2015 already?

The year 2014 really flew by, didn't it? It seems like I barely read the words "January 1st, 2014" on the screen of my mobile phone, and all of a sudden I am back in Amsterdam celebrating the New Year 2015. 

And what a fucked up year 2014 was. We saw the outright demise of all things most of us used to take for granted, except of course those willing to question what they saw, because they had known all along; the CIA torture report, the NSA scandal, the rise of the originally US-financed ISIS, Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria. The fall of capitalism, the undermining of citizens' rights, excessive police brutality, fracking, free-trade agreements, increased fascism, Ebola, the revival of the Cold War, and of course the ever-lasting greed of mankind slowly propelling a small number of psychopaths into power whilst oppressing the rest of us.

Ha. It seems like the developments of this year literally force me to rehash the same old topics again and again. It's just getting worse. I have heard so many stupid utterances by unreasonably powerful people this year that I see no way things are going to stay the way they are for much longer. We're on a slippery slope, heading straight to hell. People are getting pissed off at a system that is slowly beginning to show its rotten true face, slowly beginning to show that it is no longer upholding the values it was created to protect, slowly beginning to show that it is made up of greed, corruption, and egomania. Which is nothing new to a lot of people, but unfortunately not enough people feel the need to bring on changes. Of course there are protests and riots all around the globe, but they're always dismissed by force or rhetoric and therefore those who used to be in power remain in power, and the damn population still votes for those retarded fucks. I simply don't get how a majority of the people can actually vote for those that have proven again and again to be unable to represent the voters' will. And I'm not even talking about Obama here, he has done a few very good and a few very bad things, but the actual issue is the whole Democrat/Republican debacle; neither of them have remotely done what they claim to stand for. It's time to find an alternative. Same thing for Germany; the Christian-Democratic-Union coupled with so-called German-Social-Democratic-Party (they somehow forgot to include the whole "social" and "democracy" part in their political policy) have been in power way too long, and the other parties don't really show any differences in their program either, so we're in somewhat of a rut. I can't emphasize the importance of change once again here. 
But that's of course not remotely everything; we also saw the rise of a couple of cruel terrorist organizations (Hamas and ISIS), that both used to be US-financed, but then went rogue and started attacking America with its own weapons. Which has happened quite a number of times, and could have taught the US government long ago that funding renegade movements usually does not yield the results that they hope for, but apparently they're too stubborn to learn from their mistakes.
Furthermore, we saw Russia being turned into the root of all evil once again by smart propaganda. I don't want to glorify Russia here, they have done some questionable up to downright horrific things in their time, and have some very conservative laws that do not really seem to fit in our time anymore, but they are not the main aggressor in the newest scenarios unfolding in Eastern Europe at the time. The NATO expansion to the East has been going on for a few decades now despite many critical voices from within the US government, and poking a sleeping bear with a stick will eventually get it to react. Russia reacted by "taking back" Crimea by means of a democratic referendum, which then sparked multiple movements also wanting to join Russia. And then the US just installed a new "democratic" government in Ukraine, of which some ministers are openly affiliated with major Nazi parties and networks! And now Europe is being entangled in some economic sanctioning scheme directed at the Russians, which is just stupid strategically. An alliance between Europe and Russia would be much more viable for both parties than a European-American partnership could ever hope to be. But thanks to Europe's head being so far up America's ass, we're facing a new Cold War that might actually turn hot this time, seeing as the propaganda is much more elaborate and the fronts are more hardened than ever.
Oh, and let's not forget the past few months which saw multiple unarmed African-Americans get shot, including a twelve year old child, by police men. For some cases the reports are obviously unclear, and I am not one to just generalize an entire group of people, but these cases show that racism is still much more present within the American everyday life than one would believe possible in the 21st century, and that it is an issue that still needs to be evaluated over and over. The war on drugs is partially responsible for this as well, mind you. There are less African-American than Caucasian drug users, yet there are more African-Americans rotting in jail cells for drug-related offenses. The profiling used by the DEA is clearly racist, and gives police an easy excuse to target ethnic minorities for strip searches, which obviously leads to those minorities feeling mistreated and unrepresented by those that should protect them and their rights, and that is something that cannot possibly stand! All citizens have to feel that all governmental organs are serving and protecting them, not just a few, otherwise the entire system of democracy and freedom doesn't mean shit.
And finally, we also saw the Ebola virus cripple West Africa, and we saw just how short the attention span of the media is when it comes to an actual crisis. Ebola was in the news for a couple of months at best, and all of a sudden it disappeared. Not from Africa mind you, the people there are still suffering, and there are still people there trying to help, and funds are hopefully still going there too, but the media's attention just switched to more violent and sensational stories and completely started ignoring the virus it made out to be the "biggest epidemic of modern time" just a few months ago. It's ridiculous, really. And then those damn tunes that are made to "help" the affected regions by donating part of the profits to charity. I mean I don't disagree with the essence of these actions, but if you want to help the people, then just donate to some medical NGOs instead of buying a fucking song which will also make some musicians, producers, and label bosses even richer. The whole thing is just perfect promotion: crappy singers are selling millions because they appear in such songs, which is why these tunes are in themselves corrupted and used by those people to gain more fame than they deserve, and that is just pathetic. So yes to helping those regions crippled by Ebola, and no to phony charity song projects. 

But of course there were not only bad things in 2014, there were quite a few personal highlights, and a few global things went quite well too. For example, the legal status of cannabis. Things improved quite drastically last year, and I am sure they will skyrocket in 2015: more and more states are thinking of legalization, Uruguay and Portugal have shown that liberal drug regulations are the right way to go, and there are more and more experts in all fields speaking up for the green plant. And in Germany there are now pro-legalization ads running in a couple of hundred cinemas all over the country, right before blockbusters like "The Hobbit". It has also been a good year in terms of the overall opinion on drug use generally. People that have been sworn enemies of the dreadful plague they believe psychoactive substances to be are now speaking for a more lenient approach, because many are starting to realize that prohibition is criminalizing the wrong people and allowing the actual criminals to make billions of dollars by being the only supplier for a gargantuan market. And those wrongly criminalized are branded as, well, criminals for life, and will always be looked upon with suspicion, and furthermore receive a 'training in crime' when imprisoned seeing as they are living in a confined space with all kinds of sick people, forced to join a gang in order to survive the time there. So a friendly pothead that got caught a few times too much goes to prison and comes out a hardened criminal with new knowledge on all kinds of illegal activities and not many perspective besides a gangster's life due to his criminal record, which he only got for being thrown in jail for burning some plants and inhaling the smoke. 
But I'm getting off topic. I told myself to do less rambling in these posts, and I'll try and stick to it a bit. I was talking about the general consensus on drugs slowly drifting towards a more lenient approach that focuses on education and emancipation of drug users rather than their wrongful criminalization. We're not there yet, not by a long shot, but we're seeing the first signs, the first underground tremors of an earthquake that will eventually spawn a tsunami of reforms regarding psychoactive substances, and it's nice to finally see some light at the end of the tunnel. And of course there's always the usual suspects trying to hinder that development, but it's somewhat like Domino; once the first piece falls, all others will follow. And I don't know how long it's going to take, but I'm sure it will happen, and I guarantee that the world will be a better place for it.

Anyway. There's also some personal highlights this year that I would like to share with you: I am more and more sure of needing to get the fuck away from studying, and rather focus on finally starting to build my own career, on my own terms, and not in some goddamn company where I work so that my boss can make tons of money, just so that I can retire when I'm seventy and "enjoy" my few years of lousy retirement. Hell no. I'm thinking of signing up for an online degree in freelance journalism, expanding my blogs, work freelance, do some small jobs to make ends meet, and get back to Asia, preferably Shanghai. I can't take the European way of life. People here have so little ambition, they cannot think outside the box; it's school, study, work, marry, retire, die, and I can simply not do that! And the mentality of the population, especially Germany, is so fucking apathetic, it's unbearable! Everything is stagnating, everybody is afraid to do their own thing and take risks, all everyone wants is diplomas, jobs, security and routine, and that just pisses me the fuck off!
I wasn't born to pay bills, I was not born to work for some rich ass-wipe! I want to travel, learn, write, see things, just fucking live, and not merely exist, and seeing the people at university and all round me just existing, essentially wasting their lives on some bullshit diplomas so they can work for other people, never leave their home country (except for the obligatory trip to Majorca every year), and at some point just slowly rot on their couches living off their lousy retirement funds, really makes me sick to my stomach and drains my energy up to a point where merely existing doesn't seem all that bad anymore. Shanghai is just so much different from that, most people there are there to make their dreams come true, to live out the American Dream in its original essence, to truly live and make an impact on the world. Shanghai is where things are happening, Asia generally is, and I don't see any reason to miss out on that. I love writing, I love Shanghai, I love Asia, and I don't see why I should not at least try to tailor my life to suit these passions in a way that I can still make ends meet and live comfortably. Which is why I am seriously contemplating making some money until the end of the academic year, then leaving the rotten village I am currently living in, quitting the studies I don't enjoy anyways, and going to Shanghai on a student visa to just do my thing and try to build an existence doing what I enjoy. And if that doesn't work I can always go back to studying seeing as I have the advantage of being young. I still have a good chunk of my life ahead of me, and I've always lived by the maxim of not ever regretting not having tried something I think could enjoy, so I just need to get off my ass and finally make things happen. No more working to get a diploma, no more learning things I have absolutely no interest in, just hard work to get to my goals, and then enjoying the fruits my labor will hopefully yield. 

But I don't want to bore you with details of my plans for the future any longer. It's getting late, and I have to get up early tomorrow, so I'll just add the music in the morning and post this thing by evening. Few is really left to say, except that I wish all of you reading this a happy New Year, and I really hope that whatever you're trying to do, whatever things it is you set to accomplish, that you succeed at all of it, and that things turn out for the best. Selah.

  
Dilated Peoples - You can't hide, you can't run

 -> This is pure old school right here! Such an epic tune with an awesome beat and the amazing artists of Dilated Peoples filling the track with great, meaningful rap, it's hard not to love it! Plus the beat is such a neck-breaking piece of awesomeness, that, coupled with aforementioned rap, you cannot not listen when this bad boy is played, so...Enjoy!


Marco Polo feat. Masta Ace - Nostalgia

 

-> And here is one more track that is old school as fuck! The legendary Masta Ace together with Marco Polo and a scratched-up sampled beat that underlines the funky awesomeness of this tune simply deliver their message straight to the heart of any real Hip Hop head! And the rhyming is mind-boggling too; "People in the audience, Masta Ace the name/ I write rhymes and insert them inside your vein/ They run through your bloodstream, get inside you brain/ 'Cause I first put my name up inside the train/"! If that's not fucking awesome, I don't know what is, so... Enjoy!

Jack Johnson - Good People  

-> This is just such a true song on so many levels. Firstly, the number of people I would deem 'good' is actually receding, at least here in Central Europe, and that song expresses just that. Secondly, the good people have mostly disappeared from TV and the news, simply because yellow journalism has become the norm, and the tragic stories of murderers and rapists attract a much larger, more easily sensationalized crowd than stories of the good neighbor who helped get kitty down the tree, and so they're the ones that make the newscast. Which is sad. We shouldn't constantly be shown the bad people, because that creates a negative sentiment in the population, and that just sucks. But anyway, this is a really cool song, so... Enjoy!

Warren Zevon - Keep me in your heart for a while

  

-> A beautiful Warren Zevon song right here. This is the kind of timeless music that would fit at any given occasion, ranging from birthday to funeral. Zevon just has that exceptional voice and is in essence a great musician, which makes his songs so amazing! I really, really enjoy this song, it has this strangely positive vibe to it that coupled with the melancholy in the lyrics makes for an interesting ride. Enjoy!

Spag Heddy - Pastanian Express

 

 -&> "THIS IS PASTA", orgasm-inducing drop, melody, more pasta. That's pretty much what this pure bit of Drumstep filth has to offer, and it does not disappoint in the least! This song has an awesome melodic part, coupled with such epic drops and funny, well-used vocals! I really enjoy Spag Heddy's work, and this one is no exception! Awesome tune, great artist! Enjoy!

KDrew - Bullseye 

 

-> Wow! Just wow. This is one of those fucking filthy tracks that you stumble across every few months or so at best! A great melody brought on by those wobbly high-pitched notes, entangled in a maze of amazing bass and drops, fused into four minutes and ten seconds of musical awesomeness and pure energy, propelling those listening to push on and go forward! I fucking love this kind of music, this is why I always include electronic music on here! Epic track, amazing artist... Enjoy!

So, this concludes today's entry, which turned out to be a whole of a lot longer than I had expected it to be, but seeing as I think I have touched on some interesting issues it should still be manageable as readers. Oh, and you have probably seen the changes that I have made to the blog: layout and theme has been altered entirely, and I have decided to embed the actual video for the selection of songs at the end of each post, which I think will be much easier on you guys' eyes, and make the whole page more attractive to potential readers. But the entries will remain the way they always have been, I have no reason to change the way I convey my message on here entirely!

Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed this post, liked today's musical selection, and that there are some things in this entry that you can take away for your own life, you know the deal...

Peace!

Some stones are better left unturned

if you don't want to see their parasite-ridden underside, that is. But isn't that parasitic abscess, normally hidden from the eye, as much part of the stone as its polished, usually visible surface? Why would one not want to know of that aspect? Because it is much easier to tolerate a pretty rock than the rotting remains of one, I suppose. And as long as you can fool yourself into ignoring the ugly mess below the surface, you will be sure that the stone's underside is akin to, if not an exact replica of, the visible part. Which is exactly what's going on in so many forms in our world: ugly truths are flipped so as to make them radiate positively, and the public at large would much rather see and believe the pretty illusion than dig down to the fucked up crux of the matter and see the shit that's really going on.

But I'm not going to get into the aspect of mass-media-manipulation that is inherent to the issues at hand quite yet. I'll start with another aspect, namely the personal auto-deception many of us - including me - are falling victim to, which is in itself just a pathetic little charade our brain is playing with our minds. Let's take myself as an example: these past weeks have been horrible; I stayed up too long, smoked too much, slept too little, and did not eat enough. Yet I, our rather my demented cerebrum, have - has - somewhat managed to press the notion that I am actually feeling and living quite well to the very front of my cerebral lobes, thereby deluding myself - me - to a shudder-inducing degree. Of course I realize that I am just fooling myself - hence this post - but the inevitability of falling in the traps of auto-deceit has come weighing down upon me in the interim leading up to this realization, and that is something I have always striven to avoid: the loss of control, or rather the lack of realization in my thinking. But that might be a rather melodramatic way of portraying things after all. In the end, it's not like deceiving yourself leads to a complete loss of coherent thought. It does however, lead to you essentially misjudging yourself and the things happening to you, which might lead to self-neglect, as it has happened to me. I am just not taking care of myself lately, I feel. Although I am doing sports each and every morning, and have cut down on all chemical psychoactive substances, I know that I could do a lot of things a lot better: I could, for example, start going to classes again; I could eat more and go to bed early, and I could just not smoke any cigarettes. The problem here is that I simply do not feel like it. I don't even see any actual reason to do so, which is weird because I know that there are plenty. Shit, it's like I have this reasonable side that's compelled to drastically alter the way I go about living my life right now, but on the other hand I also have this fuck-you-all-side that tells me to just keep doing what I like until I find something actually productive that I enjoy doing. I'm guessing that neither of those ways is going to make me happy though. It's as always going to be a compromised middle between the both of them that will make for a comfortable ride. But this tangent is not entirely relevant to the topic to be honest. What I was getting to is actually the auto-deceit and its power within human nature: we like thinking that everything is fine, and our brains are stupid enough to produce endorphins as soon as we decide to like something, meaning that deceiving yourself into believing you're feeling fine will eventually make you feel fine, simply because our brains are primitive as fuck when it comes to emotions. Which is in all likelihood also the reason why I'm not enticed to change my way of living right now; I have gotten so used to it that my brain is now producing endorphins where it would have made me aware of misery just a few weeks ago. And that is the actual danger of deceiving yourself: at some point deceit turns into belief and then into conviction, meaning that tricking yourself into feeling a certain way might ultimately result in you actually feeling that way in similar situations from that point on. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it might lead to weird up to downright questionable behavior in some cases.

But enough of this. What I haven't gotten into yet is the aspect of the mass-media, which have degenerated into filthy, smut-ridden, propaganda-spewing, war-instigating, government-controlled, brainwashing little puppets. Facts are being misrepresented, people are being misquoted, one-sided and biased reporting has become the norm, and all just to create a new common enemy, to distract the population from the dying economy, to distract the people from the failure of capitalism, to distract us from the evils of free market and the privatized bank system. And no, I am not a communist although the previous sentences might suggest that to some, I don't like to think in terms of political orientation to be honest, I just like to think logically; and logically speaking, you cannot possibly rationalize the free market capitalism any longer. It has failed. The middle class is essentially gone, the poor are getting poorer, and the rich have isolated themselves with their own schools and their own fenced-off and guarded compounds. And yet politicians are still in favor of not taxing these people more heavily. And yet politicians are still not doing anything about companies taking away public money (taxes) by "smart geographical re-distribution of their returns", ergo taking them to Luxemburg, Cayman Islands, etc. Companies are officially bragging about evading taxes, and nothing is being done about it. That money could have gone into better education, new infrastructure; it could have been used for public needs. But instead, it went into the pockets of those that already have more digits on their bank accounts than words are able to express. Is anyone upset by this? Yes, many people are. Are governments taking serious steps to address this problem? You bet your sweet ass they don't. They're profiting from it too! Oh, and of course there's proof to all of this: you may check the "panama corporate database", and you will see for yourselves, which names are registered there; and for Germany, you can check the annual report of the "Commerzbank", in which they pat themselves on the back for having evaded taxes. Mind you, this bank was saved by German taxpayers' money, and now they're refusing to pay theirs? That is just fucked up. And again, the government is not doing anything about it.
But I drifted off-topic there. The media are turning things around. For example, Russia is made out to be the root of all evil lately. Now of course, Russia is not a great example of a peaceful, non-militarized state, no-one is going to deny that. But still, the US is equally aggressive, and the greatest war instigator of this century, and they're not being criticized as heavily for their actions in the whole Ukraine debacle. Fact of the matter is, the NATO has promised the Russians long ago that they would not expand eastwards, and yet they did. A step that former US Secretary Of Defense Robert McNamara, amongst more than forty former senators, cabinet secretaries and ambassadors, heavily criticized in an open letter to president Clinton. So, naturally, Russia is going to feel threatened and try to extend its sphere of influence as well. And please don't be so naive as to think that 'Russia doesn't have to fear the NATO expansion as long as it behaves', because that is just bullshit. Tell that to the bombed remains of Syria and Algeria. Anyway. I am not condoning Russia's behavior either, but it's not like they're the main aggressor we need to be afraid of. The foreign policies of NATO states have actually revived the dead and buried corpse of the Cold War. People that have lived to see the actual Cold War are reminded of the anti-Russian propaganda from back then when watching the news today. And that already says quite a lot if you ask me. Selah. 

Well, this entry took quite some time to finish once again, but well, as long as it's still November I have managed to keep my promise of posting twice a month, which is something. But I am really eager to write some more in the future, and I hope I will succeed at doing so. Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed this post and that it has shown you some things. I don't want you to rely on anything you read here though, especially not when it comes to political things: do some research and develop your own opinion! Just be sure not to stop your research at the first source you find, and be sure to use sources from both sides, so that you can form your own differentiated opinion on it. 
But enough preaching for today, here's some good music for you:

The Hieroglyphics - You Never Know
-> I've recently rediscovered The Hieroglyphics, and cannot believe how I could not have gotten into them a lot more way earlier! Amazing old-school Hip Hop, awesome beat, great flows, deep message, and just all in all mind-boggling. I love this kind of Hip Hop most, and will probably just stick to that for all songs in this post, so sorry to all non-Hip Hop fans out there! Anyway, great tune, legendary artists, 'nuff said!

Pete Rock & CL Smooth - They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)
-> Another amazing song, I am not sure if I haven't featured it on here before though, if that is the case please let me know!
Anyhow, this track is just so insanely great, the jazzy samples, the raw beat, the inspiring vocals, everything! Enjoy!

The Hieroglyphics feat. Del Tha Funkee Homosapien - At The Helm 
-> Awesome fucking song! Deep message, amazing flows, raw old-school beat; this tune has everything I love about Hip Hop incorporated into its cocoon of greatness! "Rap ain't about bustin caps and fuckin bitches. It's about fluency with rhymin ingenuity"....Enjoy!

The Pharcyde - Drop 
-> Legendary artists, awesome song, and a great video, that was actually shot with them walking backwards and then reversed to make it look they're going forward, hence their "goofy" way of walking as on YouTube commentator put it. Anyhow, amazing track that definitely needed featuring on here, so... Enjoy!

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien - If You Must 
-> "It's important to practice good hygiene, at least if you want to run with my team!" A song about cleaning yourself properly! Funny topic, realized amazingly well by Del, and just all in all a great tune that you'll definitely... Enjoy!

The Pharcyde - Pandemonium
-> From the Street Fighter soundtrack from 1994, as you can see in the video description. Still, this song takes me back, used to love that movie, and the track in itself is also close to perfection, amazing flows, dope beat, and all in all real old-school Hip Hop that I love! Enjoy!

This post turned out to be a bit shorter than I had expected, but well, at least it's appearing within a reasonable time-frame. Plus I have to say that I am quite happy with what I wrote here, and hope that it is as enjoyable for you to read this as it was for me to write it. I'll try to write more regularly in the future, but I've said that so often by now that this promise has somewhat lost its value. So, not minding the redundancy, I hope that his post holds some truths or values for you, that it entices you think a bit, you know the deal.

Peace!