Glam Country

I learned something by watching Larry King tonight in prime time. What I didn't like about the Dixie Chicks was their image. I never got through the glam image, the shiny hair, the doll-like make-up, and the curvey bodies to be able to listen to their music. The image turned me off. Glam country just doesn't work as a concept. Seems Nashville or somebody has been pushing that image for a while now. I was relieved to learn the Dixie Chicks are growing up, expanding beyond that bubble gum pop image, and tackling the real world. Finally somebody is trying to do it. Way to go! I was also relieved to hear the groove in their most current effort. They said it had been called 70's, California rock. Right on! Leave that Nashville induced weak, pop, metrosexual bibble in the dust and rock something out with conviction. That is music the way I know it. I haven't had enough time to reflect about all the issues it brought up, but I was glad to realize their appearance was very much related to my last post. Glam country has never really worked, and now I must add the Dixie Chicks to my list of country visionaries. Garth, Shania, and them. (or is it they?) Seems maybe I have been missing something not checking them out. I do like Jessica Andrews and Vanessa Carlton. I like Paula Cole and Vanessa Willliams. I like the Sundays. It was interesting hearing a little of their music for the second time. It makes me reflect on a musical, the Life of June Carter Cash, that played here recently. They called that music Bluegrass, but there was no banjo, or fiddle, or mandolin. It sounded more like Bible Belt mountain music. The thing that struck me about it was everybody sung all the time. There was no orchestration to the vocal performance. You never got to hear any of the individual voices because they were having so much fun singing together all the time. This doesn't really work. Tasty choral writing, or any writing for that matter, steers clear of the homogeneous sound. Trumpet choir, trombone choir, any of them get old real fast because of the lack of timbral variation. That is the beautiful thing about the orchestra. Given the right orchestrator such as Ravel or Tchaikovsky, the orchestra breathes with freshness and life. Put in the hands of Ennio Morrocone, the orchestra is a living, breathing soul every bit as important any actor in a movie. Tasty vocals can be found many places, but maybe that is out of the concept of their music. Snoop Dog's "What's My Name" Part ll, produced by who I think was Dr. Dre, are tasty background vocals. Male, bass voices singing the hook. Man that is novel. That was Hip/Hop at its best. It sounded like to me there was a male voice down there in their mix, but that could have been any of the three girls singing in the alto range. I'll have to give them more time, now that they have aired grievances similar to my own. From this Moment On is one of my favorite songs of all time, mostly because of the duet. If that was Mutt singing with Shania, their chemistry is what produced that album. He sings well, and he pushed her to be a greater star than she all ready was. That seems to be a trend in popular music. Mariah and Tommy LiPuma, Gloria Estefan and her husband, Celine Dion. I wish I had me one. I could do the writing and the producing part, and a few others things too. There was one I met on a cruise ship. I was playing in the Showband for Carnival, and this little girl came on and sung the National Anthem at the Guest Talent Show. I was given a cryptic, faded, lead sheet and expected to provide a suitable accompaniment. That tune, but the way, is really a hymn. Hymns are strickly four voice choral writing, and unless you are Wynton Marsalis and Kenny Kirkland, it is risky to improvise. I took a few hours in the afternoon after the rehearsal and wrote a re-harmonization of the melody with a Charles Ives flavor. I had to practice it a long time. Talent Show on a cruise ship is a rare, challenging beast. The whole ship is roaring and clapping. Then you have to step up to the plate and play by yourself, a very intimate and un-rehearsed musical performance, very far apart, and through a sound system that envies a transistor radio. Well, I knew she would nail it, because she had the feeling. I followed her phrasing, and I interjected as I could my interpretation of the tune. We meshed. She was inspired by my effort, liked what she heard, and I well up in tears every time I listen to it. Later in the year on a different Carnival ship, we played together again. She was engaged this time and traveling with her fiance. The tune was "Wiping Away all My Tears." It was equally as stirring, and away she went to Greensboro, North Carolina. I won't mention her name, but I knew in my heart she had what it took to be a star singer. Talent and understanding beyond her years. Those experiences are what made the Showband, not playing Nick Thorp's sequenced production show charts with a track.

Health Care in America

There is a little joint in San Pedro California that will give you a complete physical for $125.00. There is one little stipulation, but it is not a big one. I went there last time, and it cost me $125.00 total. The first time I had a physical, it cost about $500.00. When I went back there two years later, they said prices had gone up, and it would probably cost twice as much. That is when I went to the clinic in San Pedro. I tried to get another physical today, but after waiting almost a month for the appointment, the doctor looked at my employment sheet and recommended I go to an Urgent Care facility. Seems he could not do the chest X-ray, the blood work, the EKG, or any of the requirements for an employment physical. Why was I there? Why had I gone through the appointment process, waited, showed up, filled out the necessary paperwork, to be told by the doctor he could not fulfill the services I had requested a month earlier? With three weeks to go before the job starts, I am in a race against the United States Health Care system. I am not impressed. In fact, it may keep me from getting a job. America rocks! Not.

The MP3

The long term effects of the MP3 audio file must be evolving. We, as a nation, or we, in the professional audio industry, or we, as artists, should ask the question. Is the MP3 going to take the place of the Compact Disc? It could be corporate America (those involved with the music industry) are waiting. It is an uncomfortable position. There is no doubt the advent of the MP3 has all ready changed the face of music in the United States. When Napster created their network, allowing thousands of previously copy-righted songs to be downloaded for free, it was a sensation. What lover music wouldn't reap the rewards of free recorded music? The audiophile may have objected because of the compression scheme necessary in MP3 production. An MP3 simply compresses an original AIFF or WAV file into a much smaller space allowing it to be downloaded over the internet in a relatively short amount of time. Likewise, RealPlayer and Windows Media Player allow for the use of "streaming audio," audio that will play smoothly (or almost smoothly) in real time over a broadband connection. It was and is novel. I got caught up in the bubble. After Napster was prosecuted, they and iTunes began to over a legal service that will probably change music forever. The iTunes music store is a great invention. With a few clicks of the mouse and Roadrunner, lots of recorded music is available for your enjoyment. It is easy to search for and easy to buy an download. After doing this for a while, I had to stop and ask myself, "Is this the future of recorded music." I did a little research on the web. I found the recordings I liked with the iTunes Music Store. Then I searched for those CD's on Amazon.com. Amazingly enough, the CD's were almost always available used for less money. If iTunes is selling songs for $.99 and albums for ten dollars, I though to myself. "Why not spend the $2.50 for shipping and get the CD. Then you have the jewel box, the printed literature, and high quality AIFF audio that can easily be imported into iTunes with the click of a mouse. You get more than simply downloading an MP3 file. I spent roughly fifty dollars on five CD's. I will admit it felt tough. You only get what you pay for, and throughout my life I have always felt the effects of buying. Shit here as always been expensive. Albums in the 70's began at seven dollars, and CD's upon their arrival on the market were sixteen bucks. Not many teenagers or college kids can afford that. As a result the MP3 is a worth competitor in the market for recorded music. The long term effects of this change are still happening. If the decision is made by the industry to abandon compact discs, many things will happen, some of which probably all ready are. I think it may be contributing to the demise of the music video on television. Evidently the push in the industry must be for the smaller objects of audio production, namely the iPod, the palm pilot, and whatever else is out there on the market. These, as I reflect, took the country by storm with millions sold. The iPod is the new music player. Well, using an iPod does not change the steps necessary in creating great music. It may lead you to think that way. This trend has all ready effected professional music production on television and in the movies. Why hire John Williams to score your movie, then pay the London Philharmonic to record the score, when Hans Zimmer can create a score in his home studio? I can't think of the guy that does the dark toned orchestra/MIDI music for Tim Burton's films, but he has been right in there. Unfortunately the craft of such notable orchestra composers such John Barry, James Horner, and others is becoming rare. Slowly but surely with the advent of Sony Digital Sound, the subtle nuances of an orchestral score that caress the scenes and actors in conventional music making have taken a back seat to the loud and infrasonic banging of tribal drums. It seems like many of the movies that are mass produced today use almost the same cue in the opening sequence. Booming, noisy, spurts of sound underscore every action scene leaving the listener desensitized. It is only when you watch a movie such as Somewhere in Time, we forget how powerful and intimate music can make a movie. Producers used to pay large cash for such a product. With the influx of video games the experience of movie watching in a theatre changed. I say, drop the ticket price to $.50. If movies are indeed going to continue to be treated as glorified video games, the price should be adjusted accordingly. I think the MP3 is a mistake for the recording industry. Art is not created in a little studio with one guy behind the controls. The PROCESS of music making is suffering massively during this transition. Radio has all but disappeared as the once catalyst for launching an artist's career. My friend in Nashville confirmed what I thought to be true, which was.... all the radio stations were bought up by one company, a corporate monopoly so-to-speak. This stifles creativity in the music industry, because the tried and true method of launching band is now different if it exists at all. The lack of music videos on television my be foreshadowing the death of popular music as we know it. If people in the US really want to watch that reality/gossip crap on TV, then they must not have interest in music with any artistic content. It's seems to be all about "me." I guess everybody want to be a star now as evidenced by American Idol. What happened to taking piano lessons, performing in musicals, majoring in music in college, and driving your shoes to New York or LA to promote your demo? That process is what it takes to produce great music. There is substance there because of the process. I have always known the purchase of a Macintosh was not going to somehow magically create the music that I have worked so hard at. Music lives in the compositional process. It lives as the composer conceives it. Without that process, the music is not alive at all, but a shot in the dark for what you think the masses would want. Art is in the composers hands. His feelings, his thoughts, and his experiences are the true voice. If someone thinks a mass hysteria about American Idol is somehow going to replace the creative process they are wrong. It is wrong to suggest that fame and money can be created with a facade. With a crack team of songwriters and instrumentalists, it is possible to produce an acts. An act must be seen for what it is, pop fodder. Jessica Simpson? I don't even know who she is. Apparently she has a sister that sings too. I myself am not interested in a corporate-created image that looks pretty on stage. I want to connect with someone through their lives and experiences. That is what joins a nation together, a common thread that all can sympathize with. That is what we are lacking now. Media moguls are in NO position to create a trend, a wave, a movement in humanity. That comes from real life experiences. All the glitter and glamour and microphones and buzz will not create art. If the powers at be truly are a "One World Order," and through PC are trying to mold America's youth into something they can manipulate, they must be succeeding. If reversing the history of American music, the rebelliousness, the political checks and balances, and the emotional cries for integrity, if that is the goal... It must be stopped. I for one am not going to spend the rest of my life carrying around a little cigarette box with digital music in it. We deserve more as the American people. We deserve more space. We deserve the playgrounds we once had and the woods and the trails. We deserve the funkiness that is Hollywood. We deserve brothels and bars and wig stores. We don't deserve, like the former residents of New Orleans, to be pushed out of our lives with eminent Domain. Over-priced condominiums springing up like the sky scrapers in Manhattan, alienating the common man from their deserved life. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights and Declaration of independence used to mean something. The tired and poor were offered a new start at life in the United States. Slowly that is disappearing until one day man will cease to exist at all. It will just be an office with a computer moving money from place to place.

A Disposable Society

The recent deaths of three CBS correspondents in Iraq brought to mind an interesting notion. This theory in no way suggests these professionals somehow failed in their duty to their jobs. What it may do is raise an eyebrow to the trend in pop culture in the United States. Over the last few years the dynamic of pop culture and specifically television has changed dramatically. I have tried to make sense of it by examining music, my profession. I have yet to make much sense of it, but hearing that these news people were killed in Iraq made me think our youth culture as a whole may be sheltered from the realities of life. The trend I see in music must be being driven by "American Idol." I don't know much about this TV show, and I don't want to. Having studied music in college for nine years, including completing all my course work toward a Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition at Ohio State University, I am not interested in pop fodder. The dynamic of the show I am interested in is what may have an effect on real life events, for the worse. If the youth of America are only exposed to the bubble gum and soda pop of "American Idol," what happens when they are thrust into a life and death situations like commenting in Iraq? There has been a strong surge of "pop" oriented music in the last few years, especially in country. Garth Brooks was successful at spurring the "New Country" movement which seems all but dead to me. It was inevitable all of the other influences of music would come into country. Shania Twain was the first singer successfully to push "Old School" country in a new direction. The skinny was Nashville objected heavily. After recording an album there with a band, it amazed me how closed minded the Nashville music community seemed. I have never been a country music fan, but feeling the oppression in Nashville to fit in with the "Good Old Boy" regime was almost sickening. It felt like the Old South. There is no possibility of change, of evolution, or individualism. Garth and Shania succeeded because there music was good, and they are good performers. Big and Rich seem to be the next chapter in the continual evolution of country music. It stands to reason the glamour of 80's rock, the sexual content of R&B and Hip/Hop, and other influences will make their way into country music. Shania's departure was significant because it changed the tone of country music. Garth gave country music a strength that is evident in Rock and R&B. New Country took away the "crying in your beer" melancholy and replaced it with hard driving, fun, honky tonk party music. That is what original Rock 'n' Roll is anyway. Add a twang to the vocal and there you have it. Shania continued that trend with almost feminist shades. Why can't a performer/song writer be happy and positive and enjoy what they are doing rather than lamenting the shortcomings of their lives, like Old School Country? They can, and she did, and it worked well. America was ready for her product. I haven't seen Big and Rich much or Brooks and Dunn. My brother-in-law suggested Brooks and Dunn were the country counterpart to Hall and Oates, and that may well be. If America bought Garth and Shania, why wouldn't they buy a purely party band influence in country music? Well, the imminent question is, "What is country music? What makes music country?" I had always felt the tone was what it was. It was simply, "Don't rock the jukebox, play me a country song." Hank Williams classic songs personify it rather well. "You're Cheatin' Heart," "Jumbayla," and the others have a feel influenced by early swing music, but they have melancholy overtones. Garth decided you could leave the sentimentality behind. Not all of us have something pleasant to be sentimental about. I love jazz music, and I am a substantial jazz pianist, but over the years I have come to not like sentimentality. If an artists spends all their time trying to remember a time gone by, they are not pushing the boundaries of the music. Knowledge of the history of one's craft is imperative, but then there comes a time to push forward. I discovered R&B was a form of expressive, emotional music that lacked the sentimentality of the jazz venacular. I could play R&B and not open my heart up to disappointment and weakness. I applaud Garth and Shania for pushing this trend in country. It seems to me the lyrical content and the songs worked well enough to qualify as country. The most recent trends in country to me are not fairing all that well. When you take differing aesthetics and put them together, they don't always make sense. The most notable example of that is Pop Country. Deaton/Flannigan supposedly were the first video production company to interject the sexual content of MTV and BET's programming into country video. I and some friends have felt it is difficult to watch. It seems to have some pornographic overtones in such that it is not mainstream, mainstream being something suitable for children to watch. Alternatively it seems like something you would watch in the bedroom late at night. BET has been doing that for a while, but mixing that with country music? Does that makes sense? If your body doesn't know how to respond to it, I don't think that is good. Human beings are capable of feeling many things at the same time, but I think most of us try to figure it out. Controversy is what is created when you carelessly combine things for commercial gain with no real artistic concept. Pop music does not necessarily have to be artistic, but I would think most singers, if they really call themselves "artists," want their product to have value and not just monetary value. Art stands the test of time. Partying and sex are viable past times in an increasingly complex and difficult world. Putting a band aid on reality is not the answer. If we as a culture don't really understand our world and simply live in a counterworld of video games and "happy music," the reality of life will eventually win. That is the problem I see today. Where are the modern day poets of our generation? Where are the voices of America and what is happening? Rappers used to be the holders of the torch. Then it seems that got lost in the Cavasiau. The last hit song I can remember before working on cruise ships was Nelly's "It's Getting Hot in Here." CMT works hard at keeping music alive, and I respect that. MTV, VH-1, and BET have all jumped on the bandwagon of popular television abandoning the art of popular music. When did the lives of the populace become more important than the message of the artist? When did our youth become so self involved and recalcitrant to believe only their miniscule existence was important? If music television has adopted this philosophy to court the dollars of the youth market, shame on them. Broadcasting seems to have adopted a similar philosophy. The history of their craft and the training and experience that were once necessary to succeed in a highly competitive profession have been abandoned in lieu of a giant mosh pit of spoiled, selfish, youths. Take any of them and send them to Iraq to cover the war, and they may find themselves with no skills to save themselves. "Let's party!" ... as an IED ends their worthless lives.

I Like Candy

I like candy. Do you like Candy? How about Kate's Playground?

Parks and Drugs in 'Nam

And by the way, our wonderful parks. That's where you buy drugs. Pull into any of our parks at any given time and there are all these cars pulled in backward waiting for" ye old drug man". The Barrio. Watts. Call a spade a spade, please. No spin here. Inforce the laws. Illegal window tinting. It's an epidemic. Speeding through Haymount, 20 m.p.h. But, my friends, skateboarding is against the law, or at least they will give you a hundred dollar fine for doing it in Mr. Player's front yard. America? Oh, and the biggest killer. A while back they decided all the GI's were drinking too much, all that time in the field with no women. Seems now we can't decide for ourselfs how much beer we can drink. It has to be legislated. All bars that don't serve 50% or more food, they become "private" clubs. Can't walk into a joint and buy a cold beer on a 100 degree day. Gotta be a MEMBER. Social skills? Let's let common Joe Blow develop a complex about buying. "Can't go in there. They are going to stop me at the door and humiliate me. You can't come in here, boy! You got to be a member. Members only, just like Highland Country Club. Exclusive. Money only. The common man has lost his rights. Gotta go where WE say you go. Huske Hardware. What happened to AJ's? The Flamingo Club? The Pink Pussycat? Bottoms Up? The town had color back then. What do we have now?

B.R.A.C.S. and Sacks

One could consider the milieu that is Fayettenam, North Carolina the title above. When Ronald Reagan realigned the military bases in America in the 80's, Fort Bragg got 30,000 new troops. In a town of only 175,000 that was a giant influx. Our infrastructure has never recovered. Urban sprawl has festered in an uncanny way. The once "main drag," Bragg Blvd that led from the base to downtown was reinvented. It decided to take a right turn and head out to Cross Creek Mall. Death to downtown. Well, the city decided to clean it all up anyway, so why would anyone want to go there anyway? Downtown Fayetteville had a marvelous reputation in the state. Everyone knew about the area of bars and strip clubs. Rick's Lounge and the Korean Club come to mind. There were a few movie theaters, the Colony, and there were big retail stores there as well. Sears and the Capital were mainstays of downtown. Then it died a quick death. In the 80's citizens became concerned with trying to revitalize downtown. The plan? Put in large black light posts and pots. I guess it was supposed to be a "look." Then they blocked off the last block of Hay St. to traffic and put down cobblestone like material to replicate an "old world" feel. My point is this. They are still trying to revitalize downtown. There is an Airborne Museum now. A Transportation Museum opened today. PWC is down there along with the Fayetteville Police Department. You can transplant all you want to, but it will not change what is. What is downtown? It is the ghetto. Grove View Terrace, Cambell Terrace, and Business 95 are all down there. It is not pretty. Drive around and you will see it for what it is. Nothing. Then there is the biggest issue merchants complain about that are all ready there. Guess what it is? I am not going to get back into it for fear of sounding like a broken record. Trains, trains, trains. Ye great old Iron Horse. What's the big deal? Well, they are building as I speak a new promenade-type venue down there. Somebody burnt down the old USO building, so now the Art Museum has a new home away from Eutaw. I grew up in that neighborhood, and the duck pond they took over used to be our playground. It was a smelly mess. We used to ride our motorcycles through trails in the area, and it was fun. I guess art was more important. It still was a strange place to me. Up grows a little area near our library with a flowing fountain the homeless can use for imbibing the wicked liquid during the day. They like to hang out at the Library too and use their facilities. I don't enjoy going down there. So in this grand scheme, there is a new building of commerce being erected parallel to the rail line that feeds the Norfolk Southern yard. At any time of any given day there is a hulking CSX
GP-40-2 shoving freight cars into that switching yard. Awaiting them is a C40-9W along with two Aberdeen and Rockfish locomotives. Anybody know what the analogy of a train is? The Boss says, "Like a freight train running through my head." It is NOT a good thing. 4000 horsepower diesel locomotives and human beings buying stuff don't go hand in hand. Maybe is supposed to be picturesque, harking back to the sound of the old steam trains. A whistle, the rhythmic chug, chug, chug of the churning steam. I don't know what is going on. Who is paying for it all? Who will open businesses in there? What is the plan? Is there a plan? Well, I don't think BRACS or Sacks are going to go there. What are they? BRAC is a unit of military command supposedly coming to 'Nam. Sacks are GI's. That is my analogy. Balls on wheels. Testosterone in a bag. I miss the good old days. I don't like the Bible Belt, someone mandating behavior in my region. I don't really like all the compounds that are springing up everywhere. Well, I really mean extremely expansive buildings connected to churches. We all need churches, but what is this pattern? There are over ten churches, all at the same time, expanding their facilities. Huge buildings for what? I'm not sure. Waco? Sects? Brainwashing? No, basketball. Church dinners. I don't know. I just know it is unnerving driving around a town that seems to have a disease. New shit is popping up all over the place. Any available lot. Any barren space. Every conceivable inch and corner of 'Nam is being developed. Condominiums. Apartments. Million dollar houses. You can't keep up with it. Someone is trying to make big money. Who decided that the small businesses like the ones dotting the streets of Manhatten or LA were passe? Who decided drug stores were now going to be malls. Who decided we all like to shop at an EXPO? Fuck man. I have been saying for a year. Put a little podium at the entrance to the grocery store with maps of the place. Home Depot. Lowes. Wal Mart. Give me a map man and quit yanking my chain. I don't want to concentrate that hard when I shop. I just want to browse and have fun. Life has gotten way too hard, and somebody is getting rich.

Missionary Position of the Democrats

I find it amazing that talk show after talk show on television portray the Democratic Party in Washington with no platform. It has been continual Republicans continually hark there is no plan in the Democratic Party. I guess the major issue has been defense against terrorist activity, so that platform worked until Iraq spiraled into sectarian mayhem. One enlightening talk show had major academicians at a round table debating the issue of probable democracy in the Middle East and Europe. "If you made a list looking at the history of each country, Iraq would have been at the bottom." We invaded them anyway, and now we are in another Viet Nam. Remember? Hopefully our high school students aren't so engrossed in their chat rooms and iPods to remember what Viet Nam was like. From l965 to l975 the United States was at war overseas for democracy. In the l950's we were at war with North Korea. I grew up in this era, and it was a drag. War, murder, and darkness all enveloped the 70's. Now we are in it again with no seeming wisdom from the past. It is difficult to defeat an enemy on their on ground. Indigenous culture always has an advantage over troops transplanted thousands of miles away without their wives and children. The way the Viet Cong did it was with tunnel warfare. The Tunnels of Cu Chi were the strategy "Charlie" used to hold their ground. The simplicity of digging tunnels in the ground kept our American Superpower at bay, until we finally conceded and got the hell out of their. We did not win the war. Many people died, but Richard Nixon ended the siege. It is of no matter he resigned because Watergate. It is of no matter former president Bill Clinton got a "twirl" in the White House. That was not good for Hillary, but it's hard to turn down free presidential sex. JFK screwed Marilyn Monroe in a much higher profile capacity. Well, he died. Bill Clinton just slid around a ridiculous impeachment process. "It depends on the definition of the word 'is.'" Anyhoo, it stands to reason we will never win the war in Iraq. As much as Haliburton or Dubya wants their oil, it continues to go to the Russians and the French. They need it. The demise of the Cold War killed their economy, so they deserve some economic influx. All that aside, I can't understand why this is an issue. Maybe John Kerry didn't have a plan that resonated with America. Maybe people thought a catsup conglomerate was not the right institution for the wife of an American president. A bitch of Heinz that is. A rich boy. A boatshoe wearer. I thought he was intelligent, and with years of Capital Hill experience understood the issues well. Whether or not he would have been able, politically, to implement any of his policies, that is the question. Evidently the American people thought not. It would have been better than what we have now. How the fuck can the Democratic party not have a plan? Did everyone just suddenly lose their freaking minds? Did every issue, every policy crucial to the stability of the US just suddenly lose significance? Has our current government forgotten their jobs? Have they forgotten how to understand issues of life and how to legislate as a result? Okay. We have to recognize what is happening. First, the infrastructure of the US has changed. The manufacturing base has been outsourced. Middle class jobs are on the decline. Why pay Americans to do a job foreign labor will do for a fraction of the price? It creates stability. China is trying to grow their Middle Class with better jobs and wages, because it is an investment in the country and their future. We are doing the opposite. That is why their currency value is beginning to exceed the American dollar. With bucketloads of war debt and the War on Terror, we as a nation of lost sight of the core values of Americans. Antiquated old farts on Capital Hill don't have a clue because the US has changed. That tired "Leave it to Beaver" model of America, that single income family unit is no longer the majority. In fact single people exceed married couples in the population for the first time in our history. The 50% divorce rate would aide that. There is no visible Mainstream at the moment. No one knows what America thinks, feels, or consider important in their lives. There is no current pop culture. Fashion, art, and life as we once knew it are dead. There are no poets of our time, because no one understands what is going on. Why not? Well, when spinning the news rather than reporting it to cover up covert motive becomes paramount, it becomes difficult to understand what is happening in government. What is the plan? Well, there has been no plan except "Fight the war on terror." In my opinion that makes for a much easier presidency. If all you have to do is get up everyday and fight the war on terror, then each and every domestic issue that concerns the populace of America becomes subordinate. Social Security, health care, education, and the arts all take a big back seat to Homeland Security. When you are busy simply defending the nation, the nation itself kind of ceased to exist. All the good news, the good feeling, the essence of our culture just disappeared. In its place seemed to appear, Survivor, American Idol, and "You're fired." What the fuck was that? Here are television shows that bring the state of humanity to the seeming lowest common denominator, for the sake of entertainment. Eating grubs. Diving for fish. Etcetera. Was that really entertaining? Does that foreshadow the decline of the United States. Is cyberwar and other visions of our near future really our destiny? Will the world be covered in water, and we all will be reduced to Mad Max like warriors scavaging gasoline living in the rubble of nuclear fall out? Well I guess if that is the plan of the Democratic Party. Do we know, or do Democrats really have a Bridge to the 21st Century? Clinton seemed to. Hillary, to me, has the clearest view of what American values are. Just listen to her speak and it all seems to make sense. Look at the current state of affairs and non of it makes sense. I prefer rational thought with a plan to waking up everyday with millions of dollars in the bank thinking, "Who can I play with today? Osama? Will he play with me on the playground, or will he make fun of my donkey ears? Have I ever had to think about anything? Philosophy? Art? History? A difficult situation and reach my own conclusion? These are things are Senate and House are supposed to be doing. In Fayetteville officials seemed amazed that GI's don't frequent our downtown area. Over a decade ago somebody decided to clean it up. The barrage of bars and strip clubs disappeared, and now we have an up-scale movie theater that shows the same shit as any other theater. We have a coffee shop. He have one bar/restaurant. This in itself typifies a failed vision. Who is making these decisions about our town? It has to be the Bible Belt of the south. "Lets all put on our Sunday best and go sit in Huske Hardware and keeps our mouths shut and pay way too much to have a good time." The GI's decided that is not what they want. If you were in the field with no women around all week, what would you want to do? Ask yourself. Non married, non rich, non Republican poor GI. What would you want to do? Survey says, drink a beer. Look at some scantily clad women. Try to get laid. Play a game of pool. Shout a little. Dance to some loud Rock 'n' Roll. You wouldn't want to go sit in a coffee shop and talk on your cell phone or play on your laptop. Is that human? We, I think, as a nation have lost sight of what humanity is. Maybe it was the advent of the personal computer, AOL, and E-Mail. Maybe it was the cell phone. I don't think any of that substitutes for the Freudian notion that our "ID" is what drives the human being. Republicans and big business can continue to try to mold our world into their agenda, a CVS, WalGreens, or Eckerts on every freaking major intersection of every road. Mountainous aisles of millions of products that require record levels of concentration to decipher. Long lines and no help in stores. Every other dehumanizing vision that has come into existence in the last five years. What is happening?

The Director's Craft

From now on when I am watching a movie, I am going to call the shot of faces with the top of the head cut off, the Hannibal effect. When I see that NYPD Blue pioneered jittery hand-held, still, jerk to the side, zoom shot I am going to call it the Parkinson Effect. When I see shot after shot looking up from the ground or the mid chest, I am going to call it the Blair Witch Effect. There are too many more to list here, and who would want to? Who would want to think of all the bullshit camera shots TV and film directors are using who just don't know better. They just don't know anything else, like the history of their craft. Camera shots are in my estimation the foundation upon which a movie is laid. Camera shots by themselves can tell a story, create suspense, or simply entertain with no dialog what-so-ever. I would think maybe they are teaching this in film school at USC or UCLA. I have a K-12 Teaching Certificate, but I have not set foot in a public school in years. You would probably be labeled a sex offender or a pervert if you tried to observe our schools in their current state. I would like to know what is driving this trend in the film industry. Again the question is posed, as in my previous post, we can either go with our history, the cultural history of the human being, or we can choose cyberworld. Cyberworld must be the choice where camera shots don't really matter. Forget that the camera is supposed to be the perspective of the audience. Like Roger Ebert has said, often times it feels like the director and actors are trying to yank your chain. Why must we speed action up so much and move the camera around? Do not human beings merit the respect of their ten dollar tickets to give them something remotely human in nature? Is is meant to disguise something? Bad acting maybe? Bad dialog. Who would know if the cast never gets a chance to actually practice the art of acting. In that aesthetic actors create emotional responses. They interject themselves into a scenario as if it were real life and let their emotional responses do the work. That is interesting to watch, when the camera is not moving all over the place. Maybe the digital age has created this void of technique, an oversight of the true craft of movie-making. Maybe staring up at Tom Cruise's mug with the top of his head cut off scene after scene after scene is supposed to mean something. Maybe the top of his head doesn't really exist and got chopped off in one of the great action scenes in MI3. Maybe they used Renderman to glue it back on in the scenes were you can see his head. The love scenes though I think would be augmented by the full shot of their cabezas! Maybe the director thinks the eyes and the mouth are all that are needed to portray an intimate, emotional scene. "Forget the rest of the head." What excessive camera motion does is proclaim, "Look at me the camera man!" I am running around these great actors like a little nerd, with no wisdom or forethought on where I am going to place my expensive camera. A dolly perhaps? A crane? Maybe someplace that takes a little more thought than plopping it down on the ground pointed up the noses of our well-paid actors. it is stupid. We have enough ADD and neurosis in our world without the movies exaggerating it. We go to the movies to escape, to bond, to hope, to feel good, and we pay for it. I don't go to the movies to be cluster fucked by a childish director that hasn't studied his craft. If it is digital that is producing these effects, then the grand old days of Cinemascope should return triumphantly. Screw the little camera, the midgets and widgets, the miniscule IPod palm pilot, the trinkets of the cyberage. Show me something that has soul, meaning, history, and humanity, not a brazen stab at an unknowing future.

Riding the Standing Wave in Fayettenam

Surfers ride wave, tasty waves, in the immortal words of Jeff Spicoli. I enjoy skateboarding. I have skateboarded since I was a kid, and recently after watching Dogtown and Z Boys got re-inspired about the board sport. I must have watched the documentary at least ten times. It hit a chord for several reasons. One, I grew up in the 70's, and I relatively am the same age as the Z Boys. I also grew up in Fayettenam, one of the toughest towns in the southern United States. I went through the usual quiver of early skateboards, but the turning point was receiving a Gordon and Smith Fiberflex with Bennett Pro trucks and RoadRider 6 wheels. "What a Cadillac ride!" It simply was the best skateboard available at the time, and over time I learned how to ride it better than most kids in my town. There were a few hardcore guys that had surfer-type bodies and rode better than I did. I subscribed to the "stick men" school of freestyle, because that is all we knew at the time. Pool riding was coming in on the west coast, but the photos in Skateboarder Magazine didn't easily explain the surf style of skating the Z Boys were using. It was only when the film came out, after many viewings and study, I figured out their style. These men were surfers, "First and foremost" as Skip Engblom states, and that style of semi-slalom is what the Z Boys applied to the skateboard. Skating is what they call it, but because I also roller skate quite a bit at the local rink, I think of it as skateboarding or asphalt surfing. I failed to realize in adulthood how much skateboading shaped my life for the better. I lost all my baby phat riding that board, and I learned agility and grace. I found out how to release energy and spirituality through art. It also gives you an identity that was very similar to how I grew up, in a community racked with social classism. There were and still are in Fayetteville, North Carolina clear lines of 'demarcation' concerning money. There are the elite rich and the uneducated poor. There is very much a fine line geographically between the two. Because the children of these rich in Fayettenam were assholes, we had no aspirations of becoming friends with them. They attempted to abuse us. Finding a niche such as music or skateboarding was a haven for survival and adjustment. We never looked back. Twenty five years later, although my rational mind knows there is no money to be made in the world of skateboarding, it is still enjoyable and a magnificent release of stress. You literally ride waves within the city limits, as best possible under the juris scrutiny of the law and the rich builders of shopping malls and such. One beautiful thing riding a wave temporarily solves is blowing off the effects of diesel created infrasonic pollution. Infrasound is low frequency sound below 20 Hertz the human ear cannot hear. Instead the human body can feel it. Alarmingly every diesel engine creates an infrasound wave because of the firing rate of its cylinders. Diesel engines fire much more slowly than their gasoline counterparts, a paltry 60-100 revolutions-per-minute. That breaks down to, according to the rev rate of the engine, 1-2 cycles per second. That in audible terms is an infrasonic wave. The inherent noise and vibration of a high torque diesel engine is transmitted great distances via this built in carrier wave. Seismic data suggest infrasound waves travel not only hundreds but thousands of miles across the globe. When a locomotive sits idle with the engine still running, it will create a "standing wave" because the source of the sound never stops. Unlike a jet plane that flies over and then disappears into the horizon, idling locomotives continue to pump out their invasive wave non-stop when the engine is running. In Fayetteville that equates to a weekend with the lovely Norfolk and Southern. Their engine of choice lately seems to be the C40-9W, the most powerful DC freight locomotive in existence. For some reason they do not use smaller switch engines like the Aberdeen and Rockfish. Their roster consists of an aging fleet of GP series locos, from 10 up to 40. CSX-T likes to use a GP-40-2 with modular electronics to switch the short line to Fort Bragg. Supposedly that is the Cape Fear Railway, a shortline of CSX, but I have never seen anything to suggest that even exists. The Army loco roster lists only two locomotives at Ft. Bragg, an aging GP-10 and 15. Who's to know considering they run simultaneously. Like today the Aberdeen and Rockfish has two locomotives, Norfolk Southern has one, and CSX-T has many all operating with a square mile of one another. That makes for a judicious amount of infrasonic pollution, if that sort of thing bothers you. You can't hear it necessarily, but your body can certainly reap the ill effects against its will. This past weekend there was a standing wave in our home, a non-stop infrasound wave that pressures the inside of your house like a constantly banging drum. You can both hear the drum of the engine and feel the vibration in your bed. There is not much you can do to fight its effects other than suffer with joint pain, irritability, and blurred vision. Why would private businesses such as these be allowed to pollute our towns to such an extent with no repercussions? What other privately owned business is allowed to block intersections and create noise and vibration so freely with no penalty? The answer would probably be the "iron horse" built this country, and the railroads have always been in close collaboration with the federal government. The railroads are crucial to our defense department for hauling much of the war paraphanalia to port en route to the Middle East. Are these waves detrimental to our health? NASA studies have shown they are. The effects are fairly well documented, yet doctors continue to try to treat symptoms because there is no clear way to eliminate the source, the railroads. Back in the 80's, a decade many proclaim as one of the best, many of the railroads were near bankruptcy. Our fearless Secretary of the Treasury, John Snow, came in and merged Seaboard Coastline with the Chessie System to produce CSX-T. The shit has never stopped hitting the fan since then. The world would be a cleaner and more sane place if all those big turbo-charged, infrasound producing locomotives were shut off for good.

S.S. Poseidon

Having worked on cruise ships for over three years, I thoroughly enjoyed Poseidon. Here was a movie with no spiritual references, no terrorist references, and a blast from the past in terms of a main dining room with a stage and a casino upstairs. Carnival has no such thing. Carnival ships have two dining rooms in the rear of the ship, sometimes with classical or jazz music as entertainment. Most of the time guests don't want a distraction from their conversation. I liked seeing a Dirty Dancing kind of room with dinner tables, drink service, dancing, and gambling all in the same venue. It is homey. You can wander around, mingle, talk, drink, gamble, and then eat a nice meal. Why is it Carnival doesn't offer such a venue? Carnival ships are compartmentalized, kind of like life. Disco, jazz lounge, piano bar, etc. I really like the plurality of the big open ballroom. It was traditional. It felt like the old Poseidon, and that felt good. A marble blast from the past. There were real emotions. There were real single parent families. There was a gay man. It wasn't like some corporate structure was trying to get you to "do something." Your behavior was not so overly-studied that you had to follow some pre-thought agenda for making money. You just hung out and tried to have a good time. I don't see that on Carnival ships. Maybe only the rich do this. In my experience they certainly have more experience in this arena. Early in life the wealthy frequent cocktail parties, dinner dances, and the like. I used not to like them, because I was always the guy in the band. You were making money, but all that social interaction was in a crystal ball, and the daughters and wives of those rich men were off limits to musicians. It hurt. It hurt a lot. I grew to resent "society," "debs," and "social class." To me it did and still does represent the economic and social oppression prevalent in the history of the American South. That is why I left the Carolinas for the Midwest when looking for a college to pursue my doctorate. I have never been as enlightened. There was not nearly as much "old money" sitting around trying to boss me around. There were in fact the open arms of creativity that embraced a transplanted Southerner ripe on pursuing a music career. They openly offered the knowledge they had and supported me in the process. Not in the South. RJ Reynolds. Big cigarettes. Big money. "Pick some tobacco, boy!" That is your destiny in the South. Poseidon felt plural, a big melting pot of generation and races, kicking it with humanity. Once when Clinton was in office, multi-culturalism was at the fore front of American society. Racism was receding and people seemed to be getting along better. Along comes the Arabs. They fucking hate everything. "Down with America, kill, murder, rape, pillage." Gun toting cloth heads screaming about Allah and the Prophet Muhammad. Savages. Barbarians. I say dig up a nuke and plop it right down in the middle of it all. We did it in World War ll, because the Japanese brazenly bombed our vacation state of beautiful Hawaii. It took us a while to get back at them, but we did with a little ingenuity. You would think we could do it again. I guess back then we just said screw civilians and just bombed the whole cities. What's the difference? What of our values is different now than it was in World War ll. Aggression is aggression. Civilians are civilians. Oh..... Oil.

The Da Vinci Commode

Wow. What a weekend. Suddenly the whole country is 'affected' by Code Mania. Figuring out what is truth and what is fiction is the imperative. Historical fiction is an interesting genre. Creating a fiction around God is another matter. Has it ever been done before? Has anyone other than Dan Brown come along and said blasphemous things like "Satan is really our president," or "Dick Cheney is demon" for the sake of entertainment. Most Op/Ed pages in local newspapers invoke this priviledge. Does that give a writer the privilege, in the name of capitalism, to do the same thing for personal, monetary gain? I think not. I saw the movie, and I will acknowledge it made me think about issues that are extremely relevant to our day and time. The history of Catholicism jumps to mind. I can understand why their religion may be somewhat "up in arms" over the movie. Well, I have always felt a religion that worships Mary and does not believe in contraception is a little off. I enjoyed the analogy though that Mary Magdalene was a vessel, or better her womb is a vessel worth respecting. Procreation is important to the human race. Whether it should be worshipped above God, that is another question. I also am not provoked by the notion that Jesus has a wife or a lover. My upbringing in the Episcopal church tells me it is not really true, but being single at age 43 gives me a slightly different perspective than most. I grew up with girlfriends. In my youth there was rarely a time I did not have the company of a young woman. Things change as you get older, and somehow I missed the marriage boat. I missed the children boat as well. I also feel strongly my wait is not over. This reality has forced a scenario upon me and my parents that has at times been excrutiating. My life as a single adult is severely different than their lives, so much in fact that they have difficulty understanding I can be a full functioning human being in "my" situation. I, when I am lucid and rested enough, use it as a platform to suggest we do live in a different world than ten years ago. It seems as if everyday I wake, there is a pantheon of challenges that never existed prior to now. What are these? They may be more in my mind, and they may be exaggerated as a result of situation, but it seems like every major institution in our country's infrastructure is being challenged. It seems as if there is no intelligent, moderate, politically successful leadership in our American governmental system. It seems as if every major component of everyday life is different in a way I do not understand. (I thought today, who would want to live in a time tumultuous enough to contemplate the success or failure of the automobile, gasoline, and petroleum as key elements of American society) Am I over reacting? We went through an energy crisis in the 70's, and I stood in line at gas stations with my parents. Then, no extreme religious sect had flown high-jacked airliners into downtown Manhattan. That must be what truly has changed the United States. Other than our own plights of war trudging out the history of a very young, rebellious country, we have been free from bloody violence with the "world" on our ground until now. Osami Bin Lauden, with his wealth and vitriol, successfully punished us for Desert Storm. The "Invasion of the infadels" was punished, and the punishment has had long-lasting and negative consequences on our country. We have not recuperated, because energy before preserved for domestic/social programs have been diluted by the "War on Terror." We, again, are beginning to fall behind other countries as a super-power. I myself have no interest in living in a super power. I only want to live in a nation safe from death, murder, corruption, and dishonesty in government. I truly do not see success in Capitalism. Since high school my instincts have never bought into the idea that a free market can actually work. I have always known the rich control the economy and therefore jobs, and if you do not fit into their scheme of live, you are screwed. Capitalism has always been painted as "The American Dream." That is rosey, and maybe some few people really do rise from their dismal, poor, roots and become magnificently successful. I just don't buy that it. It infuriates me that pop icons (although I love cinema as a want-to-be film composer) constantly use TV as a vehicle to thank God for their many blessings. What about the rest of us, the majority of us? What about the misplaced residents of New Orleans, the birth place of our ONLY true American art form, jazz? This is a question our country is having difficulty answering at the moment. What is our country and who are it's people? Is it, as it once was, the common man? The Bible says the meek shall inherit the earth? Is it the Jews, as Al Quida seems to think? Is is millions of new, Mexican immigrants fleeing over their border for a new chance at employment? Is it Scotch/Irish or Italian or Russian immigrants fleeing a ruthless dictator such as Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, or the Queen of England? This in reflection seems to be a common link, that Americans seek refuge here. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free." I don't see that message being reinforced anywhere in the America today. I see a new tax cut for the rich. I see pork barrel spending injected into every bill trying to skim our hard-earned money for personal gain. I see every radio station in America bought by the same company with a short playlist and an agenda that I do not support or understand. I see MP3's and Steve Jobs dismantling the recording industry in a few short years. I see Sony fusing a Japanese bred idea of video games with American cinema. I see real estate creating a bubble of inflated home prices that is destined to pop. I see television glamorous the common man, gently massaging his chain to gain his support. Musica Reservata, the good of the group over the integrity of the art. I see CMT pitching a lack-luster, metrosexual, bleeding heart, guitar strumming music that would make Chuck Berry laugh. If the Da Vinci Commode makes the American people try to understand our own beliefs it is a good thing. It, for me, does nothing for the state of cinema in the new millennium. "Rumor Has It" to me has been the most humane and watchable film I have seen in years. Wine country, a rich bachelor, a pretty young girl. Those are all thing that once were rather paramount in the pursuit of the American Dream. A job, a home, a two car garage, and a couple of kids. Without a country to live in, might as well out source that too.

82nd Airborne Twinks

Thank goodness the 'gentlemen' of the 82nd Airborne that participated in gay pornography on the web were finally sentenced. Three months in jail and a dishonerable discharge on a plea bargain. The 'gents' said the Army doesn't pay well, and they did it for the money. Seems they have an agent, an agent in Fayettenam that recruits and sells big, hunky, military beefcake to porn producer Dennis Ashe. Dennis has three production companies in fayetteville, North Carolina that produce porn. Don't ask, don't tell? I have to say not all Clinton's policies worked, and this one seems to have bit the big one. It is a difficult issue. Since proponents of gay have flourished in the last decade, maybe it seems PC to support it. Afterall Cheny's daughter is in the news these days. The problem lies much deeper with issues that never have been resolved in our current government. In fact the country seems so disparate and uninformed, how could anyone know what an "American" stands for. We are such a melting pot or country of immigrants anyway. But for a country to hang together as a structure it is becoming apparent there has to be some community to our thinking and beliefs. Freedom of religion and speech and all the rest, but there must be some common thread that bonds us all together. I feel we have been going the opposite direction for a while. The internet probably doesn't help. If we lose our social programs, the ability to socialize, to relate as people, how can we survive? Living in bomb shelters working, playing, and communicating via the internet? Is this really the path we want to go? I have made decisions about my computer use. It is a tool to be used for a very specific thought out purpose. It, for me, doesn't provide creativity. It is a tool. It does provide entertainment, but when you consider you are sitting alone in a room, it doesn't seem that entertaining anymore. I have always felt that the world has two choices. We can embrace our history of human development, the arts, or we can choose cyberworld. Either we stand by literature, music, and art, our history, or we choose a different path. There is no question 9/11 has changed the world in which we live. The world is a different place. I have difficulty understanding it everyday. Then I tell myself to remember what I have learned in nine years of college. The world can't be that different than three years ago, and yet seems that way. Television has changed. If one reads the definition of Politically Correct on Wikopedia, it says political agendas are trying to be implemented by influencing pop culture, i.e. cinema, music, and television. If that is the case, all I can say is we are being brainwashed to be ignorant. When the elder Bush was in office, it was a far different country than today with the "War on Terror." Jesus, how could we let a country so distant dominate our lives to such a degree at the expense of our own well being? Readin' Writin' and Rithmatic? That was Bush Sr.'s agenda. Now our SAT scores are lower than ever. Original music or art? So you ever see anything like that on TV, in the news? Anything good, ever? Not much. The atrocity of American Idol has duped the country into believing one can become an "artist" just by having a behemoth corporate structure promote your sorry ass. There was a great skit on the now tired and old SNL that personified it perfectly. They took some Joe on the street talking, and took him through the rise and fall of commercial success, having nothing to do with creativity, inspiration, a vision, or talent. Who wants to listen to some snot kid sing a song some producer wrote about something they know nothing about? Talent or not, I don't think there is a damn thing Aguilera can teach me about sex. Let me teach you something. But the issues that aren't resolved are separation of church and state. That in itself seems to have slowly dissolved the foundation of our country. No one has figured out yet how to live together in a country and be so Politically Correct as to not insult anyone. We have to have beliefs! They don't have to be all the same, but we must believe something to have a soul. If we don't believe in some kind of Supreme Being, then our lives are reduced to a superficial pile of shit. Look at television now. Does anyone really want to watch Charlene Tilton and Paris Hilton behave badly like ill behaved valley girls? It makes me sick. And what happened to our music channels? I am a musician, and there is NO music on. What happened? Shite college high jinx? Flav-a-flav? How about a band or two? Some good videos? It is a shite state of affairs. We doubt everything today. Have we lost our minds? AT the expense of this turning into a rave, which it all ready has, the issue is we have to stand for something. We as a country have to choose what that it. We have to agree on something. We are working towards that slowly but surely. Gas prices? Well, that a start. How about poor healthcare? No support of public education. Ridiculous laws everywhere. Send a guy to prison for having a little sniff of coke in his pocket. Where is the justice in that? Ten years. I am glowing that Vincente Fox had the balls to legalize small amounts of drugs. Prostitution is legal in many countries. Let's hope the planet stays around long enough for us to solve our social and legislative problems.

America'a Anatomy

Well, let's see. If we indeed are supposed to be loyal patriots of "our" country, then there should tangible reasons why. Do the omni present reasons why immigrants want to find amnesty here stand up for citizens of the US? I'm not sure they do. Corporate America in its everpresent quest to save dinero, outsources many of our jobs under the guise of globalization. Globalization? One world economy? One world order? Has anyone ever thought this was a good idea? Watch the interesting and valid cultures of foreign countries vie for Americana, stereotypical images being coca-cola, bubble gum, and Uncle Sam. Why do youth cultures really want to become Americanized? At one time there was a freedom to our country that somehow got lost on the wayside. The freedom to think for yourself, express yourself, become independant, and live a life of true freedom once were extremely valid reasons to support "our" country. As pop culture continues to try to shape our way of life rather than being a by product of it threatens to destroy our very country. What is the mainstream? Corporate America doesn't seem to know anymore. When multi-culturalism spreads our youth populace over so thin an area, the mainstream gets lost along with those outsourced middle class jobs. What is the infrastructure of the US now? It seems since manufacturing is no longer a sizable part of our core economy, moving money around has become paramount. What a disaster. Moving money into the pockets of big business, screwing the stock holders. Kenneth Lay is on trial and the jury is deliberating as we Newspeak, I mean speak. They need to give the pinnacle of corporate corruption the axe. Musaoui (sp?) took life in prison. A day later after he realized the brutal reality of prison life compared to grandstanding in the limelight, he changed his mind. Ha!!!!!!!!!!!! All of a sudden life doesn't seem to interesting anymore. He is a coward. Will Kenneth lay be a coward and buy his way out of heavy jail time? We will see. Our justice system needs to set an example that "We the People" do not have to stand for this kind of crime. It is time our government decided to stand up for us rather than spinning the news to cover up their own self-serving. It is time. It is so funny that Bush sits all alone, his team having abandoned him. Failing to support him as a president or his policies if he ever had any, the team of puppeteers now are hiding, stranding Bush in the lurch to take the fall for $3.00 plus gas prices. It is so funny. If he as a president ever had a vision for this country like Clinton (a bridge to the 21st century), any concept of a future for the people of the US other than the rich, a true understanding of humanity, then he failed to pick a team to implement it. He picked strong figures in the private sector that continued to serve themselves in a self service government. For six agonzing years the American people bought it. Why has it taken this long for "We the People" to see the truth? When the country starts to unravel, or rather when gas prices climb, SUV, non conserving, Hummer buying self-absorbed Americans begin to feel it. Then and only then it seems. I still remember double nickels. 55 m.p.h. used to be the speed limit to CONSERVE gasoline. Economy cars made by Toyota and Honda flooded the market for good reason. Then American made SUV's arrived and people got stupid. I still don't understand which part of history no one understands. What worked in the 70's energy crisis should still be working now. Why did Americans suddenly lose their minds?

Silent Hills are Alive with the Smells of Witches

Well, I saw the number one film in the country today. Horror is back so they say. Film makers are having such are hard time figuring out how to make a good movie, I guess a tried and true concept seems safe. To my surprise... how could I forget for one second just about every film that has come out in the last two years has been based on a comic book, a super hero, or a video game. I hate them all, simply because it does not work to morph a video game into what is supposed to be a movie. Don't get me wrong. Renderman used by the right hands and minds can create an entertaining and somewhat artistic product. Just about every "blockbuster" film has used this Apple software since its inception by whomother than the man himself, Steve Jobs. What is the pitfall? It should seem obvious. A film is not a video game. I film in the historical perspective used to be "live" actors filmed and shown on screen in a big theater. Renderman allowed the high tech. graphics of computer games to fuse with filmography. It it meant cutting off Lt. Dan's legs in Forrest gump without a major workload of special effects, so be it. But.... given the dinosaur fight in King Kong. That's enough right there to kill the ill perceived juxtaposition. Doesn't work, fellas. Just stop doing it. Man, who thought the audience would yearn to watch real actors try to carry out the moves. Choreography from the days gone by of Hollywood. Geroge Lucas had a little blurb on his site showing how a scene was filmed in "digital." "It makes it so easy to get the shot!" the guy exclaims. A little human action and 60% of the rest is done with the computer. Looks like shite. Feels like shite. Smells like shite. Should try to use it in a $.25 video games. I am saving my eight bucks to buy something else.
Anywho, all the reviews were the same and fairly uninformed. If you don't know by now, this film is about the same league as Mulholland Drive. It has epic undertones, and the viewer has to think and interpret what is happening on screen. Most of it seems to based in religious symbolism. The burning of witches in Old Salem hints at a theme. Good verses evil must be the underlying idea. On a small scale, one bit of dialog not mentioned in any of the reviews was, they started their own darkness. The fires they used to burn any thing they were afraid of started the hell that exists now. Mistrusting your fellow citizens and accusing them of the likes of witchery in itself is a breach of Christiandom. I think most of that is apparent in the finale of Silent Hill. The witch burners were eventually wiped out by what? Well, a little girl whose mother has been seeking refuge in the surreal habitat of the smouldering streets of Silent Hill, West Virginia. She said her daughter had been taken from her, evidently by the coal fires that were somehow ignited underneath the town long ago. The fumes and heat killed most of the town and must have burned her pretty good. She was an angry little girl with an alter ego, maybe Satan? Say if God seems to give you the shaft over and over and you get tired of it, you lose your faith. Faith was the thing that "Ye Old Borg" kept bibbling about through her part of the movie. "Your faith is the only thing that can save you from the demon, the darkness." Okay, God is sanctuary against the devil. Good enough IF God is what she meant. We as an audience don't really know that. They place they seek refuge from "the demon" looks like a church, but the simple cross we all know is artistically embellished somewhat. The little girl that could be the twin sister of the diety drew this on her pictures drawing her mother to believe there was something amiss with her upbringing. Well, seems these witch burners dropped her off at an orphanage to save her from the darkness of their own. She was adopted, but seems the witch burners wanted her back in the end. I don't really get all that connection. There is the diety that comes around at the end, a little girl, burned, and somehow empowered to kill the witchburners. Is this an angel? It doesn't seem to be God. Since we have multiple glimpses at a roadside sign that says, "We will judge angels, and Saints will judge men," this must be an angel. Angels can be good and evil. The witch burners seem to think they are going to prevent the apocholypse, but the mom looking for her lost daughter tells queen borg witch it never happened, and she was not the gilty party hiding in guilt and shame. Not before they burned her highway patrolwoman friend that saved her ass from the demon's triangular head and massive door piercing blade.
Anyhow, that's my take on some of it. It should be interesting to hear any commentary other than the inane bibble Ebert wrote. Give it a try. Try to figure it out. It is a lot more fun that way that saying, "It isn't as fun as the game."

Nobody Reads This Shite Anyway!?

Well, I tried to get my blog Google friendly. I read their suggestion page and even submitted my title. Seems none of their "crawlers" has crawled their way up this pipe. It has been many moons, and after reading my previous posts I feel extremely ignorant. What has happened to me? Four months in Fayettenam, and my brain has turned to Swiss cheese. Trains, planes, and the flying twinks of the 82nd Airborne. Twinks did you say? Isn't a "twink" a gay man that is sexually promiscuous? Google gay military and see what you cum up with. There was a site right around near here where them gay boy Twinkies was suckin' and @#$%%^in' and postin' their filth on the internet. They got busted. Bust a twink, not a rhyme. A few of them boys got ousted from the Army. They closed down the site. Good. Now the Gilbert Theatre is doing Rocky Horror Picture Show. Another drag queen milleau. Just show me the "straight" Jerry, show me the "straight," please.......!!!
This is a dismal place. Not Columbus, Ohio where I used to dwell. Fayettenam, the future of the auto industry. Half way between Miami and New York on I-95. What better place could you want to live except a place where 25 focking trains come through every day. Oh, the hang out at Ft. Bragg too. There is this one engine with a tritone as a horn. It just sort of groans. Starts early in the morning on the weekends and just kind of putters around all weekend long, groaning. The thing never sees a rest. CSX has been turning the engines off now when they are not in use. That is a small miracle in itself, but this thing. I couldn't figure out if it belonged to the Aberdeen and Snotfish or to the Army. They have AC traction locomotives too, but they dwell in a bunker down by the river. Oops, I mean a bunker down under, from under your balls. I mean in a bunker hidden from view, stinking up the place with cockroach style. Two solid weeks of that vibration and noise and here we come Colombine High. Let's shoot some shit up! Yea man, I'm doin' it. They like my moves. The Zephyr team.
I have given up on the this country and the human race for the most part. Out government doesn't give a rat's arse about us, "We the people." Now if we were "We the rich," that would be different. Exxon/Mobile posted the highest earnings of any business in the history of the United States, was it 8 billion in three months? What's Bush gonna do now? Greed. Man, what a drag. Socialism doesn't seem that bad anymore, does it? Provide for the common good in return for some work. That good old Soviet Union, she be gone. Dried up, withered away, defunctatude. We don't have to worry about them, only "One World Order." Outsource your jobs and leave the infrastructure of the US in a shambles. "Not much going out in them shipping ports. Lots of shite coming in from, where? China?" Hey Mr. Yang. Could you de-value the yen a little and help us out partner? Just kind of say your economy ain't doing so well against our dilapidated dollar. Not much to be an American these days. It downright sucks. I have no faith or trust in "our" country, but I haven't found a new one yet. I am still looking, if I am not dead first.