Monday, April 25, 2022

How "Goth" began: Bauhaus and reggae

Graham Haerther (Poly); Loralei Hjertstedt, Ananda, Seven, Seth Auberon (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

The reggae song that accidentally invented "Goth" music
A Buddhist Goth who meditates vipassana and teaches Ashtanga Yoga? It happens.
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(Polyphonic, Halloween 2021) Don't go to adamandeve.com and don't enter the code: POLY for 50% off one item + free shipping in the US and Canada (some exclusions apply). Sound design by Graham Haerther
Breaking news: Goths are people, too. Find them at Hot Topic in the mall or in a club depressed.

Meditation benefits everyone.
What is "Goth" going on about? What's the problem? It's like the movie mashup of What's Eating Gilbert Grape and Edward Scissorhands (or Beetlejuice). Something's amiss. This world is blurring with the next reality one plane down (below the animal womb world), which is called the Realm of Hungry Ghosts or preta loka. Pretas are haints, phantoms, specters, apparitions, unskillful-karma-fruiting-beings on the "downfall" (downward path) or niraya. The world of demons (Buddhist maras or obstructors/destroyers, yakshas or ogres narakas or hellions, and asuras or titans) is diverse. Ghosts aren't demons, though some may be scary or dangerous, tinkering with people via Ouija boards and hauntings.

Elvira at SF Gay Pride '06 Parade
When a human is abused, particularly in a sexual way or through severe neglect, "Goth" as a fashion statement may come to make a lot of sense, particularly when trying to bolster a fragile ego by sexualizing everything. (It's curious that even in the world of ghouls and shapeshifters, vampire-wannabees, and sinister desperate types), skillful karma is valuable, too. It's what makes one beautiful, even if one's definition of "beautiful" is lesbian Elvira or sepulchral Morticia Addams or anything from those Asian Grudge remakes.

Goth origins in drug-addled Los Angeles: Forbidden Zone of Venice Beach (censored)
Danny Elfman's brother Dick between the Sixth Dimension and California, in the Forbidden Zone

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