MUSIC

Slippin’


I can’t believe it.

Not a single like on my last post….deep. Is this the end of a love affair?? Is it something I said?

So much craziness going on. I don’t even want to go there. I was reading this post on Reddit about how people found out their significant other was cheating on them. I was tempted to drop the story there but I figured I’d share with you. Before I begin, I have to state that this is just one of a few situations where I was cheated on but this was one of the most damaging.

I met this woman online towards the end of my downward spiraling marriage. Thing is, it wasn’t even something that I even took seriously at the time. We met in a chat room. She was going through some shit with her boyfriend. She had 2 kids by him and he was fucking around with some other chick, not coming home, beating on her..all that. She was very articulate, intelligent and not bad looking. Everyone said she looked like Jennifer Connelly (she did). In the beginning it was just a sharing of the souls kind of thing. She lived in Australia and I was all but divorced living a miserable isolated life. It seemed safe because of the distance. We talked for 2 years before we agreed we needed to meet. Being the one with the means, I booked a trip to Hawaii and had her meet me there. We hit it off immediately, like literally at the airport. The whole thing was surreal. Things just progressed from there. I spent time in Australia and she here. It had gotten so serious that we were trying to work out who would move so we could live together.  There was the whole situation with her kids. Their father was being a dick about letting them coming to the states. He had moved and had gotten married. His new wife was also pregnant. So I’m like, what’s the deal? Let it go. I’m not trying to replace him as their father but I would be responsible for them as if they were my own. Sooo..one trip to Australia, we both decided to get tattoos. It was a first for both of us. I got one on my shoulder and she got one on her lower back..a blue dragon. During that trip, her ex was being extremely dickish and pestering. He kept texting her nonsense. It got so bad that we got into a heated argument over it. I was like why are you even responding to him? The kids were at her mom’s so if he needed any info on them, he should call her.. (red flag). Anyway, we patched things up and I proceeded to find a house for us. When she came here, to check it out, I didn’t see the same enthusiasm that she had all along about our future. I chalked it up to having to face the reality of leaving home for real. It wasn’t until she went home that I found out why. One day I was online looking at her Myspace page and I saw comments from him. So I took a look at his page. In his pictures was a shot of her tattoo..taken from her naked body. I fucking lost it. I confronted her with it and she just confessed and said that they’d slept together. I was devastated. Then came the bomb. She was pregnant. If there are levels of done, I was at the ultimate level of completely and utterly done. That shit hurt but in retrospect, I have to consider myself fortunate that it happened when it did. She could have lied and said the kid was mine (he was Black also). I dodged a nuclear bomb to be honest.

Ok so, as usual I will share some music with you. A new tune and remixes of some older takes

 

 

Hurricane of Bullshit


What’s up people? As always it’s been a minute. I hope this post finds you in good health.

Racism
You know where I’m going today. I try not to be political. Actually, I wouldn’t consider it political..more like a candid observation. Unless you are fortunate and have amnesia or a tumor, you know all about Donald Trump. If you’re a fan, you should probably stop here and get a taco instead. I am not. Never have been. I am from NY. We know him well. If you don’t know anything about his background there, just google the Central Park 5. I have been in a state of total disbelief and angst since the election. Now before you mentally label me, just know that I don’t subscribe to any political party. Political parties suck. I don’t wear labels. I prefer to base my opinions on facts and my own interpretation of them. If you disagree with me, that’s cool. You’re entitled to your wrong opinion. LOL. Seriously though, people immediately get defensive if you identify with a political party they don’t like. Shit’s gotten to the point of religious fervor. People are so brainwashed by propaganda that they can’t think straight anymore. I feel like I’m in some kind of science fiction movie. Regardless of platform, I can’t believe people voted for that clown. My shoe has more sense than he does. Dude is literally the equivalent of a crooked used car salesman with access to the nuclear codes. Scary shit if you ask me. This guy has given motivation to some very fucked up people in our society. Those Nazi bastards are feeling pretty empowered as of late. They’ll still get their asses kicked but nonetheless you don’t want to encourage their brand of hate. I don’t get how you can hate someone you’ve never met that has done nothing to you and treat them fucked up simply because they were birthed on a different spot on this ball of mud or have a different shade of skin. We all know that’s really just low self-esteem showing its ugly head. You can’t give these people any light. They need to stay in the dark..silenced. Stupid only breeds stupid. We’ve been through this before. The end result will be the same.

Houston
Seeing some of the stories out of Houston remind me of how much we take for granted. When you go through your day to day rituals of life, the last thing you think of is what to do if it all came crashing down. I’m sure that so many people have been traumatized by this disaster and are lost as to what to do next. It annoys me to see the politicians looking to score points on the misery of others instead of helping their situation. I’m seeing reports that some are proposing tying disaster aid to Texas to the debt ceiling legislation. It boggles the mind that one could be so callous and indifferent to those poor people who have already suffered enough.
To add insult to insult, you have Joel Osteen, vulture of the religious, not offering people a place to take shelter in that big ass money trap called a church. After the outrage started making headlines, he gets on TV with that shit eating grin and plays victim. The slick bastard appeared in front of a green screen to make it look like he was on site. What gets me is that even though he’s been exposed, after this dies down people will be flocking to him emptying out their life savings. Not to go on another rant but religion is bullshit. Why would a deity that created the entire universe with a thought need you to donate money? What the fuck does a god need money for? The church fosters guilt in its followers just so that it can take advantage of their need for absolution. It is nothing more than manipulation, just like politics.

As we here in the US focus on the disaster in Houston, there are so many other people around the world that are suffering from floods. The effects of climate change are becoming more and more devastating. Big oil is going to make sure that people are mislead and kept in the dark as to their role in the massive loss of life across this planet.

It will only be a matter of time before the lie has nowhere to hide..

A Share
I don’t have any musical offerings today but I have a couple of short videos I put together that I posted on my Instagram feed (@THP_PIX) and hosted on Vimeo

This is a tribute to my dear friend Lira aka Lola the Showgirl. She recently decided to drop from Twitter and IG. Whatever reasons, she is missed and I hope her journey is fruitful:

 

Lira from The Hargett Project on Vimeo.

This is a tribute to Nigerian model Uche Mba. I wanted to do soomething to celebrate women of color that do not get the mainstream exposure they deserve

Uche from The Hargett Project on Vimeo.

In that same spirit, another celebration of beauty

Beauty Is In The I from The Hargett Project on Vimeo.

 

Return of the Merman


You ever feel like everything is fucked up and you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders and then you meet someone who, for a moment, makes you feel like yourself again?

That is the theme behind this song. It is a piece that got its name from a Jimi Hendrix song, 1983 (A Merman I should turn to be).

Feelings can be overpowering and suffocating. You can literally drown in your own mind. It is then that we feel most alone, most vulnerable.

It’s amazing that when you look at it from a distance, it is something that ultimately you have control over.  This piece speaks to a moment when you connect with someone who empowers you to feel joy in the midst of self defeat and take control of your destiny…

The Twilight Zone is real


Let me start this story by explaining that I don’t consider myself to be an attractive person. Average at best but nothing to write home about. What I am about to tell you is going to be hard to believe but every word of it is true.

I think, if memory serves, this started happening to me some decades ago. I was a much better looking guy then, so it didn’t really seem is odd then as it does now. I can remember the very first day that I knew something weird was happening with me. I knew a lot of women just from DJing and hanging out in clubs. Everybody wanted to meet the DJ. So when I would be approached by a random women, I thought that was all there was to it. One night I was going to a club in Brooklyn with a friend of mine. As we walked into the crowd, this woman approached me as soon as I got in the door. She comes to me and she says, you’re the kind of man that I’m looking for. I was taken aback for a second. I was thinking that she was drunk, so I let it slide. Let me emphasize that we had just walked in the club and I had gone maybe 10 feet inside before this happened. She had not seen me until the very first time she opened her mouth. She started pulling on me saying come and dance with me. I said to her, give me a minute I just walked in and I’d  like to have a drink first if you don’t mind. Her response was I’ll be waiting for you over here hurry up. So I pivoted and headed towards the bar thinking okay this is crazy, but considered it over because I was not going back. I ordered  a drink for me and my friend. As soon as I got my glass, I felt someone pulling on my jacket. It was her. She said, are you ready now? So now I’m a little annoyed but rather than be rude I decided to dance with her for at least a song thinking she would leave me alone after. We get out on the dance floor and she starts singing to me how much she loves me. Total time from entry, maybe 15 minutes. She tried to kiss me and was very handsy. She turned her back to me while she was dancing and I walked off the dance floor. My friends ex-wife was there so I went over to talk to her to keep this woman away from me. I told her to pretend that we were together and maybe she would leave me alone. It worked but it took some doing. 

That was the first incident.

The next time I was in a club with coworkers. We had gone there for someone’s birthday. Again, I just walked into the club and over to the bar to get a drink. There was a really attractive Hispanic woman sitting there.  She had on this nice leather skirt with legs to die for. As I ordered my drink, our eyes met, and she said to me, do you think I have nice legs? I replied, was I that obvious? Yes you were, she replied. My husband doesn’t think so. He’s upset with me because I don’t have any stockings on. We had a fight so I came here. She went on to explain that they were at some restaurant and she left him there and she was there by herself. My drink arrived. I took one sip and she leaned over to me and said, take me home. I thought I was hearing things because the music was kind of loud, so I asked her what she just said. She repeated, I want you to take me home. Total time in the club maybe 30 minutes. Let me emphasize this fact, she was smoking hot. So of course me being me of those days, my mind started thinking I need to take advantage of this. I still had my jacket on and she wanted to get her coat and meet me by the door. I had to explain to my friends that I was leaving, wish the person happy birthday and we went downstairs and caught a cab. As this scenario started to unfold, my other brain started kicking in. I was saying to myself this is crazy. This can’t be happening. What if her husband is home? What am I doing? So I asked her if it was safe and she assured me that everything was OK. He can’t disturb us because I have his fucking keys. She rolled down the cab window and threw them out in the street. Total time from club maybe 45 minutes? When we got to her apartment building, the complete insanity of this whole situation really started soaking in. I started to get cold feet. I asked her if she was sure that this was a good idea to which she replied, don’t you want to fuck me? Am I not fuckable? I want to feel like a woman tonight goddamnit. Is that too much to ask? The gauntlet has been thrown, I thought to myself. I can’t punk out now. The respect of all manhood is on the table. 

When we entered her apartment she walked over to the bed, lay down with her clothes on and passed out. So, here I am in a strange woman’s apartment that I did not even know and she’s unconscious on the bed, not to mention that her husband was probably going to be really pissed if he were somehow able to get into the building and upstairs. I felt like the universe was testing me.  I stood there for maybe a minute, took off her shoes and then left the apartment. I never saw her again. 

Fast forward to now. 

Against my better judgment, on New Year’s eve eve, I went to this bar I’d been to a few times. I ran into this woman I’d talked to before. I felt safe because she had always been good company. As I was talking to her I noticed this woman standing behind her that was checking me out. The really weird thing about it was that we were having a conversation about the last time she saw me there. She said she wanted to say hi but I had all these women around me. I literally said the words to her “you know what happens when I coming in here for some reason I get molested” and right on cue the woman behind her made her move. She said, excuse me I don’t want to interrupt but I was admiring your ring. She takes my hand and introduces herself and kissed it. I felt like I was in an episode of the twilight zone. This could not be happening but it was. My friend was giving her the dagger eyes but she was not really protesting because we were just friends. I felt like it was way crazy for her to make that move, especially not knowing who I was talking to. Not to mention that she was smoking hot. No one seeing this would believe that I hadn’t slept with this woman in the past. And here I am straining to hear her name over the blaring music and the crowd noise. I said thank you and tried to recover but my friend, being a little put off, decided to excuse herself, leaving me with this firebomb. She had a very thick Dominican accent. I could barely make out pieces of what she was saying. All I know is that she had a child and she was interested..extremely interested. Odd as this may sound, I was completely turned off. I don’t mind a woman being aggressive but not rude. Secondly she went for boy on the sly. I know this is gonna sound like I’m a prude but I don’t like being felt up if I don’t know you or gave the signal that it’s okay. It makes me feel objectified. I don’t like being treated like an object. I know a lot of women believe that all men follow their dicks like compass needles, but that’s not always the case. 

I know what happens to me isn’t common and I can hardly believe it’s happening myself. I had a conversation about this with a friend of mine sometime ago and she told me it was due to my pheromones. I don’t know if I should believe that or not but it’s the only plausible answer I can think of.  It’s kind a messed up because it interferes with meaningful relationships. Women don’t trust that I’m telling the truth. They think I’m some sort of man-whore. I get it but it’s unfortunate. Like I said before I don’t consider myself an attractive person. At one time in my life I felt completely hideous and wished that women found me attractive. I guess we should all be careful what we wish for.

Recap of the recap


LOL. This title because it reminds me of someone I work with that excessively paranoid about what we are expected to say in future meetings. He feels we need to have prep meetings for meetings then recaps of meetings, hence a recap of the recap.

It’s been a while since my last post. I think maybe I’ll stop saying that because that tends to be the case most of the time. So, what’s going on? Since my last post I have completely abandoned my efforts to maintain a vegetarian lifestyle. As expected, the results have not been good. I’ve put on weight again and I feel like shit. This is compounded by the fact that I fell in the shower a few weeks ago and busted my ass. My back is destroyed. I can’t walk longer than 10 minutes at a time without having to sit down. I am working on this it’s not going as smoothly as I would have anticipated. For exercise, i’ve been taking daily walks in the park which brings me too my current situation. I took a few days off from work and I’ve been spending some of that time just relaxing and enjoying being home. Right now I am in Princeton sitting in front of Schiede Caldwell House (don’t ask), people watching. It’s a fairly overcast day. It looks like it may rain but apparently there’s no rain in the forecast. It being early fall I came down here to see if I could get some pictures. There are some really beautiful side streets that have canopies of trees over them. It’s a little early so I have to come back later.

I have a few things that I want to get off my chest as it may be. The first of which has to do with politics. My political position would be labeled as liberal I guess. I don’t do groups. I feel for any given problem you need to attack it based on independent non-biased thought, not an agenda formed by other peoples opinions. I don’t like labels because no one remains the same from day today and it’s illogical to form summary opinions about people.

My issue is with Donald Trump. Not the fact that he represents a given political view, it is because I don’t even think he should be in the conversation. He’s completely unqualified. You don’t have to go far to find any number of reasons why that is the case. I’m from New York originally , so I’m familiar with his bullshit whereas as people cross the country may only know him by name and the Trump brand. That guy is such a loser. I’m not saying this because of his political affiliation, I’m saying it because it’s true. The sad thing is that people are allowing that group mentality to override their sense of logic. What’s weird is that at the beginning of the campaigns, no one took him seriously, not even his own party, but as time passed, that slowly became irrelevant. I may have serious disagreements with some of the other candidates, but I would consider most of them more competent to be a president than this guy (except for Michelle Bachmann..she’s a bona fide nut case). It seems to me also that the Republican Party is attracting a lot of nut jobs. That’s got nothing to do with their political views, it’s just an observation. Some of their opinions are not based on reality or logic.

In any case, the recent release of audio tapes in which Mr. Trump is having a conversation about fondling women in which she describes it as the locker room talk is blowing my mind. Not necessarily that he has said these things, but the fact that people are so brainwashed by political ideology that they’re willing to look the other way.  Truth: Men discuss how they are attracted to women. They may even have conversations about their physical features, but insinuating that because of your notoriety, you can physically abuse them without consequence and bragging about it, is a whole ‘nother ball of wax. People are making it out to be harmless guy talk. That’s not even the case. There’s guy talk and there is a sexual predator talk and I feel that is exactly what was going on. Since the release of that audio other women have come forward. Of course, they are going to be subject to skepticism because of the timing. It’s unfortunate on many fronts because it takes away from the focus that needs to be on the issues facing our country and the direction we want to take it. It’s unsettling that people are willing to look the other way simply because they are trying to win an election.

Kap

As you may know, Colin Kaepernick, a QB for the San Francisco 49ers,  is staging an ongoing silent protest by kneeling when the national anthem is played before each game. He is protesting the unfair treatment of Blacks by the police across this country.The problem is that people have a strong objection to his tactic and are extremely vocal about it but no one is focusing on the reason for the protest. Some of that is by ignorance but some of that is by design. By design I mean there is a concerted effort to suppress awareness and tame reaction to the brutality being inflicted on people of color across America. Instead the focus is placed on Colin and labeled disrespectful or unpatriotic. I thought America stood for freedom of expression but I guess that right doesn’t extend to people of color. I have yet to see the people that have an issue with the protest address the topic of police brutality for what it is. In other circles the whole idea of protesting against the police is colored as no respect for the law. Protesting police brutality is the very definition of support for the law.

In other news

I have been trying out new DAWs to replace Sony Acid Pro. I’ve had limited success. Either they were too complicated, ugly or just not as intuitive so for now I’m back.

I put together a few tracks that I hope you will enjoy

The lyrics of this song came from a conversation I was having with a friend that said Dennis Edwards voice reminded them of me. (massive compliment thank you). As always, this track is a tribute to artists that are very influential to my life…Jimi Hendrix and Herbie Hancock.

The doppelgänger effect


It happened again tonight.

I went to a bar and the bartender says to me, “Hi, how have you been? Every time I see you you’re losing weight.” The only problem is I’ve never met her before. I can’t tell you how weird it is to have this constantly happening to me. It’s almost as if I’m in a dream. I guess I should be honored that she thinks I look good.

Something I put together for my electronica followers. I hope you enjoy

Release Yourself