The pandemic of 2020 brought forth a wide array of unanticipated emotions for me, my friends, and my family. In April and May, as the reality set in that this was going to be a long haul, I wrote a batch of songs to capture some of the fears and frustrations precipitated by this new normal, but with some humor. 

My go-to genre for this project is punk because this artform allows for gross exaggeration — I can push each theme to its extreme. 

Safe Distance

Way back when you really broke my heart
You had that technique down to an art
So now for the sake of my mental health
I plan to remain completely in stealth

Here in these pandemic times
There’s another reason to draw the line
If you get too close to me
I’m gonna call the governor, can’t you see

So now there’s reasons one and two
For me to stay away from you
And it’s as simple as it can be
Just keep a safe distance from me

Don’t know why you’re coming around again
Since you ran off with my best friend
You really put me in my place
Now I want you out of my personal space

My therapist said “don’t analyze her
Just use a stronger sanitizer,
Gloves and bleach are not enough,
You really gonna need some toxic stuff”

So now there’s reasons one and two
For me to stay away from you
And it’s as simple as it can be
Just keep a safe distance from me

If you cross my border
I’ll get a restraining order

I could list many reasons more
But I don’t want to be a bore
6 feet away is the minimum
Cuz you belong in the sanitarium

So now there’s reasons one and two
For me to stay away from you
And it’s as simple as it can be
Just keep a safe distance from me

Karl Meyer is a musician and songwriter based in Chicago. Karl has pioneered the “Punk for Adults” genre. For more information on Karl check him out on Bandcamp.

The post No Mask No Music appeared first on Pandemic Magazine.

That godly chord that strikes my ear,
Pounds me down to beastly state:
A punch or blow that meets no fear,
That sends me through a holy gate.

My eyes drown, my hairs erect:
A scale of notes can madden – paralyze!
Yet, music-shock means to resurrect,
To lift off and hear God or Nature’s cries.

Happiness, joy, excitement: words insufficient
To describe the beautifully invasive mania.
Description: to do justice insufficient
To the perplexity of clarity: experienced contradiction.

A mental ascension? A bodily hijack?
Chopin’s ballade is psycho-physical kidnap:
Is it accurate to distinguish body and mind?!
Not when music strikes – when I yield to the sublime.

The post That Godly Chord That Strikes My Ear appeared first on Pandemic Magazine.

Infinite possibilities.”

The post The Universe is Creating God appeared first on Pandemic Magazine.

I think Lance Armstrong deserves to keep his trophies.  

As a self-aggrandizing non-sports guy, it’s possible that I just don’t get it. The only conceivable justification I find is that, perhaps, he had an unfair advantage on account of his testicles. Specifically, how the void in place of his testicles may have made the ride a little smoother, on account of the bicycle seat’s continual insistence on being unendurably uncomfortable.

Moving away, momentarily, from the subject matter of balls and bicycles, I really do believe that Lance Armstrong earned his Tour de France wins.

The competition is straightforward: We’ve got a really long road here, and we’d love to know who can do the spinny thing with their legs the quickest to get to the end first. I may not be a sportsman, but the simplicity is elegant, also in its conclusion. Lance is the one who did the spinny thing with his legs the best.

Yeah, sure, he took performance-enhancing drugs, but most of the other riders did too. This only speaks to how widespread the issue is. So let’s be real here. When should a person’s achievement be disregarded because they enhanced their performance in some way? We decided that the line should be drawn before steroids, but after protein shakes.

Lance took his drugs and that’s one reason he won the Tour de France. But the guy that came second couldn’t have done it without the bowl of muesli he had that morning. I fully expect his tearful apology on Oprah to follow shortly.

What if the same arbitrary rules, so casually demarcating what constitutes real human achievement, were applied beyond sports?

Photo by Ryan Loughlin

While researching this article I came across a rather incredible piece of journalism by one of Duke University’s music professors Carl Schimmel on doping in the music industry. The article contained outlandish claims about the use of a drug called ‘ÜBERnunu’ by famed musicians, a rank including Schoenberg and John Cage. These composers have been using ÜBERnunu to stimulate their orbitofrontal lobe, giving them an incredible advantage in their composition abilities. As societal pressures rose around these figures they were forced to drop the drug and it quickly disappeared from the medicine cabinets of talented musicians worldwide.

Now to clarify, the article is a satire. Nu-nu is a reasonably obscure drug from the Amazon and its relation to John Cage is one that can only be found in this lone article. What’s clearly the issue here is that this so-called professor-cum-journalist wrote without the necessary eye-winking candour that typically comes hand in hand with a satirical piece. The mini-bio at the bottom of the page boasting of Schimmel’s Yale-based education only serves to add gravitas to any wild statements he made previously. The tell, for those reading the article is one dime of a sentence, which I’ll quote:

“Authorities have discovered that some users have been unwittingly buying nunu that has been cut with dangerous fillers such as powdered bleach, rat poison, and French postmodernism.”

In a long article, this comes as a schism in the unique process of reading a piece of genuinely brilliant journalism. That nunu may be being cut with both rat poison and Derrida’s Writing and Difference, is both, (1) a dear worry to any frontal lobe’s health, and (2) effectively a train in wall scenario for the perception of the article as a great bit of journalism. Now it’s left in tatters as either eloquent satire or shoddy fiction at best.

But the experience of reading it was real. I had a great time finding out that Cage was an ÜBERnunu fiend and that this was the secret to his success. Cage wrote great music regardless of his drug habits. John Lennon created stunning art in the midst of a decade-long acid binge. Many great names produced brilliant work on drugs including Huxley, Bowie, Lou Reed and so on.

We value many artists for their ability to share an intimate part of their humanity with us. Yet much of the time they’re in an affected mental state.

Artists have always had their achievements credited to them regardless of their conscious cognizance, why not extend the same courtesy to those expressing themselves with their bodies and physical prowess?

This leads me to a few conclusions, truth is old-hat, participation is 80% of success, and Lance Armstrong deserves his medals back.

He lost his balls for Christ’s sake!

The post Doping Music appeared first on Pandemic Magazine.