Quinton's Bukaki Fantasy

While T's "Hateful Eight" has some merits frankly repeatedly ejaculating in a woman's face, no matter how despicable she is, is pushing the boundaries of good taste.  Like Inarritu's "The Revenant" it is difficult to discern whether T's movie is serious, a comedy, a farce, or a satire.  With it's bad sound, unrealistic effects, and droll dialog it would seem "The Hateful Eight" is just a bad B movie from the 70's.  I thought of an imported Kung Fu movie and its unsynchronized dialog.  The sound reproduction in T's film is so unrealistic, one can only think it is a farce.  Again like Inarritu's "The Revenant," with all of those beautiful outside images, what's the point when actors speak and it sounds like they are in a cereal box in your kitchen.  This is a lesson for sound design in the future of film.  A story can be told with sound alone, sound effects and images, and more importantly solely with the human voice.  I am just now understanding this concept, because I recorded one of my original pop song's recently.  With an honest story, thoughtful lyrics, tasteful technique, and an opportunity many a singer/songwriter was born.  I lament this lost art.  As "The 8" progressed finally acting became an element of the film.  The camera stopped twitching, looking up nostrils, and creating unneeded drama simply and stopped filming  actors' craft.  When Samuel L. Jackson finally gets to orate as he did in "Pulp Fiction,"  the film becomes engaging.  Engaging is the human voice at its finest.  Boring it is when an actor is miscast, there is no ensemble chemistry, there is no rhythm, and we must watch.  Kurt Russell is a fine actor, and I watched him last night with his equally as able wife, Goldie Hawn.  This was not his part.  Disney is no match for Daisy Domergue, but he gave it his best shot.  The ensemble all were chuckling quietly under their prostitution.  They were getting paid.  

Elect Bernie Sanders President

I don't have anything much to say, but I am tired of looking at the name Major Suckage.  I instead will say the only logical choice for the presidency is Bernie.  Ted Cruz is a hypocrite and a pawn of Texas.  He is a puppet and figurehead like W.  He is being orchestrated by powers we do not want in control in America.  It is obvious when he speaks.  It is scripted not natural.  Hillary is dishonest.  We do not need another Clinton presidency, although at the time I supported Bill.  What has been discovered logically proves Hillary should not be president.  Then there is Trump.  He has his own money but little diplomacy.  Would he bankrupt the U.S. further?  It is risky.  The only logical choice for the presidency is Bernie Sanders.  All one must do is watch and listen.  He knows more about the issues than any other candidate and he is smart.  Hillary is a bullshitter.  Bernie knows what he is talking about.  I cannot imagined a dinner party hostess in the American presidency.  It would be a disaster.  The Clinton's would have fun, just like they did when she was the Secretary of State, a completely inappropriate appointment and one she did not deserve or serve.  As a team they exploited her possible influence to policies in the White House.  Shrewdly they manipulated foreign interests to make money.  We do not need this in the White House again.  Whether anyone acknowledges it Bill Clinton created the housing bust.  He ran with a campaign slogan that everyone in America deserved to own their own home.  The housing markets spinning out of control issues sub prime mortgages to anyone and everyone assuring there would be a market failure when they defaulted on the shady loans.  It proved we cannot trust Wall Street banks once and for all.  They stole most of our American money that needs to be circulating to stimulate the economy.  Send a letter to Santa.  People are poor, and Wall Street got rich.  We do not need a Wall Street liaison in the White House.  Just try to remember the image of Hank Paulson standing on the inaugural podium.  Bernie is Jimmy Carter, so we must decide as a nation if this is the change we need.  Bernie speaks the truth, whether you like it or not.  

Dear Major Suckage,

     I would like to inquire why you are around?  We are experiencing major suckage.  When I open our newly installed and highly energy efficient vinyl windows, there is suckage.   My sheers, which disguise my personal activity, are sucked out.  Even with our furnace off and no discernible air blowing through the ducts, my sheers are being sucked out pinning them against the screens.  What is the source of this low pressure or vacuum, Major Suckage?  If a human is to breath air it must flow into the house.  If the planet is to cool itself the air must be able to flow on its on in its natural state.  A sucking through the huge hole in the ozone over the south Pole is not appropriate.  A sucking from gravitational waves created by two colliding black holes is not appropriate.  Global warming as a byproduct of major suckage must stop.  Meteorologists do not seem to question the bipolar behavior of the earth's weather.  Summer one day and winter the next?  What is causing these huge swings of air movement.  Could it be major suckage?  Major Suckage, are YOU responsible for this sucking?  Do your SD70MACs suck so much air with their turbochargers that the weather patterns on earth are affected?  Jet turbines also suck, but sucking is not the only problem.  If sucking and spewing happen simultaneously...  Isn't this a byproduct of the burning of fossil fuels?  We are burning our breathable air and  consequently polluting it with toxins.  It would seem these naturally occurring processes of life are oblivious to the Koch brothers.  There is no air in space, but does NASA know how to manufacture air?  I would believe Dr. Michael Burry highly is investing in both water and air. Commodities trading.  I guess it is time Americans stop hoarding ammunition and begin hoarding air and water.  The good thing is, unlike those pests in the film "War of the Worlds," SD70MAC's use the same air as human beings.  Ouch.  Eliminate humans and there is more air for them.  Is it a conspiracy Major Suckage?  Thank you.  

Major Suckage, The Erudite Army Officer

Dear Major Suckage,

        Hello, and I hope you are enjoying your new assignment in the trenches at Fort Bragg.  I hear your private plane now.  It is unfortunate The United States Army did not assign you a Lear Jet like the other Fort Bragg Generals.  The rank of Major does have its limitations.  In your new position as overseer of the Cape Fear Railways, I would like to inform you that operating in the trenches, while providing coverage from encroaching enemy fire, does not disguise your position.  It would seem your platoon could learn a lesson from Corporal Cu Chi.  Their strategy of hiding in tunnels rather than operating in trenches secured them immunity from defeat by your army during the Viet Nam War.  Fully I understand the War on Terror could be considered a different animal, or is it?  The inclusion of suicide bombing into methodology differentiates this war from tradition guerrilla tactics.  The futility of attempting to hide munition trains from these terrorist by burying them in tunnels is proving to be an environmental disaster.  They are not hidden.  In fact they are more apparent than if they were above the ground.  The Ground Wave Emergency Network highly was contested by everyone, because no American wanted electricity coursing through our earth.  Now we have electricity coursing through our air, and since the presidency of Bill Clinton, in expanding frequencies.  A proposal is active that will auction more of these microwave frequencies in the near future.  Wireless telecommunications companies are vying for these acquisitions with which to expand their services.  Haven't they scorched the earth enough?  Sound travels faster through solids than through air, so placing parts of the Cape Fear Railroad in tunnels at Fort Bragg only exposes their presence more.  For officers with limited sensory capabilities the adage "Out of sight, out of mind" qualifies.  Sight is only one six human senses.  [sic] Is it five?  Is it seven.  I see dead people.  Is it the Higgs Boson?  The conception, proposal, and subsequent study of GWEN and infrasound historically  conclusively have proven both are a threat to the human race and our God's earth.  Officers like you, Major Suckage, continue with the defense contracts of General Electric to breach the threshold of safe living at Fort Bragg.  Four soldiers returned from the War on Terror and killed their wives and themselves at Fort Bragg.  What could be so grave that all hope is lost?  Could it be that polluting our earth, the only platform upon which we have to live our lives, with electricity and infrasound has proven lethal?  The answer is yes.  President Obama cannot find a reason why youth genocide in America has flourished uncontrollably.  Is it because humans are organic beings utilizing electricity for our existence?  An EKG is a simple reminder that we rely upon both electricity and frequencies of waves for our thought and emotional processes.  If these are interrupted or bombarded with extraneous material, how will our minds and bodies respond?  One only has to ask Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris their opinion about the General Electric conveyor belt buried beneath the ground in close proximity to their homes.  

Soulless Cinema

Being a fan of the old school I was reluctant to spend my green on the remake of "Point Break," but I was bored.  It was Superbowl Sunday.  The day after the remnants of poor taste still linger.  After the Lady redeemed the genre of pop music with outstanding performances of both jazz and show tunes, it was perplexing to view her first few seconds of her rendition of our National Anthem.  I couldn't watch.  Her performance was on par with all the problem laden performances that proceeded hers.  There is a standard for the singing of "The Star Spangled Banner," and it is found in the concept of a traditional music education.  The newly created modern American pop genre feels it is not bound by these ideals.  Like so many filmmakers in America selfishly they indulge their immature passions, and they fail.  Lady Gaga failed yesterday, and it was further insult to the American people.  Then again we are being insulted daily with the 2016 presidential campaign.  How can one take anything seriously?  It is depressing to turn on the television and realize the election of the most powerful political leader in the world is a farce.  Truly if you do care about America's future, this election would seem to have nothing to do with it.  It is a puppet show, and I would guess Rupert Murdoch is pulling some strings.  A transplanted Aussie has no place controlling the news in America.  Much of America is owned by foreign interests.  We have become a barren industrialized wasteland bearing no resemblance to our once free world.  This brings me to my point of soulless cinema.  I have seen three films released in 2015 which all transmitted a similar dynamic.  There were beautiful epic images and lots of location shooting at varying destinations.  No wonder the budget is high.  With all of that visual hubris something was lacking.  It is soul.  I have watched three separate films, "Spectre," "Point Break," and "Sicario," which all suffer from the same bleak perspective.  I am beginning to learn this is the affectation of the millennium.  This is the way millennials feel.  They feel very little, and it is because the barren industrialized wasteland of America no longer feeds our souls.  Millennials would be so desperate with lack of feeling to enjoy the Superbowl half time experience.  I couldn't watch it, because all ready I knew.  I gave the Lady and chance, and she regressed her career.  I assume because it was the NFL, not a pinnacle of Christian sentiment, was orchestrating.  Briefly as a music educator I have to critique her performance.  The National Anthem is that.  It is an anthem not a pop song.  An anthem has a connotation, and it is not a pop song.  When singing an anthem the methodology of pop performance is moot.  Correctly to convey an anthem it must be reverent, spiritual, and selfless.  An anthem is paying tribute to a far greater good than Lady Gaga, the NFL, or television.  A rule of jazz performance applies to the singing of an anthem.  Play the melody straight the first time.  Prove you know and can play the melody straight by singing that way.  Harry will tell you.  The embellishments are moot, extraneous, and embarrassing.  To succumb to that low brow practise was a  mistake for Lady Gaga.  I was disappointed, because her authentic interpretations of jazz music spurred by Tony Bennett and show music were nullified.  People will remember the Superbowl.  Of all the opportunities to set an example for taste, this was it.  Like the 2016 presidential campaign it has failed.  Is this the real Lady Gaga?  It was sickening, but I guess I expected it.  I want to comment on this soulless facet of America.  Today most of the supportive structures that have nurtured artistic performances no longer are there.  Our environment is polluted with waves of all kinds.  To cling to your own wave today takes much effort. The Superbowl was not the place to do with our National Anthem as a vehicle.  There is little time for emotional and spiritual rejuvenation, because our environment no longer contributes.  This is not God's way.  The land of the free formerly did contribute.  It was here first.  The majesty of purple mountains found in mother nature provide spiritual fuel for certain lineages of humanity.  Native Americans are one, and systematically America either has extinguished or emasculated their culture for our own gain.  It is no wonder God's spirituality conspicuously is absent from America and film.  "Bridge of Spies," "Sicario," "The Revenant," and "Point Break" all have become metaphors for this vacuum.  They are giant black holes that suck the spirituality from God's earth.  It must be a trend, and the soulless Playstation is running the game.  Made up characters suffice for real humans, because millennials never have been allowed to develop their own spiritual psyches within the pristine and unadulterated American landscape.  We live in a vast, barren, industrialized wasteland much like the setting of "The Walking Dead."  Is this what we want for America?  It offends me to see filmmakers depict the beauty of God's earth in such a vacuous way. Either you see the glass half full or half empty, and it is clear many current film directors prefers the latter.  Watching their films is isolating, oppressive, and depressing.  Why would any director taint God's glory with nothingness?  It is because they themselves apparently have no soul.  Soul comes from Christianity, and from Christianity comes good.  The majority of followers of the Muslim faith are peaceful followers of Allah similar to Christians.  Only has one rogue faction of extreme religious terrorism misrepresented Islam.  Billy Joel did a better job singing the National Anthem.  Watching a cat in heat on Superbowl Sunday was an atrocity.  

The Slothfulness of Technology

Fortunate I have been the last week to resuscitate a formerly dormant part of my brain.  MIDI.  Musical Instrument Digital Interface.  MIDI was groundbreaking in music technology with its inception and implementation during the l980's.  I own the first MIDI instrument, a Sequential Circuits Prophet 600.  It was not until I arrived in Columbia, South Carolina and befriended a local jazz scholar that I would find the true potential of MIDI.  Jane Olds may have been the first in this region who understood this musical capability and invested well enough to fund her own start up.  After selling a musical spot to what I believe was public television, she purchased a Kurzweil 250 keyboard, a sampler, and with the software program One Step and its cooperative Jam Box interface began programming music on the computer emulating live ensemble performance.  I became friends with Ms. Olds and was privy to gain entry to her modest home studio.  In the living room was the Kurzweil 250, a mammoth black keyboard with multiple tiers.  On top of it sat what I believe was a Mac Classic running the computer program One Step.  With this primitive sequencer Jane successfully sampled live instruments and sequenced notes on the computer which emulated a musician playing them.  It was uncanny what was possible.  A drum set being played via the keyboard?  A trumpet being played via the keyboard?  Today no one much cares about music.  Jazz and classical music are the most unpopular of musical styles in America.  A trumpet you say?  What's that?  Music is dead in popular culture.  One only has to turn on the tube to see the millennial version of what used to be music.  It's not much, and it's not meant to be.  It is meant to submit, and it does.  This millennial version of music will not maintain the test of time.  It will do nothing.  In the midst of this negative reinforcement ,which incidentally surrounds us daily without our active choice I am trying my best to remember what a viable vocation of commercial music is.  In my circumstance it incorporates MIDI, Musical Instrument Digital Interface.  Wow, that was difficult to hash out that brief history, and I am glad it is done.  One reason why I have been having difficulty remembering is because the music industry drastically has changed in the lat decade.  It is a shadow of what it once was.  The overt realization I had was today's technology is making us lazy.  It is doing all of the things for us once we had to do ourselves and enjoyed.  The process was it.  A man is what he does, not what he says.  Today the trend is to let software developers do it.  What do we do?  Not much, just as millennial music does not do much.  That is because a large part of the work or the creative process is being done by software developers.  It is unusual today to see a band on stage today without a laptop around somewhere.  I for one as a seasoned musical performer never would risk having a computer involved in my live music-making process.  Having studied composition at the doctoral level fully I understand the mediums of music that do use computers.  I embrace them and the founding fathers of both IRCAM and music concrete, Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer.  Computers do have their place in music creation but not being a crutch for live musical performance.  When we watch the Super Bowl halftime show this Sunday, try to see who if performing live. Upon reflection I do not feel MIDI and this crutch are related.  By the time millennials got their greedy claws in the music industry, MIDI all ready was dead.  Software plugins were the rage, and the necessity of the PC was sealed.  This is our stunted culture today.  We rely and pay software developers to do our work for us.  They singlehandedly have stunted American pop culture just as corporate monopolies have drained our pockets.  What could be more successful......for them?  We no longer need Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, or Calculus, because we no longer need to think on a creative level.  Self-driving cars?  I will ask the question again.  What are we going to be doing while the car is driving us?  The answer is something selfish.  (having sex, texting, drinking coffee, putting on makeup, or other inane meaningless tasks)  The need for us to DRIVE, to see, to think, to react are being sedated.  Is this what we want, to be drugged? It used to be about the process.  Through this process we achieved self-awareness.  We became human.  Millennials are not human in a traditional sense.  I choose now at the ripe age of fifty-three to say, "That's the younger generation.  That's they way they do it.  Don't judge them."  As an educator no longer can I adopt this philosophy.  The world is headed down the wrong path, and Congress has failed.  The common good no longer is of concern.  It is, "Get what you can, can it, and sit on the can."  This is what Capitalism has bred, slothfulness and ignorance among the common people.  If the pursuit of the dollar makes us ignorant, how can we look in the mirror every day? 

American Lunacy

Gun control seems to be a major topic in the news.  Our current President understandably seems preoccupied with unnecessary gun violence during his last year in office.  It is a fitting concern and thus ideal with which to wrangle.  First I must say I received notification from the North Carolina Department of Revenue today. Those two ominous letters marked with "Private and Confidential" were no surprise.  For a great while this North Carolina agency has been querying my income tax status.  Although I have been living around the world in cruise ships, I have kept my vehicles "garaged" at my parent's home here.  They sit for up to six months at a time.  (You can't drive a truck on a cruise ship.)  Only once did I ever use it, when I drove to Port Canaveral to embark the Monarch of the Seas.  Instead of sitting at my parent's home, it sat in the cruise terminal parking lot for four days at a time.  On embarkation day I would escape the ship long enough to drive around in the most redneck town in Florida I ever have seen.  I grew up around rednecks, and I am not a biggot.  There was something about the irony of leaving my leisure industry job and entering the realm of leisure living poverty.  That is water under the bridge.  After rebutting the NCDOR's claims for many years with concrete tax knowledge and a judge's understanding of domicile and residency, today I received official notification from them that they had determined I was not required to file state tax returns for the years 2011 and 2012.  Previously with the same package of materials consisting of federal transcripts and Florida W2's, I had escaped the looming prospect of a lawsuit suing me for nonpayment of North Carolina state income taxes.  I believe I have sent it to them at least four separate times.  Never have I received an official reply exonerating my supposedly intentional avoidance of North Carolina tax debt, until today.  Word.  Gun control seems to be a viable issue for our current outgoing president, and as usual there is little substantial information about it.  It has been reported he has enacted another executive order affecting gun control in some way. As many pundits have responded, "There is not much he can do."  The NRA may be America's largest and most powerful lobby.  It seems we like our guns, and we want to keep them.  I agree with our Constitution that because a "Well-Armed Militia" has been and may again be one of America's biggest assets, we as American citizens have a right to defend ourselves and thus own guns.  It wasn't that long ago that the people were required to take up arms and defend themselves, their families, and their property.  It will happen again.  The issue is a rather new phenomenon, and President Obama is doing his best to confront its cause through personal emotional channels.  It is an interesting approach.  Because juvenile gun violence in particular both is startling and upsetting, it may make it more difficult to discern its cause.  Obviously if mentally challenged people are allowed to possess firearms, bad things can happen.  It widely has been reported that the majority of shooters in the U.S. in recent years were on prescription medication.  I will repeat this.  It widely has been reported that the majority of shooters in the U.S. in recent years were on prescription medication.  (I typed that sentence in record time, because I am practicing my word-processing skills.)  When you blog you are thinking up what you are going to say on the fly, therefore I type more slowly.  When I am able to engage my brain with merely typing copy, it is easier to blaze.  I don't have to think about the content of the sentence.  I just type it like an assembly-line working builds a particular product.  (By the way I personally would like to thank the North Carolina Department of Revenue for reviewing my information and agreeing with my insistence, that I was not responsible for taxes here!)  I have spent a long time on the F.B.I. watch list.  Evidently those few thousand dollars in delinquent state income tax merited continual scrutiny with expensive Department of Homeland Security, FBI, and U.S. Customs and Border protection planes.  That or else they  must believe I am growing weed in the woods behind our house.  I used to spend a great deal of time in those woods clearing fallen pine trees, poison sumac, grape and wisteria vines, and extraneous brush.  Unlike the majority of urban-dwelling middle class America, I enjoy riding trail bikes.  We have been fortunate enough to live adjacent to a large swath of woods behind an elementary school.  Since we moved here in l978 I have created an array of motorcycle trails that have proven to be cathartic, consoling, and enjoyable.  That changed when drunk one night I fired a single round of .32 caliber pistol ammo into the air attempting to discourage future arsonists from burning these particular woods.  It seems the persons living at the bottom of the woods having come home from some event were making a bit of late-night noise.  Henceforth the soldier living at the bottom of my steepest trail took a dislike to me.  While there was no way the summoned law enforcement officers could have found our home in the pitch black darkness at 1:30 a.m., they did.  I met them happily in the middle of our back yard, and giddily told them that juvenile delinquents had been shooting off fireworks.  It was true, and they believed me.  That late night marked a milestone for this probable trained Green Beret.  I don't know if he was a member Fort Bragg's elite Special Forces, but he certainly didn't like me and my single shot of .32 caliber small arms ammo fired into the air.  There have been several drive by shootings in Vanstory Hills, and I witnessed one.  It was about the same time one evening when my mother was away, and I heard six shots in slow succession that only could have been large caliber rounds.  They were within a city block.  Fayetteville is a violent city, and people are murdered daily.  It was a relief when he, his wife, and his annoying dogs moved away.  No longer do I have to worry about having to condone my ax work.  Ironically as much as I enjoy swinging an axe for physical exercise, a used chainsaw has made its way into our garage.  The last batch of trees that fell across my motorcycle trails was too large for me to cut through.  ( I realize I am ending this sentence with a preposition, but I am too fatigued to figure out how to reword.)  You get the point.  I like the physical pleasure of swinging an axe, and clearing the brush and trees in these woods has been a source of pleasure.  At one time it looked like a city park, and only locals could enjoy it like a Pacific Ocean Park surfer.  Today these woods are neglected, because I spent the entirely of the last year fixing our front yard.  That will be another story.  America is run by industrialists.  Mostly it is run by the railroads.  They are an unregulated monopoly, and before long there will be more freight than people.  (or there will be dead people in freight cars, which probably are there now, Mexicans, I mean).  It was not that long ago persecuted and condemned Jews were transported in freight cars to concentration camps, which in actuality were gas chambers.  We can have some comfort for the moment that transporting newly found shale oil in the Midwest is more lucrative than transporting Jews.  (It's a good thing Cheney is out of the White House)  Either people will be extinct, they will live underground, or they will live in mansions in the sky courtesy of Sierra Nevado Corp.  They can take their pick of a number of rocket-based carriers that are sprouting each year.  I do not think humans will live in space.  They only reason we would want to live in space is because the earth has been destroyed.  It will happen one day, but the expedience of that outcome is in our hands.  Why industrialists continue to kill the planet is beyond me.  It is the way the world has become without Christianity.  That campaign, that far-right, extreme Republican Fox News contingency only is evil.  I didn't think so at first, but it is the only explanation for the inexplicable and uncanny illogic of the world today.  The attack on Christianity began in this decade, and it is the reason why billionaire, adolescent, entrepreneurs carelessly are working on projects that are meaningless to our survival as a race.  We will not live in space.  We need to learn to drive better ourselves, before we allow technology to drive for us.  We do not needs aerial drones delivering our parcels.  A lack of Christian responsibility is what has spawned this lunacy.  Certainly we do not educate our populace anymore.  Certainly we do not care about engraining in our youth moral or ethical value.  That would mean Wall Street would have to be honest.  Watching this iconic institution falter with a complete and total lack of moral or ethical value should be a lesson.  Chaos is not that far away, and there is a reason why Americans want their guns. 

A State of Confusion

If I didn't know better I would think God is doing His best too assure the utter failure of mankind.  When He looks down at His earth there can be no similarity to Christianity at least in America.  While most of us understand America was founded upon unscrupulous murderous imperialism, the country has done well at saving face.  It has been the big "Razzle Dazzle," and it continues.  The hypocrisy is rife, so rife that promulgating it seems more wearisome than telling the truth.  Since I graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in l985, never have I felt much allegiance to America.  Beginning teacher salary then was around $18,000.00 a year, not enough for me to start a family.  Today teacher pay in North Carolina is the second lowest in the nation, and both North and South Carolina are rife with defense dollars.  There is money sprinkling everywhere from national defense.  Our country spends more time preparing for war than educating our youth.  In this preparation of war defense contractors are getting wealthy, just like the Wall Street cronies who continue to pilfer our meager salaries.  It is necessary Hillary Clinton not be elected president, because she is a Wall Street insider.  I am not sure always she has been, but she is now.  A guest on Charlie Rose's program last night summed it up perfectly.  The former Secretary of State has a dismal record of public service, but this blog entry is not about her.  It is about the American debacle, formerly which has been the "American Dream."  The last decade of technological advance has led our country down a path of human lunacy.  If a fraction of a percentage of the money belonging to the elite were spent on America's proper and necessary ideals, the world's problems would be solved.  Instead America gambles.  The rich are gamblers, and they enjoy their game so much that the economic infrastructure of our feeble country has become compromised at the expense of the common man.  I do not agree with this or "the" lottery.  It is the quintessential metaphor of ridiculousness.  It is lunacy handing uneducated Americans millions of dollars, that should be spent repairing our infrastructure.  It is that old "Razzle Dazzle" in the fullest sense.  It is a ruse to keep the schmucks distracted from their meager lives.  Give the common a bit of hope in the face of our constant and continuing rape and pillage by corporate America. The ConditionofAmerica is so satirical, that longer can I believe it.  How can anyone live in a state when your existence is a farce?  Comedy.  It is difficult, because the Christian part of me still yearns to do the right thing.  I drink too much and I lust, but still I wake up compelled to try to do the right thing.  It no longer works, and I spend the majority of my day trying to forget the Protestant Work Ethic.  It is why I drink, because reality is too unfathomable.  There is no logical way to discern a trace of Christianity via our traditional avenues.  That is because the media was the first prisoner, and the Nazi's captured it first.  More to cum. 

The Irrefutable, Irrevocable, Irregardless, Decaprio Debacle

I know irregardless is not a word.  "The Revenant" not really is a movie.  It is a self-indulgence, and one not worth seeing.  Like "Star Wars" they have your money.  Instead see "Cold Mountain," "The Outlaw Josey Wales," or "A Man Called Horse."  In each of these films you will observe a seasoned old-school director making art on film.  In "The Revenant" you will see juvenile and inexperienced digital rendering which has no connection with humanity.  What do I mean by humanity?  Some reviews have stated "The Revenant" is alien.  It is, so why confuse humanity with aliens?  This should have been a Western.  There is a tradition in film making for Westerns, and marking your territory with extraneous, meaningless, yet potentially beautiful images did not suffice.  There is a way to tell stories, and this attempt fails.  I was confused most of the time.  Why was Dicaprio calling this aged Eskimo man son?  If you are lucky half way in you will realize this film both is camp and cheese.  If it ever is seen again it will be while you are drunk.  Like "Rocky Horror" maybe you will dress up like characters which were forgetful.  There were no spiffy costumes.  There was no clever dialog.  The sound quality was piss pour, and barely could you understand anything that was said.  A story can be told with sound, but "The Revenan"t proves a story should not be told with beautiful images alone.  Go to an art gallery, or more appropriately play a Sony Playstation video game.  That is what most movies have become today.  Beautiful images with no concept or origin in humanity are meaningless eye candy.  Without trying to philosophize how and why "The Revenant" fails, it would be prudent simply to say it is a massive directorial failure.  While some of the images could be considered beautiful, it was a B list cast (other than Dicaprio).  A slate of heavy weight supporting actors could have helped but would have exceeded their budget.  As usual the director tries to make up for the lacking pieces with digital renderings that look amateur.  With the bear attack the movie became a comedy.  The camera shots are illogical.  Alejandro Inarritu, like so many other pop culture directors who ignore their vocational tradition and lineage, adopts the ever-popular 'Gollum' perspective.   As we gaze at his images there is no rhyme or reason to where we are viewing the his action.  Like the slew of other 'Gollum' perspective films, his camera has no connection with human perspective.  Why not market it to aliens?  Mindlessly like Televisa it meanders like a drunken sailor.  The majority of the film stares up from ants.  My neck got tired as did my psyche from looking up all the time.  Why must we look up?  Why must we look up the nostrils of medicre performances?  Are we looking up at the self-proclaimed greatness of Inarritu?  Why continually must we look up through his trees?  What is there?  Nothing.  His penis trees are more interesting, and yet they mean nothing.  None of Inarritu's images mean anything.  God is insulted, as He is by the entire right wing conspiracy misrepresenting His goodness and beauty turning it into fright.  Why are those assholes on top of mountains during the winter anyway?  It is not very smart.  The entire film is not very smart.  It is dull, and it pained every sense in my body to endure it until I began to laugh.  Then I couldn't wait to get out to make fun of it.  Go watch Cold Mountain, The Outlaw Josey Wales, or A man Called Horse.  Listen to the beauty and understanding of a Jerry Fielding score.  You're time will be better spent.  

The Irreverent

By the way I am so disillusioned.  You know my love for the Dash 8 and the Dash 9.  [sic] Grunge music as a product of the l990's is an artistic asset to humanity and American pop culture.  Ironically it is possible grunge music was a necessary byproduct of both the Dash 8 and the Dash 9.  It seems classical composers suffer from a variety of mental disorders.  Possibly Kurt Cobain, an inhabitant of the Pacific Northwest known for its logging industry, didn't respond well to the infrasonic pollution created by AC traction.  Fully I understand Norfolk Southern opted out of the AC traction movement, while Union Pacific and CSX-T invested in this newly created technology.  Untested.  Unstudied.  Unregulated.  Fully I understand that both the Dash 8 and the Dash 9 do not utilize AC traction motors and thus power inverters, until now.  They are the most powerful DC traction freight locomotives in existence.  With a 16 cylinder turbo-charged diesel four stroke engine, horsepower of between 4000 to 4400 is their mark.  If that isn't insult enough to the population, in an attempt to promulgate their aging assets GE is recommending that their fleet of Dash 8's and Dash 9's be "upgraded" to AC traction.  Not only are they an infrasonic nightmare, now they can be an electromagnetic nightmare as well.  Cheers.  It won't be long before the our meager earth reaches the event horizon of electronic pollution and disappears into a giant black hole with nary a blip.  Maybe then GE will realize after we are all dead and the planet is destroyed.  I guess they have some great plan of how they are going to relocate on God's chosen planet before the apocalypse.  Maybe that is why our federal government is handing Sierra Nevada Corp. hundreds of millions of dollars in non-bidded contracts through the Department of Defense to create a network in space.  Maybe NASA has found God's chosen earth-like planet, and the powers-at-be are trying to figure out how to get there leaving the earth behind to decay in her own human-created filth.  It's kind of like globalization having left America behind to decay in her own human-created filth, until China succumbed to her own unique indigenous infrastructural problems.  (Such as massive pollution worse than America)  We stunk her up, so what's next?  
    

Dashing Through the Snow, Snow

Dear Dash 8 and Dash 9,

       These ephemeral words certainly did not apply to the holiday season of 2015.  In fact in retrospect it has been reported that the year 2015 was the hottest in history.  (the hottest in history)  I mean the history of recorded temperatures.  Each of our subsequent years has usurped the previous year in temperature.  It will continue.  Maybe that ensuing heat could be quelled if the dashing stopped.  I don't mean, "Dashing through the snow."  That would have been well appreciated.  Our weather has developed schizophrenia.  I should correct myself.  Our weather has developed bipolar disorder.  There is no logic to its 180 degree swings in seeming season.  One day or week it is summer and the next it is winter.  It seems our planet and thus our weather is suffering the same ills as human beings.  It is struggling, and its antagonists don't much care.  I don't think they have much of an opinion at all about global warming except that conspiratorially it does not exist.  Global warming?  It sounds, well, like the earth is smitten with something.  She has been seduced with nary a realization that most of the man-made industrial activity in the world is not good for her.  Global warming is not the right term.  Planetary meltdown.  The word meltdown is much more accurate, because it refers to other both manmade and natural disasters.  Three Mile Island and Chernobyl both come to mind, and like everything else in world history has been swept out of human consciousness.  Big Brother (I mean the creators of that man-made industrial activity) would rather you forget about the potential consequences of their negligence and greed.  A meteor also could hit the earth, but the chances of that occurring before we melt the planet ourselves is rare.  Dashing through the snow.  It is such a simple lyric.  I could be happy if the dashing stopped.  We could continue to sled, snowboard, and ski.  We would be fine, but the dashing has to stop.  Dash, dash, dash.  Oh, Dasher!  Why must you sit idly, like right now, doing nothing except heating the earth? I observed it again.  It occurred the entire two weeks of the Christmas break.  Dashing.  What is the point of burning fuel in seventy degree heat?  Is it because of the necessity of a cooling system?  I think I recall dashers do not use antifreeze.  There is some other method for keeping them from getting hot.  Snow would be good, but then they would need to be kept warm.  It is a predicament.  I, like Big Brother (I mean the creators of that man-made industrial activity), do not have an illuminated opinion about why the dashers must dash all the freaking time.  That is because their dashing is not based upon any theoretical premise.  Purely it is negligence or laziness.  "I don't feel like going through that dashing routine, cappy, so let's leave her running."  Consequence?  The entire two week Christmas holiday was overwrought with dashing. Screw the dashing.    The Dash 8 and the Dash 9 are the earth's enemies.  1990's technology does not adhere to the current standards of the E.P.A., but who cares?  Coal-fired power plants are under scrutiny.  Why not GE?  Because Big Brother runs the melting planet.  Can Hillary Clinton effectively yield the power of  Aunty Entity in America?   "Who runs Bartertown?"  MASTERBLASTER!  Embargo on. 

Let's Be Cool, Boy

I'm pretty exhausted.  I don't sleep well on the weekends, because a particular railroad switches trains on Sunday afternoon.  All day, and night.  Two Dash 8's toil.  I am talking about traction dating from the early l990's.  Certainly their emission standards are not in compliance with those established by the Environmental Protection Agency in the year 2016.  Some rail providers have begun to use GenSet locomotives in accordance with new EPA standards.  They have several diesel prime movers than engage only when their power is needed.  It very much is like a Honda motorcycle carburetor which only uses as much fuel/air mixture as it needs.  I can't remember its name.  There are other modern diesel locomotives which make attempts to pollute less.  The Dash 8 is not on the list.  Formerly this particular railroad made use of SD-60's when switching trains.  Why the change, other than the Dash 8's are like the devil himself?  They pollute not only the air but the air.  Did I say polluted the air with hydrofluorocarbons?  They do this.  We all know like what smells diesel exhaust.  Did I say also they pollute the air, something we cannot see but is crucial to human existence?  Our air gets overlooked.  There are world summits on how to stop the warming of the earth, but no one pinpoints the causes.  No one will come out and say that the airline industry, the rail industry, and the wireless telecommunication industry largely are responsible for global warming.  Why?  Think about it.  Yes coal-burning power plants account for a large percentage of emissions, but they are not the only culprits.  Coal is cheap, but it relies upon the rail industry to move its product.  Double whammy.  Let's pollute our air, twice.  If you believe the television advertisements you would think the railroads are as green as Kermit the Frog.  Bah.  They move so much more freight on a gallon of fuel.  They have put the truckers out of business, just as Apple and internet streaming services have put the record industry out of business.  Things dramatically have changed in America.  Not only did five trillion dollars disappear during the financial crisis of 2015, the balance of power has shifted.  Truly it is a new millennium, and no one much is paying attention.  Our air is polluted with gaseous toxins, but that is not all.  Also it is polluted with invisible sound.  Yes, sound is invisible, but also it is inaudible.  Sound below 20Hz is inaudible to the human ear.  If you can't see it, and you can't hear it, it doesn't exist, right?  Ask the Dash 8.  Ask any of the artists from the Grunge Era who complained of so many things.  Take Kurt Cobain for example.  No one expressly ever consented that the Union Pacific railroad may have contributed to his demons.  Musicians are sensitive to sound, but sound you cannot hear?  Come on.  Lobbyists have been using this argument since the inception of infrasonic pollution.  When I become president of the United States, I will sanction Diesel Down Day.  On this day every diesel engine in the country will be powered down.  Every diesel electric locomotive operating in America will stop bleating for one whole day.  They difference will be startling.  Then I will sanction Jet Turbine Spin Down Day.  Every jet engine operating in America will stop.  Then I will sanction a national day of humanity.  All wireless communications will cease for one day.  The earth will cool.  We all will be cool boy.  

Michael Omartian or "The Martian?"

Selling vintage skateboards during summer is not a wise business decision.  Selling vintage skateboards during the dead of winter is.  Chatting up films during the summer didn't seem like a wise business decision, or at least I have not seen much publicity for new films this year, until now.  The Academy Awards are forthcoming on February 28th.  It would have been nice to have seen some promotion for new films of 2015, but television is a dying medium.  I don't watch during prime time.  I watch late night.  That being said I have resumed my movie-watching practices recently after an aberrant wisdom tooth was removed from my jaw. Accompanying it on the way out was a badly decayed molar destroyed by a resorption cavity created by the offending wisdom tooth.  It almost was perpendicular to the molar, and the cavity completely was disguised inside the otherwise apparently healthy molar.  Dentists failed to diagnose this with X-Rays.  (Note to self.  Have full X-Rays taken every year.)  My abdominal issues completely have not subsided, but they are getting better.  I think it may be an ulcer.  A colonoscopy doesn't look into the small intestine, where mine may be hiding.  At least my bowel tells me this from time to time.  I should stop drinking.  Although my music studio is taking shape, diesel trains carrying jet fuel to Fort Bragg disrupt my concentration from time to time.  Last night was such a time, so I opted to see The Martian.  I did not know Ridley Scott was its director, and he is one of my favorites.  The movie artfully was shot, but something was lacking making the movie an Oscar contender at least for best film.  What was it?  As I watched it became clear the dialog was simplistic at best.  There was not much dialog, and when the actors spoke starkly it was colloquial.  These were not theater-trained actors, and any remnants of the theater were absent.  Instead a new crop of seeming millennial actors was employed unfamiliar and bland as your neighbor next door.  Casting Harry Dunne as the head of NASA was a mistake.  From the onset of the movie the tone, like Spectre, was dark, stagnant, vacuous, and bleak.  With all of the beautiful images gracing the big screen, this was disappointing.  It was like real life.  Aren't the movies supposed to provide more?  The movie was neo-epic in scope, and once the tasks became apparent the plot progressed quickly.  I left the theater not understanding how the hexadecimal system helped Matt Damon communicate via a still frame camera from the 90's.  There were bits and pieces of other space movies, but I never felt Ridley Scott.  It was because of the script.  It was not much.  The words spoken were inane, not clever, and boring.  The faces of the actors were forgettable.  The Martian still is sticking in my mind, and that is a good thing.  They had an opportunity, and they seized it.  It will not make history. 

Dear Pasquale

Dear Pasquale,

Thanks for writing.  I am sorry I did not come this year.  The temperature and humidity were so excessive for the month of December, there was no way my reindeer could have survived the journey.  My sleigh could not penetrate the layers of infrasonic pollution being created at Ft. Bragg by their two SD70MAC diesel locomotives.  The hog and chicken manure, coal ash, and fungus in the Cape Fear River were too much of a deterrent to Rudolph.  He has a very sensitive nose.  All in all it was better to stay away.  The STRACNET corridor along I-95 through Pembroke to Sunny Point is a major waste dump.  I can't believe there is any life left there at all.  It's ironic to me that during this heat-laden Christmas, Duke power was at a loss for supplying the necessary electricity to cool your homes.  It is because that in addition to creating extremely harmful low frequency sound waves often that are below 1 Hz, those SD70MAC's drain your power gird.  It is a property of physics, electromagnetic waves manifest themselves on each other despite the carrier.  When those AC traction locomotives are running, it is like a huge suffocating blanket on the region, kind of like a huge furnace.  Of course there is no such thing as global warming.  Ho ho ho!  Merry Christmas!  

Santa Claus
      

Dear Santa...

Dear Santa,

      I want to know why this Christmas was the hottest on record.  Winter came a few weeks ago, and we really were in the mood for a white Christmas.  Suddenly right before the anniversary of Jesus's birth, what we call Christmas, the wind stopped blowing.  The humidity rose to 100%, and it became the hottest Christmas on record.  It was miserable, Santa.  The Milan yardmaster saw fit to leave two of his locomotives idling on the tracks for a week surrounding Christmas Eve.  One was a DASH 8, and I don't know what the other was.  Why didn't he just turn them off?  Because it was the hottest Christmas on record, there was no need to keep the diesels warm.  Instead of decreasing carbon and infrasonic emissions for the week surrounding Christmas, the Milan yardmaster chose to pollute the little baby Jesus with the warm farts from continuously running diesel locomotives.  How irresponsible was that?  It sucked.  That DASH 8 engine hunted all week revving up and down making my ears ring and my skin scrawl.  I couldn't enjoy the Christmas season at all, because of that DASH 8 running continuously with no engineer or conductor.  It just sat there, running, helplessly all week.  Part of me wanted to spray it with bullets from my AR-15, but I resisted.  (and I don't own an AR-15) There it sat, lonely on the tracks, just running the entire week of Christmas.  Isn't that a waste of fuel, Santa?  I have some other questions too, Santa.  Why does no one report on that big hole in the Ozone over the South Pole?  When I looked at the weather pattern on TV for the hottest Christmas on record, I saw a pattern I never had seen before.  It was not the jet stream coming down from Alaska.  It was not the clockwise rotation of the Caribbean hurricane season.  The air was coming straight up from the South Pole from that huge hole in the Ozone.  I could feel space moving at its great velocity as it broke through that giant hole and found its way north to America.  It was hot, Santa.  I know the oil companies want this.  They want to melt the polar ice caps so they can drill for oil, but can't you stop them?  They talk about global warming and the burning of fossil fuels, but no one ever talks about what actually happens, like that giant hole in the Ozone over the South Pole.  I realize the Navy likes their low frequency submarine transmitters there, but isn't there a better place to burn a huge hole in the Ozone?  In addition to that idling DASH 8 locomotive at the Milan yard, why do they seem to be putting trains together during Christmas either at Ft. Bragg, Sunny Point, or at the Port of Miami?  Isn't Christmas a time to relax and celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus.  Why would America so openly and blatantly disguise this season with terrorist-like assaults? Is it because America has been trying to obliterate Christianity for a decade?  Well Santa, they did a good job.  It was the worst Christmas ever.  I can understand why you couldn't get here on your reindeer driven sleigh.  It was no match for the infrasonic and carbon pollution surrounding our town.  It was miserable, and it still is going on.  When will it stop, Santa, and we will get to see you?  Ho ho ho.   Thank you.  Pasquale.  

Facebook, Notes in High School

I admit I am a fan of Facebook.  I log into the social networking program daily to try to stay abreast of things.  Often I am disappointed.  I have narrowed my newsfeed to contain only remnants of posts from my Friends.  There was not much worth reading.  That which I did read merely was distracting to my life as is most of what I deal with daily.  Life is a distraction, at least life in America today.  That is why I created this blog entitled "The Conditions of America."  It is a forum where I can vent my frustrations with life in America.  During this Christmas season it has become clear to me how America has changed.  America readily has succumbed to what must be the lowest cultural standards in our history.  When I try to think of any cultural activities that might inspire my day nothing comes to mind except logging into Facebook.  That instinct is a crutch for what used to be cultural practices.  It is easy.  It is an addiction, because it is easier than almost any other thing I can think of to do.  Occasionally it provides me a tangible emotional reward.  Usually that is late at night when the rest of the world slumbers.  I see it for what it is, a means of communication.  To America Facebook has become the Great American Songbook without the songs.  We rely upon it, it is part of our lives, and it is difficult to give up.  Never have I seen an entire nation, formally the world's superpower, abandon its culture heritage entirely for a small social networking application found on a computer via the internet.  Quintessentially Facebook could be considered the biggest ruse in American history.  Of all the things I would want to hear people speak about, it is not, "Like us on Facebook."  The news reporting industry, formerly a respectable and integral component of American life, now asks their viewers to, "Like us on Facebook."  No one is benefitting from this except Facebook.  When I try to think back about all of the exciting things that used to occur in America, nothing comes to mind.  David Lynch's iconic film "Wild at Heart" was on television last night, and it reinforced how much America has changed since the death of Elvis Presley.  It is startling now in America how quickly iconic figures are forgotten upon their deaths.  Consequently their influences seem to be wiped from our hard drives with nary a thought.  This is not good.  This has not been good for jazz music, as most of its original purveyors have died and are forgotten.  What can this say about America?  We shovel dirt upon the graves readily of those Americans who die with no thought to their influences or achievements.  What entity is it whose responsibility it is to curate America's culture?  Radio.  Radio is dead, just as music is dead.  America is a pale shadow of her former self sucking on the tit of Facebook each day instead of savoring our historical culture or trying to pioneer new culture.  Facebook is an empty drug but a potent one.  I am not sure if its reward is quite as good as heroin.   When jazz musicians took drugs, it was to aid the process of expression and creativity inherent in music-making.   Drugs were used as an avenue to higher art.  What does Facebook give us?  

It's Time to Lighten Up With Heroin

I knew the war on drugs was real, but never has it felt like its loss would be doomsday.  For the inhabitants of Juarez, Mexico the recently released film "Sicario" depicts it that way.  Being cast as an action thriller helps explain the dire nature of its plot.  Murderous cartel leaders are a heinous breed, and in today's political climate it is difficult to discern their activity from that of Islamic Extremists.  Beheading is a common thread which helps blur the boundary between them.  Possibly the drug cartels in Mexico desire the same amount of power wielded by armed Islamic Militants.  Maybe all ready they have it.  Who is to say which professions earns the most capital, heroin production and sales, or black market oil?  It is all intertwined, and poppy production in Afghanistan is part of it.  The question lingering in my mind is is the War on Drugs equal to the War on Terrorism?  It seemed like it after seeing  "Sicario."  After reflecting I understand now the film was penned majorly through the eyes of a former Mexican prosecutor whose wife and daughter were murdered by a cartel drug lord.  It was personal, but America's War on Drugs is not.  Drugs in America, especially heroin, symbolically do not represent murderous violence.  They represent an escape from a brutal reality created by a political regime administered by George W. Bush.  It is not unlike violent murderous drug cartels or Islamic terrorists.  W. created this era of terrorism on a grander scale than existed before in America.  Globalism fueled it.  Greed has propelled it.  At one point my intent was to characterize America today without George. It would be easy.  The Clinton's "Multiculturalism" would have continued.  Art would have continued.  Instead today we are on a path of destruction and desolation.  Films like "Sicario" do not help.  With a change of ownership of American film studios, culture in America is being influenced in a detrimental way.  George created a culture of "Fear and Intimidation" but the film studios seem to be continuing it.  I had to sort out my feelings at the end of the film and realize the War on Drugs is not one of life and death.  It was for Alejandro Gillick, an ex-prosecutor of the drug regimes in Juarez, Mexico.  It is easy to internalize the sentiments of cinema into your own sensibilities, but murderous revenge is a bit of a stretch for the average American.  It suggests otherwise, as do many America-made films these days.  Movies are continuing the Campaign of Fear and Intimidation.  I learned some things by watching "Sicario."  I got a glimpse into the seedy underworld of counterterrorism.  I felt I was watching Blackwater during the War in Iraq.  I began to understand the role of a security force in foreign wars.  It is one big cess pool.  It is interesting how providing a euphoric escape for  poor hopeless Americans begins with murderous violence in Mexico and Afghanistan.  

"One Ringy Dingy.... Two Ringy Dingies.... (Set it on the Porch)

About the recent slew of porch thefts.  With the economy staid, and America's money sitting in individual billionaire checking accounts overseas, it should be no surprise that the desperate are lifting what must be the easiest dupe available.  It was not that long ago before mass internet commerce carriers did the unthinkable.  They rang your doorbell and waited for you to answer to accept your package.  Suddenly like many things in America, that protocol has disappeared.  Carriers are covering their bases.  When a problem arises from new mass internet commerce, suddenly Brown feels not liable.  It has not been a traditional practice to pile packages on your doorstep in full view of passing traffic!  [sic]  NOT.  It was not long ago carriers were not in such a hurry to amass billions of dollars going straight into individual billionaire checking accounts.  Once in America the wealth managed to distribute fairly evenly before internet commerce, before the iPhone, and before slovenly millennials.  I am not suggesting slovenly millennials are responsible for the porch thefts, either by refusing to ring someone's doorbell and wait for an answer, or by actually stealing the available packages themselves.  I am saying, "What the @#$%?"  What America is this?  It didn't take long before a class action lawsuit beset itself upon Uber.  All I can say is,  "Ah!"  They had it coming.  Shame on Brown for assuming no liability for their stolen packages.  Shame on right wing media for making Trump a fascist, although he may be.  It is good to be aware of America's enemies, although we no longer are the same America.  Possibly we have grown into a nation of fascism.  Glimpses back to the original Cold War like the Berlin Wall are telling in reminding America freedom only is a generation away.  We all ready have lost much of it to billionaire internet commerce moguls.  While I detest the idea of trusts, such as the railroads in America's history, a trust can be a way to trust things good such as film.  Selling your Hollywood movie studio to Japan or China for billions instead of intrusting it to those beneath you.... well that has been the monumental failure of the Baby Boomer generation.  Never before have I witnessed such entitlement.  Control, power, wealth, and happiness all careening into the grave leaving a gaping hole in America's culture.  Why are they so resistant handing the reigns to the children?  Why are the children of Baby Boomers dying while taking care of their aging parents?   Music once was symbolic of American culture.  It was symbolic of ideology, sentiment, and hope.  Music was the essence of American humanity.  Miley Cyrus twerking.  Justin Biber schnerking.  Adele losing (the popularity contest.)  Still America is in high school, and always it has been.  My decayed molar looks like a miniature oriental dragon.  It also looks like the raised clinched fist of black power, although it is ivory-colored.  My wisdom tooth looks like a cornucopia.  Somehow these dead teeth are symbolic of something.  The cornucopia murdered the oriental dragon, from the inside out.  You could not see the murder, until it was uncovered by a competent oral surgeon.  It was amazing that such a battle took place in my mouth clandestinely making me ill for over half a year.  Who knew?  I do now.  

The D.T.'s (NYPD Blue cameraman withdrawal) creates the "Third Tangent"

Joel and Ethan Cohen's collaboration with director and producer emeritus Steven Spielberg "Bridge of Spies" was slow to start.  Starkly it reminded me of the slow start of the film "The Cheap Detective," when I saw it one cloudy summer afternoon at the beach in Wilmington, North Carolina.  It was so slow to start my father insisted we leave, and we did.  (It was not until recently I understood its angle, and I liked it immensely.)  During the first half hour of this newly released, Cold War, reflection film, I asked myself several times why I was watching such a thing.  I came to terms with this newer style of cinematography.  Back in the day of Jimmy Smits seemingly a lone cameraman filming "NYPD Blue" inadvertently implemented instead of steady-cam filming a "jittery-cam" filming.  Clearly I remember it.  What sould have been a normal scene from a crime/drama television episode suddenly grew a new tangent.  It was mute, inhuman, and scurried around like Gollum in "Lord of the Rings."  It viewed the actors drama from the viewpoint of a midget.  I learned in my summer school course "Stagecraft"  lighting actors from below creates a demonic effect.  Our sun does not emanate up from hell,  so actors should not be lit this way except in specific scenarios depicting demonic content.  Unfortunately ground-level lighting and a cameraman's jittery hands have become commonplace in television and film production for no legitimate reason.  [sic]  This practise created a new tangent,  an undesirable character like Uncle Eddie in the National Lampoon film "Christmas Vacation."  His sole purpose is to create chaos, chaos we observe the actors mitigate into a viable entertainment.  Utilizing a "third-party" antagonist which is not an actor, not human, and is invisible is a weighty production decision.  Its name is Rupert Murdoch [sic] and his committee is the media.  The song title "Wannabee," a hit by the spice Girls, a quintessential metaphor.  We have quality, studied, historically-based film making dating back to the 1920's.  It was heralded like art, music, poetry, prose, and painting.  Today music like film and television production has included a similar unimportant tangent.  It is today's audience.  That is what you see now on television music programs.  Like today's acting on many occasions the live performance of music is subordinate to the audience.  It is inconsequential.  The third tangent also can be lighting, theme music, and artificially created tension and release.  This is best represented in the better produced  reality TV shows and now is common.  The talent doesn't really matter, or at least the producers extract what is necessary from the untrained participants.  What less expensive way is there to produce watchable television programing!?  Exploit everyday people like jazz musicians who seek their fortune.  Give them malaria, botulism, and diphtheria, buy their songs, and whisk them off the set like a post-surgical patient.  Buy their standard wares and watch them die at the bottom of a whiskey bottle while you make your fortune.  This exploitation can be the same for lottery winners.  Many do not have the front money to cover the taxes on their winnings, so they do not receive anything.  (Scam.)  The third tangent isn't necessarily Big Brother.  Instead it should be Little Brother.  It is a chimpanzee, or at least the intellectual intent and resulting product of a lone monkey running around the set with a hand-held camera.  Igor running around the set of "Young Frankenstein" was effective and humorous!  You could see him, and he was a viable part of the action.  I watched "Bridge of Spies," and began to like it more as it progressed.  I had to tell myself I was watching the close up war footage of "Saving Private Ryan" and and current film making technique whether I liked it or not.  I'm not sure it is effective.  There are multitude of traditional war-themed movies which have been comfortable planting the camera on traditional mounts like dollies, cranes, helicopters, and tripods, and simply watching the actors' craft.  (Mr. Spielberg also utilizes these techniques)  Many of these expertly-shot films are worthy of accolades.  With the concerted ignoring of necessary components of good film production, albeit for financial constraints, this third tangent (or its representing committee) is used to try and salvage a film.  If I wanted to watch a monkey (Rupert Murdoch) with a camera instead of Martin Scorsese, Paul Verhoven, Adrian Lyne, or Sydney Pollack I would not watch at all.  I could understand if the third tangent, a pair of tremulous hands caused by delirium tremens needed his paycheck, but unlike jazz improvisation this aberration of filming adequately has not been justified, studied, and appropriately integrated into film technique.  It is an unsuccessful contrivance.  Is it intended to be modern?  Is it intended to be Post-Modern?  Is filming worthy actors, meticulously-constructed sets, innovative lighting, and digitally-recorded sound by a cartoon creature from the "Lord of the Rings" really an appropriate avenue for film-making in the century 2000?  Just as the internet, wireless communications, and the media are slinging their guns and forging new territory in the wild west of current America, I choose to look backwards whence film came.  This is proof in the pudding.  It is  proof that human beings still are trying to watch films though difficult as some studios are making it by utilizing the shortcut of digital rendering.  Shooting from the perspective of and reducing us to neurotic, delusional, ADD riddled adolescents may be a way to grift allowances from the pockets of America's youth, but like Wall Street's digressions it does not make it moral or ethical.  If the "Third Tangent" eliminates Christianity, no one can know the difference.  Who knew Agnosticism in film and television had become the new "Twelve" in America?  

The Enemy of the Wisdom Tooth and Its Dupe

Although appropriately subdued still I am ecstatic that the offending bacteria-laden teeth are absent from my mouth.  I began having pangs of discomfort upon biting on my left side over six months ago.  I suspected it was more than my bite signature on a newly installed crown.  My dentist in Turkey was very accomplished, and although my bite was a little tight at the onset it quieted down.  It was the subterranean cavity lurking in my back most molar caused by my wisdom tooth barreling into it under the camouflage of my gum.  The impending damage to my molar wholly was disguised up inside my gum.  Drats!  There was nothing I could have done other than having had the wisdom tooth extracted sooner.  Saving my molar was a longshot, and while I never had an opportunity to bet on it, I lost.  It is of no consequence because the offending choppers now are sitting on my computer desk in front of me.  That afflicted molar has a large cavity in it at the mid point below the surface of my gum line.  Let's hear it for oral surgeons who are familiar with these hidden anomalies.  I was not fond of my molar, because when my permanent teeth began entering my mouth as an adolescent there was not enough room.  There were teeth all ready there, and quite a few of them had to be pulled.  Each time I visited the dentist he would pull yet another deeply-rooted permanent tooth until finally there was room for the ones I had.  Braces were next to force the newly emerged teeth to stand in rank and file.  It was a tedious process to undergo during puberty, and it didn't contribute to my self-esteem, especially dealing with girls.  I like them, but not that often they liked me after this gross process of growing vampire teeth in fifth grade.  When my braces were removed in the later part of eight grade, finally I had a nice smile.  All of that aside and of course weighing on my mind, my thoughts can divert to current events.