King Kong in Mexico

It is all request Friday on WCPE.  Usually their playlist is more effective, when local patrons call in and ask for specific works.  I would think it would be extremely difficult filling twenty-four hours with music day after day.  It would take a musicologist or cultural historian to provide such a service.  I would like to know who does it.  Probably it can be a group effort dividing up the programming into differing shows.  They do that.  Different disc jockeys (if that is what they should be called) host different time segments with names.  Classical Cafe.  I am getting a bit of a treat as a pianist, trumpet, and composer myself.  I have dedicated five years of my life to studying music composition.  Barely can I remember it, because to what we are exposed on television (the largest purveyor of popular music) is so bad.  This is why I listen to WCPE.  It is a stark contrast to the insipid and selfish music of today's pop.  That is not my theme.  My theme is to comment on recent activity including a chamber music concert by the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra at St. John's Episcopal Church.  I am not feeling any music at the moment and for good reason.  The Guns of Navarone are firing, and my stomach is a mess.  Acid reflux wakes me early each morning burning my throat with stomach acid.  Gorbachov says the world is preparing for war.  It certainly seems that way, because Fort Bragg is in full exercise.  This is why I cannot feel any music.  My sensory system  completely and wholly is overwhelmed by noise.  I cannot function, and I have trouble thinking.  I can muster enough synapse action to comment on Handel's Water Music.  I studied classical composition at Ohio State University.  I made an A in four voice counterpoint at UNC-Chapel Hill.  I don't compose classical music anymore, because the dynamic in Fayettenam does not support my aesthetic.  The aesthetic here is war.  We are at war, and guns are blazing.  Regularly I can hear fifty-five millimeter machines guns tatting away.  The ground shakes for a moment.  In addition Lockheed Martin has provided a new targeting system for their rocket propelled shells.  The Fayetteville Observer says it uses sound waves to target the weapons.  Oh goody!  Like we don't have enough infrasonic pollution all ready?  No one gets it.  There were three suites listed on the program for the FSO chamber music concert.  Either they played them in a different order than what was listed, or they omitted the last set.  When the program got long I tried to figure out which movement they were playing from the program.  Several things came to mind.  One was the introduction by the Music Nerd.  During the Baroque period only were there natural horns.  Valves had not yet been invented.  If horns or trumpets were to be played, tubing had to be altered to accommodate the key of the composition.  Most of it was in D, F, and G.  Interesting.  There were some minors as well.  After the program got long, it began to dawn on me why the concert became a chore like sitting in church.  It was pittance, punishment for your sins.  You had to endure through the music to be cleansed.  We attend most concerts by the FSO, and most of them are exceptional.  Some are sleepy.  There is an inherent concept in classical music, its intimacy, that is sleepy.  It can be difficult to stay awake and focused, because the music's physicality by tempo and style is intimate and relaxing.  I don't like this.  I don't like having to fight to stay awake to enjoy music.  This concert was sleepy, but it was not so sleepy in its tempos and styles.  They were simplistic.  Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck.  Square rhythm because some of them were meant as dance forms for court.  Always they are stiff and square, because classical music does not swing.  This is why it does not appeal to me so much.  Because the rhythm of all of the movements was so simplistic, court like, and because they all had to be in one key for the natural horns it got boring fast.  There were changes in meter and tempi, but the constant tonality of D or F was not interesting.  Classical harmony is not interesting.  V-I.  Authentic cadence.  The other issue about Baroque music is that the phrases ramble.  It is a continuous stream of notes with few resolutions.  Romantic music can be this way also.  I like phraseology.  I like to hear phrases of music that are like sentences organized into paragraphs.  Say something, and then wait for he listener to understand it.  Say something more.  It is like conversation, good music.  A string quartet is like a conversation between four adult gentlemen.  (Steve, a telemarketer, just called my mother to try to get her to give money to "The Veterans.")  Of course like the Wounded Warrior Project, the wounded warriors rarely get the money.  It is squandered amongst the upper employees of the organization.  Truly I love some classical music, and I mean concert-oriented orchestral or chamber music born in Europe.  Classical denotes a specific period in music history culminating in the High Classic Period of 1770-1780.  At least that is what Dr. Lois Rosow taught me at OSU.  I don't really agree with those dates, because when looking at the birthdays of Beethoven, Mozart, and Papa Haydn...  Well dates are relative just like music history courses.  My tastes in music are anti-establishment and personal.  Nationalism has its place, and I love the music of the Russian Five and the French Six.  Fully I understand the music of the Russian Five was a reaction against the nationalism of Tchaikovsky, but that fiery Russian parade music is exciting.  They use the crash cymbals a lot.  Donald Trump wants to build a wall, and I have refrained from commenting on his agenda until now.  What an utter and total waste of the taxpayers money.  Obama did not increase the GNP, but at least his money was for the insuring of the uninsured.  Building a wall or fence along the Mexican border utterly will be useless.  It will not stop drug trafficking or illegal immigration.  He should be smart enough to understand this, and I think he does.  His "wall" is a campaign ploy.  It is a device of his divisiveness.  It will accomplish nothing other that satisfying those who voted for him.  He is a rabble-rouser.  He is a soap box shouter.  Damn, I wish he would shut up.  So far his record is abominable.  Rex Tillerson and his State Department resigned!  Keystone pipeline.  A wall.  It's too bad King Kong doesn't live in Mexico.  Then a wall might make sense.  Wetbacks can both dig and climb.  They are good at it.  I guess they may not be good at dying.  We have become even more a fascist nation.  Ugh.