Best punk musician biographies according to redditors
We found 27 Reddit comments discussing the best punk musician biographies. We ranked the 3 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 27 Reddit comments discussing the best punk musician biographies. We ranked the 3 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
I think I heard of that before. Also, Buddhism teaches how connected we are...read a pretty good, straight forward book called Hardcore Zen.
This reminds me of another school of thought: that life is a projection of our minds.
and
What is real is just your perception. [7]
I don't know about the greatest, but here are a few I've found enlightening:
I Just read Hardcore Zen by Brad Warner, currently working on Sit Down and Shut Up, also by Werner. After I finish the other two books in the series, I'll settle down with Shobogenzo. I'm just getting into Zen, it looks amazing!
nope. http://www.amazon.com/Hardcore-Zen-Monster-Movies-Reality/dp/086171380X
It's been done.
This gem that mixes punk rock music, Godzilla, and Buddhism
I am currently reading Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies, & the Truth about Reality. I get the impression that in one view (Soto) people are born enlightened and only need to realize it (like Plato's dialog of Meno). The author seems to talk about enlightenment as a consistency of truths being realized--"solving the philosophical problems". But in that view, Zen masters say the experience of enlightenment should not be over-emphasized or over-valued. The author goes on to say that it is not retirement from the world, but really only the beginning of the hard work.
edit: like Nelstone's comment below, the author describes his enlightenment as looking at the sky and feeling recognition like seeing himself in a mirror.
Plus Hardcore Zen's full title is excellent!
You were embarrassed to say it, weren't you? :)
I was raised in a very strict Evangelical, Fundamentalist Christian household. I had a feeling from the very beginning that it was all bullshit, but I tell you what, I tried valiantly to hang in there. As I got into college, I had moved onto reading Kierkegaard and other Christian Existentialist in order to try to make my religion make any damn sense. Paul Tillich also figured in prominently. Honestly I still really like a whole lot of what both Kierkegaard and Tillich have to say.
Anyway after doing that for a bit, I realized that there was no point in all the mental gymnastics I was doing. I was clinging to this thing because I was raised with it, and that is a lousy reason. So I tossed that shit overboard. For about a minute I hopped onto the New Atheist train. Several things there immediately became obvious to me though. The first was that while I generally agreed with them, they were kind of dicks to everyone. That was kind of not cool in my book. Then there was fact that they seemed to be completely missing a part of life. There seemed there was a sense of mystery, I guess, that that kind of stark atheism just misses. That is not quite it. Maybe wonder or some other ineffable quality. The whole thing just seemed too mean, with a pat answer for everything. And it does a lousy job of answering the whole, "Ok, so what do I do now?"
It was about this time that my ex-wife (we were married at the time) gave me the book Hardcore Zen by Brad Warner. As a side not here, I think Brad is kind of a creeper, and a lot of his teachings strike me as a little simplistic these days, but he will always have a bit of a special place in my heart for bringing me into Buddhism. Anyway, so I read that, and stuff in there just kept ringing true for me. I have always been a little bit of a philosophy dork, and there were so many things things in Buddhism, specifically Zen, that struck me as applied philosophy. Philosophy taken out of the clouds and actually put into practice. Which, as it happens to be, had been one of my major critiques of philosophy for a long time.
"In relation to their systems most systematizers are like a man who has built a vast palace while he himself lives nearby in a barn; they themselves do not live in the vast systematic edifice. But in matters of the spirit this is and remains a decisive objection. Spiritually, a man's thoughts must be the building in which he lives—otherwise it's wrong." -Soren Kierkegaard
While the above quote was specifically about Hegel, it has much broader application.
Anyway, being that as it may, there were lots of things about Buddhism that rang very true to me. So I started reading everything I could put my hands on about it. In addition to this, I found that there was a temple near me, the Houston Zen Center. I immediately felt comfortable there, though it seems like I was the youngest member there by a decade or two. Then a couple of guys and myself wanted a more youth oriented group, so we sent out an email to Noah Levine and got permission to use the name Dharma Punx for the group. We have been meeting for a couple of years now.
My schedule is all messed up with work, so getting up to the zen center is kind of a pain in the ass, but I make it up there as often as I can. I sit zazen with some regularity. I have a fantastic teacher in Gaelyn Godwin. Not only is she brilliant and possible one of the most wise people I have ever met, she has got a wicked wit on her. She is constantly messing with me, but in a most perfectly loving and gentle way. She has been a profound influence on my life.
I have taken the lay precepts. I have been talking about here in another decade or so, when I reach retirement age, going into the practice full time, and taking the full monastic vows. We'll see. No definite plans, but that is one of the ideas I have floating around my head.
Not necessarily my favorite book ever, but I'd want you guys to read it if you get the chance: Hardcore Zen by Brad Warner.
It is an incredibly approachable, unpretentious introduction to the idea of mindfulness and enjoying what you have. It's a casual way to shake up your world view and get you to try every day meditation without the whole trappings of mysticism that often get tied into the practice of zen. It brings it down to it's core... that when we get stuck in our own heads and worry about the future, we're not enjoying and taking full advantage of the present.
Some good books about Zen, if you're interested in learning more:
Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth About Reality Great book, written by a modern Zen 'master.' Colloquial, not translated and thus easy for us westerners to understand.
Not Always So, Shunryu Suzuki
Moon In A Dewdrop, Dogen This guy is the real shit. Lived hundreds of years ago. You can go as deep as you want into this guy's writings, many levels of meaning (or none?). More metaphorical/figurative than the others, very poetic.
When/if you read this stuff, don't worry about understanding everything sentence. It's easy to get caught in the trap of reading and re-reading sentences and paragraphs to try to understand, but in doing so you miss out on the flow/stream of consciousness of the works. Just read it through, eventually the ideas will start to become clear.
Absolutely. Brad Warner is an interesting example. He went from being in punk bands to teaching English in Japan to becoming a Buddhist priest. He wrote a great book called Hardcore Zen if you'd like to read more about his philosophy and experiences.
There are several popular 'flavors' of Buddhism, but unfortunately I have not read any general overview books covering all of the sects. Most of my generalized knowledge has come from podcasts like Buddhist Geeks and Zencast. Gil Fronsdal and Jack Kornfield are both enjoyable to listen to.
But back to books!
The most accessible Zen book I've read was Nishijima's To Meet The Real Dragon. Other overviews like Alan Watt's What Is Zen and Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind are good but a little obtuse.
And while I can't give it a general recommendation because the writing style isn't for everyone, I really enjoyed Brad Warner's Hardcore Zen and Sit Down and Shut Up.
Of those mentioned, I would go with To Meet the Real Dragon unless you prefer a much more informal style -- then I would pick Hardcore Zen.
Mediation itself sounds like a great idea but I have no interest in the spirituality or metaphysical aspects. A few years ago I found this book:
Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth About Reality by Brad Warner.
It's pretty good, and helped me get started on meditation purely for the empirical physical and mental benefits.
You stop giving a fuck about things like authority, or superficiality. But at the same time, you don't just turn into some rebellious prick. You cut out a lot of bullshit from your life, both external and internal.
It's from Hardcore Zen and the author devotes a whole chapter early on, and it becomes a theme of the book. This blog post gives a few of the highlights, but I can't recommend the book enough. It, and Dale Carnegie, are the only self-help books worth reading if you ask me.
> Question Authority. Question Society. Question Reality. Question Yourself. Question your conclusions, your judgments, your answers. Question this. If you question everything thoroughly enough, the truth will eventually hit you upside the head and you will know. But here’s a warning: It won’t be what you imagined. It won’t be even close.
Though the unique events you've experienced up until this point have certainly shaped your neural-response mechanisms and brain chemistry... You're still a part of an evolving consciousness that is humanity and the universe. Likewise, as am I. The universe is experiencing itself through your existence, just as it is with my own and everyone elses'. Have you read much about Eastern philosophy? If not, I recommend you pick something up, start with Hardcore Zen.
I hope that you trying to finish off your goals will dissuade you from doing this act.
I am currently 29. When I was younger I had a family member kill themselves. Shortly after I graduated high school a friend of mine killed himself. A few years back a military buddy of mine killed himself. A girl I have care for dearly has on several occasions come to the point...
No matter how you go about doing it, those who care about you will always feel the impact. Most will always wonder if there wasn't something else they could do, why they did not see something.
When someone goes it is like tearing a point out of a spider's web, it is felt throughout the web. The web will always bear some reminder of the damage that was done.
If you have spoken to all of these people, have taken the anti depressants etc.. maybe you just need to spend some more time in introspection.. Grab some old philosophic literature, do some reading and think over what you read.
I don’t expect any one answer to fit for everyone.
I recommend reading this book, even if it’s not your answer it’s worth a read and it’s considerably less dry on the subject than others.
http://www.amazon.com/Hardcore-Zen-Monster-Movies-Reality/dp/086171380X
Try Hardcore Zen sometime :)
This is the book that got me into zen meditation, you can probably get it for almost nothing off ebay. It's a really good book which isn't esoteric like many on meditation. I'd really recommend trying zen meditation, it's about as basic and easy as meditation gets and if you do it enough on a daily basis it will be the most beneficial thing you've ever done in your life. I has been for me.
I've enjoyed Hardcore Zen. It's a little tedious at times, but I feel it gives a fair introduction to a layman's version of Zen Buddhism.
>And that just doesn't cut it. That's what all religious people say about their beliefs. "Just go ahead and devote yourself to it for a while and you'll see what I mean!"
Yea, I know what you mean. Its unfortunate because religious fundies have made this argument so many times, its impossible to say it with out sounding like a tool. If any thing, I'd suggest reading Hardcore Zen, by Brad Warner.
Basically, all I can say is that I've been able to have so many insights and been so much calmer from doing zazen. Maybe its because I'm just naturally high strung, but I notice a dramatic difference when I'm doing zazen versus when I'm not. Its not a matter of 'just believe in god and some mystical thing will happen that probably has to do with him', its more like, when I practice the methods set down by ancient buddhist dudes, I feel a fuck ton less worse about my self, the world, and really life its self. Its not a matter of faith at that point. Its just the whole "why the fuck should I waste my time on this nonsense" part that requires faith.
Its like if you've eaten fast food all your life and you don't even know what feeling healthy feels like. Why would you believe that this magical "healthy food" would change any thing?
>All I want is to hear one bit of wisdom that Buddhism has provided to the world that is not arbitrary or an assumption.
Thats the problem... it IS based on assumptions. The problem for me was always that I was an extreme pragmatist.
However, the 'faith' in Buddhism is different then the faith in Christianity, like I said, in that you get ACTUAL results. You are calmer, happier, and better equipped to deal with life.
At some point, if you want to be a scientist, you have to have faith that learning science will help you get there. If you want to be a psychologist, you have to have faith that taking psychology courses will help you get there. My goal is to be centered and happy and productive. After much research and questioning, I decided to have faith that Soto Buddhism would help me get there.
>If that were reasonable then we'd all be spending all of our lives trying out the infinite list of religious ideas people claim to have veracity.
Not your whole life, no. And not even a huge chunk of it. But studying the worlds religions IS important to a lot of people. I did as much as a teenage, and found that 99% of them were silly as hell. I, like you, thought Buddhism was in the same group as well, but the western Buddhists always struck my fancy. But ya.. I felt like you do.. like they are just watered down pot heads. I'm glad I moved past that stigma.
If you don't like this stinking Buddhist stuff, try some Schopenhauer first. That guy is pretty sweet. His ideas are very similar and equally helpful., tho I tend to get on with Schopenhauer better then many others.
This is what caused me to have irregular heart beat (and feel like it was pounding), dizzy spells, anxiety, and a variety of other problems. It also made my blood pressure unusually low - on the low side of normal. Alcohol makes it much worse. I also had a strong adverse reaction to trees in the past, where I would have panic as it was wearing off.
I was able to connect it to food because fasting was the only time I felt better. Since I've been paying attention to this and monitoring my diet for this, I'm not having anxiety attacks - at all.
Read this or listen to it and see if it might resonate with you. I find a lot of relief from doing ashtanga yoga with meditation, but that's kind of girly, I know - though my current teacher IS a man. Regular old meditation might help you, though. It might sound crazy but this also helped me during a really high-stress time.
relevant
I have not meditated in several years, but there was a time where I was doing zazen multiple times a week. There are certainly a lot of books out there that could be helpful guides: Zen Meditation in Plain English and An Introduction to Zen Buddhism would be good for the philosophy and practice, but my favorite book to recommend is Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies, and the Truth About Reality by Brad Warner. That last one is a brilliant treatise on Zen philosophy as it pertains to a modern, Western life.
The toughest part about meditation is getting the mind to do the right thing. As you said, it's about being more mindful of the moment that is happening while letting go of the past and not concerning yourself with the future. Generally, most practices center around counting breaths, focusing on the sensation of breathing, and generally getting the brain to shut off all of the extraneous things that are bumping around in there. For BPD sufferers, that would be all of the negative thoughts floating around, making their lives tougher.
Imagine that your mind is actually a little person manning a big control room with thousands of monitors. Each monitor shows a memory, a future plan, current sense data, emotions, etc.; basically everything that makes you, you is up on those screens. Zazen is about learning how to temporarily shut these monitors off at will, either individually, by category, or wholesale. The ideal is to shut all of them off and just be left with the mind alone (this is the idea behind the Buddhist notion of "watching one's own mind". When your mind is not distracted by past memories, by future plans, by sense data, by emotions, it is in it's most pure state: Emptiness. This is not to be confused with little-e "emptiness" but is a Buddhist concept unto itself.
It's tough to get to that point and it requires lots of practice. There will be many times when you are counting breaths and thinking about how stupid the whole thing is, or how you have to run errands later that day, or how your back hurts, or how that one time your friend called you fat in middle school and it really hurt. This is ok! It's normal! That's what your brain does all day every day, you can't expect it to not do that just because you are meditating. When thoughts and distractions arise, let them. Observe them. Then let them fall away and start counting your breaths again. With lots of practice, you will eventually get to the point where you can let all the excesses of your mind fall away and achieve relaxation, knowledge and mastery of the mind, and plenty of other benefits.
Anyway, these are just some scattered thoughts. Just start reading about it! The Brad Warner book is a great place to start because it summarizes lots of Buddhist philosophy in a really palatable way. Good luck!
I don't really have many good stories but one that comes to mind is when i grew my hair out (down to the middle of my back) and stopped shaving for a short film I wanted to shoot. I was hanging out at my friend's apartment and she didn't have anything to drink so I wandered out with my skateboard to find a liquor store.
I ended up standing at a street corner on Van Ness waiting for the light to turn when three separate groups of people left a relatively nice restaurant (I think it was Stars) and stood waiting with me, and a homeless guy came by. He went up to the three groups, one by one, and asked for some spare change, but when he came up to me he kinda looked me up and down, gave me that 'sup head bob, and walked away.
I asked my friend when I got back to her apartment and apparently I'd been looking pretty damn homeless for the past few months and hadn't really been aware of it.
One thing I do tend to like about the bay area is that people tend to be casual about appearances and during this homeless-looking phase of mine I never had a problem eating at nice restaurants (I tend to eat out a lot). I mean the maitre d' might not be totally sure why I'm there when i first show up with my skateboard, bike messenger bag, shorts, t-shirt, reefs, and generally unkempt appearance, but when I mention that I have a reservation I'm normally treated like any other customer. The one exception was when I was in the mood for garlic and went to the stinking rose and the waiter (not the maitre d') gave me attitude.
Um, another relatively boring story (sorry, I don't really have many good ones) was when I was bar hopping with some friends and we ended up in some dive bar somewhere in the tenderloin. My gaydar is horrible and when one of my friends casually mentioned that we were in a gay bar I asked how the hell she could tell 'cuz as far as I could tell it was full of blue-collar workers. She replied, "I mean I could be wrong but those giant framed posters of naked men on the walls was my first clue." I was all, "oh, huh, didn't notice them."
As I mentioned earlier, I tend to eat out a lot so I tend to think in terms of places I like to eat when I'm in the mood for something specific. Like U Lee for chinese, little star stuffed spinach and mushroom pizza when i want something a bit different from the zachary's version (i hate the ambience here tho' - too loud), kara's cupcakes for filled lemon or passionfruit cupcakes (or chocolate velvet if i'm in a chocolate mood), la taqueria for tacos, el farolito for after-midnight burritos, and little orphan andy's for 24-hour diner food. Blue, or the completely unrelated blue plate, both for mac & cheese, in-n-out for animal-style burgers, the roli roti rotisserie truck at the saturday ferry building farmer's market for their porcetta sandwich (they appear other places, i just only know them from that farmer's market - also note that they sell out of said sandwich by noon or 1pm), suppenkuche for german food, minamoto kitchoan for fancypants japanese desserts or benkyodo for a cheaper mochigashi, memphis minnie's for some tasty (albeit a tad pricey) bbq, stars used to have good desserts but their dessert chef left plus i don't even know if that restaurant exists anymore. Firefly had decent grub and a very date-like atmosphere, boboquivari's had a good (but kind of overpriced) bone-in filet mignon, boulevard was also decent, one market had okay food but the clientele was a bit stuffy for my tastes, zuni cafe is okay but a little overrated, belden place is a kind of cool little blocked-off one-block street with a bunch of nifty restaurants (b44 is one i went to recently that my friends loved, me, less so), little delhi may not look like much but i dug its indian food, and for persian i go to alborz on van ness.
Oh yeah, one more lame story I have took place the day before I moved to mexico for a year or so. I was out with my friends bar hopping and we ended up in this place in chinatown and I saw a drink called a "mexi-me-crazy." I was like, "holy shit, a bar with a drink called mexi-me-crazy the night before i fly out to mexico city? that's totally a sign - I have to have that drink!" I took a sip and it was disgusting (keep in mind that I don't really like the taste of alcohol). My friends made me finish it anyway.
Oh wait, another story - I was flying in to sfo from eastern europe and brought along a shit-ton of crystal stuff (cups, plates, vases, whatever) 'cuz it was cheap and i was gonna hand 'em out as gifts. Because it was so cheap the dollar amount I wrote down on the customs form was pretty damn low but hoped i could squeak by the sfo customs people without any problems. Unfortunately, they took notice of me and wanted to check out my 2nd suitcase of crystal.
Fortunately (sort of), once the opened the suitcase they saw my two ultra-realistic-looking prop desert eagle handguns I'd bought in vienna, they ceased to give a single fuck about the shit-ton of crystal I'd bought and inspected the toy guns. Note that these guns looked real, felt real, cocked like a real gun, had real heft to them, had a safety like a real gun, shot bb pellets, and could be disassembled like a real gun. They looked so real, in fact, that all the customs guys in the room came over to take a look (not for work, but 'cuz they all seemed to be kind of into guns).
I told them the relatively funny story behind buying them, then one of 'em tried to take one of the guns apart. That was easy enough but then he couldn't get it back together so for about half an hour they all stood around taking turns trying to put it back together, until a supervisor came by and told 'em to break it up and send me on my way. I was all, "uh, no, you guys took it apart, you need to figure out how to put it back together". I spent about two hours in customs that night but ultimately the gun was reassembled and they didn't give a shit about all that crystal I was bringing in to the country. I've got another decent story about sfo customs from when I flew in from el salvador but that one requires me mentioning my name so I think I'll pass on telling it.
Anyway, I doubt that I could convince you that living in SF would be better than (or even as good as) living in boston, but it's a nice town, and small enough that most things are within walking distance of each other, but at the same time large enough that you can get most anything you need in terms of things as well as culture and sports and whatever else you can think of. I've lived and worked in a few different cities (sf, berkeley, santa barbara, mexico city, and, prague) and stayed for extended periods of time in several others. They all have their good and bad aspects, and it's kind of up to the individual to, y'know, focus on the good things.
Oh yeah, and if you wanna read some good stories about the east bay (like berkeley and oakland), you should check out back issues of a 'zine called "cometbus". It's a pretty famous 'zine so you can probably find it in a city like boston - in fact, i think cometbus just came out with a compilation book that gathers his best stories from the past couple of years.
tl;dr: sf is nice, mellow weather (some people think it's too cold and overcast but I like it), decent food, and with plenty of things to keep you busy and/or entertained if you look around. If you really want to read good stories about things like love and loss in the bay area (although not necessarily sf), check out cometbus.