Wealth and Mediocrity

Maybe my timing was off.  Maybe Ft. Bragg currently isn't putting together a two mile long war train underneath the ground at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina.  Supposedly the Marines have blown that particular pop stand and returned to their coastal Atlantic stronghold of Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville.  I am not sure how they travel to Bragg.  The aerial vehicle of choice for the Marines is the VTOL Osprey.  They train on the army's artillery twice a year, so I assume they fly.  All of that aside my point is that with three operating railroads located in Fayettenam, even if they aren't putting together one of those massive munitions trains, it can seem like it.  This time it was Norfolk Southern.  For some reason their prime movers have been sitting at CSX-T's Milan yard the last week.  Fayetteville's three railroads share trackage that all uses the small switching yard crossing Blount Street parallel to Robeson Street.  It is the luck of the draw which paint scheme you will see on any given day.  On bad days you will see all three.  The Aberdeen and Rockfish, credited as one of the most successful shortline railroads in the United States, uses vintage motive power that is over sixty years old.  That boils down to EMD's GP-7, GP-18, and GP-38.  The GP-7 is the most offensive, and also it is credited as being the only non-rebuilt "Geep" still in service today by its original owner.  Talk about dutiful.  It is obvious that the maintaining of these original locomotives has allowed the A&R to remain financially viable.  Today in America, unlike in our history, we have become an expendable society.  We sell products which are expendable and thus not meant to stand the test of time.  This includes computer hardware and software which are designed to fail or become extinct on purpose, so that we will to upgrade.  To anyone who has studied computer science before the year 2000, this is not a prudent philosophy.  You stick with what works, chewing gum, paper clips, and all.  When you achieve an operating system which happily runs your programs with few system crashes, you keep it!  This is not our newest business philosophy in America.  Slowly over the last decade our markets have become saturated with inferior products prompting a slow down in American spending.  Americans do not look forward to spending money, when it is not both fun and rewarding.  Spending, like most things in America, has become a chore.  Buying a car is a chore.  Buying a garden sprinkler on eBay is a chore.  Buying groceries is a chore, because there are so many inferior products being marketed to us.  It takes diligence to sift through this muck and make an educated buying decision.  Recently I became a second generation home owner.  More accurately my sister and I will inherit my parents home when they die.  That will not occur for some time, and my sister and her husband all ready have their own home.  A predicament this presents to me.  Do I give up my plans of being a viable professional musician and living in a large city, or do I accept this token of inherited wealth and plan to live in it?  To live in this house is a challenge.  It not yet is mine, but I live in it.  I have lived in it like a transient for some time.  I have been working on cruise ships, and that job requires that I travel and sometimes live on ships.  It has not been a total stretch to camp out for a while in this house.  As time passes it is becoming more difficult.  I have begun to lose touch with my profession.  To make matters more difficult my mother has begun to plant seeds of doubt whether or not I still can get a gig.  She would rather me stay here, where there are few musical opportunities.  The ones there are are highly prized and guarded.  It is a bit of a conundrum to me to see musicians so tenacious about their own jobs.  To understand this scenario imagine being able to direct the United States Ground Forces Band at Ft. Bragg.  You have notoriety.  You get to play around in music (which if fun), and you get paid.  Now possibly we can understand why musician jobs are coveted as the holy grail.  We have a Fayetteville Symphony, yet possibly only one member lives in Fayetteville.  That is because he has a teaching job here.  The rest of the musicians commute from rather long distances to play in the Fayetteville Symphony.  It really is not the Fayetteville Symphony at all.  It should be called something else, possibly the Fayetteville Regional Symphony.  Still I am not sure if that should qualify an instrumentalist from  Charleston, South Carolina as a real member.  This is the way that it is, and consequently it is a much better orchestra.  I don't really enjoy their concerts, because I do not know the people.  When The Fayetteville Little Theater became the Cape Fear Regional Theater, they began using professional equity actors from all over the country.  The shows for me lost their appeal, because I do not know the people.  I have done my fair share of pit orchestra work at CFRT, but I can't remember it.  Bo Thorp officially has retired as the acting Artistic Director, and I personally do not know its new director, Tom Quaintance.  He is a quality director, but I do not know his people.  It is not the same kind of local theatre experience.  On a different note as I watched Cecily Strong roast the gamut of the world last night at President Obama's press corp dinner, it dawned on me.  The press is mediocre.  With the exception of Rachel Maddow, the rest of the press are lazy overpaid zealots.  Like the rest of American products being offered to us each day, their product also is inferior.  It was blatant.  It brutally was telling to watch the president tell the truth about life in America, in spite of the remarkable spin that has been placed on us by our media.  It singlehandedly gave credence to the profession of comedy, which also tells the truth about life.  Really that is all you have to do to be funny, tell the truth.  Hearing President Obama and Ms. Strong tell the truth was uplifting and inspiring.  Here were two extremely intelligent well-prepared public figures who put the press corp to shame by not spinning the truth.  It pointed out to me why there no longer is talent on the airwaves, because wealthy mediocrity does not want it.  In a few short minutes I was transported back to my high school days, when all I knew was to excel.  You excel to stay away from wealthy mediocrity.  I had a moment of extreme lucidity.  Lately I have realized there are few people around me with whom I would choose to interact.  This includes television.  Not only would I not choose with which to communicate, I would not choose to which to listen.  I flip through the channels late at night, and slowly there has become nothing to which to listen or watch except wealthy mediocrity.  Evidently there are a lot of rich people who own television.  I have become surrounded by the very faction of people I have spent my life trying to avoid.  It is easy for me to remember the real Golden Days of Television.  Ms. Strong suggested we are in such a period now. [sic] Her vehicle of delivery often was an unfinished sentence leaving the audience to contemplate her insinuation.  Ms. Strong suggested we are in a Golden Age of Television, but......   It is not true.  It is far from the truth and for good reason.  There is no talent on television.  There is little talent anywhere in America anymore, because we do not value it.  More precisely wealthy mediocrity does not want it, because it points out how mediocre they are.  (Kardashians, Housewives of Atlanta, etc.)  Upon entering the gardening aisles at WalMart, you are swamped with names of mediocre products like Orbit, Melnor, and Gilmour.  While it is possible these manufacturers are producing some quality products, the majority of what they are offering on television and on the aisles at WalMart are inferior.  I know this from experience.  Most of the water-related products will last one season.  All of the oscillating sprinklers I have purchased have failed in one way or another, and I have put in a fair amount of time searching for them.  They all suffer from the same design flaws.  The jets become clogged with dirt, and more commonly the gearing breaks or they begin to leak.  It hugely has been frustrating.  Often the knob which adjusts the  spray pattern does not have markings forcing you to experiment with a flowing sprinkler.  I have spent fifteen minutes attempting to adjust one of these sprinklers.  I have come to realize  these sprinklers represent much of America's product.  We are inundated with wealthy mediocrity.  The Golden Age of Television  encompassed talent which abundantly is evident throughout the history of American television.  Talent is evident, because it was required to be viewed.  Today we are a much less discerning populace, and talent no where is to be found.  Talent is absent, because wealthy mediocrity does not want it.  What wealthy mediocrity wants wealthy mediocrity gets now in America.  I do not want to see Bruce Jenner try to become a woman on television.  Who gives a shit?  It is pig fodder.  Talent is absent, because talent takes effort.  Talent takes effort, and it takes years of study and discipline to refine it.  Talent is the ability of an artist to contemplate, understand, and then comment upon an issue through a medium.  In real time an artist opens their emotional psyche up to an issue, and allows it to respond guiding the artist in their  commentary.  Wealthy mediocrity does not attempt this.  They are too lazy, like the media.  Artists do this.  Once artists, not wealthy mediocrity, were valued in American media.  Artists can come in many flavors.  They can be news anchors, they can be sound engineers, they can be visual artists, and they can be actors.  Most importantly artists can be musicians, and this leaves the largest void in popular American culture.  We no longer value artistic music.  If we did wealthy mediocrity would be forced to recognize and acknowledge that the arts are produced by valuable, worthy, talented people, not themselves.  Then the balance of power in America would be upset.  This trend recently has promulgated and no better can it be represented than with America's lack of melody.  Once we were a country of tunes.  Tunes or melodies were a core component of our everyday life.  We had patriotic tunes.  We had hymns.  We had spirituals.  We had lullabies.  We had American popular songs.  We had Bluegrass.  We had Country and Western.  We had jazz.  We had Rock.  We had Funk.  We had Soul.  Anywhere in America you would turn a musical underpinning was in place guiding you.  That is over.  We have become a tuneless soulless nation.  Both television and radio are a part of this demise.  It is obvious wealthy mediocrity has acquired these two mediums, and they are not able to stomach a piece of humble pie and recognize and acknowledge that great music is created by great people, people of worth, value, and talent.  How we have become this selfish nation is beyond me.  Being forced back in time by President Obama's press corp dinner gave me a comforting clarity.  Still today I am fighting the exact same contingency which existed in the l980's.  Nothing has changed, except they have won.  We do not hear catchy television themes.  We do not hear clever commercial jingles.  We do not hear effective drama underscoring.  What we will hear is the same innocuous droning jungle drum cue present in almost every movie trailer.  Instead of wit, humor, and intelligence wealthy mediocrity use fear and intimidation.  Infrasound-laced jungle drums have become the new battle cry for wealthy mediocrity.  Like Republicans they dull our minds with sheer will, not talent.  

Hillary Clinton or HIllary Hahn?

There has been a lot in the news lately with Hillary bashing topping the list.  The Republicans, with few viable candidates for the 2016 presidential campaign, have taken to Hillary-beating instead.  It is so different than the previous campaign when both Hillary and President Obama were in close contention.  It is such trench warfare.  As America we have become good at it.  We like war.  It is easier than being wise and good.  Also it is more lucrative seeing as most manufacturing once that created America's infrastructure now has been outsourced to slave labor in foreign countries.  Corporations are headquartered in Canada, have their products made in China, and make their money in America.  It is not very American.  Neither is assembling two mile long war trains underneath the ground at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina.  Again we act like we are good at it, yet the Iraq war was a total bust.  It should be more embarrassing than the failure at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba.  By the way there has been a lot in the news lately.  Nuclear pacification with Iran?  Future trade relations and embargo lifting with Cuba.  Hillary bashing.  Let's talk about Mrs. Clinton for a moment.  There are few people who would disagree that her appointed position as Secretary of State in Mr. Obama's administration was a token.  Her performance was abysmal.  Few would know this, because it was not publicized.  I certainly can't be sure she did anything for those four years.  In comparison to Madeleine Albright most would pale.  Madeleine was a scholar and a diplomat.  Hillary was a token of appreciation from President Obama.  It was one of his few bad policies along with the revocation of Bill's "Don't ask, don't tell."   Let bygones be bygones.  The public should remember that Mrs. Clinton's universal healthcare was a scribble on a memo pad.  I am not sure The Affordable Care Act is doing much better, but at least it is on the books.  I for one always have lamented the loss of contact with Cuba.  Afro-Cuban music is important, and so was Havana before Fidel Castro.  It was an oasis in the Caribbean, where one could escape the brutality of American life.  I hope that it returns as a viable alternative to Old San Juan.  I understand diplomacy.  I understand that while we are unable to render Iran impotent as a terror monger, we can limit the potential consequences of a grievous act of global war.  Limiting their access to nuclear weapons is a prudent compromise.  Also I understand that the same pundits who are promoting Hillary-bashing would rather bomb Iran.  Certainly we have bombed enough other countries.  As for potential Republican presidential candidates for 2016, I would prefer Rick Santorum.  I would prefer not to remember Whitewater, Kenneth Star, Monica Lewinsky, and the rest.  I will remember Bill's Dayton Accords and their resolution of the Bosnian conflict.  It was an effective solution.  The war machine is churning and weapons of mass destruction are making their way to Sunny Point near Wilmington, North Carolina.  It makes us feel in control hauling those weapons through North Carolina's camouflaged coastal plains, through CSX-T's interchange at Pembroke, and then down to Sunny Point.  The odd thing is CSX-T has not been required to do much of anything in terms of maintenance of their rail system.  They and other railroads continue to use inappropriate tank cars to transport oil out of North Dakota.  While highly flammable crude oil may be deemed less of a potential hazard than a two mile long war train, still the spur onto which Ft. Bragg trains must back to make their way to Sunny Point in appearance belongs in the television show Green Acres.  It is not a highly serviced, modern, stable section of railroad track.  It is a joke.  If our national defense through STRACNET is reliant upon this section of track, we are waiting for another 9/11.  CSX-T should be required to maintain their trackage including this section running down the middle of Russell Street.  The Aberdeen and Rockfish, a shortline railroad operating in close proximity to both CSX-T and the Norfolk and Southern, puts CSX-T to shame.  At least they maintain their grade crossings and trackage.  Why would the Department of Defense allow this track to deteriorate to such a low level, yet allow railroads to haul dangerous crude oil across American in sub-standard tank cars?  Politics.  

The French Six, The Russian Five, and the Second Viennese School

When I think of music in America's history, in comparison to the French Six, the Russian Five, and the Second Viennese School I think of the "Fab Four."  Better yet I remember the jazz vocal group the "Four Freshman."  While fully I believe America is responsible for more than one indigenous musical art form, jazz must be our torch.  More diverse music has been created and performed since the l920's than could be imagined by a youth of this generation.  This is a good thing for jazz in academia.  It has cemented itself as a true art form and should around for centuries to come.  (or will it?)  I am hung up in the now, because now is what is happening to me at the moment.  I have studied this diverse and varied history of jazz, and once I held it dear to my soul.  It became a part of my own personal musical voice, a voice that was both my identity and my opinion.  Somewhere down the beaten path it became clear to me that jazz was dead.  Jazz was dead, because it was not being recognized and supported in our country.  Ironically the art from I chose to study and champion my entire life became the butt of cruise ship jokes.  Working as an orchestra pianist on cruise ships was by far the most difficult and demanding musical job I ever have had.  It was difficult, because those who produced the musical products must have been lazy.  They would produce a show and its accompanying "tracks," but then their efforts writing written music to be played by real musicians fell short.  We were given mistake-ridden fly paper and expected to make it sound like these prerecorded tracks.  My experience and study of composition is what allowed me to keep the orchestra piano job.  I would say half of my efforts in realizing the music necessary for my position were spent on making the music I was given readable.  For the most part it was not.  For those of you that do not read music, there are practices agreed upon by professionals which allow a legitimate musician to read at sight.  It is part of our training to be able to sightread music.  It is impossible to sightread music which does not adhere to the norms in traditional music notation.  The world of "pop" music made its way into cruise ship music, and the tried and true traditions of music were abandoned.  It became the hired musician's job to decipher the negligent scribble and make the best of it.  I am not a ship's captain, so I did not write the job descriptions.  It seems this process of interpreting and salvaging negligent arrangers' work was our job.  The music had been chosen and produces, and it seems we were paid to make the best of it.  Because we wanted the jobs, we did it.  For me it was not a begrudging process.  I took pride in knowing more than the musical arrangers.  It gave me peace of mind to take their insulting, self indulgent, amateur notation and make it playable.  Often I had to do so against the wishes of the performer.   There were Guest Entertainers so vain, that they would give you a mistake-ridden arrangement and insist you could not fix its mistakes.  Once the musical arrangements were handed to us in plastic lamination to prevent any potential stenographic molestation.  The definition of humility and vanity is a musician who fixes this music, while an "artist" demands it stay erroneous.  Why would a Guest Entertainer demand his music stay erroneous?  The answer is clear, and it became the driving force of entertainment on my particular cruise company.  They it seems were not interested in a quality musical performance.  They were interested in the drama of watching a musician squirm in such a situation.  I was required, instead of being an instrumentalist, to be a slave.  My actions in response to this requirement became the entertainment.  Sound familiar?  I do not believe this concept is American.  I believe it is a manifestation of a Scandinavian television producer who brought his particular products to American airwaves as the "reality show."  I don't much like it, and I don't think professional musicians will either.  Then again there is Showbiz.  The soul of American musical entertainment is found in the minstrel shows, and their concept was the conflict between the country bumpkin and the tight-pants city slicker.  Fully I understand this history, and I am not so much of a curmudgeon that I cannot loosen up and let humor enter my musical product.  There was a time in American music history that jazz was serious.  Possibly I am more familiar with this Third Stream side of music than the minstrel side.  That is because it interested me more.  Miles Davis did not play the fool.  He, unlike Dizzy Gillespie, did not "Uncle Tom" during his performances.  Vehemently he was opposed to such a practice.  I am not opposed to light-heartedness and tomfoolery in music, but very much like the difference between Funk and Hip/Hop serious music and diversion are two different things.  Because many people do not understand these inherent differences disparity occurs.  It's a bitch being smart.  It's a bitch understanding and demanding your craft and art need a concept to be authentic and great.  It's a bitch not prostituting your life's chosen purpose.  As I realized that "entertainment" more was the key on cruises, I got better at not caring about my art.  I got better at keeping my mouth shut and taking the money.  I got better at forgetting how to be a great musician, because it was not the goal.  The goal became, because of all the other mediocre musicians, to lay down.  My outstanding jazz skills became a liability.  I have yet to recover from this change, but  I know for certain I am not a masochist.  I know for certain I am not a sadist.  I derive no pleasure from pain inflicted upon others or myself.  I am a Christian, and simply put with this particular religion on the chopping block, Christianity can be represented by one overt emotion.  The ability to feel compassion for those in need is the difference between the two opposing forces on the planet today.  When I feel joy in some way, I am feeling someone's compassions for others.  This can be accomplished in many ways, but for me most notably it is through music.  I feel joy when I feel compassion in music.  Most classical music contains this sentiment, and more importantly it often is the defining expressive element of the music.  It cares about things, and it cares about things other than itself.  In really good contemporary classical music it cares about many things, and they are referenced as an homage.  Glorifying one's self is not the point.  If I were asked if the "Fab Four" cared about things other than themselves, I would say yes.  You can't escape the reality that the Beatles were a skiffle band doomed to work on the docks of Liverpool, unless they found commercial success playing Rock 'n' Roll in America.  There is a time in your life when you choose to grow up. 

The Mystery of the Elusive Contemporary Classical Music

In my previous post I failed to mention why WCPE's airing of Shostakovich's opera "Lady Macbeth" piqued my interest.  It did so, because I never have heard it before.  There is not a lot of opera around in America, unless you live in New York in close proximity to the MET.  Especially there is not a lot of opera in the South.  I never have liked opera much, because what I was taught about it at UNC-Chapel Hill was uninteresting.  So was what I was taught about the Classic Period.  My teacher, a doctor of music having graduated from Yale University, loved Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.  I found it to be trite and boring, but that is not to say that I dislike who is considered one of the world's most beloved composers.  It was just not my cup of tea.  I began taking piano lessons in the first grade against my teacher's will.  She felt the first grade was too young, because a child's hands were not big enough to navigate the keys of the piano.  I persisted, and so she taught me.  Evidently I wanted to learn to play the piano.  For the life of me I can't remember why.  Twelve years later and unrelated to Schoenberg's system or the interval upon which the clarinet over blows for its upper octave, I presented a senior recital of piano material.  In the year of l981 I played two of three of George Gershwin's preludes and the second half of "Rhapsody in Blue."  The other notable piece was Aram Khachaturian's "Toccata."  It is of no consequence that upon hearing Shostakovich's opera "Lady Macbeth" immediately I was content.  In America we are simpletons.  We live in an oppressive bubble which does not like to acknowledge things other than itself.  While America's musical history is diverse and satisfying, that mostly is accomplished by jazz music.  Jazz music and what it represents has been suppressed in America.  Once it represented knowledge, wisdom, and joy.  Today it is hidden from society for fear that the truth may become known.  What truth?  The truth at which my brain arrives is that human beings given serenity and respect can self-actualize.  They can be content creating the things upon which they will rely.  The man does not want this.  The man wants the populace to suffer.  He wants us to suffer, so we will be forced to buy his products.  Vehemently he does not want us to be able to self-actualize.  If we were we would become independent, independent of the man.  Sound familiar?  This is the only logical conclusion I can draw assimilating the understanding that the things once that provided substance for man now are evil.  Devil music?  Freedom?  Free Love?  Happiness?  Health?  Contentment?  That man doesn't want it, so jazz is dead.  For me in particular I no longer can indulge in the pleasure of jazz, because the world is suffering.  The music of the day to be real art must acknowledge and utilize current society.  Our "current society" is superficial pop music, and it is embarrassing.  How the powers at be will allow this image to represent America to the world is beyond me.  Childish high jinx?  Things ain't what they used to be, and I am not asking why.  It just is, like the definition of the word is.  Jazz music is encompassing.  It is representative of the human life force and the evolution of man.  It processes are the human processes man has utilized to survive.  They are spiritual, and the man does not want that.  Spirituality would make us content and therefore independent.  We must abolish religion everywhere, so the human race will become dependent upon the man.  Jazz music has a feeling, and that feeling has been absent from America for some time.  Those jazz musicians who were intent upon remaining jazz musicians changed their feeling with or without knowing it to the "feeling" of pop.  The feeling of jazz is so rare, most people do not know that it exists.  It does exist in the same arena as classical music, but there simply are not enough organizations to promote it.  Jazz was an underground music.  Never was it mainstream in America, but it was there.  I was so elated to hear music by a mainstream Russian composer.  It to me was second nature, and I owe a debt of gratitude to both Aram Khachaturian and Betty Mohn, my high school piano teacher.  Having learned his Toccata the sounds of Russian music were in my ears relatively early in life.  They were not dissimilar from the sounds of George Gershwin's three preludes.  Between l981 and 2015 I tend to lose track of those sounds.  While I have music to which to listen, again the music of the day needs to acknowledge and utilize today.  I secretly wish for America suddenly to grow up and understand the Second Viennese School.  I wish for the Russian Five to be born again.  I wish that Maurice Ravel were here to teach orchestration.  Above all else I wish that the ideas represented in this music could be applicable today in America.  Instead we have nursery rhymes.  

The Elusive Mystery of Jazz Music

Yesterday pleasantly I was surprised by the radio station WCPE's playing of Shostakovich's "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk."   I listen to this local station often, and while their headquarters are located in Wake Forest, NC they have subsidiary stations that broadcast their classical format of music throughout the state.  I believe the station I pick up at 95.3 is being broadcast by a transmitter slightly east of Raleigh.  The programming is hit and miss, but it is a tall affair to program classically-oriented music around the clock.  Every once in a while they hit my personal G spot.  Now I have realized that this occurs when they play music by composers of diverse nationalities.  Occasionally they will feature American composers, and other than the currently recognized "greatest living American composer" John Adams, sometimes they will feature American composers specifically of African-American heritage.  I remember astutely the first time I discovered this body of composed music while attending The Ohio State University working on the D.M.A. degree in Composition.  It in short was a revelation.  For the first time in my life other than hearing George Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" I was hearing composed orchestral and chamber music with the soul of American slavery.  One particular thing I do not enjoy in WCPE's programming is heavy emphasis on Classic Period.  While the word "classic" commonly is used to describe orchestral and chamber music from all of the periods of music history, the classic period itself was a distinct series of decades culminating around 1770-1780.  This is referred to as the "High Classic" Period.  I'm not sure if I agree with these two chosen decades, because the history of music which evolves cannot be categorized like American popular radio music.  Learned composed music tends to evolve, which can be heard in the differing stylistic periods of many of the great composers including Beethoven, Schoenberg, and Aaron Copland.  Often simply these changing stylistic periods are an attempt to achieve notoriety seeing as the music business is a fickle bitch.  Arnold Schoenberg wrote some of the most beautiful Romantic-oriented music ever as represented by his cantata Gurre-Lieder.  As a composer I can learn a lesson from this realizing beautifully composed expressive music will not necessarily be successful in being heard by the masses.  Schoenberg learned this and possibly consequently pioneered his Twelve Tone Technique, Dodecaphony, or Serialism.  While I myself enjoy and listen to both Pierrot Lunaire and Verklarte Nacht, Schoenberg's fame supposedly comes from his invention of the Twelve Tone Technique.  Politically speaking it is probable that this acclaim simply is from the sheer controversial nature of this new music composition technique.  Tonally speaking this technique broke the stem whence music previously had come.  While his earlier Romantic-orientied works were influenced by Wagner, it was Alban Berg and Anton Webern who adopted and championed Schoenberg's new method.  My hearing of "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" yesterday on WCPE's live feed from the Metropolitan Opera piqued my interest.  A few day's earlier I learned from this station that Modest Mussorgsky's "A Night on Bald Mountain" saw no performances while he was alive. It was Rimsky-Korsakov who discovered and presented the work along with what later was described as an inaccurate "Pictures at an Exhibition."  So it seems in the field of music that the original composer often does not reap his spoils.  I am getting used to this idea, although I am beginning to worry that my stockpile of original piano music, which will influence the gamut of American composition, may be lost.  This really should be an absurd notion, but it is not.  The last classical music shop in New York City closed its doors recently, and with the advent of internet commerce sheet music no longer commands its worthy value.  This is true of all music today.  The internet and computer programs somehow have convinced the powers at be that music should have no value.  This is an absurd notion.  How can a classical music radio station like WCPE keeps its doors open without funding?  It doesn't, but its process is based on fund raising from private donors.  This really cannot be considered a free market system.  It is common in the arts for them to be subsidized, because they have been a core component of our educational system for centuries.  With this in mind it is easy to accommodate the idea that classical music is not meant to be commoditized.  Completely I am okay with that idea.  I do not desire to become wealthy from my composed music, but I do desire that its influence and worth are recognized and accommodated in our history of composed music.  How do I go about this?  I do not know.  I have been trained as a musician and a composer, not a businessman.  While I do know that today a website is necessary, artistic items often are not appreciated until decades after their creation.  Intuitively I know that if my work is not placed in the correct spot, it will go unnoticed.  If it is placed in the correct spot(s) it will have a marked effect on American society and the world.  Completely I understand that this sentiment will be considered a delusion of grandeur, vanity, and egotism.  It should not, because every great artist in America including playwrites, authors, and film makers must know the value of their work.  They know the value of their work, because in America's competitive marketplace there is no chance for your product's success unless it is great.  I have known this my entire life, and consequently I have aspired to write great music.  Early in my life during high school I succeeded in music.  In ninth grade I was not the best trumpeter, but by sheer will progressed until I was first trumpeter under the direction of Eastman's Frederick Fennell at the Pembroke Band Clinic.  It is difficult for me to remember what musical success is.  When I attended OSU I had worthy compositions performed, but our Composer's Workshop concert poorly was attended.  I have recordings of my pieces, and they are as worthy as any in the recorded repertoire, but they sit idle in my file cabinet in our garage.  It is difficult for me to muster the energy to promote their performance.  I believe it is because I am at a period in my life where a different philosophy is needed.  A friend from high school posted this philosophy yesterday, and it applies to me.  It states, "Sometimes the best thing you can do is not think, not wonder, not imagine, and not obsess.  Just breath and have faith everything will work out for the best."  These upon reflection seems like a copout.  I have been taught to work hard my entire life, and I have.  I never had to think about it.  You excel because it is the right thing to do.  Continually you challenge your mind and soul.  Now it is not working.  Now everything I have worked for in the field of music seems not to apply.  Its pursuance produces great pain, thus I have curtailed its activity.  I am not sure why artistic music, which derives its integrity from the stem of music history, is not working.  It is not working for the same reason Schoenberg's early Romantic works brought him no acclaim.  Sometimes people just want something about which to complain, not something that is beautiful.  

A Military Presence

I grew up in Fayettenam.  Older residents of Fayettenam fondly use this pseudonym instead of the actual name of the city, Fayetteville, named after the aristocratic French military officer the Marquis de Lafayette.  The nickname Fayettenam is not heard much anymore, because the Viet Nam War ended in l975 at the behest of Richard M. Nixon.  "Tricky Dicky" resigned from office after the Watergate scandal.  While many pundits painted Mr. Nixon a criminal, he was an effective president accomplishing many goals including forging relations with China.   I grew up during the Viet Nam war, and it was a welcome relief when it ended in l975.  Consequently I enjoyed the l980's, because of relative peace in the United States.  For the most part also I enjoyed the l990's.  I was a supporter of Bill Clinton.  As I have mentioned before Mr. Clinton made some blunders during his presidency.  I do not mean a blow job by Monica Lewinsky.  Running under a campaign promise that every American should be able to own their own home, Wall Street created and manipulated hedge funds eventually almost bankrupting the economy of the United States.  Before George Bush left office he dipped his hand into the coffers of the American people and gave our money to Wall Street cronies.  We have yet to recover.  When Mr. Clinton was president we as a country enjoyed relative calm.  He and his wife Hillary were a thoughtful and thrifty couple.  Multiple affairs did not threaten their marriage, although they became a field day for media and the Clinton's political opponents. For months the front page of most newspapers were plastered with copy about Monica Lewinsky.  Other presidents have had affairs of a much higher profile.  John F. Kennedy supposedly nailed Marilyn Monroe, but pizza, a blue dress, and a load of the president's jism became more newsworthy.  It was a low point in American journalism.  Savvily Mr. Clinton sidestepped his brutal condemnation with a decree of the definition of the word "is."  It was not until long after the Clinton's left the white house, that I began to understand these great blunders.  NAFTA and the collapse of the peso, hedge funds, and wireless frequencies all were failures of policy.  Still the time Mr. Clinton was in office, America was a better place.  We were a better place that was more humane, more cultured, and more intelligent.  Surely we may recover from the disaster of "No Child Left Behind," but it will take decades.  It will take decades, because the world is changing, America has changed, and all of the educators on the planet cannot seem to agree on how to progress.  It is common knowledge our educational systems, both public and private, are anachronistic.  We are charging  ridiculous prices to educate adolescents for jobs that do not exist.  In essence America has screwed her adolescents to the contentment of the rich.  Literally we have eaten our children.  There is no one left to take the places of the iconic figures in recent American history.  Artists, musicians, and yuppies are dying at a rapid pace, and we as a nation have not prepared our younger generation for the shift in control.  Baby Boomers instead have tended their own crops, have eaten them, and are continuing to eat at the expense of their own children.  Surely it must be one of the most selfish generations in all American history.  It now is amusing to me, that I have lived long enough to witness history.  Life has cycled in America, and we are back at a time where Congress is in the hands of powerful trusts which run the country.  No one gives a shit about the common man or Americans in general.  Contrarily we are being murdered on a daily basis by the contempt of immoral corporations.  I feel lucky to have lived in a time when I trusted America and her interests.  I believed in the American Dream.  I believed mostly we were an honest and good country.  Now I know better, and I am beginning to realize we always have been corrupt.  I just have been able to bury my head in my own  ass.  That no longer is possible, and being a musical artist is an anachronism.  No one cares about music, and more worrisome to me I no longer value music as a life changing commodity.  I supposed we grow up and realize that wearing our emotions on our sleeves along with our dreams and aspirations is futile.  It is a waste of time.  I will not give up hope for my future, but I have become a realist.  We no longer are the country we once were, and the opportunities once afforded us as her citizens are gone.  Corporate America looks us straight in the eye, as she poisons us both with bad food and bad medicine.  It no longer is lucrative to heal disease, it is lucrative to attempt to treat our symptoms.  Having found myself surrounded by such evil, I am a bit verklempt.  It is unnerving, frightening, and neurotic.  I have to drink a considerable amount of alcohol to forget this truth.  When I do ask myself what exactly is making me nervous, it is obvious.  A huge military presence, the largest employer in Cumberland country, spins around me daily.  The days of yore when veterans were respected and patriotism was a key national sentiment are gone.  During Viet Nam veterans became baby killers.  During Dessert Storm it seems veterans became psychotic murderous savages.  Post traumatic stress disorder is rendering them incapable of restarting their lives as civilians, but little do they know that average citizens are having the same troubles.  America not only has become a sprawling military industrial complex, she has become a scattered wasteland of corporate debris.  We are polluted at every conceivable level with few corners left in which to hide.  Our souls are exposed, desecrated, and left for dead with contempt by corporate America.  While I am not a fan of the Walking Dead television program, perhaps it is a realistic depiction of what we have become at the hands of big business.  The question is are we as a nation going to continue to allow this assault on our personal sensibilities?  The only possible way for humanity to return is to return our environment to its original condition.  It will not be long before all of our ground water will be contaminated by fracking, drought will envelope the country like it has California, and we will be left scurrying about killing zombies.  Truly the Walking Dead is not that far off base.  When the high rises were built in Manhattan a phenomenon occurred that alienated local merchants.  They would look up from their vegetable stands, bagel shops, and newspaper joints and peer into those soulless windows towering above them.  "Who are these people, and what are they doing up there in those offices?"  The building of these skyscrapers should be iconic in American history, because it suggested the extinction of our traditional socio-economic system.  No longer was production and trade of an actual product to be our system of commerce.  Now the rich would acquire, accumulate, and gamble with our money.  Moving money from place to place did become and still is our new system of commerce.  It is failing, because inevitably the money runs out.  Without products nothing has value.  Money is meaningless except for the value of the paper it is printed upon.  Is this how we intend as a nation to progress?  Is there still gold in Ft. Knox that gives our currency value, or are we just shuffling paper around?  I think it is the latter, and a huge military presence here in Fayettenam to me is the same as those intimidating skyscrapers in Manhattan.  I watch intimidating aircraft fly over me daily.  Unlike buildings they are mobile.  They are capable of diverse long distance movement, and they seem to be intent upon some unknown goal.  We as citizens of Fayetteville, NC know little of this mission at Ft. Bragg.  What we do know is that they are spending millions of dollars expanding and fortifying this base.  The activities at Ft. Bragg spin around us, and yet we are not connected.  We sell our vegetable, bagels, and newspapers in complete anonymity to the soldiers at Ft. Bragg, or so it seems.  Possibly my view is not accurate understanding the amount of money both Ft. Bragg and Pope Field pump into the local economy.  I think it is in the vicinity of seven billion dollars a year.  Yippie.  Chain restaurants and medical services gladly absorb much of it.  Certainly jazz music does not.  Certainly skateboarding does not.  Certainly bicycling does not.  These harmless and healthy pastimes that once were part of the uplifting American culture that allowed us to sustain in the face of hardship have been removed.  Most of the cultural heritage of America has been removed, because they want us to spend money on unhealthy products.  It is why we are fat.  It is why we are diseased.  It is why we are unhappy.  Change this and maybe veterans stand a chance after war.  

The Well Being of the American People

I attended two concerts recently in Fayetteville, North Carolina.  Only one did I choose to attend.  I attend most of these concerts to accompany my mother, and often I watch her sleep through them.  I ask myself why she goes, and I am not sure.  It completely is foreign to me as a son, because I myself never would choose to attend any of these concerts.  My mother is a patron of the arts, and I support that.  Never have I enjoyed attending symphony concerts, but ironically I am an orchestral composer.  Music history is a long affair, and many hundreds of years have transpired.  Choosing an effective program is daunting and possibly could be considered the life or death of an orchestra.  Fully I understand that today, just like during the classic period, there are patrons of the arts.  The majority of people either cannot afford to patron the arts or they have no interest in them.  As I sat through the recent concert of Fayetteville's Symphony, only could I ask myself why would people attend?  Should not this be an absurd question with the knowledge that I am an orchestral composer?  We listened to Schubert's third symphony, and while short the very nature of the music will make you tired.  It is so slow and so expressive it really is a challenge through which to sit, especially after dinner.  Always I have questioned this symphony construct.  The practice of dressing up and sitting in a large auditorium listening to instrumentalists dressed in formal attire really is archaic, and yet we promote it.  We continue in the American South to promote racist practices   There were few blacks at this concert, and I use the word black, because historically we have used this word to describe Negros.  Only recently has America chosen to adopt the term African-American.  It is easier to type the word black, and listening to the dialogue of African-Americans, they seem not to be offended by the use of this word.  Before it slips my mind often I forget that slavery truly is the soul of America.  This heinous tradition has provided America with a soul possibly at the insistence of African-Americans.  The second concert I attended was called "Raising Cane."  It was an expose of the Harlem Renaissance of the l920's.  There were few whites at this concert.  My mother and I were two.  I would speculate our percentage to the whole was about .5%.  It was startling to see only African-Americans attending this show.  Again I guess this is an absurdity on my part seeing as the subject matter solely was about the Negro race and their forced artistic evolution during the roaring twenties in New York city.  For me it was a chance to hear jazz-oriented music.  They had a formidable trio performing the music.  It was worth it, because not often can you hear African-influenced music this good.  I have studied and played jazz most of my life, so it was not a surprise to me.  The African polyrhythms, the calypso riffs, and the blues-oriented improvisation all were second nature to my ears.  The great enigma to me was after having been exposed to this music most of my life how only blacks would attend this concert?  The answer lies in the mystery of one of America's true art forms.  It reinforced what I all ready knew, and that is we have regressed as a nation in racial integration.  I do know that racial segregation was not nearly as prevalent in Columbus, Ohio as it is here in Fayetteville.  Always I have known that life in Fayetteville is not representative.  It is not.  It is unlike any other place in America, and not in a good way for most.  Classism is rampant, and the rich prey upon U.S. soldiers and underprivileged blacks.  It is one of few places where you will see million dollar homes dot an urban junk yard.  Fayetteville is a freight rail terminal, and it is unfortunate that no matter how hard well-intentioned real estate developers try invigorate our downtown area, it never will be anything other than a freight rail terminal.  I applaud their effort, and for the first time in decades our downtown is aesthetically pleasing.  Menno Pennink And Ralph Huff have made great strides in making Fayetteville's downtown honest.  Still the unknowing buyers of downtown housing will have a rude awakening upon realizing that rail activity including the assembling of two mile long military trains occurs around the clock.  Specifically three discreet rail companies operate simultaneously providing what must be a much needed tax base for the city.  I would hope so, seeing as these railroads as part of STRACNET operate with impunity.  They care not who they effect.  Because they Federal Railroad Administration is subsidized by the federal government, they like the EPA are instructed to turn a blind eye to probable infractions a rail provider can amass.  America today is a mystery to me bearing no resemblance to her past.  We have become extreme, brutal, and deadly like our ISIL counterparts.  I see more of this methodology in the media than I do in real life, while what I do see each day is extreme, brutal, and deadly.  It is shocking to me that into what I have developed is not applicable to what has become every day life.  Every day life is not much different than the life the pioneers championed, except their values had integrity.  Today we are struggling penny to penny with little to no cultural reward.  The American culture that once made life bearable in the face of inescapable hardship no longer exists.  Truly we are at wits end, and there is no choice but simply to ignore our past.  The present and the future have no chance when pitted against such an adversary.  I am not one living in the second half of a century ready and willing to give up my traditions, yet that seems to be what is in order.  Always throughout my life I have known that America and the world has two paths of which to follow.  We will resurrect the values of the past, or we will become modern discarding these anachronistic practices.  Finally I have realized our only hope of survival is the latter of the two choices.  Humanity has no chance.  

Deja Vu, Clinton vs. Bush?

I have quite a few things on my mind today.  First and foremost we in America know that our media has become a dishonest and misleading pawn of evil.  What once was quality journalism in America now is paltry hearsay.  You can't believe anything you hear or see on television, because George Orwell's Big Brother is hard at work spinning the truth.  No matter how much I try to ignore this reality, put on a cheery face, and continue with my life always I am forced in a corner doubting my own moral and ethical values.  I know I am a good person, yet often I feel persecuted.  It is when I feel persecuted I must write to clear my head.  One specific thing occurred to me last night after watching Denzel Washington and Russel Crowe act in the film American Gangster.  If soldiers at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina were smuggling drugs in from Viet Nam during the war, why would they not be doing the same thing from Afghanistan?  Often throughout the Bush years and now with a different president who abruptly changed is opinion about mandatory troop withdrawals ending these wars, I cannot help but know there are underlying reasons.  It is not difficult to understand an economy of war.  One only has to think about Dick Cheney and his heinous warmongering company Haliburton.  "The government destroys it in the name of whatever, and we will rebuild it for a price."  It is a common American sentiment.  Many believe war is good for a country.  One only has to look at America's debt to feel otherwise.  Still it seems no one seems to understand why our economy will not revive itself.  It is simple.  The values we once held dear as both human beings and Americans are not the same.  Today we value cellular phones above anything.  As the angels spoke softly to each other in heaven all they could say is the new arrivals could only stumble around silently looking at their palms.  It is a shite state of affairs.  We no longer are human.  We are brainwashed androids created by corporate America allowing the rich to get richer with the influx of drugs into the United States.  The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan offer a tried and true conduit for illicit poppies to be smuggled into America.  After all it all ready has been tested and utilized.  Always I knew that this greatly expanding military presence at Ft. Bragg was based upon something.  Certainly it is not around America's security.  It has been spun that terrorism is our concern, and hence a great facade has been manufactured justifying this ridiculous presence of ignorant servicemen.  GI's always have been jar heads and I see no change.  I have seen a huge change in salary justifying the deaths of soldiers in the overseas wars.  I have seen the military absolutely falter with the same problems we face as a nation.  These problems are exacerbated after serving in active wars, witnessing murderous brutality, and returning to the same problems that face each and every other American citizen.  We all are struggling.  Until we solve the problems at home, returning soldiers do not stand a chance.  This is what motivated Timothy McVey to enact genocide in Oklahoma City.  He was disenchanted upon returning to America after his service in the U.S. military.  We should thank our holy stars more of these events have not transpired.  The powers at be fully are keeping mum about soldiers problems upon returning home.  I only ask myself where are the drugs coming from?  In an ABC news story soldiers candidly spoke about the availability of drugs in close proximity to the base.  They site Interstate I-95 as the source, but I disagree.  While it conspicuously will sound like a  conspiracy theory, there is a reason why we still are involved in these wars.  It is not ISIL.  The very notion of a third Bush running for the white house sickens my stomach.  Further it sickens me more acknowledging another dough boy thinks he has even a remote possibility of winning with a brother who will go down in history as the worst U.S. president of all time.  It prompts me to remember that I was a Hillary supporter before I was an Obama supporter.  It also prompts me to recant some of the realities of Bill Clinton's presidency.  I supported Mr. Clinton.  I was enrolled in graduate school at The Ohio State when he ran.  During his two terms as president America was a better place.  The things he said and did for the most part made sense to me.  Like many presidents it only is in the years following their terms that the shit hits the fan. Mr. Clinton was responsible for quite a few problems that still are here today.  First and foremost the auctioning of wireless frequencies for cell phone use was a mistake.  The FCC always has known these microwave frequencies are dangerous to human health, yet still we persist in erecting microwave heaters wherever  possible.  Science is blaming the burning of fossil fuels for global warming.  Certainly this is true, but putting microwave transmitters atop towers all over the country is not prudent nor is their effect on the American psyche.  We could not resist the temptation.  When Armegeddon does come, staring at one's palm is going to provide no security to the human race.  The values we once embraced will.  Growing food, manufacturing goods, and creating art will invigorate life.  What was positive about Bill Clinton's presidency was that racism and segregation were less of an issue than they are today.  As I reflect upon attending two recent concert in Fayetteville, North Carolina, each completely and totally segregated, I can't help but remember fondly the issue of Multiculturalism.  It was a cornerstone in Mr. Clinton's presidency.  America really was at a high point of racial integration.  While I support President Obama I can only think that his presence as the first black president has created a greater divide of race in America.  It has.  Never since the 1970's have I witnessed such racism in America.  The senseless brutal killing of harmless black men by white police officers is unfathomable.  It like the continual military presence at Ft. Bragg only suggests that we have regressed as a nation.  Corruption is not in ISIL, while they are a tangible foe.  Corruption is in America.  It is our new mainstream.  Mainstreet has become corporate America, corporate America is corrupt, and no longer is the well-being of the American people a consideration.  The build up of our military only is to shield this populace from scrutiny.  We have become again a military industrial complex.  Until our values as a nation return to their roots the trend will continue.  

Musical Technique and Swing Feel

I have two things on my mind this evening.  Actually it is three, but they may be related in some abstract way.  One thing on my mind is the disappearance of swing feel.  I have found over the last decade that no longer am I able to talk about "feel" with other musicians.  The word "feel" may be too abstract anyway.  It is not in fashion today in America to talk about feelings or "vibes."  It was a hippy thing.  It was a thing related to "Free Love" and "The Electric Cool Aid Acid Test."  This was a period when Americans experimented with drugs.  It was a rebellious time when the greater populace did not agree with the governance and direction of their own country.  Consequently their found their own alternative practices to make them happy.  Happiness is an emotion, and while emotion in America surely is not in vogue it should not be questioned that emotions are one unique thing that actually make us human.  With effort most of us can think, but actualizing our feelings is a different affair.  Many choose not to actualize their feelings.  I have found later in life that the feelings I once utilized for artistry now are an intolerable burden.  When I do allow myself to feel something, the feeling so utterly is alone that I feel much worse than when I felt nothing.  Surely this cannot be sentiment, because sentiment is supposed to be pleasurable.  Remembering something of which you were fond possibly could be pleasurable, but also it could be extremely painful IF you miss what you had.  This is how my feelings are effecting me today.  Only they provide me with grief, because I have not one person in my life that shares my sentiments.  Not one.  I do not have a single solitary person that shares my interests, my opinions, or my sentiments.  I feel strongly about music, because I have chosen it as a vocation and a profession.  I have studied it academically for nine years in three separate universities.  It used to be important to me until now.  Now things have changed, and the practices of music no longer are traditional.  They no longer relate to what used to be an academic music education.  An academic music education still is valid, but America has changed so she no longer recognizes or values the merits of a true academic music education.  What are some of the components of an academic music education?  The first and foremost component is sight singing.  Sight singing first is the ability to read written notated music, second to read a line of music independently from those around you, and third to understand how your notes fit into the chords of the music.  Simply it means you can read either the soprano, alto, tenor, or bass lines of a Bach chorale.  You at sight can actualize a written line of musical notes independently and different from those standing around you.  There is more to this than meets the eye.  Sight singing is a skill, and not many musicians can do it.  If you are an instrumentalist, your instrument provides the correct pitches of the notes when you move a slide, press valves, or close holes.  When you sing you must KNOW your intervals and how they sound.  Intervals are a root component of harmony, and are one of the first things you learn in a collegiate music theory class.  Subsequently half of the people drop out of freshman music theory, because the cannot intellectually understand intervals and thus harmony.  Today music in America is a joke.  While the traditional avenues of classical music still are present, jazz and popular music have waned in importance.  In my opinion they have waned, because Americans are too lazy to recognize and understand music is a craft and an art.  It is supposed to be easy for some reason.  It is supposed to be easy so anyone can do it.  It is supposed to be easy so superficial media producers can attempt to make music from uneducated people.  They have shot themselves in the foot.  America does not care about useless music.  Music that is uneducated merely is noise, and noise mostly is what we hear today instead of music.  When I turn on my television in the late evening, I am bombarded with noise, not music.  I have passed the point of compliant.  I complained for a long time.  Now I am stating truth.  Uneducated music is noise, and noise is bad for the human race.  Noise confuses us, and makes our lives more difficult.  It is unfortunate that this has become the new purpose of what used to be educated music.  America's corporations have chosen to use musical impostors to inhibit our all ready difficult lives.  These musical impostors covertly have replaced the once educated music that has driven America's culture.  They are operating in the same venues, but instead of uplifting and educating us they are bringing us down.  How are they doing this?  Musical impostors are too weak to take a stand.  They are too spineless to have an opinion, to state that opinion, and to stand behind their opinion.  Musical impostors have become the new example for America.  We have lost the ability to make educated decisions and to stand behind them.  Instead we waffle around cluttering up the airwaves with noise.  It is a simple process.  The first thing that is sacrificed is rhythm.  Consequently with no rhythm there can be no "feel."  I can't say for sure if in all cases this is happening on purpose.  It is plausible that sheer ignorance is the cause of the noise.  It is probable I guess that the majority of music producers today are not academically educated who know nothing of sight singing, intervals, and harmony.  It is interesting that I cannot think of another American practise where mediocrity or absolute failure of product is possible.  People do not buy bad food, do they?  If a restaurant produces poor food, usually they close.  How is it that poor music is everywhere in America?  How has this happened?  Poor music has grown in America the same way bad politics has proliferated.  A specific group of people are attempting to change the cultural practices of America.  They believe if they fail to educate Americans and then disguise truth, the public can be duped.  It is happening.  For ten years I have not been able to discuss "feel" with other musicians, because they do not know what it is.  They do not understand that there are different grooves, patterns, or clave of rhythm that produce different feelings.  Why would a novel use only one feeling its entire length?  Why would a television show use only one feeling?  WHY WOULD MUSIC ONLY USE ONE FEELING, yet this is what has happened in popular music.  The different styles of music that once were valid in America are being hidden from the populace.  We are being dealt a vanilla cone which once contained all the colors in the rainbow.  I only can surmise that watering down humanity is attempt to control it.  Within the scope of America's popular musics it is interesting to me that two things are amiss.  One is that musical technique no longer is necessary, and the other is that "Swing Feel" is extinct.  The same musicians that cannot speak intelligently about musical feel cannot talk about "Swing Feel."  They do not know what it is.  I would say 99.9% of all humans do not know what "Swing Feel" is.  The most credible DJ on the radio station WFSS on Sunday afternoons still plays jazz music with "Pop Feel."  What's the difference?  "Swing Feel" is related to "Classical Feel."  "Classical Feel" mostly is a contiguous period of time upon which musical ideas are relayed and supported.  A foundation of time is produced over which the ideas are free to proliferate.  Educated musicians will understand that to produce "time" a feeling is necessary.  Understanding a feeling and being able to produce it greatly facilitates the production of time.  How else can musicians choose a tempo and continue to stay at that tempo without monumental study with a metronome?  I'm sure good drummers do study with a metronome, but great drummers understand music at a greater depth.  Music is communication, and when one understands the conversation it is much easier to speak.  These concepts are lost in todays popular music.  Today's popular music is nursery rhyme.  It is noise more akin to mindless cooing than real music.  If we as Americans are not allowed to hear educated music, experience it, and learn from it, then we can be controlled.  We can and are being brainwashed.  When I turn on the television late in the evening 98% of the time I hear mindless cooing.  "Swing Feel" relies upon the aforementioned process of creating time.  A feeling is necessary, and with this feeling comes steady time.  A feeling cannot be created without steady time.  This is why popular music today cannot create feelings.  It cannot create steady time, because it can't create a feeling.  Instead it conjures an illusion to real music by miming the gestures used when playing good time.  It is a masquerade, and this masquerade began when musicians with no education and no learned technique realized they could masquerade as real musicians.  Neither can they produce the feeling nor play steady time.  Instead they use the simplistic gestures of making sounds on a guitar, bass guitar, or set of drums.  They never learn the underlying feeling or concept of the music.  They do not understand the music.  Worst of all they have no musical technique.  The core requirement of being a musician is absent.  These are the people making the noise today, and it would be prudent for America to recognize the difference.  There is educated music, and there is this noise.  When steady time cannot be produced because of the lack of ability to create a feeling, something has been substituted.  The majority of what we hear today on America's airwaves is this substitution.  It is common knowledge that America has lost her mainstream.  We have no cultural practices, products, or habits that bind us together.  With this loss there is very little chance of producing a common feeling among America's listeners.  Instead we have settled for sex instead of love.  With no feeling to bind us together, we settle for masturbation.  This masturbation manifests itself through rhythm in the most base way and not surprisingly it best can be understood by defining real porno music.  There can be no discernible rhythms.  There can be nothing that distracts the viewer from the sheer physicality of the sex act.  It is a stream of pulses tied together in no organized fashion.  This is what "Pop Feel" is.  It is like poking a sack of potatoes in any random fashion.  The sack is so unhappy and feelingless that any prod is appreciated no matter how random it is.  If you somehow get someone "turned on" then there is no need for technique.  Anything you do is appreciated.  Music requires more than this.  "Swing Feel" is lost because there no longer are venues that allow it.  If jazz music had as many concert halls as classical music, it is probable that "Swing Feel" could be saved.  It simply can't compete with the pollution of our modern industrial society.  It has become clear to me that there is a core of Americans who have American sentiments, but this faction completely and wholly is being controlled by foreign interests.  America has sold herself to outside bidders, and these foreign interests have infiltrated the cultural practices that have made America great.  Newspaper moguls from Australia, TV producers from the Netherlands, and other non-American millionaires have undermined America's cultural heritage.  During the Viet Nam War it became clear that no matter how the United States tried, we could not defeat the people indigenous to Viet nam.  It was their land.  It was their country.  To a large extent America is no different.  While we do owe our roots to immigrants, it is Americans who should be running America.  

My Fingers

Once I used to be proud of my hands.  I have my father's hands.  They are strong and defined and beautiful.  They are the kind of hands that know how to play the piano.  They are not sloppy.  They are not weak.  They are not unmotivated.  They are definitive, forthright, and strong.  I have learned over the last decade that the commercial music industry no longer values these kinds of hands.  Like Christianity hands of this sort take a stand.  They represent something good and meaningful.  They have a purpose, because art is a worthy pursuit.  Christianity is like artisty.  It is complex, expressive, rewarding, and misunderstood.  Christianity, unlike the definition it has been given today, seeks to bestow God's love.  Christianity seeks to provide humanity with love.  With this love comes pleasure.  Love and pleasure unknowingly to today's population come from sensory experiences.  The human senses of sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste are what should bestow pleasure upon human beings.  How can a religion that seeks to do such a thing be considered bad?  In essence God and His Son Jesus Christ seek to fill mankind with spiritual and physical love, a love that would not be present otherwise.  It would not be present, because it innately is human, and humans are a product of God.  It is a humanity.  They are things the Ancient Greeks discovered before the birth of Christ necessary for fulfilling life on earth.  We as a populace have lost touch with these humanities.  Instead we have initiated a one hundred and eighty degree turn of humanity.  Our society today seeks to debase, humiliate, and degrade the human being.  Turn on your television.  What you will see is  Christian aberration, but we have been trying to abolish Christianity in recent years in America.  Whence does this come?  What possible entity could and would decide that physical pleasure and emotional love are enemies of society?  Hitler?  Stalin?  Mussolini?  Isn't that called Fascism?  Possibly not.  Authoritarian rule does not necessarily attempt to revoke the civil liberties of humanity, or does it?  The closest system of rule I can find that revokes pleasure and love from humanity is slavery.  That is odd to me.  Slavery never in my knowledge has been defined as a system of government.  In America we rely upon the terms Republic and Democracy to define our system of government, but ironically slavery has been a large part of America's existence for many years.  We are a hypocrisy of nation, and Abraham Lincoln saw to it through the sacrifices of hundreds of thousands American soldiers we no longer would allow such behavior.  Was it behavior or rule?  The complexity of the American South could be defined with this simple question.  Today the revocation of human love and physical pleasure are as rampant as they were in the days of slavery.  Slowly in the last decade and a half human rights again have been assaulted and slowly diminished.  The things which once represented God's view of Christianity, human love and sensual pleasure, have been demonized.  Is the Evangelical Right that represents this sentiment?  Is it the puritan tenants of American religions that are suggesting that human oppression is correct?  It seems that way.  Slowly over the last decade television in particular has adopted this perspective.  Gone are Christian ideals.  Instead gross, violent, disturbing, and oppressive ideals are being hawked to the American people.  We are too ignorant to even acknowledge it.  On television last evening I happened across an interview with a man who was credited with creating what they were saying were the current hit television series of today. When they listed the shows (including "The Voice") I cringed.  This man, John de Mol, Jr. largely is responsible for this current trend in television programming.  Disturbingly the ideals of Christianity have been replaced with the plot of the novel the "Lord of the Flies."  Television, instead of instilling good in humanity, has succumbed to the lowest level of human behavior.  In the year 2015 we are reinforcing base, murderous, selfish ideals of human survival.  The question must be asked if religion today (and its assault) is strong enough to mitigate humanity's continued civility.  It is this exact concept that is prospering selling to the human race, yet anarchy through terrorism is thriving unabated worldwide.  It is obvious television once set an example for the world, and today it is setting an example for our extinction.  I prefer human love, physical pleasure, Christianity, and God.  Loving God and other people is a small challenge in return for pleasure and longevity.  Causing pain and oppression instead is the easy and ignorant way.  

The Tribulations of Christianity.

I will sit here this Good Friday evening amidst the disturbing traffic noise of Fayettenam.  I will open my window to let some of the eighty degree air out.  I will write a blog entry.  I would wish the air conditioner I removed during the winter still was in place, yet the effort of removing it was cathartic.  Bramble Builders, while installing new windows and siding on our home, placed this portable white air conditioner in one of those new windows.  They assured us its installation would not be a problem.  It wasn't.  It was not different from my own process of installing it in the old window, except that they caulked it.  They caulked it nice and tight with silicone glue right in the grooved channels in which the window opens and closes.  After removing the unit for winter and to ensure my peace of mind despite Fayetteville's horrific traffic noise, I lament that removal.  Yes, scraping the caulk out of those channels by hand with a single edged razor was cathartic.  I enjoy labor of most kinds.  I enjoy using my fingers as I used to do playing the piano for a living.  Despite either arthritis or carpel tunnel syndrome, still I like to remind myself I have control over my fingers.  Removing this air conditioner was a rite of passage.  It was me saying "Screw Fayetteville and its mass transit," and "Hello quiet mornings."  No longer would I have to wake to the sounds of annoying low flying airplanes, diesel locomotive horns, rumbling garbage collection trucks, and selfish intimidating SUV's.  Our street it replete with all of these things, and an open vacuous cavern  inside a metal box allowing these sounds to penetrate my bedroom were unacceptable.  The removal of the box was successful, until now.  Now once again it is hot, eighty degrees to be exact inside.  It is too hot to think effectively, yet I am writing this blog entry.  I will have to install the air conditioner again presently, and I will do a better job the third time.  I will not caulk the vinyl grooves, the channels upon which the window travel.  I will build isolating panels of Owen Corning fiberglass to baffle the traffic noise.  I will secure the closure of the window with wooden slats.  It will be good, and once again I will have cool air.  This time the cool air will not be in the room in which I sleep.  I have made a change.  I have changed my bedroom into a music room.  The double bed once that inhabited this room now is gone, and its comfortable Original Mattress Factory mattress and box springs now are at my brother-in-laws home.  It was an amicable trade.  I get a dedicated music room, and Ed gets a much more comfortable bed upon which to slumber.  This transformation is not yet complete.  The majority of my musical equipment now is upstairs in this temperature controlled room.  It is integrated with my Apple Macbook Pro, so if I did feel inspired to make music I could record it.  I have not yet felt so inclined.  For a few weeks I did experiment with the "new" system."  I recorded miscellaneous projects that incorporated recording my own top notch Fender Precision Bass and my recently restored Rhodes 73 Stage Piano.  They sound phenomenal, better than I could have wanted.  My drum kit, which all ready I had devised and implemented in the later l990's, still sounds the same.  It is mixed, expressive, and musical.  I have the tools around me to make great music, but I have not had the inclination.  Instead I have had either diverticulitis or a peptic ulcer.  A resultant CT scan and an MRI revealed no real anomaly.  I have a small cyst in my right kidney, and I have a small collection of blood vessels making a lesion on my liver.  Everything else was normal but still discomfort.  This abdominal discomfort felt like an abscess.  It felt and still feels like bad fluid sloshing around in my guts.  After receiving no diagnosis from these two scans, I used my mind to try and unravel the mystery.  It seems a peptic ulcer makes sense.  Its symptoms are my symptoms.  The kicker is to make it heal, I cannot drink alcohol.  Ouch.  The ouch of the ulcer is far worse than the ouch of having to give up my evening buzz.  It took several months to make that determination.  After weeks of suffering pain in my hips, extreme fatigue, despondency, and nausea I have decided that the sacrifice will be made.  All ready after one day I am feeling better.  Still I will see a specialist on Monday, and still I will have a preventative colonoscopy.  I am fifty-two, so that test is overdue for the prevention of cancer.  Also with the doctor's consent I will begin a two week course of H Pylori killing antibiotics.  Ironically I have taken this treatment before.  After an endoscopy in Spain while working on a ship, the attending physician found what appeared to be H Pylori in my stomach.  After the two week treatment I was healthy again for the first time in months.  This time it became much worse, and it is exacerbated by noise.  It is exacerbated by low frequency noise, the noise that is emitted from low flying jets, prop planes, diesel locomotives, and garbage collection trucks.  These are the things that comprise Fayettenam.  We after all host the world largest military installation.