Nature Versus Nurture

My father was a great musical artist.  He could sightsing the tenor voice in a church choir rehearsal, he could play most of the wind instruments, and he was an expressive jazz pianist.  His teaching influenced many people and still we hear from them years later.  With that mammoth mentorship happening in my own home, it was easy to become a musician myself.  I had a propensity for the piano and wanted to take piano lessons, but our local teacher felt first grade was too young.  I began anyway, and twelve years later I was a formidable pianist.  I wish I could remember playing George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" on my senior piano recital.  Music was around me everyday, at school, at home, everywhere.  It is not like that anymore.  While I must include music in my daily routine its importance ebbs and flows.  My family often accused my father of living wearing rose-colored glasses. Not much rattled him, until he had a mild stroke in early 2001.  Slowly we watched him deteriorate until my mother had to place him at the North Carolina State Veteran's Home.  Is it possible I have lived my life wearing rose-colored glasses?  My musical journey was not an easy one.  Graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill with a B.M.E.degree was the most difficult thing ever I have achieved.  Their academics were challenging, because the musicology program was one of the top ten in the nation.  It seems music still does have meaning, just not in mainstream America.  Not in pop culture.  For that reason it has become difficult for me to justify pursuing music.  I am happy to read about Adele's new album "25" and am equally as happy that an outsider has broken some musical records.  The music industry is a joke, and like the rest of the America wouldn't it be nice if someone told the truth rather than trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public?  There are several reasons why the music industry is dead.  One is the air is so polluted with industrial sound, music no longer stands a chance of having an impact on our souls.  This is my topic.  Nature Versus Nurture.  When our playing field, our biosphere, our arena are so polluted is it even worth it to play?  We are defeated before we begin the game.  This is America today. Do I don the rose-colored glasses and live like this is not the case?  Do I simply ignore the pollution that is controlling our souls and thus our delicate psyches?  Do I try to defeat it or at least lead like great art does?  It can set an example for enlightened living.  I don't know the answer.  I can't pursue music that has no basis in today's reality.  That doesn't make sense.  That is living in a vacuum, or donning the rose-colored glasses.  I like to understand the truth of what is around me.  It is the only way we can survive as a species.  Eventually the grim reaper will come knocking, and you better be prepared with something other than great art.  I take comfort in my loaded guns.  They make me feel more adjusted to today's reality.  Today's reality is not cake, and as such you would think culture would take notice of it and respond accordingly.  Ironically America's pop culture dons three layers of rose-colored glasses and ignores reality.  When war does come to our native soil, these people will be the first to go.  History is what provides guidance in these situations.  Does it make sense to ignore the War on Terror, racial injustice, and civil inequality in lieu of warm bubbly art?  Unequivocally the answer is, "No," yet still America blatantly ignores the relevant art of our century.  Twentieth Century Music rarely sees the light of day.  America's modern music, the most relevant music to our existence is kept in a vacuum.  The same is true of jazz.  It is easier for me to understand how jazz has faded from popularity.  The acoustic sound of jazz has no chance overriding the negative vibrations of industrialized America.  Is that what pop is doing today?  It must be, that strident, stiff, mechanical noise lurking above us in grocery and drug stores.  Feeling does not stand a chance.  When I listen to my own choice of music most times it works.  Most times the timelessness of the music is capable of transcending the pollution surrounding me.  The music I would naturally play today does not accomplish this task.  It makes me feel warm and bubbly, but when I listen from an outsider's point-of-view, it makes me nauseated.  It is too emotional, too expressive, and too sensual for our time.  Hence pop music has taken this approach to strip traditional America pop music of her soul.  If you have nothing at stake in the vacuum on that unlevel playing field, in that tainted biosphere, or at the arena, you can't lose, but you can't win.  

Living in a Vacuum, The Validity of the Cruise Industry

Only recently have I returned home.  Since 2002 I have had the privilege of playing the piano on cruise ships.  Secretly my family scorned me, until I had paid back almost in totality the debt I had accred putting together a home recording studio.  On various credit cards I had amassed a fifteen thousand dollar debt, which I borrowed from my father.  In approximately three years working for Carnival Cruise Lines I had made enough money to pay him back.  Religiously I sent him $350.00 each month of which he became accustomed.  In 2006 I changed companies, and until 2013 except when a freeze occurred we received merit pay increases.  My salary slowly rose, and the burden of having to strip away $350.00 each month receded.  I began making money.  The interesting thing about working for a cruise company is you have to live on a ship.  When I started with Carnival, you could work a three month contract.  This was a moderate amount of time for one contract, and it made life easier.  If you encountered a not-so-favorable band, it would not be long before you could jump ship and join another vessel for a new start.  I have worked on over twenty cruise ships.  The irony of the cruise industry is you must live on a ship.  The irony of the cruise industry is you must live and work on a ship.  The only way you can work in the cruise industry and not live on a ship is if you are a Guest Entertainer.  These musical performers fly to the ship and embark at one of the ports in the cruise's agenda.  After they do their show they are at liberty to fly back or stay until the end of the cruise.  Each and every other crew member including the officers lives on the ship.  You get used to it.  There are married couples in the crew both together and apart.  Many of these couples spend months apart, and I do not know how their marriages survive.  Earning a living for a family is imperative, and they make the sacrifice.  I have been living on cruise ships beginning in September 2002 until recently when I returned home to help my aging parents.  When I returned home I did not know whether I would return to ship work or not.  I have not ruled it out.  The irony is living in my childhood home quickly became a full-time job in its own rite.  Cooking, shopping, and yard work take up the most time.  Consequently I am not earning money.  When you work in the cruise industry and earn money you must live on the ship.  I have done some shorter fill-in contracts, and they are fine.  To make a comparable salary to someone living in America, you live and work full-time on the ship.  Because I was single it was an easy adjustment.  Over time you realized how little you needed to be happy, especially when you are working in your chosen vocation.  I enjoy music work, although there were many compromises to be made working on ships.  After my salary had risen to a reasonable level, it was easier to make those compromises.  You remain silent for the most part, don't make waves, and take your money.  I have my W-2 forms dating back to 2006 when I began with Royal Caribbean.  Their corporate headquarters is in Miami, Florida, and many of their ships are docked at Port Canaveral, Port Everglades, and Miami.  My vehicle remained garaged at my parents home in North Carolina, because I had no need for it.  Although the North Carolina Department of Revenue does not like to recognize it, I did not live in the state where my vehicle was parked.  It was a convenience, because letting my vehicle sit in the elements in a cruise terminal parking lot was not prudent.  I had to spend a fair amount of time proving this to the NCDOR, but it was not difficult.  A judge would make your determination of residency based upon two things.  One is whence you earn your income, and the other is where you physically are present.  It is impossible to live in North Carolina, and earn money on cruise ships.  Therefore I have been living on cruise ships that often, but not always are docked in Florida.  In other situations, I have been fortunate to have been in international waters.  I have seen Australia, Italy, Spain, France, Alaska, Hawaii, and New Zealand.  I have spent up to six months at some of these destinations.  I used my parents address on my federal tax return, because it was the only reliable source of contact for my transient situation.  I didn't want my federal tax refund bouncing around the Caribbean trying to find me.  Obviously seeing this address on my federal tax return peeked the interest of the NCDOR, as it should have.  They continue to send me bills for North Carolina state taxes, and I continue to send them proof of my residency elsewhere.  At times it has been a difficult pill to swallow, but I reread my well-worded letter of defense, Xerox my federal tax returns and W-2 forms from Florida (which has no state tax) and hold my breath.  It has proven effective, because it is the truth.  Over the years they have reworded the laws somewhat allowing you to tick the box, "Do you have a vehicle garaged in the state?"  It would seem they prefer you to obtain a driver's license in your state of residence, but how does one do that working on a ship?  i didn't, but that doesn't change my residency status.  A judge looks at many things chronologically including your source of income (Royal Caribbean International), your whereabouts (on ships mostly in Florida), and other proximal relationships such as where you attend church, where you pay bills, basically where you are.  Only recently when I have earned no money, have I returned to North Carolina.  I earn no money, because to earn money working for a cruise company you must live on the ship.  I have yet to seek other employment in North Carolina, because I do not like it much. Also I was not required to file North Carolina state tax returns, because I did not earn the required $7,500.00.  I only earn income, when I am working full-time and living on a ship.  The only ship in Fayetteville, is a sunken barge belonging to the Breece family.  Damn my vehicle!  You have caused me such stress, but I have it under control.  This situation forced me to understand both residency and domicile, and also it is applicable to the American military at Fort Bragg.  Their situation is not mine.  In many ways I miss my cruise ship job.  First I was earning a reasonable salary.  Second I had few expenses.  Third was able to travel and see the world.  Returning to America has been a shock.  It has been brutal, and not because the NCDOR occasionally sends me itemized bills for what they perceive as delinquent state taxes.  Having to defend my residency status has helped clarify my station in life.  I have none, and that must be unusual.  I can't imagine there are other Americans in situations similar to my own, or can I?  America certainly no longer is in her glory, and that is not sour grapes because I cannot earn the same salary I earn playing piano on cruise ships, or is it?  Maybe it is.  Before I began ship work in 2002 I was able to make ends meet playing piano.  I did this in Columbia, South Carolina, Columbus, Ohio, and for a very short time in Fayetteville, North Carolina substituting in my father's band after he had a mild stroke.  When he returned to reasonably good health is when I got my first call to work for Carnival Cruises.  Ironically it also was the day after we opened the musical "Footloose" in Fayetteville.  It seems just like "The Boy Gets Around," so does the 'word.'  Ray Kennedy may have had something to do with it.  He directed the show, and also does some ship work.  I have been doing my best to get the lay of the land, and there is not much.  Often I rail against the music industry, as I should.  It almost has become comedic.  Both acting and performing music have turned into parody.  Watching and listening to Jon Batiste play and sing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert....   It pretty much sums up what music has become in America.  Whenever NWA (Niggaz Wit Attitudes) rapped into their mikes in front of beats, because of their message, it was powerful.  They were rapping about racial injustice and police brutality.  The country responded and they became stars.  That symbiosis of rage against the machine was tangible, relevant, and timely.  Today we have LBGT.  I am not homophobic, but watching my profession turn into a platform for the LBGT community is not my idea of fulfilling.  Music once stood for many things, not an aberration of human sexuality.  What the @#$%^!? I am finding it increasingly difficult to continue in the music field, because its traditional roots have been transplanted.  Who made this decision?  Who made the decision that the entire disciplines of acting and music performance were to be reduced to standing on stage, staring into space, and waving your arms?  (not withstanding when actors actually have to speak lines with absolutely no preparation or feeling)  Again, "What the @#$%^!?"  I assume it is because the reality of producing quality musical performances requires money.  The same faction who decided music performance was standing on stage, staring into space, and saying lines with no preparation or feeling decided that musicians no longer merited earning money.  The cruise industry disagrees.  P.S.  My last legal state of residency was Ohio.  I declared residency several years after moving there in 1990 from North Carolina to attend The Ohio State University.  I stayed until 2000 and have been on their voting roster ever since at 519 E. Beaumont Rd.  Judge Rick C. Pfeiffer is first judge of the Franklin County Environmental Court.  

Trying to Forget Bond, Iraq's America

These days I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to forget the immense amount of B.S. that is around me in America.  I can't justify that nine years of college somehow have made me different than most other Americans.  Really I am different than the local community which surrounds me.  Partly this is true because of a large generational gap.  My mother and her constituency are thirty years my seniors.  The community in which she lives consists mostly of her compadres, and there is a stark generation gap between them and me.  This must be true of others also.  Fayetteville is not a normal American town.  The presence of Fort Bragg, the world's largest military installation, has something to do with it.  It has been here a long time, and local merchants always have taken advantage of the land-locked G.I.'s.  Contrary to popular propaganda, newly enlisted servicemen often are uneducated, malcontented, misled youths.  It is the job of the army to discipline them and hopefully create useful soldiers.  It must be understood there is a percentage of these soldiers who never make the mark.  They stay involved with crime, and do not feel any responsibility for the security of the American people.  These are bad apples.  Violence in Fayetteville always has been rampant.  It is not difficult to surmise training not-so-educated youths to become fighting machines takes its toll.  Often there is not enough maturity to be able to handle the stress and responsibility of being a fighting machine.  Often they make wrong choices.  G.I. often get into fights in bars, and often bouncers target naive G.I.'s.  Fayetteville has a history of this.  People have been killed in fights at bars such as the Circus Lounge.  The powers at be try their best to keep this buttoned up, but it cannot help but have a profound effect on the neighboring community.  Violence is rampant, not only because the army is training young not-so-educated youths to become killing machines, but because many people in Fayetteville are poor.  Conversely many are filthy rich, and that dichotomy never ceases to amaze me.  There are million dollar homes everywhere, and yet murder is common.  It would seem Fayetteville like most places in America has become a third world country.  No longer is there a middle class.  Medium wage earning jobs are scarce.  The legal and medical professions thrive off of Fort Bragg making a powerful upper class.  The rest are poverty level indigents struggling to stay alive.  I have to see this every day, because I do not have shelter in which to hide each day.  Instead I wake to the sounds of the military practicing their methodology.  Droning low-flying aircraft circle my neighborhood!?  Trains beginning at ten o'clock in the evening carry their freight non-stop until noon when there is a small respite.  It is a rail deluge often of which I speak.  When Fort Bragg is frisky, so is CSX-T.  They must deliver the jet fuel for the world's most ready fighting force.  Yee Haw.  I try to forget it.  I try to ignore it, and yet you cannot.  The defense of our nation is paramount to anything, and yet I did not choose to live near Fort Bragg.  I did not choose for Base Realignment and Closure to choose Fort Bragg to be America's Iraq, but it is.  Every military operation in the world is governed by the Ground Forces Command at Fort Bragg.  We are in it, and yet I do not feel America should be at war at all.  The war mongering propaganda almost has won.  America should lead!   Bomb Paris, and America should lead.  Down a Russian airliner, and America should lead.  I am beginning to change my mind, because the ensuing purgatory is intolerable.  It is like depression.  If we are spending seventy percent of our national budget on defense, then I am beginning to want to put the military to work.  We are spending the same amount whether they are deployed or not.  I am livid my generation inherited Iraq, a destroyed, unwanted, wasteland.  America feels some responsibility for Iraq, because we destroyed her.  Can we really stop the destiny of Pol Pot?  All of these political events carefully are being calculated to affect the United States presidential election next November.  Why can't we reach an agreement, and stand down?  That would mean America would have to leave the Middle East.  We left Viet Nam.  We left Korea.  Still it must be about the oil.  Diligently I try to remember things which have become important to me.  They pale in the face of war and national defense, and yet I am not willing to surrender my humanity.  I would like for us to get on with it.  My childhood was rife with the violence in Viet Nam.  Artists created beauty from it including music, something which no longer matters to the world except as a high dollar commodity.  WE can live with war, because we have been for years.  It has been a closeted war.  It has been a covert war.  It has been a Rumsfeld and Cheney war.  America traditionally has not fared well in such things.  We are more of a "Rah rah" kind of country.  Rally the troops, have some parades, and ship out in grand fashion.  We don't have the money to pay for this, as China idly sits by.  China.  

The Axis of Evil and Jeb Bush (007?)

Excitedly I spent my eleven dollars at Westwood's Carmike Cinemas last night to view the new Bond film "Spectre."  Having not seen any of the newer films in the franchise, I had no idea for what I was in store.  Having at least ten of the older Bond films on DVD pirated in Nassau, I had a good idea of what a traditional Bond film would feel like.  What I saw was a greatly modernized version of a traditional Bond film.  It made me wonder where along the timeline this change occurred.  It would not take much to research the franchise and update my knowledge.  I know the series struggled later on trying to find a suitable replacement for Roger Moore and Sean Connery.  Those are big shoes to fill, but movie-making is not the same.  Movie making especially is not the same with Japanese-owned Sony pictures.  That was obvious from the onset.  Sony invented the Playstation, and their movies really have become video games.  It is something I believe they take pride in knowing that anime also is part of their visual aesthetic.  As an old school American I have no interest in watching video games on the big screen.  I played the seminal machines back in the 80's, and they were fun.  Similarly I have no interest in role playing, especially in violent war-like scenarios.  It is not a far stretch to see where modern killers get their ideas.  Understanding that I was about to see live footage rendered with digital from the beginning (like James' walk in the opening credits), I told myself to accept it.  Luckily as the film progressed I was spared some of the Sonyisms that have come to plague modern film.  The biggest technique is taking the gestures and expressions of real actors and turning them into stylized Playstation characters. There is something endearing about the latent movement kind of like Disney's original cartoons.  I don't want to see that in a live film.  Trying to morph real acting with Playstation acting has become a trend.  It won't be long before all films will be complete renders, and live acting like music will become extinct.  I'm surprised is has not yet happened, other than the millennials have more of a stake in film and television than they do music.  The computer all ready has killed music.  All of that aside what are my sentiments about the newest and reportedly most expensive Bond film ever made?  My first impression is who possibly could have received all of that money for services in the film?  It was stark.  Movie studios manipulate their budgets just like Wall Street hedge funds.  There are some very unfair shenanigans happening with the Bond budget, and I could not see where that money was spent.  I assume the large crowd shots in distant locations were the most expensive, but the rest of the film?  The actors intimately carried the drama, and while there were a few music cues they were phoned in from a conference call with the committee.  I enjoyed the lush sound when it happened, but it was not that often.  Another ill of modern films are exaggerated sound effects.  Infrasonic sounds in particular have become popular droning on the bottom of the musical spectrum numbing your ears to any real orchestral finesse.  As I listened yet again to the "Jungle Drum" cues, I wondered whence this concept came?  I couldn't think of a single example of ethnic music that doubled musical themes with jungle drums.  Then it occurred to me.  This is what pop music does, so this influence carelessly and mindlessly is not pulling from any relevant musical source.  Because an ignorant and lazy producer decides that pounding between a kick drum and a snare is effective doubling to a musical line?  Why not just ignore or eliminate the line completely?  Oh, that is what "pop" does.  There is no "line" per say.  There is no sentence.  Pop music has dispensed with the sentence  in lieu of guttural monosyllables.  If one were to imagine how cro-magnon man would have talked, it would be akin to modern "pop" music.  Certainly we have regressed as a populace to allow this decline in our music.  It will not be long until we no longer are able to communicate at all.  We can just stand around and look at Katy Perry's ass.  Whatever the case it does not take much effort on the part of the composer to apply these distinctions, but they will change the tone of the film.  Human sentiments will become involved as will the audience.  Then the Playstation no longer will be in control.  A composer will share a real stake in the film.  If the Playstation no longer is control, then all of that money could go to some worthy recipients.  Like America film has become a corporate monopoly, and it is about as fair as Wall Street.  All I can ask myself is, "Where was the new  Bond song!?"  A book has been written about new Broken Bond themes, and yet I don't remember any song at all in this film.  "From Russia With Love."  "Goldfinger." I can hear the belting voice of Shirley Bassey clear as a bell burning the Bond movie theme into my consciousness.  Was there a song in the opening credits?  In my recollection there were no lyrics.  There was nothing being sung to me by a sultry-voiced torch singer that set the tone for what was about to transpire.  All Bond films have had this.  It is a trademark of a Bond film.  Metaphorically this elimination of a femininely rendered musical theme also eliminated sex completely from the movie.  Wow.  That is a significant production change.  Yes Bond and the blonde woman did kiss once, but it was not sexual.  (Representatively I must sidetrack and comment that this particular depiction of James Bond 007 was much more like the original Ian Fleming character in his novels.  Bond was a broken man, and he carried this burden around on his back.)  The original Bond films did not use this approach, so kudos to the film's producers for this.  Was this the right choice?   It became apparent to me that these no longer were Bond films at all.  They were juxtapositions of different styles of movies.  Why was there no new Bond song?  (at least one I can remember?)  It is obvious.  If a new Bond song were included, it would receive a large part of the royalties.  Music no longer is important today, and thus it has no value.  If the studio can make back their ill spent millions without a new Bond song, let them.  It will be a sad and misled transgression.  Without a song still we can take your money, but the latest Bond film will evaporate culturally like dying grass.  A new Bond song on the other hand could stand the test of time and consequently could help the film endure.  This is what a Bond theme is supposed to do.  Why Sony would choose to eliminate it is beyond my comprehension.  The film abstractly is about "Big Brother," and the content and the production of the movie wreaks of this procedure.  It was eery, and did not a Bond film make.  Instead "Spectre" was a gritty war film devoid of sex, sentimentality, or warmth.  Instead appropriately it was laced with the mannerisms, ideals, and methods of terrorist war.  Why would we want to watch James Bond 007 battle ISIS?  Some things are better left in the past, or at least their names should be changed to protect the innocent.  It was not that long ago the concept of Globalism emerged.  The Clinton's ushered in "Multiculturalism," and this was successful.  America opened her arms to immigrants.  Globalism on the other hand has destroyed America.  Singlehandedly globalism slit the throat of America and abandoned her bleeding on the street.  Extreme and evil world interests have crept into our country, and we never will recover.  Each and every political occurrence we experience today is a result of globalism.  If America's leaders had been mindful and respectful of America and her citizens, we would not be in this predicament.  If we had invested and protected America domestically, we would not have these problems.  Globalization opened the door to evil manipulations of the markets, and now this evil is spending trillions of American dollars yet to be earned on fighting its own evil in a ludicrous cycle of satan.   Clever ploy el diablo.  We should be ashamed.  War is more fun, because peace, love, and sex are Christian attributes.  It is so simple.  At the Republican debate Jeb Bush was yelling, "We have to be safe."  Perfect.  Attack America and then spend every penny we can borrow paying for that security.  Nothing else matters.  Art, culture, music, sentimentality.  Singlehandedly fueling the defense contractors union, those that enjoy war, Jeb wrapped it up.  "We have to be safe."  Now we know why the film fought for 007.  James Bond was the good guy, and he should be going after Jeb Bush.  P.S.  Subsequently I have discovered that there actually was a song in the movie.  Because it had nothing to do with Bond, the franchise, or the movie I don't remember it.  Selfishly it used the movie as a platform for itself.  I guess there is yet one more Broken Bond theme in the dumper.  

Broken Bond Themes

As a collegiately educated musician and composer I have yet to open my sensibilities to the "Broken Bond Theme" diaries.  Fully I understand a book has been published on this subject, and one of the author's possessed a degree in music history.  I have to admit I have not seen a modern Bond film in over a decade.  They are not the same.  Why would I want to watch a substandard film which like the entire genre of television fails to recognize and/or acknowledge their historical lineage?  I am not interested.  You can discard your cultural heritage, reinvent your medium, and pray no one notices.  It is not the wise way to go, because the substance, content, and artistry of your medium all ready has been invented, preened, and perfected.  Why would anyone want to discard their history?  The simple answer is it is difficult with which to compete.  Further lazy, selfish, and childish millionaires need immediate gratification.  It far is easier simply to discard the competition, and when you own the industry that has become easy.  Corporate monopolies have made that possible.  Competition while rife in amateur and professional sports no longer seems to exist in television especially.  It is all run by Big Brother.  It's funny to me that their was a show not that long ago called Big Brother.  No one understands what Big Brother is.  As for Big Brother and "Broken Bond Themes," I can remember a handful of Bond themes.  "Nobody Does It Better" comes to mind penned by Carley Simon.  Then there is the McCartney anthem "Live and Let Die."  It would be more prudent to define a Bond theme first.  Describe the genre of film.  Describe the purpose of the theme.  I think most of us have an idea of what a Bond theme does.  There is a lot of discrepancy in film music today.  Also there is a lot of excellence.  Also there is a lot of trash.  Most of it has become trash, because the same lazy, selfish, childish millionaires produce it.  There is one "Jungle Drums" musical cue I have been making fun of for twenty years.  It does not surprise me that the Bond themes have succumbed to the same ills as most pop music.  Simply the people producing them do not know what they are doing.  They have not been to film school.  The have not been to music school.  Thirdly and probably most notably is America and the world is not the same.  In a nutshell the feelings available to us today as consumers are far more limited than in our history.  We have watched many genres of music disappear including the crooning of Bing Crosby, the moodiness of mainstream jazz, and the melancholy of country.  It no longer seems appropriate to cry in your beer with a sense of helplessness.  Instead millennials fancy electronic dance music laced with overt sexuality.  They want to get their freak on.  America in certain ways has regressed to a modern Sodom and Gomorrah.  Surf the web and you will find rampant pornography.  This pornography includes underaged women, misogynistic producers, and compounds built to exploit them.  With that available to any American online [sic] try to imagine how any traditional roles in America have remained the same.  Broken Bond Themes?  The entire entertainment system is broken and has been for a long time.  It defies explanation, because it is not logical.  It is the new method for accumulating wealth in America, and that is exploitatively.  Bond and his franchise are whores.  The savviness, intelligence, and sex appeal of Bond long have evaporated in favor of the lazy, selfish, childish millionaires.  Stop asking questions.  

America, a Feudal Land

As I try to make sense of America today, carefully I will avoid the adjective "modern."  I would have opened this editorial with "modern day America," but the adjective modern is not appropriate for describing America, her systems, or her sentiments.  America surprisingly is antiquated and not in a positive cultural way.  We are antiquated in our views, most notably on social class, accumulation of wealth, and civil rights.  In many ways America is just a conglomeration of red-necked, racist, hillbillies.  Much to my surprise they vote Republican.  It would seem democrats are the dwindling few of progressive-minded, Christian, socialists who actually acknowledge and care about their fellow citizens.  It is interesting to me that our Department of Defense recently conducted military exercises with Special Forces (as part of their certification) which represented possible or probably attempts at succession from our union.  Texas was at the top of the list.  Travel to Texas and I suspect you will be going back in time as you will many places in the American South.  America is not modern.  We are not modern, because the definition of modernism in art does apply to America's sensibilities now.  We are far from modern, and I for one long for that modernity.  Only can I pine for an era when George Gershwin visited Europe to great acclaim meeting notable composers of the time.  Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Darius Milhaud, and Igor Stravinsky were among the celebrities he met.  I choose the world celebrity as an American anachronism, because celebrity today refers to Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, and the Kardashians.  What has happened?  America has slipped from the evolutionary cycle almost like through bending space and time.  We have entered an alternate universe occurring concurrently with the one that should be happening.  In our universe, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, and the Kardashians have become royalty.  There can be only one explanation for this grift, and it is Big Brother.  When traditional means of communication of knowledge have been eradicated, Big Brother is free to impose his own superficial, devolving, and interruptive agenda.  If he continues to plant his aberrant seed slowly it will grow, intertwine, and possibly choke the life out of the real universe.  I would think God has something to say about this.  Truly it is a battle of good against evil, and good is losing.  Good is losing because of evil's means of implementation.  If one does not know the authentic definition of modernism, how can one know that violent, militaristic, internet games, pornography, and superficial app's will have no bearing on America's future?  Conversely they will continue to degrade and disassemble America's tried and true structures until anarchy develops.  Violent, militaristic, internet games, pornography, and superficial app's are a mask of what really is happening in America, and that clearly is explained by author Robert Reich.  Wealth is trickling up, and that is because America has become a small network of corporate monopolies. These few monopolies control production and thus price with no recognition of America's working people.  Wages remain stagnant, jobs are not plentiful, and violence results.  The combination of these two elements will tear America apart.  It is time to ask presidential candidates how they will solve this problem.  Corporations in America reign freely and without regulation rigging the market through high priced lobbying, and the wool is being pulled over the eyes of naive millennials by peppering them with immediate gratification.  It is time to grow up and smell the feces.  

A Nation of Excess

I was able to watch a small portion of the Republican National Debate on CNBC a few nights ago.  To my surprise two candidates who I know nothing about were declared winners.  In the short period of time I was able to listen to these candidates, only two seemed worthy of the presidency.  What do I mean by, "Worthy of the presidency?"  In cartoon language they looked like presidents, they spoke conservatively, authoritatively, and worthy of listen, and they spoke about well-thought out ideas.  They were Chris Christie, a former United States Attorney for and the current Governor of New Jersey, and Mike Huckabee, a Christian minister and former Governor of Arkansas.  While I did not like Governor Christie's condemnation of democratic candidate Hillary Clinton each time he answered a question, otherwise he said some worthy things.  He seems to be a straight shooter, not unlike Donald Trump, but with many more years of political experience.  Balancing the wit of a Jersey Governor with the trappings needed to be elected President of the United States....  well, there you have it.  I thought Carley Fiorina did well (looking like Cruella da Vil).  It was interesting to me who was declared the winner of this Republican debate.  Compared to my opinion it was a surprise. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio?  I don't even know who these men are, and I don't want to.  Deciding who was the winner of the debate is a metaphor for politics in America.  That may seem like a juvenile statement, but of course it is.  It's not about who is the most qualified to run the country.  Does the president really run the country anyway?  The answer is no.  Corporate America runs the country.  Simply ask yourself which faction of America wants what.  Personally I am so disconnected from any of what now is considered "mainstream America" it won't matter.  For who I vote will not win.  My concerns are different than this generation.  My first concern is the solvency of America.  Our current media are chipmunks in denial.  Only they want to keep their own jobs, and it is a superficial platform upon which they jabber.  What is the issue of the presidential election?  What is the issue that will restore America to her former self?  What will reinvigorate our economy and jumpstart out artistic culture?  The answer is solvency.  Solvency is lack of debt.  I am going to take this opportunity to bury my head in the sand and ignore the statistic, because you can't trust them anyway.  It's all lies.  Without print media, newspapers and investigative reporting, journalistic periodicals, and internet news sites with integrity nothing matters in America.  We are Alice in Wonderland doing out best to get through the day without having a nervous breakdown concerning the Conditions of America.  You can't contemplate it all, but you can ask yourself why America, the former superpower of the world, is so in debt.  The answer is obvious.  Ask Dick Cheney.  Ask the worst United States president in the history of our great nation.  Turning the page what can we do today to change this situation?  The firstvactually is to understand what money is being spent and where.  Good luck with that, the world's largest maelstrom of money and power.  The better solution is to mock it with political satire.  When the Conditions of America become so grim, one must make fun of them.  It is not easy to do, because what is burning through our cash faster than a California bush fire is Fort Bragg, North Carolina.  It is our national defense.  If we adhere to the publicly known statistics, seventy percent of our federal budget is being spent on our military.  Is this because of 9/11?  Is this because of ISIS and ISIL?  Why is this?  Why are we in Afghanistan?  Afghanistan.  Afghanistan is on the other side of the fucking world, and yet we are fighting wars there, in Iraq, and now Syria?  For what?  My cartoon answer very much in the view of Apple Computers is those natural resources underneath those Afghani mountains not to mention the poppies.  Who is getting the poppy money?  I know this.  I am ashamed to live in America, because I deserve better.  Our government is a cartoon and yet corporate America is laughing all the way to their foreign banks.  Apple, if we yield to the published statistics, has 114 billion in cash sitting in Norwegian banks.  Way to help America.  

America, a Nation of Excess

Patiently I have been waiting for the right moment to express my dismay with the current Conditions of America.  It far easier is to criticize than offer relevant solutions for social, cultural, and economic change in America.  First the reasons for change must be recognized and understood.  At the moment we are a country in denial.  It far easier is to bury one's head in the sand than to understand how problematic America has become.  I will start the ball rolling.  It would not be surprising I would cite the demise of America's music industry as a problem.  If you were reared without any cultural music education spurning music appreciate, it wouldn't matter.  Also I would cite the demise of America's print media.  More specifically I would cite the rapid death of newspapers and journalistic periodicals.  It was not that long ago the print industry was a building block of America.  Now America no longer seems to care about truth, substance, or history.  How can the American economy rebuild itself with such a chasmic void?  There is nothing to base it on except hype.  It is far easier to spew antagonistic rhetoric than factual history.  Only those with an education could understand that factual history will aid us in our pursuits.  Only ignorant in-denial millennials possibly could think otherwise.  "Our lives are good.  We have our iPhones, our streaming music services, and .....?"  The shallow, addictive, self-serving accoutrements of this generation are not capable of understanding the future or the history of America without a keen interest in both.  Covertly the institutions that have constituted Americas social culture and thus economy have been rendered impotent.  What I do not understand is how nothing has replaced these institutions.  Truly an extinction has occurred and it is not timely, helpful, or necessary.  Instead it is a product of economic competition on a wholly unhealthy playing field.  If we cannot respect our past institutions and find ways to coexist with them while evolving, what is to become of America?  Has it been prudent to discard the cornerstones of America and replace them with selfish superficial entertainment?  Only a generation so sheltered from American history could have created such a monster, and all with a simple PC.  With all of the creative code, app's, and games nothing has attempted to replace the necessary institutions America needs to survive.  Media moguls like Ruppert Murdoch have embraced the speed and instantaneousness of the internet and discarded their equity with nary a peak of consciousness.  Newspapers are dead, and yet what has replaced them?  Nothing.  Magazines are dying, and yet what has replaced them?  Nothing.  With all of the You Tube videos, streaming music, and pornography nothing has or ever will replace these watershed American institutions.  Therefore we have lost a great war, America's next domestic war, with millennials as the victors.  These victors like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini have great plans for America.  [sic]  What are these plans, eliminate factual history so that Big Brother can do as he pleases?  This sounds familiar, and it sounds familiar because George Orwell wrote about this occurrence in his novel "1984."  1984 was a long time ago, but we do understand great artists often are ahead of their time.  Simply I will ask the question, "With what are you going to replace these necessary institutions?"  It will prove to be a cataclysmic mistake thinking internet gaming, music streaming, and online pornography will make the next great America.