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Things I want to give some attention to every day on my journey. Honoring my hosts. Being conscious of my breath. Not pouring half-and-half in my cereal like I just did. #poorheart

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Things I want to give some attention to every day on my journey. Honoring my hosts. Being conscious of my breath. Not pouring half-and-half in my cereal like I just did. #poorheart

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Boom.

So. America acts. The world weighs in. America does the work. Where’s the world? First thought was “Punish Syria for using chemical weapons? Good.” What it took me a day to realize was that I did not even think to question why is was the United States, and only the United States, that took action. What’s our place in the world that this has become a given? We are one nation committing an act of war against another nation. And I’m so used to it, I go right to asking whether this was a good unilateral act of war against a country who was not a threat to us and skip right past asking why does the U.S. EVER commit unilateral acts of war against countries who aren’t a threat to us. But Babies are being gassed. At what body count do such questions cease mattering?

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Day two, sort of.

So yesterday I decided, with the inspiration of a conversation with my friend Meri Danquah, to begin a daily blog to catalog my travels. Travels which have not begun yet, by the way, though, truly, one travels as soon as one leaves his house. Or apartment in my case, and not my apartment, for I have already given mine up, and I suppose that means I am, as we speak, traveling, even when I am inside a dwelling wherein I am currently well, dwelling.

And since I am traveling, one cannot blame me for having a cherry tart with my Peet’s coffee, and I am doubly excused because I’m doubly traveling, being in Manhattan Beach at the moment awaiting a performance by my friends Olivia Brownlee and Danielle Miraglia.

There is nothing about this snack which is appropriate for my current conditions, being: tendency for GERD and a general state of being too heavy. Just in the belly, but that’s enough to make it more likely that I am going to keel over in the process of traveling, leaving you all wondering how it would have ended.

Let us practice reacting to a premature ending.

PS: remind me to mention Papua New Guinea next time. I do think that perishing in Forest therein would've made for a far better book deal.

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I’m going to die soon. (1)

So are you. Soon, as in, well, in my case, 30.62 years, if I’m the average American, which, well, sure. Belly’s getting bigger, blood pressure’s up a tad, hiatal hernia, GERD.  Nothing a good diet wouldn’t fix. Good as in effective. Good not as in flavorful or filling. 

From here on out, every visit to my primary care physician will feel like entering a confessional, or at least how this atheist Jew imagines entering a confessional to feel.

So,  sooner than 30.62 years would seem like a good time to shake things up a bit. 

I’ve made my living thus far as a triple-slash: 

A singer/songwriter/entertainer/comedian.

And I’m bored. Highly fucking bored. So, what’s next? After years of agonizing, one Facebook post has brought an answer to that increasingly annoying question. More on that later. Be sure to check this space. Tomorrow. Or follow me on Tumblr...

[redschwartz]

11/11/14 Swipe Right

Some people, and you might know one or two, produce children and then won't shut the hell up about them. These people tend to stop hanging out with people without children because only people with children want to hear stories about the children of other people with children.  Actually, they don't but they don't have much of a choice but to put up with other people's stories about children if they want those other people to listen to theirs about theirs.  The pronouns in the previous sentence are confusing but it doesn't matter, because the theys therein are interchangeable.

As some are about children, I am about smoothies.  Since I bought me a Nutribullet® I can't stop posting images of my smoothies on Facebook. My friends are getting sick of these posts and I cannot blame them.  Smoothies are just not interesting. Unless you make them.  Then they are everything. Little cones of smug.  And the worse they look (usually due to the inclusion of heroic doses of "organic" kale) the greater the maker's air of superiority, because if you can down a liquid which would have been deemed too offensive for The Exorcist, you would not only have survived the Hanoi Hilton, you would have gotten room service.

Only, when it's your smoothie…it doesn't have to look good. In the smoothie universe, it's not how pretty it is, but what it's made of, that counts. 

Which brings me to Tinder.

If you don't know Tinder, it's a dating app that allows you to view hundreds of love (?) seekers in the surrounding area without them knowing you're doing so.  Their face and profile appear on your screen. If you like them, swipe right. If not, left. If you swipe left, they'll be shot into the void like General Zod and never know you even saw them. But if you swipe right…and THEY swipe right, you are apprised of this by the "ding"of hope and can contact them.  Seems shallow, of course, but, well, attraction is largely shallow.  Plus each person's profile includes the list of mutual Facebook friends so you can stalk them efficiently before deciding whether to engage in the flesh. You can ask around.  You can look at the pictures they didn't include in their Tinder profile. Those are the ones you want to see more, as they are the equivalent of seeing the subject in the morning. If you are in anyway unsure about which way to swipe when viewing a particular candidate for your affections, I say SWIPE RIGHT. You never know. Besides, it's not how pretty they are, it's what they're made of that counts.  See Above.  SWIPE RIGHT.

Which brings me to CD production. I don't know how anyone finds time to sit down and listen to a whole CD.  I really don't.  I might pop one in in the car and get three songs in. But some people do. Sadly the norm in the music industry as been to craft CDs not as a whole listening experience, but a collection of songs of which only a few are good, putting the strongest ones first so that the listener leaves with an impression sufficiently positive that they may decide to attend a concert and buy a teeshirt. 

The Better Man is not like this.  Neither is The Aristocrat, the first half of the two-CD project begun December 15th, 2011, which will culminate in a CD release show on November 16th, 2014 at The Mint in L.A. at 8:30. It's a double-CD release.  Actually a triple, because dear friend and excellent singer/songwriter Dave Crossland will be releasing his CD as well, at 7:00PM.

I stand by every song on these CDs. I think you'll find The Better Man looks even better in the morning.  And, being The Better Man, he might even stay for coffee. I humbly propose that you purchase one of whatever you don't already have, and then, after enjoying the crap out of (at least one of) these two CDs, you consider buying them en masse for quick gifts and stocking stuffers for this holiday season. At a substantial discount, of course.  

May I also suggest that you these CDs are particularly luscious when consumed while enjoying a nice antioxidant-rich smoothie. So SWIPE RIGHT.

And have a lovely Thanksgiving.  If you don't have Ebola yet, there's at least one item on your gratitude list. SWIPE RIGHT.

Big smooch,

Eric

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Halloween, or...

It's 11pm October 31st. 

My apartment, a block and a half north of Hollywood Boulevard, is deceptively quiet. Deceptively because it is October 31st and I live a block and a half north of Hollywood Boulevard, where there are signs posted from the city, declaring it a crime, punishable by a thousand dollar fine, to use, or be seen in possession of, Silly String.  Because there were fights last year when people, hopped up on the spirit (sorry) and spirits (sorry) got overly zealous in the employment of said string, leading to a pollution problem and fights by those who didn't appreciate having their girlfriends' even-more-obvious-than-usual-cleavage (costumes being what they are) targeted by strangers.

But it is quiet here in the apartment, where I am watching episode after episode of a show I'm mildly interested in while doing things for my career (printing bios, stuffing CDs into envelopes) I'm mildly interested in.

I was not invited to a Halloween party. I probably could have found one, but wasn't motivated to do so. 

It's been years since I cared about Halloween. It sometimes makes me a little sad to consider I'm not anymore. It's fun.  When did I stop being fun? 

Maybe it's because all the things I used to want to be, I've been. I've been a superhero, I've been goofy and clever and ironic, I've explored my feminine side…I've done it. I don't have to dream about those things anymore.  My fantasies, such as they are, are around being smarter and more well-read and well-traveled…about having more fulfilling relationships and a solid, empathic, honest and brave community..about making a good living doing what I love, and about finding more things I love to keep my career interesting and fulfilling.  These are what I hope for, dream about.  I'm in a city where people put on costumes every day, both on set and in cafés, play at being people they're not. I'd much rather work at being who I am.  Yawn. But…

[redschwartz]

Blessed

Apologies if this comes off as self-serving. It's not consciously intended to be.

My next door neighbor just got the job as head chef at Popeye's chicken on Hollywood Boulevard.  I was passing by with a bagful of good food from Trader Joe's and decided that the best thing for my health, with all this good food in the bag, would be to stop in and say hi to the neighbor and get some free extremely healthy food. He wasn't there. I paid for some anyway. 

Sitting there eating it and an old black man with no teeth, dirty clothes and a cane hobbles over, sits down next to me and says "Man, I'm hungry."  My first reaction (in my mind) was my usual one: Turn away, say I have nothing for him. Just not that giving a person. Or at least not that inclined to help the addict population so present in Hollywood (ain't all hills and premieres).

But I had a good week.  Great week actually, and I'm feeling fortunate.  So I say "get whatever you like. I got it." He says "Oh, man. I am so blessed.  God told me to come in here and here you are.  Thank you so much (etc.). Dude behind the counter knows him by name. Says "You need the bathroom?"  Guy orders his food. I hand him a twenty and say "keep the change." He says "Oh, I am truly blessed today finding you. Blessed. My mother always said 'If you don't ask God you don't get from God.' You must be a Christian." I say "No, sir, I'm an atheist.  You don't need God to be good."  He pauses, contemplates, grins and says "I get that" and shakes my hand. 

Blessed. He's got nothing and he feels blessed. .I've got plenty and I'm an atheist.  If there is a conscious, vigilant, giving God, he's got a really shitty value system. 

On the one hand, it's proof that belief in God doesn't give you anything.  It might even allow you to sit back and wait for help that won't come instead of getting out there and "making your own luck".

On the other hand, if belief in God gives you gratitude in even the darkest of times, that's pretty great. He smiled way more than I ever do.

Apparently, I'd rather be right than content.

[redschwartz]

Ignorance

It's not the food that kills you.

It's your body.

It's your mind.

It's you.  You kill you.

Food?  Food keeps you from wanting to kill yourself.

Bliss.

Ignorance is bliss.

Truly it is.  

I always thought that aphorism was a condemnation of ignorance.  Or of bliss.

It's neither. Not anymore.  To me. 

It's actually about as Zen as you can get.* 

Anyway

Ignorance.

I awoke this morning in a state of bliss, until the cognitive jolt informed me that I was going back to L.A. tomorrow.  From  LA to L.A. Beignets and Etoufé, humidity and dampened lucidity to whatever rhyming derogatory verbal pairing I might come up with later.

Bliss. I was lying in bed under warm covers.  Peace all around and within. 

Bliss. The state of knowing only where and what one is. Past, future, all gone. Ignorance.

"Ignorance is bliss" is the Buddhist paradigm, or so I assert here after reading Siddhartha.  And no one was more enlightened than Siddartha Gautama, the O.G. Buddha.  He had it figured out. Of course Siddhartha found peace while sitting by a tree, not at a desk in the White House reserved for the Secretary of Homeland Security, although it has been suggested that the Buddha served the role of Acting Secretary during the strengthening of the Jihadist movement in Syria while Jeh Johnson, the official Secretary, was on an extended bathroom visit after breaking bread with Ollanta Humala, the president of Peru, whose chef-in-tow prepared Conejillo de Indias (known locally as Guinea Pig) when visiting the White House to extract a promise to prevent rich asshole Americans from clandestinely capturing Peruvian Jaguars from their natural habitat and bringing them back to the United States for Bachelorette Hunting Parties, which only rarely resulted in a probably accidental loss of the bride, but more often bridesmaids, which made sense statistically. Apparently, the Guinea Pig was bad.

No, Siddhartha was perhaps ill-prepared to consider and act preemptively on developing threats to a more moderate (except for Right-Wing Militia and Red Sox Fans) rest of the world.

Siddhartha would also have fared poorly if contemplating a career in the arts.

But would have fared far better in bed this morning.  I, on the other hand, had to make the deliberate choice to empty my mind.  It worked. For a spell. Much as I am emptying my newly populated mind onto this "page." It is surprisingly effective.  Now back to the Beignets, which are covered by far more powdered sugar at Cafe du Monde than at Morning Call, tho each has their strong points. 

*I don't use "Zen" correctly.  I apply it to anything that calls concepts I associate with Buddhism to mind.  Zen is only one form of Buddhism, whose adherents resent the offshoot for either having a better publicist or the advantage of single-syllableness, which allows for a quicker entirely over-and-frequently-misused (see above) reference.

[redschwartz]

Ode to Joy. Sept 11, 2014, Hollywood, CA

Ode TO Joy.  Not Joy Itself.

Schiller's poem, slightly altered, serves as the text of the Fourth Movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. The soaring, roaring chorus is assumed to be, said to be, an outpouring of Joy. The name, for those of us who know it, might seal that deal. Before I knew the name, I don't recall feeling Joy, exactly, when I heard the famous passage. I heard exaltation.  Celebration.  Declaration. But remember.  The poem is an ode TO joy. Not joy itself. An exaltation, a celebration OF Joy. A declaration of the value OF Joy. And joy, more than anything else, perhaps, is to be exalted. 

An interesting choice of music, then, to be played on September 11th at the Hollywood Bowl. Joy? Well, perhaps it is an act of defiance. We, the People of the United States shall, in the face of overwhelming sadness, outrage and tragedy, hold to our stated directive: the upholding of our unalienable rights. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Happiness. Think about that.  Right in the Declaration of Independence. Next to the Constitution (if it does not surpass it) the most American of American documents. Happiness?  Such a frivolous word for such a weighty declaration.  We have the right to...be happy?  Was Jefferson smoking Washington's hemp?

And yet, that's what we do. What we use our liberty to seek. As all creatures. Buddhists might seek instead the cessation of suffering, but there's a lot of overlap. Or not. Joy is an emotional state.  Cessation of Suffering is the the cessation of an emotional state. Which could well evoke Joy. Whatever. Sorry.

Anyway, it kinda make sense.  The Ode to Joy played as a declaration of our intention to pursue, in the face of all, happiness. 

But again, it doesn't sound so happy to me.  Not joyous, this 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th.  It sounds a march. A cry. A declaration of...independence? Could you not hear this played over loudspeakers at lockstep one of a land war? As bombers lurched low and passed through the rising fire they themselves had set?

A declaration of Independence.  An Ode to Joy...

Only.

Schiller did not write, at first, Ode to Joy. He changed it.  It was originally Ode to Freedom. 

Declaration of Independence indeed. At the most American of Venues. On the most American of days. 

Got it.

[redschwartz]

Sept 11th, 2001. Repost.

Repost from last year at this time:

September 11, 2001. Awakened by a phone call from Neale Eckstein, telling me about the towers. Watched some replays, then walked down from my apartment on Chester Avenue in Waltham, MA, to a bar on Main Street. Talked to a guy in a bar for a while. "We've gotta go over there and get 'em." "Get who?" "Whoever did it." "I'm all for that. But we gotta know who they are." "But we gotta do SOMETHING. We can't just sit here..." "But shouldn't we know who we're killing before we kill them?" "Yeah but..." (voice trails off.) Down to the Charles River to sit and watch the ducks swimming around each other in a quiet eddy and generally carrying on as if nothing had happened. Which, for them, was true. We're so small, I thought. We think this is a huge event. But in the scheme of things, in the history of the earth, past and future, this is a blip. And I watched the ducks. So cool. So peaceful. And I thought...there is still peace in the world. We're just not feeling it right now, but it's there if we listen. The world will go on, love prevails, and if we learn from the other creatures we will see the goodness in all things. Then one of the ducks started beating the living shit out of one of the other ducks.

[redschwartz]

July 21, 2014 A missive of extremely questionable taste. (LA Parking Satans and Ayn Rand's un-cannibalized corpse.)

Greetings, Lovelies.

OK. First, fun litte video getting quite a bit of love on Facebook. Shot at Fox Run by Neale Eckstein, featuring Jagoda on the Shuitar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3it3VI9PYs Then: the Gig list (deets below)

7/24 Portland, ME, Alberta Rose, 7/25 Portland, Evening House Concert. 7/26 Portland, Afternoon House Concert

7/29 Venice, CA, Witzend 8pm, 7/30 South Pasadena, Firefly Bistro, 7pm. 7/31 Topanga, CA Re-Pete, Pete Seeger Tribute, Theatricum Botanicum ..........

OK, now, if I were a praying man…this is what I'd say…to…uh…Him.

Dear God, if you would..

Blood. Vermin. Killing of the first born... Overkill.

But please, if you could just see your way to visiting upon every employee of the Parking Enforcement Division of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation a mild urinary tract infection, I would appreciate it. This is not a selfish wish. This is a wish for the betterment, truly, of all mankind.  For if I'm driving around attempting to do good things for myself and/or others, and, due to a momentary lapse of ability to parse fourteen contradictory parking signs on three different poles spaced evenly down the block and partially occluded by suspiciously unpruned tree branches, I am fined for some bullshit, arbitrarily enforced transgression, I will not be happy.  And if I'm not happy I will write a mean song.  And if I submit a mean song for inclusion in a Hollywood movie and a Hollywood movie executive hears this mean song, this Hollywood movie executive might decide to greenlight a violent, angry movie, which will be shown in theaters and on televisions all over the world and then turned into a video game, which will reward our nation's children for successfully reenacting the most violent, angry parts of the movie, which will, in essence, be training our children to kill.  

This, God, is not helpful. 

So, please, a mild urinary tract infection, or a yeast infection…if you would.  Not severe enough to do any permanent damage,  But when some employee of the Parking Enforcement Division of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation has pulled up behind a car that's two inches into the red is sitting in his air-conditioned Civic on a 95° day listening to the techno version of the Carmina Burana sung by with children with AIDS, and he is preparing to open the door, exit the vehicle, walk around the front of the victim's car, take down the VIN number and make the world just a slightly worse place in which to live by slipping an orange rectangular piece of Fuck You under the windshield wiper, maybe a little twinge in the urethra will make him decide…Nah.  And drive on.

And, driving on, he'll make the world a slightly less hellish place to live. For that's what he is- a little Satan…prowling the circulatory system of the civic organism and compromising its integrity by handing out little slices of hell.  

Sapping our strength sixty-eight dollars at a time. Dearth by a thousand Citations.

Which calls to mind cancer. For these  cancer demons in their snide hybrids, these melanomas waiting to happen, are among us always, feeding.

And what do cancer cells feed on? They feed on sugar, which is to say, they feed on sweetness. Goodness. A sweetness which normally benefits the healthy cells. And by consuming our goodness, they are consuming what is best in us. They are feeding upon our better souls.

Which calls to mind...

Cannibalism.  

Enter: the Carib tribe of the The lesser Antilles.  The Carib tribe was, ironically, immortalized (for better for worse) by the Spaniards who colonized their land, naming the practice of (people) eating people quite deservedly in their honor. *A

While cannibalism is relatively common in the animal kingdom (Polar bears, hamsters sand shark embryos, to name but a few of the myriad examples in nature, consume other members of their species, and, often, family, with a remarkable absence of guilt) it is considered a no-no for humans.  Whereas we humans frequently fudge the don't-kill-each-other rule (more of a suggestion, really)   it is considered barbaric to consume our prey.  Well you may call it barbaric.  I call it recycling. I believe it is morally preferable, as murder goes. We're horrified when someone kills a (nonhuman) animal and doesn't eat it. Not that the cows are up in the bovine beyond hi-twoing each other, celebrating their consumption and mocking the harp seal contingent. I think the killing gets their goats nonetheless. 

That said, at the crux of one of the great science-fiction films of our age, Soylent green (SPOILER ALERT) is the revelation that the substance everyone was eating was made of old humans.  They died, naturally or not, and were turned into food for other humans. So?  Big Whoop. This to me should have been the way they ended Atlas Shrugged.  When John Galt shuffled off his Tesla coil, they should have eaten him.  After all, Galt's greatest accomplishment was to develop a way of perpetuating energy*. Duh. **

At the very least we should give our corpses to the poor.  We throw out half a chicken and we are deemed insensitive. I've got way more meat than a half a chicken.  I exercise and eat moderately well. I am prime meat. And I'm marbled.

Now, there are scattered examples of Cannibalism, of course, in "first-world" countries.  Normally we go there in times of dearth.  The Donner Party ("party" used loosely…I think it appropriate to label the sated survivors "party animals."), for example, and, more drastically, survivors of the Soviet famine of 1932 and 33. A Ukrainian doctor wrote to a friend in June 1933 that she had not yet become a cannibal, but was "not sure that I shall not be one by the time my letter reaches you." According to her letter, the good people died first. Those who refused to steal or to prostitute themselves died. Those who gave food to others died. Those who refused to eat corpses died. Those who refused to kill their fellow man died.

After all was said and (well-)done, At least 2500 people were sentenced for cannibalism after the war. How many were consumed? I can't know how much each of those people ate. Maybe just a leg. Perhaps some were more select. *** 

However you slice it, that's a lot of people being eaten there in the Ukraine. And who was eaten? Those who refused to be prostitutes, kill, steal or eat the dead. Those who gave food to others, those who helped. That is to say, the good ones. An entire society that fed upon the good.

Sound familiar? The Los Angeles Department of Transportation created an entire division for that very purpose. But they are but one manifestation of the ethos of this inferno that is Los Angeles itself.  The young, tender and good arrive.  Some are swallowed, digested and incorporated to the increasingly cancerous entity. Some simply chewed up and spit out. 

So, I ask you, God (as if) can you please do your part to subvert the acts of your greatest, fallen, angel?

Thanks,

E

---------------------------

*A It is worth noting (at least as worth noting as anything else herein is worth noting):

Another ominous word originating from the behavior of a tribe of sorts…the word assassin is said to derive from Arabic, meaning "users of hashish" *A*Z as there was a population of pre-shiite's (pre-ites?) whose job was to kill the conquering Sunni Seljuks. The story goes that they would smoke hashish, which would send them into a murderous rage and make their counterattack more deadly. This does not strike me as making much sense, as the last thing I want to do when I've been smoking hash is to murder people. That is, unless, of course, I get the heavy munchies, which brings us back to cannibalism. Now back to the main text.

    *A*Z This is not actually the case, but it's a cool story taught to me in college as truth.

…..

*For those of you who know this is not a perfect description of what Galt actually developed, please shut up.

** I do not, however, advocate the eating of Ayn Rand's corpse, because that is one rotten chunk of meat.

*** Perhaps they consumed only the raised, curved portion where the butt meets the inner thigh, which I have oft considered slicing off and frying up with shallots, as it does seem to me to be the most tender, delectable fruit in the universe, but i digress. ***@

    ***@ I would only do it with consent, by the way, so it's not rapey or cannibally, , well. consensually cannibally.  It exists. . Look on Craigslist. 

[redschwartz]

June 5th 2014 Senator Whoever Video Release Ramble

http://youtu.be/Sq95pmo5oBM

It's that moment. That moment of which we all become conscious some point. That moment that flips a switch from never will to did. Became. Became that which forevermore we will be regarded as always having been supposed to be.  

It's a moment that is passed over entirely by those who don't know the artist - those who don't know the famous, the stars, the successes. Most don't acknowledge or even conceive that most are anointed via a coalescing of moments. In Equus, Peter Shaffer said "moments snap together like magnets. " And so they do. What in hindsight seems preordained was in fact a series of circumstances, forks in the quantum road, fortuitious bounces in the cosmic pachinko machine.

In another universe, Brad Pitt did not get the part in Thelma and Louise. In another universe, Brad lives next door to me, smokes weed constantly, blames his bad skin for his failure, can't make his rent, and will finally become famous when, after watching Taxi Driver, he assassinates Jenny McCarthy when measles claims his nephew born to a more successful brother who is currently selling ad space in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

And in another universe, I am currently schtupping Angelina Jolie. 

In this particular universe,  I am generally considered, at least in my own mind, an underachiever. Currently living here in the bowels of Hollywood on what used to be known as heroin alley. It's gotten better, but I still wouldn't be excited about bringing MTV Cribs here to do a feature. I am forty-five. This was not how things were supposed to go. To say it was all my fault would be only partially true.  True, I haven't worked hard enough, but one can't discount the power of chance. After all, Jimmy Fallon is extremely successful, and every night I bow to his poster, hung over my bed, and remind myself that truly, anything is possible.

Now, reminding yourself of something doesn't mean that that's something is actually true. Anything is not possible. And most things aren't even probable. But some things are possible, and one of those things is that after twenty years of work, of practicing and honing my craft(s), I become an overnight sensation. Now, I don't want to be greedy. Not looking to replace anybody on the Biebertron. But I would love to be able to create and share my creations and be paid respectably for the effort.

That's where you come in.  We're in a do-it-yourself world.  Gone are the days of record companies swooping up and star-i-fying any but the most mass-sellable. One must now make one's own way, and be so unassailably visible that the powers that be must take notice.  Used to be easier.  Before YouTube, I posted "Keep Your Jesus Off My Penis" and got a million hits by sending out one email.  "Clinton Got A Blowjob" got me the same play.  Now, however, the web is awash with videos.  The ones without cats or stoned guys jumping off roofs into cacti have a harder go.

So please, if you would, kindly enjoy the attached video, Senator Whoever.  It's really good.  Full production values, by far the most professional video I've ever done. Exponentially. And then, if you enjoy it (or even if you don't,) please share it far and wide. 

And maybe,

Just maybe,

I'll be one of the ones that becomes what everyone assumes I was always supposed to be.

Have a lovely day.

Eric

http://youtu.be/Sq95pmo5oBM

PS.  The above tells only one moment in my consciousness in a moment of a half-empty glass sipped at with tongue in cheek..  To all y'all folkies out there,  I'm forever grateful for the hospitality and support of friends, fans and venues, and look foreword to a future lifetime continuing fun. But hopefully with higher ticket prices. ;-)

[redschwartz]

Feb 14, 2014 Deterministic Universe

Greetings, eternal lovelies. It has been some time since I wrote you. Please understand that I hold you in the highest esteem and hope that the unpredictability of my intermittent missives (intermissives?) does not in any way add to a sense of…well, powerlessness, randomness, to an already random-feeling life. I say random-FEELING because if ours is, as suggested by some, a deterministic universe, what may seem random was in fact preordained in the first fires of the Big Bang. Or before, if you want to get even jiggier with it. See, in a deterministic universe, every event follows as a natural and immutable result of the moment which precedes it. I am drinking this cup of coffee and typing these words because, well, my brain (which led me to this cafe in the first place) had no choice but to order this coffee and type these words, owing to the reactive quality of chemicals in said brain, and, well, in my life, everything. I don’t know about you, but shit happens to me and I deal with it. OK, sometimes it seems that I MAKE shit happen to me, like, well, for example: Avoiding medical school led me to being a neo-middle-aged man in a cafe in Hollywood, waxing masturbosophical into a laptop, and languishing in hopefully pre-nonobscurity. It’s on me. I did that. But maybe I did that because I was reacting (quite predictably, considering my historic allergy to measurable success) against any sort of status quoish (read: responsible, mature, directed) path towards self-actualization. In other words, maybe it’s not my fault. Maybe the deterministic model of the universe is correct, and everything we do, see, feel, think, drink, eat, smoke, slather…is the hardwired result of the immense, seemingly (but not actually) chaotic physical system of which we are a part, a system which churns towards the eternal, chewing up all manner of matter and meaning in its merciless cogs.  In which case, I was not meant to be in law school either. Or music school, or CAD school, or environmental toxicology school, or just some cabin in the woods somewhere with dripping leaves dappling the roof with soft reminders of my connection to all things.  I fear that I have not painted a clear enough picture of the intricacies of the deterministic system. Apparently I wasn’t supposed to. Or…shall I say. DESTINED to? Oooohhhhh. No he di’in.  But it’s not all about me. it’s about you, too. What does your immutable future hold? Does it hold listening to the Bob & Tom show on February 25th? I’m doing an in-studio from their home in Indianapolis. They’re a nationally syndicated morning show. Details below.  Does it hold attending a house concert in Berwyn, IL on the 28th?  Does it hold throwing together a house concert for me in the triangle between Indy, Chicago and KC between Feb 25th and March 2nd?

Pete Seeger triibute with the Geer Family Singers in Topanga Canyon? And it may. It may hold all of these things. You wouldn’t necessarily know at this point. You may think it does/doesn’t any or all of these things, but YOUR plans are not the UNIVERSE’S plans. Even if every quantum event in every atom in the universe is predetermined (and by the way, quantum theory would, quite famously and interestingly shoot down any possibility of a deterministic universe, which is why it pisses everybody off) (and I should know, I read a book about it in 1989.) it wouldn’t mean you had any insight into what was in store.  But for the sake of getting out of bed in the morning, let’s assume that free will does exist (I would aver that it’s actually quite costly.) That means you have the power to to any or none of the above. I would never dream of emotionally manipulating you, but should you find that your goals and mine are symbiotically aligned, it would only make sense that you availed yourself of one, some or all of the above opportunities.  in other news, on Tuesday, The Better Man will be mastered by the same gentleman (term loosely applied) who mastered The Aristocrat, the grammy award-winning Robert Hadley. The universe has dragged its heels in the completion of this project but that is, apparently, as it should, and was always destined to, be. Regarding The Aristocrat, I have enjoyed selling so many to so many folks who wished to inflict it upon their cohorts. I hope you have enjoyed the CD, should you have purchased it. If you have/did, and wish to share your love, you can always write a review at

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/ericschwartz and/or

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-aristocrat/id786691229

I bet you knew I was gonna say that….

Smooch,

Eric

[redschwartz]

Dec 23, 2013 Thanks and New Vids

Hi everyone! Scroll down for your gifts or read this genius first: 

Hey all.  The season is upon us.  Actually, we are upon the season.  It was an innocent little thing; some snow, some wind, some light (more dark) and some hibernating rodents. Bears, incidentally, do not, technically, hibernate. Okay, it depends upon who you ask.  Bears are so massive that the amount of energy it would take to raise their body temperature back up to normal from just above freezing would be too much, so their temperature goes down less when they “hibernate.”  My bio teacher said that was called “estivating.” Or “oestivating” to the actually English-speaking world. But e/oestivating appears to be, according to the search I just did, a different, hibernation-like process that’s similar to what I just said bears did but which happens in the summer to stave of HEAT. Bears apparently do this too.  In the Summer. And the Winter.  No idea.  Ask my bio teacher at Tufts.  Whichever one it may have been.  But I did not come here to talk to you about bears.  I came to talk to you about the season.  Lie.  But since I’m in the middle of it I’ll finish it. Point is, in times past, the Winter was the time we hunkered down, recollected, meditated, and survived to emerge anew with the thaw.  Now it’s the most busy time we have.  Shopping, homecoming, vacation-taking, New-Years reveling and regretting…It’s unnatural I tell you. Our cycle is thrown off.  For that reason, I shall not give any gifts.  Apart from the below paltry-assed so-called gifts, which are in fact subtle commercials for me.  Which is not to say they are not enjoyable.  If they weren’t,  wouldn’t be much point to them. Which leads to the question…can one be selfish and still give an important gift?  Can an artist be totally self-involved and yet still be a positive force in the world?  And are they to be congratulated/revered as people even if their gift to the world is essentially incidental? James Watson, half of the Watson/Crick team who (notwithstanding the should-not-be-notwithstood contributions of Rosalind Franklin) discovered the double helical structure of DNA, later opined, in response to criticism of his advocating eugenics, that just because bipolar disorder gifted the human race by influencing writers such as Hemingway and Plath doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be eradicated. Why should we make them suffer for our gain?  Actually it might’ve been Stephen Fry.  Anyway. I didn’t come here to talk about eugenics. But I am so completely lost right now that I can’t even read the above and figure out how to recapture the through-line. Possibly because there never was one. Oh, right.  Commercialism sucks. So I’m giving stuff away that I didn’t have increase the global carbon footprint to give away. Unless you count the energetically extremely inefficient internet. Shit.  Almost tied it up in a neat little bow.

Scroll down for your gifts or read this breath of fresh air first:

Thank you so much for continuing to receive these missives, coming to my shows, buying my CDs, sharing them (and me) with your friends.  The “I am nothing without you” assertion is, well, not exactly true, as I’d be something without you. Broke and alone, to be specific.  So thank you. Sincerely. I know that email gets overwhelming and I find myself deleting much of it without reading it.  I’m sure you do the same.  It’s cool.  So thanks for reading THIS one. 

Thanks too for those of you who bought The Aristocrat in Bulk to share this holiday season.  Sold about a hundred of them that way.  Love to get them out into the world.  Most grateful.

Scroll down for your gifts …[gigs redacted]

Okay, now for the good stuff. 

First, some fun videos I’ve made of late:

1. (East for Aristocrat Release)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtYGeZ_yBOE&list=UUiXorkbFG5hWQDdhWh7gWRg

2. (Theft and Guilt)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xguoqA6-lM

3. (Greatest Hits) (My favorite)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v    v48cfWofTUo 

4. (For Children)  (NSFW)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmVqOlH-fbs

5. (In Spanish)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g91t3mJSMys&feature=c4-overview&list=UUiXorkbFG5hWQDdhWh7gWRg

Second, feel free to stream my (not dirty, not even that funny, but an actual) Christmas CD (or download it if you like) at:

 http://alturl.com/xxaob

 Third,  please enjoy this song.  

Chief Greenbud and I wrote this heartwarming ditty. He sang it, we recorded it in Nashville and Sudbury, MA

tinyurl.com/nytboq2

And there you are.  Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good life.

 Eric

[redschwartz]

May 12th 2014 Yin-Yang Videos Released (links)

You’re half right.  One video references, though (thankfully) never shows a proverbial yinyang. It’s the kind of classy fare you have grown to expect of me.  You’ve likely heard the song before, but now you get to see it. And hear it.  Bonus. Uh.

  The song is “There’s A Picture…” and it’s the first official video from The Aristocrat.

  Here it is.  Photographs taken by Neale Eckstein at the Kerrville Folk Festival. 

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaZCswOqsEc&feature=youtu.be

  But you’re half wrong.  Unless I’m wrong about you being half right.  The Yin here really is Yin-ish.

  This other video, another slideshow of sorts, has relevance to society beyond, way beyond, entertainment value.

  Cheryl Kagan, who many of you will know as proprietress of the Folk ‘n Great Concert Series, is running for state senate in Maryland.  The primary’s in June and she’s running against an incumbent who, well, sucks. 

  So Annie Wenz and I got together and cowrote the song and collected the pix.  I put the video together and now she’s spreading this far and wide, as I encourage you to do.  Entertainment’s great of course, but we’re talking civil rights, gun and domestic violence legislation reform.  

  Heregoes:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb2mwxXLlCc

  That’s all for now, but be looking for another video in the next week or two…

  Big smooch,

  Eric