DRY BONES

The second to last song on the recording, before the inevitable end, is Dry Bones, the culmination of the entire Politics As Usual project. It is a song of self-reflection and the harshest accusations on the project that ultimately realizes and acknowledges my own part in the process.

Unlike the Arthurian self-monarchy of Monsters, Monkeys and Demons, Dry Bones knows that making the self the be-all and end-all only ends in self destruction and ultimately the destruction of society itself. The result of self worship is Machiavellian and not Plato's Republic. The duality of Hotel California becomes more entrapping. More Homogenized.

More waiting for the world to change, or waiting to be rescued from it. Home? Maybe. But a broken one. One where we "turn our eyes from the victimized" and hide behind the illusions we've created, passing the crossroads which may lead to something better in favor of the familiar. Trading provision of our needs for captivity. Disconnected by technology. The royal self is crashing and who can it turn to other than itself? We are, after all, in control.

THIS is what it means to have an existential crisis. NOT how it is thrown about in the media and social media.

Hotel California said "There's a downward spiral we've been riding on, what's gone around's come back around." Dry Bones repeats the sentiment: "Right where I began's come back around." How have we ended up here again? Is "darkness on the fringe casting shadows in the fading light?" The worship of self has left us looking like Picasso versions of our better selves. It's us, all right, but with misplaced, fractured forms that take focus out of view.

It seems that we are content to continue navigating the mazes of life without a rudder, as in the song Crash. We are haunted by Monsters, Monkeys and Demons that we can no longer outrun because we are not in a maze, but a labyrinth that always leads back to the self: Until we come to the place where we decide to purposefully abandon our claim upon our own lives. When we do, the world begins to look like Monet rather than Picasso, "And stepping back the distance brings the focus into view."

"The paint has dried out on my palette, all shades of blue, l've tried in vain to paint myself. The easel holds a finished canvas in muted hues. My self-portrait's someone else."

It's time to flip Kohlberg's moral reasoning upright. Others above self. "There won't be life for these dry bones until I run the sword back in the stone."