GODS OF MOUNT OLYMPUS

We are a different breed.

There are human beings and then there’s us. In a galaxy far, far, away, we would be Jedi. In Sparta, we would be the 300. In Greece, we would be the Zodiac. In Japan, we would be Samurai. In heaven, we would be angels. In hell, we would be demons. Lucifer is our supposed forefather.

Today we are rockstars.

Everywhere in the world, we are the stars in your sky.

We are a different breed. Just like the Jedi have to be isolated and go through years of hard physical and mental training, we have to go through the worst of life. We have to suffer just like the Spartan warriors suffer in the harsh terrains of the mountains. At the end of it all, we come out a disciplined order like the Samurai and have our images portrayed by the stars in the sky like the Zodiac.

We are born to be fucked up; and it is a gift. There is no other way to reach the stars. It doesn’t matter if we were born to Oprah, or born to that skank on the street, we are going to be fucked up. It is our calling, and no matter the riches, we will be fucked up. It is the gift that makes us who we are. It is the gift that distinguishes us from normal people.

They watch us all the time, eager for our downfall and we thank them for it. For fall we will because fall we have to. The only way we can rise is when we fall. No fall, no rise. And believe me, we know how to fall. We do it naturally. Place us in a Catholic School from birth, isolate us from the bad shit of the world, give us etiquette lessons, make us recite the bible, teach us to be kind and soft-spoken, make us good people and we’ll still turn out to be the worst people in the world. Then you ask “where did I go wrong?”

Nah don’t blame yourself. We found ourselves. We went right.

You don’t understand and that’s why you treat us like shit. Like we’re dogshit on the pavement. Ah well, dogshit is the shit. That’s what you don’t understand. Your perfect matchbox, university degree lives are shit. Our dogshit, no university degrees, nomadic, drug-taking, tattooing, drunken lives are the shit. We get to do all those things that you wish you could do. Your stupid responsibilities and morals pull you back. We were born with none of that; that is the gift.

You don’t understand. We’re placed in your lives, in your houses. For about fifteen years, we try to conform. We try to want to be engineers, and bankers, and doctors. Somewhere along the way, music finds us, stops us abruptly like God did Saul on the way to Damascus. From that point on, there’s nothing else.

We know people like you, because for years we have tried to be people like you. Hey banker, I know you didn’t want to be a banker. Hey doctor, I know you didn’t want to be a doctor. But you didn’t have a choice. Your dream was too far away from you so you just had to conform. You had no choice but to lie down and take the whipping from a dude called Social Protocol. Mr. Protocol got you working for him now, and because you made that sacrifice, he’s paying you fifty-thousand dollars a year.

Shit.

We made the sacrifice. There becomes a time when we are called; when we can’t see anything but the crowd. It’s not like we don’t try. We try to want to be lawyers and doctors and responsible people but we can’t. We just can’t. Our bodies are just not wired for that scripted shit. So we make the sacrifice. We push for freedom. We have the courage and the daring that you normal people can’t summon. You should thank us for it but instead you treat us like shit. Hypocrites. You criticize us but where do you criticize us from? From behind your TVs where you’ve been sitting down on your generic sofa watching who? Watching us.

It’s so hard. It’s like a mortal trying to get into Mount Olympus. We are born as normal people; we are born as people like you. We are given the gift of music; our godliness. Then we have to climb Mount Olympus with the gift given to us. We use music as the ropes, the cords, the carabiners and the harness. The music is the food. It gives us nutrients. There are days when we go without eating, we’re hungry, but the music is enough for us. It is our lembas bread.

It is so hard. It’s so far away. There are so many stumbling blocks on this mountain that we have to climb. Do you know how helpless it feels to be chasing a dream that’s so unrealistic? It’s like Aku and Samurai Jack. Jack keeps jumping trying to get the fucking portal but he can’t reach. Just like Jack, there is no other way for us to get back. There’s just no other way. But it’s so fucking hard.

So we sniff coke, and we smoke weed, and we fornicate, and we get tattoos, and we say rude shit, and we swear, and we wear weird clothes, and we do weird things, and we get into fights, and we go to jail, and we drink codeine, and we smoke cigarettes, and we get self-inflicted diseases, and we love it, and you don’t understand why.

It’s the shit that helps us get by. You’re down in the poleis judging us. You tell us that you have hard times too; and you don’t have to go around sniffing coke and smoking weed. You deal with yours in a responsible way. Like real men. Oh but you’re in the poleis and we’re on the mountain. Our hard times can never be like your hard times. We can’t deal with our shit the way you deal with yours; come up on the mountain and see. Bitches.

And it’s not an excuse. That’s what pisses you off the most. That we don’t care enough about what you think to give excuses. We just do our shit, oblivious to your mouthing off and your high moral ground. And we’re stealing your children from you and you hate us for it.

We’re a different breed. We climb the mountain and we see the shit of life along the way. This is what makes us; this is what makes our music what it is. Take all those years of hardship and put it into our music. It’s why our lives have to be shit; so that our music can be the shit.

It’s so hard though. We’re set apart from you people. You laugh at us; laugh at our dream and its part of the humiliation we have to suffer. On the mountain, you guys are looking up from the poleis laughing at us. It’s part of the suffering and we love you for it.

We’re on the way to Olympus; if we don’t get there we will die on the mountain. If we get there, we will give you the rock of your life. Rock or die; that is the sacrifice that we make.