I have written this post as a not-so-gentle reminder to myself and others that the War we are fighting in Iraq is NOT entertainment. Nor should it be seen merely as fodder for right wing or left wing commentary on YouTube or Myspace or even here. The war is not a movie.

It isn't a Fox show. It isn't going to win a Grammy, or an Oscar for best portrayal of a marine killing innocent people in the streets of Baghdad.

The war will be an ugly mar on the face of an already scarred nation. Sometimes I find myself glued to these films because in all of my time on this earth, I have never witnessed anything so utterly visceral and real. And yet, I read comments from people who see these horrible images as a form of entertainment! It isn't. War is a crime of humanity. A shameful thing.

These are real people dying. These are real people killing other people.
Have you learned to see this difference? Has it sunk in fully yet?

We live in a bubble, sitting here in front of a screen. We can change it when we please, pimp it up with happy colors and bands we like, make all the lists about what was the best or the worst... And post videos for and against the war and think we are doing our part. We're not. Stopping this is doing our part.

The intent to find new solutions to this challenge is a start. But action must surely be taken to help, no? Simply staring at our screens won't do. The screens replay what has already happened. There is much happening as we watch, as we read, as we post.

The biggest lie ever told to us was that of separation. We are not separate. We are all connected. And every time someone is killed violently, cruelly and tortured... That horror filters itself down to us...

The soul of the world must surely be crying... This is not why we are here.

-- Claude

Blog. Wow. I have really not kept up with this blog on this page, huh? What can I say except this... I have about 40 blogs!!!! I wish I only had one that would post to all of them. And then people will say, why so many?

I love all the sites I'm a member of, and I try to keep up with all of them as much as I am able. Uploads, pics and such is easy... But blogging? I once sat for several hours copying and pasting into my blogs. Sucks.

So I got a wordpress blog and that's all I can say.

-- Me

Wow. I have been away from this page for a while. I have so many blogs it is rather difficult to keep up. I'm trying to make my wordpresss blog 'the one'., but I guess I have to post otherwise people think I've died...

I have not died. My other band, Anything Box, has just done what is the most important single of our collective history, and that has kept me rather busy to even think about much else. I'm not complaining... But sometimes I wonder if this album should have been done as Anything Box...

I will try to keep up with this thing. My personal page is proboably worse!

Here's what the cover looks like BTW.



-- Claude

So March was the last blog I wrote. Wow. So much has happened. I'm not sure of what to say at all, which is why I've probably kept quite to my other self lately.

There are two Claudes. One is The Diary, which is somehow smaller, angrier and self involved more than I'd imagined, but he is also the one who lives and breathes to kick my ass when the other Claude, the Abox Claude, gets to be too much.

But the question is simple, who is the real Claude? Do I really know at all?

The question I'm asked all the time is whether The Diary will ever tour. The answer is... No. It wasn't meant to. Or maybe I don't know how to handle the job of it. Abox is hard enough and it is all electronics (mostly).

I sometimes have this little fantasy that there is a band rehearsing the songs, ready for me. One day, they come up to me and say... "Hello Lad. We're your band. We know the songs inside out. Now let's get you off your ass and play them..."

That's when I'll tour on this.

Such a lonely existence to be sitting here in the middle of the night contemplating this shit. But a smile, an evil one, does escape my lips. You see, it is impossible for me to fail. I don't believe in it. Failure is never an option. Why? Because the world is built from it, it is the staus quo of living. And that's not fucking me. I live and breathe on my own terms. The rest of the world can fuck off.

I'm still smiling. And I don't mind writing that who ever reads this is cool to smile along with me. There's not a fucking thing wrong with smiling. That's the real Claude talking.

-- C --

I had to take a break from all this for a bit to refocus on the goals, rehearse with Anything Box, and continue my process of moving forward and backwards through time. I'm having fun, and tonight was a day of rest, and tommorrow the work on the film continues.

The Diary lives!

 

Well. I'm back from Chicago with the A-Box crew, and it was sooo much fun I forgot myself for a bit. And there are other strange things that I won't say. Just because I'm freaky that way. All in all a good time, although I wish we had played longer.

The movie is going well. Since I'm able to traverse the folds of time by watching these films of my other group, it has been a very strange experience for me. I can't help it, my gothiness is creeping up on me. I keep thinking that when I die, all these little bits of me will be floating throughout the time continuum, and people will think they know me, and I'll be dead, under the dirt, lifeless, a mere figment of what was once a living being, and yet I'll be floating, catching a glimpse here and there of my self, so funny, and free, in those films... And I'll imerse myself in them, and you will be watching, and for a moment you will think the screen flickered and you saw a twinkle in my eye. And yeah, that will be me. Immortal.

You know when you break out all the photo albums of your friends and you hang out talking with them about the pictures? What? You've never done that? Shame on you!

Well if that's the way you're going to act, hmph!

:)

Back in November, I started a new project, and from my absence on these pages, you know I've been away. Wow. I'm so into this Abox movie that I'm a bit taken over. The work is going well. I now have about 20 songs logged in, and the whole thing will be about 2 hours long, plus extras. This is such a big job.

Why do I do this to myself? No wonder I have no social life. Thank God for Myspace. At least I feel like it's a trip to the downtown coffee place, you know?

Well, back to work for me.

 

Love,

Claude 

Tonight I'm taking a break, sort of. For the last two days I've been working on restoring old Abox videos. The 45 video is one of my favorites, having been shot in the dessert with a full crew, 35mm film, and all the props I hand-built... Although the spiral thing was rather cheesy.

But the Every Single Day video was a true challenge, because although fans like it, and people ask for it often, it is my least liked video. I cringe when I watch it. Silly, cheesy, juvenile...

But as I worked on it, I somehow came to appreciate it more. I guess the reason is that it represents my youth, in its innocent trappings of being naive, and it made me feel good in the end. I watched it with a sense of wonder. It was as if through it I could time-travel, and having that opportunity is a blessing, perhaps a curse, I don't know really...

The album seems to be doing good, and I'm happy about this. The support I'm getting is awesome, so I will keep pushing myself to do more. Paul wants to shoot another video. I think we should do a song off of Universe.

I have Monsters stuck in my head. You would think it wouldn't happen to me but there it is...

:)

I read this stiory, and got really mixed emotions about this. On the one hand, it is really nice that of the 2000 videos chosen on the first days of the release of the video iPod, "Living In Oblivion" was one of them.

Seriously, is that cool or what? I'm pretty happy about it, actually.

On the otherhand, it is an old video, and I look like a cross between Robert Smith and Edward Scissorhands...

It was the time. I had fun doing it actually, and the amount of emails I've been getting is amazing!

Been getting great responses from people about the video, and since most of you have not been on the Abox forum Check it out... 

The Un-Making of The Ravine

Before we set off for Germany back in 1991, I got some interest in film, so I bought 10 rolls of Super 8mm film, and was going to put my cheap Camera to some use... Getting tour footage...

That didn't happen... Paul left...

I wound up packing the camera and film on to Germany, the idea was to document the trip, maybe shoot footage for a video to one of the songs...

The dreariness of Berlin, and the lack of People in the streets was so depressing, or I was so depressed that I seemed more to point at buildings rather than us. In fact, I'm in the film very little.

The smoking buildings, animating the image we used for the cover and interior of the "Worth" album is indeed a look outside the kitchen of our studio. The candles were in the vocal booth when we were doing, "Everybody Has A Wish"... The only footage of the studio I have at all is that shot, really...

I had to twist Dania's arm (sometimes) into being fimed, because she thought the whole thing was silly to begin with. But when she did get the camera on her, she was a natural. There's a part in the video where it seems she's cracking up... That's because I fell flat on the ground chasing her with the camera right before that scene...

I guess we like running through columns. :)
It reminds me of "Yellow Submarine"...

So let me clear up a few things...

1. It's not a B&W "effect". It's just film. Beautiful, untainted film. The only effect I applied was the fuzzy rounded edges, and some contrast, and that's it. Isn't film wonderful?

That film sat unprocessed for almost 4 years, then, once it was on reels, sat in my closet for another 10 or so... The "age" process is real. It was meant to be this way. At least I would like to think so.


2. They were just 501 jeans, and too long, so I rolled them up. There was no one to fix them for me, and I can't sew worth a damn. :) Don't call them "Hammer Pants". :( 


Claude

ps, Sitting here next to me on my left as I type this are...

A green robot and my Technicolor 8 Camera, with some fresh batteries...

And to my right 3 rolls of unused B&W movie film...