Hank's Sessions

Why are we surprised when the Earth that we share, the spaceship in which we orbit the sun and all of creation, wants us to get off? Our carbon, our plastic, our creations, twisted from the raw material given to us without question, lies on top of her, covering her beauty. We are not grateful for the Earth, we use her. She is love and light, the center of our being, our spaceship. Treat her right or she'll kick us out of the airlock and hang out with her moose, raven, and bear friends. The moose is nice but bad at conversation, the bear sleeps all the time, and the raven is always making her own jokes and laughing at them, but they are all better than the human who thrust their shovel into her soil, turned it, extracted copper, and left the tailing there, material that they call "garbage" when the Earth calls it "my gift and bounty, all of me, for you to use."

Palmer, Knik River, Big Dipper Hatcher Pass

This morning I went crazy. I guess one can say I’ve always been at crazy, but I like to think that sometimes I veer away from crazy. I’m not always there, I just visit occasionally. I hate visiting, but I can’t stop going to the well.  Anyhoo, I decided, after much consideration and being crazy, to contact my previous therapist. She’s an amazing person, really did a lot for me. Due to the complication of being a single provider and billing the insurance companies, she has decided to no longer deal with insurance providers. She is giving me one free session to wrap things up, but it still presents me with the search for a new counselor.  I called my EAP, an amazing benefit look it up, and they sent me a list of seven counselors in Anchorage. Seven. If I were looking for a new doctor there would be dozens of providers to choose from, not the same with mental health providers.  Expand access to mental health care. Remove the stigma.

Or: How Donald Trump Responds To Establishment Republicans After Intimidation Meeting Have you noticed that for some odd reason Donald is now making awkward gaffes on the campaign trail? This man, famous for rambling speeches, rarely misspeaks, except for recent turns on very controversial topics. Recently he has misspoke about abortion and the providers of them. The original interpretation of his words was that Donald was proposing punishment for abortion recipients. Following some recent major mistakes, in areas he polls well in, will Donald start to see his fall? He will still pick up delegates no matter where he goes, remember the guy was on TV for what, 15 seasons? Please, Donald, for America and for the rest of the world, do not cause a huge problem at the RNC if you do not have the right amount of votes. Work with the party and advocate for the best choice for them, you are not that. Fucking, just run with the Tea Party dude! You already have Sarah Palin, the crazy religious vote, and the people who hate Muslims. Fucking go for it! Do the Make America Great Again Party. People will talk about you forever! You do that, I buy a hat. Do we have a deal? 

Again. For at least the 2nd time since Justice Scalia’s death the Supreme Court is tied. Mandated to be an organization of 9 members, the judicial branch of the federal government has been compromised since the death of Justice Scalia. Ties are not supposed to happen in this court, a decision is to be made with every case, yet, without an odd number of judges, this seems unable to happen. Remember, a lot of decisions are made on a 5-4 vote basis, the court tends to be pretty balanced between conservative and liberal. The confirmation game the GOP and the Senate are playing with Merrick Garland compromises one of the three branches, removing a check on two of the other ones. Give Merrick a hearing Republicans! He’s conservative, a scholar, and a respected judge. No reason to not interview him!

Guys, it’s a super rare Pepe. I stoled this from someone though...Shhhh...

Social Disease, Harmony, Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding. Three songs on Yellow Brick Road that might be more popular, but none as good as this song. A haunting tale of a young, hetero lesbian prostitute living in NYC. Elton and Bernie capture the grittiness of 1970′s NYC.

In Spring of 1978, 3 years after the release of “Born To Run,” The Boss, Max, Patti, Clarence, and Little Steven decided to let us listen to the hidden glory of “Darkness On The Edge Of Town.”  This album, a style departure from BTR, kicked things off with the track “Badlands.” Is there a more Jersey song than Badlands? Similar in theme to Born To Run, the song tells a tale of a person yearning to break free from the swamps and muck of Jersey. People living outside the state will never understand how true The Boss can be.  “Adam Raised A Cain” tells a tale of betrayal, murder, and disappointment.  “Candy’s Room” tells of a typical girl one might find living in the suburbs of Jersey. This girl has pictures of her heroes on the wall of her room, her little hide-away from the rest of the world that comes crushing down on her. The Boss takes her out of her room, but only to find out that Candy did not need the saving he previously thought. Jersey girls are special, Candy is a tale of why. All the tracks are great, the sound incredibly Jersey, and features some of Max’s best work. There isn’t as much Clarence(RIP Big Man) but we’ll take it. For an album from 1978 it holds up. The Boss is Jersey. Jersey is The Boss. 

John Lennon, in many ways, was the least successful solo career after that band he was in. He has some of the more “artsy” hits, but quick, name 3 solo John Lennon songs? I’ll wait while you try to figure out if “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” was him or George.  He was years ahead socially. Yoko was a powerful woman and John recognized that. People say she broke up the band, maybe she contributed, but the set-up for The Beatles was not sustainable. You had 4 of the greatest musicians to ever exist in the same band, at some point ego has to take over.  Today, on “Equal Pay Day”, I ask you to think of women and their contributions to art, life, love, and culture. Without Yoko, maybe we would not have had the solo career of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, or Ringo Starr. Women have, for centuries, quietly worked behind the scenes, acting through their husbands because you gotta have a penis in order to be heard. Maybe Yoko saw the greatness in John and wanted to make it public, maybe she wanted to be in a band with a Beatle, who knows.  Next time you want to call a powerful woman a “bitch” or say an assertive woman is being “catty” think of what a similar insult to you would feel like and what it says about you that you have to resort to such stereotypes in order to express yourself.  Men, the women are smarter. They’re prettier, more driven, unafraid, and getting ready to blow by us, if we don’t work with them. We’re all people, why does a vagina or penis carry so much?  tl;dr? Fucking stop hating women bros. You’re that guy in the 50′s who was in favor of Jim Crow laws. You’re that guy who wants to build a wall to keep out Mexicans.  “We insult her everyday on TV And wonder why she has no guts or confidence When she's young we kill her will to be free While telling her not to be so smart we put her down for being so dumb”

“My momma said to get things done, you better not mess with Major Tom” We miss you David. As you continue your new journey through the cosmos please try to remember us on Earth. Your time here was brief to us, even shorter to a non-dimensional space being such as yourself.

Offshore companies are not illegal. Having a political leader siphoning money out of their own country to offshore accounts and not paying tax on it is certainly not acting in the best interest of the people in that country. However, here in America, large corporations have been moving manufacturing and jobs outside of the country to get around paying a living wage, taxes, and regulations. Manufacturing might never return to America en masse, it’s much cheaper in other places. What we can do, as a country, is invest in our strongest asset: our great American ingenuity and inventiveness! The inventions that got us to this place, the American determination to make one’s self better, and the pure intelligence and creativity of our people will continue to keep America at the top! Remember people, before you point the finger at Vladimir Putin and David Cameron, take a long hard look toward Bentonville, Arkansas, home of Wal-Mart. They’ve pressured manufacturers to make products cheaper than they can be produced, causing employers state-side, such as Vlasic, to file for bankruptcy due to the ever shrinking profit margin on their contract with Wal-Mart. Don’t blame world leaders for this revelation in offshore accounts, blame the corporations that are so hellbent on getting out of paying taxes that they move jobs, money, and screw the citizens that buy their products.

North Carolina and Mississippi. Two places that I was not planning on visiting, even though I have family in both. Now, the governors of both states have assured that I will not visit there until the laws are fixed. This is some serious Jim Crow shit happening here. This is separate water fountains, fire hoses, and dogs barking at people.  Some quick education for y’all. Sex=Biological. Bio women are XX, Bio men are XY. Primary and secondary sex characteristics differ in both sexes. XX produces breasts, encourages vaginal formation, and allows for the construction of baby ovens in people. XY produces testicles, sperm, upper body strength, and an overall fuzziness. Some people don’t feel 100% XX or XY. They feel like, maybe they got some of the other chromosome. Since our building blocks are the same, starting from Helium and Hydrogen billions of years ago, to the cells that make up our body, there is no major chemical compilation difference between XX and XY. That’s fucking awesome. In some cultures, American Samoa is one I’ve interacted with, they believe in the 3rd gender. There are a lot of Samoans in Anchorage that identify as trans. These guys have penii, they just prefer to wear a skirt instead of pants. That’s it! That’s the whole fucking difference. Skirts instead of pants. Gender is about as real as Pearl Harbor was bad. Many years ago the powers at be in society decided that men need to look like men and women needed to look like women. They assigned dresses to infants, make pink for boys and blue for girls. Then WW II happened. We had to unify to beat the Commie scare of the Cold War. Our men became soldiers, representative of the might of America. Our women became stateside supporters, the stuff of Norman Rockwell paintings.   Now we have politicians concerned that a person in a skirt with a penis is trying to use the bathroom. I guess since we got doctors and marriage the right feels like “Alright, slow it down. You can’t just piss here”

The grip of insanity tightens around the windpipe of my mind. Flighty songs about Brazil enter my mind and suddenly I forget that I’m an automaton working in the modern day corporate machine. Instead, I dream I can fly. The paperwork builds up and I’m certain that Buttle was not the one who was supposed to have died, but Tuttle instead. Nobody will ever believe that the bureaucracy was wrong. Nobody will, but they must. I’ll be flying free amongst the eagles again. Apologies to Terry Gilliam

Starts today! At least for the Phillies as they find themselves on the road against Cincinnati. This seasons campaign, following their 99 loss run last season, brings some form of hope back to Citizens Bank Park. Ryan Howard looked alive during Spring Training, making contact and launching fly balls deep over the wall. Maikel Franco is really starting to come into his own, holding down the hottest of corners at 3rd. Blanco, Galvis, Hernandez, and Ruf round out the infield of the 1st 25 man roster. Playing in the outfield, Bourjos, Herrera, Goeddel, and Hunter are really the biggest concern going into this season, but through no fault of their own. The Phillies are rebuilding, we knew this going into last year. There might be some rough spots in the OF, maybe some utility guys cycling through spots, but it’ll get figured out. Remember, Amaro Jr. made NO MOVES toward the future in his time as GM. Maik and Howard can hold down the corners. Blanco, Galvis, and Hernandez will try to hold down the middle. Ruiz is behind the plate. Ruiz makes everyone feel better behind the plate. On the pitching side, Aaron Nola looks to continue his professional career this season, after coming up last year and adding some excitement to the rotation. Gone are the Phillies superstars of old: Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, and Roy Holliday. Instead, we now get all these rando’s. At least Aaron Harang is gone. He can take that “walked the bases full” expression down the road. Not trying to win the NL East, just trying to not be last. Phillies, 2016: Better than the worst, much worse than the best.

Emotional maturity has the ringing of a classic buzzword thrown at people. “You’re not emotionally mature,” she said to her boyfriend as he pondered what the hell it actually meant. I pay bills and have a job, what makes one mature? Then I look over my life experience and compare them to others. Other people my age may already be married, may have backpacked through South America, may have children, may already own a house. Are these the things that symbolize maturity? Is going on a retreat for 2 weeks to meditate and learn about ideas going to do it? How does one gain the elusive concept of “emotional maturity?” If you find it, please let me know. I’ve been reading about it and it seems contradictory in some ways. The ability to handle and deal with your own feelings without involving others, but also knowing when to involve others, that seems to be the problem. At what point does selflessness become selfishness? If I rub my friends back for an hour and get some sort or tactile pleasure from the act was it truly selfless? Who the fuck knows. The experiences mentioned before did not happen to me. I have done NONE of the homework. I was raised by people who did not do their homework. It’s hard to break a cycle when you can’t even recognize it as a cycle. It’s hard to change when you don’t know how or what to change. It’s hard. Just quit complaining. Be more confident in your pursuits. Being wrong once won’t crush you. -Sesh

I’ve done a lot of shitty things in my life. Lying, being dishonest, not spending time on personal growth, making my problems yours, etc etc. Name something shitty that isn’t punishable by jail time and I have likely done it.  Disagree with me? Fuck you, moron. I’m right, and I’ll yell at you until you know I’m right. If that results in you leaving, fine by me, I don’t need anybody. Then, at a certain point you look back. You think about the wrongs you have committed and how to overcome them. They seem insurmountable. You’ve made a lot of mistakes but you swear that things will get better. You make the attitude adjustments and carry on about your life. Then, something small and insignificant happens! You’re thinking “I haven’t that anything TOO wrong, why are you getting so mad?” The other person thinks “He’s done so many things wrong and now this? It all keeps adding up!” How does one avoid that cycle? How do I stop doing the same things over and over again? When will everyone else just accept that things are different and I feel differently? The answer is as disappointing as it is true: possibly never. They have no need to forgive and forget what you’ve done, you might have really hurt them. You get upset because you just want them to let the problems go, they feel upset because it seems like you haven’t put the work into moving beyond them. It’s difficult, but your fate. You built this wall of emotional bullshit around everything you do, you forced people to scale it in order to love you, you lied to people when they got to the top about what was inside, and then you kept building. Soon, you have a labyrinth that The Goblin King would be proud of. Unless you have Jennifer Connelly, good luck finding your brother. Your brother is you. Much like Jennifer had to overcome her fears to get to the center of the labyrinth and recover the child, you are building new walls. Jennifer is a loved one, trying to get to you, but you keep making the walls higher, the twists twistier, and the thorns thornier. Hit your reset button. Don’t force others to know that you have, just hit it. Act differently. People do not have to recognize that you’ve changed, just know it. They’ll start to notice when the walls are shorter and they can hear the wailing of the child locked inside the castle, locked inside you, and the loving and healing can truly begin.

We generally ignore new music, it never sounds the same as it used to. Remember though, for every Justin Bieber there is a Ed Sheeran. For every Taylor Swift there is a Jack White. The first few Beatles albums weren’t The White Album, they were filled with 2.5-3 minute long pop songs about love.  Disclosure+Sam Smith have a refreshing sound when they work together. This is their 2nd collaboration that I know of and the song is just as dancable as their other work.