Holy Communtion

My new computer "base" really is a communion rail.  In the tradition of the Episcopal church, it is a rail set upon shiny brass fittings where the congregation kneel to receive communion from the Rector.  I suppose I needed such at home in front of the boxes.  (The TV and the PC)  It works well like most of the things I conceive out of necessity.  I seem to do well with wood, but I had trouble last eve drilling a skateboard for its rear truck.  Always this has been a challenge for me without the aid of a drill press.  To boot you need to drill FOUR holes at the same time perfectly perpendicular to the rails of the board mounting the truck perfectly straight forward.  (If you want the board to travel in a straight line, the trucks must align.)  "If the glove don't fit, you must acquit."  After several attempts remedying my fuck ups, I managed to equip this Jay Adams Z Flex re-issue with a vintage set up emulating non other than the stick upon which Stacy Peralta pioneered 'gyrating.'
It is strange and unusual.  It has very narrow length axles, because it used to be a roller skate truck.  It has roller skate-like wheels.  They are the same dimensions.  The durometer or hardness is softer for the asphalt   Still having learned upon such a thin and nimble machine, Mr. Peralta had an advantage.  Also he knew how to surf.  Translating "that" carving motion to the skateboard...   Well, the rest is history.  After tightening the ACS-430 trucks a little, it felt quite natural to me.  I have impeccable balance.  Whence it came I am not so sure.  I ride motorcycles in the woods, and its aesthetic is much like Trials riding.  Trials riders used a very-of-low-center-of-gravity motorcycles to traverse extremely challenging natural terrain.  These incredible men ride a motorcycle over boulders, trees, or any other geometric obstacle   It is the shit!  While I do not profess to possess those skills, this small patch of guarded woods behind my house has been a training ground for my MX skills.  Because my bike is not whoop-worthy I cannot jump a large chasm.  My suspension is not equipped for such a thing.  (i.e. tight mono-shock aided by gas and pre-load, and cartridge front forks)  Still with my cushy Honda XR-200r, progressive springs and higher viscosity fork oil have provided a stellar riding opportunity.  I ride grades of 70 degrees.  I twist and I turn, I compress and expand, and I power slide through dirt and pine straw ever bit as advanced as an MX course.  When I have peace and privacy, it is heaven.  It is like skateboarding.  Typing on the keyboard is similar.  It is digital.  You must use your digits.  Riding the bike you must use your digits and your feet.  Like an organist and a set drummer all of your extremities work independently but in tandem.  It is dance.  It is heaven.  When I ride my inexpensive 250cc Nighthawk, I practise these things.  I balance the bike according to wind pressure and resistance.  Sometimes my elbows are out like wings, because I need stability on the handlebars.  Sometimes they are relaxed.  Sometimes my legs also are spread absorbing wind and providing balance from left to right.  Often I want my Batman wings to sprout and catch the air in a visual spectacle for oncoming motorists.  I will design such a thing.  I never knew replacing the fork oil in a six year old motorcycle could change its handling so drastically.  I am on a sport bike.  I am driving a Cadillac.  I am having fun.  The challenges of urban transport still are daunting, and you can't lose your sense of for boding.  If you get cocky, you will die.  I don't.  I contain my pleasure keeping secrets like good Germans do.  Danke Schoen.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

As I sit here typing my hands are resting upon a custom-made quirty keyboard.  Since I learned computing skills at The Ohio State University back in the early l990's, never have I had a problem with Carpel Tunnel Syndrome.  Having been a pianist most of my life, my fingers, my hands, and my wrists nary have had a problem moving to the beat.  My hands are one of my strongest attributes.  As I watch videos of pianists on "You Tube" it is unnerving to see such unschooled piano technique.  Also it was disappointing to discover the "pop" style of piano playing.  Who knew there could be an alternate approach to the keyboard that broke every rule of good piano technique?  I should clarify that remark.  How can it break a rule if it never realized there was one?  All holds barred? Take no prisoners?  That is more appropriate for our current political environment in America.  There are no rules.  There are no traditions.  There is no history.  There is no culture.  Simply it is the rich attempting to keep their own.  I can't imagine what the populaces of differing countries think about our Congress.  John Boehner is a disgrace as a lawmaker.  While millions upon millions of average ordinary people all over the world struggle making ends meet, this ridiculous man continues to cry from sentimentality on network television.  I suppose really he does not understand his job. A recent study proved that the decisions made by our elected officials not once take into account the desires or opinions of the American people.  Zero percent of the time they even considered public opinion.  A "Government by the people for the people" miserably has failed.  Almost it is incomprehensible how these inept shadows of people have been elected to public office.  The only conceivable answer is the "Mis-education of Lauryn Hill."  I mean the mis-education of American youth.  If you fail to teach them, then they cannot decide for themselves what is right or wrong.  Idiots get elected to Congress.  We should applaud President Obama for using his executive power to step around this ignorant stubbornness.  The world of commercial music is in a similar state, and it like Congress has been replaced with a shallow metaphor for ineptitude.  Why must we have talent to perform music?  No one will listen.  Let's change the rules, dumb down the consumer, and take their money for naught!  "So it goes Lt. Exley, so it goes."  It makes my stomach turn sitting staunchly in between the Baby Boomers and Generation X.  I remember both, the Old School and the New School.  I understand crooning and Hip Hop.  I can appreciate "empfindsamkeit" and "sturm und drang."  Maybe I am an exception.  What I do know is I am typing on a custom made quirty keyboard that in reality is an Apple, aluminum, compact laptop keyboard the same as on my white Macbook.  It is comfortable, it feels right, and above all it does NOT give me the horrendous Carpel Tunnel Syndrome.  This disease is torturous. It seems unthinkable a keyboard computer keyboard and mouse positioned at the inappropriate height in proportion to your hands, wrists, and forearms can create such disruption.  I mean I had intense, burning, continuous pain in my fingers, hands, wrists, forearms, and elbows.  I thought it was arthritis or gout caused by drinking alcohol.  Nyet.  Carpel Tunnel, because with the advent of this worthy keyboard base, it all but has desisted.  I have a little stiffness, but it nothing like what I experienced with this DAS keyboard purchased for the Macbook Pro.  Okay, I guess it was my fault for using a commercially available computer desk.  It was a Wayfair contraption with folding legs that looked much nicer than your standard square computer cubby hole.  I painted it black.  After realizing THIS was causing my duress, I cut off its legs!  Then I built a shelf for my monitor.  Then I built out of beautiful boat-like teak wood a "base" that imitated the exact proportion of the Macbook.  Same palm rests, same thickness, same everything.  It sits in the sliding drawer of the Wayfair contraption but elevated about an inch and a half.  My chair now is much lower, and it feels like I am sitting in a Starbucks in Kusadai writing a blog entry.  It is easy.  No clacking keys.  No stretching of the fingers to reach them.  No muss, no fuss.  Simply familiarity.  I am not familiar with our Congress or commercial music.  It is  evil.  How is it possible that music can become evil?  Considering the aesthetic of music has been around since the inception of man, it is be prudent to assume it is important.  The ancient Greek philosophers it seems had a propensity for the bath boys, but this did not affect their musical sensibilities.  Music today is affecting the world's sensibilities and in a bad way.  Miles Davis said once music could not be bad.  He was  wrong.  It can and is be bad.  If it brainwashes listeners into a less broad understanding of humanity, it is bad.  If it patronizes listeners it is bad.  If it seeks to take advantage of listeners it is bad.  All of these things the commercial music industry continues to implement.  The sad part of it is so few people have the money, why must our cultural traditions be raped?  With no surplus money to provide comfort or security, culture is all we have.  Still the moneybags strive to eliminate our history, soul, and voice only to selfishly prosper.  This only can be evil.  Only.  

A Prolific Composer

While UNC-Chapel Hill did not adequately prepare me to become a band director, it did accomplish other academic musical goals.  In the early l980's music curriculums were in flux.  It was difficult to discern the proper combination of college music courses that would best educate a future musician.  Luckily there were different disciplines, while that probably isn't the correct word.  Within the scope of "music major" one could choose an area of interest most prevalently Performance or Music Theory/History.  Those studying music theory or music history were choosing a future  path of college teaching, because these disciplines are not taught in the public schools.  Choosing to pursue of Bachelor of Music Education on the other hand meant, if you did your student teaching you could become certified to teach K-12 general music.  
That is a broad spectrum of grades.  General Music 1-6 or Beginning Band 7-12.  My curriculum failed to teach me either.  Instead I became an enlightened, knowledgeable, talented musician.  I could perform, I could write music, I could arrange music, and I could sing.  With the proper mental liaison, past experiences in music, and a little effort one could have managed to teach with this education.  I did teach, but I began at the collegiate level.  Jazz Studies was far above the grasp of high school students.  There were still to many rudimental things they needed to learn about music.  That is why the Master's Degree is so important.  It allows you to specialize and gather the rest of the knowledge you need for your vocation.  I chose Jazz and Commercial Music Composition.  After having all ready learned music theory by my early piano teachers, and after having all ready learned to read "chord symbols," I was ahead in the music theory discipline.  Having learned to play "songs" I all ready was familiar with chord progressions, form, expression.  Twelve years of classical piano lessons aided this knowledge.  All ready was I a talented pianist and trumpeter.  I had natural musical instincts coupled with a need to express myself through music.  Supplemental knowledge both helped and hindered this musicality.  During high school there were fierce battles for the title of First Trumpeter in our band.  While I was far from the best, I worked diligently on my horn playing abilities.  I was ahead of the game  because I had been playing piano all ready for eight years.  I could read music, both treble and bass clefs.  All I had to do was learn how to play the trumpet.  I don't remember exactly how I learned, because I had no private teacher like the better trumpeters.  Out of sheer willpower I forged ahead partly fueled by testosterone and libido.  The only way I could get a girlfriend was to be good at something.  I chose music.  It worked and my Sophomore year of high school I became the First Trumpet player in my father's band.  I not only attended The Governor's School, I made First Trumpet of the Pembroke Music Clinic under conductor Frederick Funnell, I made All State band, and one year I made it into the state's top Honor's Band.  Each time I defeated one prime competitor who we both knew was a better technician that I was.  Musicality was the key and sight-reading ability.  When I auditioned for the Pembroke Festival, I sang the music in my head mentally before I ever lifted the horn to my lips.  They were patient and egged me on.  "Hurry up."  It paid off and flawlessly I played the passage never missing or note and with the proper articulations and dynamics.  They were stunned.  David Carringer remarked I was without competition the best trumpeter of all who auditioned.  I was awarded the First Trumpeter spot in the weekend clinic band.  Clearly six weeks of continuous performance at St. Andrews College in Laurinburg, North Carolina under the baton of Terry Mizesko built my chops.  This was where I learned to play the horn.  I began with a weak sound, but the sheer task of being required to play five hours a day built my embouchure and musical concept on the trumpet.  I flourished.  Upon returning to the high school band for my senior year, it was a great blow.  I was at the height of my trumpet playing, and the rest had never played a note all summer long.  I do not get to play the trumpet that much these days.  It sits in its case in the closet.  Over the years with knowledge I can pick it up, and in about fifteen minutes I can be playing at a professional level.  Some things you just never lose.  I carried my accelerated trumpeting skill to UNC-Chapel Hill, but I had lost focus.  I was not a jazzer yet.  I auditioned for the jazz band, but I didn't make the cut because James Ketch demanded I play something in jazz style.  I had been leading a high school band in both concert and marching band music for three years.  I had not yet learned how to interpret a jazz melody and thus swing.  From here in my opinion I regressed in playing ability.  My independence, my motivation (women), and my desire to excel were absent.  I focused on academics not really taking my designation of trumpet major seriously.  I did the work, but I never had developed the desire to play classical trumpet or in an orchestra.  I did like jazz, but the skills to play that music on trumpet are highly elevated.  I did not learn to do it until years later while attending The Ohio State University.  When you improvise you must see the music in your head first.  I see the keyboard and how the notes move in chordal and scaler patterns.  While I played in the big bands of both the University of South Carolina and the University of North Carolina, it was achieving the Second Trumpet position at OSU that forced me to learn to improvise.  I was working on a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Composition.  This new found area of study augmented my all ready existent music proclivities, and  I was elected the MVP of this band twice along with winning the Ruth Friscoe Prize in Jazz Composition.  Twelve years of working as a grunt in the cruise industry has made me forget most of this until now.  I am trying to bridge the gap from my previous musical knowledge until now mainly trying to figure out HOW I composed some odd eighty serious contemporary piano pieces.  The point of this entry was to trace my musical aesthetic back to my college years.  Simply understood music theory or more specifically harmony are the core of my knowledge.  We began with J.S. Bach's four part chorale writing.  How do four individual singing voices move from chord to chord in the proper motion, smoothly and without disruption of line?  There were rules, and we followed them along with our ears.  Later I learned jazz harmony, the diminished scale, and then the Lydian Chromatic System by George Russell.  After attending OSU I began listening to the Second Viennese School, Bela Bartok, Aaron Copland, Elliot Carter, and Charles Ives.  I internalized these more  diverse tonal systems and began to build my own concept.  I wrote successful orchestral and chamber works in my style while at OSU, but it was not until over a decade later I began to pour this calling into the piano.  I was working on ships as an orchestra pianist, and there were yamaha C7 pianos all over the boat.  I began composing on them beginning seriously on the Carnival Glory.  We experienced our first hurricane which added two non working musical days to the end of the cruise.  I used this extreme quite time to exploit the Conference Room or Chapel, a private, carpeted, sanctuary-like studio with the aforementioned instrument.  It was heaven.  Never before had I been able to hear all of the notes of the acoustic piano in such clarity and detail.  It perfectly as balanced from bottom to top and the tone was rich and full.  In this environment I opened my heart and wrote down what I heard in my head.  I sang melodies that satisfied my desires at the time.  I harmonized these melodies in creative ways.  I used "registration" to spread the voices all over the piano.  I used transposition to change the key of musical motives and phrases.  I used "form" as a vehicle for tension and release.  I used motif development to make the most of my musical scratching.  I used all twelve tonal keys as equals pitting their formants and overtones against one another.  I mimicked the conversation of a man and woman in love.  I wrote for the violin and clarinet in a conversation.  I emulated Aaron  Copland with his American Nationalist sentiment, the sound of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  I wrote to express my sorrow.  I wrote to express joy.  I wrote to express love.  I wrote to express musical prowess.  I wrote to satisfy my own soul, because I had not personal life of which to speak for twelve years.  Often I asked myself whence this music came.  It would note have been possible except for the cloistered, private, and silent cruise ship environment.  It would not have been possible on land.  It would not have been possible without the people I met working on ships.  For these things I am grateful and also the whispering of God in my ears.  I just wrote it down.  

The Great Void of Public Education

Never officially have I used my Bachelor of Music Education degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Chapel Hill was unique in that it provided a broad liberal arts education.  Experiences there both social and academic were far reaching.  My music ed. degree  highly was influenced by a change in the music faculty.  The previous wind ensemble director was not granted tenure, and while I was enrolled in the music department they conducted a national search for a replacement.  Who knew that this choice also would be responsible for the core music education courses?  Needless to say these courses were useless.  James Arrowood, while being a competent conductor, was no classroom teacher.  Our two hour long in depth teaching courses were nothing more than listening to him ramble about nothing.  There is no curriculum, no syllabus, no tests, nothing.  All that was required was we were supposed to turn in a notebook at the end of the semester filled with things we had learned.  Because there were no lectures, there was nothing taught and therefore nothing learned.  I was criticized because mine was empty.  Simply I told him, "You didn't say anything worth writing down."  It was true.  Because of this failed procedure, I did not feel prepared to take a job as a band director.  Almost thirty years later I discovered why.  While I had learned a lot at UNC-Chapel Hill, I was not taught the craft of band directing.  I learned to play major scales three octaves on the clarinet and flute.  I did this well, although today I cannot remember the fingerings.  I learned to play rudiments on the snare drum.  I did this well.  I learned how to be a good musician.  I understood musicality.  I had a broad understanding of music as an aesthetic.  What I didn't know were the specifics of how to organized, teach, and graduate a band.  After my father was accepted at the North Carolina State Veteran's Nursing Home, I was stricken with the task of organizing and sorting his things.  These were a lifelong collection of tools, clothing, musical instruments, and memorabilia.  It took well over a year to crack this nut.  While gathering and keeping important sentimental items, I discovered his course schedule at Appalachian State University for earning a Master's degree in music education.  Also I discovered the text books.  Upon looking at the list of courses it made perfect sense to me why I felt unprepared to teach band.  At UNC as an undergraduate I had not had the classes I needed to feel prepared.  What I received was a BROAD base of musical knowledge including four specific periods of music theory and history.  I learned to write tonal counterpoint.  I learned to part write in four voices.  What I didn't learn was "Band Pageantry," "Instrument Repair," or "Teaching Beginning Brass and Woodwinds."  I guess four years is not really long enough to get it all.  Inasmuch I managed to avoid teaching in the public schools my entire life.  I am not a skilled conductor.  I can read, interpret, and feel music at a high level.  Consequently I can convey this to other musicians, but with only one semester of conducting under David Serrins, I grossly was underprepared to sling the baton in front of a band.  Jazz is different.  If you can snap on two and four, you can count off a big band arrangement.  This I did for two years as a Graduate Teaching Associate at the University of South Carolina.  The only remorse I have about this whole process is teachers today highly are undervalued and underpaid.  I am sorry to have to say it is beneath me to teach in the North Carolina public schools.  I want nothing to do with it.  Why you may ask?  Because public education has failed our youthful generation with a vengeance.  It is so simple to see.  Open your eyes and look at them.  They are exactly what we have given them.  Droopy pants, bling, smart phones, selfies.  What we haven't given them are the  "Three R's."  Remarkably most will not remember Bush senior and his presidential agenda.  "Reading, Writing, and Rhythmatic." We gave up on the public schools and therefore the youth of America.  Instead we have picked their pockets like greedy misers.  We have victimized them.  We have eaten them for our dinner.  Now as the Baby Boomer generation dies out, there is no one left to take their place.  There is no one with the kind of integrity, experience, and soul present in generations proceeding them.  It is a lost art.  Talent is a thing of the past.  Artistry is a thing of the past.  When I drive around Fayettenam often I am afraid.  It is exactly the same as it was thirty years ago.  The inhabitants of this city are scary.  They are intimidating.  They are big.  They look mean.  No where do I see the kind of people I have seen working in the cruise industry for twelve years.  It is a shock.  Why do I feel compelled to own guns? Why do I feel compelled to have a gun in the car?  

The ill State of a State

I grew up in North Carolina.  I never really thought much about it, until I began to travel playing gigs.
Seeing the Piedmont of North Carolina I was not impressed.  Tobacco mills.  Hoo Ha.  Interstate driving between cities on crowded multi-lanes roads.  North Carolina it seems always been held in high esteem as a tourist destination, because the state contains both the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean.  These geographic locations are enjoyable, but the rest of it....  Sandhills?  Coastal Plains?  Scrub.  Topography aside the more important issues are the governmental infrastructure and business base.  What is startling to me is having returned to the state is how it has traveled back in time.  When Jim Hunt was governor back in the l980's North Carolina seemed like a progressive state.  He changed the "DUI" to "DWI" and put in place a law that required two nights in jail for an arrest for drunk driving.  Ouch.  That one move changed Chapel Hill forever.  Speed limits were double nickels, the fine for littering was around $1,000.00, and otherwise law enforcement was proactive.  What a change.  Today in Fayetteville nary do you ever see a policeman.  It is common knowledge the government is strapped for cash just like the state.  Behind those closed office doors North Carolina agencies continue to "manipulate" data for their own gain.  Why should the tax value of a used Toyota Sienna van be $1,200.00 one year and $2,300.00 the next?  How can a used vehicle appreciate in value?  It is because they won't you to pay more property tax.  The same applies to the value of your home.  North Carolina governmental agencies such as PWC constantly manipulate their bills trying to draw more of your money.  Who or what should be responsible for watchdogging these practices?  The Attorney General?  The Governor.  The reason why I left South Carolin in the late l980's soley was because of governmental corruption.  Ron Cobb and his cronies were handing out bribes at a hotel in downtown Columbia on Gervias St. to state house officials.  I remember that feeling well realizing your elected officials didn't have your back.  The myth of "By the people for the people" was so off base.  Who were these people?  I grew up in a vacuum of music artistry and romance.  No where was I ever taught the real components of life in the United States.  Business, laws, marketing, socialization.  I am embarrassed it took me fifty-one years to open my eyes and see what really is around me.  Money.  Fayetteville is such an anomaly.  Few places could have such  strata of elite rich and miserable poor.  I digress.  Isn't this the way the Old South has operated beginning with plantation owners and slaves?  American entrepreneurs J.P Morgan,  John D. Rockefeller,  Thomas Edison,  and Andrew Carnegie all crafted their dreams.  The history of the United States is one of wealth, but always there has been a working class.  A few times there has been a middle class.  What has changed?  Upon further examination of this concept of an elite rich and a slave-like poor, one could go so far  to say it is probable that America's only indigenous art form was a consequence.  As a purveyor of this art form myself, this notion demands further study.  Personally I always have believed pain was responsible for great art.  Without heartache and the resultant soul searching to find anodynes, whence does the art come?  Of course there are those who do not use this process for catharsis and continue to suffer the rest of their lives.  I always believed that is for what art is meant.  It can lead by example.  It can encapsulate situations.  It can provide beauty and order.  It can expose.  As an artist myself always it has been engrained in me to use creativity as solutions for social disorder.  This is why I compose.  Of course there can be artful material or what has become fashion calling "artisan" without this process.  Unfortunately is is devoid of the one thing that ensures art will stand the test of time.  Art deals with universal humanities that cross many human boundaries.  It is universal.  It is spiritual.  In the current form of American jazz, it seems to me these things are not present.  Instead jazz musicians like other musicians have become more concerned about the holy dollar.  They would rather "sell out" and make a fruitful living than carry the torch for what could become a lost art form.  If swing doesn't resurface somewhere in the near future, it is quite probable it may go wayward.  What is the difference between swing music and pop music?  No one really seems to let on they know the difference, but the musicians have stepped to the other side of the street in droves.  Could it be they don't know the difference and what they are doing?  In one interview the prestigious Marsalis clan admitted they could not play the music the traditional way.  They had to change with the times.  A very simple qualification can be made as to what is artistic.  An artistic song in my opinion begins with a human beings need to express themselves.  It is a calling.  Expressing one's self is a road to discovery and enlightenment.  This expression can be intellectual or affective.  It is nice when it is a blend of the two.  When an artist expresses they are voicing innermost ideas through a metaphor.  That metaphor could be visual art, a painting or sculpture, or it could be musical sounds organized in time.  It could be prose or poetry.  I use three of these, prose, poetry, and music to satisfy my mind and soul.  Simply if the movement is not an earnest, honest, expression of an innermost thought or feeling, it is not art.  There is pop art which relies upon technique and commerciality.  It may not stand the test of time.  There once was a viable commercial music industry in the United States.  It was a large part of our Gross National Product.  It sold millions of records.  It reaped great rewards through concert revenue.  It was because the music was artistic.  Today artists are persecuted for being good by the masses of musical marauders.  Cleverly like the Republicans have done, the tables have been turned changing the rules of art and religion.  If there were no slavery, would there be jazz?  It is a complicated lineage.  European based orchestra music fused with Sousa marches, work songs, field hollers, and gospel created jazz.  I have a simple definition.  Jazz is swing-based improvisational music that relied upon the twelve bar blues and thirty-two bar AABA American popular songs or Tin Pan Alley.  It further was developed by Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Ornette Coleman.  Miles is credited with creating three separate and distinct styles of jazz.  They are "Cool Jazz," "Modal Jazz,"  and "Fusion Jazz."  Eerily when I turn on the local "jazz" radio station there is no Big Band music.  There is no Count Basie, Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, Claude Thornhill, That Jones/Mel Lewis, Maynard Ferguson, or Duke Ellington.  How can this category of jazz be eliminated?  Because the American people have become so uneducated by the public schools, they don't know the difference.  This is the way some like it.

A Blast of American Reality. The Army's Soldier's Show

I had no idea America could change so drastically in only a few short years.  It is plausible that the geographic region where I grew up itself is responsible for the change I am seeing.  Other places in America may not have experienced the change I am seeing.  One thing is for certain in my mind.  As a college graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a holder of a Bachelor of Music Education degree, the change I am seeing only could be prompted by a decline in America's public education system.  It like most of America's other commercial institutions has succumbed to a numbing corruption of ethical content perhaps having begun with  the attempted abolition of Christianity as a religion.  In more simple terms the movement was the removal of God from human existence.  Ethical and moral judgements are instilled by this religion and no where else.  While it could be possible that an isolated human being could develop their own sense of right and wrong, it is much more supportable to deduce these judgements from the lessons presented in Biblical scripture.  Therefore removing these requirements will allow commercial and governmental institutions to succumb to corrupt practices.  We are not safe anymore.  The movement has gotten started, and it is frightening to me largely having been abroad for twelve years.  I can barely believe what I see, hear, and read.  This was reinforced last night after attending the United States Army's Soldier's Show.  As a professional musician gainfully employed as a keyboardist for the last twelve years, what I witnessed merely substantiated the fight with which I have been presented as an artist.  Artistry is all but absent in the current American music industry.  It like other institutions also has succumbed to corruption.  The traditional tenants of American cultural history have been eradicated in lieu of Musica Reservata.  No longer it seems is art appreciated or needed to be the guiding ethical and moral conscience of humanity.  While America's attempt to eliminate God from His own planet, quickly commercial music is headed in that direction.  The show I witnessed was so bad, I could not watch its performers.  The ultimate reality must be that the concept of the show, much like cruise shows have begun to do, is to play down to its audience.  Why must they play down?  The obvious answer came to me last night.  The neglect and subsequent failure of our public education system has created such a low level of awareness.  The movement to eliminate God is synonymous with the movement to fail to educate America.  The steadfast philosophy of empowering America's next generation changed instead to a philosophy of exploiting America's youth.  What I see around me is a generation that does not even appear human.  I had no idea what I was watching in the Army's presentation.  The performers could not dance, and this blatantly was obvious because their rather highly choreographed moves were not in sync with the music.  As I well understand from the music production in the cruise industry, a discernible "beat" is not the goal.  The goal is undefined, sexually ambiguous, puffs of un-opinionated air.  It takes no stand, it speaks no truth, and fails to be defined as music.  It is something else, and I could not watch it.  It was too painful.  While I do think some of the performers did possess some musical talent, their role in this propaganda was not to excel.  It was to appear to its uneducated audience as themselves.  The Army's acceptance of such a low level of behavior only solidifies in my mind that the reversal of "Don't ask, don't tell" was a grievous mistake.  While I don't openly oppose homosexuality, having worked in the confined environments of cruise ships exposed me to its exploitation.  I only can imagine the environment of a mostly male conglomerate would also succumb to the same type of exploitation.  Vehemently I disagree with open homosexuality in the military.  How in any way does this personal private choice have any place in the public of what is supposed to be America's representative fighting force?  It seems on all fronts in modern day America our institutions have succumbed to a vigilant controlling of America's citizens.  It is obvious when you are stupid you are unable to tell the difference.

Adultery

Time to think again.   It has been a long time since I have had the opportunity to sit and think without antagonism.  Each day when I wake for some reason I feel antagonized.  I am not sure why yet.  Often I wake from haunting nightmares.  Recently these lucid dreams have been comprised of the most grotesque and horrifying images.  Whence they come I have no idea.  I haven’t thought about it too much, because I do not put stock in being intimidated or afraid.  I was bullied as a child, and as an adult I will not stand for it.  I tell myself there are no real antagonists around me, but each week at some point I fell both antagonized and persecuted.  Am I a bad person?  I don’t think so.  I am Christian, believe in God, and try to do the right thing.  I believe in honoring the Ten Commandments.

I honor my father and my mother.  I pray for my family on occasion.  I do not steal, lie, or covet my neighbors wife.  Still I feel persecuted.  While I have committed adultery twice, or rather slept with another mans wife, each time it was consensual.  The first time the couple were having a midlife crisis, and it was agreed upon if the other spouse needed diversion they were free to pursue it.  Eventually it strengthened their marriage and it resumed in strength.  The second time also it was consensual and was a stepping stone for an ensuing divorce.  Oddly enough now I believe I subliminally may be being charged with attempted adultery.  First as I speak of adultery I am speaking from the perspective of a single man making love with a married woman.  It is not sordid, depraved, or selfish.  It may be sinful in God’s eyes, and I believe that.  Some have said that I am not guilty of adultery, because I myself an not betrothed.  I believe I am.  In the first instance of adultery what become one of the most gratifying years of my life with a confidant, peer, and friend yielded one of the most difficult and unhappy years of my life.  I went through six differing apartments, got evicted erroneously, and had to buy out another lease.  In retrospect I did learn about the potential evil in the rental housing market.  It is great.  Large companies take advantage of you often revoking your human and civil liberties.  Lack of privacy, sanity, and humanity often result.  Like the other chapters in my book, I learned from this difficult experience.  Was it a result of my willingness to sleep with another man’s wife?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that feeling persecuted for such an action without having committed it is unacceptable.  For some reason I have a suspicion this may be happening.  I remember back in time when I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Governor’s School of North Carolina at St. Andrews College one summer.  It was here playing the trumpet in a wind ensemble six hours a day I learned how to play trumpet.  At the same time although I had no reason to be unfaithful to my first love, she believed I was guilty of infidelity.  Consequently while I was busy learning to be a better musician, I was accused of being unfaithful to her.  Simply it was not true.  I had no reason to stray.  Many decades later I came to understand her persecution of my fidelity was a metaphor for her own infidelity or rather temptation of such.  She was having a difficult time without me, and thus was having thoughts of infidelity.  She projected her own feelings on me, and I became her scapegoat.  Then I couldn’t believe what was happening.  Why and how could I be being punished for remaining true to my love?  It was uncanny.  Now I feel a similar feeling that somehow once again I am a scapegoat.  Never have I felt this feeling.  Peculiarly enough to me it only is possible in this unique and unoriginal town in which temporarily I dwell.  Many things once I thought and felt impossible have shown their ugly faces.  One is having grotesque and horrifying dreams of torture, death, persecution, and human carnage.  Never have I spent one second pondering the various scenarios of the violent and torturous end of a human being.  I do now.  Intrinsically I know it is not a part of me.  I am not interested in such thoughts.  I do feel a relevant need to understand their source.  It is possible such thoughts somehow are connected with creativity and its source.  Many televangelists confirm a concept I always have believed to be true.  Art comes from pain.  It is a cathartic process to find order and beauty in the midst of chaos and evil.  Is pain necessary for great art?  I believe so, but I also can entertain the idea that good art is possible without it.  According to one prominent televangelist pain is the motivation for change.  It is what forces us to change situations we do not like.  A physical or mental sensation is necessary for such change to occur.  Possibly that is true.  Consequently are these lucid dreams inadvertently trying to guide me once again to a creative impetus?  I have been fortunate enough that four years of clinical depression were rewarded with a prolonged output of musical creativity.  This occurred while I was working as an orchestra pianist in the cruise industry.  I did not decide ahead of time that this extremely demanding job of sight-reading music, playing in various musical styles, and becoming a savvy politician also would yield a somewhat prolific output of musical composition.  I am grateful every day for it.  Often I cannot remember how it happened or rather the inspiration for it.  That simply is because I am surrounded by a completely different and foreign environment, one which is responsible for producing horrible dreams of death, suffering, and persecution.  If indeed I have been a bad person, then I could see handling feelings of guilt or persecution.  It has become clear to me that my current environment is producing such feelings, and they are a result of the mental weakness of others.  Traveling around the world on ships has exposed me to diverse and what could be sophisticated places.  Similarly they could be considered not realistic in the scope of the real world.  We must understand cruise ship destinations are meant to be a shelter from reality.  They are leisure or hospitality destinations.  People are meant to be happy and relaxed.  Because I have dwelled in this environment for twelve years, it is plausible I have lost tough with reality.  I am not sure that entirely is true.  What I am becoming to understand is true is the city where I spent most of my time growing up still is laden with petty, selfish, and corrupt action.  Only can it be derived from material greed, because I never have experienced it elsewhere.  Each of the other cities in which I have lived greatly were both different and an improvement in my quality of life.  Remarkable this one particular televangelist also preaches that your destiny, success, or happiness are geographical.  To be successful or rather be able to flourish as a human being, one needs to be in the right place.  The right place is a place where change is possible, new intellect and creativity is welcome, and selfishness and greed are minute.  It has become a burden sacrificing my own intellectual and creative output because of an environment.  Surprisingly to me this environment feels exactly the same as it did twenty-five years ago.  I have the same gut feeling that my education degree received at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been an utter disappointment.  I have the same gut feeling that I for some reason am not capable of earning an appropriate living with my talent and knowledge.  Consequently I feel like a failure, although I know this is far from the truth.  When I am in other places I have flourished.  When I am here, I feel because of my environment, like a failure.  One reason I feel this way is because I am not conventional.  Somehow I ended up unmarried and without children.  Starkly I am very different than other men my age with wives, children, and homes.  Should I feel self-conscious because I do not posses the same things?  The answer is no.  I feel no unhappiness or remorse for not having anything.  I am satisfied, because my life’s work as a musician and composer have been fruitful.  I will die with no hole in my heart, no unfulfilled dreams, and no dispair.  Still my environment, this environment, produces such feelings.  Finally I have been able to discern that these feelings are all about me, and because I am a sensitive and feeling musician I am subject to these emotions.  Nature verses Nurture is a strong human concept, and I am being tested by it each and every day.  Because purposefully I have set my life aside for the time being, I have become a canvas for strife, despair, and despondency.  I don’t like it.  When you have taken the time to heal yourself, it is infuriating to have your past won battles ignited in close proximity.  They say what does not kill you makes you stronger, but in this situation the only logical answer is to lead by example.  It is difficult to do when your own soul is unfed.  

The Strafing of Fayettenam

Having been back in North Carolina for a little over a year living in my childhood city of
Fayetteville, my eyes have been opened little by little.  Fayettenam certainly is not anything like it once was.  I take that back.  There are certain indelible aspects of Fayettenam that always will remain the same.  Upon my reflection having grown up mostly in Fayetteville, I adamantly can say that Fayetteville has changed.  The major change other than the massive expansion of Ft. Bragg is the appearance of a highly conservative governing populace that like the rest of America seems to be controlled by the money that elected it.  This conservative agenda has had remarkable but also gross consequences for this medium sized town.  While the revitalization of the downtown area is a viable and aesthetically pleasing endeaver, it has transpired at the sacrifice of many Fayettevile citizens.  George W. Bush's Imminent Domain thoroughly has been utilized to evict small businesses in lieu of more grandiose downtown ventures.  I have witnessed this first hand as a good friend of mine lost his business for a soon to be built transportation hub.  While these small businessmen are paid a paltry sum for their property, I can understand the scope of this project.  Downtown has made great strides in recent years comparartively speaking to previous decades.  What is of concern are the accompanying practises of this governing populace immently Republican and conservative.  While it probably is a good thing the strip clubs and bars of the old 500 block of Hay Street are gone, is it necessarily a good thing that other small businesses have been force to close their doors becoming obideint to this aristocracy?  When did a governmental body become empowered to decide which socio-economic group is allowed to exist?  According to the Constitution of the United States,  ALL economic groups should be allowed equal opportuniy to exist.  It is henious that elected governmental leaders sweepingly can delegate that, "All trailer parks, garages, and other small businesses should be exterminated for the greater good of Fayetteville."  These small businesses always have been a core part of the grass roots portion of America.  Further the restriction of personal freedoms afforded by the Constituion slowly, like the cruise industry, are being revoked.  The larger deep pocketed businesses all are adopting policies that seem to be affecting the quality of life of especially young people.  It has been in the news recently how most financial industries in America for decades have been taking advantage of the young, especially college students.  Moreover the model of each and every child possessing a mobile telephone has been erroneous.  Not only are these frequencies of our elector-magnetic spectrum dangerous to human beings, it is unconsionable that large corporations have been reaching into the pockets of teenagers.  Further the once common past times experienced by adolescents that are free of charge openly have been forbidden by restricting their activity on private property.  The parking lots, sidewalks, and streets of neighborhoods once that were playgrounds for our youth are stricken with signs declaring "No bicycles, no roller skates, no skateboards, etc."  How and why would any American business prohibit such activity?  The answer is because it does not earn them revenue.  How can these fundamental physical activites that promote the health and well-being of youngsters be deemed undesirable?  It is uncanny to me that the sport of skateboarding in America has been earmarked as evil in some way by businesses.  Maybe this dynamic is different in Southern California or Miami, Florida, but here in Fayetteville North Carolina there is a staunch conservative governing faction that loathes this activity.  I never have witnessed such a anit-skate mentality in my life.  Likewise this past time of which I actively participate for mental therapy also has become condemned in the cruise industry.  My only word for this sentiment is "Fascist."  The opening of my eyes of the course of a year has been to see the deep well of money that exists in Fayetteville mostly because of Ft. Bragg and its expansion under the B.R.A.C. protocal.  With the welcoming of the Ground Forces Command and a slew of high profile officers, certainly the concept of Fayetteville as a small Southern town has changed.  I am grappling with these huge changes and the loss of personal freedoms that are consequential.  The increased security at Ft. Bragg coupled with the existence  of these highly important military commands has changed Fayetteville forever.  I for one do everything I can not to support that infrastructure.  It, other than supposidly assuring my personal freedom, does nothing to augement my quality of life.  Conversely the military contingency at Ft. Bragg uses the city of Fayetteville for war games.  We have become a guinea pig for what must be Special Operations training as the seeming strafing from continual aircraft never stops.  How did this transpire, that a city otherwise not associated with the military freely has become the training ground for a killing machine?  I would rather just skate.

A Transient's Life

Recently I was contacted by the hiring agent of my cruise line with only two days notice until a "fill" spot for orchestra piano opened.  Being a veteran of the cruise industry instinctively I knew something was amiss.  Living on the east coast of the United States in rather close proximity to the state of Florida, it was more feasible to embark upon such a challenge.  Once before when a pianist was needed in the Port of Canaveral I opted to show up with two days notice to the extreme surprise of the Musical Director and the band.    
Always the company is appreciative of these efforts, and often short term fills can be more fun than a dedicated six month contract.  I decided to offer this favor again for several reasons.  One is I could do it, prepare, pack, and fly with only two days notice.  It was a challenge.  Secondly for three weeks worth of work I would make some money.  Third I needed a break from the brutal winter weather in North Carolina.  I flew on Saturday morning to embark the Oasis of the Seas that afternoon.  Begun was the most intensive music work I had done since the Rhapsody of the Seas located in Australia.  I found out upon embarking this vessel Australia's music scene was quite different the ours.  The Sydney Opera House had something to do with this.  It turned out Australia loves their opera, and the acts we played were remnants of this Sydney Opera scene.  The cruises also were more varied in length straying from the usual seven day affair which really is nothing more than a scene our of the film "Groundhog Day."  On the contrary often I had three separate sets of music in my cabin at one time for an eleven or twenty-one day cruise.  It was the most demanding musical work I ever had done.  My sight-reading improved dramatically through rote, my technique diversified from jazz to classical, and I found more fulfillment musically from this demanding music.  There was no Motown, the fodder America seems to demand.  I'm not sure guests especially want Motown music for their entertainment, but certainly Barry Gordy would be happy.  I was burnt out on the repeating acts playing the same tried and true set of songs.  Not only did I have to play virtuosos pianists, violinists, and vocalists, also I was required to launch an end of cruise cabaret.  The Cruise Director decided to accommodate the desires of our production singers and schedule a Broadway themed hour long show.  The Musical Director adamantly refused to have anything to do with this charade, so I became required to satisfy the accompaniment for this show.  While they were quite content to use only the piano for this intense and intimate music, I decided if I had to perform so did others in the orchestra.  I began my two month long process of preparing the music.  I took many hours to launch this show from scratch, and being a doctoral level composer I possessed the necessary tools to accomplish such a thing.  It is all about the music preparation, something that seems incomprehensible to anyone but an instrumentalist.  Often the dynamic in our theaters was one of, "Why do you need written music?  "Can't you just play the music instinctually, like pulling it out of your ass?"  Often this was implied because of the lack of rehearsal time we had in the theater.  On the Oasis this occurred again.  My first act, possibly because I had played his show before, expected me to play his music perfectly the FIRST time with no preparation whatsoever.  I was not afforded rehearsal time at all.  None.  I was chastised because the necessary patches in the keyboard had not been programmed ahead of time, not recognizing I had signed on the ship three days earlier.  It took a lot to zip my lips and not respond to the fight that was being picked with me.  Instead I did what I always do as a professional.  I spent the necessary hours AFTER the rehearsal to prepare my music.  This is a combination of writing a playlist of the songs we were to perform in the proper order for visual reference.  This also is the proper arrangement of the pages in a single song to allow for effective page turns with no musical upset. This also is preparation of the keyboard sounds and their sequential programming as to be able to access them when necessary and at the appropriate time.  I did all of this AFTER our band rehearsal and before our first performance.  Often this means no dinner or break before the show.  Even as I succeeded at nailing the show, the powers at be diligently seemed to be hoping for my failure.  After all a twenty year old show possibly had lost some of its spark, and drama on stage resulting from flailing musicians is more entertaining.  This has come to be the case in general on ships.  Music no longer holds the place it once did for America, and possibly as it shouldn't.  The music industry is a pale shadow of the integrity it once heralded.  Often musical shows are nothing more than cheap self gratification as evidenced by act after act lip syncing to pre-recorded tracks.  Although I do not agree with this new found musical philosophy I was forced to accommodate it for the sake of my job.  This is one reason why I continued to work hard on my music as not to be humiliated on stage for the enjoyment of the public.  It happened anyway time and time again, until my soul told me I no longer could handle it.  I could not be a complete musical whore, even if no one reprimanded my musical performance.  What transpired was those in charge did not possess the knowledge, experience, or skill to make a value judgement about the quality of the music.  They were not capable, because they did not themselves posses the musical talent necessary to provide music at a professional level.  When this occurs you must make a value judgement as to the worth of your skills.  Are they worth being wasted for money, or do they deserve to be utilized in the way they were intended?  Luckily my three weeks on the Oasis reinforced the latter.  It was a musically heavy gig, and my skills were the appropriate method for achieving success on this particular vessel.  I had to play yet another Broadway cabaret for which I had to prepare in a similar way to the Rhapsody.  I just did not have as much time.  It also is significant that a single cabin on the world's largest cruise ship contributed greatly to my ability to be able to realize this music.  I had a space of study.  What is unnerving is the transient nature of this work.  Unlike most other jobs in America, cruise ship employees live out of the box.  There are good things and bad, but one downside is the instability of the social environment.  While there can be stability if you stay on one ship for a long period of time, if you change ships frequently as I do, each time you walk away you leave the social environment that provided comfort and support for your human psyche.  After a decade of this work, I have come to the conclusion that this is too difficult.  There does come a point when one begins to need stability and support from outside himself.  I have been fruitful in providing my own sustenance for many years.  Ironically the environment to which I return now is in great decay.  There is death all around me.  There is illness all around me.  Everything that has been in my life since my birth seems to be evaporating at the same time.  It is tragic and sad, and I was not prepared for such an emotional burden, again.  How can one speck of dust evoke change for a support system that is dying?  I do not believe it is possible.  I believe that changing one's environment is the only choice.  The alternative is to bury your head in the sand and ignore the things happening around you.  That is not possible either, because living in an artificially produced vacuum is detrimental to one's mental health.  Eventually reality will make itself known, often in a brutal way.  It is better to deal with it like a Republican.  "Plan your work, and work your plan."  I do not have all the answers yet.  In fact I have none.  I try to make it through each day one day at a time trying to achieve a personal goal on a small level related to my musical future.  It has absolutely nothing to do with my current environment, and that is unsettling.  There is no going home.  

The Emotional Muse, Help or Hindrance?

How exactly did my personal life come crashing down back in the day?  It was pretty simple, although when you are engaged in it you are not able to step back and objectively see what is happening to you.  The first half of my life I lived with my heart.  Back in the l980's the cultural dynamic in America supported such an existence.  Movies were about romance.  Music was about romance.  It was the expected protocol.  You looked for your soulmate.  You expected to be in love.  It was what we did in America.  I would learn years later living such a way actually can kill you.  When you come to expect all of those things from another person, suddenly when you do not have them you can fall apart.  Actually what happens is when you have a great deal of emotional and spiritual interaction with another person, when you lose the ability to be able to actualize those same feelings, depression occurs.  Depression is like a dark blanket of nonexistence.  It happens because of a human being's inability to feel emotion.  Now that's a predicament.  We are made human because of this ability to feel emotion, yet it is powerful enough to kill us.  It took me quite a long time to figure this out.  Among other things I suddenly did not have the outlet for sexual expression which for me at that time was intertwined with both my personal and artistic expression.  Really it all was the same thing.  It was nice while it lasted, but it didn't.  Having to contend with a sudden lack of sexual expression in addition to losing my once viable musical career created my personal wave of depression that last almost four years.  I was able to start a new phase of music by enrolling in the D.M.A program in composition at The Ohio State University.  It was difficult moving to Columbus, but I stuck it out.  To solve my depression dilemma I had to change myself.  I had to change my 80's type of romantic notions in lieu of something more relevant.  I discarded love as I had known in in a romantic capacity, and took control of my life.  From now on I got to chose what feelings I would feel.  This was a catharsis emotionally and musically.  This choice greatly augmented my compositional ability.  No longer did I harvest what I was feeling with no conscious control of it.  Now I would make myself feel the way I wanted.  Not to say I stopped harvesting positive emotion when it was available.  When I began composing again while working on ships, I used the close quarters of the ships and thus the crew to inspire me to write music.  I would find a woman with a positive vibration or aura an try to personify that in a piece of music.  Therefore I ended up with quite a few pieces named after women.  "Adrienne," "Ana," "Callifornia," "Erin," and more.  These spiritual vibrations were very important providing inspiration for each work.  I will never forget when studying with Dr. Dick Goodwin at the University of South Carolina how he scorned me for recognizing an inspiration as a viable basis for composition.  Without a concept how can one write anything?  Without a plan, an idea, or a desire what you write inevitably will be contrived as was some of his music.  Fervently but quietly I disagreed and continue writing music that had a deep emotional connection with myself.  Was this selfish, or was it Romantic as in the traditional definition of this style of European music?  Screw it. I was the composer, so I could do what I wanted.  That's part of the beauty of it. In a contemporary music program, one does not have to adhere to the rules of schooled composition or rather the methods of J.S. Bach.  Many people over the years have felt Bach's extreme piety was oppressive, and that is understandable.  Expressing the trials and tribulations of Jesus is lofty subject matter.  Many also never really understand the crucifixion of God's son Jesus was an example of humanity's ultimate sacrifice.  This was a sacrifice when compared to those of our own.  Having a concept in one's music is what makes it logical and therefore discernible by human beings.  There is an affective, spiritual, and emotional side of human beings that we completely do not control. Grappling with this quality which is professed by Jesus to make us more God-like is a life long's work.  It has been for me because without it, what would music be?  Boring.  At the same time it has been troublesome, especially when the emotional expression becomes anachronistic.  The world around us evolves as do we.  Therefore we constantly must monitor our emotional selves for controversy.  At times we much change.  What has become difficult for me is that several valid forms of music at which I excel rapidly are fading from America.  For this reason many jazz musicians see Paris, France as a more nurturing environment for their art.  This is aggravating to me.  Why should I have to move to a foreign country to pursue my music career?  Like your emotional psyche it seems we also can outgrow our countries.  The only logical conclusion I can draw about my musical output is that it is suited for film.  That is the only medium which openly allows and promotes the expression of deep feeling, except for traditional theater.  Of course poetry seeks to do the same thing, and often there is music involved.  

A.B.D or All But Dead?

Somehow I have been involved with academia most of my life.  Partly it is because both of my parents were teachers.  I'm not sure if I ever really wanted to become a teacher, but I pursued a music education degree because it was prudent.  Evidently back in the day it was clear that trying to
nurture an economically rewarding music career was dubious.  Completely I ignored this dogma eventually finding my way into a D.M.A. program in music composition.  Previous were the B.M.E. and a Masters in Jazz and Commercial Music, one of the first degrees of its kind in the late l980's.  Today I choose not to remember any of it, because along the way the truthfulness of the heartache and sorrow attached to pursuing a music career came to fruition.  I personally do not have any regrets for pursuing music.  It was my chosen path most probably by the Creator.  As a composer all I have had to do was open my heart, my ears, and eventually my mind to receive the breath of God as Beethoven said, or at least Beethoven as played by Ed Harris in the film "Copying Beethoven."  I believe him.  Music is the breath of God, or at least most of it.  Today it is the breath of evil as many conventional cultural aesthetics have become.  Specifically in America the intrinsic but not inherent building blocks of our artistic, intellectual, philosophical and spiritual beliefs have become corrupt.  How can I make the determination, me a lowly classical and jazz composer and performer?  Simply because I have the academic credentials to be able to assess such an opinion which correlates directly to nine years of collegiate music study.  At one time a degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill meant something. It did during my tenure.  Unfortunately with the appointment of former Chancellor Holden Thorp that academic standard collapsed along with the reputation of that once fine institution.  For me graduation from Chapel Hill was the most difficult thing I ever accomplished next to playing the piano in the orchestra on cruise ships.  My Masters degree was fun but not difficult.  I was hired as a G.T.A. or Graduate Teaching Associate, therefore I got a stipend and free tuition to teach a few courses.  One responsibility was directing the second jazz ensemble, which I did for two years.  When the Coordinator of Jazz Studies died from a brain tumor I was re-hired as an adjunct faculty member temporarily to cover for his absence.  In this capacity I taught private jazz piano lessons and a course in jazz improvisation.  Also I performed with the Left Bank Big Band, the University of South Carolina's top swing band both on piano and trumpet.  Because I do not have the opportunities to do such anymore, I choose not to remember this period of time.  Also losing that adjust faculty position to an Eastman graduate the next year turned my life upside down.  It did more than that.  After a rewarding seven years being involved in music at the academic level, I found myself playing in a wedding band in Columbia, South Carolina.  That was it.  The band I founded and led to win the semi-finals of the Hennessy Cognac jazz search featuring saxophonist Chris Potter no longer existed.  My connection to a university level music education program was severed.  My personal life came crashing down for a plethora of reasons, not all of which were my fault.  Never did I want to be a music star.   Always simply I have wanted to be able to use my music talents to their best ability satisfying my own soul at the same time.  Somehow today that has been curtailed.  I feel the aberration of the American's traditional value system is responsible.  Somehow the gifts I have been given by God feel wrong to me now.  When I indulge in music protocols that make me feel good and satisfy my spiritual longing, my environment makes me feel the opposite.  Now what used to satisfy me at these deep levels creates heartache and even depression.  It is about this process I am writing to try and discover its cause and nature.  I acutely have been aware of this cause for several years, but I am beginning to forget.  Thus I have begun to try and function that way I have traditionally my entire life until my father suffered a stroke and no longer could remember me as a musical ally.  Instead he began to view me as a severe threat to his own musical existence.  I became the enemy, and I am not sure to this day if that still is not the case.  My father turned 85 years old this week, and although he is unable to do anything for himself other than see and listen still his selfishness for his own happiness is pervasive.  He quietly, almost silently, intensely is bereaved at the loss of his musical expression.  So am I.  It would seem logical if what I am feeling really is what he is feeling.  I discovered this a few years ago and made a conscious decision NOT to pursue music when in close proximity to my parents.          It shielded me from the almost incapacitating grief I would feel at the loss of my own opportunities in the field of music.  As a wise man I deducted my personal opportunities would return at the appropriate time and the appropriate place.  Lately I have failed at following my own rule.  I have begun to think it is possible and okay for me to pursue my music interests without hindrance, resistance, or competition.  What it has caused me is acute disappointment.  I look around and see the rest of the world engaged in their processes, and I am not.  I am not composing.  I am not performing.  What I am doing is organizing the many parts of my life that have become scattered after working on cruise ships for over a decade.  Luckily or rather unluckily I almost have completed that process.  Now for the first time I am bored.  While I have access to most of my tools of music, I do not have a studio integrating them all.  They are spread around with no one work space.  While I am capable of being pragmatic about that, I have yet to come to terms with the realization my joy at making music is my father's grief at losing his.  This must be the reason why now I feel pain and anguish at the things once that provided me so much joy and fulfillment.  It is difficult.  It is difficult being 51 years old and single, not for loneliness but for the complete and utter lack of a personal support system for myself other than me.  I am and always have been a strong person, but not having a single person in this world that is willing to understand me is difficult.  With the inclusion of this "father" issue and its effects upon my musical vocation, my opportunities to be musically viable have shrunk to almost nothing.  Still I peck away at it knowing in the future these things will come back to me, but America is not making that easy.  It makes me angry the my vocation for music has become extinct.  Now I now exactly how the jazz musicians felt when their field of music was overtaken by Rock 'n' Roll.  What you have done and have been respected for for years suddenly now was not valued anymore by mainstream society.  Slowly this has happened to music in America.  Understandably it has happened before now, and I guess as it is supposed to.  Crooning music from the l940's no longer is fashionable today.  Neither is big band swing dance music.  Upon examination most of the more viable forms of American music have become extinct or at least dormant.  How is it that today in the year 2014 America has changed so much from her roots?  How is it we have gone from Dorothy Dandridge to Miley Cyrus being dry humped by Santa Claus?  This tendency only can be correlated to the lack of an effective educational system in America.  Our schools have failed by their misadministration by the government.  I think this misadministration has been purposeful simply to dumb down the American people.  Consequently we have not trained workforce even if we did possess the jobs to hire it.  We are a shite state of affairs.  Our entire nation continually has devolved during my lifetime robbing me of the opportunities my parents had.  America has fallen from grace as the pinnacle of freedom to the world.  We instead are a debacle of confusion, evil, and selfishness which contends Satan's return to earth all ready has occurred.  It is unnerving confronting that obstacle everyday.  How did I get this?

Is jazz Dead?

I awoke a few days ago asking myself the question why I did not seem to have a feeling of familiarity with my surroundings.  I looked around my room, and then the idea suddenly popped into my head.  I had spent many years of my life studying and playing jazz music, more specifically on the piano and the trumpet.  Jazz piano.  Then it dawned on me the feeling inherent in most jazz music was what was eluding me. Upon reflection it has been on the decline and most recently absent from most American music.  Is this what happens when jazz dies in the bottom of a liquor bottle?  I carried a torch for this music, until my wisdom said it no longer was prudent to waste my time trying to be a professional jazz pianist.  Of course I have been.  I have made a living from playing music in many styles including jazz, Afro-Cuban, R&B, Hip Hop, and Beach music.  It always has been in one's best interest to do more than one thing, as it is more likely you will gain employment from a variety of musical options.  Over the years jazz seems to have disappeared from my offerings.  Thus the feeling that accompanies jazz music has been absent.  Like any prudent person I merely have regrouped and persevered with very few questions why I had lost such an opportunity.  When I awoke on this particular day, I realized I personally did not want to lose this feeling.  It was a feeling I had had the majority of my life, and it had provided a feeling of comfort and familiarity in my surroundings.  As I think about where I am now, I realize there is zero reinforcement of the aesthetic of jazz music anywhere near me.  I do not see jazz on television like I once did.  When I turn on the local "jazz" radio station what I hear is pop fodder.  Then I asked myself why jazz piano provided this feeling.  Lately I have been pursuing the publishing of my own piano music but in a contemporary classic style.  I decided while working on ships that writing music that could be read and understood by any classically trained pianist was a more prudent option for its discovery than music holding a torch for an improvising group in a style that seems to have become dormant in America.  With jazz music one needs musicians that are trained in this highly specific artistic music.  It requires many skills which are developed over decades rather than years.  With contemporary classical music all of it can be read and understood by most any reading pianist.  It is this upon which I have become focused over the years discarding jazz and it accompanying feeling.  I realized on this particular day I did not have to lose the feeling of jazz, because America no longer seemed to be supporting it.  Then I asked myself the question how does jazz music need to be preserved and thus continually presented to America for its enjoyment.  Then I thought of regular classical music of course which itself is a misnomer.  What the populace calls classical music really is music from many different stylistic periods mostly from Europe and Russia.  They include the Baroque, Classic and High Classic, Romantic, and Twentieth Century among others.  Rarely do we get to hear music from the Medieval Period or the Renaissance.  Also rarely do we get to hear "New" music.  It became clear to me that this music has maintained the test of time because it professionally composed, professionally published, and professionally performed.  Above all it is supported by a populace which highly values it.  Then I asked myself why jazz does not have the same support.  Primarily it was because to perform jazz music, a unique skill set is necessary that is unrelated to the realization of classical music.  Often in our academic institutions which teach music, jazz and classical curriculums are separate because of this and this separation always has been a point of contention in music education.  I always felt it was exaggerated, because I myself was trained in classical piano but later became a jazz pianist.  There is room for both.  The grift is it takes many years to master both.  I am lucky I had spent the years necessary to study jazz performance including composition, arranging, and improvisation.  These things are second nature to me, but they now are dormant because I am not using them.  When I do indulge in the jazz process, now it seems very unsettling to me.  I feel like my inner most vulnerabilities are exposed to an untrusting environment.  Ironically when I play through the very piano music I am focusing upon now, the feelings I have expressed in it also seem extremely vulnerable.  Between these two musical aesthetics why do they both feel uncomfortable and inappropriate?  As a composer and artist my prudence immediately would say it is because it is time to move on to the next thing.  This would equate to a composer's next style period.  All prudent musicians and composers recognize this is necessary.  You constantly must be on the move to develop and expand.  My problem is why should I have to discard two extremely relevant forms of music which have become part of my soul?  It is because they are not being reinforced in my immediate environment.  Not only is jazz music and its representative feeling not being reinforced in America, my personal music, an expression of my thoughts and feelings also is not being represented.  It would seem I am up the creek without a paddle.  If I indulge in the music of my past, it seems discarded by America.  It I indulge in the music I have created to reinforce myself, it also is unsupported.  In other words America does not seem to "get" either one and their representative feelings.  What?  When faced with the choice I turn back to classical music, because it is being reinforced somewhere.  The great masterworks of the past still seem to be revered and played somewhere either on FM radio or in concert halls.  Jazz music on the other hand has fallen by the wayside, probably because the musicians needed to perform it affectively no longer exist.  I have seen the seminal jazz musicians die off one at a time, and it always has been painful to me.  With the passing of each inherently I knew America would be losing a particular jazz aesthetic, since our academic institutions no longer seem to be supporting them.  Instead another kind of music has thrived.  It should be called folk music, although that would be a disservice to the traditional category of folk music that once was an extremely communicative and viable art form in America.  This newer folk music rather would be defined as, "Being able to be performed by the folk, folk meaning uneducated musically."  Accessible.  Basic. Not inspired.  America's once viable commercial music market has been transformed from one of art to one of folk.  Like karaoke it has begun to indulge the listener's ego rather than his affective and intellectual side.  I cannot upon reflection understand how this has happened other than to see America for what it has become.  Capitalist.  I realized on that day I awoke jazz piano immediately is satisfying.  Unlike some classical music the listener almost immediately can feel something the construct of jazz music.  The earthy sound of an old piano, an acoustic bass, a breathy tenor saxophone, and a very specialized jazz trap set have the unique ability to move listeners almost with its timbres alone.  Put America's Popular Songbook upon it and you have a viable music force with which to be reckoned.  The problem is corporate America does not want this.  They also do not want this power to move listeners and therefore minds and souls to be invested in Rock 'n' Roll.  They want to be able to produce music and control it themselves.  This has proven to be an iconic failure of America's founding institutions, and it will continue until something changes. Corporate America does not want the music industry to possess the power to change minds.  My solution has been to hunker down and continue on my musical path incognito.  I do and will do musically what is necessary to me without the recognition of corporate America or the listening public.  It feels strange and uncomfortable waking up without the comfort I have had my entire life.  Go figure.

The Affordable Care Bubble?

When past president Bill Clinton ran for president in the early l990's, I supported him.  For every American to be able to own their on home seemed like a reasonable and desirable campaign promise.  Unfortunately over two decades later the real socio-economic ramifications of that promise have come full circle.  In short that promise almost instantaneously created the "Housing Bubble."  A good natured promise to help Americans was manipulated by the wealthy to further create their own wealth.  How did a campaign promise become such a thing?  It was the reason his wife Hillary Clinton was not able to pass universal health coverage during his presidency.  Unfortunately ideas generated for the betterment of Americans must be well thought out protocols and procedures for implementation through either private are governmental business structures.  With this in mind it is remarkable to me that our first African-American president was able to accomplish such a thing.  I tried to read through the legislation today, although it only was a representative document published for public use.  It was not the real law, as itself stated.  At almost one thousand pages I passed, like most people.  My common sense says to me that one's income will determine the amount of a governmental subsidy available to purchase health coverage either private or sponsored by the government.  As I looked over the comprehensive list of plans one thing came to mind.  It seemed as if I would be paying premiums monthly while still paying my own health care costs.  Why?  The deductibles were so large that the average person needing few  doctor visits or prescriptions never would get past it.  They would be paying out of their own pocket until something chronic occurred or until there was a medical crisis.  I do understand this is the way insurance works.  The healthy pay for the sick.  It is a calculated risk.  I'm not sure this is the best way to take care of Americans.  It seems this is a way to make both the medical establishment and their accompanying pharmaceutical companies rich.  Other countries that offer affordable health care often pay for and by the individual service of a doctor or clinic.  The prices without the intervention of "Big Insurance" are reasonable and represent the actual service and equipment used.  That is not the way of the United States.  When I was uninsured and  passed a kidney stone for the first time, I learned this lesson.  Later when I did so again, I learned that it did not take a five thousand dollar visit to the Emergency Room to handle this inconvenient biological function.  It took one shot of Demerol, a day off work, and as much bottled water as I could drink.  The trumped up drug fees, the MRI fee, the doctor's bill, and the ER bill not really were helping me cope with what I now understand as a routine malady.  They were padding their own pockets.  Protocols such as this are what have founded sub-cultural processes in America.  If our own intended systems honestly do not look after us, Americans must turn elsewhere.  This solely is the basis for the drug trade in America.  If people no longer feel good because their environment has become polluted, they must resort to some type of anodyne to replace this once available ability to feel good or normal.  Why people feel abnormal is put on them.  No one in America including our governmental systems will be accountable the massive amount of pollution being created by corporate giants.  Getting back to past President Bill Clinton for a moment, one of his implemented policies is a metaphor for such irresponsibility.  On one hand he claimed to balance the federal budget with this idea, subsequently he created single-handedly what seems to be today our most viable American commodity, wireless communications.  Is/was this a good idea?  If you are an adolescent that is dependent upon their Droid, Blackberry, or Smart Phone, I guess the answer is yes.  Certainly it is for Apple, Verizon and the others.  Contrarily as the Housing Bubble proved, these ideas implemented and corrupted over time can be devastating to our country.  Who knew when President Clinton pledged that each and every American should and would be able to own their on home, the "Establishment" would begin a process of making themselves rich happily by providing such a service.  Real estate prices doubled overnight, the tried and true vetting process for offering credit was discarded, and Wall Street brokers began pooling and selling these high risk mortgages as hedge funds for their own huge economic rewards.  Over time the trend could not sustain itself, because it not was based upon sound economic philosophy.  It was corrupted for the gain of a few wealthy elite.  Unfortunately all of that money once in active circulation in our economy now sits idle in Swiss and Grand Cayman bank accounts.  The holders of this cash refuse to reinvest it back in the economy of America, because we have no tangible gross national product.  The era of moving money around and making money from money is over.  The country is left searching for our socioeconomic and philosophic roots.  Fortunately the wireless communication's bubble seems not to exist, so other than the rapid decline of Apple at Steve Job's absence there will not be much fall out with the loss of the glorified "Walkie Talkie."  On the other hand there is a remarkable similarity between Bill Clinton's past presidential election promise and the Affordable Care Act.  By requiring each and every American to purchase health coverage, it is plausible and quite probable without the proper governmental oversight the medical establishment and its accompanying insurance industry also will corrupt the system for their own gain.  Because all ready our system of health coverage is cumbersome, excessive, and constructed for the good of the establishment rather than the American people, why would this force suddenly change?  I feel this is the major concern of the opponents of "Obamacare."  It is a valid worry.  All ready we have seen the ramifications of the legislation.  Policies are either being cancelled or the premiums raised.  Why?  Secondly with an American economy in shambles from three overseas wars under past president George W. Bush, whence do these subsidies come?  Shortly after being elected president, Ronald Reagan lowered the federal income tax percentage for the highest earning sector.  Previous to his presidency the federal tax on the highest earning tax bracket was seventy percent.  SEVENTY PERCENT.  That meant the wealthy were supporting the country.  Now the same wealthy Americans, instead of re-investing their now surplus capital back into the American economy, are sitting on it.  In what do they have to invest?  That is the question.  Health care?

'Obamacare' or 'Nigger?'

With the constant decline of quality of American news media, still it is difficult to understand why this media seems only to pander to the adolescent age group.  "Obamacare?"  How can a federal law enacted by America's first African-American president be reduced to a pseudonym?  While it is understandable there is much contention over the law between political parties, how is it that America has reduced this misunderstanding to sheer mudslinging?  "Obamacare?"  That word in my eyes is synonymous with "Nigger."  The same cultural class that would choose to use such a demeaning racial slur thus must be responsible for the coining of the term "Obamacare?"  Is it that they are too lazy or disrespectful to take the time to try to understand the legislation?  This is becoming increasingly more difficult in light of our currently constantly declining new media.  While "spin" is not a new concept and possibly has been a component of the White House for decades, misreporting of the news has become commonplace.  Lying in fact has become commonplace.  One only has to watch right wing television news to see this in full effect.  It seems the need for immediate gratification has usurped the tried and true practice in news reporting of checking and double checking your multiple sources.  This deficiency almost has curtailed my following of the news on the internet, not to mention that there is a stark absence of any positive news.  It seems local newspapers also have fallen prey to this more tabloid type of reporting.  Is social networking responsible for this downfall?  Is it that adolescent disposable income is the only income available to the remnants of America's gross national product?
Who can argue that America's youth are and have been food for America's established economic powers?  It is despicable.  "Obamacare?"  We as a nation are too ignorant to say the phrase, "Healthcare dot gov.?"  Keywords, soundbites, or hash tags are abbreviations for an adolescent America that do not have time to form a paragraph.  The fees on their cell phones are too expensive to allow a complete expression of thought.  Did we as a populace choose to live this truncated existence uttering phrases of incoherence?  It is comedic, but it should not be.  What should become clear is we as a nation have regressed on all fronts to a superficial existence of the wealthy preying on the children of America.  While there should be and has been a process of social networking via media, it cannot replace the true mechanisms of American society.  The internet if anyone will recall originally was a connecting of academic data bases to share data on the development of the atomic bomb.  Scholarly or educational information was the basis of the internet, not social networking.  This is how I learned at The Ohio State University, yet it is difficult for me to remember.  Having not been affiliated with an academic institution for over a decade, it is unnerving to have become at the mercy of commercial America.  I remember when using the Apple Macintosh computer, if you took the time to learn the operating system you could have control of your machine.  This included software bundling, software updates, and networking.  Never would your computer take it upon itself to download an update without your consent.  This concept while novel to trustworthy computers has opened the door to spyware and other malicious programs meant to steal or destroy your information.  What is it we are so busy doing to have forgotten how to take the time to learn our systems?  Is it because manufacturers do not want us to learn them, because then we would become content with them and not buy the next newest thing?  As NPR has reported recently the richest ten percent of Americans are earning ninety percent of our income.  There has become no middle class.  All I can say is eventually America will fall prey to the same governmental ills as other older nations.  We in our generation somehow have sidestepped the tumultuous uprising of Americans against unfair government or social rule.  All I can say is it seems like due time.  Better pick up a hoe or an axe.