres of water and a sleeping bag.

Learn few words of native language. For me it wasnt always possible as sometimes I would cross three countries in a week and words would get all mixed up in my fucked-up brain. But still, try, because its mostly appreciated. And this is obviously valid also for non hitchikers. It sounds bad when you go somewhere and straight away you claim that they know english or worse, your native language. Ok, this might sound an advice for dummies, but I have seen a lot of backpackers approaching people in english as if they ought to understand.

And if you really cant remember few words, at least ask if they speak english before you assumingly start to speak in english.

If you are hitchiking in Iran, dont use the thumb up because over there it equals the middle finger of the west. Wave your hand at waist hight and that will be enough. And make it clear that you dont want the driver to take you to a bus station and that you want to go together to wherever you are headed.

It’s because mostly in Iran, local people dont know what hitch hiking is. Dont be shy! Just explain, if they speak english. And if they dont, just smile and say the place you are headed to. Ants communicate and they never speak!

more hitchiking in Iran

I have seen many backpackers writing their signs in very small cardboards, or worse, with unreadable calligraphy. It has to be at least an A4 carboard and you need to consider that it has to be spotted from far away. This means also that you never ever ever have to stand in a place where if a car stops, you cause an accident.

I have seen experienced backpackers, and I did it myself once, positioned right after a curve with not enough space to pull the breaks and stop comfortably. Choose your spot carefully, even if it takes a long time or if the ones that you need are occupied. Move further along the street and come back if necessary. Of course you can be picked up anywhere but for the safety of everybody, choose the pitch with care.

Especially before your ride, stay away from paranoid people, the ones who have a problem for every solution. Of course you are going to deal with troubles.. but no more than a regular traveller will and with the main bonus that you are going to meet and talk with a lot of different individuals. And this adventure, without you even noticing, will boost your confidence about yourself and will add a huge window into your knowledge and acceptance of humankind. Your senses will be much sharper than the ones of who travels in the ordinary way. And if you do it long enough, surely you will meet new friends and its not rare that you will share also their house and meals and more than just a few hours in their car. You have absolutely nothing to loose by hitchiking, but all to gain for your heart and mind.

And dont fucking rush! If you are on hurry take a flight or a train! Just enjoy the ride, look out of the window and if he/she feels like, have a chat with whoever is the driver.

cool lawyers with super clean car, pick up hobo with super mudded shoes and trousers - somewhere in Chech Republik

Many say: easy for you! You are a man!

You would be shocked to know that most hitchikers I met where solitary attractive girls.

Bring with you a chilli spray if that makes you feel safe. Or simply talk your way out of a driver that doesnt inspire you. You are not obliged to jump on anyone’s car and you still have your pepper spray.

I know lot of girls who travelled half world by hitchiking alone and they didnt have more issues than I myself had.

Saying this, if you are a girl and dont feel confident enough you can still bring a girlfriend with you. Two pepper spray is better than one.

I met Sam in Montenegro as he was hitch hiking north, then I visited him in Slovakia. Very scary guy as you can see.

This new post of Naked Songs is over. I really hope it comes handy for you, wheather you are a traveller, a curious or anything in between.

If you have any questions regarding hitch hiking, or busking and general hobo life style, write me via tumblr. I will be happy to anwer if this will motivate you in any way to follow your dreams and thirst of adventure.

Love and Openmindedness to everyone!

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ddcassiere · 5 years ago

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That’s exactly what happened

Jesus surrounded by tits - cheap chinese acrylic on cheap chinese A4 paper - Porto, April 2018

During my 2017-2019 busking, hitchiking, gigging, world tour, I couldnt help but painting most of my mornings away.

(As I write, right now, I am hangover from few glasses of wine I had yesterday with my friends, I hope you accept the randomness of this post. I am 33 and it gets harder in the mornings..)

I had prepared other topics to talk through but I just realized that I would rather write this blogs on feelings of the moment rather than on a detailed plan. And that to me, this principle could be applied to anything.

It’s not by chance that in one of the songs from Multipolar Vol. 1 I sing:

“..con l’aspettativa di non averti piu’, cara Aspettativa..” - Un Di-Di.

(with the expectation of having you no more, dear expectation)

song here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjYCJLvxe1I

full album here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xksf6hpuLlA&t=5s

At the moment I write this post, I am listening to Johnny Cash. Even though I cant say I have listened to him for more than just 5 years or so, I can tell you that this guy has had as much influence to me as any other huge icons of mine.

On a gloomy day of November 2016, I was resting in bed, having a free day from my then “normal’ job. I was so heavily depressed about not having time for playing that I could no more smile.

I felt a fucking heavy weight on my chest and I started to consider seriously the idea of killing myself and goodbye everybody, goodbye stupid job, boring days and conversations, my time was dead anyway.

From times to times I would bring the guitar at work and after finishing the shift I would go to the main square of Wroclaw, Poland, open the case, throw in some of my own coins, expose my first album and start to play.

Me as a very happy employee - pic by friendly pic machine in Rome Tiburtina, right before leaving to Wroclaw, August 2015

I cant describe how happy you can be, to do something like that and just earn enough to keep you sheltered and fed. It sends you to space, seriously. You start levitate as you walk back homeward. Butterflies in the stomach.

I would earn more in a hour than I would earn in the same time doing a shitty job. And the shitty job provided me with a rented apartment that, even though it was cozy, I never had time to actually enjoy, and with money that barely fed me and got me drunk on weekends to forget my shitty fucking boring life. That was it.

I was earning money enough to keep me alive to go to work. Just like a slave. Just like pretty much everybody.

So I did start thinking it would have been a cool idea to try my life on the street. But I was never serious about that.

Will I survive? Will I end up cold and hungry on a dark corner of a far away city? Will I this and will I that?..

It takes several kilos of balls to drop everything.. every comfort, every goddamn warm bed and new clothes, every new pair of shoes to follow your forever dreams.

And I didnt think I had those balls back then.

In the previous weeks, before that day laying in bed, I met and hosted few couchsurfers who encouraged me to do it. But that still wasnt enough.

Some calls it law of attraction, some call it fate, I think in my case it’s about planting seeds and wait for them to grow as spring comes through. So when that day I heard “I walk The line’ by Johnny Cash and precisely the first sentence, I felt like I had heard that song for the first time in my life.

It was an epiphany of my whole being: “I find it very very easy to be true”.

A bit tired after the flight to Tehran - Jan 2017 - Pic by I forgot the name

In my belly I felt something was planted, some kind of flower of hope that would have grown and I just had to be careful enough to protect it from storms.

Then few days after I had a dream. It was a very long dream and I will try to make it short. I had killed Tom Waits and I was in Jail with Michael Stipe from the R.e.m.

All my friends and colleagues were in jail with me. Nobody seemed to mind about being in jail. They all acted as if it was allright to be in jail.

I woke up earlier than usual and kept writing the dream on my little notebook as I was going to work with the tram. I felt very strange.

The day after I catched a fever. Violent fever that forced me in bed for a week.

I listened to Johnny Cash again. Then something happened that I wouldnt know how to describe. Because I wasnt fully conscious of what it was by then.

Tow days earlier Leonard Cohen died. Two days after Trump was elected.

This is the amount of tobacco I smoke when I hear new like those - Tbilisi, Georgia, March 2017.

I can just say that in a half an hour I found myself, as ragged and dirty and feverish I was from a week spent at home, right in front the door of the HR department of my job. Waiting in line to be received.

Then signing my resignation papers. Then going back home like a sleepwalker.

Then booking a flight to Tehran. Then booking a bus to Italy. Then throwing 3/4 of my clothes out the trash bins right outside the block. For the joy of the now very sharply dressed homeless guys.

Then packing. Then drinking an ice cold beer. All in all it took 3 hours to change my life.

All I hadnt given away from the apartment in Wroclaw. And that was now coming to Italy with me. - Wroclaw old bus station, 2017 - Pic by Katarzyna Peukart

A month later I was a free man (as free as you can be in Iran) playing in Tehran and in Shiraz street Afif Habad. I will come back home in a moment I would say.

Sleepwalking in Rome, going to take my flight to Tehran - Rome 2017, pic by Nicole Simoncelli.

Ready to leave? Pic by Nicole Simoncelli

But it went on and on. I hitchiked my way back to Europe and it took me two years. I slept out in on benches a couple of time here and there. In Greece, In Chech Republic, in Portugal. I travelled more than 20 countries mostly by autostop, I gigged wherever needed. I washed my clothes everyday in the hostel showers, by hand and by feet, I ate what I could eat and I tried to stay warm. Even though that wasnt always possible.

Playing setar in Esfahan. Creation by Sofya Zeinilava

Now I am tired of writing. I need to come back to my music. I promised a dear artist friend to send her some ambient music for her exhibition in Prague. And tomorrow is Fat Jesus day so I need to work also on that. And there are so many other projects going on.

Posing with the clear blue sky of the smiley city of Tehran on the fucking I forgot the name of the bridge. Tabiat I think, yes I googled it and its Tabiat- Pic by Fatemeh A. - Tehran 2017

Johnny Cash still plays here in my flat in Italy. And I feel he is planting more seeds in me, and that I strongly feel the hitch to come back on the road.

And I feel things are changing inside of me. But I dont plan.

Well I do, but in the end, if there is something I learned from these two years on the road, is that it’s not me that decides, but the music. As it has always been and as it will always be. Amen and see you next friday with “Naked Songs”

.Love, Courage and Joy to each and every one.

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ddcassiere · 5 years ago

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Here I am - Love Songs 1/3

Here I am -Time To Bleed Robot #12 - is born within the first weeks of my three months stay in Istanbul, in the apartment of a dear friend who I met by Istiklal street, as I was exchanging few chats with a common friend (a great japanese traditional instruments player)

Look him up here

In the same apartment was born also Let The Monkey Dance

and few others that you will probably hear in Time to Bleed Robot..

The apartment was located in a very quiet district, called Bahçelievler, that in turkish literally means ‘house with gardens’, one hour of bus away from the city center.

The street in Bacheliever where the apartment was located

My new turkish friend saved me. And I will never be grateful enough to his generosity. He warmly withdrew me from the consistent, merciless noise to which I was exposing myself everyday in order to stand out as a busker and earn my meals. And from the possibility of being definetely homeless in Istanbul, ending with all my bag, guitar, setar out in the street. Thank you Burak!

I lived there, approximetively, and -on and off-, for one month, . It was a spacious apartment with no hot water. But considering it was spring, I didnt mind the romantic routine of boiling my shower water everyday and washing my clothes by hands, which I did for 2 years anyway.

I see this time in Bahçelievler as a valid time of peace that the universe allowed me, before much harsher times to come in the following two winters..

Within few days of living there everybody knew me in the district, I was the ‘italiano’.

First sights of Istanbul. Istiklal street, a hot chestnuts kiosk

Most mornings I went buying borek or fresh olives, fruit at the market downstairs (vegetables in turkey are still really good..). I guess for this community I was something of a new circus in town, a phenomenon of a man who went up and down carrying his heavy, consumed guitar case and his fallin-apart invicta bag, God knows where to (?). To the city center..

Beside the everyday hassles of eating and paying for the Istanbul card and buying socks or whatever I needed, I must say in Bahçelievler I lived a great time.

I didnt have to worry for hostel - In facts in Turkey, the whole three months I used Couchsurfing or I was invited home by new friends met on the street.

Fish Market somewhere on the east side

Typical food shop in Beyoglu

Girls hipnotyzed by roasting fish by the Bosphor

And in that apartment I had all the solitude and silence I needed to wrap myself up in that dreamy state which is fundamental to songwriting, or to any creative activity I guess.

That psichological state Im talking about is the cause of all beauty, if any, I have ever happened to create, and also the cause of all major and minor misunderstandings of my private life.

In that dreamy state, all practicalities, pragmatic reasoning find me slightly unhooked, my songs antennas might not be satisfied with theory, with logical talk, with ‘bones’, would say Nietzsche.

I would define that inspirational state as a spiritual welcoming of emptiness, a meditative state of openness, of readiness, of flow of thoughts, of deep spiritual curiosity for the matters of the heart.

Me and a new friend on Istiklal street

A gossip-like state you might find yourself in, by reading some of the most teasing passages of Dostojevskji. Where he makes some of his characters speak, speak, speak in a freewheel of diarrhoic words and you wonder what the character is saying exactly , no more paying attention to the words themselves but rather to the inner music of the speech, where all codes of the heart wink at you here and there hinting at pieces of the message.

H. Miller once wrote something like: speak about nothing and it will lead you somewhere.. you will end up talking about everything.

And its that state of grace that, with deep inner drive, I pursue. A state of blind confidence in life, of light heartedness, of indulgent breathing. It’s in these circumstances that I happen to gather meat for lyrics, as I abandon myself to a child-like state of bless, in a flow of wander.

‘Here I am’ was born in those days. I had spent some time, maybe a week resting in bed, reading Bukowski, Camus, The Tibetan Book of The Deads and some more pdf files I had managed to download from the internet I hacked here and there, once I had read all the books I had with me.

Curdish music singers and me, quite tired here..

Me in a dreamy state, Prague

‘Here I am’ It’s a bitter song and since I am back in Italy I have always found it very very difficult to record it.

I wrote the lyrics in one of those blessed days when music and words come all together in my mind and I only had to be ready to write them down and quickly record them on my phone. If you are a songwriter, you might as well know that in those merciful days of the muse, if you are lucky enough to have one song come this way, you might as well have three or more in a row waiting for you to capture them. Sometimes it feels like a water source, as you dig and dig and dig and once you have found the vein of the spring, it comes flowing down on you like there would never be end to it.

I learned that this is actually an illusion, Feeling good about what is coming doesnt actually prove that things that come smoothly are necessarily good. To me this is rather the naive and sweet illusion of the beginner who, as the chemistry of the body balances out, finds within him/herself a more generous and validating voice to what is creating.

Me in another dreamy state in a bar in Alveiro, Portugal.

Being an illusion though, this faith is extremely useful as its essential to stimulate the brain to open up to any image it receives rather than to block them at the door. So that when you are creating, it doesnt matter that what you are writing is actually shit, not in the first matter, because its definetely not with the eyes of an inflexible judge that you are looking at it but rather with those of a child who is playing and within the play is witnessessing his own consciusness unveil right in front of his eyes and marvels at it. And possibly laughs at it!

Writing a song to me it’s a third eye developing tool. And not only the writing itself, but the music and the singing with all this oxygen going to the brain.. the whole experience is the most cathartic ritual I have ever experienced in my life. I wouldnt be surprised if in, lets say 10 years, they will teach songwriting to kids in primary school. As I wasnt surprised, few years ago, as I was a very disciplined practicer of meditation, if meditation would have been introduced in schools. And indeed it did happen later on, see UK between few other countries.

We can say that all in all the creative process is a religious experience, not only because songs behave somewhat as prayers, not only because songs create a dialogue between a relatively known person and an unknown one, but also because writing songs requires tons of faith.

I think it has to do mostly with body chemistry, with a certain awakeness of senses, that back in my 2 years tour were titillated by the ups and downs of travelling hassles, bombarded by hundreds of life images, smells, encounters, conversations and so on. A loud Concerto of music in my head, several orchestras just waiting to get into business, pushing pushing pushing wanting out.

When this state is at its extremes, if I dont let things out, or if I find myself annoyed with matters I am not interested into, I might be the most antipathetic, obnoxious person in the world.. That can also be even if I do let them out, but then not as much, I hope.

That state of readiness, that dreamy bubble of ‘everything is gonna be allright’, that faith in life, does not come from a teenager who is willing to prove to the world that he is immortal, even though I definetely simpathize the dreams of youth and I would never underestimate the power of a child of turning the whole world upside down for good.

I believe I approach that state of mind from a perspective of someone who went through lot of personal shit, fought demons and shadow windmills and experienced environments and frequencies of life, and troubles. Someone who is tired of feeding inner monsters with doubts..and whose not afraid of publically fail or misrepresent oneself. I guess it’s a matter of attitude.

Me having an attitude, Fiumefreddo Bruzio, Italy (deep south)

Saying this, I dont particularly look back at things if not for the sake of laughing or finding sparks of wisdom and every song I write is a chapter of my life by itself.

“Here I am’ is a cruel, detached, beautiful song that nails down matters of heart and life in few lines.

My mother couldnt sleep well

My father couldnt sleep too

And here I am

I couldnt have written down these lines from a defined space/time, if not from an inner well in which I was ready to let myself in, just by playing with life, by dealing excusively with things right under my nose, from moment to moment.

Paradoxically living here now its much more difficult than talking about the wheather tomorrow, or planning ahead the what-would-I-do-if.

More corners of Istanbul: Kuzguncuk, jewish district

Vegetables market in Eminonu

‘Here I am’, in spite of its dryness on human matters, on stubborn individuality, is indeed a love song as it’s capable of providing its unassuming, sober account on the inevitability of destiny and on the tyranny of the heart.

It is also a criminal song, in the sense that in a way or another it killed quite few individuals here and there. Ask guitar player and dear friend Jacek Wegrzyn, who a year ago came to Italy all the way from Poland to record on what was back then the project of a new album, and found himself hard times arguing with me on a chord he had played..

I have had several troubles with this song, it’s definetely the song’s fault, and as the songwriter who wrote it I have to take credit for it.

‘Here I am’ is a dangerous song, even now that Im writing about it I seriously doubt I can make justice to its nakedness and I have had so many bad days in dealing with its lyrics, just to realize for the thousand time in life, that you cant round up things that are definetely not round.

One of the truckdrivers who picked me up on my way out of Turkey

Pretending to be ok while being exhausted and worried, at the border with Bulgaria.

The only thing I can hope to, from songwriter perspective, is to make up, for all the harm that I have willingly or unwillingly done, for all the moments I seemed absent, careless or, worst, for all the moments that I have been stupidly unpleasant, to make it up with a handful of true, deep, naked emotions.

That’s all I hope, cause I cant really change or being present in any other way beside mine. But I definetely can sing you a song.

Love love love to everyone and see you next friday.

Toast at a gig in Prague. To Naked Songs.

free download Here I am

http://www.mediafire.com/file/vnl09j385l093cb/Here_I_Am_-_Fat_Jesus.mp3/file

free download first 10 songs of TIme to Bleed Robot

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ig5ptor40h9fnbk/Time_To_Bleed_Robot%252C_Vol_1_%25282019%2529_-_Fat_Jesus.rar/file

#Istanbul Busking Songwriter Hobo Travel Diaries

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