Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube.
To start off the year and before going back to the interviews, Dominic shares his thoughts about his journey through depression, itself exacerbated by Grunge era music and aesthetics. He also reads a puzzle-like poem ―A Transmutative Call to the Gen X Mystics ― which expresses his emancipation from the nihilistic grasp of those days, and the resulting sense of peace and maturity.
THE POEM
A Transmutative Call to GenX Mystics
“Do you still see yourself as a rat,
Or did you break it and run?
Are you still down in a hole? Feeling small?
Unable to fly, your wings denied?
Are you still reeking of teen spirit,
or did you ever check your head?
Did I nearly lose you among the screaming trees,
unloved in these sour times?
Have you reached nirvana yet,
or still just a monkey
waiting to say hello to heaven?
Are you still gazing at your shoes,
bloodied and loveless?
Or rather roaming the streets with fascination,
cured of your disintegration?
Is your head like a hole? Are you still hurt?
Or are you still alive and in bloom?
Are you still waiting for the bastards to come,
raging against their machines? Wake up!
Hey! Been trying to reach you!
Don’t you know that we’re unchained?
Now me, I didn’t really fall on black days.
I’m no loser baby, and no one can kill me.
I am not a worthless liar. I am not an imbecile.
I’m not a creep, and I’m twice the man I used to be.
I’m striving in the Jesus Christ pose,
in a state of love and trust.
Now I leave them all behind, with a smile,
Saying thanks for the ride.
Here I come, as I am,
no longer paranoid, no longer an android.
All I aim for is a sure shot
and an end to the sabotage.
I’m awake now, in the fire.
I’m ocean size, fading into myself.
There’s no rain and I am sane.
I’m spiraling out and I keep going,
Reaching for the higher grounds.”