"I Want my Apple Store?" (formerly MTV)

First and foremost I would like to know in all certainty why the cable television networks MTV, VH-1, and BET all stopped broadcasting music.  MTV was an iconic watershed.  Music Television.  That was kind of a new concept at the time.  Music has been on television since its inception.  That is because entertainment in America before the invention of television utilized music to a great degree.  There were other elements, but being able to hear music over the radio was a great augmentation to the sound of only the human voice.  Possibly radio and its recent death is worthy of more study and respect.  There are many unresolved questions floating around in my mind.  The first is, "Who owns the 'rights' to the Top 40 radio airplay hits of our recent decades?"  I am aware at one point in time, the "King of Pop" Michael Jackson with his seeming infinite fortune purchased the entirety of the Beatles catalogue.  When he began having troubles in most likelihood he sold this massive and representative fortune to whom?  (Question number two)  Because as a musician and consumer during the last decade I have purchased, mostly because of late night television advertising, collections of past Top 40 radio hits.  There are many available.  I have Country Hits that encompass years back to the 1940's.  It is interesting to hear "country" music from then.  How different is it from 'Crooning' music or 'Easy Listening?'  How different is it from 'Swing?'  I have the Disco collection.  Never has the Fender Rhodes electric piano sounded so good with a viable orchestral string section and a "snap and pop" electric bass player.  I have "AM Favorites."  I have the "Best of Gospel."  I have "Classic R&B."  Each and every music collection was purchased from Time/Life.  Is that the same as Time/Warner?  Warner Brothers used to be one of the top three American record labels.  Comcast purchased Time/Warner?  Question number three.  "What corporation owns the rights to this Top 40 music?"  Again.  "What corporation owns and maintains the copyrights to this Top 40 music?"  With the upsurge of telecommunication and specifically the cellular phone, it is well known the once pristine radio airwaves now are replete with rogue frequencies.  Every Tom, Dick, and Harry has a miniature radio station in their palm.  With each call or text character electromagnetic pollution haunts these airwaves.  Interference has become a large problem in both AM and FM broadcasting.  Add to that the communicating of mass travel and well, you get the drift.  America ain't what she used to be.  Simply I would like to know what prompted these once viable television networks to stop their broadcast of music videos.  Was it because rock 'n' roll now is dead as so purported both by Pete Townsend of "The Who" and Gene Simmons of "Kiss?"  Broadcasting out-of-date music videos would be unhip?  It can be agreed upon that the musical era of the 1980's is different than the eras of Grunge, Hip/Hop, New Country, and Pop.  I remember still videos of these styles being viable.  Simply, "Why did MTV, VH-1, and BET stop broadcasting music video?"  How could shallow, untalented, gossip-oriented, reality-type TV shows take the place of MTV?  I don't get it.  I suppose it is a dollar thing.  Music is, was, and should be the pulse of life.  It documents history, it inspires souls, and it comforts the needy.  Music single-handedly has been the bloodstream of America since her inception.  That is because music in her artistry intuitively creates a metaphor for human existence.  Without words, without pretense, and without politics honest music is the human condition, or at least it used to be. 

The Death of MTV?

While I was watching TV late last night, two surprising concepts emerged much to my surprise.  It is not very often that my system of values is reinforced on television.  Ironically at times a particular cable network will cater to my interests almost mystically.  How often do you see a commercial for a wireless home security system?  "Leave the premises now!"  I guess it is more often than I think.  That particular ad doesn't expound upon the technical aspects of their system.  What exactly is it?  How is it installed?  Is your home really monitored 24/7?  It seems Harbor Freight offers a few lower priced solutions that could give a homeowner peace of mind over the deluge of recent larcenies and murders in Fayettenam.  Needless to say I was surprised to see a television commercial recently for such a wireless device.  While a wireless home security system was not either of the two concepts that tickled my fancy, neither was hearing commercial music with integrity.  In short my definition of musical integrity simply is breaking out of the insipid norm of tepid pop-styled music.  I'm not sure exactly when the powers at be in America decided child-like bassinet music should be adopted as the new American mainstream music.  It is so innocuous that it could not convince a fly to buy pure sugar.  Instead its purpose is to be innocuous.  In our ever increasing P.C. country, slowly the goal of not changing minds has become our purpose.  If we forfeit our spines, our opinions, and our convictions then corruption will continue unabated stealing our money, infringing upon our civil liberties, and covertly installing a system of fascism in America.  It all ready has happened.  I am not saying the power of music is so great, but historically it has been proven music can inspire watershed events, changes of philosophy, and thus changes in culture.  Nationalist music has played an important role in politics and war possibly most represented by the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.  His personal style of composition lent itself well to the then important concepts of Russian idealology.  The Kremlin chose Tchaikovsky specifically to provide Russia with a musical world image of patriatism.  Interesting enough with this responsibility came rebellion from others.  The "Russian Five" emerged selling their own brand of individual nationalist expression.  It could be said that a similar event occured in America, but very few people know of its existence.  While the "Second Viennese School" was not American, are there similar musical tenants that emerged in rebellion to mainstream American nationalism?  I believe so, and it is an enigma to me that it is not recognized.  I used to believe that Jazz music was America's only true art form.  Luckily like the two concepts I observed last night on late night television it came to me.  Bluegrass and country music both are musical art forms in their own right.  Whether their roots can be traced only to American soil I am not sure.  Because America is a country of immigrants I am sure the origins of these two musics can be found in the folk music of Scotland and Ireland.  Similarly the polka music of Germany found its way into the American state of Texas.  It is refreshing to receive a fresh blast of musical inspiration.  It is important for America to understand musical roots are concurrent with a country's soul.  Music history aside the first concept I surprisingly observed on network television was something I have not seen in decades.  It was bittersweet, because I have experienced it myself albeit thirty years ago.  What it was simply was a family's visible support of their daughter's adolescent courtship.  They were encouraging her to bond with a male of similar age going as far as to provide a nearby home for him.  This almost was mind blowing.  A few weeks ago I spent an afternoon with my sister's family and friends.  I heard through the grapevine a family of a local Episcopal church purchased a room for their son at the yearly summer retreat.  Openly they allowed his girlfriend to stay with him on church grounds.  While I understand traditionally pre-marital sex is discouraged in God's teachings, I feel His teaching beg to be interpreted in a modern context.  I feel the same way about American music.  Somehow America missed the boat musically on how to become modern and thus more potent socially.  Still mainstream American society has yet to recognize Expressionism as a viable expressive aesthetic.  Why is this?  Why is it rarely do we hear modernist pieces on classical radio stations?  How have American's failed to evolve musically with their European counterparts?  It almost is comical.  I'll never forget when I interviewed for a college teching position at Western Carolina University in Cullowee, North Carolina.  Little did I know that the acting chairman of the music department also was one of their few composers in residence.  I had just completed my coursework for a D.M.A. degree in music composition at The Ohio State University.  I had become a serious composer in addition to a jazz artist, MIDI technician, and educator.  I was not prepared for what he said to me about modernist music.  While fully I love the Second Vieneese School and in particular Alban Berg's Violin Concerto, I had no response for his defintion of this intensely passionate, creative, and ground-breaking music.  "Bleep bloop music."  That is what he called it.  It is a known joke in academic music circles that Milton Babbitt could qualify for such a description.  I do not agree, but I understand the analogy.  To untrained ears these words onomatopoetically could represent the sound of some of this music.  "Bleep bloop."  Ironically this definition also could apply to one of the lesser known styles of American Jazz music.  Even more ironically still it is the most current and therefore credible evolutions of jazz music.  The Avant Garde still is current yet how many Americans even know what it is?  If they do, can they understand its abstract content?  Possibly they could if they were aware of Expressionist music from the l920's.  Simply it was meant to represent the clanging cacophonous sounds of a thriving modern city.  It would be a stretch for traitional America to replace Stephen Foster with Charles Ives.  I call it evolution.  America has ceased to evolve.  Fundamentally it has become clear to me that our lives are choices we make both consciously and instinctively.  We rely upon both processes for our growth.  At times we use our experiences and emotional responses for comfort.  At times we consciously choose our paths.  At times we are influenced by our surroundings. We must by necessity understand that which is important to us for future continual growth.  My instincts guided by my environment help me decide.  If something is "not working," then it doesn't feel right.  For a variety of reasons I will uncomfortable in my own skin.  Often as history has proven to me, things once that were comforting become disconcerting.  That is my instincts telling me to move on.  I believe as a nation America has failed in this process.  Instead we have a stalemate between two.  Conservatives possibly want things to remain the same.  After all if the system isn't broken then don't fix it.  As Americans we all know this is far from the truth.  Our system of government has failed to operate effectively for over a decade.  Even with no new ideas upon which to base America's future, Conservatives continue to cling to anachronistic ideals.  One particular entrepreneur was successful at becoming modern but at the expense of a nation.  It is a fine line.  Steve Jobs pioneered the iTunes store allowing computer users to purchase music online via the internet.  He with what could be considered to be his most valuable attribute single-handedly forged deals with musical artists and record companies to create this new business model.  It simply is buying music on the web.  While he did modernize Apple, this one event has left a gaping hole in the traditional music industry.  Every tenant of music production has suffered at its inception.  Somehow not only the purchasing of music on the web but also its pirating has devalued music as a once tried and true American commodity and art from.  This new business model coupled with America's refusal to evolve artistically toward modernity has stymied music production.  When the populace begins to believe the arts have no value, purpose, or worth then we are doomed for an American Dark Ages.  It all ready has begun.  Cheap commercial constructs have undermined American art, because we a nation have no other alternatives for gross domestic product.  Until America's traditional business structures have been repaired and reinstated, art will continue to fail.  Ironically upon perusal none of the traditional systems that built America are represented today in clear view.  They exist at academic levels and in certain governmental shells, but America's economy is flailing in ignorance.  The second concept I observed on late night television was musical.  More importantly it could be considered critical to survival, because it strives to change the Condition of America.  Ted Allen, the host of of the Food Networks "Chopped," curiously pointed this out as three competing chefs attempted to prove their culinary skills.  What he said I could accommodate.  It certainly was not a "Bleep bloop" kitchen.  He had asked the chefs to transform discreet ingredients into a savory delicious meal, transform being the operative word.  Transformation simply was not cooking the ingredients in a traditional way.  Transformation took the original ingredients and collectively turned them into something completely new and innovative.  His word for this process was "creativity."  It was the first time I had heard this word in the context of a cooking competition, but it also was mind blowing.  Media acknowledgment of a crucial artistic process on mainstream television?  It had the same effect on me as parent's openly concerned about the marital future of their adolescent children.  Simply we do not see these things everyday.  Many many crucial structures in tradition American culture are gone.  The term creativity has substantial underpinnings.  In this cooking scenario creativity saved the day.  Why?  It is because the process of creativity is as complex as the decisions we make daily about our growth.  Some are based upon our experiences and our emotions.  Others cognitively are chosen.  Often they are blended together in an ever-changing, adapting, and solving algorithm.  They are jazz improvisation.  While I am tempted to end this blog entry with such a statement, I must follow up.  It would be nice to have jazz improvisation once again respected and understood for its value, but it would be better to have jazz improvisation be respected and understood in its most current form, the Avant Garde.  This modernization in America should be setting standards for American culture.  If people have trouble with the bleeps and bloops, they must evolve enough to understand that the sheer, visceral, and immediate emotional responses to those sounds is what is intended.  
As exemplified by the visual art form "Abstract Expressionism," those complex, bold, and evocative gestures of Jackson Pollack are attempting the same thing as jazz Avant Garde.  They solicit immediate emotional response to the authors message.  Unfortunately we have grown as a nation so complacent, so selfish, and so inhuman, the receiving of an artists emotions no longer is in vogue.  How could it be that hundreds of years of world history have been changed?  

A Denouement

Rarely where I live because of its environment, am I allowed to actualize my own emotional profile and history.  I taught myself when I moved to Columbus, Ohio how to create my own feelings.  It was a matter of necessity, because the negative feelings of my past had been suppressed (not allowed to actualize) and created depression.  I had to solve this problem, and I did.  I changed my emotional profile.  Today at age fifty-one I have become torn between my past and this newer realization produced by my brain.  When I use the latter I am productive, but I feel none of the emotional fulfillment of my success.  I have disciplined myself to do this anyway.  Usually after a period of days of not feeling anything, usually I break down with the aid of alcohol.  It, unlike the great menace of infrasound, allows your body to feel.  It relaxes you to a point that the proper frequencies of electrical energy and your sensory perceptions are engaged.  These two things, electrical impulses from the brain and sensations on the skin, are important in actualizing emotion.  Usually it comes in a swift gush, a release like crying.  Not always is it sad.  Often it has been.  Currently it intensely is empathetic.  My release of emotion finds an almost narcotic satisfaction of feeling empathy for others in distress.  I have realized this is moral, ethical, and religious conviction.  Strangely enough although I full well know my personal moral and ethical code, this process creates it subconsciously.  I do not have to think about it.  It happens instinctively.  Emotion triggers this.  Emotion.  I have realized if others are the same as me, it is possible their emotional responses also are being thwarted by intense infrasonic pollution.  I spend the majority of my time thinking about how not to feel, because when I do allow myself to feel I realize they are not my own feelings.  They are a compilation of the feelings of others around me.  Not going to happen.  It is unpleasant.  When I am working on ships, sometimes I am able to actualize my own emotional profile and history.  I use it to compose music.  It has been a Godsend.  Because I have not been allowed to actualize these feelings in my social life with other people, I create them myself with the aid of others.  I have found positive vibrations from friends and used them to inspire my own music.  At times I created musical metaphors for these friends.  That process does not occur now, because my affectual psyche is overrun by my environment.   Because of an intense combination of both electromagnetic and infrasonic waves, both my skin and my brainwaves are bombarded with pollution.  Brainwaves are Alpha, Beta, and Theta, and are 8, 10, and 12 Hz respectively.  These are interrupted or overridden by rogue electricity in the environment.  When America's federal government tried to construct the Ground Wave Emergency Network, GWEN for short, a published document proved that transmitting electricity through the ground would be detrimental to everything.  Studies were performed that proved our brain waves would "latch onto" an external bombarding electromagnetic waves thus possessing the power to change both our moods and thoughts.  If the same thing is happening to an uneducated, troubled, and potentially violent youth it is possible with our prevalence of violence in pop culture, they may be failed their own sense of moral and ethical conscious because of this stymying of emotion.  If MY conscience instinctively is triggered by my emotion, and that emotion externally is being suppressed by America's pollution, then someone not intelligent enough to know and remember their own moral and ethical code could commit evil acts if their emotions involuntarily were being blocked.  They in effect are being denied their own social conscious by living in the chaos of America's military industrial complex.  It's a bitch, emotion, and I believe its suppression is what is causing the murderous rampages in America.  A once supportive, positive, clean environment now must be purchased.  Those not as fortunate are left to figure out their own plights.  It truly is sad that more and more Americans are choosing death over life and taking others with them.  It is time to unmask the demon of infrasound and its causative agents, diesel locomotives.  These polluting machines lurk in our neighborhoods 24/7.  With little to no regulation from the federal government because of the Strategic Rail Corridor Network, railroads operate selfishly with impunity for their own commercial gain.  Its a funny little shelter that no longer is funny.  With rail traffic that has grown exponentially since the advent of logistical container shipping, America is bombarded with infrasound constantly allowing no time for a human's emotional psyche to recover.  I believe after months of this unwanted abuse, adolescents break down and erupt in murderous rebellion.  I understand, because consciously I deal with it every day.  It is a struggle.  Deny emotion and become inhuman, embrace emotion and become a tormented soul.  It sucks.  

To Open Pandora's Box or Live in a Fantasy

Several things were on my mind today when I rose to a diesel locomotive in my bed.  It has been there each day this week beginning on Monday.  I should do as the rest of the neighbors do, and, "Get the hell out of Dodge."  Isn't this an infringement of some civil liberty?  You may be wondering how a diesel locomotive actually could be 'in my bed.'  It is accomplished the same way the "Taos Hum" finds its way into your bed.  Its sound and electromagnetic vibration are carried long distances on the infrasound produced by its diesel engine.  Each and every diesel engine produces such a thing, because of the 'firing rate' of its cylinders.  This by product, although the audible sound of the engine is disturbing to many, is more of an invasive nuisance.  Why?  The answer is simple.  An infrasound wave by definition is a low frequency sound wave whose wave length is so long, it ceases to produce audible sound to the human ears.  Because we can't hear it does not mean it does not exists which is proven by the existence of both electricity and electromagnetic waves.  It is unclear to me with society's understanding that Gamma wave radiation (nuclear radiation) is the most dangerous to human beings, why the effect of these lower frequencies are ignored.  Likewise understanding that ultrasound can and has been used as a form of non-lethal weapon by producing liquifying of an opponents solid waste, how can these  pervasive and omnipresent low frequency sound waves be ignored?  They can no longer and for good reason.  A thorough study of them will prove they alone are responsible for many of the aberrations in human behavior that have occurred in the last two and a half decades.  I have written about this before and have learned how to both bury my head in the sand and grow a tough skin.  One does have to live in this world.  While occasionally the transient condition of a cruise ship did provide shelter from this prominent industrial pollution, often it did not.  In the Mediterranean Sea infrasound was prolific as were electromagnetic waves.  Jokingly our sound technicians on the boat would blame the nuclear submarines just below the surface of the water.  I believe them.  Likewise as ships  traveled down the Mississippi River from New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico, the wireless microphones in out theater would pick up radio waves at certain points in strong number.  Invisible electricity is everywhere and especially with the proliferation of the telecommunications industry.  Cell phone towers are everywhere.  Why it is misunderstood that a microwave being produced by an oven, a radio transmitter, or a cell phone tower still is a microwave is beyond me.  Heat.  Like many of the ailments I wrote about previously, Global Warming has been swept under the carpet again.  The need for electricity, one component of an electromagnetic wave, has trumped the world's concern over air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels.  Coal is cheap.  Not only that there only is ONE industry capable of hauling this bulky heavy product.  It is a major contract.  My thoughts this morning were related to this discourse, and how unseeingly they were connected to my consciousness and artistic aesthetic.  I am lucky enough over the course of time to have been able to study different disciplines of music performance and composition.  I began with jazz and ended in contemporary classical.  While I enjoyed both for various reasons, the choice between the two has become more difficult.  Why?  There are many reasons I rather would not have to contemplate, but I do.  This is because I live in "The Condition of America."  First and foremost jazz is dead.  It no longer is valued as  America's only true art form.  Some say it died in the bottom of a whiskey bottle.  I say it has died at the bequest of the rail industry.  Many non-musicans may not know that the most successful commercial music, the music that has "become a hit," often uses a 'tempo' relating to or being a ratio of the infrasound waves created by the diesel engine.  While this machine has been indispensable to the growth of modern society, also it has been detrimental.  Music that usurps this negative influence is empowered, because it seems to be able to change the human condition, at least for the short term.  Simply it makes us feel good.  True jazz music also seeks to make us feel.  That is why disk jockeys say you don't really need to be able to understand its possible complexity.  Only do you need to be able to "feel" the music and its message.  Today this process has been diluted by the commercial music industry.  A television infomercials tell us, the decades of the 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's all produced powerful socially relevant music.  There was a message that needed to be told.  Today music is superficial masturbation.  It has nothing to do with art.  I assume it is earning capital for some faction of America, but I am not interested in it.  I still am interested in jazz, but it has gotten difficult.  Why?  The answer is because the feeling that drove much of jazz music no longer is supported or even present in America.  The Marsalis Clan stated this.  They had to change musical style to continue to be viable in the American music scene.  I personally as a jazz performer and composer feel this is an atrocity.  Miles Davis would have called it, "Selling out to the man."  Dizzy Gillespie did it.  The more popular Rock 'n' Roll genre founds its way into traditional big band music changing its intent.  Is it because this attitude, this philosophy, this direction of society no longer is relevant?  I can't imagine this to be true.  How could have have changed so much in a few short decades?  It is true it seems.  I hold the torch for jazz music, but now it causes me pain and anguish because its message is not understood.  When something is misunderstood it can become alienated and then impertinent.  The masses have the power to eradicate it form social consciousness just as they are attempting to do with religion.  It is disheartening.  Like Miles Davis I found a way to keep my musical proclivities valid and earnest.  When I realized jazz was dead, I changed to contemporary classical music. There were two merits in this decision.  One was any classical-trained reading pianist could play this music.  There was no need for improvisation or the realization of chord symbols.  Anyone reading pianist could actualize the music.  The lost art of jazz no longer was necessary for the realization of my personal music.  The second merit was it allowed me to continue to use my mind creatively in the field of music.  While once jazz improvisation accomplished this process, rarely did I have the opportunity to do it.  When I did I became the enemy, because I learned from the masters of jazz.  I learned "that" feeling that produced "that swing."  After all Duke Ellington said, "It don't mean a thing....."  Miles also said it.  You either have it or you don't.  I didn't always have it, but I continued to work on it until I did.  Ironically that didn't present itself until I was in my mid thirties.  Patience is a virtue.  After being persecuted for my gift time and time again, I made a conscious decision to put jazz on a shelf in the closet.  It still would be there if and when I wanted it.  I began to write contemporary classical music for the piano.  Today still I am drawn between these two musical disciplines.  Part of me is saying continue to nurture my performing skill in commercial music including jazz.  Part of me says, "I have been down this path before, in this area, and to no avail.  Ditch it."  I have no desire to re-live past memories including the complete void of musical opportunity in my community.  How can you be successful in your chosen vocation is there is no opportunity?  You can't.  Composing music for one's personal intellectual and spiritual gratification should be immune from the scrutiny of society, but it is not.  Why?  It is a simple situation of Nature verses Nurture.  We live in a combination of our experiences and our environment.  I am torn between my instinctual musical desires, and what I have learned.  The dilemma presents itself each and every day.  I can choose to indulge in the beauty of classical music, or I can realize living in a dream with rose colored glasses will be fruitless.  Not fruitless in terms of a body of work, but fruitless in terms of monetary reward.  Also the exact same conundrum exists for this music as does jazz.  The beauty of traditional classical music is not reinforced in modern society, nor is the message of jazz.  Neither art forms are in any way related to commercial America.  It is difficult as an educated adult to chose either discipline, because they both will prove to be worthless monetarily.  Ouch.  Ouch again.  Ouch.  Ouch.  I understand now fully how jazz musicians of the 1950's and 1960's felt when their jobs became extinct. Somehow society decided what these musicians offered no longer was relevant to American society.  I hear what disk jockeys are calling jazz on the radio.  Still musicians are involved with it.  Insultingly to me it is not jazz, because I know.  It has become pop, and still to this day I am not sure if its purveyors even are aware that they are not performing jazz.  They use its structures, and they exploit its stage.  They fail in every way of presenting its message.  It is sickening.  At times I, "Butch it up and put a cork in it," and decide that I am going to continue producing jazz music with its original emotional intent.  What happens?  My emotions are assaulted greatly by the invisible giant of infrasound.  It hinders jazz music on multiple levels.  First with a low frequency "standing wave" in your performance space of recording studio, you are not going to be able to hear audible music to the extent which is necessary for an artistic realization.  Upper frequencies are obscured.  Lower frequencies are stymied.  Middle frequencies are muddied.  It is a mess.  Not only can you not hear adequately, you have a sound wave more akin to barometric or seismic pressure actually inhibiting the accurate formation of artistically meant sound waves.  If an infrasound wave is oscillating at 1/2 or 2 Hertz constantly, creating a differing fraction of movement in the air becomes much more difficult.  That is why music that has sustained the test of time consciously or subconsciously has accommodated this phenomenon.  The most accessible style of music that exhibits this intent is Hip Hop.  Hip Hop, with its extremely powerful almost droning bass content, seeks to nullify the very presence of disturbing infrasound waves  produced by diesel engines.  That is why it was popular.  It accomplished this feat and was successful in making human beings actually feel good.  That was iconic.  Somewhere down the line not only did many of the gangster creators of this music die, the powers at be decided this music no longer was going to have financial power in America.  Pop was born.  A soulless, rhythmically impotent,  shallow entertainment became the norm for American popular music.  Tin Pan Alley must be turning over in its grave.  

A Set of Ears and the Silent Culprit

Over the course of the last twenty years many new ailments, maladies, and actually documented diseases have been discovered.  Science and the medical establishment have made strides in certain areas.  Ironically many of these new found conditions have lost favor in the media.  Rarely any more upon they are reported.  I am sure these things still exist (possible 'Yoda' translation or Shakespear, "I sure am things still exist will,) so possibly the treatments have improved, or the populace is suffering in anonymity.  I believe it is the latter.  It has been reported that the majority of perpetrators of recent murderous rampages had been ingesting dangerous psychotropic drugs for depression.  This included Eric Harris, Dylon Klebold, Kip Kinkel, and Adam Lanza.  It would seem the pharmaceutical companies like their Wall Street counterparts may bear this responsibility.  If focus can be brought to the correct issue, help is possible.  Our current media with their shallow coverage almost always skirt the potential discoveries of such atrocities.  I assume they want to keep their jobs by purposely not doing traditionally what American media has done, expose corruption.  It is a hand and hand thing, and Hollywood likes its affluence just as do the rich that control many of these issues.  If the media fails to do this investigative reporting, America's social conscious merely becomes responses to heinous acts of irresponsibility seen in public.  Wouldn't it be more prudent to both the public and the media to do the right thing?  The last decade has seen the rise of this kiss ass behavior.  It could be associated with a national campaign of fear and intimidation, miseducation, and a controlling of the populace for financial gain of the wealthy.  I never bought into it.  Dumbing down the public never works.  Underestimating the American people never works, because the fabric that built this nation always must exist at some level.  The rich sitting in their pent house never will win a Civil War.  It is those in the trenches willing to die for their country ultimately that prevail. A well-armed militia was the victor in America's Revolutionary War.  While it is documented in history the North won the Civil War, there is an interesting study I read (http://weeklysift.com/2014/08/11/not-a-tea-party-a-confederate-party/) here that suggests otherwise.  It seems the Confederacy continued to fight the Civil War well after the freeing of the slaves. Not only were famous horse-riding gun slingers terrorists for the South, the mainstream populace continued to wage war by implementing breeches of the newly legislated civil liberties.  These were terrorist acts performed covertly on their home soil under that radar of the federal government in Washington, DC.  These atrocities are well documented in American history, but intimidation, lynching, and hanging by their newly created terrorist cell, the Ku Klux Klan, continued past the official end to America's Civil War.  It was waged covertly.  There has been another covert war being waged against America's citizens, and it has been implemented by corporate America.  America's traditional liberties reliant upon her environment slowly and invisibly have been revoked.  Of what do I speak?  For some reason the controlling majority like to use an argument that defies all logic of science and medicine.  "If you don't see it, it doesn't exist."  Are we really that ignorant?  Are our politicians really bold enough to say that if an issue is not visible to the eye, it can't exist?  This may be why the field of music has been deemed such an undeserving entity.  "How can we put stock in something we can't see?"  That sounds like the argument of a Republican.  Only educated people it seems can relate to this zeitgeist.  I don't believe that is true, because as a collegiately trained music educator music has been seen to occur naturally in human beings.  Educators must only connect with and develop it.  The Kodaly and Suzuki methods of music instruction are examples of this.  Simply put, "All God's chill in' got rhythm."  I'm not sure that is true, at least typified by what has become current in the last ten years in the music industry.  Clearly it is obvious we are not all created musically equal.  Gratefully that's why music education exists, to teach and develop this aesthetic.  Unfortunately music has lost favor with society.  Not only have the wealthy stopped hiring bands for their occasions, elected officials have seen fit to chop music programs from public school curriculums.  Two whammies.  I think the elimination of music from human consciousness is a component of the overlying covert campaign to dumb down Americans so they can be controlled by corporate America and thus its wealthy owners.  If Americans are not aware of issues, these corporations like the post Civil War Confederacy may operate with impunity.  Take for example an adolescent texting while driving.  Previously the precedent was talking on a cell phone will driving.  Both should be illegal, and any American state that has not passed such legislation is a pawn to the telecommunication industry.  That is the beauty and horror of the national/state system of American government.  Clearly we can see malfeasance and its attributing parties.  In North Carolina it is glaring.  Lawmakers openly and with great delight fuck the public. If music is eliminated than one of the most important concepts of human life is eliminated.  That is human beings are sensory beings. We have been given senses to enrich out meager lives.  The wealthy buy their sensory perceptions, if they have them at all.  The rest of us are left in the jet wash of America's military industrial complex.  About what am I talking?  If a driver does not understand one's ears should be an aid, then how possibly can they assume the responsibility for safely operating a motor vehicle?  Listening is key to much of the human condition just is feeling.  These sensory perceptions have been infringed upon at such an acute level, both animal and humans alike should be seizing in disillusion.  Oh, we are but secretly.  Secretly we are dealing with the affects of Attention Deficit Disorder, Restless Leg Syndrome, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, Bipolar Disorder, and the list goes on.  It is a virtual smorgasbord for the medical establishment.  "Why study and cure disease when we can make more money from treating symptoms?" As of yet never have I visited one dermatologist who was competent enough to asses a skin condition.  Each and everyone of them says, "Dermatology is the most difficult branch of medicine."  Really.  The study of diseases of the body's single largest organ have not kept up with cancer research?  Is it because the American Cancer Society will not receive their funding if cancer is cured?  Is it because the study of the skin is deemed undeserving of funding as is music?  It seems a more intelligent or rather more earthy, soulful, and feeling official is required to make such a designation.  How can one understand the importance of the arts if one is not artistic themselves?  How can a president inspire Hollywood if they previously were not an actor?  How can an unmusical politician make value judgement over something they do not understand?  If we are not able to hear things, than those things that are not visible to the human eye cease to exist.  Dangers to the human race that are transmitted by other means are not there.  Then there is electricity.  We cannot see it, but America is prudent enough to recognize its worth.  We make money from it.  America makes use of the electromagnetic spectrum, the academic field of Physics, because we make money from it.  It is interesting certain frequencies of this spectrum for years have been designated unsafe by the FCC.  Bill Clinton changed this, and while he was an effective president in many ways, this singlehanded decision to auction these unsafe frequencies to telecommunication companies changed the world for the worst.  (...although in his words it balanced the federal budget.) Teenagers now stare at their palms instead of listening with their ears.  It is a duality like an electromagnetic wave.  Not only are our ears not hearing anything pleasant and positive, that telecommunication device is attempting to satisfy a similar need.  It may not be singing to us like Pavarotti, but it is attempting to satisfy our sensory needs.  What are these?  These are the things God gave us to augment our meager existence.  Sounds, smells, and feelings all no longer are in vogue in America.  Only is it about what we see visually on a little teeny screen.  If American teenagers were listening to the sounds of the motions of society, they would be safer.  Unfortunately these sounds, once reinforcing to human existence, now are a large part of the demons who silently and covertly haunt Americans.  We all are suffering in silence.  

A Weak Link

Because I yet do not know enough about Charter Schools to write an editorial, I am going to shed some light on what seems to be a rather prevalent motorcycling ailment.  There are a number of internet forums that have the thread, "Motorcycle Chain Clacking." It ranges from dirt bikes to street bikes.  The common consensus seems to be it is unavoidable.  The chain makes noise traveling over the front sprocket and also in other places along its travels.  Recently I encountered this problem on my 2001 Honda XR-200R. Since I have owned it never has this particular phenomena been a problem until now.  This summer as I have attempted to trail ride behind my house, I began to encounter this same annoying clattering sound coming from the drive train.  It was difficult to pinpoint.  There are many places the chain makes contact with other parts of the suspension.  There is a thing called a "Chain Slider" of which I was not aware.  The first thing I did was disassemble this piece of what appeared to be white plastic.  The chain rides across it as it runs onto the rear sprocket.  It is a guide that feeds the chain directly onto the teeth of the rear sprocket.  It was filled with dirt and also had grooves worn in it where the sides of the chain had created friction.  I put it back on.  Same noise.  I scrutinized the plastic shielding parallel to the swing arm.  It was somewhat loose and could have been making contact with the chain.  That was all that I could see.  This sound religiously was disrupting my riding experience.  As some non-riders may not know, the motorcyclist uses both his "ears" and sense of touch to control the bike.  One's ears hear the revving of the engine, and this tells you many things.  Most prominently it is when to shift gears.  Certainly I do not look at the speedometer and shift at a documented spot, while many speedos do indeed have indications for the appropriate gear range.  You use your ears.  When the engine gets revved up too high, you shift into a lower gear.  With a bit of artistry one can make the sound of a motorcycle engine sound noble by its shift points and velocity.  You can shift slowly or quickly depending upon the type of ride you desire.  I would assume upon reflection the majority of engine sound is coming from the exhaust pipe.  With the increasing popularity of the Harley Davidson as a machine of choice, it has become common in the United States to remove any baffling from the exhaust system.  Literally that means the sound of the explosion of gas and air in the cylinders is transmitted directly out of the pipes.  It is loud, almost unfathomably loud.  I am not sure exactly what is the appeal of this horrendous roar.  It could be a combination of intimidation, defense, or simply awareness.  I have heard riders of Harleys like the idea that other motorists clearly can hear them coming.  What I wonder is how that sensation feels underneath one's crotch?  To each his own I guess.  What I know from experience is the combination of engine vibration and sound of a Honda are quite pleasing to the human psyche.  That may not be as true for "stock" motorcycles or bikes that have been left the way they have been "tuned" at the factory.  It seems to be common knowledge that for E.P.A. standards Hondas purposely are tuned "lean."  That means the fuel/air mixture in the carburetor does not quite have enough fuel thus exhibiting erratic behavior when the engine is cold.  Simply this means the bike is "cold blooded" and takes a long time with the choke on to warm up properly.  I had this problem with my own 2008 Honda CB-250 Nighthawk.  It had a very problematic stutter upon acceleration.  After reading a few forum posts on the internet it was easy to discern that the carb. was jetted lean.  With documentation provided by a few conscientious Nighthawk owners, I was able to figure out how to solve the problem.  It was not dissimilar to how I had "uncorked" my Honda XR-200R.  If you removed the baffles from the stock exhaust then the tuning of the engine is disrupted.  The calculated air flow through the cylinders from the carb. to the exhaust is changed.  There is MORE airflow at the exhaust side with no increase on the carb. side.  I experienced the results of this first hand on my 200.  Before realizing I needed to re-jet the carb., I proceeded to uncork the exhaust by replacing the stock baffle with a Thumper racing insert.  It opened up the airflow somewhat and gave the XR a bawdy pig sound.  Without the increased fuel and air flow from the carburetor  the engine bogged during acceleration.  I rode it anyway unknowing.  After reading up I learned that if you opened the exhaust in this manner, you needed to increase the jet sizes in the carb.  I did going up one size.  It solved my problem without ever having to consider changing the needle clip position (if there was one.)  This increased the performance of the 200 engine considerably.  I knew that the Nighthawk would benefit from a similar program.  First like the XR, the CB-250 needed an increased airflow air filter in its air box.  Stock air boxes from Honda I believe are required by law to possess metal grills to thwart a possible air box fire.  That is the only reason I can assume for this rigid and difficult to bend screen.  On the XR I ripped out this metal obstacle and installed a K&N filter made of foam.  This coupled with the larger jets and opened exhaust constituted the "uncorking" of the XR.  Voila!  A great result.  The CB-250 had a spring-loaded, metal-contained, paper filter.  I really did not want to abolish this well engineered device and did not see an easy way to attach a "pod" filter with a simple clamp.  Some structural modification would have been needed.  Instead I took the filter to a friend and auto mechanic's shop where we tackled the dilemma.  After a bit of hacking and sawing we were able to modify this metal unit eliminating its own paper filter.  With a few concise cuts to allow more room within the housing, a "pod-type" filter clamped directly onto the preexisting tube inlet.  Success!  The unit would clamp in and out of the air box with the preexisting spring-loaded lever.  No modification of the inlet or air box was necessary, only the filter housing itself.  With this done I experimented with the jetting of the carburetor.  I tried one size larger jets and two washer shims on the jet needle.  This produced a favorable result, but intuitively I felt the little CB could gain even more performance with two sizes of larger jets.  I installed these and one more washer on the jet needle.  Bingo.  I feel with these modifications I have one of the best sounding engines in our town.  It will accelerate with a Harley from zero, and at 50+ m.p.h. with a full opening of the throttle the engine will sing with the full throatiness of a baritone opera singer.  It is spectacular.  Even without altering the stock baffles in its pipes, the performance of the engine is stellar for me.  It is purrs like a kitten with moderate throttle at speed, it roars with acceleration when pushed, and otherwise is inaudible except for its pleasant vibrations under your thighs.  While its engine tuning was crucial to eliminate that dangerous hesitation upon acceleration, two other modification also were necessary.  One was the installation of a set of aftermarket "Daytona" handlebars.  These were more akin to the geometry of dirt bike bars and controlled the slightly heavy front end better.  The second task completely solved this seeming heaviness in the front end.  There is a large gas tank on this machine, and when it it full obviously the front end seems heavier.  One simple task alleviated this sensation.  I replaced the stock six-year-old front fork oil with a slightly stronger fluid, fifteen grade instead of ten.  Even without installing a not-available "Progressive" spring, this change of oil remarkably changed the handling of the Honda CB-250.  Now it responded like a "sport" bike.  It was an amazing change.  Now I have both the XR-200R and the Nighthawk in tip top riding condition and just in time.  The 100 degree plus "dog days of summer" almost are at an end.  Let the good times roll.  By the way put a new heavy-duty "O" ring chain on your machine.  It will cost more, but it will eliminate the chain's lateral movement keeping it from clattering on the engine's other metal parts.  Simple.  Done.  Honda.  Great.  

Bank of America

Kudos to Eric Holder for leading the Justice Department in their prosecution of malfeasance by Bank of America.  Eighteen billion is going to go a long way getting the American economy back on track. Way to go, America!

A Corrupt Society

A slurry of news has been circulating surrounding a recent police shooting of an African-American man.  Upon both observing and contemplating my immediate surroundings that reinforce a lawless society, it is far easier to understand recent police brutality.  When an officer draws his gun and points it at a criminal offender, it seems purposely he adopts the responsibility of judge and jury.  Because much of America's judicial system is on the take, criminals often dissipate through the mesh.  Because our country no longer possesses the financial means nor will to educate or adjudicate our citizens, a police officer is placed in a precarious position.  While at times a criminal will feign contrition about his crimes, it often is cited in the field of criminal justice only a small percentage of criminals are capable of rehabilitation.  Because our prisons are over populated, because America does not possess the financial means, and because there is no will actually to spend time dealing with the criminal faction the police officer has become the sole judge of a criminals fate.  While all of the questions being raised are relevant, such as why an unarmed man was shot multiple times, the wisdom of understanding someone else's point of view is quintessential.  Firstly shooting a  pistol requires physical skill.  One's rushing adrenaline has the power to usurp tried and true training.  In short a police officer doesn't necessarily possess this skill.  His aim could be bad.  Shooting multiple times assures the assailant will be hit.  Secondly a police officer knows that chances of a perpetrator being convicted of their crimes.  In some cases it is rare.  In the few seconds it takes to draw a pistol it is probable a police officer actually is thinking about this.  "What are the chances this criminal will be tried and convicted and taken off of the streets?"  In the much acclaimed film, "LA Confidential," police officer Bud White exhibits this behavior.  He knows full and well the history of the criminal, and therefore takes it upon himself to serve justice.  "That's what the man got, justice."  We as a voyeuristic society often cast judgement without understanding fully the encompassing history.  It looks brutal and immoral to see a criminal lay down his weapon on the ground and then immediately be shot three times.  The officer it seems was not practicing empathy.  An example of such a behavior can be seen in the film "Colors" starring Robert Duvall.  With rookie partner Sean Penn, Duvall police's the neighborhood of East Los Angeles practicing and exhibiting empathy towards his fellow citizens.  He loves them, and consequently while he performs his police duty he engages his personal code of ethical and moral behavior.  More experienced police officers with familial backgrounds could be more prone to this use of conscious.  Without it they would be reliant upon ONLY the education and training they receive from our society.  Because the powers at be fervently have been trying to eradicate religion from our country, this makes American citizens more susceptible to immoral behavior.  Where do they learn it?  How is a police officer supposed to know when to, "Be cool Ringo," and when to lay down the law?  America embraces Capitalism as her socioeconomic system.  Capitalism foremost teaches a philosophy of getting for yourself.  There is nothing in its dogma remotely that suggests caring for your fellow citizen.  This must be learned either from family or religion.  Farther and farther has mainstream America strayed from an ethical and moral society.  It is reinforced daily the majority of our society's construct is, "On the take."  Our judicial system, our elected leaders, and our medical providers through the corporate monopoly of health insurance are enveloped in a cloaking  milieu of selfish corruption.  Getting for one's self.  That is what Capitalism teaches.  Not only that giant loopholes exist for businesses allowing them pollute the environment, extort our money, and control our lives.  It is the nature of America.  It is the Condition of America.  I am not sure a change is possible.  As I observe the expansive sprawl of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, all I can ask myself is what is this military doing?  What do they do for me?  Do they really ensure my freedom by fighting civil wars for other countries?  Is that really the responsibility of the American military force?  I have not witnessed our military directly protecting my civil rights ever.  Instead we watch them engaged to protect fearing elected officials from probable social unrest.  I only can think this body of armed men and women are being preened to protect our corrupt government.  There has been one exception, and that is the transporting and distributing of food to the refugees in Iraq.  The funding of this military has bankrupted America, and still today we have no money for the domestic needs of our infrastructure.  Trillions have dollars have been pissed away fighting civil wars in the Middle East.  What about America?  What about our country.  What about us? 

Robin's Plight/A Lawless Community

When I signed onto Facebook yesterday someone had posted a video of a Florida police officer
attempting to arrest the father of an autistic child after he had been ticketed.  He was trying to explain to the officer that his child had autism.  I don't know sequentially how the video was filmed, but
it appeared that the father, still sitting in his truck, was being harassed by the police officer.  For no apparent reason he kept saying, "You are under arrest, sir."  The man refused legally to exit the truck and be taken into custody for what he felt was a false arrest.  He had done nothing except try to explain that his child was not normal.  Violently he was pushed from the driver's seat by another officer who entered his vehicle via the passenger door.  After being pushed out of the truck he was tased repeatedly into compliance.  America has seen this kind of police brutality often.  The more public displays are met with social unrest resulting in rioting.  In these scenarios rioting is the most effective means of voicing a majority's concern.  It has become a crucial component of social justice in America.  This generation could be considered to have been given a pampered life compared to the rocky course of American history.  That is not completely true.  The largest terrorist event transpiring on our native soil happened on September 11th, 2001.  Likewise the travesty at the Branch Dividian Compound in Waco, Texas occurred as did Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.  It seems we have a restless populace, although these incidents are rather isolated.  Police violence has been with us for a long time often associated with the LAPD.  While this topic was not my choice as a blog entry, it is pervasive in my mind.  I have mixed feelings about it.  First the town in which I currently dwell
starkly is absent of police.  Rarely does one ever see a police car on the road.  Speeding is rampant.  Drivers are overly aggressive.  Window tinting in almost every vehicle is in violation of the state's ordinance.  Fayettenam has developed its own small "Car Culture."  With the release of such films as "The Fast and the Furious" racing small cars in the streets has become a popular hobby to the disadvantage of the average ordinary driver.  Not everyone decides to race when they drive to the store.  It turns out Fayetteville has been deemed the most dangerous city in which to drive in all of North Carolina.  Go figure.  Not only have our formerly four-laned boulevards become six lane death traps, most of the intersections in Fayetteville with double left turn lanes have no markings to guide you safely through the intersection.  Often there is a dividing curb in the street toward which you are turning.  It is easy to misjudge your trajectory and "shoot short" heading into incoming left turn traffic.  It is a nightmare.  It is a bit of a mind fuck to exist in such a place.  One only can wonder, "Where is our police force?"  Like public education police salaries ridiculously are low.  Teachers in North Carolina are treated to the lowest salaries in the entire United States.  It easily is understandable why we do not have an adequate police force.  In addition to being the most dangerous city in which to drive, Fayetteville is riddled with murder.  Almost every day people are killed by gun violence marking Fayetteville as a hot spot.  A rather incognito fact is that soldier suicide is prevalent.  Four soldiers that have returned from the Persian Gulf each murdered their wife at Ft. Bragg.  One must ask one's self what is the catalyst for this murderous behavior?  One also must ponder the suicide death of comedian and actor Robin Williams.  I do not understand while covering his death television anchor people continue to utter the words, "His addiction."  His addiction is such a ridiculous vague statement.  If news reporting actually is the goal of these television shows, then why not say, "Alcoholism."  There is no need to spin or trump up Mr. William's weakness.  It was well known.  He talked about his alcoholism in this stand up comedy routines.  "His addiction.  His addiction."  That phrase could and should mean an addiction to cocaine, heroin, marijuana, or any other illegal drug.  Alcohol is legal.  Obviously it is clear one can become addicted to it as well.  It seems many hollywood drunks enter "Rehab." to often a great media spectacle.  Possibly this is because the behavior inducing the alcohol abuse itself is shallow and misunderstood.  It is thought of as just "partying."  The behavior does not merit reflection in society.  It should be cloistered from public knowledge.  B.S.  Drinking is common.  It has been a part of human culture for centuries.  Many people feel human beings would not have made it this far without alcohol.  In ancient times workers drank beer instead of water.  Wine is supposed to be good for the heart.  "His addiction?"  His alcoholism.  His inability to stop drinking and thus getting drunk.  One loses their conscious ability to stay sober and thus take upon themselves the responsibilities of their everyday lives.  Dysfunctionality.  It seems Mr. Williams had been in and out of "Rehab." quite a few times.  It seems he liked to drink.  He liked being drunk most probably like most people who enjoy the escape from reality.  If drinking indeed is an temporary escape from reality then we as a populace must ask the question, "From what are we trying to escape?"  What is intended when four Army soldiers kill their wives?  What is instigating the murders in Fayetteville?  Why would an adolescent commit genocide in an elementary school?  It seems all of use are suffering from something, and it appears to be mental.  Mental is not only cognitive.  It is not ONLY our brain's ability to think lucidly.  More importantly it is our brain's ability to control emotion.  Emotion, like neurosis that is a by product of physical disease, also itself is a by product.  Emotion is a crucial component of the human psyche.  It in actuality is what often is cited as making us human.  Does that mean without emotion we are not human?  Our feelings or instincts are what cause us to create a moral or ethical code by which to abide?  I'm not sure about that, but I would wager a large percentage of the time violence and deviant behavior are a by product of suppressed emotion.  The world greatly has changed.  In my opinion is has changed drastically in the last five years.  Whole cultural constructs have been eradicated and replaced with behaviors and practices that seem foreign to me.  It must be difficult struggling with one's life in a completely new arena with unfamiliar rules.  Human contentment is not what is driving capitalist America.  On the contrary it is well known that a  "Campaign of Fear and Intimidation" has been implemented for years.  Television is attempting to scare adults.  Corporate America fully is trying to keep human beings unhappy, so that they will buy their products.  This is true even in the idyllic surroundings of the cruise ship.  Cruise companies use "pop" music as a way to antagonize guests into buying alcohol and food.  They do not want you to be content.  They want you to be unrequited so you will BUY.  American society seems to have adopted this philosophy.  Many of the privileges afforded Americans in the past have been revoked.  The simple pleasures of a pollution free environment aggressively have been abolished.  We now buy bottled water, because our tap water is too polluted to drink.  We breath air high in toxin content.  We are bombarded by noise from both the rails and the sky.  We are heated by hundreds of thousands of microwave ovens sitting stop radio towers.  Whence does global warming come?  One only has to look around, yet still nothing is done.  Like the phrase, "His addiction," all of this pollution is swept under the carpet rather than confronted in an intelligent and meaningful way.  It is obvious some sector of America is content themselves with this scenario, yet a scholarly and well respected study has proven that the lack of spending of the rich is stifling the American economy.  People can't spend money they don't have.  Wages have fallen so far behind fairness.  Governments want to eliminate academic tenure.  The price of education has risen exponentially over the last fifteen years.   In fact unwaveringly each year the government whole heartedly approves the maximum tuition increase allowed whether is is merited or not.  That is not unlike a corrupt judge unethically collecting the maximum allowable fine from an offender simply because they plead "Not guilty."  This happened to me in environmental court in Columbus, Ohio.  When did the pursuit of the dollar usurp our desire to take care of one another?  Oops.  I forgot.  That is "Socialist!"  That is Obama.  A socialist economic system is based on the organizational precept of production for use, meaning the production of goods and services to directly satisfy economic demand and human needs where objects are valued based on their use-value or utility, as opposed to being structured upon the accumulation of capital and production for profit.  Ouch.  That must sting to the contingency that seem to be pulling the strings in America.  Almost always I have been a Socialist.  I don't believe in Capitalism, because like Fayetteville I found out years ago those seeming opportunities are controlled by old money.  Only a select few are chosen to receive the spoils of elite society.  That wasn't me.  Consequently I don't feel badly about not having retirement capital.  I don't feel badly about having very little.  I don't feel badly about being poor.  Jesus was poor, but He was rich in so many other ways.  I am rich in art.  I have created it through music.  In great probability it never will be heard.  I am before my time.  American society as it currently exists is not capable of digesting my emotionally honest message.  It is TOO intimate.  It is too expressive.  It moves a diversity of human emotion with more resolution than most music in history.  Why am I such a pessimist?  Am I a complainer?  I think not.  I only am realistic about the Conditions of America.  

Myoclonus and the Art of Zen Buddism

Myoclonus? Feminism? Mark Twain?  Which is foremost in my mind as I sit in this coffee house beginning to blog? The answer first was Sam Clemens.  After watching a portion of Ken Burn's episodic biography I surprising was happy.  Inexplicably I found a connection with this iconic American writer's history.  His job as a steamboat captain on the winding Mississippi river is not disimilar from the experience of working as a musician on cruise ships.  There is a certain type of freedom this lifestyle affords a person.  In addition it was refreshing to hear about an artist, someone trying to excel and achieve in American literature.  Not only that his voice was an honest social narrative about American slavery.  It seems he was the first person to ascribe a human nature to these captured Africn workers.  It was groundbreaking.  Enough of that.  The moral of the story for me was, if I added a bit of satire and humor to my blog entries, maybe they would become more palatable.  I am not a complainer by nature, but sometimes social injustices demand it.  Second topic.  Myoclonus.  When I awoke this morning after an absence of sedative the evening before, I acutely was aware that when I don't drink I don't sleep.  Most Americans it seems rely upon prescription medication for their daily ills.  I possess none, therefore I make use of the legal over-the-counter variety of drug, alcohol.  When I drink alcohol late a night there is a good chance when finally I hit the bed my eyes will close and I will enter a deep slumber.  Usually it is restful, relaxing, and in a way cathartic.  Why?  "Sleep is a rose the Persians say," quoting from Clare Quilty in Adrian Lyne's movie version of "Lolita."  Why would ancient Iranians have such a favorable outlook on sleep?  I only can surmise from my own experiences.  When I really sleep many things happen.  First and foremost it is well known our immune systems work most efficiently when we are at rest.  They body is not busy supporting human activity.  Secondly the muscles and notably the spine are decompressed and allowed to recuperate from a day full of compression and expansion.  Third understanding the emotions are vibrations or actually electrical impulses of varying low frequencies, these are allowed to escape because the muscles are relaxed and uncontrolled by conscious thought.  It is a catharsis of sorts allowing our subconscious feelings to surface.  Fourth as our subconscious emotional self is released the mind accompanies creating dreams.  I look forward to this process, but again and again it is thwarted.  When it happens I dream similarly-themed scenrarios involving survival in a foreign environment.  Often I am  an adolescent placed in a foreign town like a transient soldier's son.  I must aclimate to my new social construct determining with  whom to make friends, to doubt, and to resist or deter.  It is a challenging and rewarding game, and I play the politics well.  I have learned after twelve years working on cruise ships how to play politics.  One must because your happiness is reliant upon this skill.  Often I am running, or hiding, or feeling moderate pain from a chase.  I overcome diverse obstacles as my skin, psyche, and emotions are over-stimulated from sound and vibration I am feeling from the environment in my bed.  In this case my expectations only partially are fulfilled.  I do not always wake feeling good.  I wake with the recent memories of how to survive in a challenging world.  Often the experience is more colorful and thus rewarding than my own life.  I am allowed to meet new people including women.  I am challenged to conquer an opponent.  I am allowed to roam on vast rural and urban geographical landscapes including war-like paraphernalia.  I traverse razor wire actually feeling the pain on my skin.  I scrape off rogue-like creatures from my scrotum.  I tolerate blades in my back.  Often I fight an invading Sasquatch-like creature that attaches itself to my back and whispers in my ear in an inescapable bear hug.  This is stimulated by sleep paralysis when I am half asleep and half awake but cannot move.  It is quite the experience and takes some getting used to.  Over the years I have learned that I cannot be physically harmed from my dreams, so I wake without concern.  This is in spite of the awareness of Wes Craven's macabre character Freddy Krueger, who in the movie "A Nightmare on Elm Street" actually does antagonize, torture, and murder innocent teenagers.  My bed does not suck me in, and my bedroom provides a sense of security.  I do not feel intimidated from my surroundings, although often I do feel afraid.  A loaded pistol under my pillow helps me calm this fear.  My dreams shouldn't kill me, but a potential criminal could.  He wouldn't make it through the window without being riddled with .22 caliber hollow point bullets.  There is a sense of comfort knowing this, and that I have two pre-loaded clips stored with the Walther PPK.  Formerly I used to sleep with a Springfield A1 1911.  While its stopping power was proven by the U.S. military in World War ll, that kind of percussion in the small confines of an  uncarpeted bedroom could prove harmful.  I opt for the less potent .22.  Dreams and novelas aside this morning a new realization was had.  While I am accustomed to the over-stimulation of my skin, muscles, and emotions (which I do not like or enjoy), I am not accustomed to myoclonus.  While I have experienced this annoying anomoly in a lover, it has been years since I found myself exhibiting its symptoms.  This morning was an exception.  I did not sleep well as usual.  I feel intense heat and electrical activity in the air.  That translates into an electromagnetic wave which exudes both.  A duality these waves are electrical energy coupled with a magnetic field that creates vibration and heat.  Over the years and with the world's reliance upon wireless telecommunication, I have begun to recognize this phenomena.   Often it is difficult to tell the difference between an infrasound wave and an electromagnetic wave.  Infrasound waves produce similar sensations but without the vibration.  Sometimes the sensations are a summation of both, a vibration carried along by a long-wave-lengthed sound wave.  Commonly it is known that radio uses this principle utilizing a carrier wave to transmit its audible content.  While I have been tolerating these menacing sensations for years, never have I induced a conscious episode of myoclonus.  I did so this morning out of necessity.  I awoke from my third night of non restful tossing and turning to these exact sensations.  I am unable to actualize any of the positive attributes of sleep because of it.  My senses, skin, and emotions athletically are overstimulated subduing any or all of my own personal subconscious responses.  The result is one of which I have been suffering for several days if not weeks.  Whatever it is in the environment is prohibiting my own personal emotional profile from actualizing.  Electrical impulses from my brain releasing serotonin fail to travel down the cervical spine allowing me to "feel good."  This particular anomaly is addressed by The Alexander Technique, which is a method  taught at some colleges which attempts to relax this particular area of the body.  We are taught how not to scruntch our shoulders, rather lifting the head, straightening the spine, and assuming what is considered to be "good posture."  How does one achieve this lying in a vibrating bed?  It is impossible.  I have learned the sleep I crave and need to be healthy is elusive.  Instead I sleep less and less and use my conscious wake time to avoid the sensations at all cost.  I was so distraught this morning and angered by this unsympathetic invasion privacy, I fought back.  I created my own vibrations not dissimilar to early American Quakers and Shakers.  It seems the Holy Spirit or what native Americans considered spirits of nature induce such a reaction, a catharsis of emotional energy.  Chanting, meditating, and dancing all can release such tension.  Simply I squeezed my neck, and that constriction of either arteries or nerves released a myoclonic fit.  From a spectator’s point of view, it should have been considered a seizure.  Wow.  My muscles began to twitch uncontrollably in waves of activity.  I was awake.  Myoclonus is more common in sleep as a spontaneous and involuntary release of muscle and/or emotional energy.  It was glorious to return fire.  

That Southern Feeling

All day today I have had this icky feeling.  I have felt it before, so it is not so unfamiliar.  The bottom line for me is I don't like it.  The reason simply is, it is not a feeling I consciously generate with my mind or soul.  It is a feeling I pick up from the environment.  Being an artist, which many will rebuke if you admit it, can be a curse.  I have learned to live cautiously because of it.  If you are able to feel varying emotions and use this in an art form, it can make you vulnerable to bad feelings.  To the average person I'm sure feeling bad is not uncommon.  When I reflect bad feelings surfaced during puberty.  The social training ground of junior high school surely will test the feelings of any teenager.  I had a crush on Stephanie Coverstone.  Then I had braces, was chunky, and was introverted.  Many thought I was just fucked up emotionally.  Not having friends exacerbates this emotional difficulty.  Imagine the nerd sitting alone in his room subject the the whims of his subconscious mind.  At a far greater level depression is an emotional disorder often that is caused simply by not recognizing and actualizing particular emotional responses.  If our naturally wired body is not allowed the freedom to respond instinctively to emotion, then these feelings become repressed.  I have experienced this on a grand scale.  When my depression came it lasted over four years.  I had absolutely no help healing it either.  I went to see a CEPHAS councilor.  He was a useless turd.  He listened but told me nothing.  I should have been prescribed drugs, but alas I had to tough it out.  How did I chose to confront this depression.  I moved to a state nine hours away and began working on a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Music Composition.  I didn't know how I became this way.  I just knew a series of events in my life were incredibly bad.  I lost my teaching job at the University of South Carolina, I lost my girlfriend, and that girlfriend vowed to hurt me in return for having lost interest in her.  She did hurt me.  I was a sucker, and like a little puppy dog I  chased her until I no longer could tolerate her emotional abuse.  She stood me up.  She verbally abused me.  She humiliated me in front of our former friends.  She stole from me.  This all came after three long fulfilling years of relationship while I was successfully teaching jazz studies at USC.  I fell like a rock all the way to the bottom.  My once almost celebrity-like musical status disappeared, and my reputation was smeared.  Not only that I wrote a letter to the Chairman of the Department of Music and explained they had made the wrong choice for the professor that was taking my interim teaching position.  My advisor, John Emche, died from a large brain tumor.  After graduating and two weeks before the fall semester was to begin, Dick Goodwin called me up and asked me to return to USC to fill in as a adjunct faculty member for one year. Of course I said yes.  Unfortunately after this year they filled the position with an Eastman graduate who had been working in the movie studios in Hollywood, CA.  It seems he had done some work on the soundtrack for the movie Ice Castles.  Instinctively I knew he was the wrong choice, but they made their decision.  It took three painful years for their choice to dig his own grave.  He did not receive tenure and was fired.  I came back to Fayetteville and truly was in dire straits.  I had not job, no woman, and no prospects.  Additionally I was moving back to a city that with which I no longer had connections or friends.  After a year of playing music in an original fusion band and applying to OSU, I moved to Columbus.  I did not adjust to the Midwest quickly.  In the midst of clinical depression I just toiled away writing music.  It took me three long years to affect change.  How did I accomplish this?  I had to physically move myself to a different state away from where I grew up.  There were several reasons why I chose Columbus.  First and foremost Dr. Emche received his D.M.A from OSU.  He turned out well.  Secondly Columbus was a capital city, so I knew there would be gigs.  I was right, and after a short while I was playing keyboards professionally around town with various bands.  The way I had to cure my depressions was changing my emotional profile.  That means consciously changing how I felt about certain things.  Primarily it meant the notion I had possessed my entire life about women had to change.  I was luckier than most people.  I found my true love at age fifteen.  For seven glorious years we lived the picture book romance of the early l980's.  I gave her many clothes and jewelry.  I pampered her, and I loved her unequivocally.      When we separated it was the single most difficult decision I had ever made.  I thought about it for a long time, but had to make the decision that we had grown apart.  The feeling I have right now is that of a jilted lover.  I feel bad.  I feel guilty.  I feel unwanted and unneeded.  I feel like I have very few options, and that these options are not being offered to me on purpose.  There is an outside contingency that is controlling my life making me feel this way.  Is this crazy?   I don't know, but I am intelligent enough to understand my own emotions.  In addition to the two reasons I mentioned earlier, there was another reason why I moved to the state of Ohio.  It was a rather far piece from North Carolina, eight and a half hours in the car to be exact.  I grew weary of this same feeling, being at the mercy of a populace that was controlling things.  I didn't realize this back then.  I just knew that for me to be successful as a musician I had to leave Columbia.  I didn't know then there was a CIA black list that actually black balled actors and musicians with the incorrect political affiliation.  It didn't occur to me that someone could hinder your vocational job opportunities.  That is because I never learned "the game."  That game is that southern feeling.  It is a camaraderie amongst people that are friends.  I never learned about this, because always I had a girlfriend with which I was making love.  That was enough for me.  I bypassed this system, this feudal hobnobbing that seems to be the necessary foundation of southern living.  I witnessed it in high school, but it was not appealing to me because the participants in this activity were ignorant.  They did not study or focus on their education.  Instead they socialized.  Many openly were ignorant.  I instead flourished as a musician.  Now living once again in the south, it must be "that" feeling is making me uncomfortable.  What I also know is fervently I dislike this system.  Simply it means you don't get your share of the pie without kissing the asses of those who have more than you do.  This is why I left Columbia.  Today I realize after having visited it recently, it exactly is the same as it was in l987.  It is a small university town controlled by the select few that have been working there for decades.  It is society.  If you don't fit in with them, "Hasta la vista, baby."  Fayetteville is exactly the same way.  It is southern.  I have traveled all over the world working in the cruise industry as a pianist.  I have seen many other countries, and each in a particular ways in my opinion socially were more advanced than North Carolina.  North Carolina is a redneck good-old-boy network of yahoos.  It makes me sick to my stomach.  For twelve years I have worked in the leisure industry and have been required to be friendly to everyone.  Now for the second time in my life, I find myself in a populace of people I do not like.  The first time it was attending St. John's Episcopal Church in the l970's.  I am Christian, and a respect people.  I know now that evil does exist.  It must be why we have so many infernal bible compounds in Fayettenam.  They are everywhere.  They are schools.  They are recreation centers.  They are hubs of activity that must be trying t o counteract this evil I feel in this feeling.  I was lucky enough to escape the raw and primitive existence of "Fire and Brimstone."  A ridiculous crazed preacher threatening that we would all burn in hell if he did not adhere to his chosen Biblical concepts.  Fuck that shit.  Still Fayetteville has not changed.  It is a downer.  It is oppressive.  Fouad Fakouri, the conductor of the Fayetteville Symphony, touts that we have the most envied Arts Council of any city.  Simply and naively that is because they have money, and they fund his orchestra.  Yes, they are a great asset to our city.  Afterall I am a doctoral level composer.  Still because of this southern feeling I feel alienated.  The Fayetteville Symphony which began in Dr. Grimes' living room used to be led by Harlen Deno and contained local school teachers and music professionals.  It was intimate, the way the Cape Fear Regional Theater used to be.  Both now have become commercial and generating revenue has become more of a necessity to their existence.  Back in the day before Equity actors, the people that made up that theater were local amateurs.  Because of that to me the shows were more meaningful.  I knew these people.  In addition I played in the pit orchestra for quite a few shows.  I  was the musical director of both "Five Guys Named Moe," and "Traveling Notes," a children's show penned by Scott Hurley and Cassandra Vallery.  To me it is not the same, and there is are reasons.  First with their accumulated trust money Bo Thorp has become a patron rather than its director.  They like the Arts Council have money now.  They used New York based equity actors and directors for the expanded season of shows.  Is watching a Broadway play the same as watching a play in a regional or local theater?  No.  It is a business.  Once I considered musical theater one of my great loves.  Now it makes me sick to my stomach.  Why?  Without fear of being chastised or ostracized, it is possible the arts in general have been influenced by homosexuality.  Because I am not homosexual, I have no need or desire to be subjected to complete strangers sexual proclivities.  Sexuality is a private matter.  I do not agree with those who are attempting to use it as a social platform.  I also agreed with past president Bill Clinton's  policy of "Don't ask, don't tell."  It worked.  I have been forced to deal with this issue in my professional music life, because homosexuality is common in production show casts.  Often all four of the production singers are gay.  I don't agree with using the arts as a social platform for homosexuality.  It does not make sense to me.  There is one thing that supports a connection of homosexual preference to music.  I know this because I have been subject to it repeatedly.  Because I am an artist and use music as an expression of my feelings, I became aware that gay men seemed to be the only people who could understand, feel, or sympathize with my expression.  When I was emoting while playing the piano, women were not interested.  It was the gay men that seemed to understand that particular depth of emotional expression.  Was this because of their persecution and related strife for being gay?  I do believe that suffering can and does translate into art.  Many think that jazz would not exist without the experience of American slavery.  Would musical theater also not exist without homosexuality?  I enjoy the movie "It's De-Lovely" a lot.  Richard Rogers is the one man of which I am jealous.  I am angry that having moved back to Fayetteville I am having recurring feelings of frustration, missed opportunity, and social stagnation resulting from class.  It feels like the dark ages, this southern thing.  Columbus was not that way, and I met many people that had lived in Fayetteville or Ft. Bragg before moving to Columbus.  They each said, "You can't make any money in Fayetteville."  There is too much old money.  It doesn't flow to allow new economic activity.  I always have known this.  When I rode my bicycle for the first time around our neighborhood a few nights ago, it was surprising to see what appeared to be gay men.  Then I began to wonder that this feeling I have is related.  I know it is not from me.  I know that as an artist and empath I can feel others feelings strongly if I am not careful.  At the age of 51 no longer do I have the desire to assert my masculinity.  I am comfortable with it.  I have too much self respect to chase women.  I do not like southern bells.  I do not like marrying for money.  I do not like "man-eaters."  All of these things exist in the south, so now it is easy to understand who I am and what I believe in are not supported in the south.  This culture has changed for the worse as has the commercial music industry.  We have regressed in human scope and wisdom.  Unlike other countries that remain viable, liberal, and humanistic, America covertly has changed far from her constitutional roots.  It must be it is all about the money.  When money takes precedence over people there is a problem.  When we no longer feel strongly about educating our children, there is a problem.  When we take away the underlying social structure for children to interact and grow, we have a problem.  When we put a cell phone in the palm of every youth, we have a problem.  When a city council outlaws skateboard and bicycles from downtown, we have a problem.  We have become bigoted.  We have become elitist.  We have become inhuman.  While I do appreciate and applaud the wealth of Fayetteville for renovating downtown, I don't agree with eminent domain.  I don't agree with squashing the little guy for big bucks.  There are things of interest other than mansions, and money, but they are dwindling.  The railroads seem to run the world, and they are not sentimental steam engines carrying people. They are corporate monopolies in the Fortune 500 heating our all ready taxed planet with diesel prime movers and spewing micro dust from their exhausts.  It is non stop, but no one around me seems to notice the brutal low frequency standing wave created from a running locomotive.  I don't like it much, so I guess I am going to have to make a change, again. 

Furthering Education

Education is a trade off.  I lost some things at UNC-Chapel Hill and I learned some things.  While my music ed. degree was a complete bust, the core curriculum of the undergraduate music major was effective.  To prove its point freshman Music Theory 101 weeded out the musically faint of heart.  Really I mean "not academically proficient."  Many people possess musical talent, but music theory is a horse of a different color.  It is not necessarily connected to musical inclinations.  It is academic.  It is theoretical.  It can be difficult.  It was, because a handful of prospective music majors drop out of Music Theory 101 their first semester.  What is it that thwarts them?  One of the first things you are required to learn and write are the twelve key signatures.  Unless you have played the piano, can read music, or have had some previous schooling this could prove difficult.  It would feel difficult because you thought it was irrelevant.  "What does this have to do with singing in the church choir?"  The standards to be accepted to UNC-Chapel Hill are high.  Many prospective students are not accepted.  I was lucky enough to have been smart.  I was not the tip top of my class, but I could handle academia.  That meant you were disciplined enough to study, write, and pass tests,  and not drink beer like many did. After you learn to write all of the key signatures both sharps and flats, you being learning harmony.  I, IV, and V chords, authentic and plagal cadences, and then subdominant chords.  Ultimately at the end of second semester music theory you learn the Neapolitan  and  Augemented Sixth chords.  Usually you forget them quickly.  It was not until two decades later I remembered them and instinctively began to use them in my piano compositions.  They are a major part of my harmonic concept allowing the dominant seventh chord to resolve outward to the octave.  Relatedly another prominent feature of my concept of "Multi-tonality" are cadences.  I have invented cadences much more diverse than a simple V-I of IV-I progression.  I integrate bi-tonality, wrong note bass, and the phrygian mode into these cadences.  Many I believe never have been heard before.  Further many of my harmonic ideas never have been invented before.  It is surprising in the year 2014 we still are stuck in diatonicism.  The same vanilla chord progressions we have heard since the High Classic Period are being regurgitated today in pop music.  Even on classical radio stations they shy away from Twelve Tone Serialism, modal music, artificial scales and the Second Viennese School in general.  Who says Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern are not worthy of digestion by the masses?  It is because it is inescapable that the music industry uses music as candy instead of spice.  Instead of peaking interest or stimulating a desire it attempts to masturbate people at the most shallow level.  This has become the role of music today.  Sickly weak drugs that leave you tired, dazed, and dysfunctional.  This is not how music  was in the 50's, 60's, and 70's.  Because America was involved in major wars during this time, music was used to communicate ideas about social issues and politics.  It is not the right of record labels to castrate the art of music.  If they fail to support and recognize music's great vitality to people, they should step aside or be buried.  The great recording A&R man who said, "That's the sound I want, the sound of that sequencer or computer playing the part," should be shot.  Each and every band that steps on stage with a laptop and performs to a pre-recorded track should be booed.  It happens every day and has become the norm.  Over the last five years in particular, the music industry has conducted a campaign to try to make music that sounds amateur in vogue.  Square quantized bad samples are played devoid of any skill or expression.  And this is supposed to be something to which to listen?  No thanks.  A recent article in the Daily Beast confronted the slow death of the music industry mainly from free content.  It made many good points and suggested the music industry can experience a Renaissance.  Of course this is possible and it will happen.  We just have to wait for the dead weight with the full pockets to die off.  Ironically as they approach their deathbeds they begin to wonder what to do with all of that accumulated wealth.  It is happening right here in Fayettenam.  The rich elderly have begun donating money to the arts.  Consequently now we have a progressional orchestra and several venues to house their performances.  Even more ironically the majority of the members of this orchestra are from other cities.  They travel from as far as Charleston, SC to be paid to play in our orchestra.  Myrtle Beach, Pembroke, Greensboro, and other cities are represented in the "Fayetteville" Symphony.  Funny to me.  I know one of them who teaches trumpet at Methodist University.  Those same types of rich Republicans who filled their banks with Wall Street hedge funds should think about reviving the music industry.  At one time its revenue was a major component of America's GNP.  The same people that think skateboarding is a crime decided every human vice should be eliminated from our towns and cities.  Without dirt there is no clean.  Now we are soulless, eunuch-like, blobs of unknowing shit staring at our palms all at the request of the "record companies."