An Altered Reality, Rev. Obama

After yet another night of very little sleep, I feel like doing very little.  I am tired.  Physically I am tired, but with a big breakfast and some caffeine I am making myself be active.  I believe this is the plight of millions of Americans and possibly citizens of other countries as well.  "Sleep is a rose the Persians say," quotes Clare Quilty in Nabokov's novel Lolita.  It is where your troubles are supposed to melt away.  For me my troubles begin when I sleep.  After tossing and turning for hours, my skin irritated by irate sound waves produced by diesel locomotives, finally I drift off to never never land.  I have an altered reality, and it is my dreams.  Rarely are they pleasing, except once in a blue moon I get to kiss the girl.  The rest of the time I spend in action, adventure, and thriller scenarios solving problems by which to stay alive.  It is quite the challenge.  I am used to it.  I am not used to being tired all of the time consequently.  It is an interesting sacrifice, your daily life versus a subconscious nocturnal adventures.  I would rather experience my adventures during waking hours, but so be it.  Most creative people are most prolific in the wee hours of the night and morning as was Cole Porter.  His popular song, "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning," was a metaphor for his draft into the armed services and having to rise to the sound of a bugler at the crack of dawn.  This song served him well later in his life.  I guess I should be thankful, that I have dreamt two small novelettes in their entirety one I have written down and one I have not.  It is new to me this business of dreaming novels.  It has been said that when God closes one door He opens another.  I would prefer to continue my musical adventures, and I am trying the best I can despite my fatigue.  Yesterday was a monumental day in the history of America, and I am too tired to blog about it.  Yesterday was a monumental day in the history of America, because our first African-American president sang the spiritual song "Amazing Grace" during his eulogy for the victims of Emanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston, South Carolina.  Did you hear what I said?  I said, "Our first African-American president SANG the spiritual song "Amazing Grace" on live television to be rebroadcast again and again and again on what will become syndicated television.  This is a watershed event.  While all Americans have known that President Obama is black, he has done an admirable job of dispelling racial stereotypes about black people.  One does not get elected president of the United States by talking jive, eating chitlins, and drinking Colt 45 malt liquor.  One should not receive misdirected persecution for possessing an affinity for the confederate flag.  The seemingly comprehensive admonishment of the confederate flag of the American South is a stretch.  While I do not embrace such an archaic and anachronistic symbol, flying a flag does not a protagonist of genocide make.  There are many ignorant red necks in America.  There are many ignorant gang bangers also. Connecting the will to commit racial hate crimes with a flag....  well, it is quite a conundrum.  I find it quite fascinating that a heinous multiple murder in a predominantly black church in the American south has brought forth such a movement against a symbol.  What about the murderer himself?  Is Dylan Roof connected in any way to this confederate flag?  While I applaud the sudden dissent having lived in an oppressive south for many years, still it is a stretch.  What is more of a stretch is that our first African-American president sang the spiritual song "Amazing Grace" live in public.  What is it that is so groundbreaking about this action?  Everyone in America knows President Obama is black, but not until now have we seen him integrated with the black church.  Who knew he had roots in this stylized mode of worship?  There are black Episcopal churches who adhere to its formal structure based upon the Catholic mass.  Submitting to this social demand President Obama created history in America.  He departed from the Constitution's separation of church and state, and freely acknowledged that God is a necessary part of the fabric of American civilization.  (as it is of all civilizations)  With this trip to Charleston, South Carolina President Obama may have entered America's history books just like our Supreme Court's rulings on the Affordable Care Act and gay marriage.  This is a lot of history for one short week.  Wow.  The president sang "Amazing Grace."  Bill Clinton played the saxophone and not that well.  Governor Pappy O'Daniel danced to "Man of Constant Sorrow."  Boris Yeltsin threw down on stage at a rally in Russia.  President Obama sang the spiritual song "Amazing Grace."  It was an unprecedented event.  A deranged Caucasian youth murdered nine African-Americans at a bible study in Charleston, South Carolina.  Are these lives more important than the lives lost at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut?  Are these lives more important than the lives lost at the Century movie theater in Aurora, Colorado?  Are these lives more important than the lives lost at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado?  The Constitution says no, but cultural heritage says yes.  It says yes, because these people were more high profile in society.  It is interesting, that martyrization is a powerful entity.  The killing of high profile African-Americans practicing freedom of religion in the American South is symbolic of the struggle of the Civil War.  It, like America's original Civil Rights Momement, represents heinous practices against humanity in America.  While students attending school or engaging in the recreational viewing of a film equally are as important as the nine victims in Charleston, formerly enslaved African-Americans practicing their constitutional right to freedom of worship represents a greater cause.  We must ask ourselves if this was a determinate in Dylan Roof's choice of victims.  Could it have been consequential, because this particular church happened to present his correct opportunity to murder multiple blacks?  Did worship and Bible study enter Dylan Roof's mind?  In either case the combination of church and black is too strong an image to suppress.  Let's be thankful it was, because this combination is a fundamental part of America's history and enlightenment.  Let's be thankful a sitting President took a stand and against a common, erroneous, and politically-motivated view, brought God into the presence of America.  

Familiarity and Solidarity, the Human Condition

Lately I have been recognizing a lack of familiarity in my life.  One reason may be I am living in my parent's house.  Once I lived in this house also, but it was thirty-four years ago when I was eighteen.  My interests were outside of this house and for a specific reason.  They were mine.  I traveled and spent four years in Chapel Hill and five years in Columbia, South Carolina.  Later I spent almost a decade in Columbus, Ohio.  Then I spent twelve years living on ships.  Needless to say this house is not that familiar.  Many things have changed.  Many things have stayed the same.  Mostly there was clutter, clutter from my father's life.  At first I set up house and did as I knew how.  I re-capped our Hammond A-100 organ.  I rebuilt my l981 Rhodes 73 electric piano.  I rebuilt my father's 1981 54 electric piano.  I cleaned my studio gear that had been in storage and replaced most of the dead batteries.  Much of it survived.  A few pieces like my Oberheim Matrix 6 rack did not.  Meticulously I arranged this studio gear into a new configuration and hauled it upstairs into my bedroom sacrificing my comfortable double bed.  This gear needed to be in a temperature-controlled environment as did the Rhodes.  I also hauled my Uncle Edwin's vinyl record collection upstairs into the same room.  Slowly this room unfolded into a workable MIDI studio, but it is not familiar to me.  Nothing much around me is very familiar.  My Rhodes is sitting less than ten feet from me under the air conditioner, and because I played it in college I don't feel a connection with it anymore.  I do know that my restoration of it yielded an instrument as good as any recorded Rhodes in history.  That is a tall statement, and while I am sure there are more expensive Rhodes around, this one is perfectly voice to my exacting ears and experiences playing both live and in the studio.  I didn't play trio jazz on this instrument, so I chorded on it in a commercial band context.  The low end was too strong, so rarely did I use my left hand.  When I voiced it, I took this into account consciously attenuating the lower frequencies.  In the future in due time it will serve its purpose as will many of the things I possess.  This Rhodes sitting less than ten feet from me is supported by two Leslie 60 tone cabinets with brand new Jensen Mod speakers.  Although they are quite old, they sound better than most modern keyboard amplification systems.  I forget this often.  Sitting atop this Rhodes is a what now could be  considered vintage analog synthesizer.  It is a Prophet 600, and there is one bad VCA making it a five voice instrument.  This pair of instruments was my first tangible gig rig.  I made a fair amount of money with this set up.  Still it feels unfamiliar.  I can't think of anything off the top of my head that seems really familiar.  The piano on which I learned to play sits in our living room.  While it is a beautiful piece of mahogany furniture, surreptitiously I despise it.  I do have pleasing memories with this house, and they involved Kelly Gooding.  We courted one another in this house, but that is very difficult for me to remember.  Happy memories or thoughts rather are sparse.  Life is a struggle, because of this unfamiliarity.  What is most startling about living here is my physical movements are foreign.  Daily I expect to complete a task that will reveal itself to me in kinesthetic familiarity, but it does not.  Each and every thing I do feels foreign, like I never have done it before.  After assembling vintage skateboards in our garage over and over, these motions now are foreign to me.  Imagine how my piano playing feels.  I am ensconced in a never never land of challenge rarely that ever gives an inch.  The house laughs at me when I stumble like a naive child and cut my finger or stub my toe.  These are things I have not had to think about in thirty-five years.  I have realized living here is a complete different ballgame than what the rest of my life has been, and I don't want it.  It is not mine.  I have done my best to customize this environment by moving furniture to more functional places, and to a small degree it has helped.  Still these new surroundings are not familiar.  What is familiar to me?  Not the bed in which I sleep.  Not the bathroom in which I bathe.  Not the kitchen in which I prepare meals.  None of it is me.  Dirt doesn't change, and although our yard as progressed through varying degrees of carnage mostly it is under control.  There are three new magnolia trees that pee pee leaves all over the lawn.  There is a conspicuous absence of grass, because soil erosion and dampness have encouraged the growth of fungal-laden moss.  I have waged war upon this moss and killed some of it.  It returns.  Our garage has a brand newly insulated outer wall with custom vinyl sliding windows.  It has developed into a desirable large work space, but it is not temperature controlled.  I use a kerosene heater to warm in in winter, and it is effective.  During the summer, it's a throw away unless you are willing to sweat continuously.  It houses my three motorcycles which are familiar.  It houses one keyboard rig, which although it has been extremely problematic the last year also is familiar.  I am not sure I can rely upon it for a gig.  There is a 1971 Fender Rhodes 73 key stage piano awaiting my third restoration.  Mostly I do not feel familiarity here, because what I feel is what my mother feels.  It is the nature of being a son.  

The Federal Bureau of Corporate Security

There was a newspaper article recently exposing the FBI's fleet of covert, privately-contracted, surveillance aircraft.  It occurred to me that these planes are not searching for terrorists.  They are providing security for privately-owned corporations at the cost of the taxpayer.  It is easy to justify this malfeasance with terrorists lurking around every corner.  Lobbyists pay politicians.  Politicians provide free security through the Federal Bureau of Investigation under the ruse of the prevention of terror.  Who are they watching?  It looks like big business to me.  Feels a bit like Socialism, the government running the businesses the way the businesses want.  Most certainly we do not have a publicly-owned means of production.  Who is shit out of luck in this scenario?  A bit of a conspiracy that seems really possible.  

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, a Modern Marvel

When I sat down at this table earlier this evening, I had every intention of reinforcing some perceptions I received while lying in bed last night.  I knew I would not sleep. (without the aid of bourbon)  I am not drinking bourbon, because after having had a CT scan, an MRI, a colonoscopy, and hernia repair surgery in the short period of a few months, it disturbs my abdomen.  I have no answer, and I did not sleep.  While I laid in bed I made a decision, that this was the time I was going to reconnect with my composed piano music.  For several years after moving back home, I have lost touch with things that are important to me.  It has been a fair sacrifice, because the things upon which I have been focusing are immediate.  They are our house, our yard, and my mother.  While others may be suspect at the order of that list, it is accurate.  A fifty-two years old single adult male living with his mother may be unusual.  Then again since the ongoing financial crisis in America, many things have changed.  It is taking me some effort and resultant pain to accommodate these things.  The most important is one of the things I came to realize again last night while lying in the bed.  I made myself forget what was around me (my parent's house) and analyze musically two of my composed piano pieces.  I put on my Sennheiser noise reduction headphones and scrolled through four playlists of my own pieces.  Picking titles is rather easy, because one of the concepts of these pieces is that the title must be only one word.  I have forgotten in the field of commercial music (and by commercial I mean all music, because every musician would like to earn money from their craft) that there is a great amount of ignorance and verbosity.  There is a great amount of useless sentimentality.  There are a great amount of cliches.  Above all there is a stark, brutal, and incapacitating lack of Modernism.  By Modernism I mean an artistic aesthetic which attempts to reflect the hustle and bustle of a large, noisy, modern city.  My brain is too tired from lack of sleep to explain it much further, but I mean modernism as in the Modern Age where things are sleek, efficient, and free from unwanted emotion.  I mean modern in contrast to romantic.  I don't mean mechanical.  I don't mean robotic.  I don't mean cyborg.  I mean an aesthetic of intelligence and wisdom that chooses to live this way, uncluttered from the sentimental artifacts that kill us over time.  Modernism is a way of efficiently and cleanly expelling those habits which have become anachronistic and detrimental to our future existence.  A lack of Modernism is what has been plaguing me the last year.  I laid in bed and forced myself to forget what was around me (my parent's house) and listen musically to two of my works.  By musically I do not mean expressively.  I mean hearing past the expression and the message and listen to its vehicle.  What language was being used for my message, because I had forgotten.  I have been too busy dealing with a previous and archaic language to be able to remember one I invented for the sake of modernism.  It was rather simple, but having deduced the method I remembered.  
I remembered how I had composed these pieces.  The divide which separates Modernity from simple tonality is diatonicism.  It is what separates J.S. Bach from Stravinsky, Prokiev, Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg.  It is a language, a language of which America knows nothing.  We are held captive in a musical world which bears no resemblance to any of the periods of music that should have influenced it.  America.  Not that long ago we recognized the jazz vernacular as America's musical voice.  That is legitimate.  Now jazz has fallen from grace and we are enslaved in children's nursery rhymes.  In the clearest sense politics are what drive a nation.  When politicians are intelligent, strong, and bold so is a nation.  When politicians are weak, stupid, and self-centered so is a nation.  What is causing this stagnation in America is being at war.  We do not really know if we are at war or not.  It has become so gray like the rest of our existence, politicians can do whatever they like with no transparency.  Truly we are in an American Dark Ages.  While we remain at war our nation will continue to pass time.  That is what we are doing.  I realized this yesterday, when I realized America no longer was modern.  We cannot get down to the business of being America, of inspiring our minds and our creations, until we stop being at war.  War is a distraction, and often it becomes our economy.  Our economy is in crisis, thus war is causing this crisis.  Until war stops our economy will not recover.  Only will we continue to pass time.  

Bitch, Bitch, Bitch

I'm not a big complainer.  Usually I am a doer.  When you health is not one hundred percent things change.  You can't do as much.  You must be careful.  Life becomes more of a challenge, if life weren't all ready enough of a challenge.  My life has been challenging the last two years.  It has been challenging because, "I came home."  We all know, "You can't go home."  I came home anyway, because my dad left home.  He needed to be cared for in a full nursing facility, so his two years of service in the United States Army playing trumpet aided him.  We were able to admit him to the North Carolina State Veteran's Nursing Home.  This change altered my parent's lifestyle, not that my mother's lifestyle all ready hadn't been altered.  Her lifestyle was been altered when my father began to experience dementia.  I witnessed some of this when I returned home from my cruise ship piano job.  During my tenure as a ship pianist it was necessary to store my belongings, so I could travel for extended periods of time living on these ships.  This was convenient, because only it had been approximately one year since I had moved back from Columbus, Ohio.  During this period staying in my parents house and the exact weekend I interviewed for a college teaching position at Western Carolina University my father had a small stroke.  While I was interviewing in Cullowee the phone rang at my boarding house.  It was my brother-in-law who instructed me to return home.  The following year my father was lucky that I was around.  I filled in for him in his band playing left-hand bass and jazz piano.  He had enough gigs, so I felt gainfully employed.  I also enjoyed this time.  It was not long before my father felt well enough to be compelled to return to playing the piano.  It was not a pretty change.  His impetus for change rather than telling me he wanted to return was to come to a gig fully dressed and sit on the front row with my mother.  They proceeded to whisper to themselves, as we tried to play ignoring his intimidating presence.  Doris, our singer, was so uncomfortable she could not remember the songs.  It was an awkward place to be.  Having been duly notified by this politically incorrect procedure, I accepted a pit orchestra job at the Cape Fear Regional Theater playing for the musical "Footloose."  I played both electric and keyboard bass and designed their MIDI keyboard system for use my Marla Ham.  The day after the show opened I received a call from Carnival Cruise Lines offering me a job in their orchestra.  My employment began with them on September 29, 2002, directly after the 9/11 terrorist event.  Through the years I worked for Carnival, Princess, and Royal Caribbean.  During these years I stayed both at my parents house and a few times with my sister and brother-in-law.  Ten years later when I received the news that my father was failing, I came home.  It was a shock.  He called me, "Our guest."  I had to reiterate to him that I was his son, and when I did he attempted to exploit that familial connection.  His dementia was driving him as was ensuing incontinence.  It was a difficult time for my mother.  He demanded her attention twenty-four hours a day.  He would beckon for her every moment, "June......."  To be helpful in the only way I saw possible, I took more ship jobs to earn money.  While I was gone my mother had to make the difficult decision that my father needed to go somewhere.  First she tried the Fayetteville Manor.  Shortly after it became apparent he would need full nursing care.  Retrieving my father's draft card successfully she found a place for him in the North Carolina facility.  While her life may have become a small amount less difficult, mine became exceedingly more difficult.  Everything I had done for the last decade suddenly now was on hold, and I was living in an a changed environment resembling where we had moved when I was in ninth grade.  The changes that had transpired were a metaphor for my father's dementia, not that his home protocol was a cup of tea to decipher.  He enjoyed drama, and thus he enjoyed challenges.  These challenges in my eyes were the antithesis of how responsible people organize and run their lives.  he created problems to solve.  This worked well during his prime years, but created havoc during his later more challenging times.  These circumstances themselves cemented that he no longer could do the things he used to do, not that they were easy to begin with.  I have spent two long years trying to undo these things organizing a house in a logical and livable way.  Second to graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill it has proven emotionally exhausting.  It has been exhausting, because, "You can't go home."  

An Open Letter to CSX-T

Dear Sirs:

     This evening after dinner I laid down for a nap.  I do not sleep well at night.  I do not sleep well, because my sleeping room is on the second floor of our house.  Its windows and walls face your Milan Switching Yard near downtown Fayetteville, North Carolina.  
I do not sleep well, just as my father did not sleep well, when he tried to sleep in this room.  Now I know why.  In the later stages of his ensuing dementia, he began to arise from sleep promptly at three o'clock a.m.  He was attempting to escape this room.  He complained about the bed, but it was a brand new double mattress and box springs from the Original Mattress Factory.  There is nothing wrong with the bed, other than most times it is filled with aberrant vibration from diesel/electric locomotives on your mainline in in your Milan Yard.  Fully I understand the railroads have been deregulated.  Even so air traffic has a curfew.  Residents of both cities and rural towns do not deserve diesel/electric rail traffic twenty-four hours a day, and yet that is what we get.  I do not know if the air traffic curfew is self-imposed or mandated by our federal government.  Do you feel it is constitutional to run diesel/electric traction twenty-four hours a day?  Do you feel it is constitutional to assemble large freight trains in your Milan Yard and elsewhere twenty-four hours a day?  Do you feel it is constitutional to leave your locomotives running, unmanaged, and sitting on your tracks?  May I remind your that while they may not be noisy to the ear, they are noisy in a far worse way.  The sound waves generated by both your diesel prime movers and your power inverters are of the low frequency variety.  They cannot be heard, but they can be felt.  This is a large loophole in the regulation of rail traffic, and it has been exploited like a ten dollar whore.  Instead of studying your pollution and trying to reduce it in the name of your consumers, people who eventually buy your freight, you employ high powered lobbyists to spin the existence of this pollution.  Even the audio industry has fallen prey to this ruse to the point of saying these low frequency sound waves require a specialty microphone to detect.  Let me assure you as a doctoral level composition major at The Ohio State University, it didn't take much to document and see this rampant pollution.  The wave lengths are so long and the air moves in such great quantity it would be impossible not to move the diaphragm in the microphone.  The air moves in such great quantity it vibrates my bed almost continuously, that is when you continuously operate diesel/electric locomotives with no break.  That has been the last weekend.  Usually I realize the weekends are worse, and I motor down to your Milan Yard to verify you are assembling a large freight train.  I relish the hour when this switching is complete, and this large vibrating menace departs your Milan Yard.  Usually my nerves, close to the breaking point, recover.  The effects of these large sound waves are unusual.  Instead of behaving like normal frequency audible sound, they behave more like barometric pressure or gravity waves.  This evening I was plagued with sleep paralysis.  I am so tired that I am enjoying my body's inability to move.  I am at rest.  Then I begin to dream in response the sensations I feel on my skin.  It is vibration from your power inverters.  It is of such high pressure it prevents me from moving.  I struggle to wake up, escape the dream, and move.  I cannot do any of these things.  I get used to it.  I engage in the dream, in the fight to rise, and become incensed that my sleep, something which determines my mental stability, is being raped at such a conscious level.  Each morning I am jolted awake at six o'clock a.m.  The pressure in the air from aircraft flying directly over our house, from huge freight trains passing through downtown, and from normal road traffic is so great I feel like I am going to have a stroke or a heart attack and die.  It is the worst feeling of ill health I ever have experienced.  Truly death could not be worse.  Do I invent these sensations?  Would the CSX-T employee with whom I engaged in conversation fifteen years ago in an engineers chat room on the web continue to say I am delusional?  Ask Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris if they enjoyed the two underground conveyor belts built by General Electric in the Molybdenum mines near Littleton, Colorado.  The technology of a diesel prime mover powering a generator which produces direct current that is rectified to alternating current whose frequency then is modified with a computer and inverted for use in low frequency drives is the same  on your trains.  It is equally as disruptive.  Any company with a conscience would be aware of their refuse and attempt to manage it, or you could do what Duke Power does.  

       Sincerely, 

      The consumers of freight of which we cannot do without if the railroads stopped earning revenue.  

The Demon of Sleep

I do not sleep well.  Not sleeping well is another issue that I try to ignore.  Also I try to ignore my mother's ensuing dementia.  It is similar to my father's when he had it, so it is not that surprising.  It is just another issue not of interest to me.  The things that are of interest to me are on a shelf in the closet sitting patiently waiting for me to open the door.  I crack that door and take quick glimpses of my life and quickly shut it again.  I do not have the energy to pursue them.  I do not have the energy to pursue them, because I do not sleep well.  Not only are my interests now neatly stored in a closet, the rest of my time is spent fending off the harrowing, tormenting, frightening reality of my environment.  One hundred percent of my time is spent on useless, meaningless, superfluous bullshit.  I am not alone.  America has become a large refuse tank for corporate America who own our lawmakers in Washington, DC.    What used to be the American Dream now is a polluted landscape of deteriorated infrastructure.  Who gives a shit about the common man?  Aaron Copland did, and as one of America's premiere nationalist composers he paid homage to the common man with his heartfelt "Fanfare for the Common Man."  Those days are gone. Only on national holidays are the sentimental strings of patriots plucked.  It is propaganda to empower America's military industrial complex.  It has nothing to do with the common man other than them saying they are fighting for you.  Fighting for what? They are fighting for the elite one percent of the population who own the money.  The days of welcoming fleeing immigrants from tyrannous nations are over.  We have become a nation of white monetary supremacy.  With my gross lack of sleep induced completely by pollution from aircraft and diesel locomotives, I have to remind myself that my interest and appreciation of jazz is furthest back on the shelf.  If I even think about sliding it forward the pain begins.  That surreptitious pain results from a neglected, polluted, deteriorating national history who no longer understand the pleasures of jazz.  Its pleasure is so immediate that the current environment of America strikes it down like a bitch.  The shallow culture of pop music will not allow true happiness to be expressed in music any longer.  God's word, God's intent, and God's christianity once represented in America's music now has been deemed the enemy.  The pleasure that once was experienced because of its existence now is not allowed, because there is nothing to support it.  We have little pleasure left in America except what is sold to us.  If music had continued to be sold to us at a fair market price, it would have continued to provide us with this pleasure.  When I take a fix of jazz music, a pure example of immediate emotional gratification, I experience pain.  That type of emotional gratification has become an anachronism in America.  We have "progressed" as a nation, and like we discarded swing music from the World War II era, we have discarded more of our cultural musical heritage.  The one percent of America's population who own the money cannot produce such music, because it require musical talent.  It requires artistry, talent, and knowledge combined in an expressive and philosophical context far surpassing the sensibilities of Donald Trump.  Often I ask myself why America is incapable of recognizing, understanding, and appreciating the Second Viennese School.  Further I ask why America cannot recognize, understand, and appreciate Modernism.  While Vienna is in the distant country of Austria, Modernism is a recognized concept in America's historical culture.  Of course today we are not cognizant of our historical culture.  That would be empowering to the common man.  Daily I struggle with my existence.  I struggle not to worry, as "The lilies do not worry."  I try to be positive, happy, and enthusiastic about life's possibilities.  Ultimately the reality of life prevails, and its heart wrenching futility commands me to submit.  I must recognize this as the overt concept of human life, or I fail.  God sacrificed His only son for the sins of man.  It was the ultimate sacrifice, one that we as a flock must understand or we will fail.  Corporate America is killing human beings on a grand scale, and the ruse of the medical establishment is hiding it.  While they hide it, they profit from it.  I do not sleep well.  My sleep is disturbed by America's military industrial complex, the railroads, and the FBI.  Covert company after company are flying spy planes over American soil contracted by our Federal Bureau of Investigation.  The violence continues.  How are these planes of use?  Criminals are not being caught.  Murders are not being prevented.  The idea of America's invasion of privacy only incenses   us.  Further because government is intended to serve the people, our surveillance with covert aircraft is unconstitutional.  All of this is because of 9/11.  If George W. Bush had not been president, 9/11 would not have occurred.  There would be no Department of Homeland Security.  There would be no Patriot Act.  There would be no NSA.  Our government would not be spying on the American people in the name of the War on Terror.  It is a ruse, and still it is working in favor of the rich.  

The Conspiracy of Modern America

Upon having experienced the worst Father's Day ever, I must reflect upon my state of affairs.  America.  America does not offer much anymore.  While our country purports to offer freedom, we definitely are not a free populace.  We are an enslaved populace not that much different from when Africans were bought and sold at Fayetteville's local Markethouse.  While freedom could be represented by one's ability to roam homeless, symbolically this does not represent the kind of freedom our forefathers intended while penning the United States Constitution.  Freedom of mobility was the idea, and this particular ideal has been quashed in America.  I only can say that millennials have gotten the butt end of the stick.  To grow up in an era with America's worst president only again to to be insulted by the running of his brother for president?  It can't get much worse until Armegeddon.  The Bush's are betting this generation has been too deprived to understand what America once was.  Personally I do not believe the church shooting in Charleston is representative of the sentiment of the American South.  One only has to look in the eyes of Dylan Roof to see the same empty abyss found in Charles Manson, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, Adam Lanza, and James Holmes.  Until America specifically confronts the ailment which is prompting these young people to commit mass murder, the violence will continue.  It is not a problem of guns.  The availability of guns to adolescents, a responsibility of parents, is of great consequence and should be watched.  America all ready has thrown in the towel on her young people, so why should parents care?  Leadership.  Whence should come leadership in America?  Is it organized religion?  Is it families?  Is it government?  Leadership must come from somewhere, and as long as we continue to pass the buck America will digress further down the uncharted territory of devolution.  There is no mysterious, invisible, unexplained impetus for unrest in America.  It only is being disguised by the ridiculous Beggar's Opera of media.  Once it was fodder America's media had become corrupt.  Now it is fact.  Why is it a surprise when you iPhone is hacked?  If you buy into their ruse or bite on their hook surely you will be landed.  I will admit that withdrawal is difficult.  I again made the mistake of buying into my father's sentimentality.  I had a moment of weakness and decided to share his feelings of loss for his gift of music.  The result could not have been more horrendous. There was no comforting resolve, because, "You cannot go home." While I have heard this adage quoted from time to time, often by my mother, never have I really understood it.  I do now, and my mind is too tired to explain it.  The lineage of child rearing is a long and complex one.  I have come to understand that the emotional connection you have with your parents at an early age is tangible.  It is tangible because they have invested in you and your future.  As you age and mature, your future becomes more of your own affair.  After you become an adult it is not possible to reestablish this bond for logical reasons.  The experiences you both have are related to childhood, not the adult lives of either you or your parents.  To embark down this path dredging up past childhood memories proves only to be upsetting, and there is no need to relive such things.  You must look forward and forget these things.  Even empathy for your parent's eventual death should not summon these falsely comforting memories.  We must move forward, and for children that means carrying the torch forward through the tunnel, not backwards.  Never have I seen such behavior from an adult human being.  Starkly it reminded me of how manipulative my father could be when so inclined.  I will not be privy to it again, nor will I feel any guilt for my father's loss with aging.  I do not enjoy living in his house.  I do not enjoy looking after my mother.  I am doing it because it is required.  To liken my pain from temporarily having lost my personal, emotional, and musical life with my fathers was a complete and utter disappointment.  He shit on me, because in those lonely and angry hours I, as his son, was not worthy to experience the same things.  His feelings were more important.  That is why never again will I recognize his sentimentality nor my mother's.  It is like death.  

Musical Soul and Its Pitfalls

There once was a time long long ago when I was a musician.  I can't remember it.  I can't remember it, because it is too painful to remember.  There once was a time long long ago, when I was good at music.  It was okay to be good at music.  Something changed. My entire existence was upset.  It took a long to time right it again, but I did eventually.  I had to travel.  I had to leave where I was and begin again.  I put distance in between what happened and what was going to happen.  I am not sure of what did happen.  Part of that is I chose to not remember, because when I do there is an immense amount of pain still.  Twenty years later I lied to get closure.  I accepted responsibility for callous and insensitive things I did.  I accepted responsibility for things I did not do and which caused me almost immortal pain.  It was the only way it seemed to receive closure.  My professional career and my personal life were at risk.  Both were disrupted.  My musical life sustained in tact, although no longer  was it joyous.  I had enough gumption to tough it out, even when this joy disappeared from making music.  It was difficult, and I suffered.  The personal side was even more difficult, and this hardship lasted four years.  I solved if finally by changing myself.  I changed the way I thought about things, and I changed the way I loved.  I forget this from time to time, and when I do this hardship returns.  I have it now.  Music now causes me pain.  Rather the sharing of my music causes me pain, because I am back in the place where this pain began and not around those who have inspired my new music.  It both is ironic and surprising to me that this is true.  Fuck!  Nothing has changed, here.  I have come to understand this is the plague of the American South.  While somewhere deep inside still I can muster images of southern gentility, mostly that has changed to a perception of control.  The same shit that is and was going on always will be going on.  Via the Confederacy and their slaves.  The people remain the same and things will remain the same.  If I wanted to progress, I had to move where there was opportunity.  Many others in American history have done the same.  Black slaves traveled up the Mississippi River to Chicago and then to Harlem in New York City.   You must move somewhere where there is a higher, equal, and more accommodating consciousness.  That was not here.  It is extremely painful that music still brings me pain, but I know why it brings me pain.  It brings me pain, because the two people who brought me into this world no longer have their lives of music.  The music that brought them both happiness all their years is gone.  As their sown seed I have discovered it is not possible to start anew in this absence of their musical lives.  Jesus says someone in your life must die to make way for you.  I do not necessarily believe that is one of your parents, but I know in this case that my parent's musical lives will have to die, before I ever will again receive musical happiness.  Their grief over losing what was crucial to them grossly overwhelms my desire to reap musical joy again.  It is the station of being a son.  "Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother" even if that means you sacrifice your chosen vocation.  It is difficult this sacrifice.  It is difficult, because I have unfinished work.  I have musical projects yet to complete, but the quintessential connection with this music lies in its expression.  It is my expression.  It is not my parents expression.  Their need for expression in their later years has become more important because it it becomes lessened.    My music necessarily  is not selfish and singular.  It includes many things.  Much of it is consequences from other people and places in the cruise industry.  It is a fusion of my own feelings mixed with perceptions, reactions, and thoughts about these things.  This is what makes the music possible.  This is what makes it rich.  The difficulty lies in the disconnection of these mixtures.  The majority of these influences were metaphors of people and places I met and visited while playing the piano on cruise ships.  I was lucky and chosen to find the perfect venue for the composition of these works.  There is no other musical studio better than a floating piano in the ocean.  This piano is immune from the negative connotations of American capitalism.  Only does this piano receive honest and direct communication from people and places.  It is a shame that my soul no longer is strong enough itself to mitigate my parent's honesty.  

Hillary Clinton, HAARP, and Adolescent Hormones

As I ponder the current state of American popular music and the history of radio, two things traditionally that have mutually coexisted, I have realized that radio intrinsically began as a racist entity.  While I don't think many people will disagree with that concept, like the definition of American jazz or swing music it could ignite a firestorm with Millenials.  They have proven, like other youthful generations, that when they do not know anything they sling mud in an attempt to get ahead.  I did it.  Probably it is a part of the adolescent mind which does not develop and thus mature until one's early twenties.  So they are saying.  We are instilled with a survival instinct that transcends social behaviors and religion.  We must fight.  Only as we mature and experience our own weaknesses and failures do we develop empathy and thus compassion.  What does this have to do with popular music or radio?  I have come to realize that it has a lot to do with each.  Music by nature is a product of popularity.  Is that really true?  I can't say for previous generations, but living in America certainly popular music has been linked directly with youth culture.  Its connection with adulthood is a more nebulous thing that shrinks in importance as people begin to settle down.  Why has radio been racist?  The answer is simple and lies in its definition.  Only low frequency radio waves can travel long distances.  These are difficult to produce, because they require an antenna similar in length to their own wavelengths.  Research began at a facility in Alaska which experimented with the creation of low frequency radio waves using the earth's atmostphere.  It will not be any time in the near future they will be licensing these newly produced radio waves to mobile telecommunication companies.  Or will it?  Let's hope Hillary does not win the presidency in 2016.  If she follows in Bill's footsteps, that exactly is what will happen.  For now radio wavelengths are relatively short and thus local.  Local is the operative word.  Why do we continue to see cell phone towers sprout from our native soil?  It is because telecommunications is a large part of the global economy, and still it is competitive.  Despite the inherent risks of microwave frequency radio radiation, these towers are surrounding us more and more each year.  Each ominous tower creates a "cell" of coverage for phone owners.  If you venture outside the cell, you loose your bars.  Lose my bars? "Captain, only recently did I make Lieutenant.  I'll do anything to keep my bars."  Apparently this is the sentiment of the human race.  Nothing is more important than their cell phone coverage.  Until human beings realize the danger of this radiation, like the burning of fossil fuels, and begin to wean themselves from it the problem will continue.  In the meantime irresponsible companies will continue to produce the technology to satisfy the demand.  Radio and cellular communications bear no resemblance in my mind, except that they both use fairly short and thus "local" wavelengths.  Radio since its inception for popular use has been local.  Only HAM operators have graduated to a level of radio useage that becomes international.  Local means what?  In pop culture local often means indigenous or native.  Have these terms developed a negative connotation through history?  It is possible, and a slew of pop culture films and music deal with this issue.  Nothing could be more symbolic than Leonard Bernstein's musical "West Side Story."  The feud between the Sharks and the Jets was portrayed as racial in the story.  As they characters grew and matured they developed an awareness greater than racial boundaries.  Have we developed beyond this in America?  Radio has not helped, because of its reliance upon local populaces for its sustenance.  If commmodities have to choose between their own liquidity or crossing racial boundaries, you can imagine which they chose?  Popular music does the same thing.  If given a choice between staying alive or educating, it will choose to stay alive.  Just as adolescents know no better, neither it seems does radio or pop music.  Isn't there are way to remain commercially viable and still develop and maintain mature themes?  Must adolescence and its relating hormonal surges continue to be exploited by capitalist America?  

Idiot Television

The renaissance of the music industry never will happen until we get the trash television off the air.  I can't watch prime time television.  Maybe it's because I am an adult.  Maybe it's because I am a musician.  First I was a pianist.  My father was a jazz stylist on piano as well as being an exemplary band director.  He sang tenor in the Episcopal choir exercising his skill in sight singing each and every week.  He played all of the instruments and taught them.  I wanted to play the piano, because of my father and his musical talent.  He was an exemplary musician.  Not many of them exist anymore.  Another generation of talented musicians, and I mean authentic musicians, have left this earth.  They are shoes too large to fill.  They are shoes too large to fill, because today we have no realization of the depth of the field of music and no connection with its star purveyors.  The same thing has occurred in American history, but I never lived through it.  I didn't experience the death of jazz music at the behest of rock 'n' roll.  I read about jazz musicians dying in the bottom of a whiskey bottle.  I did experience the decline of the "rock star," but today many of those bands still tour.  Through the Billboard Top 100 I was able to experience the connection between early country music and swing.  None of these things while impactful upon American popular culture can compare to the decline of the jazz artist.  This decline of the jazz artist has effected every aspect of the commercial music industry.  Jazz musicians by nature are more intelligent than other musicians.  Classically trained musicians are similar, but there exists a feud between them.  I'm not sure if this feud still exists today.  I would think not, because jazz music has experienced a slow death.  Jazz and its significance to American culture has been downplayed to prop up what has become a hollow shell of American popular music.  It is simple.  As I sit here at my Macintosh computer and listen to AM Gold 1969, it is remarkably apparent that a once thriving music industry has been reduced to rubble.  As it is simple, there is a simple explanation.  Talent once used to provide the musical product.  Talent, an often misunderstood term, bridged all musical gaps, provided a tangible meaningful musical product, and ensured commercial success.  How?  Talent is artistry.  Artistry, another often misunderstood term, means a thing of such quality and integrity it stands the test of time.  In today's America we do not use such terms.  Honor.  Code. Loyalty.  I am not talking about the Marine Corp.  I am talking about the field of music.  Not only am I talking about the field of music, I am talking about artistry.  I am talking about music done at the level of art.  There was a time in American history not that long ago where a majority of the music was artistic.  It was the one thing that ensured its commercial success.  Today the hollow shell of our music industry relies upon spin and hype to market itself.  I cannot even use the worlds market and sell interchangeably, because this industry is not the same as it was a decade ago.  It like the rest of America no longer is honest and sincere.  Maybe it is passé to be such things.  Maybe with the existence of ISIL, ISIS, and beheadings it is naive to produce music of Christian integrity.  Maybe such terrorism demands that we adopt a reflective barbaric and uncompassionate attitude towards life.  The world will not sustain if we do.  Honesty of expression is the only element that can transcend evil.  It is possible the generation of the millennium don't question these issues.  They know no better.  Time/Life in particular have not made America's musical history an available commodity.  Once we heard this songbook for free reinforced every day on our radios.  It was a large part of our existence.  This no longer is true.  There are many reasons why.  One is today no one has much to say about things.  The last musical artist I can remember who had something to say and thus sing about was Jewel.  Whenever country music sold out that was the last straw for the music industry.  The one discipline of the music industry which remained true to themselves for so long gave up the fight.  It no longer was in vogue to be sad about your life's experiences.  Instead we just party like there's no tomorrow.  The world can't survive if humanity choses this option.  There is a bit of melancholy involved, because it is obvious today's wanna be pop stars have no inclination even to understand what their job is.  They are clueless.  Without a viable academic music education the resources are just no available anymore.  As an academically-trained musician systematically I have collected a catalog of pedagogical materials including recordings of music.  While my recorded anthology is far from complete, it covers most of what would be pop musicians should hear to even attempt their chosen vocation.  When I feel musically unsatisfied which is most of the time, I appreciate what I have.  Upon sampling from it this evening, it starkly is apparent that we are at yet another juncture.  The "voice" is dead.  The renaissance of the music industry never will happen until we get the trash television off the air.  It is not possible to replace an art form with hopes and dreams.  

Diversity, Multi-Culturalism, and Globalism in Radio

Radio has been dead for some time.  It had to die to make way for the new thing.  Those tried and true AM and FM frequencies had to bow their humble heads and become martyrs for that new thing.  All that has been accomplished in the world because of radio miraculously has forfeited its game of life.  Hit records, recording stars, and grass roots entertainment just stepped aside to make way for that new thing.  Did they ask a few questions?  Did they assemble the board of directors and devise a new business model?  Did they assess the value of their contribution to the world?  No.  They just stepped aside and selfishly made way for that new thing.  That new thing.  A telephone, the selfishness of the human being laid right out there in all of its leprosy.  "I would rather talk to my friends than listen to hit music for free.   I would rather take pictures of my genitals than listen to hit music for free.  I would rather check my E-Mail in the car than listen to hit music for free.  Shouldn't we be able to download hit music for free on the computer?"  Radio never has been diverse.  Easily we could say radio personified racism.  Never were there radio stations that played across racial lines, or were there?  Oh yes.  Then there was Motown.  Berry Gordy figured out how to do this.  He figured out how to sell black music to Elvis fans using the trappings of white America.  Radio never has been diverse.  Radio has been an epitome of the racial inequality inherent in our genetics.  It is surprising to me that no one figured this out and tried to change it.  Was it because the Mason Dixon line was not mobile?  Was it because America was so routed in racism that we could not dispense with our own petty bias to become enriched as human beings?  Is it because as pundit are saying now we are not divided by race, we are divided by tribe?  I find it stifling listening to one style of music continuously.  Variety is the spice of life.  Why would we only want slow songs at our wedding reception?  Why would we only want fast songs?  Why would we only want white songs?  Is it possible that the cruise industry is responsible for real diversity?  Is it possible that the practice of vacationing in international waters visiting different countries with different racial make ups has enlightened humanity?  If you speak with anyone that cruises, they will say yes.  They will tell you with the utmost glee about the seventy nationalities of employees working together to make your cruise memorable.  I agree.  I have worked in the cruise industry since 9/11.  I picked the right time.  What I never pondered was the pain and disappointment of reentry.  

It Doesn't Have to be All or Nothing in a Democracy

America annoys me.  I tolerate her the way an irate parent tolerates their misbehaving child.  Why do I have to discipline my country every second of my waking life?  Evidently the sensibility of America's "West" still is at play, and as it should be.  This is one fundamental that has sustained the test of time in America's history.  The difference between good and evil now is so spun and thus obscured, it is difficult to discern truth from Newspeak from the "establishment."  I will begin to substitute the term "establishment" for media.  By media I mean television, radio, the internet, newspapers, and magazines.  All of these venues have succumbed to an overt political bias, possibly because of by whom they are owned.  No longer are they neutral.  No longer harmlessly do they seek to inform and entertain.  Today media is one large propaganda machine.  This is an iconic revelation, and one that will emerge in history books when America decides to cleanse this infected wound.  It will take time.  America annoys me.  She annoys me, because we are not on the level.  We are full of contempt and hatred.  We are recalcitrant without knowing against what or whom we are rebelling.  We show the hallmark symptoms of being psychologically disturbed.  I believe this exactly is how the "establishment" wants it.  Gone is a level playing field.  Gone is the existence of the American Dream.  Gone is the true practice of Christianity except in ridiculously anachronistic traditions which promulgate our continued naivety and ignorance of this truth.  In Fayettenam the populace flocks to these bible compounds thinking in some way they will be protected from this ensuing reality.  The revolution has begun, and it is not for the people.   Burying one's head in is not a viable plan but most do it.   While I believe in God I do not support organized religion.  In Fayettenam it is a metaphor for "tax deduction."  Organized religion using its political status as a means of economic fortitude should suggest that things are awry.  If the common man cannot make an earnest living in our chosen socioeconomic system, then something is wrong. Ironically the mafia understood this problem clearly, and in an attempt to harvest their own American Dream devised their own system of economic reward.  Who's to say that it wasn't merited?  Organized crime.  With the sheer amount of corruption in American commerce and government, no one is looking out for the common man except the Godfather.  America annoys me because her attention span is that of a chimpanzee.  We are insulted minute by minute by the suggestion that we have learned nothing from our schooling, that we cannot see past tomorrow, and that we care for nothing other than immediate gratification.  It is these things, or the establishment  is marketing themselves to stoners.  Starkly it is evident that the psychological health of America has been compromised.  It began over a decade ago with the mainstream emergence of ADD.  While it is not reported upon anymore [sic] neither is anything of any significance to the well-being of the American population.  The establishment slowly and secretly has converted itself into one large undulating propaganda machine.  It is so large, that I have trouble finding any evidence of real truth anywhere.  We are on our own.  Day by day I am amassing the tenacity to, "Just turn it off."  Barbara Bush said, "Just say no."  I want to, "Just turn it off."  America annoys me not because she is childish.  She annoys me because of her ridiculous, "Do or die" sentiment concerning everything; "All or nothing" as the songs would tell you.  It does not and should not be this way.  Modern, temperate, and mature populaces do not choose Professional Wrestling as their model.  Modern, temperate, mature populaces invest in their people, their infrastructure, and their governance as a means of sustenance.  If you want something to remain, then you do not abuse it.  If you care about something, then you respect it.  If you love something, then you treat it with love, not contempt.  We have become a contemptuous society, because American marauders have infiltrated our society and planted seeds of Communism, not Socialism.  The tenants of Socialism, contrary to American understanding, are positive despite how our establishment screams about them.  This is an example of their spin.  Compared to our current socioeconomic system, socialism is a walk in the park.  Socialism at its core seeks to maintain the well-being of the populace.  It does not seek to empower the few.  Socialism at its core seeks to maintain moderation, not a campaign of fear and intimidation.  America annoys me, because she is being exclusionary.  The mainstream of American intelligence is being undermined by an immature, egocentric, grandstanding child.  This child would have you believe that tomorrow will be your last day, if you do not believe what it is saying.  It would have you believe that a war is raging outside your door, and your survival relies upon your believing what it says.  Moderation.   Only could it be that the American art form of Rock 'n' Roll  has contributed to this sensationalism.  I can think of no other commodity that would champion the slogan, "Take no prisoners" as it motto.  I have a friend who is a musician, and we disagree on one point.  For some reason he believes all musical artists want to sell a million records and become a star.  I disagree.  I am a musical artist, and never have I wanted to sell a million records or become a star.  Nothing could be further from my mind.  Contrarily I would like to have my music be  available to the public for their consideration.  That is all.  It is not, "Do or Die."  It is not, "All or Nothing."  It is not, "Take no Prisoners."  Why would it be?  The traditional but now defunct platform of capitalism embraced competition.  It saw a competitive market place as system for motivating non-performing products, inspiring innovation, and fostering a respectful work force.  Was it Microsoft with its forced bundling of Internet Explorer with their Windows operating system that set the example for this cut throat style of commerce?  Bill Gates is one of the richest men in the world.  Has that helped America?  No.  It only has made him rich.  It has not helped our infrastructure, our marketplace, or the education of our youth.  Capitalism in this circumstance failed.  Everything in America today seems like it is all or nothing.  There can be no finer example of this than the craft and art of music.  For lack of no viable alternative I listen to WCPE.  It is the only radio station that does not drip with propaganda.  Even after a continued week's worth of listening its inevitable propaganda emerges.  We do not live in the Classic Era.  We do not live in an era of royalty and court.  We do however live in a class system, and without the presence of jazz music to counter this one-sided presence, I find myself tiring of the staid and square rhythms of classical music.  It does not swing.  Without diverging into a heated argument on the definition of swing music, only can I say that in fifty-two years of existence on this earth that swing rhythm is the toil of man waiting for the response of God.  As the slave hits the earth with his hoe, patiently and diligently he waits for the reciprocative rebound of God's hand.  If only he were to strike the earth in livid dissent of his captivity, then nowhere would there be a place for God's consignment.  Swing was born of pure necessity, the necessity of God's existence and love.  Without God there is no swing rhythm, and thus today America is a swing-less land.  Jazz conspicuously is absent in America, and I find it fully insulting that a performance by Wynton Marsalis's band at a jazz festival is considered its only evidence.  Jazz is the voice of man in God's existence.  The reason why it no longer exists in America is twofold.  Again without diverging into a heated argument on the definition of jazz music, easily it can be said that jazz music is pure.  It is pure, because there is no middle man.  Its voice, its message, and it resulting emotional response are pure.  They emerge in tact, born, and functioning from their inception.  There is no middle man in the definition of slavery.  This is what gives jazz its remarkable power. While a classical contemporary classical composer myself, I tire at the sound of orchestra music over time.  There are times in my life, when I rather would not listen to sixty trained musicians in a concert hall led by a conductor.  It can be pretentious.  There are middle men in the production of this music, and sometimes musically intimacy is what I seek.  Sometimes I want the music I hear and feel to be more pure.  How is this possible?  How could a symphony orchestra playing a work of art not be considered pure?  It is pure, but it may not be intimate.  Often it is intimate, but how intimate can it be with sixty musicians, a concert hall, and a conductor?  Jazz music solves this problem.  The music is pure and intimate, because often it emerges directly from its creator.  There is no middle man.  The message, the voice, and the emotional intent come from the same source, one artist.  Jazz music for this reason has been at the forefront of America's music scene since its inception, until now.  America annoys me, because a generation of selfish, egocentric, recalcitrant children think they deserve something.  They think they deserve something, because daddy's  money always entitles.  In stark reality they do not deserve to stand in the stream of piss of a real jazz musician.  

On Bruce Jenner

Nothing could substantiate the amateur, trivial, and tabloid nature of America's mainstream media better than Bruce Jenner.  Foremost the public must remind themselves the second most widely recognized personality today is not on the level.  Jenner's transition, while possibly sincere to him, is the perfect epitome of America's current news system.  It is not real news.  It is the other thing.  Jenner's metamorphosis ultimately satisfies all of the requirements of the "other thing" without being real news.  It is the perfect platform for him publicly to voice his self-hatred and inability to manage the aging of a fallen star.  He is not the only egomaniac ferverently searching for a new awakening.  There are many in Hollywood.  Not that many would take it to such an extreme.  His self loathing must be substantial.  Not only does he thrust himself back into the public eye as a sixty-five year old retired athlete, he catapults himself artificially into the hearts of the gullible.  He is a saving grace.  He is a torch.  Before he was nothing.  That was an effective plan.  Many will fall for his ploy.  Vanity Fair gets their provocative cover story and photograph.  The Kardashians reap yet another dose of unmerited fame.  Jenner's ego is quieted finally.  Only can I laugh when the image of Caitlin Jenner covers the screen.  Am I the only one laughing?  Secretly underneath those recently re-assigned genitals someone is laughing all the way to the bank.  

The Book of Job

Today music is a mystery to me.  Although I have studied it all my life, today music is a mystery to me.  I feel there should be some biblical implication in losing an understanding of one's own chosen vocation.  Is it common for people to reach half a century in age and then forget the previous century?  Maybe it's just a bad memory or too much pot, but I don't smoke pot.  As for my memory, well I can't remember.  I have had ups and downs with it.  Your memory determines your knowledge and thus your academic progress.  When I am focused, I remember fine.  When I am stressed, misguided, and unmotivated I do not remember so well.  Certain things we choose to forget.  It is essential to survival.  If we remembered each and every thing that happened to us, we would be basket cases.  There are specific things I chose to forget, and lately it has been music.  When music began causing me pain, I chose to forget it.  There is no Goddamn reason music should cause anyone pain, but it does.  I had lunch with a former percussionist from the Fayetteville Symphony.  He told me of a frightening performance during the Christmas season where the orchestra bells prominently were featured.  He could not play the written part up to speed, so he practiced it.  Even with the practice he was not capable of playing the part at the tempo indicated by the composer.  The conductor has some say in how fast a particular work will be played, so this particular conductor assured Dale that he would not take the piece at full tempo.  He would slow it down enough so that Dale could articulate the part.  During the performance not only did the conductor go back on his word, the lights went down at the beginning of the concert and a spotlight appeared on Dale's orchestra bells.  His hand was shaking so violently from fear and nervousness, he could not strike the metal bells with his mallet.  What was the result?  From the audiences point-of-view who is to know?  Obviously the part did not get played accurately, but there was drama.  Something else contrary to what the composer intended was injected into this simple performance of a Christmas arrangement.  Was it fair?  Was it fair for the conductor to lie to Dale and tell him ahead of time that he would not be humiliated because he could not play the part up to tempo?  Did the conductor forget his agreement with Dale and simply take the piece at its decided tempo?  In either case negative thoughts were created during the process.  Many young piano students have stage fright.  They walk to the piano at their first recital and simply forget what they are supposed to play.  They sit silently at the piano as the seconds tick by.  It is uncomfortable, because music is suppose to occur.  Crippling neurosis has occurred for the same reason.  It is not common knowledge Van Cliburn opted out of a career touring playing the piano.  He could not handle the pressure.  Pressure. It would seem there is a stigmata in existence related to classical music.  There is a stigmata attached to popular music.  Music is a vocabulary as deep as verbal human language.  In certain ways it communicates more effectively than speech.  Upon listening to people talk today, this is not surprising.  Just as we use a small fraction of our brain, we use a small fraction of the capabilities of the spoken English language.  It is not in vogue.  Music is not in vogue.  Art is not in vogue.  Fashion is not in vogue.  Wireless telephones are in vogue.  Texting is in vogue and is killing people.  Apps are in vogue.  The entire scope of American culture has been reduced to a handheld microwave communications device.  Remarkably communication is at a minimum.  Mother Goose came in and re-wrote American culture so that a two year old could understand.  I have chosen to forget, because everything in American culture that was of meaning conspicuously is absent.  For me the most consequential is music.  Music.  Music is personal communication.  It is personal expression, yet we as Americans must have nothing to communicate.  In our recent history we chose to disagree with the War in Viet nam.  We chose to have an opinion about civil rights.  We chose to question authority.  We chose to enable ourselves with knowledge and thus power.  I am beginning to believe that there is no such thing as pleasure and pain anymore. Everything is one big blur, so we are not compelled to seek the truth.  My biggest fear is not that I will die a painful tormented death.  I have dealt with pain in my life, both physical and psychological.  Psychological pain for me is far more potent.  Something that insists you will not find happiness in your life is a worthy adversary.  It is something to be feared and thus conquered. Eliminating God is a step in this direction.  I chose to forget music, because it has stepped in this direction.  Everything about music that is worthwhile, tangible, and good is gone.  Music used to be the soapbox for the human soul, yet the human soul is extinct.  We have no philosophy.  We have no desires.  We have no dreams.  We have no secrets.  If we did, then there would be music.  There would be music of all sorts.  There would be reggae.  There would be groovy island music that speaks of civil injustice.  There would be blues.  There would be gut bucket music that provides affirmation in the face of adversity.   There would be funk.  There would be music that exorcises the demons from our souls.  There would be jazz.  There would be music that personifies human love and romance.  Evidently we have nothing to say as a culture.  We watch crime shows, we play violent video games, and we eat.  I chose to forget music.