It was 1972 and I wasn’t even seven years old yet. I spent the better part of my time in those early days staring off into space, reading comic books, bouncing on my bed, and staring into the mirror mouthing the words to songs on the radio using my hair brush as the microphone. I loved Rocket Man, and Backstabbers, Ventura Highway, Why Can’t We Live Together, and Doctor My Eyes, Alone Again (Naturally), All The Young Dudes, and I didn’t understand what Mac Davis meant by “Baby, don’t get hooked on me…” My brother liked Donny Osmond and he had the coveted “Sweet and Innocent” 45, but I had Michael Jackson.

I swear to God when he sang it was myvoice coming out of those speakers. I learned all the words to Ben, Rockin’ Robin, ABC, Stop the love you save may be your own, and every single 45 I could get my hands on by Michael Jackson, or the Jackson 5. Michael’s voice somehow resonated within me in a way that I don’t even think I can explain today, some thirty seven years later. But I loved him, and he sang to me.

Soon I would forget all about Michael Jackson. I let go of my 45’s and forgot about the radio. The summer of 1977 was all about LP’s, Punk Rock, and fuck you. That was true on the outside, and I would have rather died than let anyone know just how much I loved disco and how little I actually liked rock music of any kind. Still, punk rock was a lifestyle, a beautiful way of giving the world of the Dorothy Hamil wedge, the polyester pant-suit, and the attitude of “if it feels good – do it,” the meaningless sex of swingers, and the fuzzy, filthy, long-haired world the middle finger. So I went with it.

By the end of the 70’s there was no holding back. Off The Wall was far and away one of the greatest albums ever produced. Michael’s voice had matured, and the sound was orchestrated, Quincy Jones had his hands all over this sound, and it was beautiful. Off The Wall was an album I played after the record store closed, when everyone was gone, I could get out my hair brush again, and dance in the mirror, letting that amazing voice sing from within me. I loved it. I loved him. Disco saved my life.

As the 80’s arrived, there was no denying that dancing was back in style. Disco was definitely dead, but something new had replaced it. Rock was stupid, overdone, insincere, and so was punk. The angry man-feelings of popular music was rote by then and I wasn’t paying any attention. Thriller was released and I listened to a promotional copy about a month before it was on the shelves of the stores. What an incredible album. Every single song on the record was amazing. No filler, no bullshit — it was fantastic. Then came the videos, the dance moves, and suddenly everyone was walking around with a fedora on, one white glove, and patent leather shoes with pleated trousers and a watch chain. The world had changed, and there was Michael Jackson’s beautiful voice again right out in front of it all.

From there I have to admit that he lost me. I didn’t follow along as he surgically removed his instrument, and made a spectacle of himself. I held onto that beautiful man from the inside of the album by the Jacksons where he was a radiant black man with beautiful eyes, and an amazing voice. I celebrated the story of a very young man, barley older than I was who had escaped poverty, abuse, and self destruction and rose to the top of the world.

Thank you Michael for your mirroring of my own inner voice. Thank you for letting me know it is ok to sing, to let it out, to step forward, and most of all, to dance.

Good night my beautiful brother. I will miss you until the end of my days.

Off The Wall – Michael Jackson

what zephyr is this:

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which blows such sweet winds:

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straight through my heart:

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a certain fondness:

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deep affection:

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inamorato:

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Out Now

RISE: Sunshine Jones Re Edits

1. RISE there ain’t no love in this world – Sunshine Jones Rework
2. RISE – Sunshine Jones Re Edit
3. RISE – Re Synchopated Original Version

Out Right Now in the Treehouse Shop!

Enjoy!

” do that thing…
baby
you got it…
do that thing…
yeah
you got it… “

get it:

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give it:

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do it:

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" … my mind
is going.
there is no
question about it.
i can feel
it … "

listen more:

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talk less:

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the whole world is at your feet, and for your asking:

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” … and i killed the captain
– sank the fleet –
to liberate your heart beat,
baby… “

situationist:

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out in the open:

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” … and you were
like a mermaid…
a vision swimming on your
plastic sheet … “

Paracelsus Disaster:
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Water Faeries:
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Neither Naiads nor Nyads:
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“Under the loving heart’s guidance, we come together to share joy. Under the ego’s direction, we come together to share desperation. Negativity, however, cannot really be shared because it is an illusion. ‘A special relationship is a kind of union from which union is excluded.’

A relationship is not meant to be a joining at the hip of two emotional invalids. The purpose of a relationship is not for two incomplete people to become one, but rather for two complete people to join together for the greater good of what life has to offer.

The special relationship is a device by which the ego separates rather than joins us. Based on a belief in internal emptiness, it is always asking ‘What can I get?’, whereas the loving heart asks ‘What can I give?’ The ego seeks to use other people to fulfill our needs as we define them. Certain voices go on endlessly these days about whether or not our needs are being met in a relationship. But when we try to use a relationship to serve our own purposes, we falter because we are reinforcing our illusion of need. Under the ego’s guidance we’re always looking for something, yet always sabotaging what we’ve found.”

Sister Victorine’s unrequited love:

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Delightful little professors:

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Love in the age of autism:

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HOT BLOODED HEAVEN
Sunshine Jones Re-Edits

1. HEAVEN
A newly discovered track for me by the Rolling Stones. Re syncopated to a chuggy 118 bpm with a Linn Drum, an SH-101, a 303, and an Arp added for extra way hipsway action.

2. HOT BLOODED
A classic from the back seat… Good old Mick Jones is feeling the heat, and I’m not getting in the way. Re Syncopated to 120 bpm, with a moody taste of the old country to bring you in and take you out, otherwise it’s Mick and the headband wearing crew rocking out with the chickens in all their glory. Oh yeah…

Out now!

Critique:

“Fuck me, Sunshine… that’s perfect… beautiful stuff.”

- David Bumpstead (Mondo Disco, London)

“Thanks for the edits.”

- Jenö (Noise From The Void, Wicked, San Francisco)

Check them out in the Treehouse Muzique Shop »

” Oh Captain
I think we’re home
One thousand years later
Where did I go? “

beyond Joseph von Fraunhofer’s wildest hopes and dreams:
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stellar spectroscopy:
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stargazer’s of the world unite and take over:
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” … kissing and running
kissing and running away…
nothing will stop you
nothing can stand in your way… “

Find a way:

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More to say:

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Love to stay:

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You are a lot of things. So many things my crazy-love. One of those things is magic. You have this magic love dust which seems to dance behind you everywhere you go. It gets into the corners, it fills the air, and shimmers like twilight all day long.

It is an amazing gift, a magical power. Everyone loves you. Everyone sees themselves reflected in those beautiful eyes, and that radiant smile of yours. Revel in your gifts, and shake out your skirts, leaving this love magic everywhere you go.

Just remember to save a little bit of it for you.

Lay your heart on my chest:

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Out of harm’s way:

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A little protection:

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” …bite your neck
kiss your lips, the passion of fuss-
budgets in little
starts and fits.

dance all night,
laugh all day, let’s
run down to the
water and fling
ourselves into
the bay “

Accept the certain loss of something:

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Touch your lips to mine:

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At the end of the nineteenth century, when Marcel Proust was still in his teens, he answered a questionnaire in an English-language Confession album belonging to his friend Antoinette, daughter of future President Felix Faure.

Recently I read Yyves Saint Laurent’s answers to these questions on the wall of a museum and wrote them down into my notebook for future use. So far it’s made intimate meetings in a whisper, groups out eating with laughter, and casual conversations much more interesting and a little more fun.

My answers:

1. What is your primary characteristic?
despite my love of words, and concepts, everything about me stems from my heart. i have to say that my primary characteristic is my emotions

2. What qualities do you love in a man?
vulnerability

3. What qualities do you love in a woman?
honesty

4. What do you appreciate most about your friends?
durability

5. What is your main fault?
Ha! my emotions. definitely.

6. What is your favorite occupation?
teacher

7. What is your idea of happiness?
to be truly and completely present

8. What is your idea of misery?
To be stuck in the past, or in fear of the future

9. If not yourself, then who would you be?
honestly, there was a time in my life when I would have been so grateful to have been absolutely anyone but me. today i believe myself to have come full circle, and wouldn’t choose to be anyone but me.

10. Where would you like to live?
by the sea… the sea!

11. What is your favorite color?
black

12. Who is your favorite author?
J.D. Salinger

13. Who is your favorite poet?
Different answers for different occasions. I would say Rilke for his bravery and honesty, Rumi for his devotion and all the fires he’s lit since time began to write things down, but day to day my answer is Frank O’Hara without even flinching.

14. Who is your favorite fictional hero?
Jean-Baptiste Clamence and maybe David Sedaris’ fictional persona as a distant runner up

15. Who is your favorite historical hero?
Karl Marx. Like Gandhi, Thomas Jefferson, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Marx had the audacity to believe that everyone, everyone, deserves something do do, somewhere to live, and something to eat. And while the dreamer himself, after many years of critical revision and mathematic assessment, walked away from the Paris commune — the only example to date of a Marxist experiment — with his hands in the air proclaiming it a failure, Marx’s ideas broke down barricades, and built new ones against them. A provocateur who, because he was right, continues to stir deep fear in the hearts of capitalists, and light bright fires in the hearts of idealists, socialists, and humanists everywhere.

16. Who is your favorite composer?
Chopin

17. Who are your heroes in real life?
The beautiful men and women I work with in recovery — my sponsees.

18. What is your favorite flower?
I have timeless loves, and I have superficial acquaintances with flowers. At the moment my heart sings for quince blossoms.

19. Who is your favorite painter?
Mark Rothko

20. What character in history do you most dislike?
while I would go so far as to say that I hate the likes of Tomas de Torquemada, Pol Pot, Hitler and Gilles de Rais, I am blessed to live in a world where these creatures are rarely given any thought or energy whatsoever.

21. Which is your favorite name?
I love classic names. Simple, and pure from the english language like Mary, Rachel, Karen and Audrey for women. For men I love more antique names like Silas, Theo, Jaffrey, and Walter. But I couldn’t pick a favorite. I love the absurd combination of names, faces, and personalities. It’s endless and so beautiful that it would be criminal to stop anywhere along the way.

22. What is your favorite food?
i love chocolate, bread and cheese… butter, cream, coffee, and apples which are still ever so slightly green inside.

23. Which is your favorite drink?
water

24. What do you hate the most?
cruelty

25. What talent do you wish you had been gifted with?
common sense

26. How do you wish to die?
without warning

27. What is your present state of mind?
Currently I am growing. I have been burst apart, literally flung wide open, and my lust for life has reawakened. I am curious, inspired, moody, reflective, loving, liberated, generous, and free.

28. For what fault have you the most toleration?
self centeredness.

29. Do you have a motto?
my family actually have a motto, but i don’t live by it. mine is ever changing. at the moment it’s ‘i love you, i love you, like the stars above you’ but it could be something else later tonight.

30. What would you like to do right now?
bite rachael’s neck, kiss megan’s lips, laugh with my son, dance until the sun comes up and then fling myself into the bay.

How about you?

Listen at the wall:

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Meet me on the roof:

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Call the cops:

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“Let the spirit move me…
Keep it running through me
Let the spirit move me…
Gotta keep the faith!”

Immaterial Concerns:

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A Profound Sense of Belonging:

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Otherworldly Connection:

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“No! Why? [sex]
No! Why? [sex]
Maybe, Perhaps, Yes!
Maybe, Perhaps, Yes!
Yes! No!
Yes! No!”

Cogent Rationalism:

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Retroflexive Party Fun:

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Common Sense:

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This is maybe too late anyway — too late for the purposes I intended, but in a way that makes this work all the more poignant. This re edit I did to delight the queen of my heart has tromped le monde from Paris to San Francisco and left everyone surprised, breathless, cheering, and hassling me for a copy of it.

Here it is! Enjoy!

New ep out now in the Treehouse Muzique shop! Go check it out »

Well I’m hot blooded, check it and see. I got a fever of a hundred and three. Come on baby, do you do more than dance? I’m hot blooded, I’m hot blooded. Awww…

Paleocircuits Experience:

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Theoretical Cognitive Association:

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From The Heart:

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I must have been thirteen or fourteen when I first saw the Cramps. It was 1979 and I had no idea who they were. This shaggy looking band came out on stage and played tight, and fast rockabilly songs. At first I didn’t like them. But as the set unravelled so did the singer. Lux Interior craned out on one leg, looming over the audience who were barely three feet below him, he swung the microphone around thoughtlessly, hitting people, hitting himself, and then yanked at the cord and stuffed the device into his mouth, shoved it into his leather pants, and then layed on the ground with his head in the bass drum making horrible noises. He pulled himself together and the fell apart completely again. He unzipped his pants and lingered on the toes of his boots, leering at the audience, howling into the mic. I didn’t remember the rest of the band, or anyone else who played that night. I just remember Lux, and the name of the band.

The next day I bought their first 12″ ep, and memorized it. Next to Sid Vicious, Darby Crash, and the Clash as a whole there was no one cooler, creepier, or more threatening at the time. While it was true I didn’t want to be Lux Interior when I grew up, I still wanted to be Sid Vicious, I learned a trick or two about what cool meant, and how it looked on a tall, black haired, very skinny singer.

I lost interest in the Cramps about as quickly as I had gained it. Seeing them a few more times over the next couple years I was inspired again and again every time I saw them. It seemed to me that they were a live thing, the snotty vitriol, the looming microphone, the pants undone, the wild, roaring crowd was something which never quite got captured on their albums. Their version of ‘Human Fly’ and ‘Surfin Bird’ are timeless, superior in every way to the original surf tunes. The Cramps, and Lux Interior personified, and made real what lurked behind the snarl of every rockabilly hero of my grandfather. In Elvis’ underbite, beihind James Dean’s wince, somewhere in the back of Little Richard’s throat was the Cramps… just waiting for the right moment to leap out and kiss you, lick your cheek, and drool all over your face.

Never a popular band commercially in the United States, because we like things that are normal, regular, and both easy to digest but hard to forget here, the Cramps were made fellows of the French Alliance, granted citizenship, charted throughout Europe, and considered pioneers of punk rock, and the godfathers of shockabilly. As the Mutants were locally, a band you loved, but hated, and didn’t really ever go see, the Cramps were to us nationally. We loved them, couldn’t live without them, but never really wanted to go see them. In the later days of punk, as the 80’s unfolded into a revivalist movement of angry Reagan youth, the Cramps enjoyed a second breath of life, producing many more albums than they had during the intial wave of punk from the mid seventies into the early eithties. They endured through times of sarcasm, famine, and the worst period in american history for the arts.

Erik Purkhiser, Lux Interior, died on Wednesday morning of a heart condition. Good night Lux. See you in hell!

Human Fly – The Cramps