Broken Bond Themes

As a collegiately educated musician and composer I have yet to open my sensibilities to the "Broken Bond Theme" diaries.  Fully I understand a book has been published on this subject, and one of the author's possessed a degree in music history.  I have to admit I have not seen a modern Bond film in over a decade.  They are not the same.  Why would I want to watch a substandard film which like the entire genre of television fails to recognize and/or acknowledge their historical lineage?  I am not interested.  You can discard your cultural heritage, reinvent your medium, and pray no one notices.  It is not the wise way to go, because the substance, content, and artistry of your medium all ready has been invented, preened, and perfected.  Why would anyone want to discard their history?  The simple answer is it is difficult with which to compete.  Further lazy, selfish, and childish millionaires need immediate gratification.  It far is easier simply to discard the competition, and when you own the industry that has become easy.  Corporate monopolies have made that possible.  Competition while rife in amateur and professional sports no longer seems to exist in television especially.  It is all run by Big Brother.  It's funny to me that their was a show not that long ago called Big Brother.  No one understands what Big Brother is.  As for Big Brother and "Broken Bond Themes," I can remember a handful of Bond themes.  "Nobody Does It Better" comes to mind penned by Carley Simon.  Then there is the McCartney anthem "Live and Let Die."  It would be more prudent to define a Bond theme first.  Describe the genre of film.  Describe the purpose of the theme.  I think most of us have an idea of what a Bond theme does.  There is a lot of discrepancy in film music today.  Also there is a lot of excellence.  Also there is a lot of trash.  Most of it has become trash, because the same lazy, selfish, childish millionaires produce it.  There is one "Jungle Drums" musical cue I have been making fun of for twenty years.  It does not surprise me that the Bond themes have succumbed to the same ills as most pop music.  Simply the people producing them do not know what they are doing.  They have not been to film school.  The have not been to music school.  Thirdly and probably most notably is America and the world is not the same.  In a nutshell the feelings available to us today as consumers are far more limited than in our history.  We have watched many genres of music disappear including the crooning of Bing Crosby, the moodiness of mainstream jazz, and the melancholy of country.  It no longer seems appropriate to cry in your beer with a sense of helplessness.  Instead millennials fancy electronic dance music laced with overt sexuality.  They want to get their freak on.  America in certain ways has regressed to a modern Sodom and Gomorrah.  Surf the web and you will find rampant pornography.  This pornography includes underaged women, misogynistic producers, and compounds built to exploit them.  With that available to any American online [sic] try to imagine how any traditional roles in America have remained the same.  Broken Bond Themes?  The entire entertainment system is broken and has been for a long time.  It defies explanation, because it is not logical.  It is the new method for accumulating wealth in America, and that is exploitatively.  Bond and his franchise are whores.  The savviness, intelligence, and sex appeal of Bond long have evaporated in favor of the lazy, selfish, childish millionaires.  Stop asking questions.  

America, a Feudal Land

As I try to make sense of America today, carefully I will avoid the adjective "modern."  I would have opened this editorial with "modern day America," but the adjective modern is not appropriate for describing America, her systems, or her sentiments.  America surprisingly is antiquated and not in a positive cultural way.  We are antiquated in our views, most notably on social class, accumulation of wealth, and civil rights.  In many ways America is just a conglomeration of red-necked, racist, hillbillies.  Much to my surprise they vote Republican.  It would seem democrats are the dwindling few of progressive-minded, Christian, socialists who actually acknowledge and care about their fellow citizens.  It is interesting to me that our Department of Defense recently conducted military exercises with Special Forces (as part of their certification) which represented possible or probably attempts at succession from our union.  Texas was at the top of the list.  Travel to Texas and I suspect you will be going back in time as you will many places in the American South.  America is not modern.  We are not modern, because the definition of modernism in art does apply to America's sensibilities now.  We are far from modern, and I for one long for that modernity.  Only can I pine for an era when George Gershwin visited Europe to great acclaim meeting notable composers of the time.  Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Darius Milhaud, and Igor Stravinsky were among the celebrities he met.  I choose the world celebrity as an American anachronism, because celebrity today refers to Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, and the Kardashians.  What has happened?  America has slipped from the evolutionary cycle almost like through bending space and time.  We have entered an alternate universe occurring concurrently with the one that should be happening.  In our universe, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, and the Kardashians have become royalty.  There can be only one explanation for this grift, and it is Big Brother.  When traditional means of communication of knowledge have been eradicated, Big Brother is free to impose his own superficial, devolving, and interruptive agenda.  If he continues to plant his aberrant seed slowly it will grow, intertwine, and possibly choke the life out of the real universe.  I would think God has something to say about this.  Truly it is a battle of good against evil, and good is losing.  Good is losing because of evil's means of implementation.  If one does not know the authentic definition of modernism, how can one know that violent, militaristic, internet games, pornography, and superficial app's will have no bearing on America's future?  Conversely they will continue to degrade and disassemble America's tried and true structures until anarchy develops.  Violent, militaristic, internet games, pornography, and superficial app's are a mask of what really is happening in America, and that clearly is explained by author Robert Reich.  Wealth is trickling up, and that is because America has become a small network of corporate monopolies. These few monopolies control production and thus price with no recognition of America's working people.  Wages remain stagnant, jobs are not plentiful, and violence results.  The combination of these two elements will tear America apart.  It is time to ask presidential candidates how they will solve this problem.  Corporations in America reign freely and without regulation rigging the market through high priced lobbying, and the wool is being pulled over the eyes of naive millennials by peppering them with immediate gratification.  It is time to grow up and smell the feces.  

A Nation of Excess

I was able to watch a small portion of the Republican National Debate on CNBC a few nights ago.  To my surprise two candidates who I know nothing about were declared winners.  In the short period of time I was able to listen to these candidates, only two seemed worthy of the presidency.  What do I mean by, "Worthy of the presidency?"  In cartoon language they looked like presidents, they spoke conservatively, authoritatively, and worthy of listen, and they spoke about well-thought out ideas.  They were Chris Christie, a former United States Attorney for and the current Governor of New Jersey, and Mike Huckabee, a Christian minister and former Governor of Arkansas.  While I did not like Governor Christie's condemnation of democratic candidate Hillary Clinton each time he answered a question, otherwise he said some worthy things.  He seems to be a straight shooter, not unlike Donald Trump, but with many more years of political experience.  Balancing the wit of a Jersey Governor with the trappings needed to be elected President of the United States....  well, there you have it.  I thought Carley Fiorina did well (looking like Cruella da Vil).  It was interesting to me who was declared the winner of this Republican debate.  Compared to my opinion it was a surprise. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio?  I don't even know who these men are, and I don't want to.  Deciding who was the winner of the debate is a metaphor for politics in America.  That may seem like a juvenile statement, but of course it is.  It's not about who is the most qualified to run the country.  Does the president really run the country anyway?  The answer is no.  Corporate America runs the country.  Simply ask yourself which faction of America wants what.  Personally I am so disconnected from any of what now is considered "mainstream America" it won't matter.  For who I vote will not win.  My concerns are different than this generation.  My first concern is the solvency of America.  Our current media are chipmunks in denial.  Only they want to keep their own jobs, and it is a superficial platform upon which they jabber.  What is the issue of the presidential election?  What is the issue that will restore America to her former self?  What will reinvigorate our economy and jumpstart out artistic culture?  The answer is solvency.  Solvency is lack of debt.  I am going to take this opportunity to bury my head in the sand and ignore the statistic, because you can't trust them anyway.  It's all lies.  Without print media, newspapers and investigative reporting, journalistic periodicals, and internet news sites with integrity nothing matters in America.  We are Alice in Wonderland doing out best to get through the day without having a nervous breakdown concerning the Conditions of America.  You can't contemplate it all, but you can ask yourself why America, the former superpower of the world, is so in debt.  The answer is obvious.  Ask Dick Cheney.  Ask the worst United States president in the history of our great nation.  Turning the page what can we do today to change this situation?  The firstvactually is to understand what money is being spent and where.  Good luck with that, the world's largest maelstrom of money and power.  The better solution is to mock it with political satire.  When the Conditions of America become so grim, one must make fun of them.  It is not easy to do, because what is burning through our cash faster than a California bush fire is Fort Bragg, North Carolina.  It is our national defense.  If we adhere to the publicly known statistics, seventy percent of our federal budget is being spent on our military.  Is this because of 9/11?  Is this because of ISIS and ISIL?  Why is this?  Why are we in Afghanistan?  Afghanistan.  Afghanistan is on the other side of the fucking world, and yet we are fighting wars there, in Iraq, and now Syria?  For what?  My cartoon answer very much in the view of Apple Computers is those natural resources underneath those Afghani mountains not to mention the poppies.  Who is getting the poppy money?  I know this.  I am ashamed to live in America, because I deserve better.  Our government is a cartoon and yet corporate America is laughing all the way to their foreign banks.  Apple, if we yield to the published statistics, has 114 billion in cash sitting in Norwegian banks.  Way to help America.  

America, a Nation of Excess

Patiently I have been waiting for the right moment to express my dismay with the current Conditions of America.  It far easier is to criticize than offer relevant solutions for social, cultural, and economic change in America.  First the reasons for change must be recognized and understood.  At the moment we are a country in denial.  It far easier is to bury one's head in the sand than to understand how problematic America has become.  I will start the ball rolling.  It would not be surprising I would cite the demise of America's music industry as a problem.  If you were reared without any cultural music education spurning music appreciate, it wouldn't matter.  Also I would cite the demise of America's print media.  More specifically I would cite the rapid death of newspapers and journalistic periodicals.  It was not that long ago the print industry was a building block of America.  Now America no longer seems to care about truth, substance, or history.  How can the American economy rebuild itself with such a chasmic void?  There is nothing to base it on except hype.  It is far easier to spew antagonistic rhetoric than factual history.  Only those with an education could understand that factual history will aid us in our pursuits.  Only ignorant in-denial millennials possibly could think otherwise.  "Our lives are good.  We have our iPhones, our streaming music services, and .....?"  The shallow, addictive, self-serving accoutrements of this generation are not capable of understanding the future or the history of America without a keen interest in both.  Covertly the institutions that have constituted Americas social culture and thus economy have been rendered impotent.  What I do not understand is how nothing has replaced these institutions.  Truly an extinction has occurred and it is not timely, helpful, or necessary.  Instead it is a product of economic competition on a wholly unhealthy playing field.  If we cannot respect our past institutions and find ways to coexist with them while evolving, what is to become of America?  Has it been prudent to discard the cornerstones of America and replace them with selfish superficial entertainment?  Only a generation so sheltered from American history could have created such a monster, and all with a simple PC.  With all of the creative code, app's, and games nothing has attempted to replace the necessary institutions America needs to survive.  Media moguls like Ruppert Murdoch have embraced the speed and instantaneousness of the internet and discarded their equity with nary a peak of consciousness.  Newspapers are dead, and yet what has replaced them?  Nothing.  Magazines are dying, and yet what has replaced them?  Nothing.  With all of the You Tube videos, streaming music, and pornography nothing has or ever will replace these watershed American institutions.  Therefore we have lost a great war, America's next domestic war, with millennials as the victors.  These victors like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini have great plans for America.  [sic]  What are these plans, eliminate factual history so that Big Brother can do as he pleases?  This sounds familiar, and it sounds familiar because George Orwell wrote about this occurrence in his novel "1984."  1984 was a long time ago, but we do understand great artists often are ahead of their time.  Simply I will ask the question, "With what are you going to replace these necessary institutions?"  It will prove to be a cataclysmic mistake thinking internet gaming, music streaming, and online pornography will make the next great America.  

The Chasm of Classical Music

Before Garage Band, before karaoke, and before iTunes there was a thing called a "Working Musician."  Working Musicians did all the things a computer does for us today.  These were things of integrity.  Talent was required.  So was knowledge.  Being a working musician had it merits.  It provided a living.  Today working musicians are soldiers.  Soldiers.  To be a working musician you must either go through basic training or Officer's Training School.  Okay.  Perhaps that is comparable to a collegiate music degree.  Other working musicians are academicians.  To become an academician today a doctorate is required.  They hand these out  at a cost.  If you are passionate and have the money, it would seem you can get a doctorate.  I almost have a doctorate, but I find myself different than the doctors of music around me.  

Coming home.  The most brutal thing about "Coming Home" for me are the wet dreams.   They are surprising.  So are the nightmares.  The short stories and complete novels to which I am privy to remember from sleep are a welcome diversion from the brutal reality of music in Fayetteville.  This is not so for the established local musical community.  They seem hungry.  They seem aggressive.  They seem to thrive on the seeds of music dropped for them.  It is surprising, and I do not connect with any of it.  I remember Methodist University, when it was Methodist College.  I remember both its voice and keyboard professors.  I played with and learned from both of these individuals.  Like my father they were a musical spine of Fayetteville, North Carolina.  Today we have an "Arts Council," which is the envy of the state.  The introduction of every concert I attend in the -Ville consists of a devout invocation of our Arts Council.  Like the former professors of voice and keyboards at Methodist College, I knew the Arts Council.  I knew its history, and I knew its diversions.  Now we have a Botanical Garden.  A Botanical Garden is a private country club built in the name of botany, which sponsors musical academicians among others.  It's a clique.  The Arts Council of Fayetteville is the envy of the state because...... "Drum roll please?  Who is chopped?"  The Arts Council of Fayetteville is the envy of the state, because they are rich.  They are the people who built the Botanical Garden.  In their later years realizing you can't pull a U-Haul behind a hearse, affluent Fayettevillians decided to become patrons of the arts.  That included upgrading a second rate symphony orchestra to a position of personal demagoguery.  Like Tom Quaintance, the artistic director of the Cape Fear Regional Theater, artistic leaders in the city of Fayetteville really are not free to administer as they please.  There is this beast of our Arts Council to consider, and they have the money.  

Okay.  The Court of Esterhazy also had affluence.  They were patrons of music, and Papa Haydn had no trouble working for them.  I am not an opponent of working for the affluent.  What I am a staunch opponent of is the abstracting of art for the purposes of patronage.  I don't mean abstraction in terms of Pablo Picasso or the Abstract Expressionists.  This style of visual abstraction in art is important and vital to the evolution of mankind.  So is the Avant Garde in jazz music.  In ways they are the same.  I am a staunch opponent of the abstraction of honest expression and content of art into Musica Reservata.  Defined often in contradictory ways Musica Reservata can be considered music for the elite few.  Also it can be defined as music which acknowledges the public's opinion more than it does the authors intent.  This is what we have today, and it is alarming.  

Okay.  I almost have a doctorate in musical composition.  That means I must have an undergraduate degree of some sort.  Mine is in music education from UNC-Chapel Hill.  This institution until recently was a reputable purveyor of academic knowledge, until  athletic contributions became more important.  Graduating from UNC-Chapel was the single most difficult thing ever I have achieved.  It was that difficult.  While the education component of the music ed. degree was a bust, the remaining curriculum of music was intense and demanding.  Seventy percent of music majors dropped out in their first semester not being able to pass Music Theory 101.  Luckily I had been playing the piano for twelve years, and George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" was in my repertoire at the time.  I made it through Music Theory 101 and the rest.  I emerged an educated musician worthy of becoming a "Working Musician."  Many who pursue a doctorate degree choose to go  through the masters degree.  I did not.  I earned a Masters in Jazz and Commercial Music from USC-Columbia.  You may never have heard of this acronym, but you have heard of the Gamecocks.  This graduate program at USC was groundbreaking.  I wrote jingles, something that is not in fashion today.  I played commercial jobs on keyboards, I played jazz on the trumpet, and I learned how to arrange for various ensembles.  I wrote music including that for my first recording featuring Chris Potter, "Crystal Raindrops."  My doctoral studies began at OSU where my USC advisor John Emche matriculated.  He turned out well, so I figured Columbus would be a fruitful musical city.  I was right.  I began at OSU writing familiar jazz-oriented work.  After a few years I was told by my advisor, Dr. Thomas H. Wells, (also the advisor for Dr. Keith Dippre, Chairman of the Department of Music at Methodist University) that I would have to follow the same compositional path as the rest of the doctoral students.  This meant putting my jazz sensibilities on hold and opening an avenue to the Second Viennese School.  Needless to say years later I know  I am talking about.  I write serious piano music influenced by these gentlemen, and Aaron Copland, Chopin, Beethoven, Bach, Charles Ives.  These piano composition bridge the contemporary gap between America's jazz heritage and European classical music.  They are groundbreaking, and upon discovery I also will be affluent.  This is a bit difficult to stomach in the presence of the Fayetteville Arts Council.  One would think they are the only court in the book.  That is the way it seems around here.  As I attend their concerts and support the local musicians, a wider chasm is created between my musical sensibilities and theirs.  
Music to them it seems is some magical, mystical, empowering thing selfishly that seeks to exclude those not in their group.  Is it possible that those other than doctors can understand and appreciate music?  It is the first ever I have heard of it, and to my knowledge that point of view only exists in Fayettenam.  If one did examine  education in Cumberland County, it would be obvious why this chasm exists.  It should not.  Music is given of God, and it is natural in every human being.  Both Suzuki and Kodaly understand this and seek to connect with this musical inclination early in the years of child development.  It should be.  Classical music, including Beethoven, is not mysticism.  One only has to understand it and Heir Beethoven to reap its rewards.  Shouting, "Bravo" at the conclusion of a mediocre performance of his Triple Concerto shows only your ass.   This is an example of Musica Reservata, music reserved for the few who seek to exclude themselves from those around them.  "The Chasm of Classical Music," America's newest great divide of hypocrisy, is evil and unmerited.  Like suffrage, slavery, and civil liberty music never was intended to oppress or exclude the poor, and yet it does in Fayetteville.  The petulant Greek gods and goddesses who have nothing better to do with their money entertain themselves with an art form meant for better.  

The Fallen Hero of Cruise Ship Music

Never I thought much about it when I rang up Carnival and asked them for a piano job.  Never I thought much about it until I locked in to play my first production show on the Destiny.  It was "Nightclub Express," and after sitting down behind the keyboard in the orchestra Pit I was instructed to place an ear bud in my ear.  "We are playing along with tracks, and this will help you hear the click track."  I began to think about the piano job then.  Over the course of the next twelve years, I thought about this piano job frequently.  I had to, because it was the only way of ensuring my job security.  It became the most difficult and challenging musical endeavor of my career.  I got better at it, mostly from thinking about it a lot.  As it turns out my doctoral composition studies are what ensured my job security.  Preparing music for performance was second nature to me now, and that craft was required almost one hundred percent of the time as a cruise ship pianist.  The other requirements were valid still (playing in various styles, playing in all twelve keys, improvisation, and accompaniment), but fixing the piano music was paramount for my success.  You see the odds were loaded against me.  For some reason the piano music on ships is a metaphor for the pop music of today.  It has no clue.  It bears no resemblance to prepared classical or commercial music of a professional nature.  There was no Berkeley course in music notation.  (which is straight forward and authoritative)  The piano music was an after thought of a cruise ship arranger whose paramount responsibility was writing and recording these tracks with which we were required to play along.  So be it.  With determination, diligence, and talent (of which the least was required) I managed to keep the job never getting fired.  The closest I got to getting fired was getting into an argument with a mess attendant at five thirty a.m. over my tank top styled shirt.  She spoke only broken Spanglish, and it never dawned on my my bare arm pits were a threat to her job security.  Funny how the cruise ship business works.  I grew as a musician and a politician working as a cruise ship pianist.  I figured out which fights to champion, and which fights to ignore.  I was humiliated, berated, and against discriminated, but over time and with an ever increasing salary I made peace with the cruise ship piano gig.  As it turns out returning home was more of the challenge, and I have not been as successful.  I will be so cliche to say, "You can't go home."  What the fuck does this mean?  I didn't know, but I now know this.  Of course I can go home.  That a simple matter of logistics is.  The reason why YOU can't go home, or supposedly no one can go home is......   Drum roll please.  Who is chopped?   The reason why we can't go home, is because the place we grew up never changes.  The people who were there when you were there are the same.  They are the same.  Their lives are the same, as when you were there.  They did not grow.  They did not go off to school.  They did not marry.  They are exactly the same as when you were there AS A CHILD.  Asking these people to reacquaint themselves with you as an adult....   Well.  You get the picture.  Above all your parents and family fall into this category.  They do not grow.  Amazingly they expect you to stay just the same as you always have been, a child, needing to be disciplined.  In my lifetime I have not experienced a vigil of change.  I have lived in four different cities, and I have visited ports all over the globe.  This is one perk of working on a cruise ship as a pianist.  You have enough off time to see the places your visit, rather than slaving in a restaurant eighteen hours a day.  These are not the things about which I want to write.  Instead I want to document and understand the challenges of returning HOME.  "Isn't there some place you can do your music?"  "There is a music minister job open at St. Turd Knocks church."  "The academic music community here is very small-minded."  "We have the most envied Arts Council in the state."  (probably the country)  "Can't you play the pipe organ?"  "What are you doing these days?"  When I answer I am cooking for my mother and tending to our yard, the response overwhelmingly is sentimental.  "We think that is wonderful!"  Perhaps for my mother this is wonderful.  She does not reiterate it, unless I instigate a quick review of most of my accomplishments on the home front.  I have renovated our yard.  (which is much larger that most of the yards in our neighborhood)  I transformed our front yard from a desolate, moss-laden, dirt pool into a picturesque grass covered meadow.  There are two live oak trees, incidentally which are much more alive because of my maintenance.  Their roots have been covered with rich soil, and they have been mulched.  Once the downspout run-off was diverted with a simple plastic pipe and scenic drainage ditch of river pebbles, the centipede sod took well to the newly fertilized dirt.  A call to the city's arborists created a speckled spectrum of sunlight throughout the day to nurture the new grass.  I was successful, at least for now.  Again, this is not about what I want to write.  "This is my son."  I am fifty-two years old, soon to be fifty-three in a few days, and my daily conversation to people other than my mother consists of, "Hello. How are you?" ("Won't you please bring me a latte, Taylor the Latte Boy?"  [sic]  I have one friend.  I have one sister and one brother-in-law.  I see the one friend more than I see the sister and brother-in-law, because they are overwhelmed with their working lives.  I am not employed in a secure wage-earning job like a cruise ship pianist.  Each day I must bear the guilt of knowing I am not working doing what I know best.  I know quite a few musical things, including emulating Miles Davis, composing like Aaron Copland, and arranging music like Quincy Jones.  "Isn't there somewhere where you can do your music?"  This question while simple severs my last sane nerve.  I have done well balancing the charade of "coming home."  My intellect as a doctoral level composer is what has allowed me to survive in this position.  I cannot say I have thrived, but comparatively speaking to the other members of St. John's Episcopal Church, I am a saint.  "We think that is wonderful...."  (cooking for my mother, especially she she stumbled over our downspout extension and broke her wrist.)  I embraced the yard, because it was familiar to me.  I had worked in the yard as a youth, and it gave me peace.  At times it still does, but not with newly encroaching fall.  Now instead of nurturing new growth, I am observing the loss of yet another bevy of things in my life.  My musical life is gone, and now so will by my newly planted sod.  If I think enough, I can ascertain hopefully the sod will return in the Spring newly energized by the coming warm weather.  Perhaps this experience will not be like the other losses I continue to amass in my small life.  It seems life is a matter of gaining and losing.  After three years home I am tired of having to greet strangers as my mother's son.  I long for conversation that is familiar, challenging, and erotic.  I have no women friends, and thus I have no conversation with anyone that strengthens my skills as a mate.  (They are solid)  I live an existence devoid of any human interaction common to most people, and I survive.  I survive because I can remember it.  

Sunny Point Shenanigans

I can't say if I would be proud being American.  I'm American, but I'm not.  I'm not a terrorist.  I'm not an extremist.  I'm not a fatalist. I shouldn't be monitored by the Militia Watchdog.  I am just a typical American disillusioned with our country.  There is not much of which to be proud.  The medical establishment has become corrupt, and a majority of it abuses the poor.  Congress is a joke as is the 2016 Presidential Campaign.  No one running has the capability to lead America out of her problems.  America has become a facade.  America has become a masquerade.  America is a joke.  The joke has been created by computers.  Reality has been sequestered for years, and I am doubtful she ever will return.  The graven images the country seems to worship all are manifestations of foreign interests.  If we had remained true to American ideals, still we would be America and American.  These ideals have been replaced with cheap knock offs like sugar on top of shit.  "The Voice."  -a joke.  "The Rest of Them." -more jokes.  Foreign interests are laughing as they run America.  Americans are suffering.  Is a coup in order?  Will America have another revolution like the Russians or the French?  Are we an Animal Farm?  The answer must be, "Yes," but we as a people are in no way prepared for such a task.  There are guns, but there is no vision.  There is no realization that the majority of Americans simply are slaves of the rich.  We are afraid for our lives and our security.  While Sunny Point feeds the rich and bleeds North Carolina dry, Appalachians sit around mindlessly strumming on our banjos.  Twenty million tons of supplies headed for the wars in the Middle East, wars that have nothing to do with the American people and their well being?  It's a joke.  We are a joke.  The Presidential Campaign is a joke.  Obama is not joke, but he is leaving.  Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used her political influence to hawk her husband's speaking engagements.  They grew rich, and she did not do her job.  Consequently she is not qualified to lead this country.  If she had honed her wares of diplomacy as did Dame Medeleine Albright while acting as America's Secretary of State, then possibly there may exist pebble of qualification.  To elect Hillary president based upon her job performance as America's Secretary of State?  All we can say as a country is the snipe hunt of Benghazi.  Benghazi.  Benghazi, and the Clinton's have grown wealthy.  This does not the mark of a great president make.  She is flip like Oprah.  Would Oprah make a good president?  She would make a much better president than Hillary Clinton, because her record of professional achievement has been in the public eye.  Where is Oprah, and why is she not running for president?  It is too great a task or retool America.  I have given up.  While I am not a terrorist, an extremist, or a militia member, I cannot help but re-enter my childhood.  I watched Sunrise theater, and now I remember how our lives were lived on the edge of our own demise.  There is no humanity.  There is no security.  We are forced to live lives of extremism, because also like reality, God has been sequestered.  

Medical Contractors

You don't blog for a while, and your bacon ends up looking like a giant vagina.  Hillary Clinton is on the Benghazi hit list.  ISIS  mercilessly slaughters a hundred protestors in Turkey.  The Prez is eying his executive power in lieu of much needed  but unattainable gun legislation.  We should follow Australia's model.  It is time for the senseless massacres to stop.  Since we as a nation are too timid to acknowledge the true assailants to our mental health, we must do something.  It is ironic a nation that championed an "American Dream" has become a nation of fascist corporate CEO's.  I think they should all burn in hell, as they will.  The war train steams on underground at Fort Bragg, but it no longer is powered by steam.  Instead deadly homosexual rays are killing us with radiation.  I can't see.  I can't hear.  I can't feel.  My eyesight is manipulated on a daily basis by un unknown agitator.  The small frequency of visible light in our electromagnetic spectrum is being modulated from down under.  Not from Aussie-land but from?  The Navy's low frequency radio communications?  I watch as the colors in the day change in front of my eyes as this modulation distorts reality.  Too much electricity in the air, especially of the low frequency, eventually will kill the planet.  We are well on our way.  The arctic caps are melting.  We are cooking the earth.  We are cooking our on brains into senseless genocide.  Never before has America had a problem with citizens shooting themselves with no motive.  Senseless hypothetical mass murder.  Even there is no enemy.  "I don't have a girlfriend!  Blame the community college students!"  These people are watching a movie.  "Kill them!"  She is talking on television and is too happy.  "Kill her!"  We live in unprecedented times.  Chaos has ensued.  Anarchy has begun, and yet still we as a nation are too timid to recognize and acknowledge our true assailants.  We would rather treat their victims.    

America's Extinction of Music

I have read several articles posted on Facebook about the "death" of America's music industry.  First we must clarify what America's music industry was.  In short the answer is record labels.  A record label is a company that records, produces, markets, and sells music on either a vinyl album, a cassette tape, or a compact disc.  From a band members point of view, a musician who plays music professionally for live audiences, possibly this would be a new experience.  In America's short history there have been documented successes and catastrophes in the record industry.  A few of the latter would be Prince losing the rights to his own music, and Michael Jackson purchasing the Beetle's entire catalog.  Music like the rest of corporate America became a stock.  The stock market is what has ruined America's economy.  When buying and selling a product usurps the importance of that product and eventually undermines its production, a problem is created.  This is what has happened to America's music industry.  The savvy professionals who used to control the music industry such as Quincy Jones and Dave Grusin have aged out, and we have been left with a newer generation who have not experienced America's real music.  What do I mean by real music?  I mean a religion of music where real human bodies collaborate, perform, record, and sell music on an artistic level.  This product is far more than the faux music being presented today on the global level.  We could say mass marketing music is what has killed our music industry.  The temptation of the hedge fund has influenced all financial instruments, and owners of stock want only to see profits from their investments.  We are not taking the time to understand or appreciate our own products.  It is all about the money, and as I watch and listen to media today this is reinforced.  It has become fashionable to accrue wealth, and consequently we have a new generation of "Yuppies."  It is frightening to acknowledge this.  In the early l980's there was a similar movement in business, and a young upwardly mobile populace of savvy intellectuals took control.  We were presented with a generation of Stepford Wives of both genders.  Polished, slick, hipsters (if truly they were) went about their business of making money.  This was the first generation.  Now we are faced with a second generation of yuppies created from the technology industry.  Quickly they have passed the majority of America, and this new industry has fed itself.  With very little effort our traditional products have been replaced with nary an objection.  It is, because the generation that has created them is using them.  Other generations have become obsolete.  Personally I do not take kindly to this generation hijacking my music industry, because it was not captured honestly.  In the common ruse of the Republican party, instead they changed the system to meet their needs.  Music created on and sold by the computer replaced the real music industry.  The most infuriating ramification of this metamorphosis is the devaluation of music as a commodity.  Yesterday on Facebook I read of an author who predicted this change, and I digress.  The idea that there is too much recorded music to which to listen is absurd.  It is absurd, because what we have abandoned as a nation is quality control.  The movement to glorify "the folks" in media is the black hole.  Abandoning a PROFESSIONAL music industry in lieu of amateur contestants vying for popularity longevity for music will not produce.  Instead it has killed America's music industry.  I think a majority of Americans do not welcome this change.  It is the generation who created this nemesis who is consuming it.  The rest of us idly stand by and observe.  As a professional musician, I am sick and tired of music's professional vocation being represented by this facade.  Pop culture, and I mean the most shallow and insignificant pop culture, is no determinant of music.  Possibly this is why a schism has been created between real musicians and the public.  Real musicians are so far above the level of our pop culture, they are being cast as saints.  In the classical world this erroneously is being exploited.  I listen to WCPE, but I tune out the commentary because it does not do justice to the creators of the music.  Instead classical music has its own social structure, which like pop culture damages rather than reinforces the value of their music.  I am involved with neither of these groups, and I have adjusted.  The group to which I do belong is small, and it is jazz music.  Throughout my lifetime jazz music always has been the mediator of musical bullshit, because it is intellectual music.  Not only is it intellectual, it is spiritual.  Not only is it intellectual and spiritual, it acknowledges the blues, slavery, and other crucial aspects of America's history and soul.  Conspicuously this is absent in our society today.  The idea that a newer  generation of technologically savvy entrepreneurs has accrued the majority of wealth in America at the expense of their own soul  a devil makes.  

The Loyal Order of the White Hairs and Jazz

Having been interested in and having studied jazz music and its history most of my life, it was perplexing to sit at Fayetteville's Botanical Garden and listen to transcriptions of authentic early jazz.  The arrangements were accurate, well chosen, and well played.  Possibly it was the best live brass sound ever I have heard. One must tip a hat both to doctors of music and orchestrally-trained trumpet players.  It even seemed to swing, "In Its Own Sweet Way."  After hearing the concert I began to feel it had been a little too sweet.  Sweet sound is good, but is it realistic?  That is an odd question.  What exactly is a dirty sound?  Jimi Hendrix could explain it with his own playing.  The presence of distortion or dissonance might constitute the definition of a dirty sound.  So could a flatus.  In any event the music was of quality, and like a 'Chopped' judge's cant, "Sounded good, looked good, and reminded me of early jazz."  Sweet could mean not exactly representative of reality today.  The world in which we live is not sweet.  On the contrary it is brutal.  I'm not sure it is brutal everywhere.  Certainly we are reminded, that in Europe they are dealing with the worst migration problem since World War ll.  Terrorism in Syria is driving citizens across borders into poverty.  This is not representative of life in America.  Is it necessary for us to see this in our newspapers and on television newscasts everyday?   This is not representative of our lives.  We should remain abreast of world events, but the campaign of fear and intimidation which has been raging since George W. Bush has run its course.  Americans are beginning to realize we cannot trust either our media or our elected officials.  President Obama is doing the right thing, but he will be moving on shortly.  "Wouldn't It Be Nice" to see a positive news story for a change?  Wouldn't it be nice to see news stories related to our own meager lives?  That no longer seems possible of because who has come to own our news agencies.  If one examines our news, obviously it becomes clear it is propaganda.  It is propaganda, and it is propaganda against the poor and middle class.  Let me rephrase.  It is propaganda in favor of the wealthy ruling class.  If you analyze it further, you could come to understand that that this wealthy ruling class could be considered oligarchic.  It is obvious this group of wealthy earners is not concerned with the majority of America.  They treat us with contempt.  Only they care for themselves.  Wow!  I believe that is unchristian, but this group has been trying to eradicate Christianity for a decade.  Eradicate Christianity?  That sounds like Extreme Islam, Jihad, Al Quaeda, or the Taliban.  It sounds like this group who have been raging holy war on America, but they are here.  They are controlling America from the inside.  My conclusion is America no longer belongs to Americans.   It is not a problem of Mexican immigration.  It is a problem of foreign businesses purchasing American companies.  Rupert Murdock is an example.  The American media never may recover.  It is not good.  Leave it to me to concoct a musical metaphor for this dichotomy.  Popular music could represent the oligarchy, and jazz music could represent the republic.  The republic continually has been quashed in the last decade to what it seems like a point of no return.  Jazz music, the republic, is one of America's true art forms if not her best, and it is nonexistent on both radio and television.  Without that reinforcement, exposure, or education jazz cannot survive in American lives.  We are too busy trying to make ends meet.  The voice of America, her soul and her history in music of the last one hundred years, is quiet.  The oligarchy effectively has pushed jazz to the side making way for their self-indulgent, shallow, immediate gratification.  It is true, and that statement is not a delusion.  I have come to realize in the past weeks that this oligarchy truly are those who do not understand or care to acknowledge jazz, jazz representing America's real voice and soul.  Instead they prefer Jimmy Buffet.  We must conclude that "Margaritaville" does not a national anthem make, but the oligarchy would have you believe it.  Popular music in some mystical way has brainwashed a large segment of the American population into believing that it is the only music.  It seems to have the hypnotic power of Adolph Hiter injected with methamphetamine.  It is interesting that the Nazi party declared jazz music an enemy of the state.  It was a music that had the power of infusing people with positive spirit.  What?  Music that has the power to empower?  Popular music does not do that.  Instead popular music glorifies itself, and yet we as a country have become junkies.  It is easier I suppose, gazing mindlessly at Miley Cyrus rather than searching for more uplifting music in our own music libraries.  I am faced with the task each day when I awake.  Do I rely upon WCPE to feed my soul with music, or do I make my own decisions?  Making your own decision about to what you will listen is more difficult.  You must think.  One does not have to think to turn on the radio.  While WCPE often does play music that enriches my soul, often it plays music from the classic period that in my perception reinforces classism.  The classic period was a time of court and nobility, and for the most part I do not want to be reminded of the constraints of that class system.  The music is quality, but it is laced with compliance and system.  I prefer my music to swing.  Swing?  I prefer the music to which I listen to acknowledge things other than itself.  I prefer for it to be plural.  I have enough trouble not overdosing on my own karma.  If I do take the time to choose my own music, rarely am I disappointed.  Lately it has been the piano preludes of Scribian, and they gloriously are refreshing.  I enjoy the freshness and independence of contemporary music.  I require it, because American society does not recognize this spirit.  As a whole American society has not evolved.  Still we are operating on a level of civil war.  Because society in America still is not equal and fair, confederate terrorism continues.  Possibly murder in America is a plea for recognition, respect, and opportunity.  Upon watching John Cassavetes film "She's So Lovely" it became clear to me that mental illness is a sane Christian's plea for sanity in an insane world.  Our country has become so aberrant and oligarchic that a humble God worshipping schmuck can't process it.  Instead they become artists and interpret the anarchy through their own creative minds often ending in an utter defense of their own sanity.  We can't win, so ultimately we kill our enemy.  It is a tragic state of affairs, one which Sean Penn and Robin Wright Penn represent quintessentially.  My heart ached with compassion for their tormented souls and for the return of a sane America.  

With Liberty and Justice for All (Goodbye Mr. Chips)

Do these seminal words from America's "Pledge of Allegiance" include concepts of the civil rights movement?  While Francis Bellamy's infamous words adopted by Congress in 1942 do capsulize patriotic loyalty, the addition of an "equal opportunity employer" would have been fitting.  ?  Certainly liberty and justice for all were quintessential ideas in the forming of America.  The forefathers fervently were seeking freedom from the tyrannical rule of Great Britain.  I did not live during Colonial times, but tyranny is widespread throughout world history.  Wealth comes from forced slave labor, or at least slave-like labor, labor with little to no wages.  
Is it possible that feudalism still is the operant socioeconomic system in America?  Feudalism:  The dominant social system in medieval Europe, in which the nobility held lands from the Crown in exchange for military service, and vassals were in turn tenants of the nobles, while the peasants were obliged to live on their lord's land and give him homage, labor, and a share of the produce, notionally in exchange for military protection.  [sic] Never have I believed in Capitalism, because capitalism is a direct product of politics.  Without politics there can be no capitalism.  Theoretically, as Arnold Schwarzenegger often says comically in the new Terminator film, Capitalism may have meant to represent "free markets."  We all know free markets are controlled by the haves, therefore politics should be a necessary component of capitalism.  I guess it is.  There is a presidential election in a year, and all ready the wheels are turning churning out candidates with fury.  What is the responsibility of this president?  There are several items that should be paramount to an effective president.  You could call them "campaign promises," but often we know these are not honored.  Candidates promise something to get elected, and soon after being elected must pay back nebulous undocumented contributions with the appropriate political decisions.  The president has become a figure head manipulated by big business.  (George Bush)  Truly if one did want to become America's president for the right reasons, a preservation of liberty, justice, and equal opportunity, I can suggest a few things.  First and foremost drug advertisements must be stricken from television.  We must come to understand that the drug lobby, the pharmaceutical industry, and America's medical establishment have become corrupt.  The Affordable Care Act was a reasonable and effective strike against them.  The Obama administration, while successful at passing this legislation, will move on in a year.  Although the Supreme Court did uphold the law, Republicans surely will be fueled by the medical lobby to continue to lob grenades at the legislation.  All ready they have punished the American public for being eligible and receiving Obamacare.  It is unconscionable.  These insurance premiums in one short year have increased four or fivefold almost negating Obamacare's original intention, affordable health insurance for the middle class.  My premium from Blue Cross Blue Shield more than doubled.  ? The Affordable Care Act is not the total solution.  The eradication of the influence of "Big Insurance" and "Big Pharma" is the key.  While we as Americans may appreciate the convenience of big business making our medical decisions, we know it is a travesty.  We tolerate it, and often consequently we die.  Only if we bring fire and brimstone down on our medical providers do they do the right thing.  Otherwise regardless of our illnesses doctors continue to hawk their wares.  It seems to me they are not interested in the intellectual gratification of solving your medical issue.  They are interested in making money, hence "Try a colonoscopy.  I sure know how to do this procedure, because I was trained and have been doing them a long time."  But diagnosing an abdominal illness....  with no lab tests, not procedures, and no support from the machine.  I must digress.  They don't have time for you.  You are not making them money.  Drug advertisements must be stricken from television.  They are misleading, confusing, and laced with subliminal messaging.  Above all they are pointless.  If we could rely upon honest doctoring in America, doctors are the ones responsible for understanding drugs and their effects.  Why should geriatric America be laden with this responsibility?  It is simple.  It is a campaign of fear and intimidation.  Academia has become the same.  Tuition rates are ridiculous.  They empower academics, and this discourages learning.  I recommend a national system.  All academic institutions must be a part of a national organization subject to observation and the possible regulation of a qualified...  Oh sorry.  Do we all ready have a Department of Education?  They are just as sorry as the Department of Wildlife Conservation.  (if there is such a thing)  None of these federal agencies does the right thing.  They are pawns of big business.  No one has the little man's back.  If a university trains students to be academic doctors, then where are the jobs?  The jobs are held ad naseum until the professors get tired.  (This is a lifetime)  The opportunities that should be available to new graduates are held by their own professors.  ?  I suggest a rotation in a federal system.  This is not a "No Child Left Behind."  This simply is a mandatory visiting professor clause, which would require professors, tenured or not, to circulate leaving their jobs open periodically.  Professors should circulate, gainfully employed, but in different geographical areas.  What enlightenment could occur engaging new unbiased contingencies of the American population.  The ability to relocate is a large favorable accomplishment on a thickly padded resume.  Quickly it negates nepotism, favoritism, and political bias.  You may be a big fish in Chapel Hill, Mr. Chips, but try on St. Louis for size.  Yes!  I can imagine professional sports, great food, and jazz music a large improvement make over midlands North Carolina.  Erskine Bowles no longer has your back.  No one has your back.  You are on your own, one large and grandiose stipulation of an academic.  You must be an independent scholar.  Good luck with that.  

"Damn Yankees, I Mean Commies!"

Maybe Dick Cheney is a commie.  Maybe many of the wealthy elitist businessmen in America are Reds.  Maybe they used to be on a list back in the day, a time when America searched for and persecuted American citizens with a communist interest.  What kind of publications do you read?  Do you attend party events?  Reds. Commies.  We as a nation have lost track.  Are we not interested anymore?  Is China too far away, further than the U.S.S.R, to drum up anticommunist support?  Certainly North Korea is in the public eye as is Iran, but commies?  Reds?  Once upon a time in America this battle was paramount.  It helped define America as did our nightly television schedule.  That line up of programs on network TV before the cable explosion helped define a nation.  We lived by it, that televisions schedule.  We waited patiently for the new schedule in the fall and new shows.  Now it is all gone.  Tim Cook speaking with Charlie Rose a year ago scorned this television schedule.  Whether he acknowledges it or not as CEO of Apple, television once was an art form.  It came out of vaudeville, stage, theater, Broadway, and the minstrel shows.  Once television was entertainment, and it was approached with the same respect and devotion as other art forms.  Then television required talent and when it was excellent, artistry.  Craft can substitute in a pinch, but the performers were shooting for artistry.  Now it is all gone.  Time/Life bought it all, and now they are selling it in boxed sets for a hundred dollars a pop.  I have bought some of it.  The thing is, we used to get it for free.  We used to have clean drinking water for free.  We used to have clean air and a cooler planet.  Now we have "reality."  Flick on the box and watch your coworkers fill time with lame, uninteresting, emotionally laden soap.  The Golden Age of Hollywood has continued.  While there may not be lavish musicals, still we have movies that are well-made and cared for.  Film continues, but television is dead.  Why is television dead?  Ask Tim Cook.  It is so antiquated, that interface sitting in your family room with your loved ones.  I think that is a gay thing.  In America we lived our lives with and by that box, and it was a good thing.  It gave us direction.  It gave us a mainstream.  It gave us unity.  Now we have nothing, except a handful of lame late night talk show hosts.  The guys that bent the shaft, that questioned and ridiculed the man, and thought for themselves as adults bailed.  The void in late night TV is inescapable.  The thing is, I don't want to choose the schedule.  That's what a CEO is for.  It is his job to hone that talent, begin careers, and satisfy America viewing tastes.  Naw, screw it.  Anything goes.  The same is true with music.  Let's just not care about anything excellent.  I am getting deja vu.  Slackers?  Grunge?  Baggie pants?  Flannel?  Low key?  They had a voice, and it was music.  That movement had a message, a voice, and a following.  Today our voice is Kanye West, and he is not qualified to be on stage as a musician.  It is bought and paid for.  While I have empathy for Bruce Jenner, and watching him transition is entertaining to me for some reason, he is just another aging frustrated man looking for notoriety?  Is he?  I would like to know more.  Is he leaving his 'wife?'  Does he not love her anymore?  Does he have feelings for men, or does he just like to dress in women's clothes to get off?  Join the club.  I don't think Bruce Jenner would have gotten a television show otherwise.  Is that motivation enough to change your sex?  Television is not what it used to be.  Reality is a term effectively which eliminated the competition.  In one fell swoop artistry was erased from consciousness.  Boom.  That seems like a commie thing to me...

The Myth of a SuperHero

America officially has been inducted into the Superhero Hall of Fame.  Sony's commitment to blur the boundary between realism and animation has succeeded.  We are a mash of neurosis, dreams, and the elite forces of superheros, but they aren't real.  Sony would like for you to believe they are real.  That was their intent, to blur the boundary between realism and animation.  How would a maladjusted child know the difference?  Hour upon hour of rote playing of violent warlike video games is not reality.  With the condition of our public education system, environment, and economy kids are on their own.  Go figure when a neglected soul decides to burn out in a blaze of glory.  Superheros are not a practical example for reality, and yet they have proliferated.  Not only are superheros found in graphic novels, film, television, and 'them internets,' they are controlling our lives via corporate America and academia.  I almost have a doctorate degree in music, and all around me are musicians frantically trying to reinvent the wheel.  "Relax, mon.  Music is important, but it is not the most important thing."  Today if you resume doesn't read like that of a superhero, evidently you are not qualified to have a job.  Can we get real please?  I am sick to my stomach of reading exaggerated resumes, VITA files, and biographies.  It could begin with college professors.  I would like to know if they have anything to offer.  I don't need to hear about performances all over the world, publications, and grants.  If they are so busy attaining this, how can they make time for teaching?  How can they make time to impart grassroots knowledge which could help a student grow?  It's ludicrous, and it is not real.  These are fabricated images which lie to the public in the name of selfishness.  Maybe we can dispense with the superheros for a minute and concentrate on doing things that will save the earth.  Maybe we can save the refugees?  That is not superhero material.  It doesn't stroke your ego.  Where is the Clinton Foundation?  In a time of crisis in Europe, where are these charitable foundations?  Bill?  Bill.  Mr. Clinton?  Mr. Gates?  Google?  Here is an opportunity of philanthropical importance.  Save some refugees?  Jimmy Carter would be in.  A Bush daughter?  We're too busy trying to invent the autonomous automobile, which is not this at all.  Like Uber self-driving cars are merely a restructuring of previously predicted models of the future.  Call them trams?  Call them mono-rails?  Call them pods?  Whatever.  Electrically powered systems of mass transit already have been invented.  They are called trains and subways, but that is not millennial or fashionable.  How you make ta vehicle go where you want it to is with track.  Go figure?  Self-driving cars in Los Angeles?  Thank you, but no thanks.  "Spin City" is off the air and out of politics, but it has entered the world of corporate America.  I don't want to read about fictitious superheros.  I don't want to hear about how much money millennials have amassed.  It is peanuts, and it is boring.  It is based on an iPhone, and who cares?  When the wireless network in America comes crashing down, none of it will matter.  Sony has learned its lesson.  Blurring the lines between reality and animation is not a prudent model for survival.  When we pull our heads out of our asses, the stench of suffocating greenhouse gas not a superhero will create.  It is time to wake up America.  Resume:  Past Experience:  Cook, Gardener, Mechanic.  "You're hired."  The rest of you can sit in a room and play video games.  

The Underground Railroad

Dear Pen Pal,

    Truly I would like the military to finish its current training exercise.  I understand Communist China is parading their weaponry to commemorate the anniversary of the end of World War ll.  I understand that Vladimir Putin is flexing his atrophied biceps.  I understand that ISILanemous continues to rage havoc on Syria.  I suggest deployment.  Finish loading the two-mile-long war train underneath Reilly Rd, finish building your access points and loading docks for this train, and stop training.  Go kill the enemy.  I have had enough of the training, both literally and figuratively.  I don't know whose great idea it was (General Electric) to put a slow moving conveyor belt underneath the ground in New Mexico.  (It is out of business, the Chevron Questa mine.)  After over a decade of complaints finally our EPA shed it yes men, lobby addicted, dead weight and decided to do its job.  It didn't take long for China and the EPA to close down that Moly mine.  Like Duke Power there were infractions everywhere, the most popular of course is dumping their waste into our rivers.  The Taos Hum is no more I will conclude.  I don't know whose great idea it was (B.R.A.C. generals or Ashton Carter) to put a portion of the Cape Fear Railways underneath Reilly Rd.  I understand this decision from a point of national security and terrorist threat.  Munition trains would be a likely target for whom?  At the world's largest military installation, I'm not sure a would be terrorist could get on post.  They could have ten years ago, but not now.  With the B.R.A.C expansion Ft. Bragg is transforming from a modest army installation into?  I would guess that underground railroads, not the kind of Harriet Tubman, would be synonymous with our missile control center buried in the mountains of?  New Mexico!  Give that man a prize.  Isn't it New Mexico, or is it Nebraska?  With Ground Forces Command being moved to Ft. Bragg, I would think underground is the new fifty.  I don't know whose great idea it was to put the Army's SD60MAC's underneath the ground.  Didn't we learn a lesson from Taos?  The pollution and radiation from low frequency drives and its electrical processing equipment travels faster through the earth than it does through the air.  Placing it underground and having it run 24/7 only is going to create havoc with Fayetteville residents, or is that even a concern?  

Communism, Socialism, and Erudite Millennials

When I grew up my cousins on the Greene Farm, like many people in America, fervently felt that "Commies" were the enemy.  It was surprising to me when we traveled to the farm, because I not yet was old enough to take exception with anyone except the bullies in my neighborhood.  Only now in the last few days have I realized, that I am not an American, or rather I do not share the same life's philosophy of those around me.  Americans seem to worship capitalism as a graven image, and passionately their political sentiment is refusing to recognize a potential danger to their health, or criticizing a pundit for distracting them from their capitalist lives.  Old school railroad workers are like this, or at least the ones I have met.  It is a story right out of Appalachia similar to the Hatfields and the McCoys.  It is frightening this animalistic behavior defending one's property to the death unable to consider rational negotiations. This seems to be the way we are in America.  Americans are so brainwashed with capitalism, the pursuit of money for survival, that nothing else matters.  Each time I point out or complain the art no longer matter, well.  I get it now, the response.  They don't want to hear it.  If you don't fit into that big, mindless, roaming herd, than you are a malcontent.  Fitting into that herd is as paramount as scratching for pennies in the ground.  What is a "Commie" anyway?  It is slang for a Communist, and upon reflection I don't think the citizens of communist countries  have much choice about their socioeconomic systems.  Communism is government by rule, and as Americans we feel it is a threat to our freedom.  If you had met Russian immigrants, say like Irving Berlin, you would see people exactly like us.  They did not have a choice the socioeconomic system into which they were born.  This is why they immigrated to the America, the land of the free and the home of the brave.  This is why many nationalities of American citizens immigrated to the U.S.  We are a country of immigrants, except ironically for our own Native Americans who we abused, murdered, and excluded as savages.  The term "Commies" should be applied to the leaders of these systems, and they are famous.  Never have I understood the impetus for the derogatory connotation of the term "Socialist."  Only now have I come to realize, that no one in America seems to understand it. Instead it is a blind fight of us against the enemy.   We sling the term about mindlessly, as did my cousins on the farm.  It gives them a purpose.  It seems we in America are afraid of something.  I have traveled to many other countries, and none of them are as blindly passionate as Americans.  Americans are selfish.  Socialists are not, because they have been around a long time and understand  camaraderie can be more important than money.  There is a great likelihood many of us never will have money, but that does not mean we cannot live effectively.  In many ways you will live more effectively without money, because you will be forced to realize and understand things which more are important to humankind.  Maslow's hierarchy of needs is telling, but if we travel through his studied continuum we will develop a foundation and understanding of our own existence.  Wealth in America has become problematic.  B-I-N-G!  There it goes again, a sting that those surrounding me in America don't agree.  "Why are you making waves?  Why are you chewing on sour grapes?"  I am not making the point, because I am unhappy or poor.  Neither is true.  I am making the point, because most of those living around me who are not wealthy are unhappy.  Is Capitalism the idea of having to buy one's happiness?  I think not, and America was not begun that way.  While Puritan Americans often perished in the harsh conditions of North America, with their challenges came beauty and spirituality.  These are the things that keep me upright each day.  When I am able to indulge my senses in a positive way, I am at peace.  Unfortunately modern America and the mechanisms that are creating the wealth are infringing upon that freedom.  Each day my sight, sounds, smells, and and tactical feelings are challenged with negative influences.  I have come to understand that many of those around me do not notice.  They are not capable of understanding or perceiving spiritual or physical beauty.  It is not important to them.  What is?  It is like being surrounded by rabid animals or mad cow disease.  There is no rationale.  There is no logic.  Only is there aggression and chaos.  This has begun to affect my own philosophy of life, because I am having to care more about my own wellbeing  than I should.  I do not wake on an even playing field.  It is slanted sharply in many directions, and often I feel the opponent laughing at me before I begin the game.  Then I remember this is what it feels like to be Jesus or a Christian.  I don't know what we have become in America, but although openly we do not decapitate lost sheep we do.  America's capitalism is no different than Extreme Islam.  Each sacrifices its own weakest links in the sake of money and power.  It is gratifying that many important issues affecting the quality of life in America have been dealt with by our president.  Only history will show how effective of a president he has been.  The antithesis to the quality of life in America for those who are not wealthy shout "Socialist" without ever taking the time to understand what it means.  It is apparent to me that America's new pseudonym must be changed from Nottinghamshire to Appalachia.  Our indigenous people are no different than the Viet Cong living in the tunnels of Chu Chi.  We defend our land without an understanding of our own existences.  "Squeal like a pig boy."  

A Little ISIL Etiquette

As I was working in the yard this afternoon, the first afternoon in which a pleasantly surprising Caribbean tropical low enveloped us in Fayettenam, I began to ponder the enigma of ISIS. (or ISIL)  Full well I know about this group.  How could one not with their extreme and murderous propaganda in the media.  It is not unlike the SS, the gestapo, and the Nazi party.  I have to remind myself that the mass genocide of Jews in Nazi Germany was not that long ago.  While there seems to have been a break in the pattern, if one looks mass genocide has circulated the globe.  One only has to look under a rock in Africa to find heinous atrocities against humanity.  My lesson learned is although we in America during my lifetime have been spared direct contact with mass genocide on a national level, never has it stopped.  Perhaps 9/11 was meant to be a reminder of how other countries continue to suffer and America tools own as her own self-proclaimed superpower.  I have learned in my lifetime it is best to live in the trenches.  It is wise and prudent to hide what you have and live with humility.  Johnny Depp could attest to this widely disseminated midwestern cultural trait.  One does not grandstand as millennials do today.  (Am I wrong to blame it on the millennials?)  Perhaps I am judging to harshly from my viewpoint as a professional musician.  That is the way it appears to me.  There is very little music, and there is a lot of hype.  There is a lot of narcissism.  There is a lot of misogyny.  I mean fuck me dude.  I always liked Dr. Dre.  It took me many months to find Snoop Dog's single "What's My Name, Part ll."  Still I listen to it, but I don't want to hear about Mr. Dre becoming a billionaire and hating women.  These things do not interest me.  What interests me is savvy music making.  What happens as a result of fame before maturity?  Well.  I am not saying Dr. Dre has not chosen a wise financial planner.  I am saying that a life of excess in many cases can kills its constituents.  That is the history of Rock 'n' Roll. That is the history of jazz.  That is the history of Hip Hop.  Still I miss the influence of an East Coast West Coast battle to produce quality Hip Hop music.  I don't miss the juvenile gangsta drive by shooting.  Then again these rival music production posses could have been acting in the same pattern as the Italian mafia, to which I do not brandish scorn.  While many died in the violence of the mob, in certain ways these men lived a certain lifestyle that was not afforded them in the good old U.S. of A.  Are we being afforded everything we deserve today in America, by government, by our neighbors, and by businesses?  I think not, and that is why I continue to rage against the machine.  Upon reflection and my life of half a century it brutally is apparent to me that Americans are not afforded a percentage of what previous generations had, the Baby Boomers to be specific.  This generation made out.  They had military reserve pensions, they had civic pensions, they had social security, they had retirement plans, they had full medical coverage, and they had influential jobs within a community who controlled themselves.  That is not the case today.  Today we have an oligarchy.  Comparatively speaking the youth of today are living in barren desert enveloped by murderous sand.  It is not unlike predicted lifestyles post apocalypse, but they don't know it.  It is slim pickings.  There is no free love, except the free love on "them internets."  By free love I mean a cultural movement which has rebelled against mainstream society and has decided to mark their own territory.  Metaphorically this movement could be represented by getting high and riding a bus around the country trying to get laid.  I can think of worse things to do for enlightened people, and that is the quicker.  The people who participated in the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test were educated people.  They chose to live this way as did Paul Bowles and other expatriate American artists.  They chose a Bohemian lifestyle over what was being offered in America at the time.  Upon returning to America after twelve years abroad working on ships, still I cannot find one ounce of appeal of the lifestyle afforded to the average American.  It sucks.  Education sucks, and I am an educator.  I possess a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Never have I taught public school, because its lifestyle was not good enough for me.  After diligently preparing myself for sixteen years, a life in North Carolina public education was the last thing on my list that appealed to me.  Perhaps it had something to do with my student teaching experience.  Other than the inexplicable and exorbitant amount of hard core pornograpy available free on them internets, I can find nothing appealing about modern day life in America.  Television has been purchased and is marketing erroneous propaganda, music is childlike, and the once adult perceptions we knew about our world have been capped.  We as Americans have been censored.  It is a brutal existence.  it is a brutal existence that has led to mass murder on streets, in theaters, in businesses, and on military bases.  Still the infuriating murmur among politicians and survivors is gun control.  Gun control is not the answer to America's murder problem.  We are too afraid to take the time to look at the lives of those who have committed this murder.  We are too egotistical, we are too busy, and we are too vain.  First let me clarify I do not know who is and should be responsible for researching adolescent murders.  I assume it would fall into the category of mental health.  Psychological health care in America has been reduced sharply even with the continual return of combat troops in the Middle East. Many necessary social programs that are integral to the health of America has been put on old.  Its seems our government can't find the money to fund them, or they believe these programs are unnecessary.  All we have to do is ask ourselves why would an adolescent commit such a violent hate crime and tend to those causes.  No, America will do as the American medical establish has done.  We will treat the symptoms and continue to go to the bank every day.  If we cure cancer, all of those worker bees will lose their jobs.  It is far better a society of chaos.  We have this chaos, and maybe it is interesting to the gods.  Maybe the great wealthy families observe the arena of life from their ivory balconies and revel in it.  They laugh, yet one day it may catch up to them.  That could be the day when Jesus Christ returns to the earth to judge all men living and dead.  When the earth is destroyed, from what balcony will those gods stand?  In the mean time despondent America youths are suicidal.  They may not be suicidal in terms of actually ending their lives.  They may be suicidal in a value assessment that dying may be more interest than living their lives in the same pattern.  Their lives are what we are afforded today in America.  Not much.  A fast talking Easterner shows interest in you.  He entices you with ideas of training and fighting for a cause. This cause is not your parents, your teachers, or the bullies who follow you every day.  They offer you an independence from Uncle Sam, the man, and our menial everyday lives.  They make you feel needed and important, and then they tell you with this heroic act you will be remembered as a martyr.  This sounds pretty enticing to me compared to life in America.  Lost sheep are everywhere, and until we recognize them and tend to their needs, terrorism will continue.  After returning to America after twelve years a broad working on ships, I do not want to be competitive with my neighbor.  This is what we are required to do.  Capitalism is and always has been a fucked up socioeconomic system, and we are living in is sand-enveloped desert.  (P.S.  I don't have much to lose writing this, because either FBI or Department of Homeland Security planes have been circling my house for days)  It's interesting America knows how to pick a fight even with the most docile of figures.  I seek peace, serenity, privacy, and adulthood, and I am offered aerial antagonism.  I don't much like pondering defection mode.  I would just rather make music.  

Thin Lizzy and the Taos Hum

It is interesting when stars collide.  It is interesting when shit goes down which validates your personal opinion.  It is interesting when disparate elements are juxtaposed revealing a greater understanding of an seemingly unknown nuisance or even murderer.  Tonight was such a night.  To the dismay of my mother she and hundreds of other Fayetteville citizens  first hand were exposed to the Taos Hum.  The Taos Hum.  I'll say it again.  The Taos Hum.  The Taos Hum is a combination of annoying low-frequency sound and vibration produced by a General Electric-built slow moving conveyer belt buried beneath the ground in New Mexico.  It transports the mined element Molybdenum.  How did this annoying General Electric-built slow moving conveyer belt buried beneath the ground in New Mexico find its way back stage at Festival Park in Fayetteville, North Carolina?  It was puzzling for about half an hour.  The hum was there louder than anything on the stage (a Journey cover band) and louder than the ambient noise created by traffic flow over the Rowan Street bridge.  The crowd was noisy, but you couldn't hear them for the hum.  The hum appeared instantly first perceived to be in the P.A. system of the Festival Park concert.  It was masked by a large freight train traveling on CSX-T's mainline directly behind the stage.  There was a combination of elements (noise) juxtaposed revealing two trains.  One was traveling, and the other was sitting downtown near Festival Park.  When the traveling train passed the hum increased in intensity until we could see its source.  Another train.  This train (or rather locomotive consist) pulling a very long stretch of evidently very heavy cars was giving birth.  Electricity had built up in its electrical processing to a massive level to create a strong enough magnetism to pull these cars.  Traction motors.  AC traction motors.  DC traction motors.  Tesla.  AC induction motors.  Blah blah.  No one in the Federal Railroad Administration or the EPA could give a shit about this hum.  Ho hum.  Taos Hum.  Humbert Humbert.  Hummmm, hmmmm.  Where's my mum? Delores Hayes would not like the Taos Hum, and she would not have liked this incident completely overshadowing the musical performance of the Army Ground Forces Band.  The interesting thing was this hum was omni-directional.  Low frequency sound is omni-directional.  While the train squirted low frequency alternating current to its traction motors to make their rotors turn (axles), that massive amount of built up electrical power created a yet undiscovered phenomenon.  It was the Taos Hum.  It was a black cloud of angry, pulsating, vibrating, electrical energy louder than anything in the entire park or the whole city of Fayetteville.  Then it just stopped.  Poof.  The train is moving, the dangerous electrical "harmonics" are lost, and it speeds on its merry way at frequencies of far less consequence to the human organism.  Cancer is caused by the irradiation of healthy cells by electromagnetic energy.  Electromagnetic energy is an indispensable juxtaposition of electricity and magnetism.  Thus it creates an electromagnet, a rotating electromagnetic force that is strong enough to turn the axles of lengthy, heavy, fully-loaded freight trains.  That is some magnetism, and anyone living within a few clicks of it might take heed.  It ain't for the light of heart.  I have been cursing it for decades, yet tonight for he first time in full glory, the hum about which I have been ranting made itself known in a grandiose way.  It was the mysterious oeger behind the Festival Park stage.  Because it is transportable, CSX-T can send it wherever they please.  That is a fair amount of power for a transportation company.  I am positive it is not included in the mission statement on their corporate website. For sale.  The Taos Hum, but we will send it to you for free as a parting gift for enjoying the energy we produce by hauling coal to Duke Energy power plants.  We are responsible for destroying the Ozone and your body's cells at the same time! 

Living a Reverse Chronology

I have not been honest with myself.  My musical success does matter to me.  It matters, because of the oppressive boredom that ensues while not being musical.  Music is a double-edged sword.  In a nurturing and pristine environment music can provide emotional fulfillment, intellectual stimulation, and fun.  In a not conducive environment laced with dishonesty, vanity, and greed music becomes a step child, something to be degraded, beaten, and discarded.  This is because it is good.  I have experienced both things.  The latter part of my life has become the latter edge of the double-edged sword.  Music is a danger to me.  Like all things good, they become a target for the enemy.  This target is so coveted that each and every opportunity to excel at music must be destroyed.  Far it is easier to become a musical monk, and in ways this is what I have become.  It reduces the anxiety of trying to be musically successful.  My musical success only ever has been detrimental to me in one situation.  It is the situation I am in now.  Thus I am faced with the difficult decisions regulating my musical output.  For the most part, they are few, because they are not rewarded.  They, like my sexual appetite, are used by others.  It seems America has become a society of john's, and we use whores as our bitches.  We do not applaud and appreciate our artists.  This is why popular music has turned into one big selfish wonk.  (I want to use the word (w)ank, but the spell correction on Google Blogger will not allow me.)  View any current music awards show and horror will ensue.  It has become an atrocity.  Shallow music, shallow people, and vanity.  The message of the music and of the bands no longer is important.  We as Nottinghamshire have become deaf to the sound of uplifting sound.  Our brains are too diminished to accommodate something that is Christ-like.  Christianity demands sacrifice, knowledge, and humanity.  America no longer is capable of such things.  Instead we survive at the most primitive level unable to perceive our own meager existences.  I only can wonder if those Oxford-educated Harvard professors enjoy their lives, because it is the hippies that hold the key.  

A Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I rail a lot about the inadequacy of modern day America.  America is adequate for a few things.  We are adequate for imperialism.  We want Afghani poppies, and so we have them.  We are adequate for logistical transport.  We need a way to ship Afghani poppies, so we use our well-prepared fighting force.  We are adequate for bullying.  Instead of leaving the Middle East the way ISIS and ISIL desire, we linger collecting their poppies.  It seems collecting the poppies is far easier than tapping the massive oil reserve in Iraq, a nation we destroyed when creating ISIS and ISIL.  Still the price of oil has plummeted without harvesting that Iraqi oil.  Now ISIS and ISIL must have it.  Usually they sell it to France and Russia.  We are adequate for harboring fugitives, not illegal immigrants, but legal law-breaking corporations who out-source our American jobs abroad, launder money in Grand Cayman banks, and do what exactly in America?  They sell us their backassward, unregulated, crap products at an inflated rate compared to our wages.  Then they lobby Washington, so they can continue to lie about what is in these products.  We are adequate for stealing land from native populaces like poor African-Americans living in the Ninth Ward in post-Katrina New Orleans.  (Those elderly black people have no business with that real estate anyway)  Trumpism.  We as America are adequate for the useless and wasteful driving of automobiles instead of utilizing mass transportation as say Europe does.  It would seem America is a nation of excess, excess for the rich.  At one point in history these rich perceived a need to reinvest in us.  This is what creates an economy.  Pouring money back into goods and services, filling the pockets of Americans, and creating a burgeoning healthy economy is good for America.  Instead now we strangle Americans like the poor immigrants we are.  We are not adequate for medical care.  It is more cost effective, honest, and empathetic almost anywhere else in the world that is not a third world country.  It would seem these other countries never have been "superpowers" and therefore do not have a wasteful and selfish model to base themselves upon after obliterating every conceivable trace of the Christian religion and the presence of God.  We are adequate for producing cheap natural gas and polluting our ground water source at the same time.  While this may not be an issue now, it will be presently.  When God returns to earth and retrieves saved Christians to transplant to His other earth-like planet we may all ready have discovered, and when the oceans boil and fire reigns down from the skies potable water will become an issue.  It should be now, and the solution is not to buy it from Nestle or Pepsico.  We have become adequate at selling our once free and clean drinking water, breathing air, and comforting silence back to us.  Now we must pay for it, and the status quo of the common existence for Americans is poverty, violence, and thus murder.  No longer can we feel good from just our environment.  It has become so polluted, the playing field of the American Dream has been tilted at forty-five degrees allowing Republicans to litigate the minutia of political and economic control.  They are good at splitting legal hairs on a bought and paid for table.  When I think about the current Condition of America in America today, I can devise no model except utter selfishness.  It's a bitch being alone. 

Merry Robin Hood in America

The appointing of an academic to a federal cabinet position in American government is paradoxical.  The appointing of Holden Thorp to the chancellorship at UNC-Chapel Hill also was paradoxical.  Erskine Bowles baited his trap, and Holden took the bait.  Upon reflection it is copacetic.  Academia, under the tutelage of George Bush, has gone the way of corporate America.  No longer is it a grass roots organization to provide enlightenment to students.  It has become big business, and in America big business has become "Fuck you," to the American people.  Big business has become we will make as much money as humanly possible.  Screw humanity.  Screw the planet.  It is of interest the the earth and humanity are expendable.  We are on a course of extinction, and yet no one in big business seems to care.  In fact big business is the cause of this misguided course.  Could it be academics in high ranking cabinet positions in America's federal government cover this up?  Does the Washington lobby line their pockets with power and money?  Is this why 100% of the legislative decisions made by Congress do not consider public opinion?  We no longer are America.  A new name for this country must be coined.  Perhaps Nottinghamshire?  We have since 1776 become the same country against we rebelled with our Revolutionary War.  Perhaps we no longer are British, but certainly we have an aristocracy.  While America is a republic, no longer are we democratic.  Democracy has failed as has capitalism.  The economy in America has failed for a few simple reasons.  Americans do not have enough money to spend.  Therefore the businesses that have made America tick over the last two centuries now are defunct.  Americans cannot afford to buy their products.  Often I wonder why all of the traditional cultural trends of America have died.  Fashion is dead.  Music is dead.  Somewhere a while back the legends of the fashion industry died off and someone made the decision that ugly, skinny, waifs now were to be America's fashion models wearing loin cloths.  The traditional model of fashion, like art, became an anything goes.  Television is like this today.  There is no artistry.  There is no concept.  There is no talent.  Anything goes as Cole Porter would pen.  In his case anything was bisexuality.  So be it.  There have been few greater American songbook composers, just as there have been few greater classical composers than Tchaikovsky.  I listened to his violin concerto last evening on WCPE, and it was remarkable.  Nottinghamshire is not remarkable.  We are mediocre.  The only way America can retain the title of superpower is with our Department of Defense.  Under the leadership of newly appointed Secretary of Defense, Ashton Kutcher, surely the fond memories of Viet Nam will return, and we will laugh at them.  I never pondered the idea that a Cabinet Secretary in our federal government was a CEO, and yet that exactly is how Ashton Carter is painted in an interesting article by a past Washington Post and New York Times writer.  Carter ejected Ted Gup from his class on national security, although he was a fellow of the Harvard's Shorenstein  Center on Press, Politics, and Public Policy.  Gup has yet to stop bristling.  Why would Professor Carter make such a spectacle?  It seems he has a reputation for callus and unruly behavior, but we as the American people would not know this.  Seldom upon he is reported.  The answer to that predicament lies in an enlightening video presentation posted on Facebook.  While I have come to understand that Facebook is both a culturally worthless and dangerous social media application, providing an almost public platform upon which to voice opinions is useful.  Most often it is not used for this, and it should be.  I can't remember the author of a particular video posted on Facebook reflecting upon the history of slavery in America.  It was telling.  It was telling because for the first time someone else explained what always I have known about America's media.  They are owned by the same big businesses that run America.  They are pawns of corporate Nottinghamshire who locate their headquarters in any other country except their own.  Often I rant about the growing uselessness of technology and computing.  We can compute faster, but the ideas have died.  No longer do we care about innovation or ideas in America.  We care about money.  When the earth dies, what will you do with that useless paper tender?  No one has stopped to understand that the iPhone is a bad idea, and that it has changed American culture for the worst.  No one has stopped to understand that a majority of Americans are walking around socially dysfunctional staring into their palms.  No one has because Apple has posted record profits with sales of its iPhones.  Whose responsibility is it to point out that corporate profits do not matter to humanity?  Once it was academia, but that great organization has run the course of big business.  When there are no commodities and thus no jobs to sell them, it is pointless.  We live a pointless existence, and I am struggling to ascribe meaning to it.  This meaning for me has turned from the creation of meaningful music to an interest in reestablishing a healthy American economy devoid of technology.  Technology, contrary to popular belief, has killed our economy.  It has converted a once individualistic free-thinking society into submissive and docile Borg.  Big business has won, and America has lost.