Segregated Radio Stations

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            The most striking thing about the American South is it has not changed.  The reasons why I left in l991 still upon reflection are exactly the same as reasons I would choose to leave again today.  I may not have been sure two decades ago, because I was emotionally vulnerable.  I suspected as much.  I suspected the American South was a “Good Old Boy” network.  There was “Old Money.”  There was a society bred upon wealthy slave-owning plantation owners.  They patterned their transplanted roots upon Victorian England.  They named their children Muffy and Bif.  Above all there was no defeating them.  They controlled the Old South.  It was old, stuffy, moldy money that had been sitting in a safe and was not going anywhere soon, much like now.  It was not going to be made available to a youthful generation.  A youthful generation was not going to be honored or empowered with the reigns to the kingdom.  Instead these insolent land-owners ate their children like they ate everyone else.  It is beyond me how a generation can become so Goddamned selfish as not to respect their offspring.  Who was going to take over when their blood dried up?  “We won’t worry about that now.  We merely will get all we can, can it, and sit on the can.”  That once conservative philosophy has failed America miserably.  The good news is that idea is not prevalent everywhere.  It is not prevalent in New England, California, or the Midwest.  These places have chosen to be progressive engaging life and future life with zest and money.  They, rather than sit stagnantly on their covered porch admiring their tall trees sipping a lemonade or ice tea, would rather engage life and a new future.  Prospects.  New Money.  I left the American South for these reasons.  There was no foreseeable future.  In fact it was a hard dead end. 

I literally had people saying to me, “Why do you think you are any different?  What makes you so special that you believe you will have anything other than this?”  Sometimes you just have to change the environment.  When it fails you, like Motown, go somewhere else.  I chose Columbus, Ohio.  Some people would laugh.  “Cowtown!” they say.  I had an underlying motive.  Not only could I pursue the D.M.A. degree in composition, Columbus was a capital city of a million and a half people.  There were opportunities. I was right.  Unfortunately I tried to transplant my own Southern sensibilities to Columbus, and they would not have it.  There was a stark different in culture.  While Southerners, because of the climate and geography, could relax and provide some quaint charm and hospitality, Columbus was urban.  There was nothing around it.  What you had happening was life.  There was no room to sit back and enjoy the works of God or nature.  I was amazed out how much more aware and literate the people of Ohio were.  They knew things, and they paid attention to the appropriate things.  There was no society to disguise or control reality.  That crust of manipulation was removed, and boy was it refreshing.  There was no Old Money.  It was New Money, and if you worked hard you could be both appreciated and rewarded with a place in society.  That American South is not like that.  It surprisingly still is segregated.  The perfect example of this segregation and an issue I have been trying to understand is musical segregation.  As a musician myself, a purveyor of both improvised jazz music and written European-based concert music, I don’t consider music to be privy to any particular race or culture.  I do know the history of a lot of music, but I as a human being never saw fit to segregate music.  What’s the point?  When I returned to the American South it has become obvious still it is segregated.  What am I talking about?  I completed all of the coursework necessary for the acquisition of a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Composition at The Ohio State University.  The only reason I did not finish was because the eye disease Kerataconus demanded I have cornea transplants in both eyes.  This took time, and after their healing I needed to make money, not be in school.  Still I retain all of that knowledge and have not given up on being a successful musician again.  It is difficult being surrounded by the Old South, because it has not changed and in my humble opinion never will.  It is not progressive.  It still is stuck in the staid habits that have sustained it all there years.  While there are glimmers of progress, such as our local symphony conductor programming Mahler and Stravinsky, the culture of the South will stay the same.  It is sentimental.  It is sweet.  It is violent.  “Hey ya’ll!”  At one time the traditional Southern Bell could melt me.  I realize today it was not a product of love or admiration or desire.  It purely was sexual.  Those women are both alluring and physically desirable, but I don’t want that.  I don’t want to be controlled by my libido.  I don’t want to desire something so much I lose control of my wits.  I rather would desire it, because I see and understand something that is appealing to me.  I don’t want to be slain by a bimbo.  That is the way women operate in the South.  Know they will take your money, and your house, and your life.  I don’t want to be controlled by traditions and customs that openly don’t accept my independent opinion and appreciate it.  Why would I?  My example is while many years of my life were involved with the study and performance of jazz-oriented music, I can’t listen to the local jazz station here.  I have tried.  Their programming is too off base for me to appreciate.  Am I so unusual having studied the recorded lineage of jazz music not to be able to enjoy their contemporary programming?  I think it is because as a well versed and studied musician, I don’t compartmentalize music.  I understand styles of music and their origins, but for me they just blend together into what is the aesthetic of my life.  That aesthetic, because I have traveled away from the South, I see now is far more diverse than others around me.  This reinforces that notion that the South is sheltered, not progressive, and unwilling to change, grow, and experience new things.  They like their security blanket of country clubs, smooth jazz, and old money.  It highly is oppressive.  Why does the local jazz station not play the known and recognized iconic jazz recordings and artists?  I have asked myself this many times.  I thought once it was because they didn’t have the revenue to pay the royalties on the most important and influential music.  I think still that may be true.  I don’t know if radio stations pay by the track, artist, record label, or style.  I would like to know.  Whence does the royalty come?  What I do know is the program this station offers is sheltered.  It is not progressive.  It is not meant to challenge the listener, the listener’s sensibilities, or societies' acceptable social norms.  It, like modern pop music, instead puts a bandaid on life’s tough spots.  It seeks not to be heard, felt, or understood.  It is the ultimate “Uncle Tom.”  Its only purpose is to say, “Yessah massah, whatever you say.”  I guess it is this principle to which I most object as a composer and musician.  No one in my mind has the right to dictate what or how I perform music.  That is not how it is today.  That freedom has been curtailed, and I am not sure by whom.  Time/Life and Time/Warner must have a hand in it, because they bought the majority of the performance rights to America’s most popular recorded music.  Consequently we don’t hear it anymore.  What gives?  Is that not sheltering, concealing America’s musical past?  The majority of what is played on our local jazz station is not jazz at all.  It is pop.  How am I able to make this distinction?  Because “Once Upon a Time in a Far Away Land,” students were required to study styles of music.  “Once Upon a Time in a Far Away Land,” pop music was not part of the musical curriculum at reputable music school.  That has changed.  “Once Upon a Time in a Far Away Land,” the guitar was not recognized a viable tool for teaching music.  There is a reason for this.  Pop music, while erroneously considered to mean popular, really defines a musical style.  It is a style, unlike traditional jazz or orchestra musics, that does not demand an intellectual comprehension of rhythmic style.  Most jazz oriented music in America in the last decade has reverted to this much less skilled and therefore irrelevant style of music, because it takes very few brain cells to actualize it.  To me it is a horrific disservice to trained and talented musicians.  Alas corporations can design and implement pop music because it consists of no real music in a traditional sense.  Radio stations like ours are not helping the situation by playing this garbage.  That was not my point.  My point was that in addition to playing “Yes Man,” the music is segregated.  It represents only one particular group of people, and that is disheartening.”  I guess you don’t notice it if you only have experienced the American South.  The segregation exists elsewhere.  The station to which I turn for musical diversion while of quality, adheres to the same aesthetic.  It does not ever play music that is challenging to the emotions.  It like many sheltered places does not even recognize the Second Viennese School.  Did anyone know there was a Second Viennese School?  Who was the first?  It was Beethoven, Hayden, and Mozart.  Alas there have been many more decades of music making since the High Classic period.  Our local classical station abstains from playing any contemporary music.  Rarely will you ever hear Schoenberg, Berg, or Webern.  Rarely will you hear Charles Ives, one of America’s greatest composers.  Why is this?  It is because one must grow intellectually and emotionally to understand and appreciate this music.  Why can’t a radio station be responsible for this awakening?  Is it because they also are playing “Uncle Tom?”  I guess so. 

Carpel Tunnel and Railroad Demons

 

            Each and every day I wake I am confronted by demons.  As I rise from bed they swirl around me like blind bats. The difference is their intent is purposeful and strong.  They seek to keep peaceful serene joy away.  Oddly as I reflect it not only is when I wake that I begin to be confronted by these demons.  I also am tormented by them every night when sleeping robbing me of the essential rest I need to be able to confront them when I wake up.  Why must I hit the ground running like war?  I am not in a war, but I am at war.  Is this the way life is now?  There is no peaceful serene joy left?  Is this what God provides with the proper amount of organized religion?  Is this why in the midst of evil, treachery, and deceit bible compounds continue to flourish raging a covert pacifist war against the ensuing urban sprawl?  I have learned over the years to be a realist.  It is more healthy than burying your head in the sand and singing the praises of Jesus.  When you walk out of the church you will be confronted with the same evil that was there before you walked in.  It is like being at Guantanamo.  Torture.  The most prudent method of extracting the truth from a suspected terrorist is to rob them of sleep yielding them incapable of coherent lucid thought.  It is a common.  If Republicans were smart enough to get former president George W. Bush elected with the state of Florida, they are smart enough to know how to control the population.  Why does it seem to be being practiced upon me?  I do understand Jesus, God’s only Son sent to earth in human form to spread the Christian faith, was persecuted.  I am not Jesus.  Why do I feel like am being persecuted?  Is it because I am a realist, and I understand what is occurring around me?  Jesus’ teachings were met with cynicism and disdain by the evil.  It took time to convince doubters of His goodness.  The evil never changed.  The wily, like wealthy Republicans of the past, strongly will assert you are the demons.  Any time I begin to talk about AC Traction the mighty railroads rear their powerful heads and assert, “Never could there be problems with our technology!  After all it never has been studied or tested by the Federal Railroad Administration or the Department of Transportation!  After all Siemens, General Electric, and General Motors all produce this ground breaking technology with no oversight!  After all American could not survive without the great rail system!  Never could there be problems with our wonderful American constructs of society! We are the world’s oyster! America could not function without the moving of freight.”  My demons I believe are being created by this technology.  It is difficult to pinpoint the source since there are multiple source options.  Unlike my friends that lived on Rogers Drive directly underneath the radio transmission towers that are dead from cancers, I never questioned the source of my Kerataconus.  An absolutely new case of Carpel Tunnel Syndrome in my hands has me confronting the physiological manifestations of these demons.  Since the onset of pollen season in the American south, my torture has been more direct.  Pollen deposits on hard contact lenses cause excruciating pain.  Infrasound easily passes through most walls not reinforced with steel and concrete.  The predominance of micro-dust pollution in our air is produced by diesel engines.  A combination of diesel micro-dust and pollen being projected by an infrasound wave through the walls of a house or business into your eyes is disturbing.  It also is painful and time consuming to remedy.  The tinnitus that accompanies an infrasound wave is disturbing.  Most disturbing is the heat that accompanies the dust and pollen.  It largely is responsible for global warming. 

Again I hear the faint voices of the airlines, wireless telecommunication companies, the railroads, and the cruise lines begin to murmur, “How could our multi-million dollar example-setting corporations serving Americans be of any harm?”  It’s called burying your head under the sand.  It is called not being a realist.  Is ignoring simple facts and pretending to worship God under the ruse of organized religion enough to stop the deterioration of the earth caused by this technology?  The answer is no.  I see no end in sight.  I see no American Renaissance.  I see no future at all.  American has run the course and now is subject to the same consequences of each and other emerging nation.  America’s focus on education, teaching, and artistry has been usurped by shallow greedy toy manufacturers elusively who raised the bar of their products to include the mainstream markets.  We have developed into a generation of toy users who have lost the ability to function as human beings, learn a trade, develop a skill, or sustain America’s work force.  It is not our fault.  That fault lies with Capitalism’s provider of money and our government.  Without either it is extremely likely humanity would return with a vengeance.    

Corporate America's End of the World

 

            If only I had a com, a radio, some way to communicate with my personal Beechcraft Super King Air 350ER.  Somehow we lost communications, although its reconnaissance is steadfast.  If only I could reestablish communications with my personal Department of Homeland Security Multi-Role Enforcement Aircraft.   Maybe I could supply a relevant directive.  Somehow the flight crew of four, two pilots and two sensor operators, have become confused.  To exacerbate the loss of communication a mirror

Super King 350 has imparted a search and rescue.  They may be trying to communicate “Top Gun” style.  They fly in repeating circles intersecting closely within visual range.  I wonder if they flip each other off.  I feel their lost directive has instigated a much more dramatic overtone to their mission.  Because underneath them lies Fort Bragg, the home of the United States Army Airborne Forces, Special Forces, Army Forces Command, and Army Forces Reserve Command are they afraid?  With such massive capability on the ground and in the air, why would the DHS mistakenly embark on reconnaissance here?  It is plausible that the crew of the two planes have gone rogue and entered a contract with local law enforcement.  Although Commander in Chief Obama has raised their salaries dramatically in response to recent loss of life in Iraq and Afghanistan, still dollars can be made on the black market.  Remember Viet Nam?  It makes military life a little more fun.  I cursed my lost planes last week and they relocated.  This week again they returned to their original flight path.  At first with no leadership or mission they intently were interested in my chopping of trees with an axe.  Admittedly old fashioned swinging of an axe into dead wood can be antagonistic, especially when your muscular force usurps that  both of the military and the Strategic Rail Corridor.  They respond almost immediately when I fell a tree.  I wonder how my tax dollars can be better spent.  “I must reestablish communication with my charges!”  When I ride my finely-tuned, hidden, secret weapon in those prepared woods is the only time I feel release from the brazen, brawny, and overt military-industrial influence.  Only then am I able to circumnavigate their waves.  When I try to smoke a cigarette outside, my smoke moves parallel to the ground like paratroopers deployed in Viet Nam.  Stealthy it reciprocates one direction to the other 90 degrees perpendicular to what traditionally happens via Mr. Newton’s principal of universal gravitation.  “I can’t French inhale!”  Somehow Mr. Honda discovered the secret to military defeat decades ago.  It is called physical pleasure.  Who knew the purr of a expertly designed and manufactured four stroke engine could ignite the G spot of a nation.  Only if they knew.  Instead like most of the uneducated and misguided military, they resort to the lowest common denominator yet the most prevalent and available.  It is the “Harley Hog”, and a hog it is like our military.  It is large.  It makes an incredible roar.  It is a status symbol.  Isn’t that the Republican definition of our military? 

How is it the force that was designed for and to protect the tax payer has become its own unwatched independent entity not unlike its brother the Department of Homeland Security?  Like so many other American policies and directives, they become cloaked in secrecy when peoples’ attention is focused on their latest iPhone app.  No one cares about the law, government, and policies.  They just whine when their lives are not improving.  It is conceivable, because news reporting has spun American infrastructure into a depressing, violent, and negative affair.  It is difficult to read the news at all.  It is much more prudent to the New World Order for the masses to be uneducated and simply tune out.  This policy of abandonment began with Generation X, and it is unconscionable.  Universal greed quite possibly has implemented the beginning of the end of the world.  With no invested force to continue the management of the affairs of the planet, there is no other choice that it will fail.  This short-sightedness should teach a lesson to this stingy self-serving contingency.  It won’t.  They all will be dead.   The meek will not inherit this earth, because God all ready has begun preparation of our new planet.  That could explain His marked absence in the recent past.  Forging a new world is a tall order.  What about us?  The tentacles of that fiercely-guarded money are long, tenacious, and stubborn.  Extricating the deserved youthful generation will be difficult.  It will not happen without a fight.   As in literature the examples all ready have been set.  “V” did it in England.  Is this stubborn thirst for money more powerful than our own survival?  Are these people so shallow, irreverent, and evil they will take the planet down dying with their hidden money?  Not only have they extracted their money from our economy stymieing mobility, they have inflicted severe physical and mental austerity upon us resultant from the technology empowering their wealth.  Shrewdly this technology is invisible, but it is not undetectable.  When you control the government you can change the rules.  The Federal Communications Commission formerly would not license certain frequencies of the microwave spectrum, because they were considered physiologically dangerous to the human race.  Electro-magnetic waves, a duality of electricity and magnetism, conclusively has been proven by federal studies to cause cancerous tumors.  The heat and vibration inherent in the energy cause cells to mutate forming cancer cells.  Unfortunately electro-magnetic waves for communication are not the only culprits.  The United States military makes great use of this energy, and it is crucial to their infrastructure.  Unwatched they continue to ignore the physiological ramifications of their technology upon human beings.  How can the military continue to kill human beings in the name of protecting them?  Low frequency electro-magnetic waves are the most invasive and were studied with the unveiling of the military’s “Ground Wave Emergency Network” (G.W.E.N.) communications system.  They need ways to generate and transmit low frequency radio waves to penetrate the polar ice caps staying in contact with the United States’ nuclear submarines.  Because the length of the antenna logistically nearly is impossible, the United States military decided to cloak creation of this energy behind a favorable initiative.  The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program was born.  Neatly tucked away in America’s northern-most state, H.A.A.R.P.’s directive is to study ionospheric physics and radio science.  Who knew production of low frequency radio waves would become the focus?  Everywhere we look slowly this technology has infiltrated our infrastructure.  Sadly corporate America continues to shout from its soap box that the world will end if their products are not utilized.  Who could know it is their products that would create the end of the world? 

eBay Vintage Skateboard Gouging

For all of those who are seeing fit to list vintage skateboard items on eBay at ludicrious
prices, "But It Now, or Best Offer," please stop.  No collector or skateboard aficionado ever
will purchase your trumped up product.  You only are debasing the real art of skateboard collecting.
There is a small group who are imprudent enough to think that listing vintage skateboard gear
somehow will see fit to ascribe a value to it that simply is insane.  Please stop.  You only are harming
the once fun and diversionary sport of collecting memorabilia that somehow connects you with
a nostalgic and pleasing past.  Not any more.  If I see another board, set of trucks or wheels, or
anything listed at a ridiculous price it just makes me want to find you and.... well you know.  It's the same
with music.  What once was a reputable, artistic, and respected art form now has been debased to
nothing.  Drive integrity into the ground.  Yes, satan all ready is here once again on earth, and we just
are waiting for God to make His second appearance.  Anytime.  I have had my fill of the bullshit.  Once
collecting, assembling, and photographing vintage skateboards was fun.  Now it is a mockery.  Please
you assholes, take your trumped up shit off eBay and take a powder.  We know the value, and it is NOT
what you decide.  Your auctions are a joke, so please stop humiliating yourselves.  I have seen the same set
of non-vintage, fake, not valuable trucks for going on two years.  Please take them off eBay and rather
try sticking up your @#$%.  They would find your self ascribed value there.  Thank you.  Sincerely, Jay
Adams, Tony Alva, Stacy Peralta, Lance Mountain, Tony Hawk, Steve Caballero, Tommy Guerro, and Moi.
Jesus, please save us from this insult.

Beleaguered Education

 

When I look backward at my life, there is one thing I know for sure. 

When I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

In l985, beginning teacher’s salary was too low to lure me into such a demanding vocation.  Although both of my parents were teachers, my instincts told me taking such a low level job would be pointless.  It was beneath me.  Not only would I not make enough money to have a family, I barely would have anything upon which to live myself.  Is this why I spent four long years at a reputable university, to emerge into a job market in North Carolina that was  sub standard?  I have been able to reflect more recently about the state of North Carolina having returned for a short while.  The one thing I know for sure is, it is an embarrassment to live in such a backward state.  North Carolina under the helm of former governor Jim Hunt was a much different place.  I was afraid to ride my mini bike on the street, drive drunk for fear of a two day pass to jail, or commit a crime in general.  In the l980’s North Carolina was conservative.  Now every where I turn there is another unlicensed motor scooter, a car or truck with illegal window tinting, or blatant drag racing.  Teachers’ salaries, just as in l985, are in the top five LOWEST of all fifty states.  Ironically North Carolina state income taxes are in the top five highest of all fifty states.  Like a dinosaur the both expensive and cumbersome vehicle state inspection has lumbered on draining the taxpayers' pockets yet filling what seem to be the empty coffers of the North Carolina state government.  At least the new governor is trying to change this.

What I know for sure and have remembered clearly is North Carolina attempts to take your money.  If you don’t sign your car registration, there is a fine.  If you car’s stop engine light won’t go off so your vehicle will not pass the outdated state inspection, you had to spend at least five hundred dollars trying to get it fixed before the state will give you a waiver.  I know one thing for sure.  It is embarrassing to live in this state.  The realm of crimes being committed here would challenge any ghetto neighborhood in Watts, the Bronx, or Harlem, and the state governmental infrastructure, like our federal Congress can’t seem to solve any of the problems.  What do they do?  They spend our money.  What does President Obama do?  He and Joe Biden spend our money.  Instead of trying to create capital supporting small businesses, investing in manufacturing, and encouraging entrepreneurial thinking, government simply spends our well-earned tax money.  They spend, and spend, and spend.   Maybe it was Ronald Reagan that stopped this government spending.  One thing I know for sure is during his Trickle-Down Economics life was better.  Things were expensive, but our quality of life was high. 

Now our quality of life is a joke.  Food manufacturers, instead of trying to sell us nutritious wholesome food, have instigated a plan of deception to skim pennies off of the top of their sales.  Now you can’t buy a regular sized can of pork and beans.  You must buy the BIG one that costs three times as much.  Containers deceptively are smaller as are our ABC store liquor bottles.  You don’t get as much, and it costs more.  That the government gets HALF of what we pay for alcohol, tobacco, and firearms emphatically says, “We have no way of creating jobs, educating students, or building this country into a superpower again.”  “It says we are broke, we will still spend the money we do not have, and we will continue to do so until someone says no.”  Does that mean for our lawmakers to become competent once again there must be a revolution?  It has happened before and in many countries.  Should it happen here?  There appears to be no real alternative.  It is dismal, and embarrassing to turn on the news in North Carolina.  After having lived in George Voinovich’s state for comparison, it is like venturing to the Adirondacks.  The Hatfields and McCoys are feudin’ it out everyday.  Is to this what North Carolina has sunk?  To add insult to injury, my chosen profession of teaching has become the butt of George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind.”  All I ever have heard from colleagues about this beleaguered legislation is that it emphatically stymies effective teaching.  Now a process is in place, a plantation owner, a Hitler, or a Mussolini that demands you produce test scores.  How did Communism make it into our public education system?  This legislation must be repealed for teaching to begin again.  I look at academia, a dissertation and exam away from a doctorate degree in music, and my stomach turns.  They are saying, like North Carolina, schools would rather hire beginner or novice teachers that will work for less money.  Who needs the pinnacle degree representing wisdom beyond your years?  Who needs someone that smart?  Instead let’s begin to scorn and ostracize the academic elite.  I look back at the prospect of completing that degree and see hardship, heartache, and disappointment.  Why bother?  No one cares about education anymore.  Once it was a respected profession.  Like all of the baby boomer jobs, that generation is taken care of.  They were the last.  America abandoned Generation X, and they abandoned me.  Thinking of starting a publishing company only has me thinking of how I am going to pay Uncle Sam.  That’s what we do in America anymore. 

Obama's Droning Drones and the Schutzstaffel

            The question is, “What kind of training do ‘federal agents’ receive?”  We as an American people seem to know little about the Department of Homeland Security other than they and their partners are requiring 1.8 billion hollow point .40 bullets over the next four to five years.  With the traditional American military, it is transparent with a tried and true protocol for training.  We as a populace have been exposed to this entity, as it has been a core part of our existence since the birth of this country.  With each successive war usually it has been very clear the role of the military in our national defense.  Desert Storm was well covered by the television media.  The Iraq war less so, because it became dangerous for journalists.  Prudent, dedicated, and honest reporters found ways to present the truth to the American public.  That has changed dramatically with the “sprawl” of media driven both by cable television and the internet.  The boundaries have become blurred between entertainment and news.  It is not dissimilar to “Big Brother” in Orwell’s novel l984.  The goal was this blurring of boundaries between the truth and governmental propaganda.  It seems this may have come to fruition in the U.S.  It has been widely reported by former reputable news anchors that lies intentionally are being spread by dishonest, self-serving, potentially harmful politicians desperate for their government subsidized paychecks.  The expansion of a relatively new government-employed civilian-staffed “para-military” cannot help but be met with question.  Because George W. Bush created this agency in light of the 9/11 attacks at a time of impending war, its constitution seems to be shrouded in secrecy.  Similarly to our military, the CIA and FBI while often performing covert actions, at least are watch dogged by the public and our representative elected officials.  It seems the Department of Homeland Security is another entity all together.  With such a political dynamic of unbridled intelligence gathering by President Obama’s drone program (of which we know little), it has become to appear that America has an additional force responsible for the existence, location, and eradicating of terror movement before they become volatile.  Who is overseeing this movement?  Which wing of our military is operating the drones?  What administrative body is performing the appropriate checks and balances in compliance with the Geneva Convention?  With Rand Paul’s recent lengthy filibuster, it seems President Obama himself has blurred the boundaries of due process and would rather murder suspects covertly with little to no accountability to the American people.  With such a large bullet purchase for the DHS creating a huge shortage of ammunition for American citizens, one cannot help but see a pattern beginning to unfold.  It probably is true this depletion of rounds also was created by the hoarding of ammunition by people feeling an ensuing jeopardizing of their Second Ammendment rights.  There are many ways to look at it that have been verbalized.  My personal sentiment is we do not want in America a secretive, well-armed, para-military force empowered with the task of implementing our President’s covert agenda.  Forces of these types traditionally in history and more specifically in Hitler's Nazi controlled Germany were called the S.S. or Schutzstaffel  Resemblances to this Nazism are not prone to advance the popularity of a sitting second term American president who now could be attempting to implement the original intentions of his sponsors.  Likewise questionable legislation and cabinet picks are not helping the situation.  I voted for President Obama and patiently am waiting for the appearance of an affordable health care plan for me and others around me that cannot afford it.  In light of a particular’s state rejection of 2 billions dollars of federal aid for Medicaid expansion to the poor, I am beginning to feel more and more like a surf rather than a middle-classed American.  This is not a good feeling, and the creation of a private para-military force for the President along with the all ready burgeoning Ft. Bragg Regional Alliance and its directives for Base Realignment and Closure have life where I live resembling a police state.  Some reassurance for my personal security would be appreciated, because the sound of that turbo-charged four cylinder drone engine flying continuously over my house is annoying. 

Manmade Governmental Violence

 

            It truly is a complicated America in which we live.  There is no question there is violence around us.  In particular dwelling in a military community is a very different experience than say living in a college town.  When first experiencing a college town it is quite the surprise.  Small cafes, nightclubs, and shops are prevalent catering to the students.  There is art, intellect, and camaraderie.  Traditionally in decades past there was a similar brotherhood amongst service men and women.  American government used patriotism to create this mainstream.  Despite the inescapable responsibilities of impending war, military personal shared a hearty kinship.  Today American government pays soldiers more money to justify their premature deaths in the Middle East.  It is a different animal.  The dynamic of living in a military community drastically has changed as has America.  The mainstream has been lost, and as in real life many of the tenants of culture have been replaced with sheer denial.  Why has this occurred?  If one peruses the American landscape things have changed.  We no longer are a holistic, natural, spiritual country.  Instead we have been turned away from the very elements that attracted immigrants to America in the first place.  Conspicuously our industrial base has shrunk, our factories have closed or moved, and again with the emergence of skyscrapers in Manhattan we as Americans are looking up to see who is controlling the purse strings.  Who are these people?  Before that question should be answered it is more important to examine social issues that affect the American people.  We have heard enough about Wall Street, Washington, and the Middle East.  How about what’s happening with Americans?  Firstly why are mass shooting increasing?  There must be a concrete reason why citizens are committing mass murder.  What could be the stimulus motivating young people to arm themselves as commandoes and blindly murder dozens of innocent school children?  Could it be President Obama’s newly expanded and reinforced Paramilitary?  We all ready have seen the negative repercussions of hiring private security firms to try to implement policies overseas.  Blackwater among others have proven they like European governments do not possess the ethical or moral qualifications necessary to implement a Christian or Islamic doctrine.  Relying upon a relatively new, covert, and inexperienced nonmilitary body to fight terrorism is a stretch.  With military spending solely having created America’s trillion dollars plus deficit, why is the President expanding this particular agency?  We all ready have the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation both laden with acts of inappropriate sexual misconduct.  Is the President attempting to sidestep the nation’s tradition governmental infrastructure and implement his own personal agenda unbeknownst to the American people.  With his forthright unwillingness to divulge more pertinent information on his drone policy, it is becoming clear that something is happening with the President that must be discovered.  While the elimination of Osama Bin Laden was monumental as was the downfall of Moammar Gadhafi’s political regime, wartime executive powers cannot and should not define the role of America’s president.  He like everyone else on this planet must adhere to and abide by the same set of rules for man.  Muslim extremists also wanted to sidestep this human responsibility choosing to rape, murder, and pillage women rather than learning to deal with them as people.  Was it easier to wait for virgins in heaven than to do what every other man on earth must do?  These shortcuts are a sign of the weak, because it means one is not willing to take the time to deal with humanity.  There can be no shortcuts spiritually, politically, or economically.  President Obama must operate in the traditional construct of the American Presidency and not abuse war time granted executive powers.  All ready we have seen the most destructive and unconstitutional legislation created in America’s history degrade the fundamental and founding principals of the American Republic.  Daily and with complete deliberation  government and its protective wing of media continue to do this.  Rarely do you hear President Obama speak of past presidents and their policies showing his knowledge of the history of America.  How can one aspire to be a truly great president with no evident role models?  The term anti-trust jumps to mind.  With the systematic rebuilding of America’s dangerous trusts, loopholes have been created that severely undermine the American economy.  If the most powerful and affluent corporations in America earning a majority of their revenue via American commerce, how is it that income is immune from the American income tax?  How can poor Americans inexplicably be expected to pay down a national debt so large it usurps the GDP of many nations?  It is absurd, and the idea that General Electric is exempt from its responsibility to subsidize the American government visibly and with oversight is an atrocity.   We already know the covert money, the money that is off the table and out of sight of the American people is what is driving policy.  It always has.  These things we know.  What we don’t know is why innocent people are being murdered.  Sigmund Freud if he were alive could be of service.  Yes, we are getting the shaft but not just economically.  Our environment, once an inviting and nurturing place for human existence and growth has become polluted with the tenants of war.  As living in a military town with little to no patriotic sentiment, the construction and implementation of violence can be overwhelming.  When one is exposed to on a daily basis the tenants of war, how is one not to realize these mechanisms easily could turn against us?  With one evil dictator and a subversive, unproductive, and recalcitrant Congress it is plausible to the American people we should be worried.  After all the idea of a drone raining down on you incomprehensibly at a street corner in mainstream America is of concern.  It should be.  I listen to a drone above my head daily that I wonder what its mission is.  Is it to protect?  Is it to serve?  How are we to know when our President will not be forthcoming with his covert terror-fighting force.  If these policies are going to seep to American soil we as a populace have the right to understand new procedures.  For those with rational minds still the job of remaining optimistic is daunting.  With the recent passing of 2012, still we are not sure of the lineage of events outlined in the Book of Revelations.  How many of the foreshadowing occurrences have passed?  Keeping the American people in good spirits is in no way the intent of our current federal government.  They have not proven it.  We must assume the American people have been put out to pasture to feast on unhealthy fast food.  We are not literate enough.  We are not savvy enough to understand.  We do not care.  When mass shootings continue to emerge, a look must be taken into their causes.  Being at war does not set a good example for young people.  Warmongering is a trite, cheap, and ineffective long term investment in the world’s economy.  Art would be a better choice.  The heating of our planet with invisible electromagnetic waves of all frequencies is not prudent.  In addition they have been proven unequivocally to cause cancer in the human body.  Still mass wireless telecommunications become a major component of our economy.  When people resort to violence, usually it is an act of impatience.  One has been taxed to the limit, and they decide the current state of affairs is not worth tolerating.  They would rather die, and for some reason decide to take others with them.  If we want the violence to stop, then policy changes in our governmental system need to occur.  A whole new philosophy of existence must be entertained, contemplated, and implemented.  Maybe it is by God only this process is possible.  Let’s hope the puny existence of man will endure a few more years. 

A Well-Armed Militia, not a Well-Armed Department of Homeland Security

 

            Relatively new in existence, the United States’ Department of Homeland Security recently made news by purchasing 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition.  With the recent shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut it seems consumer level gun advocacy has increased along with its brother, the federal government.  It is a complicated issue.  The gun violence has spread and now includes malls, movie theaters, and schools.  It in the wake of dying elementary school children it must be addressed, and it seems logical a ban on large clipped semi-automatic rifles is appropriate.  While the gunmen carry a compliment of artillery including pistols with multiple clips, the ease of destruction provided by an assault rifle seems to facilitate the act of mass murder.  This gruesomely and graphically was depicted by innocent school children found laden with bullets.  It was appropriate our President Obama recommended some call to action.  The NRA, one of the largest lobbying institutions in our history, responded as did the American public.  Feverishly it seems many Americans began to buy more guns and ammunition in response to what could become an encroachment upon America’s second amendment rights to bear arms.  The kicker is, the DHS’s purchasing of that many bullets cleverly has stoked a conspiracy theory that is credible.  Very much like each and every other “bubble” that has been created, this action is being prosperous for a select few.  Who’s to say Smith and Wesson’s stockowners do not deserve the 40% increase in sales, but who are they?  Who’s to say whether the troubled teenager that committed the murder  was being coerced by a larger party?  Isn’t it plausible citizens exhibiting mental instability could be manipulated by the properly trained institutions?  Isn’t this what terrorist networks have proven to do?  They bring foreigners onto the United States’ native soul and train them with our own educational systems thus manipulating our own infrastructure.  It is possible cults historically driven by mental illness created the mold.  While entertaining this possibility is secondary to the issue at hand, it is important.  More importantly is how Capitalism plays into this scenario.  Who is profiting from this violence?  The United States traditionally herself has profited from war, but is this how we want to continue fertilizing our economy?  Warmongering is not a reputable activity nor is it inspiring artistically, spiritually, or socially.  What is inspiring and fueling to our ailing economy are grassroots programs to return America to a likeness of her former self.  It seems we as a populace driven by what has become a corrupt media and telecommunications industry, have lost sight of our own history.  With the exception of certain notable television networks such as the History Channel, The Learning Channel, and The Discovery Channel the rest of media like Hollywood has turned into a metro-sexual, pop, group masturbation.  The intent is to disguise and then destroy our ability to distinguish gender and make responsible decisions based upon logic, wisdom, and self-preservation.  The dramatic intentional decline in support of our public education systems seems to have reduced our young people’s ability to find a traditional quality American education.  Even schooling by rote driven by the act of trial and error has been circumvented as traditional social systems of interacting in person have been replaced by gaming devices and social media.  We are building a non-work force of weak, emotionally stunted, spineless androids.  With no new jobs on the front, what’s the difference?  We have digressed so miserably from America’s former greatness who cares?  Do we even want to take a stand?  Along with this mis-education an infringement of our Second Amendment’s rights to establish a well armed militia is disconcerting.  Not only are we not educating our young people, we are priming them to be submissive, passive, compliant citizens.  This is alarming.  With its recent purchase of 1.6 billion bullets, in addition to gun manufacturers becoming more prosperous, the availability of ammunition for OUR well-armed militia, our last line of defense against invaders, has become compromised.  In an ironic twist some cities are having trouble providing proper

ammunition for their local police forces.  It seems no one wins, except for our federal government.  It seems some clarification is in order.  Why was such a massive purchase necessary at this time instead of more moderate pro-rated purchases?  Isn’t it necessary to ensure the rights of America’s citizens?  We are after all the people for whom the federal government should serve, although many of our Washington lawmakers have forgotten this.  It seems history is repeating itself, but who is teaching this?  The once powerful trusts that controlled industry also controlled the government.  Sound familiar?  In a very deliberate but incognito program the path of America has been chosen and implemented.

Before this well known but misunderstood group of affluent individuals is mentioned, it is relatively clear with recent events Americans' toes are being stepped upon with what seems to be a growing Communistic movement.  I do not mean Socialistic, as I for one as a citizen of the United States favor the quintessential nature of Socialism over Capitalism.  It simply is a publicly owned “Means of Production” rather than a privately owned one employing a public work force.  It has been well documented in many other countries man is not ethical or moral enough to uphold the principals of Socialism.  It failed and developed into Communism.   This trend of government spending both for our military and now for arming of civilian government employees including agents of our Social Security system (with its existence threatened regularly) seems questionable.  Who is the priority?  Is our right to a well-armed militia, the right of citizens to be able to obtain and purchase suitable firearms and ammunition, usurped by the need of the Department of Homeland Security to train its agents?  I think not. 

The Tax Man

It has been a long time since I have attempted a blog entry.  After spending six months of my life mostly in Europe working on the Mariner of the Seas, it was difficult enough just

to get basic things accomplished much less finding the time to formulate an opinion based upon a set of Europeans views.  I do know that the value of the American dollar was paltry when in combat with the Euro.  In a kindred occurrence the European Union proved itself to be more of a hindrance to a better quality of life.  The creation of the Euro in retrospect largely was responsible for much of the economic instability that emerged.  Proponents rallied a preservation of their native currencies would have been a wiser choice.  Governments make mistakes and that currently is glaringly obvious in the United States.  I can’t remember a time when our set of elected officials seems to be more incapable, unwilling, and self-serving.  After four years of hints of immigration reform, out of the blue at the beginning of President Obama’s second elected term comes the news that legislation now actually will be proposed.  In light of the recent school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut, it seems the now expired ban on assault weapons would be a more prudent priority.  Instead Republicans decided they could just not lose the Latino vote in 2016.  Hillary may prove to be too viable as a democratic candidate.  It is almost sickening to see our government in action today.

As with the steady purposeful decline in public education, so too have the skills and intellect of our elected lawmakers become dull and vague escaping to a comfy place of money laundering for the recent American economic meltdown.  Our politicians with their Wall Street sponsors are so deeply in bed with each other, it seems America’s money never will be found.  General Electric, probably the world’s most powerful corporation, continues to laugh in the face of the American public paying nothing in income taxes.  How is this possible?  Instead this year with almost exactly the same amount of income as 2010, I am getting back half as much money.  What the @#$%?  Were Bush’s expiring tax cuts responsible for the federal government picking my low earning income pocket?  The only logical solution for re-infusing the economy is to find America’s money and begin to re-circulate it.  That means G.E. and the rich will have to accept their responsibility of subsidizing our government.  That responsibility certainly cannot continue to be placed upon the working poor and middle class.  It seems our recognized and documented process of government has sprouted almost as many malignant tumors as citizens dying from cancerous cell mutation from electro-magnetic radiation.  We are just @#$%ed up.  Plain and simply being at war in three different foreign countries is what broke our bank.  Still the Dick Cheney’s of the world through their Halliburtons continue to to suggest America’s economy is stronger while we are at war.  “Bomb them and we will fix it, for a price.”  This strategy has proven to be an utter failure as publicly known George Bush was not able to get Iraq’s valuable crude oil.  We don’t really know to this day if that is the case.  We got the hell out of dodge and as Rupert Murdoch’s monopoly on media directed, they swept it under the rug.  With the falling of the Wall Street Journal into his hands, the last chapter in America’s honest, viable, news reporting draws to a close.  It’s all spin.  I cannot even read any of the web’s popular news sites anymore.  It’s all about gaming and selling advertising and iPhones to America’s adolescents.  Is seems a parallel has occurred between the fall of our government and the agencies that are supposed to canvass them.  Again we are @#$%ed.  Americans just tool away, but I’m not sure anyone really is happy, except the rich.  They have our money and are enjoying a pina colada on the beach in Grand Caymen.  It would seem the recent release of Les Mis more readily could be applied to an imminent social change in America.  Indeed television certainly is enjoying a grassroots Renaissance exposing the more viable and down to earth trade practices of a more viable America.  Can it actually be that, “Jobs are coming back from Asia?”  With the death of entrepreneur Steve Jobs Apple once again is unguided.  That large slave camp in China where people kill themselves trying to escape has become too large a carbuncle on Apple’s face.  The news was announced that manufacturing was returning to the U.S.  Maybe it has something to do with the state of China’s air and their overpopulation.  Did I mention they are Communist?  None of it makes any sense.  While I was a supporter of Bill Clinton, most people don’t know that his major campaign intent was to allow every citizen of the United States to purchase and own their own home.  While I bit on this bait, and I feel it seemed wise and prudent, that intent became the beginning of the housing bubble and our economy’s subsequent meltdown.  That is when the shrewd occupants of Wall Street decided to make that intent a reality.  They began offering mortgages to everyone whether their credit scores were approved or not.  The real estate industry immediately almost overnight raised prices on homes to an almost uncanny level.  I watched this happen in Columbus Ohio.  The new homes that were being built were of poor quality materials, but the bubble was on!  The pooling of those sub-prime mortgages creating hedge funds sealed our economy’s fate many years later.  While Bill Clinton did construct the Dayton Accords all but solving the Bosnian Conflict, this good intention grossly was misshapen by the likes of Bernie Madoff and his Wall Street chronies.  None of this economic activity effects me except that for some reason I only am getting back HALF of the tax refund I received two years ago with the same income.  I guess they were right when they said it really will get you in the pocketbook.  I can’t help but think that what seems like a low flying reconnaissance drone above our neighborhood has something to do with it. 

The Political Usage of Prostitution

         A recent news story that has broken concerning potential illicit behavior by some members of the Secret Service accompanying President Obama to the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Columbia is a prime example of the corrupt nature of modern day news reporting.  Historically the employment of prostitutes by politicians often has meant the destruction of careers, marriages, and lives.  It seems we the people or rather our news agencies find this aged practice questionable.  The ever-reaching far right contingency in America utilizes often hypocritical, unchristian, and unconstitutional dogma do promote their own acquisition of wealth.  If a few

politicians, televangelists, or Secret Service members fall in the process so be it.  For decades the media has built celebrities and then brought them down for entertainment purposes.  It is unethical.  While under the ever watchful eye of the paparazzi, it is inevitable oppressed actors, musicians, and the youthful rich will make mistakes in public.  Simply it is because they have very little privacy in which to grow by making mistakes.  They are made in the public forum, and that is the very concept of many television news programs.  The humor in this emerging story is that

what is being reported is misunderstood.  The far right’s use of a staunch, oppressive, Fire and Brimstone type of attitude may create entertaining news, but it also can destroy lives.  Prostitution is one of the world’s oldest professions.  In many countries all over the world it is accepted and even legal.  It is not in America.  Instead our hypocritical capitalist socio-economic system deprives Americans of what they deserve and sells it to them.  Why not sell sex?  Once we used to receive clean, pure, tasty drinking water for free.  We had cleaner air to breath.  We had less noise.  Slowly republicans have been taking away our land, our rights, and our happiness in return for their own monetary gain.  Seen in its proper perspective, prostitution is a humane anodyne.  For those who cannot afford to purchase a trophy wife and cannot navigate America’s decrepit social network, there is an alternative.  The far right do not recognize it because that revenue will not be in their pocket.  Once long ago the economy in America was driven by small business.  Money flowed between Americans in a successful economic system that was not reliant upon large drug cartels, a corrupt medical profession, and interceding insurance companies.  Also the reliance upon the automobile was not the core of the American economy.  Once the arts were a major generator of revenue as the entertainment industry flourished.  Sean Parker and Steve Jobs ended that with the invention and use of the Napster software.  Today we are expected to subsidize the rich.  That is what we do.  We do not create.  We do not intermingle.  We do not actualize our own personal happiness.  We pay the debt for living in our own country.  America is not the same.  With this great system of Capitalism, one still cannot go to the mall and buy a girlfriend or a wife.  Instead we are sold remedies to treat symptoms of our unhappiness.  We can go to a strip club and waste our money on sexual frustration.  We can download pornography and self gratify.  We cannot go to the source of our loneliness, our physical needs, or our emotional longing and have them satisfied even temporarily.  Then we would not buy.  Music no longer satisfies these same needs as it once attempted.  Now it has been manipulated to make us buy.  The buying of sex is not immoral.  We do it in our marriages.  It is branded immoral by a contingency that is stuffy, controlling, and rich.  The seeking of physical intimacy is natural.  It is a component of human nature.  It is human.  If one chooses not to be manipulated by evil People attempting to acquire your home, your vehicle, and your inheritance then what are the alternatives?  Is it to become gay?  Is it to become mentally ill?  The misuse of prostitution is common in America, because it is misunderstood.  It like the vices of drug abuse and alcoholism is abused by unhealthy Americans.  It can be utilized in a positive way.  Certainly a public argument with a prostitute demanding the intervention of local police is not a positive example of prostitution, especially when it was instigated by an member of America’s Secret Service while accompanying President Obama to Columbia.  The irony of this story is, Cartagena is a common and well known host of the profession of prostitution.  Is is logical that American men would attempt to utilize this amenity if they found themselves in close proximity to this temptation.  It is unfortunate these men were not savvy and experienced enough to navigate the cloaked practice of the selling of sex.  They @#$%ed up, but not because it involved prostitution.  It is because these men dropped the diplomatic ball.  They like other fallen angels failed to use their reason to control and then satisfy their personal needs.  They got carried away.  They let fame and notoriety influence their common sense and lost sight of reality.  In perspective a member of the Secret Service is a security guard.  That is all.  For what they provide security is a point of contention.  If these men were off duty and not responsible for the President’s safety, then what they choose to do in the privacy of their own time is their business.  Navigating a Columbian brothel probably is not the strong point of a bullheaded, self-righteous, Blackwater type agent.  It could be the skill of a cruise ship musician. 

The Rhythmic Aspects of Pop Style

            In as much as what has become the modern definition of popular music is not musical, its ploy merits study.  It is a very clever musical ruse that parades itself as being genuine.  Without true emotional effort and learned musical technique, pop falsely masquerades itself as stellar performance.  How is this accomplished?  It is simple.  The guitar traditionally has not been included in early music education for a reason.  The simple strumming of strings does not teach a potential musician how to count internally.  Anyone with basic physical coordination can move their hand in one direction and reciprocate over the strings of the guitar creating the traditional strum.  Unfortunately this rhythmic concept that is created is not representative of the spacing of notes found in European classical and American jazz music.   When 8^th notes are generated from this intimate, proximal, alternating gesture they are spaced too closely together.  The initial stroke by obligation of having to arpeggiate six strings is projected ahead of the beat.  What should be a single pulse becomes a flam that erroneously abstracts where exactly a traditional single attack should occur in other styles of music.  It replaces a solitary intellectually prepared attack with a grouping of two.  “Ta da!”  Quintessentially this is how modern pop is defined and performed.  Irresponsibly pop musicians do not count or feel time internally.  Instead they use the crutch of kinesthetics to fabricate a false representative feel of time.  The resulting feel, not the affective defining of rhythm, tempo, and time is stretched over the top of what traditionally would be a single downbeat.  The two 8^th notes that are produced both ahead and behind the beat are pulled together with tension rebounding one another like a teeter-totter.  It is interesting that while the spacing of these notes is too close to actually define time, the rebounding that is necessary in Swing music is present.  How much a guitarist flexes their wrist determines this amount of swing.  Hauntingly parallel to the unique characteristic of Rock ‘n’ Roll, the pop beat can be heard to swing and be straight at the same time creating an engaging result.  It is unfortunate that because thought, emotion, and soul are not involved, the resulting rhythmic concept inherently is incapable of producing a human feeling.  Traditional accents or syncopations are replaced instead with a smooth bed of repeating 8^th notes.  The most surprising characteristic of pop rhythm is that although it is insipidly sweet, some listeners perceive it to be rhythmically aggressive.  The genre of Techno exhibits this same quality.  Sonically it deceives the listener.  The strum motion of the upper arm pivoting at the elbow over the strings of the guitar cannot be found in any other obvious human motion except sex.  This is why pop rhythm is used as a foundation for porno music. While good for providing the backdrop of erotic sexuality activity, it kinesthetically produces no defined dance beat.  It does not breathe and allow the limbs to reciprocate freely.  Instead its strokes are forced and seeded with tension, the overt quality that pop aficionados seem to enjoy. 

            When a pianist attempts to perform in pop style, a stark and rude realization will occur.  The ease with which it is created on the guitar and bass is absent.  The piano also uses a reciprocating percussive action, but is it is not equipped with the upstroke emulating the strum of the guitar.  The pianist must wait for the key to reciprocate before again striking it.  This delay in Cristofori’s original piano action is what created the feel of early piano music.  It is interesting over the years that pop has found its way into the piano resulting in its subordinate technique.  The approach that resulted was a complete departure from the classical methodology of piano instruction.  Personally I have seen as many as five kinesthetic approaches to pop realized on the piano.  They all were surprising to me as a classically trained jazz pianist.  The first was stabbing fingers, fingers that were extended straight and hurled at the keyboard in a gesture simulating the early attack of the guitar strum.  The second was curled fingers, fingers that were curled inward toward the palms as tightly as possible minimizing the motion necessary for repeated notes.  The third was penguin arms, forearms that were held stationary parallel above the keyboard with the fingers free to dangle limply on the keys.  The fourth probably is the most common and can be characterized by the playing of Sir Elton John.  Unlike traditional musical grooves that require a tightening of the muscles to define strong rhythmic patterns, pop uses a loose body movement undulating alternately between the arms.  Stevie Wonder must be credited as the most masterful of this purveyor pop keyboard music. 

            What must be understood is that traditional musical rhythms and their notation do not lend themselves to the pop approach.  The grift that has been created in commercial music is that by choosing pop for musical performance, all other traditional rhythmic styles will be discarded.  Any musical style that has emerged, been developed, and found its way into print must be re-interpreted to be performed in this derivative style.  This interpretation abandons the more engaging feels of what once were viable and popular forms of dance.  It substitutes a base, derivative, artificial time feel that is incapable of engaging movement in the human body.  For this reason people do not dance at pop concerts.  Instead these concerts represent the glorification of the pop artist, the sentimental masturbation of the public, and the generating of revenue. 

            It should be possible for pop and artistic music to coexist.  The lines of demarcation clearly should be defined.  The artistry of real music never should bear Jesus’ cross of persecution.  Artistic music is necessary for the sustenance of humanity, and it cannot be replaced with cheap, shallow, shortsighted fodder intended for the consuming masses. 

A Different Drummer

            Marching to the beat of a different drummer always has been suspect.  It seems only artists have the gall to begin such a revolution.  America her last two decades has become weak, apathetic, and uncaring.  I take pride in the notion after hearing Rick Santorum speak on C-SPAN months ago, I knew only he would be the viable Republican presidential candidate.  Iowa it seems, throbbing to the beat of a “new” drummer, also cast Santorum above the ridiculous lot of soap-box-shouting, media present, seemingly conservative Republicans.  A small victory was won in my head.  Many things I think and feel are diverted by modern day society.  Often I feel guilty for being a college-educated man.  Often I feel guilty still for possessing the possible love of a woman.  Often I feel guilty for feeling a need for heterosexual interaction, love, and sexual fulfillment.  If I weren’t careful I would begin to believe 2012 would be the seeming end of the world.  I am not sure how in America the “good guy” became the “bad guy.”  I am tired of feeling guilty for being good, but my conscience predicates I should.  Still I receive no tangible reward of which I am aware.  Still in deep emotional pain, thwarting the imminent result, I persevere.  I feel alone with little spiritual fulfillment.  Only my brain serves me on task daily not to drop its guard allowing me to become an uneducated manipulated putz.  It is your brain that drives the truck.  It is your brain, not your dick, that creates that drum beat.