I got a stereo from my uncle when I was twelve. It consisted of the individual component turntable, amplifier and radio receiver as well as two gargantuan speaker cabinets which reeked of marijuana and cigarette smoke. I used to lay down on the floor in my room with my ear and heart pressed into the wood and crank those speakers so loud that the floor shook. I was too young to go to clubs and I had never experienced volume live so it was pretty intoxicating to me. Still to this day when get a whiff of stale cigarette smoke and pick up that certain frequency, it sends me into my adolescent reptilian brain. What a glorious place. Whatever that frequency is where a guitar breaks up and the amp hums in the semi-aquatic elastic boomerang place called feedback it makes my chakras light up with eternal orgasmic musical desire and wonder. Surely this is the voice of Shiva and/or the sound of the Divine feminine power of creation. No?

I wrote “Hello” in the vein of a Vietnam era power ballad that was meant to exorcise more than quell. In this time of “friendly fire”and A.I. napalm the human soul is being hunted. It’s hard to know when or where to hide. It seems to me a clear moment to call on the Goddesses within and ask them to burn big just for fun because the human mind is a booby trap on a mine field of pain. The trick now is to train your mind before the robots do. Like Bob Dylan said “the things you have the hardest time parting with are the things you need to leave”. Only you know what to let go of so you can heal. Forgiving is not forgetting and love is eternal. Every ending is a beginning. Goodbye is just another way to say “hello”.