The Modesty Writers Guild

i discovered this artist on my holiday in austria, there were several pieces from egon schiele scatered around town in different museums. at the moment he is my favorite painter, so please explore this 'tortured artist'. 'Egon Schiele (June 12, 1890 – October 31, 1918) was an Austrian painter, a protege of Gustav Klimt, and a major figurative painter of the early 20th century. Due to the highly-charged nature of his drawings and paintings, because of his suffering from dystonia, and his premature death, Schiele has come to epitomise the popular image of the tortured artist.' *listen to 'cocorosie' while looking through egon's collection @ cocorosieland.com

its an interview day. a day where my publicists lines me up with one interview after another. my least favorite topic is music, seems like everyone has conspired together and asks me the same questions over and over. i love talking about india though, and once again when i went to india i knew that i had to bring others overseas with me. this winter i am going to be taking a group of band members to kenya, africa. this trip is going to be a bit longer, and the planning a bit more extensive because i want to take 30 guys/girls (from different bands) along with me. you can help me assemble the team! please write all your favorite signed bands (i say signed bands because i want people completely concentrated on helping the people in the villages of kenya and not trying to further their own musical career) and ask them to please get ahold of me at modestyguild@gmail.com and i will put them in contact with the project coordinator. secondly, the website JUSTANOTHERTRAVEL.COM , a travel ticke...

we are beyond survival. we have elevated ourselves from needs to wants, and with frivolous and rather embarrassing results. i do not know if any of you have traveled to a second or third world country but culture shock can really affect you, and sometimes worse upon your arrival home. when i was in india these past few weeks i had to face despair and utmost poverty, each day i had to walk by several people without homes, food, and no hope for either any time soon. upon arrival to the states i had the opportunity to stay a couple days in new york city before i came home to florida. i was hanging out with a friend in soho, new york city and on the way to meet up i saw the most gratuitous store i may have ever encountered in my life. it was an entire store that was dedicated to dog clothing. sweaters, trendy t-shirts, even upscale collars that were studded with random diamonds and jewels, kept in a glass case for display. normally i don't think it would have been a big deal to have s...

he sat and shined a shoe, that’s all i ever saw him do. he must have been 10 and he sat right next to his dad, imitating his dad while he scrubbed then shined shoes right outside the location on sutter street we were staying at in kalcutta, india. they had a very meager set up, with only a wooden box the size of a shoebox to conduct business, and a sheet that had been torn through to sit on while tourists such as myself walked by. i always noticed how both father and son alike would stare at peoples feet as they walked by, maybe to evaluate clientele, or just the simple fact that shoes and shine were what they knew, and what they knew best. through a translator i began to build a relationship with both father and son, i would share my cliff bars with them in the morning, they thought they tasted funny which made me laugh (because i think most health bars taste like chalk as well), not like the normal "candy" that they probably had before from other tourists or maybe a special...

the air was thick; you could almost taste it, and seemed to reflect the street and vendor lights that gathered from every direction. my hands were in fists but it wasn't someone i wanted to fight, it was just my body’s natural repose to the surroundings. as i walked down the narrow ally way to the middle of the red light district in kalcutta, india i realized that my heart wasn't broken at all, actually for the short time i walked down the pensive streets it felt as if i had no heart. it had frozen, or dissolved, or cease to beat in fear of allowing my feelings to overwhelm me and my body simply curl up in the fetal position and sob. these were not women of the night, these were mere girls with makeup, a few cloths slung on their back and a juvenile mind that clinched to a few dreams from their youth. youth, that is exactly what they had, or the little that what was left of it. some of them couldn't have been more than 15 years old, maybe. i choked, not because of just thei...

so here it is the day before i leave to india and i realize that i only have about 1/4th of my "to-do" list done. but there right in the middle was a note to self reminding me to write one final modesty message before i leave to india.  its so funny, i mean i have only met a couple of you and yet i feel almost a, well as kant would say, a duty to you all. but its more than that, i like the fact that i have a chance to listen to you all (don't think i don't check the comments at least once a day!) and the chance to pour what life has taught me out somewhere other than just lyrics. i want to thank those of you who bought a lithograph because with it we were able to get some art supplies for the girls and surrounding community, as well as fund the trip for myself and others. there is a daunting task ahead of us, a trip that will not solve the problem of slavery in the world with just one trip; it is going to take hundreds if not thousands of trips to put a dent in the wo...

tear tear tear off your skin whats there within. life on wooden swings when all was young, with summer tongues. i i i don't care to know whose been before. oh we could stand to run nev'r look back at trains or tracks and i'll kiss you in london love you in france sunsets in germany spain we could slowdance, somewhere outside, somewhere outside. wake wake wake from lover's kept, on slumbers bed your white like ghosts so innocent, so innocent. days in quiet'r homes when life was young, with summer tongues. is this what you saw, year ago and farther from homes. and i'll kiss you in london love you in france sunsets in germany spain we could slowdance, somewhere outside, somewhere outside. please please please just come with me to distant reach what holds you back from walks away and needs to stay. there there there somewhere out there are rooms to spare skin paled like before when life was young, with summer tongues. -1.5.07

i am so fascinated by love, this entity we all seek, and in some cases destroy. i think one of the greatest things about love is the aspect of vulnerability. we are opening ourselves up to someone that we have only encountered recently in the grand scheme of our life. up to this point we have known every thought, feeling, and action of ourselves; and then someone enters our little kingdom and demands to know and cohabitate in our thoughts, be apart our feelings, and create memories together.     carl jung once said "when there is love there is no power. when there is power there is no love." i find that to be my favorite quote by mr jung to date. what i think he is trying to say is that when love is present we are inclined to do what is best for that other person, our motives and self centered behavior is soon replaced by the life pursuits of another entity, another human being. we have no power because we want no power. we choose to remain helpless to our own internal motive...

"the sense of wonder, that is our sixth sense, and it is the natural religious sense."                                -d.h. lawrence                for a couple minutes i could not find my brother, he was right behind us and i had no idea where he went. my friend nick and i called for his name but to no avail. as i began to trudge into the woods a little deeper nick became concerned since my brother paul didn't know his way in, or out, of the unknown, and to us, uncharted woods. after backtracking, and yelling into the woods we finally all met up in a valley that was descending into deeper woods and even deeper snow this last weekend in vail, colorado.       the clearing looked like a cross between an ansel adams photograph and stepping onto the movie set of the chronicles of narnia. everything surrounding us was painted in a a bleached white and all the trees simultaneously looked like dogwoods, each spaced just perfectly as if it were planned and designed around the thr...

Friends and family, I hope each of you have a wonderful Christmas and an amazing new year. your friend, stephen

Anchor & Braille is releasing a very limited pressing 7" vinyl including the songs 'Sound Asleep' & 'Wedding/Funeral', out on January 23, 2007. you can pre-order the vinyl right now on interpunk.com simply CLICK HERE . thanks for listening, -stephen

'be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a foreign tongue. do not now seek the answers... live the questions." -rilke

'i have found the enemy, and he is us' -anonymous

james chavez is a man i would like to kill, i know that sounds harsh, but its true. in the back of my moleskin journal i keep cut outs of different pictures, tickets, random pieces of anythings to remind me of somethings, and newspaper articles. as i pulled everything out of my journal there was a piece of worn newspaper; my heart sank knowing what was on the other side. when i was in reno i was reading through a paper and stumbled on section 3A of the reno gazette. the date was november 9, 2006 and the headline read "father convicted of sexually assaulting daughter." of course my blood began to boil and my fist's began to clinch even before i began to read. i am not one for the death penalty, i am always so torn by the topic, but if there is one ominious crime that i 'feel' deserves the death penalty it is for anyone who hurts an innocent child, especially sexually. james chavez did more than just sexually abuse his child, he tore her childhood, innocence, and e...

my friends. i am coming to you in response to several of you emailing me and asking how you can support my trip to india, well i am not one for charity concerning myself but did indeed find a way for you to help. even though my trip is paid for we could always use help with building supplies and there are some others that really want to go on the trip that need to make ends meet just to go. i still have about 30 of the lithographs still available that i designed for our haiti trip. email me at modestyguild@gmail.com and i will give you more details how you can order the lithograph and help support our trip to calcutta, india. if you did not get a chance to read about the trip you can click here for more information. thanks so much, esteban

this past week i had the chance to hang out with my family, we had a wonderful thanksgiving weekend and had the opportunity to spend a lot of time just reading and listening to the new album leaf record (a perfect compromise for parents opposed to anything to loud.) we went to an imax presentation of into the deep, a 45 minute documentary on creatures in the ocean, some that i had never seen or heard of before. it was beautifully filmed and danny elfman solidified himself as my favorite soundtrack writer. afterwards we stumbled into a museum which turned out to be a children's museum, and after a couple of minutes the lot of us were completely jejune & done looking. on the second level hidden away was a doddering machine that had an anti smoking warning from a local police department. as i sat down i realized that the machine projected what you were going to look like throughout the rest of your life, i was instantly intrigued. after i took the picture i waited the minute requi...

i find it so intriguing the way us humans participate in the mating ritual. time and time again i would be watching national geographic channel or discovery and i would gasp to myself as to the correlation between the animal and the human "pull". i once saw a male bird build a nest for days and days, and after calling all the female birds in the area several female birds came and sat in the nest. if she felt comfortable, stable, and taken care of she would stay and if not she would leave. have you ever driven in an area of town where the houses are run down and trash lines the streets and noticed that the cars that the home owners drive are mercedes, bmw's, and other such high priced cars? i always wondered if that was some sort of adaptation where they attract the female, much like the bird, by putting their best foot forward and giving the female the illusion of stability & comfort. next time you are participating in a social event watch the "single" peopl...

i have had the amazing experience of getting into someone's mind. reading private thoughts and exploring a whole new world and time. my whole life i have always wanted to read someone's journal. secretly wishing someone would leave there's behind on a table or desk so that i could see there thoughts, psychoanalyze them as best i could; find out who they are, who they think they are, experience where they are going. maybe the bottom line is that i just wanted to feel normal. think that maybe my worst fears are there's as well. and we are all connected on some level. it never happened. no one ever left their journal. and even if i did find one i don't know if i would have had enough guts to read it, because i know how violated i would feel knowing someone read one of mine. it is apart of me. i would feel violated, hurt, as if my words held no more weight. which always brought me to the question, what should i do with all the journals in my life. should i burn them? sh...