MELT IT DOWN: CONFRONTING OUR ECOLOGICAL CRISIS.

Mark and Eric explore the creative process behind writing poetry about ecological disasters and the prophetic role of artists in identifying problems before they become mainstream knowledge.

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Transcript

Introduction to Text and Rock Show

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to the Text and Rock Show. Ancient Story Better Tomorrow.

Morning Poems vs. Mid-day Inspirations

Speaker 2 0:04

Let's begin okay, so, uh, yeah, I thought we'd continue our theme of, uh, the necessity of systemic overturn and the cluster bomb that is the modern world and ecological disaster, because we're here to make you happy what um, no, I have a.

Speaker 2 0:45

I have a sweet poem I wrote, called uh melt it down and sometimes, uh, okay, so sometimes, well, actually every day I sit down at my laptop and I write two poems in the morning, right, and it's just like a habit. Other times I'm just somewhere and it's there. It's like a vision or a dream, like I know exactly what I need to say and it will usually just be one or two lines and I'll just like go to work. So I was at forgot what triggered it, but all of a sudden I had like all of a sudden I had like a line of this thing. Yeah, I was like huh, and I just ripped it off, like with a pen on in a notepad and it showed up.

Speaker 2 1:40

It showed up in DeLorean like a year later, awesome, awesome, which is wild, like you know. It's just. That's the process, yeah, sometimes you like I'll say one more thing about that, just because I know a lot of people that actually track our stuff are artists Like we kind of draw people like ourselves and sometimes people that can't think out the box kind of leave and they're like, wait, put me back in.

Speaker 2 2:08

So they go somewhere else but I've noticed when I sit down in the morning I tend to write wisdom, like my poems are more um, hey, life's hard, but this is how it can be a little better, this is how you live with virtue. These are the disciplines you can have that make life better, and I think in some ways I'm like journaling my way towards just being a better person. When I'm like in my going, like, and I get like a clip or a line, that's when I'll just write a face melter, yeah, yeah, like you know, melter, yeah, like yeah, like uh, you know yeah, yeah yeah, or if I have something to say about just how bad it is and just how little anyone's doing about it.

Prophetic Poetry and Artistic Perception

Speaker 2 2:53

It'll happen, like just in the process of my day, like almost I bet almost 90 of poems about of poems about ecology and the like.

Speaker 1 3:11

Serious problems we have coming. Uh, start in the middle of the day, just somewhere. Start with a frustration, yeah.

Speaker 2 3:14

So, yeah, it's a good habit, though, uh, to get those things out, not keep them in, and shut them down.

Speaker 3 3:19

Yeah, also can I ask you a question and then make a comment?

Speaker 2 3:23

yeah, yeah, of course.

Speaker 3 3:25

I know that one, I don't know how long ago. But you said you know this isn't very good, but I had to write it to get it out right. Oh, yeah, yeah, something will be. I'll feel that way and then come back to it a year or two later and it and it now is hitting on something are you finding?

Speaker 2 3:52

that with this, the seed is. The seed is there, but you weren't ready to execute it yet. Yeah, so it's like you, um, the, the kernel, or the idea was there but it wasn't ready to come out it's like beautiful. Yeah, Um, think of it this way. There there were a whole bunch of stories in the thought bank, but it wasn't ready to be like a masterpiece yet, but the kernel of the idea was there, you know.

Speaker 3 4:20

Oh, actually what I'm saying is that you write it and it's not really hitting on what, maybe what's happening in society, but a year or two later, you're ahead of the curve. Well, I don't know if that happens accidentally or if life is just crazy enough that if you just keep writing crazy stuff, it doesn't surprise me.

Speaker 2 4:44

It doesn't surprise me. Okay, it doesn't surprise me about you at all because you actually you're so gentle, you love to laugh, you treat people so well, but you're a bit of a prophet. Like you're angry at the right things.

Speaker 1 4:57

Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 4:58

Yeah, like a prophet. In biblical literature. People think of prophets as future tellers and that is just not the case, hardly ever. And when they write about what will come to pass, it's actually usually a literary art of writing an apocalypse, and then people later try to interpret it back through them.

Speaker 3 5:18

Try to interpret it, yeah, and to be honest.

Speaker 2 5:20

they're wrong lots of times, but the true act of an old testament prophet is actually to call the people back to what they've lost, like you. Like you were called to be set apart and live a certain way in the world, and you've gone so far from it, and I'm here to tell you that yeah, so like you have a healthy dose of that ain't right.

Speaker 3 5:50

Yeah, yeah. So it's not surprising to me that, like you're ahead of the curve of society.

Speaker 2 5:56

And then I also think that so often artists perceive something and then later we discover it. We discover it in science. Like think of like Salvador Dali, bending time and his paintings.

Speaker 3 6:09

Oh right, and then along comes time space theory.

Speaker 2 6:13

And they're like uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah, but it's later, and it's like the artist had the perception they were chasing something. Sometimes they don't even know.

Speaker 2 6:25

They don't even know what they don't know, actually I was like sitting with a friend, uh, maybe a week ago, and he asked me so do you have like faith in god? Are you a nihilist? Or or like where, where are you? Because sometimes you seem to be very devout and other times you seem to be very doubtful. And I was like yes, exactly. And he's like, what do you mean? And I was like actually you can believe something in one half of your brain and not believe it in the other half of your brain.

Speaker 2 6:55

It's way more complex than that, and I think that the truest thing is that I'm chasing something. I see this beautiful thing being named across the ribbon of time in this vast body of literature and I'm chasing it.

Speaker 3 7:11

Yeah.

Speaker 2 7:12

And I don't know how to name it always but I'm obsessed with giving it a name right right, so this poem, uh, is actually the one I talked about last episode that I ripped off on a notebook at moco hot dog bar. Yeah, we just went in another direction with our discussion, so I just switched the poem, so you switch right.

Speaker 3 7:29

right, yeah.

Speaker 2 7:30

Right, but this one, this one is about yeah, this one takes less explanation.

"Melt it Down" Poem Reading

Speaker 3 7:36

Yeah.

Speaker 2 7:37

Yep, it's called Melt it Down. It goes like this 14 karat plastic and an ecosystem treated as elastic, stretched to its limit, unceasingly looted. We have entire systems that need to be rebooted. Far as the eye can see, no hope for your family. This consumption assumption is blurring Our ability to see how prizing profit is stirring mud, black oil and excess heat into the planetary popcorn, undermining Goldilocks condition movie night.

Speaker 2 8:11

Well, it's a horror film where you say I'll be right back, but your grandson is yelling don't go in there. We are all just wishing for more days under the sun. But the Jason Voorhees you have to unmask and face is that no one is coming to save this place. If you deem yourself an evolutionary human, then the Industrial Revolution put us all in a cage. And if you consider yourself God help you a theologian, my suspicion is that your God put this one in your hands and so damn the man. On the deepest level, you can go up the mountain and climb back down, but you have no idea how to run this town and the steel, titanium infrastructure and shiny things. You need to melt it down and elect philosopher Kings. Do I need to explain that one?

Speaker 3 9:13

I will sure let's jump, yeah I will a little bit.

Dissecting Consumerism and Ecological Crisis

Speaker 2 9:17

Um, this poem reminds me of a trip to like target, where you go in and you're like half of this stuff should never have been made, it's not necessary for human life and thriving. And how much oil and water and resources went into producing this crap. Right, and so we're producing uh, 14 karat plastic.

Speaker 2 9:37

Like the image is a gold chain actually made of plastic it's actually cheap, and we're treating our ecosystem as elastic, like it can be stretched and stretched, and stretched, and what it can produce, when scientists think that we would need seven Earths to keep up with the consumption habits of the modern world. Yeah, wow, surprise. And so we have to rethink what it looks like to live a meaningful life and we have to detach it from things.

Speaker 2 10:11

We have to detach our identities from what we're wearing and what we're driving and how many rooms are in our house. And we actually have to reboot, like what is the value of human life? Because I wrote, far as the eye can see, there's no hope for your family. Because we're stirring my black oil and excess heat into the planetary popcorn, like I think we said it an episode or so ago. Like our disaster really is ecological more than anything else. Right, and so every four years we get riled up to vote over two figureheads over how we're going to spend money, and almost every time the deciding factor is economic. Who do we think will actually make us more secure financially? I don't think it's even that people want to be wealthy. I think it's that they don't want to be afraid of their monthly budget. But what's not being asked are the bigger questions about how can we set up human thriving if we really started from zero and planned out a kind of world where everyone belongs and everyone has what they need. Uh, but unbelievable excess is just not a thing we do right. It can't be right.

Speaker 2 11:29

Um, scientists also believe there's enough food and water to provide for a human population around nine or ten billion people. But we we have to really redistribute that in a way that makes sense. Right now almost all of our systems in the west uh are set up in such a way that a few people on top own the vast majority of them. The masses underneath like kind of struggle to make it Right. So I think I misquoted something astronomically wrong a while ago. But it's like the top one percent take 45 percent of the resources in the world, like of the gdp, and everyone else scraps for. The remaining 55 um in the bottom billion have like nothing. So I mean the.

Speaker 2 12:27

The way our systems have distributed resources is not only cruel but it's not sustainable for the vitality of our planet and we know it, we just do, and so, yeah, then I give a few metaphors for it, and I talk about the fundamental problem being that the industrial age was great for alleviating human suffering and providing things that people needed to more people, but it also put us in a cage because of what it fundamentally did to our environment, and so we not only need systemic change, but we need scientific advancement to produce things cleanly.

Speaker 2 13:11

The good news is that the market does that a little bit. We are getting there. It's becoming more profitable to make things cleanly than it is to, you know, crop, top a mountain and and burn coal for the stuff we're consuming. So I mean it's, it's getting more feasible, it's not impossible. Um, yeah.

Speaker 2 13:35

And then I go after one of the most frustrating things to me about, uh, the way we've held christianity in the west as viewing history as something that will ultimately be ending and overturned and everything will be made right, as opposed to, I think, whatever God is put, this worldocalyptic, so that your hope is in a great overturning of reality.

Faith, Responsibility, and Moral Sweat

Speaker 2 14:08

You relieve yourself of the responsibility of reality and it's actually really dangerous. It's honestly in Christianity, like when a person will say, well, I'm really broken and that's good. It's good to have a humility before God, but sometimes saying you're broken prevents you from actually I don't know trying and growing and taking virtue seriously and asking what parts of your character don't align with the virtues you espouse. It's way easier to just say, well, I'm broken, but Jesus was good. I think the human Jewish sage in the first century would be a lot more concerned about with you learning to bear good fruit. Um, he has actually a buckshot of parables about the difference between a good person and a bad person being the fruit they bear. And good fruit means ethical action that's appropriate in the ancient world.

Speaker 2 15:27

You can read the same metaphor in seneca or cicero or epicetus, and the idea is the fruit of your life is either ethically good or ethically bad.

Speaker 2 15:39

Good fruit, bad fruit, right. And so I think the human Jesus would be much more concerned with you orienting your life in such a way that you are just that you love your neighbor, that you're learning to forgive because whatever God is forgives you and that actually growing in your faith is moral sweat. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, moral sweat. So the idea is, I think we actually have a job to do, and it's to take care of this planet, not to wait to escape it. That's silly to me, yeah, and so it just concludes that all of the arguments we're having over the types of people that we ought to vote for to fix the economy fall short of the idea that you should actually maybe start by electing good people Like elect a philosopher, king that can't be bought and will do the right thing, and they might start making choices that make life better for everyone there you go, cool, cool yeah did we fix everything.

Speaker 3 16:45

yeah, yeah, I think so did we all right, let's see what happens.

Speaker 2 16:49

Keep that Good 14-karat plastic and an ecosystem treated as elastic, stretched to its limit, unceasingly looted. We have entire systems that need to be rebooted. Far as the eye can see, no hope for your family. This assumption of consumption is blurring our ability to see how prizing profit is stirring mud, black oil and excess heat into the planetary popcorn, undermining Goldilocks condition movie night. Well, it's a horror film where you say I'll be right back, but your grandson is yelling don't go in there. We are all just wishing for more days under the sun. But the Jason Voorhees you have to unmask and face is that no one is coming to save this place. If you deem yourself a member of the evolutionary human race, then the industrial age put us all in a cage. Industrial age, put us all in a cage. And if you consider yourself God help you a theologian.

Relationships: Honoring Over Being Right

Speaker 3 18:45

My suspicion is that your God put this one in your hands Right on, yeah, yeah, all right, cool, cool and you know I'm going to throw this out here when dealing with your friends, people, whatever, especially if they're, you know, kind of important to you, but it doesn't matter yeah, I think we need to step back a little bit to see if, whatever is happening that we're dealing with, like if we have a situation, is this going to be important a month from now, a year from now, three years from now, 10 years from now? Is that Three years from now, 10 years from now? Is that? Is it really that important? Whatever we're disagreeing about or whatever, can we maybe mellow that out a little bit and give each other a chance.

Speaker 2 19:43

You know that's a. That's a great point. I think many times it's more important to honor someone than to be right.

Speaker 2 19:50

Yeah, yes, yes more important to honor someone than to be right. Yeah, yes, you know, yes, but the I actually, like three months ago, met with this kid that started making hip-hop and he had come across rock and he just wanted to meet him, like ask, ask me some questions. Yeah, and I told him my production as an artist is very, very, very different than my demeanor with people day to day. Sometimes I'm going to write a rager that's going to make you rethink stuff, and that's the goal of the artist is to show up, sometimes with just a torch and set it all on fire. Other times it's to set wisdom in front of you and say, well, you have a choice, who to be.

Speaker 2 20:32

But in your dealing with people day to day, it's very, very good to step back and ask is this a situation where I need to honor this person or is this a situation where I need to convince this person? It's very, very difficult to change someone else. In fact, you probably won't. Very, very rarely does someone change from some kind of conversation or debate with you. They change with living life with you over time and seeing that you're doing things differently and then wondering why, or debate with you.

Speaker 1 21:00

they change with living life with you over time? Yes, and seeing that you're doing things differently, and then wondering why.

Speaker 3 21:05

Yeah, yeah, that's a great point, absolutely. That's really good that you said that. Yeah, awesome, awesome.

Speaker 2 21:13

Cool, cool. Well, everyone, we'll see you later. Thanks for tuning in.

Speaker 3 21:21

Be good to each other Cool.

Closing Thoughts and Dragon Stories

Speaker 1 21:37

The Text and Rock Show is the creative work of Mark Schaefer and Eric Madison. Don't forget to subscribe so you know when new episodes drop. If the show adds value to your life, please consider leaving them a review or sharing Text and Rock with a friend. You can explore other Text and Rock digital productions or contact Mark and Eric by simply clicking the link in the show notes.

Speaker 2 22:32

I like that things just appear in different places. There's so many things in your studio, but then then like where did that blue green dragon come from? I haven't even seen that one before. Is that one?

Speaker 3 22:44

new new-ish. One of my students T-A-D. If you're watching, he brought it from China.

Speaker 2 22:54

That's awesome it's really cool. Eric, can I ask you a question? Yes, before we rip into this banger of a poem, okay, tell me about your obsession with dragons. I've never had a friend who loves dragons so much well, let's see.

Speaker 3 23:14

Simple answer, short answer. Okay, after you know I had done the gator thing because I was with Kevin B F Bird in the instigators, so I had gators. Yeah, and then, as we're moving on evolving, I needed another apex predator kind of thing, right, and I came upon this story where unicorns used to rule the world and they're not nice like we have written in the cartoons and stories. They were mean and the dragons freed us from the evil tyranny of the unicorn. Where did you come across this story? I made it up.

Speaker 2 24:04

Most of my stories, like most of the things that are so wild other drum set too like we have one for texan rock that has like our skull logo on it, and then eric's other drum set has like a gator smoking a cigar and that's the one that my son played a live set on before. It was like Otto and this giant cigar digger. That's all you could see.

Speaker 3 24:30

Oh man, he was four.

Speaker 2 24:32

Oh my gosh yeah, so. Otto and I went to Eric's show with Kevin Burt and the Instigators and Eric called Otto up to play a concert or a song and he played Peggy Sue with him and he was mostly on rhythm. But I'll never forget like years later I was like you know, otto, if you keep practicing your drums, you could be in a band like Eric. And he said, I already was in a band with Eric.

Speaker 3 25:02

I've done that.

Speaker 2 25:03

That's so last year, dad he used to do that with swimming too. He would be like I've already done swimming lessons.

Speaker 3 25:11

I'm like we keep going because you would drown, just because you did swimming lessons doesn't mean you know how to swim, that's right. Yeah, oh man, oh, I miss those days when he was young and oh, I know, just full of. Do you want to hear something? Wild wonder? What's that?

Speaker 2 25:32

on may 22nd he turned 13. I I have a teenager. Oh, oh my gosh, I know how old am I. Man, that's terrible. Yeah, I feel like really young, like I've never felt my age like past 30. It's never like felt really me Felt, oh yeah. But when you say you have a teenager mark that's that's, then that's it's it's pretty wild pretty wild, yeah, yeah okay.