Sit Properly

Weirdly enough, I have no idea how I came to own the unreleased 108 demo. Apparently, it was never released. But you know how devotees are, we’ll bootleg anything and everything. I think I got it around the same time that I got the Prema demo.

I remember telling Ekendra (from Shelter, now of Planet Cow) that I got the 108 demo. He told me that he played drums on it and that it was basically just him and Vraja. I believe Ekendra played bass as well. Vraja played guitar and did the vocals.

From an interview with Rasaraja (Rob Fish, 108′s vocalist after the demo was recorded):

After I had been living in the Philly temple for about three months Vraja Kishor prabhu had quit Inside Out and joined Shelter. The Shelter decided to move to the Philly temple. Me and Vraja became friends. Eventually he wanted to do something different then Shelter and he wrote some songs and made a demo. 108 actually played a few songs at a show with Ressurection (1993). The day after the show Vraja called and asked me to sing for 108. The band was Vraja, me, Zack Eller (Worlds Collide) and Ekendra dasa (the drummer of Shelter). We recorded Holyname a few months later.

The demo was in 1993 some time but it never came out. The songs were rerecorded as the Holyname record.

The demo is basically the 108 Holyname 12″. The song “Noonenomore” was held over for their second 12″, Songs of Separation.

The sound quality on this is exceptionally crappy. Sorry about that. I can’t imagine it was great to begin with, it was recorded in the basement of the Philly temple, I think.

Track listing:

1) Holyname > Grow > Gopinatha
2) Hopeless
3) Noonenomore

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Download the whole demo here.

I’ve been getting emails for about a year now from an organization calling themselves Friends of the BBT. They even mail me stuff.

Their emails and mailouts seem pretty legit and look great. On their website, it says that their mission is to “provide targeted funding to enhance and expand the work of the BBT and build a solid foundation for its future.”

And that sounds great to me. Keeping Prabhupada’s books in print is a wonderful idea. The Friends of the BBT solicit donations from devotees. Their donations page (called “Participate”) urges devotees to give so that you, the giver, “can directly connect with the mission of the BBT to fulfill your own interests in the essential work of spreading Krishna consciousness.”

On the Friends of the BBT’s front page, they explain a few of their other missions, a sanskrit school to translate all the previous acarya’s books that Prabhupada wanted to be translated,¹ an art seminar and a separate fund raising drive for the Archives.

Within the Archives article, it promises “100% of all contributions will be forwarded to the Bhaktivedanta Archives account.” Ok, fine. But if it promises that for the Archives, why doesn’t it promise that for the rest of the donated money?

For me, this raises a huge red flag. There are several reasons and this might get complicated.

The BBT exists to print and keep in print Srila Prabhupada’s books. Since Srila Prabhupada departed, other devotee’s books have been printed. I assume that they are getting paid and that the profits of their books are split between the BBT and the author.

Perhaps the BBT is top-heavy and the Friends of the BBT needed to be created to help pay for printing. Maybe the BBT was in danger of going out of business and the Friends of the BBT have stepped in to donate money to the BBT to keep it afloat.

My first problem with this is where is the money going? If I were to donate $100 to Friends of the BBT, how much of that would actually go to the BBT? How much of it would pay the salaries of the people who front Friends of the BBT? And after their cut is skimmed off the top, how much of what is left of that $100 would go to printing Srila Prabhupada’s books and how much would go to the salaries of the people in charge of the BBT? Of the $100 that I donated, how much of it would allow me to “directly connect with the mission of the BBT to fulfill your own interests in the essential work of spreading Krishna consciousness.”?

Secondly, the BBT was created by Srila Prabhupada to print and reprint his books. While he was on the planet, only his books were printed. No other devotees published books under the BBT. Srila Prabhupada encouraged his disciples to write and even publish their own books², but would these have been published by the BBT?

By only printing Srila Prabhupada’s books, this possible lack of money could be solved. All of these books are written and the copyrights are maintained by the BBT. No royalties payments go to the author (Srila Prabhupada). The BBT keeps 100% of the profits, putting them into keeping the books in print.

But even that, as it stands now, wouldn’t be enough. Lastly, and this is the big one: salaries.

People who are working at the BBT are receiving salaries. I guess that wouldn’t be too big of a deal, financially speaking. If the people who worked there weren’t taking in too much money for their own, the business of BBT could still go on, though it would probably be difficult to publish only the books of Srila Prabhupada and pay everybody.

But even that isn’t exactly how it’s supposed to be.

In both 1975 and 1977, Srila Prabhupada stated that devotees who work for the BBT should not receive salaries. The BBT funds are meant for printing and the construction of temples. “Not for salaries.” Srila Prabhupada wanted to know why “so many people been appointed without my permission.” Stating, “We do not want any salaried men.” He concluded this letter to Radha Ballabha by saying “This extravagancy must be stopped immediately.”

Srila Prabhupad was very serious about this.

In 1975, he said in a letter to Kirtiraja, “And definitely, the BBT cannot pay any salary to anybody.” However, in April of 1977, the BBT was having a problem with Hayagriva “doing nothing and taking money” (Srila Prabhupada’s words). Tamala Krishna explained that Hayagriva’s salary had been stopped.

Two weeks later, Srila Prabhuapda, in a conversation with Tamala Krishna again reiterated, “…in our BBT it is clearly written that ‘Fifty percent for printing book, fifty percent for…[building temples]‘³ So you cannot violate this. Those who can give voluntary service, ‘Welcome.’ Otherwise we don’t require. At least they should not be given any salary. That is very bad. This is against principle.”

So here’s my revolutionary idea. Go back to the way it was. Only Srila Prabhupada’s books should be printed, nobody should be taking a salary.

And no Friends of the BBT. From all appearances, some unscrupulous people are making money off of donations to the BBT (with ISKCON’s and the BBT’s full consent). Somehow this seems even worse than people at the BBT taking salaries.

Friends of the BBT has to be a scam. The only way I’d see it otherwise would be if the people who run the Friends of the BBT wouldn’t be taking a cut, if all the money were going directly to the BBT. Like I said, I don’t know if they’re getting a piece of the action, but the wording on their website leads me to believe that it’s true.

If the BBT were to only print Srila Prabhupada’s books, there would be very little overhead. If they were not taking salaries, there would be even less overhead. BBT’s financial problems simply wouldn’t exist, just like they didn’t exist when Srila Prabhupada was with us.

But when you start publishing other devotees’ books, which “require” the authors and editors to be paid, and when you start paying the people who work at the BBT, it becomes top heavy and requires more money to stay afloat. This seeming lack of funds creates the false need of another organization (Friends of the BBT) to keep it going.

However, this need for a charity organization to keep the BBT alive isn’t really a need at all. If the BBT would do things as Srila Prabhupada wanted, there would be no “need” for any of this. Is this such a difficult thing to understand?

1. Is this a true statement? I’ve never heard about Prabhupada wanting other books to be translated. I think it’s great that they’re being translated, but don’t feel the BBT is the publisher to release them. I certainly don’t feel it’s right to just say that Prabhupada wanted them to be translated if he didn’t say that he did. [↩]
2. Kirtananda’s Christ and Krishna is a good example of this. [↩]
3. Srila Prabhupada stopped short of saying what the other fifty percent was for, because he had stated it many times before. The other fifty percent was for building temples. [↩]

I mentioned Krishnacore in a post last week. Yesterday I was going through my harddrive and came across three demos from Krishnacore bands. So I thought that it might be fun to share. Be warned, the sound quality on these is pretty crappy. These were the first things I ever converted from tape to digital. Someday I’ll redo them maybe. But for now, this is it.

The first demo up is from Prema. Prema was from Philly. I joined up and they were at the temple a lot, though I don’t think they lived there just yet. They were fronted by Mikey Prema and I dug them a lot more than Shelter.

In reviews they were pretty well written off as a Shelter rip off band, but their sound was a lot different. Some folks said that it had a Dag Nasty feel, but I never noticed that.

I can’t remember where I got the demo. It might have been from Erica (now Ekavali), she was friends with them. I never had the original, only a dubbed copy.

The demo had eight songs on it, which is WAY too long for a demo (their first official release only had six songs on it). I think some of the songs were rerecorded Concerned songs (Prema before they became devotees).

A couple of years later, Prema changed their sound, dropped the Krishna image and soon after, stopped being devotees. I saw Mikey Prema at a show in Lewisburg, PA. He was hanging out with some lame drug band and he was stoned out of his mind. I said hello, of course, but he couldn’t hold a conversation. He had long and very badly died blue hair. I wonder where he is now.

But this was recorded in 1993, long before all of that. They were probably 15 or 16 then. Young, idealistic and kicking ass. But ’93 was 15 years ago. Freaky.

Tracklist:

1) Deceived

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2) In the End
3) Shattered
4) Condition Classified
5) The Truth
6) Known
7) Blanket Destiny

Download the whole demo here.

Let’s say you’ve got a really awesome set of japa beads. Maybe initiation mala or, like me, some really nice and smooth beads. But, this being kali-yuga, the cord breaks. Yikes!

So let’s restring them!

Now, I’m sure that there are other methods, I’m sure that there is even a sastric method, complete with mantras and sacred knots. The way I’m about to describe isn’t that. It’s just how I restrung my beads. Here you go!

First, we’ll need a few things. Scissors, of course. Also some vice grips and regular pliers and a small drill bit (size is up to you). You’ll need a large-ish needle. Not as large as a garlanding needle, but bigger than a regular sewing needle. Also, your favorite cord. Could be the fishingline-like material or nylon. Don’t use hemp. Sure, it’s the strongest natural fiber, but it won’t hold up very long. You’ll be restringing them again within a month.

The large vice grips aren’t necessary. Any vice grips will do (though i prefer small, needle nose).

The first thing I did was experiment on the loose bead. When your japa beads break, one or two of the individual beads will be loose.

Enlarge the holes.
Take the drill bit or reem (or finishing nail), clamp it in the vice grips and enlarge the hole of the bead. Be really careful, especially on smaller beads.

The original bead holes are small. Too small for the needle and cord to go through without fear of splitting the bead. Reem it out until the needle you are using can go through the hole without too much effort. It should take just a little reeming, if it takes too long, get a smaller needle or a bigger reem.

Cutting the cord.
It may seem like over kill, but measure the length of your broken beads (meaning, not in a loop, but all stretched out in a line), let’s say they’re four feet. You’ll want seven times that length of cord. So, in this case, 28 feet. Yes, it’s a lot, but trust me, you don’t want too little.

Also, you don’t want just one cord. You’ll want enough to fill the bead. And to get that number, you’ll have to experiment. This all depends on how big the bead hole is and how thick the cord is. In my case, I used eight strands of 28′ cord.

While measuring the cord, it doesn’t have to be exact, but the closer each strand is to the others, the better. Stretch them out and try not to get them tangled. You don’t want to have to deal with that.

Once they’re all measured out, thread the needle and slide it to the middle of the cord. Bring the two loose ends together and tie them in a knot, leaving about a foot of extra cord at the end. In my case, this means that all 16 strands of cord were tied together.

Now you’re ready to string your first bead.

Let’s go!
You naturally want to start restring your beads at the bead on either side of the head bead. Cut your broken japa beads at that point and start restringing from there.

Slide the needle and cord through the bead hole. Everything should come to a snug stop at the end of the needle. To work the needle and cord through, you’ll need to hold the bead in one hand and the pliers gripping the needle in the other. Pull.

The needle should go through without too much effort. You shouldn’t be able to pull it through by hand (unless you’re Hulk Hogan.. er.. i mean Bhima), but with the pliers, it should be easy.

Slide the bead all the way to then end of the cord, to where it’s knotted. Make sure it’s snug and then tie it off by a simple knot. I’ve found that if you feed the beaded end (as opposed to the needle end) through the loop of the knot, it’s less likely to become tangled).

String the next one the same way.

Along the way, especially if you’re using the fishing line type of cord, you’ll notice that the pressure from the beads and needle is kinking the line. Because of this, I moved the needle slightly each time. It’ll do this naturally, on its own, but I made sure that the needle wasn’t wearing through the cord. You don’t want that.

Because of this kinking, the cord will appear to be tangled.

Take care not to actually tangle it.

After 108 beads, you’re done with the stringing (and you might want to count the beads to make sure you actually have all 108 – I’ve seen japa beads with 113 beads… and some with 106 – I guess they can’t count so well over there).

The dreaded head bead!
After all 108 beads are strung together, tie off the needle end. At this point, both ends will be tied off.

You’ll now want to cut the needle end. Make sure to leave about a foot of cord between the beads and the cut.

Take the two ends and tie them together using an “over/under” sort of knot (I don’t know what it’s actually called).

Cut the original cord from the head bead, noticing how it all ties together. You’ll want to mimic this. Place the tassel to the side.

The head bead’s hole should be much larger than the regular beads. You should be able to feed both strands of cord through the hole by hand. Do your best to keep them separate.

Once both strands are through, tie them off at the top of the head bead. Again, using a simple “over/under” knot.

The head bead is now basically secure.

The tassel?
The tassel is sort of a pain. Ideally, you’ll want to replace it. But I didn’t, so here’s how to reuse the old tassel.

The tassel, usually orange, will be tied together using a strand of the same thread which makes up the tassel itself. Cut that thread that ties the tassel and set it aside. Then take one more thread from the tassel and set it aside as well.

Over at the head bead, start to make another “over/under” knot, but inside the loop that it creates, slide the tassel.

Pull the two side tight and knot it again.

I used a vice and it was rather handy. I suggest using something like this, but I’m sure you could figure out another way.

Once it’s all tied off, cut the cord so that about an inch or so sticks out on each end.

You you used the softer nylon, lucky you, trim it up and you’re basically done. If you used the fishing line, you’ll have to figure out a way to get the loose strands to stick up, not out. I melted mine with a lighter. Be careful, as you don’t want to catch the tassel (or your fingers) on fire. Somehow or another make this work.

And now it’s time to tie off the tassel.

I put the tassel in the vice, but found that it didn’t quite work or me. It might for you.

However, you do it, bring all of the tassel together like so. Retrieve the two bits of thread that you set aside and tie them together, making a longer thread to tie off the tassel. I tried to use just one thread, but it didn’t work. So I used one thread from the tassel and the thread that was originally tying it off – tied them together and it worked fine.

Wrap the thread around the tassel twice and tie it off with a square knot.

And as unceremoniously as you began, you are finished! Your beads are restrung and your life is this close to being sublime.

Now, go chant!

And think it’s as funny as I do?

I’ve found myself in possession of a bunch of tshirts. Most of them are made by Sarah Martz and most are larges.

I don’t want money for them, but shipping and materials would be great. I’ll only ship to the US.

Here’s the breakdown:
$6 for up to 3 shirts
$10 for 4 – 6 shirts
and a buck a shirt after that.

Understand?
If you want one tshirt, it’s $6. If you want two, it’s still $6. Same with three. Four shirts is $10. Eight shirts would be $12.

Most of the shirts are American Apparel.

You can check them out here.

I got myself some pretty awesome fabric from a magical location and I thought that it would be rather fun to make myself a beadbag.

Rather, I thought it would be fun to have a beadbag made from this fabric. I can’t sew.

Is there any such thing as a pattern for beadbags? Any tips or pointers? Anyone out there make beadbags?

I’m also going to attempt to restring a set of really nice japa beads. I’ve done it before and it didn’t turn out all that badly. The beads in question are a bit smaller, but I should be able to handle it.

My first step there will be to bore out the hole and replace the “fishing line” stuff with nylon cord. I’ll have to get a small gauge of nylon though. 18 gauge was too big. Anything else is too small, which means that I’ll have to use several strands of it.

This should be fun.

But yes. Beadbag. Anyone know anything about that?

UPDATE!
I tried to restring my beads. Two problems – I cut the cord too short, so I had to splice two cords together. That made it too thick and I broke a bead in half. It’s being glued back together and I’ll try it again.

When I finally finish this, I’ll post a “tutorial” and pics.

The last time I restrung some beads was maybe 10 years ago. For most folks, it’s just not worth it.

Ok! I realize that this could be a bit controversial. However, let me explain that I *own* a legit copy of Vedabase. I paid my $400 and have a copy in hand. However, it only works on Windows. I want to run it on Ubuntu Linux and need a cracked copy to do that.

Let me explain. Ubuntu has a program called WINE. This program allows you to install Windows programs on Linux. However, it will not install a legit, copy protected version of Vedabase (which is made only for Windows). I’ve heard, however, that it will install a cracked copy of it.

Could some fine devotee help me out? Feel free to email me: eric “at” littleblackstar “dot” com. It would be great appreciated.

-

More info on the whole Vedabase on Linux thing…

I had my legit copy of Vedabase running on a virtual machine running Windows XP. I had some kernel module problem and had to reinstall everything. I’m in the middle of moving right now and can’t find my copy of Vedabase. I can’t find my copy of the Bhaktivedanta Library CD-ROM either, I believe they’re hiding in the same place – wherever that is.

I found an older version of Vedabase that requires the weirdly-named Dongle for it to run correctly. Obviously, I can’t use that one with XP on a virtual machine on a laptop. Oh, and yes, I’ve bought Vedabase *twice*.

It would be lovely if the Bhaktivedanta Archives could come up with a means of making Vedabase cross-platform, so it could work on Windows, Mac and Linux (like, say, using PDF files or Word files or something), but that’s pretty freaking unlikely, isn’t it?

Help?

I was just checking my MySpace page and came across a show flyer. Now, that’s not such a big deal. But this one was for Shelter, 108 and Prema at the Unisound in 1991ish.

Now, the Unisound was a hardcore club in Reading, PA run by Jake Hain, or “Jake Unisound” as we knew him. I went there in ’92 and ’93, my band Lawn Dart Casualties even played there a few times. I saw Mucky Pup and a few others. Yeah, I know, Mucky Pup.

Somehow I missed all the good shows. I never saw Shelter or 108. In fact, I missed the whole Krishnacore thing. I was around while it was happening, but wasn’t really involved. That’s not how I got involved in Krishna Consciousness. Lots of folks did. A lot of great devotees came from the Krishnacore scene. Some are still around today. Most of them are probably in Alachua by now!

When I first joined up, I hung out with the guys from Prema at the Philly temple. Ray and Porcell were there too. It was weird, I was in the hardcore scene, but by the time I decided to become a devotee, I was mostly not involved. I never wanted to sell everything and join a temple, but I did want to focus more on Krishna consciousness. Oddly enough, I never developed PDS (Pure Devotee Syndrome). Came close a few times, but did my best to thwart it.

Seeing these Unisound flyers again brought this all back. I haven’t even thought about the Unisound for years now. I wish I still had the flyer with my band on it. I played one of the shows on crutches. Ah the determination of a young kid hepped up on punk rock!

It’s odd for a devotee my age to not have joined through the scene and I’ve always felt a bit out of place, not being one of the kids in baggy shorts, bead bag and vans jumping off the stage at the Unisound while Raghunatha chanted “Hare Krishna” during “Saranagati.” I never saw Vraja Kishor in his langi flipping out while Rob Fish screamed “Gauranga!”

I did see Prema though. It was in Erie in 1994 or 95. They played with Brother’s Keeper and Deckard. I remember being disappointed. By that time, the Krishnacore wave had crested and it was all but over.

Here’s a bit of a Shelter set from 1990. It’s not at the Unisound, but it’s from that era.

As some of you might know, I’ve just returned from a three month ride across the country on my Vespa. I documented every day of it here. There are tons of pics and upwards of 2,500 words per day. Enjoy.

The trip evolved as it was happening and I found myself in Seattle, Washington. What a greatish place! They have vegan doughnuts. Really, really good ones. There’s also a “free cafe” called “My Sweet Lord” run by devotees. I think they take the temple “left overs” and give them away. That’s assuming anyone still lives in the Seattle Temple. Maybe the cook just misses making prasadam for the devotees.

Anyway, it looks like I’ll be moving to Seattle. My dear friends, Ryan and Jaime live there and it’ll be great to live around them. Good Story Sarah is also moving there. Corby, another friend, will be there about a month before I am.

The apartment we are getting should/will have a spare room. That room will be turned into a library/temple room. I’ve been working on finding some nice Gaura Nitai deities. While I was at Rati & Dwija’s house at New Vrndavana, I was hit with this huge desire to worship Gaura Nitai. It’s weird, I’ve never really felt that compulsion. But here we are! I’m ridiculously excited about this. For awhile, it was pretty much all I talked about.

For the next two months or so, I’ll be living in Central Pennsylvania in the house I grew up in. Yeah, that’s right, I’m staying with my parents. It’s not exactly ideal, but it is free and very temporary.

I’m selling my car, fixing up my white scooter, selling a few boxes of books (Srimad Bhagavatam, 18 vol set, pretty good condition $200 plus shipping!), watching some movies, seeing friends before I/they move, hopefully heading down the shore and to New Vrndavana once or twice. Mostly, I just want to relax.

The trip took a lot out of me. More than I thought it would. For awhile I was physically drained. Now I’m just mentally. Or maybe it’s emotionally. Either way, the thought of another long trip doesn’t sound so awesome. Not that I’ve gotten it out of my system, of course. This too is temporary.

I’m not really sure what I hoped to accomplish with this trip. And I’m not really sure what I hope to accomplish the rest of the summer. Or with my move to Seattle. Or in life. I’m really not sure what I hope to accomplish, period. Other than a good vegan doughtnut recipe, of course. That’s always on the horizon.