Living in a War Zone - The Shape of Things to Come

Inheriting a house could be an unusual and foreign experience.  Most children, because they have developed their own lives and families, chose not to go backward in time.  It is understandable.  Our pasts often are laden with personal baggage, and it is all we can do to unload it.  Choosing to revisit past chapters of our lives is risky.  Concurrently our past is who we are.  It is our soul and our history, but a man is what he does.  As you age assembling that new agenda each and every day becomes more difficult.  Your mind slows, and it becomes helpful to have visual cues to remind you of yourself.  I never pontificated any of this, until I inherited my mother's house.  (Of course it was the family home, but upon my father's death and because both children were grown, it became my mother's house.)  It was surprising to me the things she was willing to dispose of, and what she adamantly needed to keep.  The first things to go were my father's chair and footstool, our brown den couch, and our Roses store coffee and end tables.  It was not long after that we bought a brown leather recliner to take their place.  The process of getting rid of things that remind you of strife, sorrow, and grief is large and complicated.  If you listen to your soul it will tell you the correct answers.  There are just certain things you can't remember, because they are too painful.  There is no reason that a home cannot be repurposed even by the family, but it is a soul-wrenching, lifelong, difficult task.  What I have discovered is the clutter of which people often speak is as destructive as they suggest.  Clutter from the past in particular keeps you in the past, but this clutter or sentimental memorabilia is a part of us.  It is our memories, our good times, and our family.  Who would want to dispose of those?  As such on the shelves of the garage is all of our family's Christmas paraphernalia.  These spiritual, religious, and personal decorations defy qualification, and therefore they deserve to be kept.  In most older generation attics you will find the complete history of their family.  A few visits to estate sales and quickly you will understand other people feel the same way.  Personal items from older generations are the roots of our own generation, so they are kept.  You don't want to look at these each and every day.  In my case when I returned home to ensure both my parents adequately were cared for, I gave up my previous job.  I was a ship's pianist, and I had spent ten years playing in the orchestra for three large cruise lines.  Ten years as a caregiver was long enough to eliminate these memories.  That isn't true, but hanging on to that lifestyle was pointless.  I didn't want to, because it was extremely challenging and a full time job.  Because I was not earning money as a musician anymore, and because I was living at home my musical interests took a different direction.  I began to restore vintage keyboard instruments, and my interest in audio recording returned.  These were things I could do with the aid of a house, a structure that lent itself to housing instruments.  It had a garage, which I began to use whole heartedly.  When my mother died and I inherited this house the decisions began.  Could this home, this structure, provide the infrastructure I needed for another musical life?  I began to think of it this way.  Successful people plan their work and work their plan, and you must be able to visualize the completion of your goals.  I began my journey alone in this house that way, and I completed most of my tasks.  Was it out of the question or out of bounds to believe a home in a neighborhood could be used to record music?  We had a Hammond A-100 organ and a Knabe baby grand piano.  Likewise I had the instruments I had restored, which amounted to FIVE Rhodes electric pianos.  These are rather large and heavy, but I managed to find places for them.  Each piano over time acquired its own recording system, so that no matter which one I chose to play, with the connection of a few cords I could produce an extremely high quality Quicktime video.  I spent hours fine tuning these little rigs, and these Rhodes pianos sound better than most.  One reason why is they benefited from stability.  I was not on the road with a band, living in an apartment or a rental property, or otherwise unstable.  Other than the rumbling of freight trains and the pressure waves of ascending commercial jets, for the most part things remain the same.  The question has become can it go a step further?  Can and will these instruments get used professionally, or are they being wasted?  I continued on this path with fervor fully deserving to use this home for its best purposes, but it did not take long before I was shot down.  With many more years of musical work experience, and having newly studied American Roots Music, my realization of music was at its peak.  Stop for a moment and imagine that unless  you live in a million dollar house in a gated community, you are just like everyone else.  Every neighborhood, no matter what  income, is just a trailer park with people piled on top of each other.  You may live in separate buildings, but what is common knowledge is everyone knows what everyone else does.  If Blind Willie McTell, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Bill Evans, or Arthur Rubenstein live next to you, you know it.  There is no way that music cannot spill out into the neighborhood, even if you have spent thousands of dollars insulating the house.  The more operative realization is, gentrification has occurred.  My mother was ninety-two when she died, and her death was accompanied by a mass exodus of her generation in our neighborhood.  All of the homes that were cornerstones of the neighborhood, and had stood unchanged for decades, suddenly are vacant.  What is the new clientele?  They say, "Yes sir, no sir," and go to bed a seven o'clock at night and get up at three a.m.  Irving Berlin would not be happy, because most creative work occurs when the world rests.  It only is when that annoying nag of the military stops, that anxious, "Hurry up and wait," that the accompanying community can indulge in their own interests.  As it turns out ninety percent of the time we are swept away in their rip tide.  I for one do not have to be ready to deploy in 48 hours.  It is a grand failure of Nature verses Nurture, because no matter how much music you have in your head and heart, it cannot defeat seven Apache helicopters.  

Living on the Street

 The percentage of parental deaths resulting in positive results of their wills must be small.  It has become humorous and anecdotal especially for the television industry, no matter how disturbing it may be to the inheriting family members.  Fighting over the inheritance is common, and it has become a part of the fabric of life.  There are numerous reasons why there is contention in the inheritance process, but the number one determining factor should be eldercare.  For the wealthy this is not such a problem, because the parents will see to it they are cared for.  For what is left over the drama begins, and all kinds of morality tales, rationalization, and he said she said may ensue.  The scenarios are plentiful, colorful, and also destructive.  Why is it so easy for life long familial relationships to suddenly go awry, when some money and property are at stake?  In our situation it is not dissimilar.  Each child may and will have their own opinion about the process.  As eldercare should be the primary requirement of an estate, it should also be understood that inheritors have no privilege of knowing before a parent's death what they are to receive.  The Will is read after the death, and in most cases it will stand.  Any knowledge beforehand of what goes to whom is gratuitous and rare.  The only disparity that occurs is if and when a child decides not to believe the parent's choices.  It could be easier to slander a sibling rather than accept the fate that you didn't get what you wanted.  Reality is the requirement for resolution of this dissent.  In our case the house was the issue.  For two children to inherit a home together it would require either of two things.  One is to sell the property and split these assets, and the other is for one sibling to buy out the other if they wanted to keep the house.  Depending on the current value of the home the latter option may not be feasible.  If a home is worth $400,000.00 in today's market, not many children could come up with $200,000.00 in cash.  If they did they would deplete their savings and end up poor with a home in which to live.  In some states there may be an option to keep the home with two owners, but this often is where the trouble begins.  As our lawyer suggested having co-executors of the Will is not a good idea.  For the children to find resolution while grieving their lost parents would be rare.  This bereavement often is the reason why the first option is chosen most often.  The sheer emotional turmoil, grief, and loss of a family home filled with belongings is too much for most.  Instead they choose to sidestep this process of reflection and difficult decisions and leave the family stuff to a qualified estate company who will happily empty the house of its belongings getting it ready for sale.  As it would seem I was the dissenting 1/3 who did not want this process, an estate sale and being forced to sell a house because of an inability to process the emotions attached to the history of the home.  It seems like dumping a stepchild without giving them a chance.  My opinion was not a part of my mother's decision to will me the house.  She looked at our family and made a sound decision that the best use of the property was for me to have it for what it offered as a domicile.  Most people would agree with today's housing market, having property is best.  Of course the monetary value of the home is appealing, but that is for someone who does not need a  home.  In our particular situation these arrangements were made over twenty years ago.  As things changed and my father developed dementia and had to be placed in a nursing home, the necessity of having to sell the house to satisfy the preexisting will became burdensome.  When my father died in 2017, the house became my mother's house.  That was a change, and she made her own decision about her house.  Unfortunately it meant that the Will had to be changed.  This was not a problem, but surprisingly documents were penned at the same time reinforcing this original decision to split the house.  Suddenly they came back from the dead and an attorney involved in the original Will produced these documents and filed them before my mother could say otherwise.  It took all of a half an hour her drive to the courtyard to file these antiquated documents.  It was not what my mother had chosen, and she was taken advantage of.  After understanding what had happened, and that another opinion was usurping her own right to choose what to do with her own house, she decided to change it.  I will say after graduating college at UNC-Chapel Hill, watching this change take place was the most difficult thing I have experienced.  No one wanted to help us, because they were afraid of being sued.  The fact remained the house became hers, and she could do with it what she pleased.  The majority of the scrutiny was not on the ill-timed twenty year old documents that got filed against my mother's will.  The scrutiny was on me, the caregiver and son.  Knowing my mother's stubborness, and her unwillingness to listen to my opinion, it was the most surprising thing that could have happened. 

I Don't Want a Big Brother

 I'm tired of blogging, but there isn't much to watch on free over-the-air TV.  What is interesting is the new face of college football.    You can't help but chuckle at UNC's loss.  Millions of dollars spent on a Superbowl winning NFL coach, but college ball is not the same as the NFL.  It's like trying to scrape the icing off the cake without ever having baked the cake.  College football isn't professional football.  It is a sport or extracurricular activity at an institution of higher learning.  I guess players are going to learn about multi million dollar professional contracts.  Their names and likenesses should not be exploited, but I disagree with paying them.  Yes, they induce millions of university dollars in contributions for glorified tailgating, but sports should not change the system.  The college and university systems are in disorder just like America.  Methodist University, once Methodist College, cut its entire music faculty this year.  Most of the music students were on scholarships and being paid to get a degree.  The department was producing no revenue.  The salaries of the music professors were a drain on their finances, and they needed money to pay the new medical school faculty.  Difficult decisions must be made.  Partner with Cape Fear Valley, start a medical school, fire the music faculty, and hire new doctors to teach.  The field of music never was a big earner of revenue.  Like many of the humanities, we recognize its worth, value, and benefit to humanity and subsidize it from other areas.  Methodist since its inception has had a music department.  I know a handful of pianists who earned degrees from there, and the education was substantial.  The community benefited from the music department.  Now there is a void, a cultural void, and the community has lost a limb.  Who are the Charlotte 49er's?  You mean UNC-Charlotte football team.  Who beat UNC this past week?  Are they even in the ACC?  Shiny new helmets, spiffy uniforms, and college athletes feigning professional contracts.  What I watched today was skilled and entertaining football, but college ball is not the NFL.  So enough about college sports.  I want to write about microwaves.  I can get no one to recognize the dangers of airborne Radio Frequency energy.  Perhaps the original frequencies America has used for early radio and television are not harmful to humans.  The higher frequencies of the Electromagnetic Spectrum were reserved for the military and NASA.  Microwaves for consumer use remained in our kitchen ovens.  Bill Clinton had a revolutionary idea.  Why not ignore the stated dangers of these waves, use the Presidency to access these reserved frequencies, and auction them off to the highest bidder?  Let's create a cell phone market and convert the American economy to wireless.  We have spent almost four decades replacing the Bell telephone network with wireless clones.  There was nothing wrong with this wired network, other than it became a monopoly.  The government sued and broke it up and created the Baby Bells.  Long distance was expensive, but eventually modems were made that allowed computers to connect over these phone lines.  Those in businesses and academic environments were lucky to have a T3 line, the fastest internet connection.  In looking back at this progression I can see no substantial benefit of having created this cell phone industry.  The introduction of the smart phone has changed business, but everything done on a cell phone except except paying by tapping can be done on a PC in your home.  To this day this is what I use.  It is what I choose to use.  I don't want my freedom of mobility burdened by a thousand dollar, portable, miniature, wireless computer.  The majority of America feels differently.  America was a more efficient, more productive, more well adjusted populace of citizens without cell phones.  It forced us to be adults.  It has been known the higher frequencies of the Electromagnetic Spectrum are dangerous and can cause cancer.  America had made great strides fighting cancer, until this change to microwave wireless telecommunications.  We are in denial, and no one will say anything about these dangers.  The basic regulations governing the use of cell phone towers have been eliminated.  The more concerning use of this energy is with satellites, and who has become the major provider of civilian and military satellites for the United States.  In providing contracts to Space X for internet and American spy satellites, Elon Musk's friendship with Vladimir Putin comes into question.  They are friendly.  The man who owns the company that produces America's spy satellites for the Pentagon, has close ties to Vladimir Putin.  These satellites are a nemesis, because they are not using single microwave transmitters like older models.  They are using supercharged, phased array, directed beam antennas that are one thousand times more powerful than anything in the sky before.  Multiply this by the number of satellites current circling the Earth, and we have electromagnetic radiation like never before.  The brass at Space X said it was easy to attach weapons and surveillance to these unit.  These are non-lethal weapons that are responsible for the Havana Syndrome.  Whether these symptoms were the result of conscious surveillance or the intent, no one yet has acknowledged their source.  They do exist, and people have been rendered impaired.  What question can there be as to their source?  Because we can't see them, makes them the most effective nonlethal weapon in existence, more so than a biological pathogen.  Now we cannot escape them, because they are hiding clandestinely in outer space.  Star Wars has become a reality with or without exploding nukes.  I imagine it is addictive playing God, watching anyone in the world take a piss, or choosing to punish them for watching pornography on the computer.  All with the push of a button.  Considering Richard Nixon's List and a contingency of troops specializing in Unconventional Warfare, these satellites render them inconsequential.  They monitor our speech, our emotional responses, and our intent just like George Orwell predicted in "1984."  We don't know it yet, but Elon Musk is Big Brother. 

Do We Need a Soul Vaccination?

 If America were to dispense with her entire factual history of the fight against disease, including Polio, TB, Mumps, Measles, Mono, and the rest, we could say an effective vaccine could be developed in a few months.  It is more feasible and lucrative to create an antidote, such as an antidote for snake venom.  The circumstances surrounding the emergence of Covid 19 defy logic.  It was gaslighting that dominated the entire pandemic suggesting a virus such as Covid was naturally occurring.  Any knowledgeable scientist knows otherwise.  When HIV and AIDS emerged doctors in Europe found all kinds of diseases enveloped in the capsule.  It was concrete evidence that the virus was created in a lab from other manipulated pathogens.  This is no revelation, and governments and militaries had been experimenting with biological weapons for decades.  That a particular product of this endeavor was used for private, confidential, and political reasons is criminal.  It is genocide.  The current argument about vaccines is merited because of the Coronavirus, and I applaud Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for expressing dissent.  Most Americans would agree in retrospect that the entire affair smelled pretty fishy.  We were so desperate as a nation to live and remain healthy, most of us took the vaccines.  With only a few years of research and information about these vaccines, we where shooting in the dark.  There were horror stories about the vaccines, and people dying from them.  The gaslighting was so powerful, it was difficult to discern what was true and what was not.  Was it Covid or the vaccines that caused the illness and death?  Perdue Pharma had not set an ethical example for drug manufacturing.  They created the Opioid Epidemic by consciously constructing a program to addict people to their drug of choice, Oxycontin making them more rich.  Members of the organization pressured the medical community to over prescribe this medication creating a national crisis.  Many people died of overdoses from this drug, and the Sackler family is guilty or murder.  We are dealing with fire.  We know Vladimir Putin's protocol for poisoning traitors to his cause.  With these types of biological weapons and emerging wireless satellite communication which allows unmanned aerial vehicles, no one is safe from a specific attack on their home.  The latest addition to the arsenal of appropriate aircraft are Air Tractors, crop dusting planes with a hopper for chemicals or liquid.  Unmanned flight in normal planes is becoming more common, and regularly I watch a Cessna Grand Caravan take off and fly to Fort Detrick.  Their website celebrates this unmanned flight.  Of what possible use could an unmanned Cessna suffice?  If it were loaded with dangerous biological pathogens, then a pilot would not be in jeopardy if he were not present on the aircraft.  Drones are commonplace in today's warfare, but unmanned, small, civilian-looking planes should be against the Geneva Convention.  Biological warfare should be illegal.  We must make our own assessments.  I took most of the vaccines, and I think they helped me.  The last one did not, because it was taken with the Flu shot.  The result of the Covid Pandemic is that is has almost ruined America.  Had we not all been subject to a sweeping deadly pathogen for so long, the labor force, economy, and infrastructure still would be in tact.  We have weakened the human race so much, it is difficult to recover.  We will not recover until we uncover the truth.  To voice a blanket statement that all vaccines are bad or ineffective is inappropriate.  It is these vaccines produced with scholarly studies and trials over long periods that have saved millions of Americans.  We should adhere to them if these vaccines still are being produced the same way.  If RFK is pulling funding for specific research, then it is this methodology that is in question.  Big Pharma is not in good standing, and they should be accountable for their products.  With the federal government and civil service in a shambles of deconstruction from Elon Musk and Donald Trump, how is anyone to know what is true?  For all intents and purposes it seems as if the Trump Administration is working for Vladimir Putin trying to deconstruct America from the inside out.  

The K Cup Keurig Microplastics Debacle

 I am too tired from illness to spend much time reading about the villain.  He has affected me, and I concede.  I will not give up with my scant local health care, each day yielding yet another source of potential sickness.  Green in the Keurig.  Blue on my bread.  Chunks in my milk.  Black on my faucet.  The Amish and other puritan early Americans had the right idea.  My Keurig coffee machine now sits in the garbage can, so those plastic pods no longer can leech dangerous micro particles into my testicles.  It is an equation straight from hell.  Dangerous plastic, hot water, and whatever you call coffee.  Did anyone else get this memo?  I'm keeping the Nespresso, because unlike Keurig their pods are made of food grade aluminum.  I am taking the risk, because I need and like quick espresso fixes.  Whatever is in that Starbucks coffee bag along with NICE spring water and a Fabreware percolator (my old tried and true), at least I am cutting the supply line to tainted coffee in my belly.  I began with PFAS laden ice cubes.  When I had a new kitchen floor installed, Rex caused my water line to the ice maker to begin leaking.  (I all ready had repaired this once with a pressure fitting)  After contemplating fixing it again, and I bought the parts, I decided not to.  I turned the water off underneath the sink, and began using my silicone ice cube trays again.  Bottled water.  Bottled water in glass containers is best.  A case of Aqua Panna at the Sprouts is $36.00.  That's twelve bottles of 1 liter?  After buying a case of Topo Chico Mexican carbonated mineral water, and thinking I was making a good decision for $17.00, I read that it has the highest PFAS level of ALL bottled water.  I think the ragweed got me.  I have been sick for three days with pain that is incomparable.  Maybe it was a kidney stone.  Did anyone else get the memo on the Keurig? 

Money in Your Pocket Any Way

It is difficult to synthesize the amount of strife America has experienced since 2020, and synthesis is common for me.  I have synthesizers, but they don't try to kill you.  Instead through various sonic architectural engines such as FM, subtractive, and modeling machines full of sophisticated electronic circuitry create interesting, useful, and sometimes beautiful sounds.  The field of music never was an enemy of anyone except the Nazi's.  They called Jazz devil music.  Because I am a jazz musician I am going to try to remember the Nazi's felt this way.  Jazz also is the least popular music in America, its birthplace.  American Jazz was a synthesis, but it doesn't try to kill you.  It, this improvisatory swing-based music, was the result of diversity in the Port of New Orleans.  Would Jazz have emerged without African-Americans?  The answer is probably no.  If one looks at the Caucasian roots of European-based chamber and orchestral music, there is no evidence of Jazz.  The one similarity is Basso Continuo in Baroque music with its use of Figured Bass.  It is the example for a jazz chord chart or lead sheet.  It tells you the root of the chord written in the bass staff and a numerical figure written above it to represent the appropriate intervals for the keyboardist to build a chord.  One must understand music theory to do this.  Jazz lead sheets are easier, because they eliminate the numeric representations of intervals and use other symbols for the differentiation between major and minor.  There is variance in different fake books, but the standard is a triangle for a major chord and a dash for a minor.  The sevenths and other chromatic alterations of the chords still use numbers.  When chords get more complicated, a short cut can be used that the best jazz players utilize.  It is Polychords, or one chord superimposed over another with a slash separating them.  I use these when I compose, and it is of great benefit.  If you want to sound hip and modern in your playing (which is not playing the 1, 3, 5, and 7 of a dominant 7th chord) you find another major or minor triad from a different key that contains only color tones or chromatic alterations of the dominant 7th chord.  For me realizing half diminished chords is facilitated with the superimposition of a minor triad a minor third up from the root.  That would be a d minor triad over a b half diminished chord (or b minor seventh with a flatted fifth.)  Enough music theory for the moment.  There was improvisation in European music usually presenting itself as a cadenza at the end of a piano concerto.  Most people agree that Beethoven swung (with syncopation), but the formal court-like behavior of European royalty wasn't known for its physical, athletic, and emotional outpouring of casual music.  Jazz is a folk music, and while it does now have a written catalog or repertoire, it is performed mostly impromptu and for the moment.  I don't think it can be argued that the severity and seriousness of slavery is what infused Jazz with its emotional content.  Had there been no racial strife, Jim Crow laws, and illegal lynchings would musicians just have continued plucking banjos on barges on the Mississippi River?  Were the Blues a metaphor for the oppression of slavery?  Perhaps poverty alone could have evoked this deep emotional lamentation, and easily it can be found in the folk music of other cultures.  These Scot/Irish and English "ballads" were stories, and often they were sung in minor mode like Gregorian Chant.  The contemplative character of this music is clear, and other practices contributed to a serious or pious tone.  There can be no greater lamentation than Jesus dying on the cross for our sins, and the singing of modal music at a slow tempo with a Latin text in a huge cavernous cathedral is a perfect metaphor.  The white settlers in America who fell on hard times from the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression saw equal depths of despair, but angry Confederates were not trying to kill them because of the color of their skin.  The nature of slavery while brutal was a part of Jazz music.  While pundits will dispute the analogy of suffering being necessary for anything positive, often the depths of despair are what force the human mind and soul to actualize.  We as the human race have the power to rise up and change our plight.  It is unfortunate the United States of America, with a newly elected dictator, has chosen to augment our plight.  It is unfortunate a pathogen was created in a lab and unleashed on the world for a plenitude of reasons, ethnic cleansing only being one of them.  Maybe it was an accident, but HIV was not.  There are too many similarities.  The problem is the inability of people to be willing to accept that they have been forsaken by their own country blindly following the image of what they would like to represent their own perception of honest American leadership.  We have lost that.  The quicker you understand the better chance you have of survival.  When your entire medical establishment influenced by the corrupt Sackler Family turns against the populace, you better wake up.  I saw it coming two decades ago, and it always leads right back to Dick Cheney.  It is fascism, and they enjoy torturing and killing people.  How can you determine the difference between average Americans and immigrants?  Lump them all together and send in the National Guard.  Can we believe what we are seeing, and the courts are our only defense.  The debacle of the botched response to Covid will go down in history as one of America's most grievous missteps.  Not only did it thin the population, it made specific pharmaceutical companies rich.  Who would have been the model for this behavior?  Flu vaccines have coronaviruses in them saith Dr. Judy Mikovits.  Never has it been a good idea to take the flu vaccine with the Covid vaccine.  I did at the behest of Walgreens, and it made me sicker.  Emphatically I can say with my experience with local doctors, I would not trust any of them.  Upon scrutiny of their suggestions often they make you worse, but they get to continue treating you.  Money in their pocket is more important than helping you.  Sounds like our President. 

The President as a Jazz Musician

 If one were to assess the Trump presidencies with the absence of political bias, there is not much there.  It is like playing fooseball.  When I was on the Carnival Victory, often I would play this game with our Puerto Rican lead trumpet player.  I was a novice but learning.  Never would he cease to defeat me at a game, if I played aggressively and emotionally.  His instincts and skill were so ingrained, that reflex action acted for him.  If I abandoned this machismo approach and adopted a cynical and manipulative mood in my game with very little athleticism, he would buckle and I could win a point.  Trump's presidency is built on altercation, antagonism, drama, and misdirection, and it is all self serving.  If you strip this superficial but intense emotional energy away, there is not much left.  When musicians practice their craft and art, often they are assessed by the depth of their knowledge and experience.  In Jazz this is a sharp as a razor blade.  When one improvises in a tune it becomes clear immediately who is the beginner, who is the novice, and who is the professional.  This evolution is based on time, study, practice, and experience.  There are those who are fortunate enough to emerge from the womb with these things genetically stored like computer discs.  How else can we justify that Mozart was writing full symphonies as a young child?  How else can we justify that an Indonesian child plays jazz piano like Herbie Hancock or Oscar Peterson?  Some people are blessed with this talent, and it is genetic.  It is in the genes.  Often if you look at successful artists, you will find the fruit does not fall far from the tree.  People are given a leg up.  When an aspiring jazz musician improvises, immediately you will hear the depth of their approach.  One can only go so fast and absorb so much aural musical information, so it is important to begin early.  Those most successful as musicians began life hearing music.  It begins in the womb, because the ears and hearing is not the only sense involved.  Autoacoustic hearing (although modern science has changed the connotation of this word) is hearing that occurs within and through the body via the skin and central nervous system.  When I play Fender bass guitar I position the amp near my buttocks, so I can feel the vibrations on my body.  The best music is penned or performed with the emotions and body involved.  Igor Stravinsky would argue with this premise, but Arnold Schoenberg would support it.  Schoenberg said the more music is distanced from dance, the more it suffers, meaning that movement in the human body is crucial to music.  It would be difficult to find an academic curriculum that embraces this concept.  Perhaps Suzuki and Kodaly are the closest to understanding that  rhythm is innate in the mind and soul, and the earlier and more casual you nurture it the better.  When one strips the Trump presidencies of the rhetoric, spectacle, and drama, there is not much left.  That is because he truly he does care about the American people.  He wants to be loved and revered by the American people, but he does not want to serve them.  That is the job of the President.  He is a public servant.  It is not Donald Trump's responsibility to change the charter of the United States of America and the tenets of the Constitution, especially without the agreement and support of Congress and the American people.  That he has created a new self serving concept for the American President is criminal.  What has Donald Trump done to even suggest he cares about anyone else?  Has he embraced anyone outside of his family and organization?  The answer is no.  Instead he criticizes and attacks everyone.  Instead of paying homage to the rich history of American culture through living and dead icons, a harmful and degrading policy of Cancel Culture is trying to erase it.  The eradication of the knowledge of slavery is the primary goal of this Cancel Culture, but you cannot separate American from these roots.  It was the practice of slavery and its intense implications and ramifications that forged much American culture such as Jazz.  Has Trump ever applauded American culture, popular or serious?  Has he mentioned a film, piece of music, or painter that he admires?  I would equate Donald Trump to a beginner jazz musician.  His solo is remedial, shortsighted, and devoid of devotion and historical perspective.  Who is Donald Trump?   

The Hypocritical Mantra of MAGA

PWC (the Public Works Commission) in Fayetteville, North Carolina, was just allotted twenty million dollars specifically  to remove PFAS from Glenville Lake.  This is part of a "mini budget" passed by the  General Assembly in recent days.  The state legislature punted on the budget, because the previous budget would sustain if a new one was not passed.  Although the EPA severely has been weakened, and DOGE and far right leaning Republicans want no regulation or corporate oversight, the courts eventually speak.  This takes time.  If the Trump family wanted a lineage for their enterprises, suing would be their forte.  Considering the drinking water in Wilmington, NC was the first discovered evidence of forever chemicals in the state's watershed, it is interesting that the state legislature would be so specific about water clean up.  They have found PFAS up the Cape Fear River in Jordan Lake.  This suggests that Chemours is not the only culprit polluting the state's water supply.  Fayetteville has some very specific monikers.  Originally the city's logo was "History, Heroes, and a Home Town Feeling."  Recently Fayettenam was designated the most depressed place in the country.  The water in Cumberland Country after testing was the worst in the state.  Teacher's salaries are low statewide, in the bottom three.  I reckon there is a reason to be depressed.  There are other reasons why the circus has left town.  The Covid outbreak only was part of it, because in light of a deadly pathogen trying to kill you, there are other things.  Traditionally your community is supposed to provide support, not antagonism.  It would be difficult to sidestep that antagonism knowing that the war preparation machine is churning 24/7.  How will that twenty million dollars be spent?  Is their a tried and true method for removing PFAS from water?  Will they purchase and install this equipment in the near future?  To merit such a large grant from Governor Josh Stein, there are reasons.  For the first time since Covid I ventured out to the Cape Fear River Trail to ride my mountain bike hybrid.  It was the first temperate day we have had since the hot humid summer, and the ride was enjoyable.  The level of the  Cape Fear River was strikingly low, and as I passed the sewer plant on its banks it made me think.  No wonder out tap water is putrid.  I acutely remember the time when corporate America decided to bottle tap water and well it as something more.  Bottled water mostly is a scam, but there are some exceptions.  Perhaps other more metropolitan areas are better kept than Fayettenam such as Charlotte, the Triad, or the RTP.  The home of the world's largest military base should aspire to more.  There is some funky history in this town, and it is criminal in nature.  I think it ties to the drug trade because of the I-95 corridor and the military.  Always I have had a virtuous view of the military, because my father instilled that patriotism in me.  His stint as a corporal was only two years playing trumpet in a band in Germany.  Often he said it was the best two years of his life.  Likewise the best two years of my life were playing with a black R&B Hip/Hop band in Columbus, Ohio.  We are a musical family.  The kind of devotion and patriotism once found in America has waned, and I no longer trust the military.  Aside from the abundant poppy crops in Afghanistan, which was one reason why we were there, our most recent perception of the United States military was the television war waged by George Bush Sr. in Kuwait and Iraq.  Saddam Hussein was their target, and the sole reason for the invasion and destroying of Iraq was a lie.  He didn't win reelection.  Other than World War ll when the world was fighting the Nazis, the United States does not have a virtuous history of warfare.  Ronald Reagan and Ollie North did not help the situation, nor did waging a ten year war in Viet Nam.  America's recent military past is smeared with ulterior motive, imperialism, and egotism.  The honorable tenets of serving one's country and its people largely are absent.  In Donald Trump's great plan he has pitted Americans against one another rather than trying to unite a populace.  Petting infighting has become the sole job of most Americans trying to survive.  There is little room for enlightened living.  It is this I face everyday I wake up in Fayettenam.  When I sat down to blog it was not my intent to trash Fayetteville.  We must find more productive things to do, and they must be positive.  Spewing sour grapes only will pull you further into the abyss.  This particular blog entry all ready was penned about the information about cleaning PFAS out of Glenville Lake.  There is more to that issue, and it merited exposure.  To know that interior lakes fed by tributaries of the Cape Fear River contain forever chemicals is tragic.  Your child is swimming in tainted water with PFAS and Canadian duck poop.  That we have allowed these birds to compromise public health in an entire city is irresponsible.  They should be eradicated.  In thinking about the underlying criminal impetus of Fayetteville and the forever unanswered question of whence the drugs come, I made an interesting discovery.  CSX has been on my list of superfund sites, since they implemented AC traction in the early 1990's.  They are not a virtuous company, and consequently they have passed off much of their liability to welcoming Wabtec.  What began as Westinghouse Air Brakes recently has grown into a railroad corporate monopoly buying up most of the industry.  This includes rebuilding traditional DC locomotives to AC specifications and/or converting the traction motors to brushless AC drives controlled by a microprocessor.  Much of this activity occurs in Altoona, Pennsylvania.  They also embraced distributed power or wireless remote control of motive power or split consists in a single train.  I have a study sitting on my desk of the radio capabilities of these large diesel electric freight locomotives.  The arrays are so diverse and so complicated, they could measure the RF energy potentially causing interference to human infrastructure.  GE in particular with their electrical roots uses every imaginable means of wireless communication to control these two and three miles monstrosities.  They disrupt both my on air television reception and FM in my house, not military aircraft.  You would be cast as a dinosaur using such outdated technology, which was a precursor to any of the current microwave energy being used for consumer satisfaction.  As a nation were were better without it.  On air television and AM and FM radio were enough to unite the country a create a mainstream.  The sprawling and unwieldy conglomerate that has emerged with little governmental regulation or understanding has proven itself weak and convoluted, nothing more than a channel for each show.  Electricity, wireless electricity is our economy, and it has failed the people.  It was Bill Clinton who made this happen.  I am no fan of CSX, and singlehandedly they have lessened the quality of lives of Americans.  When looking up a freight schedule for CSX, a private entity with unpublished data, I found FEC, Florida East Coast Railroad.  This Class ll railroad owns and operates the trackage between Miami and Jacksonville, Florida controlling the ports of Miami, Everglades, Palm Beach, and Canaveral.  The Florida East Coast Railroad is owned by Grupo Mexico.  This Mexican conglomerate also owns Texas Pacifico Transportation Limited, a Class III railroad in Texas.  How is it that a Mexican conglomerate own major rail right-of-ways in the two largest states on the Gulf of Mexico, and the states with the most accessible ports?  This is Mexico, the country with which Donald Trump has declared holy war and wants to build a wall to separate them from the United States.  When Mexicans all ready own the transportation systems responsible for moving imported goods within the continental United States, the wheel is all ready greased for easy logistics of foreign products, including drugs.  Is there any federal oversight of Grupo Mexico's rail systems?  I was sure that CSX must own the right of way up and down the east coast, but no.  That vulnerable and venerable corridor from Miami to Jacksonville is owned by Mexicans.  The targeting of average people seeking asylum from persecution in Latin America and labeling them criminals while allowing foreign corporate monopolies to run amuck infringing upon the lives of Americans is quintessential hypocrisy.  This is the rich taking advantage of the poor, the emerging mantra of MAGA.