A Family is: Parents and Kids

People speak about family values. What are family values? Well, to begin with traditionally there are two parents. If we follow the example of the bible, they are male and female. (Works for me!) Then these two units breed and produce offspring for which they are responsible. The rearing and care of the children is up to the parents and to a small extent the education system and society. Parents used to be the major role models for their kids. I guess that model has been pretty successful, until the economy in the US became such that you couldn't rear a family on one provider's income. I would say that could be the major change in family values being effective. When middle class jobs disappeared in the US, life changed. World War ll and the proud veterans of this nation no longer remained a unifying element in our lives. NAFTA, although the bail out of the peso was a huge economic disaster, may have contributed to large companies easily "outsourcing" our middle class jobs to other countries where the work force commanded only a fraction of what we would consider to be a normal family income. Life has changed forever. Soccer moms are born. Single parents begin to be a predominant force in the US. The divorce rate reaches 50%. Can you still consider preaching "family values" when the real model, the great american dream, is almost undeniably unobtainable anymore? People have to work their ass off in this country to scrape by, all except for the rich. I found out early in life, rich people's kids are stupid, spoiled, party animals. They have not had good family rearing, because their affluent parents are too busy hosting functions and making money. They sometimes inherit their parents "old money" through a trust fund, but more likely than not the children never learn anything about life. You don't learn without trying it on your own. Bush won because people saw that he goes to church and "is a family man." That is another phrase I don't want to hear anymore. I grew up with good parents, but that no longer seems applicable to life in the US. That, and nine years of college, have given me the strength and confidence to see through the bullshit that is life in the US. Get up, go to work everyday, come home. People put stock in their houses and their loved ones. Take away the home and the loved one, the spouse, and what is out there for the rest of America that doesn't fit into that mold? People ragged on Ralph Nader because he had never been married and lived in apartment. For Christ's sake, this does not make him an irresponsible college brat. Not all Americans are destined for the American Dream. Not everyone sees a house with a white picket fence, two cars in a garage, and a pet as the chest of gold. I can't imagine how so many millions of people mow, dig, and clean a miniature plot of land with grass around a house they call their yard. No everyone wants to be a slave in the field to a piece of dirt. Is a house really equity? Of course rent has been and always is "pissing your money away." The aquisition of a huge, wooden building with pipes and wires surrounded by unknown neighbors doesn't really sound like a good investment. You spend your life caring for this "thing." In turn it shelters you in storm, keeps you warm and cool, and maybe lets you sleep at night. It also can be a prison on a miniature workfarm with the Son of Sam living across the street and your not being able to do a damn thing about it. (except try to sell) What I am saying is, mainstream America has disappeared. No one really seems to know what life is really about anymore. We have always had clear images of how people lived their lives in this country, and when there was any doubt, corporate America stepped in and put in their two cents. Hollywood was part of it. Thousands of transplanted Jews created a fantasy world, despite the ugliness of Adolph Hitler and the holocaust. There is nothing wrong with that. Many motivational speakers say you can only live something if you can see it in your mind. You have to plan your work and work your plan. Seeing your goals, seeing clearly what you want helps make it happen. Nurturing a little egg in a nest that blooms into your dream. In a confused and changing world where many leaders seem out of touch with the mainstream, it is even more difficult to develop a plan of happiness. What will the world really be like in a decade? 50% of people in the US believe Armageddon will happen in their lifetimes. The second coming of Christ, judgement day for everyone on this earth, including the destruction of the world as we know it, could be looming around the corner. Kind of makes it difficult to get along in the year 2005.

Religion in America

The decline of support for religion is alarming. Ask yourselves, "What hope do we have in this failing world, without the hope and help of God?" I can imagine none, and that is disheartening when you look around at commercial society. That leaves a heavy burden on our school teachers. Where, afterall, does our code of ethics, morals and behavior come? Without the guidance of a Supreme Being, someone that can lead by example and show altruistic love, where would the world be? We are in the wake of extremist terror, and that is only the workings of evil. The more you walk out of the path of God, the easier it is for evil to walk in. That is a difficult lesson to learn. It is easy to surmise why Americans are skeptical. So many Catholic priests grossly misuse their power for personal immediate gratification. How attrocious is that? Jim Baker seduces his secretary and is "dethroned" from his pulpit in humiliation from a sex scandal. An acting American president is impeached for immoral behavior in the White House. Episcopaleans are voting to ordane openly homosexual bishops. It seems the very fabric of religious practise is unraveling at the seams. Lawmakers are working harder and harder to seperate church and state, not allowing the ten commandments to be displayed in courtrooms and other public places. This is not really an America that seems that appealing anymore. What do we stand for as a human race? Money, power, sales. I'm not sure when I watch TV or read newspapers. There are so few stories reporting good acts anymore. When you wake up everyday, you have to look somewhere to find your inspiration, and I don't think it is asking too much to expect some of that to come from our modern society and the media. The media in fact has transformed itself from an entity of real journalism into a "dog and pony show." As I listen respectfully to the radio and television newscasters, I can only think, "Where did these professionals learn the craft of speech?" No one speaks anything that remotely resembles the King's English, proper English with a normal conversational flow. It is more like the more distorted your speech is, the worse your foreigh accent, the more you slur your words, the more you mechanically destroy the natural flow of human language, the better chance you have of being employed on a news cast. How about a few refresher speech classes? Try a poetry reading or two. Go to an acting class. Read some Shakespeare. Cartoons shouldn't be broadcasting the news, and the more I see happy faces telling us of more death and violence in Iraq, the more I wonder if anyone really understands the natural state of civilization. History tells you what is to come. European orchestral music, opera, monodrama, cantata, oratorio, and ballet all contain history. With a little attention to the arts, the world can remarkably become a more enlightened place. John F. Kennedy bolstered the arts in his short administration. Bill Clinton at least expressed interest in cinema and music. What does our current president show interest in? I'm not sure. What did he do in college or in high school? Play in the band? Act in a school play? Play chess? The examples of the stratification of social class can be seen no more clearly than in the American South. It seems there were plantation owners and slaves. Where is our middle class? What are the occupations of the middle class? Does the possession of money demand respect for some reason? "Fetch me a mint julip or play that there piano for me." Education is power. The more education you have the more powerful you become, because you can see through the guises of modern day corporate America. The ring tones, the camera phones, the iPods... Not that there is anything wrong with a little pop culture, but it doesn't take the place of an infrastructure built around religion and the worshipping of God. Think back to the energy crisis of the l970's. Gas lines. The government was smart enough to lower speed limits to 55 mph. Car manufacturers began building economy cars. Conservation because necessary for our very existance. I have watched careless, selfish Americans buy SUV after SUV for over a decade. Gas guzzling tanks turning our once calm roadways into avenues of road rage. Harley Davidsons with NO MUFFLERS, rattling away are turning our civilization into an arena of Mad Max and Thunderdome. Is this what the evolution of culture in the US has come to? Vancouver has electric trollies, not noisy diesel buses. It is quiet in their city. It is noisy in the US. What will the threshold be when Americans can no longer afford gasoline? Will this every happen? Are we headed for another Great Depression, a Coup, a meltdown of government? The longer we are out policing the rest of the world, contributing our time and effort to other countries, the more we neglect our own culture and quality of life. If I hear President Bush one more time say how important it is to spread democracy in the rest of the world, the more I want to ask him to step down, take his Vice President and become the President of Iraq. Leave America to someone that considers the Middle Class, the working class poor, and the homeless. You don't have to be a bleeding heart liberal to care for another social class other than your own. Only a small percentage of Americans play golf, belong to Country Clubs, have Debutante Balls, and live a life of liesure. In fact in 42 years of life in the US, I have yet to work a job that would afford me 1/10 of the lifestyle that my parents had. Woe is a country that wants you to see our Baber Boomers die and leave some jobs for the youth of America. Fuck WalMart.

European Gigilo

Gotta tip your hat to Adam Sandler and company for pointing out some of the hypocracies of modern day life in the good old US of A. Truckloads of reefer seem to be legal in Denmark, smoking in coffee houses, prostitution, and we in the right wing republic of US are outlawing cigarette smoking in public places. Our civil rights have been and are slowly dwindling to a stand still. You have to make big money to live comfortably here, and this didn't use to be the case. Gasoline prices, real estate prices, grocery prices. Fook man. That reminds me, actually brings me to a good point about our music business. When I got my first turntable in high school back in the late 70's, I could barely afford the price of an album. I remember they were always $7.00. That was almost my whole allowance for one week. If you bought an album, that meant no date/movie that weekend. (What would you choose, sex or music?) Then when CD's replaced albums and cassette tapes, they emerged at over $15.00 a pop for a $00.15 worth of plastic coated with some flimsy metallic material. They didn't even sound good to begin with, because the whole analog process of recording that sweetens sound wasn't fully understood. The whole FM/Digital age came along and the concept of sound went from sweet and pleasant to harsh and crass, or crisp as it may have been. My beef is music has always been grossly overpriced. No wonder the record industry is ailing. When you offer a consumer product at a reasonable, affordable cost, people buy it. MP3's must look like the Holy Grail to blooming Gen Xer's, people that can't afford to buy their music at the record store. The downside of course is, most people overlook that MP3's don't sound that good. Minidisc sounds good, but don't let me disparage the whole burgeoning iPod industry. I am glad Apple is making money, but I myself don't want no stinking iPod. I am an audiophile, a purist, and I let my AIFF files take up all that hard drive space on my ibook. Why not? The space is there, and I can burn quality CD's with the touch of a button. I did import a sizeable amount of CD's into iTunes, but for some reason it just doesn't push my button. Ferric Oxide (rust) has an amazing ability to record and sweeten sound, and that is a good thing. I recently mastered some 24 year old cassette tapes, and they sounded just as good as the day I recorded them. (You can't say that for DAT) Anyway, I would be the last one to post my original music on a website for free. You have to pay for a quality product. In fact, I wish they would have paid a little more for foley effects and incidental music in the European Gigilo. It was an entertaining film, but with that one dimensional sound track, i.e. no crowd noise, ambient city noise, or the like, it feels really oppressive. I doubt Amsterdam would be that quiet. Peace Out

Tesla and the AC Induction Motor

Not many people know our current Secretary of the Treasury under George Bush, John Snow, used to be CEO of CSX-T. CSX-T is an intermodal container shipping business that made its way into the Fortune 500 under the tutalage of Mr. Snow. Prior to the decade of the 90's, the rail industry in the U.S. was in decline. Truckers hauling freight on our interstate highways posed a sizeable threat in shipping by being more flexible and expedient in delivering goods. Mr. Snow, with prior experience in government, law, economics, and railroading, helped oversee the merging of the Chessie System with Seaboard/Atlantic Coastline into what is now the largest railroad in the eastern half of the United States. How did he do this? With rail all ready in place in the United States, the very backbone of the Iron Horse that literally built this nation, how could a CEO tranform an ailing industry into a Fortune 500 company? I guess that is why President Bush appointed him Secretary of the Treasury. I'm not sure if we have seen the results in the private sector he achieved with CSX-T, or in the federal government. Time will tell. A major factor in the success of a railroad is the reliability of its locomotives. Traditionally locomotives began as steam and near the middle of the 20th century became diesel/electric. Not many people know that the actual diesel engine does not pull the train. DC traction motors attached to each axle turn the wheels and pull the great load. DC motors have "brushes" like the alternator of your car. Under the stress of small grades, common to appalachia (2-3%), traction motors are likely to burn out. They overload and seize causing major repair work. General Electric, Siemens, General Motors, and others were pioneering the use of the AC motor, a brushless motor turned by a rotating electromagnetic field. The rotor, or the axle of the motor,is pulled along by a magnetic field created in the stator that rotates through its winding. The speed of the motor is controlled in a somewhat drastically different method than with its DC counterpart. Instead of increasing the amperage to the motor to control the speed, the AC motor needs a complex electrical system utilizing a PC (personal computer) and a fairly newly developed electrical component, the IGBT or Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor. The GTO was also used. To make a long story short, the diesel prime mover now turns an alternator that produces AC (alternating current) power rather than DC power. This is rectified and sent to the PC, which with some sophisticated software varies the frequency of the power which in turn really becomes the speed of the motor. That means the lower the frequency of the AC power, the slower the motor turns. Power in your home is transmitted at a steady, unchanging frequency, 60 cycles per second, or 60 Hz. This was rather pioneering in the field of traction. This new "drive" and drive control created a much finer degree of control over the tractive effort of the locomotive. There is less wheel slip and smoother acceleration and deceleration. Likewise locomotives were begun to be built with dynamic braking that uses the slowing and coasting of the locomotive to turn the traction motors into miniature generators that themselves produce electrical power. This energy is dispensed on a "grid" that is cooled by large fans, and on the newer line of GE conceived locomotives is stored in large batteries for future use. What could be the shortcomings of the AC traction motor? Think back for a moment to circa l980. Pink and green Polo shirts, preppies, Ronald Reagan, a happy decade for the most part. No Viet Nam no Korea, just a mostly pleasant decade in which to grow up as typified by the song, "Remember the 80's." Well, the railroad industry was almost bankrupt. They were not running nearly the amount of trains that operate daily today. AC traction was yet to be implemented. It was tested in the rough logging territory of the Pacific NorthWest by the Union Pacific. They were so impressed with the operation of the new locomotives they ordered many of new ones. The Union Pacific mainline is very close to Littleton, Colorado as are two Molybdenum mines that use AC drives underneath the ground. Taos, New Mexico was the first U.S. city that began to complain of a humming sound that was new. The governement did a study and attributed the sound to mining equipment nearby, and they were correct. GE had built a 15 mile long conveyor belt under the ground to haul the ore from the same type of mine to the refinery. The new AC drives were perfect for the application because they turn very slowly controlled by the same device found on locomotives. The hum sound began to appear in a variety of places including overseas. England, China, and all the countries that began to utilize AC traction in their railroads became plagued with humming sounds. In my mind, and this is only opinion, the decade of the 90's became the decade of new, unexplained psychological disorders that to this day aren't understood. ADD, Panic/Anxiety Disorder, SIDS all seemed to come out of nowhere. Likewise global warming began to heat up! Reflect for a moment and put the two together. New diseases that seem to have no physiological cause, that is no biological cause in the human body. Mysterious illnesses that just happen. Add Acid/Reflux to the list, that annoying little disease that wakes you up at 3:00 a.m. pushing stomach acid up burning your throat. Could there be a correlation between the advent and use of primitive AC traction and all these new diseases? Think for yourself how this may occur. How could rotating electromagnetic fields controlled by a thrysister, IGBT, or GTO cause mental illness? Simply put, brain activity is electrical. Alpha, beta, and theta waves in the brain are electrical signals functioning in the low frequency range of about 8-14 Hz. Before the advent of AC traction, other than the Navy's low frequency radio communications, there were few electrical signals being broadcast in this range. (Quantum physics is the study of electromagnetic waves, and these waves increase in danger the higher the frequency of the waves.) Gamma energy or nuclear radiation has the highest frequency and is the most dangerous as can be seen by the effects of the bomb on human beings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Take the other end of the spectrum, and you are operating in the range of the human brain and nervous system. Studies have shown when the brain of a human being is subjected to a source of external electricity in the air for an extended period of time, the brain eventually "gives up" and changes to or latches onto the offended frequency. This, in other words, can change your thought process or your mood. Given that thousands of AC traction locomotives are in operation everyday, could it be possible they are the source of these diseases? How can a locomotive, when it is so far away, possibly effect my brain activity? How can the polar ice caps be melting at an alarming rate? Another misunderstood phenomenon could be contributing to the problem. How can electromagnetic energy travel so far? Consider radio, TV, and cell phones. They travel thousands of miles. How would low frequency electricity be any different? Actually low frequency energy travels more efficiently because the wavelengths are dramatically longer. That is why the Navy uses this low frequency energy to communicate with our submarines all around the globe. The transmission tower for the energy is about 150 miles long! There can be no doubt this new energy source is in the air, and likewise there seems to be another component to the problem. Problems focusing, concentrating, staying alert, blurred vision. These are factors NASA has studied in our space program caused by infrasound or low frequency sound waves. They needed to know exactly how G forces and tremendous volumes of low frequency sound would effect pilots and astronauts. The effects are well documented, but how is this related to the rail industry? Diesel engines, because of their firing rate, produce an infrasound wave that tends to stay in the 2-4 Hz range the entire time the engine is running. As the engine rev's (although diesel prime movers are built to spin at a fairly constant rate) the frequency changes subtly. The engines are built this way because their sole responsibility is to spin a large generator or alternator, as in the case with AC traction. That means every operating locomotive in existance, whether with DC or AC traction motors, is producing a low frequency, inaudible wave that can best be described as a "pressure wave" in the air. Because of the nature of low frequency energy, they travel great distances. Radio traditionally refers to "carrier waves," different frequency waves that carry audio material that are cancelled out at the destination. Infrasound waves can be considered huge carrier waves that have the potential for carrying complex sound vibration. The simplest way to see this is to look at the surface of the ocean. See if you can see any rhyme or reason to the patterns on the surface? Do they look like ocean currents? That's because likely they are not. The surface of the ocean could be a direct spectrograph of the sound and vibration that is in the air above it. There is a second easy way to see the infrasound wave produced by diesel engines. If you ever take a cruise, turn on the stern cams on the ship's television. This allows you to watch the "wake" of the propellers in the ocean behind the ship. Watch for at least five minutes. What you will begin to see is the wake forming a gentle 1,100 foot long, wave in the water behind the ship as the ship is slowly and discretely pushed back and forth by the large and powerful infrasound waves. The wake, like the surface of the ocean, is a perfect pepresentation of the waves in the air. Likewise the majority of turbulance you feel in a cruise ship is caused by infrasonic energy pushing on the sides of the ship above water, not by the ocean's currents. Getting back to the railroads, how could AC traction be creating these new diseases, other than the altering of your brainwaves? (like that isn't enough!) Processing the vast amount of electricity traction motors need to pull tons of cargo is bound to cause some type of residual effect. What could that be? Resistance causes electrical vibration. When you produce a great amount of energy, then hold it back in a structure of some kind, it is bound to produce vibration. Send that vibration through the air with a diesel-produced infrasound wave, and you have what could be the cause for many of these illnesses that seem to be unique to the decade of the 90's. When your eyes, ears, skin, brain, and nerves are assaulted with invisible vibration, could this not be the cause of lack of concentration? Infrasound by nature is produced by drastic weather and the looming prospect of the dinosaur. It illicits feelings of dread, panic, and being afraid. Could not AC traction be the root of these things that continue to plague life in the good old U.S. of A? It's worth a thought.

Ugliness in the Name of Mediocrity

Get this. Get Smart. Get Shorty. Get go. Get up wid it. Get up on it. Giddy up. Git. Ugliness ain't selling. Lumpy, dumpy, ugly, sloppy fashion is out. Capish? Out! Get the fock out! That pseudo-European fraud of letting our models look normal, all American. You mean obese? Lazy, slovenly? Are we in the 60's yet again? I have yet to see one actress or actor that I had any desire to look at. What exactly are we supposed to be watching? Talent. Acting. Bad fashion. Juvenile behavior. TV, Hollywood used to be glamour. What happened? Bad taste. Bad acting. No vision? It is NOT working. I do not want to see yet another run-of-the-mill no bodied 60's child. I do believe the 40DD plastic surgeon created Pamela Anderson look is passe. Thank God we are past that. It is too difficult to keep up with her history of surgeries, although she is a sexy beast. Saline, silicone, real, goop? Who knows. Natural is always better. Who would want to give up sensitivity for a big fake breast? "Well we are sorry, but we have to cut the nerves in order to remove your nipple to place the implant over your chest cavity." What, no sexual arousal? No feeling. Naahhh. Fashion does have a prerequisite. Looks. Being in shape. Taste. Poise. Not like a beauty queen, a product, but a stylish beauty with taste, finesse, charisma, like Kim Bassinger. Sissy Spacek. Raquel Welch. Brooke Burke. Who cares if she squeezed out two rug rats. She is fine, warm, nice, and humble. But this status quo that is in place, or not in place. Nothing really. No prerequisites at all, except my male counterpart is Matt Damon. Who are you? Matt Damon in drag at 35,000 feet. Redeye. Jennifer Connelly, step to the plate and take a happy role again. You are dark, dark in the name of acting? Or are you just dark? You have a husband and kids. What's with all the dark roles? Do you have any happiness, other than the ghost of a dead little Russion girl? Show us some happiness. No missionary, no single mother, no girlfriend of a drug addicted Jesus. Show us a happy you. How can young women aspire to be in happiness? Show us Career Opportunities. I'll write your next film score, if it is a happy one.

The Decline of the Record Industry and the Disappearance of Pubes

Let's clarify one thing. Napster did not ruin the record industry, they did it themselves. The "boy band." What a crock of shite this is. Well, it goes back a little further to the disappearence of pubes, no, I mean real, live, playing bands. "How could that happen? How could a band play live and not play?" Enter the Simpson family. Enter pop, corporate bullshite. Enter the deterioration of music education as we formally know it. Years of piano lessons for little Johnny. Singing in the church choir. The high school marching band. Theory courses as a Freshman in college. Years of listening and practising by oneself. Solo. No pharming parties. No reality TV. Just real live music education, in the traditional sense. Not some bullshite notion that a corporation like Time/Warner, just because it owns everything that walks and talks, can all of a sudden just by the sheer will that it needs to make money, can create talent, creativity, soul, experience, vision, and charisma. The demise of the record industry began with the advent of the live use of the "sequence." I do not admonish the use of the personal computer as a useful tool in substitution for an expensive, multi-track professional recording studio. What a beautiful creation. A personal computer that can record MIDI data and digital audio. But......... using that crutch, that very product as a substitution for a live band performance. Hmmmmm. That was the beginning of the end for live music. "We have to have the track playing, because we can't risk the consequences if the band can't handle the groove." Enter Rap, Hip/Hop, Boy Bandism, bullshite. Let's let the 'track" play live, while the puppets mimic the live performance of a normal band. Jesus H. Christ. You did it to yourselves. TV shows about putting a band together, like it is some kind of corporate training. "You must produce or you will be fired! You must sell yourself to the masses, or your soul will be condemned to hell forever!" Music? Music this is not. This is the antithesis of musical creativity, a freeing of the soul, a release of the natural endorphins building in the human body. In democracy, the ultimate form of govenrment, the planned and in the works process for a new Iraq, we are all salesmen. Born to be....salesmen. Born to sell. Born to sell. Who the frack decided this preposterous notion? I never wanted to sell, although after I learned how it became easy. Is that the definition of democracy? Born to sell soap? I think not, and a lot of Red's would agree with you. Music is not about that. Enter the punk scene. If you ever accepted a record contract with a major label, you were a sell out. Greenday. Lose your fans, temporarily, until you prove yourself yet again. Try, win, fail big time, resurrect, try, save Rock 'n' Roll, earn Grammie. The record industry, by their sheer attempt to control every aspect of the creative spirit, ruined themselves. The Jacksons and the Osmonds, they were the only boy bands. They played and sang. So people began to rely on that sequencer for their live performances. You just shoot your musicians in the foot. Play with a click track? Play with a prerecorded sequence to assure the product will reap the greatly desired rewards... money. You did it to yourselves. Enter the dilemma of the shaved pussy. Larry Flynt said it best. Who decided that a shaved pubes were best? Bullshite. God didn't put hair on your crotch to humor himself. He put it there as a priviledge for the human being to enjoy? "I can't imagine a John picking hair out of his teeth." Well, as a novice in the field of sex, that is what you would think. The wiser you get and the more you understand sex, the more you appreciate the funcion of hair. I shaved my head once in 43 years, and the immediate sensation is..... no feeling on the top of your head. Hair feels. You can feel through a hair folicle. No hair, no sensation. M.S. Carnival Sensation. Hair, ladies and germs, is meant to be involved during the sex act. Hair on your head, under your arms, on your crotch. You rub your penis in it, you stroke it, your brush it, your touch it, you carpet munch it. That is the purpose! Without it, a pussy is not really a pussy. It is a possum, a whiteish pink blob of undefined flesh with no purpose except to raid garbage cans. A vagina on the other hand is meant to be much, much more. A runway. Shite man, what more disgusting thing can you think of than a little strip of hair that has no meaning or purpose? You are misinformed ladies. Men do NOT want this. It is ugly, foul, and disgusting. A big patch of natural hair, all puffed up and alive, now that is a pussy. Live bands, live pubes. That what life is about.

The Electric Guitar

I just want to explain one thing to producers, song-writers, musicians, and the buying pulic about rhythm. We are in a state of deterioration in popular music, and there is ONE simple answer why most of the music we are hearing on the airwaves is crap. Somehow, some way, this particular rhythmic "feel" has nestled its way into mainstream pop music, and it is literally killing the essence of what music is supposed to do. Does anyone know? "Step right up and make a mindful choice at what is killing commercial music." Can you guess? I'll give you a little clue. God did not give us a Macintosh computer or a PC to make music. Music is a privilidge given to us to exalt in the name of the Lord and whatever thing is near and dear to your heart. It is personal and natural. The Susuki and Kodaly methods of music instruction are successful because they begin when children are too young to understand there is anything that can inhibit their musical freedom and expression. Not the daunting of a collegiate music school, not the air of a lofty piano competition, not sightsinging. Human beings naturally make music as part of their soul, and this is the way it should be. Not just Soul and R&B music have soul. All good music has soul. Computers don't have soul, unless it is given to them by the programmer. "Feel" is the natural feeling of music generated by human beings interpreting music. Church music has soul. J.S. Bach has soul. Vivaldi has soul. Miles Davis has soul. Jewel has soul. "Sequenced, quantized" music has NO soul. It is the mechanical drone of a a steady stream of 8th notes not unlike the sound of a vintage Casio drum accompaniment on an organ in the mall in the early 70's. No one liked the sound of that, so "Why the fuck is everything I hear, every commerial track on the airwaves quantized to sound as such?" Please tell me it is because the producers of the bands or spots don't have enough in their budgets to pay someone to play the music for real. Please tell me they don't hire a corporate programmer that inputs the music, highlights it all with a Select All, and heads for that menu that destroys the product before it even has a chance to live and breathe. Phrases of music are like sentences. You wouldn't want to listen to someone speak in a monotone, would you? Why would anyone want to listen to music as such? The title of the instrument, the piano, was a revelation in the development of music. Originally called the Piano/Forte, it personifies the very essence of what we are talking about. Soft and loud. Not loud. Not soft. Soft and loud. Soft and loud within a phrase of music, or a spoken sentence of speech. Inflection. Soul. Humanity. Expression. Similarly to this horrid quantizing of music in the likes of Logic, Studio Vision, or Digital Performer, the electric guitar has added to the confusion. What is this? How could the premiere instrument in the formation of American Rock 'n' Roll be detrimental to the production of music? It's called the upstroke. What? Come again? That UPSTROKE. The upstroke is the acsending portion of the strum of the guitar. What a simplistic thing, or is it? I never liked the feeling of Fok Music that much. I tried playing bass in a few Hum and Strum bands, and it literally made me sick. I didn't know why then. I do now. It is because the simplistic strum of the guitar, especially the acoustic guitar is not very interesting. In fact it is downright boring. If you reflect upon the genres of music in existance, little rhythmic clave make up the grooves. Little patterns in each instrument that fit together like a glove create a "groove" that engages the listener rhythmically. It effects you physically and makes you feel the music in your body. You pat your foot. You break out a few moves. The strum of the guitar does not have this effect. One reason is, the space between the down and upstrokes of the strum are unnaturally close together. Strum, strum. Now that seems real simple, like almost anyone can do it, and that is probably true, but in real music, there is space in that there strum. If the wrist is loose, then the music can swing. Swing rebounds like a bouncing ball, not like 80's Rock. Strum ah. One is accented more than the other. In real music, nobody really would ever just strum away on the acoustic guitar. It is a crutch. It is a throw away. Good rhythm guitar players are hard to find, because you have to know the style in which you are playing and know the pattern and the feeling of the music. Rarely is it ever going to be strum, strum, strum like we are hearing all over the airwaves. Then on top of it, drums and bass can fairly easily match that strict, metronomic feel. But why would they want to? You are basically destroying all of the good musical information that has come before, taking the beautiful "feels" of music and reducing them to a mechanical, sterile, boring, unmoving wash of nothing. Lots of people have jumped on this band wagon. I even heard the SNL band playing in that so-called style. Less effort is more. Cool man. "Don't get to personal with your approach." This is shite, shite, shite, and the sooner we realize this is not the way to go with music, the more commercial music will Renaissance. Why anyone on this planet that longs to play music would ever succomb to this new low is beyond me. Fewer keyboard players in bands, because piano and guitar play different feels. At least if guitar wants to play with piano, he has to understand the pianist HAS NO UPSTROKE!!!!!!!!! There is no way humanly possible keyboard players can compete or even try and play when the band has agreed upon this metronomic feel. If that is the point, keep the keyboard players out of the game, they are succeeding. I for one as a jazz pianist have had it. Go to school, buy some records, study the music that has come before. Forget about Drum and Bass or Bass and Drum, or stay holed up in your mama's bedroom surfing porn, working on the box, and losing your soul to a disturbing trend that is ruining music. Let's not make it for long.

Influence of Video Games

Hollywood filmmakers take note. Stop trying to fuse video gaming with cinema. There is NO concept that is going to work to enhance movies, because good movies are about real people, humanity, not fictitious superheros. The quicker you guys figure this out, the better chance the movie industry has of regaining some ground. Just think how ludicrious it looks. Enter movie, Mindhunters. The first real fight that breaks out, I can't believe my eyes. All this real life drama and all of a sudden Joe Schmoe from Idaho looks like Donkey Kong! His movements are animated, jumping around like a video game character. I'm so sick of seeing people fight, and fight, and fight, and what else? Fight, and fight, and fight. Mad Max has arrived ladies and germs, and boy will I ever be glad when he leaves the building. Video games are games, no relationship to real life, to movies, to anything, so give up on it. Yes the entertainment gurus want to "blur the line between reality and fiction, so no one can tell where one starts and the other begins." Exsqueeze me? Sound like Big Brother? Sound like some right wing asshole is going to be broadcasting propaganda here pretty soon in the US of A. I like this new movie that is coming out with Ice Cube. Storm Washington DC and wipe 'em all out. Did you know our military presence in the states is in a severe state of understaffing? When your country becomes the police dog of the world, your troops presence in your own country dwindles to almost nothing. Enter Ice Cube. Coup de tat is it? Pop culture is in the dregs. We know this. Until another Madanna comes along and sets a fashion trend, supported by some peppy, positive music, with some hip dance moves, pop culture is going to suffer. Anime is not going to do it. Until a Grunge faction erupts, a drug culture other than thugs and ganstas, an anti-war mission, a disco ball craze, our modern pop society is in stasis. Crumpin' is not going to be it. Clowning is not going to be it. Not that there is anything wrong with finding positive energies in which to direct your motivation, but that doesn't make it art. Hip/Hop is dead. Rap is dead, and as soon as the fashion statement loses it backing by music, it makes those wearing it look like cartoon characters. I'll never forget the times I am getting coffee at a college cafe and some guy in fatigue pants, combat boots, with ammunition strapped around his shoulders comes walking up the street! "Hey man, you lost all your little playmates and your GI Joes." What could they be thinking? Punks on the other hand I have no trouble with. They have positive energy, they have a flare for fashion, and they are colorful. Pretty colors, weird hair, jewelry. The punk movement is valid and will be around forever. Just ask Sid and Nancy. The thug business? It's already gone. Does it make us nerdy to look to education for values, for direction, for wisdom and knowledge on a planet so seemingly desolate you would be hard pressed to find a humane gesture anywhere? Artists look in the streets, they try to become the pulse of the nation. They try to open themselves up to what is happening in the world, examine it, accomadate it, use it, make some sense out of it. When all you receive is negativity when you open yourself up it is time to pull yourself up by the bootstraps, change the way it is, and make things better. The war in Iraq is NOT making us a better place at the moment. Neither are $2.00+ oil prices. (Oh, record gains for the Exxon corporation) Infrasonic pollution from diesel/electric trains is not helping humanity. Neither is heat produced from 5000 airplanes flying over the US at any given time. Global Warming? Just take a look around. It doesn't take a genius to figure out. Electromagnetic waves of every frequency everywhere. Not too long ago microwave frequencies weren't even licensed by the FCC for use in communication. Look at what we have now. Everyone and their brother has a cell phone. We should call them what they are, microwave transmitters. Everytime the Navy does an experiment with SONAR, the whales high tail it for the beach rather dying that listening to that noise. All for what? Extremist Islamism? The war on terror? Or is it oil?

Stalog

What Stalog shall you visit today? The Stalog that has a posted sign that says, "No loitering, no skateboarding, no buying of products sold by private merchants manufactured in Mexico a la NAFTA or soon to be Middle America, or Tiawan, or Korea, or any other country of "outsourcing" choice?" What shopping center is going to dictate its terms as you drive into the very bowels of its asphault meadows, mandating how you are doing to buy your products. "You must have your papers! You can not enter here without your papers! Call the Gestapo! He does not have the proper VIC or MVP card. Put him in the cooler!" Free trade? Stand in line for ten minutes, bite your tongue, search through endless racks of clothing, bargain for the most recent advertisement in the local newspaper? Shopping is so much fun! Listen to whatever droning music someone sees fit as the proper canvas for you to make informed purchases. Kenny G.?... I for one to want to listen to any stinking music when I shop . I can't concentrate on the prices, the nutritional information, observe and compare the different brands, hide from other shoppers, mutter under my breath about MVP and VIC cards. Well, the beauty of a free America is you can go wherever you want to shop. If a particular place is not tickling your fancy, you can get in your ride, spend $2.25 a gallon, and motor on over to the next place that will be exactly the same, sort of like the internet. Seems this website and that, both selling the same item, somehow look amazingly the same. Seems our store and yours have the same prices. Caramba! A brainstorm. How about a little kioske in Home Depot, Lowes, and the rest, with little maps of the store. Where to find the product you really need. Look on the map, which lists the products one each aisle, and walk calmly to your purchase. No needless wandering, chasing clerks, roaming the aisles for days and nights. Boom. A map, and here is your stuff. Don't take a genius to figure that one out. Could be the same in the grocery store. Walk in, a little shelf right next to the Apartment Finder and Real Estate Guide, and a guided tour of the store, before you even set foot inside. Be prepared! The Boy Scouts motto.
Is America really free? Are we really free? Does our president really care about us? Is someone looking out for the best interests of Mainstream America? Go Hillary, Go! While George is off on his pillage for foreign oil, Al Gore would be marketing the first hybrid gas/electric automobiles reducing our reliance on petroleum. The graven image of the automobile. "Don't rip up that light rail going to the beach! Who says we want an interstate instead of a trolley snaking along our waterfront? " Hmmm. Sound familiar? "We don't need no stinking cars!" Get up on that Lance thing and pedal to work tomorrow, and put your groceries in that big basket over the front wheel. "Auntie Emme!" Sure wish I could lose this Acid Reflux that didn't exist a decade ago, or neither did ADD, Sudden infant Death Syndrome, Panic/Anxiety Disorder, blah, blah. We the people can't seem to figure it all out. What is your drug of choice to make life tolerable in the good old US of A? Money.

Grocery Store Cards

On a lighter note, a higher note, a louder note, a sixteenth note, what is it about these cards one most possess to shop in a modern day super market? Why is it so important ot carry around yet another little plastic card that the checker can scan to save you money? They keep track of your individual purchases I suppose. If you must go to the trouble of registering, that is telling the food chain so to speak all of your personal information, they can easily keep track of your purchases. Hummmm. Okay, if you use a debit card, your financial institution can track your purchases, or rather a group of bored bank workers could presumably sit around and make fun of where you shop and what you buy. Isn't that an infringement of our constitutional right to privacy? What is there is a little global positioning chip in each of our cell phones? It seems to be a good idea for the next generation of kiddie phones soon to be on the market. Locate your lost child. I like it, but I have always suspected carrying around a little power generator marks your spot on the earth like a big fart. Where's is Perkin's today, Mr. President? He shopped in Walmart, had a little lunch, went to the gym, then caught a movie. Big news! So I don't get it really. I went to the store the other night to buy a bag of chips. In all three places I shopped, the price was exactly the same, two grocery stores and a food mart. I bought at the latter because there was no intense demand to own an MVP card or a VIC card. No 2 for 1 signs. No you are saving this much with your card. No double figures on the items. Just here is your food, and this is the price. No negotiation, no trading of information, simply performing an all American free trade for goods or services. I like that. I don't like having to carry around a little red and white card. It feels like being a Jew in a war camp. Scan my personal bar code to make sure prisoner Smith is getting the right nutrition. I do like the U-Scan lines though. No muss or fuss once you get the process down pat. Scan, punch some buttons, slide your card, and exit the store. Too bad you can't get a rub and a tug the same way.

P.S. This blog isn't really meant to be a conspiracy theory post, but we will allow banter about things that seem to curve that way.

Homosexuality in America

What message would your teen be receiving if they were growing up in modern day America? Let's ammend the Constitution of the United States to allow gay marriage? I guess this supercedes the seperation of church and state, the elimination of God from our schools and workplace. Let's furthur degrade the moral and ethical possibilities of our children by inforcing in our public institutions there is no place for a "God." What the hey? Hey man, how was this nation founded? Puritans, hypocrites, Mormans with ten wives? Husbands that have sex with their daughters? This isn't Jamaica man. Incest is bad, and all those bad genes really do produce those horrific birth defects you see in the medical books. God, who would want to live in Jamaica, except for the marijuana? "Drugs are bad, 'kay," so Southpark says. What incentives to the good old US of A give to youths to be straight? Can you think of one? A strict upbringing with no dating? No carousing, no late night car rides, no movies. Oh but we suggest drunken fraternity parties at the lake with kegs of beer and football quarterbacks and cheerleaders with no clue about anything, much less a sexual relationship. In fact, it seems today sex is bad, very bad. The religious right is saying what? "Get what you can, can it, and sit on the can." Not "Go out and try to feel a girl up. Find out what it is like to feel your God given sexuality, your hormones, your ID that Freud says is the main component of who you are." I agree. When I wake up everyday and can't feel or remember what it is like to want a woman, when my natural sexual drive that I am so familiar with is confused and unsupported, I want to put a bullet through my head. Who knew that your quest for the Holy Grail in life would be waking up everyday with the joyous feeling of heterosexuality, the Seven Brides for Seven Brothers mentality of just knowing that this was your purpose in life? Take joy in the knowledge that you love women... or men and love them in the likeness of God. No turmoil, no confusion, just happiness. Gone are those days, Obi Wan. America you see is the country that learned to SELL sex. Sex in the US is a commodity meant to be packaged, sold, skewed, manipulated, and further debased into a state of metrosexuality. What? We should act submissive and homosexual so the crab people can take over the world? I can attest to it. If I could wake up everyday and know who I was because of the feeling in my loins, the God given desire to want to be with a woman, I would be in heaven. Now it seems if that will never come, and by God if you commit suicide, you are sentenced to an eternity in hell. Not such a great prospect. Why is this? Why do we as a society frown upon healthy heterosexual relationships? Because they are empowering. Empowering in a way that allows the human spirit to overcome the grief and hardship that is everyday life. Empowering in a way that would allow the Republican Right to further manipulate us into beliefs of terror, afraid for our very existance, clinging at the coat tails of the very political regime that is about to bring our world to an end? I beg to differ. Don't trust the soap box that is the "tube." Selling soap is not setting moral precident for the youth of America. Art is what leads, not television. History tells the story of what is to come, not blind propagandic prophecy. It has all happend before, and if you take the time to look at Western Civilization, the history of Europe, you know what is to come. It is not really a pretty picture. The black plague? A Schism. I think that seems quite probable in our divided little America. A modern Civil war that truly divides the right and the left. Pilgrimages, great missions, war, and war, and war? Or civilization? Civilization like we know it can be. Trust, respect, humility, love, friendship, compassion. Not greed, corruption, hatred, violence, and death. You see, if you really look at it, Socialism doesn't seem all that bad as a political ideology. All are taken care of, food, drink, vodka, sex, art, life, happiness, humanity, all in return for a little work for the "state." But that damn corruption. It's everywhere. Simply think about this. When you die, do you want to be alone and wealthy? Or do you want to have friendship and support from others? You choose.
What does this country offer our youth in reward for heterosexuality? Popularity? Media coverage? A movie script? Clothing? A future? How do we as a country reinforce that heterosexual behavior is correct, or at least what is represented in most of history and the bible? Is it insipid? Is it boring? Is it sexual harrassament? Is it date rape? Is it herpes? Is it AIDS? Funny how a disease just appears out of the blue effecting only homosexuals and intrevenous drug users. Weird, kind of. I don't want it. I don't want Playboy. Hugh, you went off course way over a decade ago with the pixilization, the fixer upper of the bad skin, the hair, the pubes. I can't think of a more unappealing female then what you are representing in Playboy. Take a minute, climb the ladder into that dusty attic, and peruse an issue or ten of Playboy in the 50's and 60's. Man, those women are sexy, free, natural, untouched by the modern mouse of graphic improvement. America has lost touch with sensuality. It doesn't sell. Sex, ladies and germs, is a God given priviledge that is not meant to be marketed and sold, unless it is the harmless act of prostitution. Forget the strip clubs, the Gentlemen's Clubs, the dating services. Why shell out your hard earned dollar to see a complete stranger dance on a pole, when you can get laid for less money? Because the good old U.S. of A says it is illegal. Enter the picture, rape, kidnapping, pedafilia, molestation, and the list goes on. In Acapulco you can have that God given Jones itched by a 22 year old Columbian sweetheart for $80.00. They even throw in a finger massage, some kind banter, and a few beers. That's because it is a God given urge. It is not a crime to want to have sex. It is our nature. It is the debasing, misrepresenting, and selling of images of frustrated sex that give us problems. If the movies would show successful purpose, people dealing with life in a successful way, solving our problems, seeing through the scrim of democracy, being born to sell a product, and just see we are human beings, things would be alot better in the America. Revel in the love of your high school sweetheart. Love your wives and husbands. Love your children. Leave this confusion and darkness behind and set the example for what should come, in the likeness of God. God gave us sexuality, marriage, and children. How much longer are we going to @#$% it up?