Lior

Is Lior this guy's first name or last name?

I don't know much about him.

I've heard his Bedouin song. I like it.

I saw him on a documentary about G'Day USA.

I think he might be Jewish. Or he was born in Israel. I mean he could be born in Israel and not be Jewish. I doubt he's Muslim though because then we'd probably hear that he was born in Palestine.

All right. Well, I'll stop guessing and start researching.

Lord Wiki says Lior was born in Israel. He really doesn't say much else. There's a few paragraphs about his career. There's also some stuff about his politics. He's pro-peace between Israel and Palestine. That's good to know!

What would our world be like if we

knew for sure there 

was life after death, and 

we could easily talk to our 

dearly-departed on the Internet?

The Dead are Online a novel by Dina Roberts 

In 2005, Lior self-released an album called Autumn Flow. I'm not sure if I like that. The word flow makes me think of menstruation.

The album did well. It was nominated for three ARIA awards: best breakthrough artist, best male artist, and best independent release.

He's had two albums since then: Doorways of My Mind and Corner of an Endless Road. I like the latter title much better.

Lior does a tour called Shadow and Light Tour. It involves his music and shadow art performance.

That's about it for Lord Wiki's information.

I shall look elsewhere.

Here's his official website.

The shadow and light thing premiered in February 2009. That's when we were in Australia, but we didn't see it.

After the tour, Lior plans to finish his third album. Then he's going to tour the United States and Europe.

That's interesting because Lord Wiki said Lior had three albums already. Did Lord Wiki lie? Did he make a mistake? Or is Lior trying to forget one of the albums happened?

Okay wait. I'm talking with Lord Wiki again. It seems the second album was a LIVE album. I have no idea what that means really. Oh wait....I guess it's one of those in concert albums. And that album contained a lot of songs from Autumn Flow.

Lord Wiki even says that the corner road thing was Lior's second album....not third. He explained things fine. I just didn't listen well enough. Shame on me.

Lior performed at the Edinburgh Festival. I think I read about that when I researched Adam Hills.

This year's festival is 14 August through 6 September. Have any of you ever been to one of the festivals?

His official website didn't have much information. I'm moving onto MySpace.

He's involved with YoungCare. I think that's the thing that Bernard Fanning is involved with. Or maybe it wasn't Bernard Fanning. Maybe it was someone else? I better go look. I guess I should search my own blog now.

Okay. Yes. It was Bernard Fanning. And here's the organization website. It sounds like something worth supporting. I think I rambled on about it in the Fanning post so I probably don't need to do it again.

The Shadow and Light tour is over now. I guess it ended sometime in May.

Here's an article about Lior. I'm going to read that. Hopefully I'll learn something.

He moved to Australia when he was ten. I have no idea what year that was because I don't know his birthday yet.

If I'm reading this right, he lived on a Kibbutz in Israel.

He has a daughter.

His music used to be more melancholy. I guess now he prefers more cheerful stuff.

Lior is on Twitter--or someone is pretending to be Lior on Twitter. I'm going to guess this is the real guy. I actually think he has an Internet helper; someone who does his official website, MySpace, and Twitter. Otherwise, I must assume Lior likes to refer to himself in the third person.

Let's see what Lior's ghost writer is twittering about.

Ah, the ghost writer seems to be named Katie. At least that's the email address she provides. You can email her to buy tickets to various Lior shows. katie@lior.com.au There you go.

There's not much that excites me here. Katie has invited people to send questions to LIOR. They're going to start answering them in a few weeks.... I think maybe on MySpace. It's too bad I didn't start this post on a later date.

I'm not sure what I'd want to know about Lior.

I'd like to know his birthday, I guess. I like plugging things into that fun birthday calculator.

I'd like to know which part of Australia he moved to. Then I could play around on Google Maps.

I'd like to know what he believes in, and what his life philosophies are. That way I could use him as a springboard to ramble on and on about my own feelings.

Lior is just not giving me much to work on here.

Here's an interview with Lior. Maybe this will give me something exciting.

The interviewer says Lior is punctual, self-effacing, generous and isn’t shy about having a laugh at himself, among other things.

That sounds like someone I would like. I forgot what self-effacing is though. Let me go look it up. This dictionary says it's the act or fact of keeping oneself in the background, as in humility.

I think I'm okay with that type of person. I'm not sure I AM that type of person. Is there any blogger out there who is that type of person? That being said, can there be be a music performer that is that kind of person? I guess you can put yourself out there and still be humble. You can have that aspect of being self-effacing. But you're definitely not keeping yourself in the background if you have a blog, hold concerts, write books, star in movies, etc.

Anyway, I like the other things that the interviewer uses to describe Lior. I value generosity. I value the ability to laugh at oneself.

They talk about one of his songs in the interview. "This Old Love". Apparently, it's played at weddings and included in mixed tapes. I'm going to see if I can find it on YouTube. Here it is.

The chorus is definitely wedding material.

But we'll grow together,
We'll grow old together,
And this love will never,
This old love will never die.

What music did you guys play at your wedding? Let's all share. I'll start....

When Tim and I had our first dance, we played the song from Mask of Zorro. The sad thing is I can't remember what our father/daughter and mother/son dance was. I guess it's time to take out that old wedding video.

For part of the actual ceremony (all that marching down the aisle stuff) we played the music from Life is Beautiful. I WANTED to play this really beautiful song from Across The Sea of Time, but it was too hard to find the sheet music.

Our good-bye song for the wedding was the overused Green Day one. But it IS such a beautiful song.

Yeah. Back to Lior.

He says if he wasn't a musician, he'd want to be a doctor. He likes helping people. Anytime someone is asked what they'd like to be if they weren't what they already are, I think of this little skit.

Here's another interview. I'm going to read it while listening to Bedouin Song. It's a really beautiful song.

Lior talks about how celebrities can do good in the world by speaking up. He says, Anyone in the position where they can get their voice heard has an opportunity to inject thoughts and ideas into people's mindsets which will hopefully bring about positive change. I know that I have been influenced by artists I admire in terms of things they speak out about so that is the best proof for me that it can work.

I think the way it works is this: If we agree with the celebrity, we applaud them for speaking their mind. If we disagree with the celebrity, we say they should shut up and leave the politics to professionals.

"Bedouin Song" is over, so now I'm going to listen to Lost in You while I read. I don't think I've heard of this song before. So far all his songs kind of sound alike. But that's okay because I like them. If I didn't like them, I'd be annoyed.

He considers music to be his spiritual force. I like that. I feel music can be very spiritual. There are so many ways we can be spiritual. It definitely doesn't have to be contained within the walls of a church, synagogue, mosque, etc.

Oh. The website that has the interview is part of a charitable organization. It's called Planet Earth Artist. They try to bring music to those who might have trouble affording it. It seems for the most part they donate instruments. That's cool. I like that.

I'm going to quit this soon, but I do want to find out more about his Israeli-Palestinian stuff.

He has an interview with something called ActNow in which he speaks about it a little. ActNow sounds pretty interesting. It's one of those for-young-people-by-young people things. They've impressed me already because they have something on eating disorders. And it was on their HOME page.

I'm back to the Lior interview.

He says, It took me ages to figure out how to actually make a career out of this and turn it into “work” as opposed to something I just love doing. After uni, I started a job, and I was so unhappy, I knew that if I didn’t pursue music as a career with all my might, I would just go on being miserable.

I'm glad he was able to do that. It's inspiring. It would be great if everyone could work at a job they actually love. I definitely wish that for Jack.

He says he considers Australia his home. It's kind of weird that he says that. His exact words in the interview are I was born in Israel but came to Australia at a young age...this is definitely home.

I'm guessing MAYBE the ellipses represent part of the interview that was edited out. Either way, it sounds almost defense. Well, not defensive......I can't think of the right word.

But I know Jews are sometimes accused of being overly loyal to Israel; that we don't care about the countries we live in. All we care about is Israel.

It seems to me that he's trying to assure people that it's not true in his case. I could be reading too much into this. But I don't think I've seen an immigrant say something like that. I haven't seen someone say I was born in Ireland and moved here when I was ten. But Australia is definitely my home.

John Butler moved to Australia at around the same age. I don't remember him making assurances that Australia is his home rather than America.

Although I do know someone who moved to Australia when she was ten, and she still feels more affinity towards her birth country.

I'm probably reading way too much into all of this.

Let me continue reading so I can find more stuff to overinterpret.

I like what Lior says here. Coming from the middle east which is such a war torn region, I feel very deeply about developing a greater sense of compassion as individuals. It is not about tolerance, it is more than that. It is about truly trying to understand and relate to “the other side”. That is the first step to peace. If we can connect as individuals, the rest can then flow on.

That's beautiful.

The problem is there are many people in this world who do NOT have any compassion. One of my new minor obsessions besides eating disorders is now psychopaths. What I'm learning is that it's more common than most of us imagine. This website gives the statistic of 1/100. That makes me feel so depressed, scared, and hopeless. Now granted these are not all Hannibal Lecters. We don't need to all worry about being served for Christmas dinner. But it does explain why there are con artists, thieves, kidnappers, murderers, torturers, bullies, abusers, etc. The psychopaths don't account for all crime and bad behavior. People do bad things for other reasons: financial desperation, addiction, emotional pain, delusions, psychosis, etc. I think with THESE people we have hope. If we have compassion for them, we can probably reduce or stop their crimes. But psychopaths. What can you do? I haven't read that far yet actually. I'm not sure I want to know. How do you change someone who has no empathy? Is it possible?

Anyway, now that I realize there are so many psychopaths out there I really feel like we're fighting an uphill battle.

I guess it also makes me VERY grateful to be who I am. I might be a pathetic loser with an eating disorder who is slightly delusional and paranoid sometimes. But I'd much rather be that than a psychopath. I'd rather be too sensitive and overdramatic than be someone who has no empathy and compassion.

Yeah. Okay. Sometimes I want to starve myself. And that's kind of sad. But you know what. It's better than wanting to eat my neighbor.

Back to Lior. He says he works with Palestinian and Jews. I wonder if he has worked with Combatants for Peace at all. You know, there are a lot of beautiful and wonderful Jews and Palestinians; people with compassion who want peace and understanding. But they all have to fight against the violent and mean Palestinians and Jews. It's hard to be good in a world filled with so much evil.

The interviewer asks Lior if he had one question he could ask the Dalai Lama what would that be?

Lior replies, How do you control anger and frustration at human beings who have lost touch with any sense of community, and are cold to compassion? Where do you draw an ongoing sense of peace and optimism?

I think I'd want to ask the exact same question.

I guess maybe I already have an answer. There is so much bad in the world. There's greed. There's selfishness. There's dishonesty. There's cruelty. The best way to not drown in all of this is to remember all the good that's out there. I think that's one of the reasons having this blog is so therapeutic for me. I get a chance to read about people, and some of these people are amazing human beings. They want good things for the world. They do good things for the world. They're full of compassion and love.

They bring me hope.