Screwminations of N.C. (Trying to make sense of it all)

 While I did grow up in North Carolina, I found respite for a brief time in the wonderful city of Columbia, South Carolina.  When my tenure came to an end, I was thrust back into military life now which defines most of the Carolinas.  I survived for a year but searched for another living destination more appropriate for musical productivity.  My move to  "Cowtown," (Columbus, Ohio) was inspired by a pattern by the late Dr. John Emche.  Dr. Emche was the Director of Jazz Studies and my cooperating professor, while I completed a masters degree in jazz and commercial music at USC.  After graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill with a music education degree, I was awarded a GTA in this jazz program.  It financed my secondary college education.  It has taken many years fully to understand "jazz life" is fleeting.  Columbia was a haven for jazz.  It was an enclave of warmth and creativity, and the jazz music scene was rich nurtured by the presence of a young saxophonist, Chris Potter.  Traditionally it would be the other way around; the local jazz did influence Chris.  A strong presentation of Bebop from the Terry Rosen group, featuring Johnny Helms, Teddy Linder, and Frank DuVall was ferocious.  These musicians loved jazz, and they transformed Pugs at Five Points into the jazz club of the city.  I spent many evenings in this below the sidewalk bar, and it smelled like beer and cigarettes.  The jazz spirit was strong and loving, and I learned much.  When it came time to leave, I went through severe jazz withdrawal.  This phenomenon is common, and is why jazz disappeared from American consciousness.  Jazz cannot exist of itself.  It must have a support system.  When that support system wanes or disappears completely, jazz will follow.  I am in the throes of trying to discover the appropriate American music which is independent and self-sustaining.  This means the feeling of this music will be an innate part of current American consciousness.  Currently this music does not exist.  The intellect of American folks no longer has the ability to process complex issues.  Is it because we are more stupid?  Is it because we don't care about such issues?  Is it because our brain and its ability to synthesize complex thought has regressed in function?  Have we devolved as a species?  If one looks at the current "Conditions of America," it is clear America, or at least the folk quorum of America, seems not capable of such thought.  Is it possible the potential of the human mind genetically has been altered?  Considering genetically altered foods have become standard without our consent, and Monsanto was sold to the Chinese, we have no idea what we are eating.  People concur the sabotage of our food system is one root of our problems.  How has this happened?  The answer is the same for most of our problems as a nation, and it is the absence of oversight and regulation.  The private sector of America has proven they cannot be trusted with the health of the nation.  Government oversight is required.  We must have regulatory agencies to canvas and police corporate America.  Slowly over the last two decades this oversight has been minimized by an overt lobby on Washingtonian elected officials.  Deep pockets set up shop in our nation's capital and wine and dine naive politicians coercing them into passing legislation to favor their profits no matter what the cost to human health.  The health of the human species and the planet eart now are at risk.  This cavalier behavior by industry is incomprehensible, and Donald Trump is proving mental illness is a viable and volatile American weakness.  It has reached a level where psychosis is being made to appear normal for political gain.  This is called "gaslighting."  Much of this sentiment can be understood by watching one Hollywood film.  The movie is "The Campaign."   It is a 2012 political satire based on the fourteenth Congressional district of my home state, North Carolina.  District 14 is the district of my home.  Because I opted out of the North Carolina experience soon after college, I missed some of the carnage of the metamorphosis of Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde.  When I lived in Chapel Hill for four years as a music student at UNC, then Governor Jim Hunt ran a tight state  Before I arrived at UNC, Chapel Hill held a record for the most beer consumed in the United States.  Jim Hunt changed that statistic with one stroke of his pen.  "DUI," driving under the influence, became "DWI," driving while impaired, and if you were caught it was a mandatory two nights in jail plus the loss of your license.  The same was true for passing a stopped school bus.  If you were caught, you lost your license.  The "P.C." climate of America, whence it came nobody knows, prevents us from governing ourselves in the most primitive of hazardous situations.  Still we are driving while texting.  America cannot even tell herself what kind of mask to wear during a pandemic.  The political climate of North Carolina capsulized in the film "The Campaign," has become truth.  It seems too rude, offensive, and over-the-top to be true, but this methodology won Donald Trump the White House.  North Carolina has become a big, fat, compliant whore, and although Governor Roy Cooper has a heart, his "Good Old Boy" genes render him incapable of fighting the Republican Machine.  The Chinese own Chemours.  DuPont changed the name of the disease causing, 3M manufactured chemical and sold its Teflon unit to China.  It is called Chemours, and it is in Cumberland County, District 14 about which is this political parody.  It was a lot to digest Will Ferrell's portrayal of Cam Brady.  When you connect the dots and add his "Hank the Tank" and "W." characters, the aesthetic of this southern villain becomes clearer.  North Carolina truly is represented accurately in these farce depictions, and it isn't good.  The concept is simple.  The more ignorant are the people, the more wealth can control their geographic region.  The more gullible are the folks, the more lobbyists can line their pockets.  The more naive are the electors, the more the Trump Campaign can bribe them.  How does wealth via politics oppress a geographic populace?  Let's take roll.  Contaminated drinking and bathing water via "Chemours."  (Thank China for this)  Tainted air to breath via "Chemours."  (Thank China for this)  Judicious amounts of EMF and infrasonic radiation via "CSX."  (Thank the railroads)  Chemtrails of soot and smog directly over our neighborhoods via commercial air traffic.  (Thank PSA Airlines, Delta, Piedmont, and the rest)  Infrasound is a never ceasing carrier wave of pollution rendering your personal privacy moot.  (Thanks to the diesel engine, and its EPA exempt graven image of profit)  Like the film says, North Carolina is a mess.  We wonder why our children overdose on drugs, and returning veterans commit suicide.  Try living at Fort Bragg.  The housing market would have you believe North Carolina is the destination because of affordable housing.  District 14 is the Theater of the Absurd, and an overtly homosexual contingency wants national recognition for their tepid drag tendencies.  Wake up and smell the coffee!  America does not give it away for free.  No one gives it away for free.  You have to work for it, and that the Koch Brothers have done. 

Dr. Dre's Return

I am bold enough to embrace the Super Bowl half time show, touted before it premiered as "The greatest half time show ever!"  Those are strong words, but how could we know if they are true?  As a nation we have been listening to strong words from past President Donald Trump for four years, and most were lies.  He set the example for untruth in America.  The Republicans eagerly embraced lying as a kind of sensationalism, because before his supporters knew they were lies, they believed them and voted for him. Two years and a many felonies later, we realize this.  It is difficult to digest, a recent President pulling the wool over our eyes.  It is called, "Eating humble pie."  For those who bit on his hook, this is challenging.  Lying and misinformation have become commonplace in America.  It is everywhere, mostly on the internet and now television.  Television is a soiled medium, and there is not much to believe.  Take caution!  It was announced this would be the greatest half time show ever.  Okay.  That is good Afro-centric marketing; I am not being racist.  I am being realistic.  Think back to the Apollo Theater in Harlem, and the artists who played there.  James Brown decided his people should collect the door and keep the money rather than forfeiting it to a mob boss.  He had the strong arms to enforce this idea.  Black culture is different than white culture, and black music proved throughout our history many American whites were more comfortable with it.  Black music is the history of America, and yet we fail to recognize and apprciate jazz.  Emotional expression isn't racially universal.  There are those  emotionally stunted not possessing the genes necessary to experience deep emotionality.  We used to call them "tight ass."  With
"Political Correctness" things in America which were accurate became inappropriate.  No longer could you call a Jew a Jew.  No more ethnic jokes.  We became sensitive and entitled, and now this particular generation won't make it, because their skin is too thin.  Life never has been easy, and the quicker you grow that tough skin the more likely you will succeed and be happy.  America does not give it away.  No one gives it away.  You must work for it.  Dr. Dre has worked for it, but at one particular point those controlling America decided it was over.  Hip Hop and black popular culture came to a screeching halt.  MTV, VH-1, and BET stopped playing music, and the music video died.  Pop Country came in, and we have not been the same since.  I did not follow Hip Hop music personally, but its influence was everywhere in my job.  I was a ship pianist from 2003 until 2013, and the music we played could not escape the influence of Rap and Hip Hop.  I am not be a fan of Gangsta Rap or  its misogynist content.  I don't abuse women, smoke dope, or shoot up the neighborhood.  What I did like was the musical integrity and groove of Hip Hop, because it picks up where jazz left off.  Hip Hop swings like jazz, and before we knew it this music became its modern equivalent.  Before I left for ships I became well-versed in funk and Hip Hop, because I played in a band.  I spent hours trying to understand these styles of music and how to execute them on keyboards.  There are a myriad of nuances and concepts in this music, and I made sense of them with my analytical mind.  This is when I discovered Hip Hop swings, and it became second nature to me.  "Shuffle Funk."  I didn't pay attention to the profane lyric content; I just enjoyed the rhythmic feel and the sonic satisfaction it provided.  As I continued on ships this music was the underlying fabric that held things together.  There was music in the shows, the white man's interpretation of life, and there was music played in the crew bar late at night.  Hip Hop was the predominant style, because it was the music which if you allowed it, fulfilled your soul.  That is a deep concept, and I am too tired to discuss it now.  Suffice it to say, Dr. Dre.  Poet and don't know it.  I feel it was the appropriate choice for this half time.  First the recent history of these shows is controversial, not musical.  Like Trump's lies we have lost sight of the reality of music.  Musical artist.  They lip sync to prerecorded tracks.  That's all.  That is not the case with Dr. Dre, the first American musician and producer to become a billionaire.  It wasn't Elvis.  It wasn't Hendrix.  It wasn't Madonna.  It was Dr. Dre, and that is because he is an accomplished producer and visionary with very large and musical ears.  I have been listening to "What's My Name, Part 2" for a long time, and still it is artistic.  Dr. Dre's appearance at the Super Bowl was like an appropriate protest of the Civil Rights Movement.  He has worked his ass off producing in the music industry (and has made a lot of money), but he as a black man has been denied national recognition.  With going on three years of Covid and a disgraced white President, Dr. Dre's appearance was, "Why don't we try this on for size again?  It was working before, and it will work now."  Not everyone is a tight ass hillbilly extremist.  There are the rest of us who are able to understand the groove of the music and enjoy it.  Comparatively it was a well-produced show.  They were  having fun doing what they do best.  There was no jive.  There was no scandal.  There was no Trump.  It was just, "We are going to have a good time and enjoy this music."  Fully I understand those not embracing a street dressed white boy with a hoody.  If you have seen any of Eminem's Dr. Dre produced videos, you have a different opinion.  Those videos were the pinnacle of protest, anger, sexuality, art, and expression in America.  The bar had risen so high there was no where else to go, so the white men just wiped the slate clean.  We have not recovered.  Dr. Dre said, "We are still here doing what we always have done."  Still it has power, love, and spirituality, and still it entertains.  Watch the Eve and Gwen Stefani video, " I Wanna Blow Your Mind," and you will see integration at its best.  America knows how to live together in peace and harmony, but that doesn't make money for Donald Trump.  

What Really is "The Blue Streak?"

"It's always something you don't want to do," in the immortal words of Wynton Marsalis.  Speaking about race relations and civil rights in the history of America, "There is always something you must do, muster the sheer willpower to persevere."  To me it's writing about Covid.  I can't say it's not my responsibility to think about Covid.  It is, like it is for every living soul.  We all must think about Covid, whether we want to or not.  We don't have a choice, because it is still here.   The news reports today Covid infections are down 35 percent.  That's because Covid infections go down, when they quit dropping it out of the sky.  No assault with a chemical or biological weapon, infections go down.  It's simple.  Does it seem conspiratorial?  Does it seem radical?  Does it seem demented to think something has created a weapon and is assaulting us with it?  When the lower Saudi royals masterminded the attack on the World Trade Centers, and the twin towers collapsed in rubble, it felt conspiratorial.  It felt radical.  It felt demented.  How could anyone have done such a thing?  The only attack on America's homeland in decades happened on Wall Street in lower Manhattan.  Think about that for a minute.  Someone, actually many, took the time to immigrate to the United States and slowly infiltrate our society.  These men became pilots for major airlines and in the blink of our eyes flew commercial jetliners into skyscrapers in New York City.  Almost it was inconceivable, but it happened.  You must give George W. Bush credit, because although the Department of Homeland Security is bureaucratic and cumbersome, his administration did keep America safe until now.  We have been safe until Covid 19.  For some uncanny reason there has been no speculation that the outbreak of Covid could be a terrorist attack.  Why?  Bill Maher said it succinctly tonight on his HBO program.  The medical establishment has lost all of their rights and privileges.  The response to Covid has been so convoluted, mysterious, and rhetorical, it is like they really don't want to cure the illness.  They want to prolong it, the way the American Cancer Society does to keep their funding.  In brutal reality they don't want to cure cancer.  The medical profession has become this way, and it began with the onset of HMO's and insurances companies controlling your health care.  Who ever thought this was a good idea?  Insurance, as I am learning, commoditized our health care system in a way that that would reward shareholders, not guarantee a fair price of treatment for American citizens.  It is an interesting concept, marketing.  I do believe it is the American way, an important and revenue earning tenant of our economic system, Capitalism.  For example, there is a wonderful jazz singer Melody Gardot.  Unbeknownst to most she was in a serious accident which left her severely disabled and sensitive to light and sound.  With few options for happiness in your recovery, she turned to music.  Necessarily the music needed to be quiet and sensitive to abide her new sensitivity.  She performed for a while in this manner producing a startling and moving communication with people through music.  Now when I Google her name I see glamour shots.  It is like no one knows the roots of her musical inspiration and language.  They just want to tart her up and sell records with a sexy image.  Welcome to the new world of American music.  It's not music.  It's disgusting, but I guess when Hip Hop spun out from gang violence, something had to fill that sexual hole.  (so to speak!)  Pop Country has been tooling around for a while, and I can't watch or listen to it.  I am not an adolescent.  I did have a Farrah Faucet poster when I was a teenager, but she didn't try to sing.  Making something out of nothing is what marketing has become, because America has so few products.  The infrastructure to spawn new ideas has been monopolized by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.  Trying to nuture small business was tossed to the wayside years back.  It has to be big.  It has to make millions to satisfy shareholders.  Shareholders don't do anything but buy stock.  America has lost her core.  In all of this technological haze we have lost reality, and the reality is Covid is a terrorist attack.  My idea of it coming from the sky isn't farfetched.  It is the only way such a pathogen could be dispersed.  It has been done many times before in many countries, but the fog of the Republican Siege, the gaslighting, and the disinformation have done their job.  They have distracted us from real learning.  I have been writing about global warming and industrial pollution for twenty years, and the method of discounting my words simply was to say, "He's crazy.  There is no science.  There is no religion."  In fact the humanities are the core of our existence and the explanation of our planet and solar system.  Science is the only thing that is real and what will save us.  We just have to jail the naysayers in due time.  In this ruse of distraction and deception, inexplicably the FAA allowed the airlines to redraw their flight paths to account for a shift to GPA guidance.  The industry was moving from flight-based radar to satellites.  Overnight commercial jets now were flying over our neighborhoods at extremely low altitudes to save fuel.  They were not required to do what had been the standard since the inception of commercial jet travel.  This has been happening in our neighborhood, and I only can drop my jaw in disbelief when we get strafed by a commercial jet flying just above the tree line.  In addition at certain times on certain days, a magic carpet of jet exhaust blankets our neighborhood.  If you drove around the city you can see this gift, layers of black soot so consciencously laid just above the tree tops and only on our specific neighborhood.  These are flat chem trails, not ascending or descending commercial flights, and they surprisingly stick like taffy.  I understand we are the home of the 82nd Airborne Division, and I understand deployment.  I understand maneuvers.  They fly fighter jets through here on occasion.  This action, this mysteriously appearing blanket in the sky only over our neighborhood is unusual.  I have photographed it, and when it appears I grit my teeth and spew profanities at an industry who has obviously has become selfrighteous and profane.  To think your company has the right to spew chemtrails over neighborhoods to save on fuel?  I don't believe it.  I believe this solicitation to change flight paths was as concerted as the 9/11 attacks.  It was planned and implemented in a slow and savvy campaign of patience and terrorist fortitude.  When the time came and no one was looking, they began dropping Covid from the sky.  At first I could not help but suspect collusion from the military, but that is a far stretch.  I did not want to entertain such a conspiracy.  The more logical explanation under the unregulated and everychanging aircraft industry, is any rogue airline could be infiltrated easily.  They shift planes.  They have blanket companies.  They have partnerships.  They fly under the logo of this with the name of that.  It is so convuluted no one could keep up.  I have a backlog of aircraft data from the Flightaware website, and the planes and airlines are ever changing.  If I had a rocket propelled grenade and I knew which plane it was dropping Covid on Americans, I'd do what the Afghans did to Russian helicopters.  I don't have an RPG, but there is no other logical explanation.  I wish PSA would stop flying the "Blue Streak" over our house.  I'm tired of being sick. 

The Continued and Disturbing Prevalence of Covid 19

 While purposely I have chosen to ignore Covid for the last few months, largely because I have had three shots (the maximum recommended deterrent), its recurring antagonism is inescapable.  I think I have had "The Vid" four discrete times.  I sidestepped this ominous virus for almost a year, until our electric clothes dryer died.  A gas dryer would have been optimum, but gas appliances must be vented directly to the outside.  The space afforded our humble home for its dryer is in an internal downstairs bath with no tub.  The washer/dryer combo snugly fits into this space with a bit of anxiety.  Previously the bath had sliding louvered doors to hide them.  We kept these doors until now, because they were a defining characteristic of the house as is the back French door.  All ready we replaced the washer, and it was a major effort.  I spent time on the internet researching commercial washers and looking for the right model.  We solved this problem, and it was a success.  Instinctively I knew the dryer would be next.  Unfortunately the dryer madeappeared at a local Sears Surplus, and I was forced to frequent this store in the midst of the Covid pandemic.  Although we wore masks, I contracted my first Covid during this purchase.  We picked up the dryer in our Toyota van, and I installed it myself carrying it from the driveway to the back yard.  I attached the strain relieved 220 volt power cord.  The dryer took its toll, and the games began.  The symptoms of Covid for some are not related to the lungs or sinuses.  I had little mucous, congestion, or sore throat.   I had the the more lethal challenges of this pathogen.  It was stark and severe.  "Grog Head" is one description of what ensues.  Covid causes murky thinking.  Its effect is on the central nervous system.  It has been reported those with Covid are walking around, and they keel over.  You must fight this foe with sheer force.  Willpower is what maintains your lucidity.  Any weakness you have Covid will seek out exacerbate.  This includes bacterial and fungal infections, traditional challenges to human health.  There are a plethora of fungal and bacterial infections.  These infections are caused by particles in the soil, water, and air.  I have been an active yard worker, because our yard demands it.  With two live oak trees in our front yard and a plenitude of pines, the work is continual.  Growing up our neighborhood kids played in the woods.  We loved the out-of-doors, and a relationship with Mother Nature began.  I plow, dig, and plant but not as much.  These infections are caused by bacteria or fungus in the soil, rotted wood, and decaying plants.   I have taken pride in digging in the dirt, and my Uncle Randall says the more you do this the stronger your immune system becomes.  I believed this until Covid.  Covid turns Mother Nature against you in the most vile and afflicting way.  It is evil the effects of Covid, and they are not naturally occurring.   The first time I got Covid it found two discreet infections in my body, one bacterial (most likely Staph) and one fungal (probably Candida).  I found  often they coexist.  When they do they are more difficult to eradicate, because you need two differing drug treatments.   I had this malady for two years, two different infections apparent in my appearance.  I was pallid.  My skin was ghostly white, and I tried with diligence to find the right drug combination to cure this ailment.  After I stumbled upon the right choice, some of my suffering lessened.  Septic arthritis persisted mostly from my prolonged use of Cipro.  I have a fused bottom vertebra.  Over time if you are missing a disc, the bones will grow together.  My lowest vertebra is fused to my pelvis.  This explained two years of lower back pain.  With these differing episodes of Covid, which are covert and elusive, it is difficult to make heads or tails of your health.  When the vaccines became available my mother got one first, because she is ninety years old.  When it was available avidly I received it.  Both of us got both  boosters.  These shots saved my life.  My body told me I was over the hump, and I might feel normal again.  As the world has realized, we  live with Covid.  Like the flu it will be around forever.  These vaccines are available to save our lives.  The grift of Covid is its mission.  It seeks out and destroys from everyday maladies.  More importantly it attacks the central nervous system hindering your ability to feel, move, and coordinate.  It has a nerve agent in its DNA, and this is not normal.  Perhaps it is.  I am not a scientist, but I have discovered the amalgam of deadly pathogens used in chemical and biological warfare. With malice man likes to infect others, and there are a myriad of ways to do it.  Covid 19 is just one of them, the most recent since HIV.  Is AIDS naturally occurring?  I don't know the answer, but I do know that the continual spread of Covid is not attributable to those not  vaccinated.  It is being inflicted on us.  The most logical method is by aircraft following a long lineage of unethical and inhuman warfare experimentation by many nations including Russia and Japan.  America's contribution to this heinous practice was the dispersion of Agent Orange in Viet Nam to exfoliate their agricultural fields exposing strategic locations of the enemy.  This was accomplished with a specific aircraft, the Fairfield C123 Provider built specifically for the military.  The pathogens are administered as an aerosol suspension released in vaporous gas in the air over the intended enemy.  A doctor friend of mine emphatically told me a virus needs a human host.  My theory of dropping Covid from the sky was conspiratorial and delusional.  It is common.  Viruses need human hosts to multiply.  They are complicit to exist on their own for several months or years aided by external conditions.  In above freezing temperatures they can live for several years and prefer the dark.  More importantly they can live for several days on inert surfaces, until someone touches them and moves the viral particles to their mouths, noses, or eyes.  Here lie the ACE2 receptors responsible for the contraction of the virus.  Not much has been said about the eyes, but it should be noted that biofilms forming on contact lenses are a cause of concern.  This was my case, because my two year stint with an acute double infection most likely was promulgated by infected contact lenses.  (CT)  I soaked these in alcohol which killed the infection.  My health almost overnight began to improve, but in a few weeks the alcohol destroyed the lenses.   I had spares.  Losing ones taste and  smell is annoying.  When it happens continually, it becomes a litmus test for Covid.  The onset of fatigue, "Grog Head," and neurological difficulties seem to be consistent with the virus.  Only recently was I beset with upper respiratory symptoms including congestion, labored breathing, and sore throat.  All of it is destructive to human life, but the presence of a nerve agent points specifically to whom? 

The Challenge of the Societal Gig

I played a gig last night, and it was difficult.  Why was it difficult?  It was difficult not only because it entailed moving a lot of equipment, but it was a challenging crowd for which to play.  Can you imagine providing musical accompaniment for the Scottish Clans of Cape Fear?  Necessarily this is a Scot event, and there is Tartan aplenty.  Kilts, swords, flags, and haggis all were in the midst, and I knew this ahead of time.  I meagerly collected a modest set of Scottish tunes and felt they were sufficient as a theme that would influence my tune selection on the fly.  I planned to return to the theme from "The Flower of Scotland" as glue that would hold together my sets.  I also included "Loch Lomond" and appropriately played these as a dirge or rather straight as a marching procession.  It was supposed to have a ceremonial feel, because there was pageantry involved in the event.  They presented the colors, we sang the national anthem, and there were introductions.  Playing Scottish folk music on an electric piano may not have been a great idea, but it's how you play it.  In retrospect I think they were a little insulted that I tried my hand at their personal tunes.  That isn't democratic, but America is not a metaphor for ethnic diversity.  Conversely we have transformed into a separatist, tribal, factional nation, and Donald Trump largely is responsible.  We have lost sight of how to live in diversity, a far cry from Hillary Clinton's "It Takes a Village."  Multiculturalism was a main them of the Clinton Presidency, and clearly I remember marked improvements in the quality of life of Americans.  Now we have become paranoid of immigrants, and it is possible some are exploiting American generosity.  Integrating never has been easy, and it has become more difficult in the vacuum of the absence of Martin Luther King and Kennedy Clan.  Ted just slipped out without much ado.  We need positive example in America, and there are few.  The current trend is to bash the American President, and it is unconscionable.  Surprisingly the majority of their rhetoric about Joe Biden is not true.  It is not factual.  It is a product from the loins of Donald Trump, pure lies with no intent except to slander truth.  This is the political dynamic in which we live.  My job was to make the best of a challenging societal event, and that meant providing meaningful background music which was worthy of listening.  It was hit and miss.  In retrospect I realized my shortcomings.  In the back of my mind I knew it was a challenging crowd, because jazz-based cocktail or background music is in the minority in America.  We hear little jazz, and with the Covid shutdown societal events stopped.  What little warm and bubbly cocktail music happening quickly evaporated.  I opted to try the Scottish heart, but I failed.  While I played these tunes adequately and with appropriate sentiment, establishing any sentiment in this crowd is difficult.  That is because they are from different walks of life.  The major influencing musical dynamic in Fayetteville has been the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra.  I love orchestral music, and I have studied it at the doctoral level.  On the other hand I don't play this repertoire when I play piano. Although I was classically trained, I could not wait to learn to play jazz.  This was because of its swing.   That means the bulk of my piano playing ability comes from rhythmic feel.  Playing Scottish folk tunes straight is like playing a hymn in church, but I have played spiritual melodies at the function before.  Sometimes the melody itself is enough to establish emotional communication.  The priority of this event is to stay in the background.  Whatever you do play quietly behind the voices of the guests.  Pay attention if they are listening and dynamically adjust your playing to respond to their reactions.  This is called "Playing the room."  I was naive to think I may be able to do this, because it was such a diverse group and the major dynamic of the party was Scottish sentiment.  The overt musical entertainment of the evening was a bagpipe and drum outfit.  There were six bagpipes, two tenor drums and two snares.  There was one bass drum.  All were marching instruments, because much of European folk music was based on war.  Marching is key.  I could not play cocktail music in this style, so I tried to mix it up.  Always you have try to establish a mood upon which to play, and always it is difficult.  Previously at this event there have been staunch rejectors of the jazz vibe.  They, like the rest of America, refuse to acknowledge or try to feel the warmth of jazz music.  It may be their have difficulty feeling comfortable with this vulnerable expression.  Feeling good is not always easy or appropriate.  During Covid I have found the jazz feeling doesn't work, because what is happening around us is challenging and often painful.  Pain is the operative determinate.  One feels uneasy allowing pleasure, when the rest of life is about war.  I understand all of this.  Because of the classical influence many of these guests are accustomed to hearing this music, learned and composed music which is written and read off the page.  Also I read off the page, sometimes, but it is in the jazz methodology.  We play from lead sheets, a simple melody with chord symbols reminiscent of figured bass during the Baroque period.  To play jazz you must have an acute understanding of harmony and be able to realize harmony on the spot.  As such never do you play the songs the same way each time.  They change in accordance with the dynamic of the party.  At least upon this normally you rely.  When the swing rhythm or feeling is absent, which often it can be, it is difficult to play.  Suddenly and shockingly you find yourself trying to extemporize arrangements in the most unsupportive environment.  Imagine trying to compose while people watch, drink, and talk.  This is your job.  I had success and seeming failure on a few tunes, and that is normal.  What does work in this situation is Foxtrot.  Foxtrot is two beat music, which represents almost all Early Jazz, Broadway, and Ballroom Dance.  It is relaxed easy-flowing music which can be transitioned into "Straight Four" by swinging the bass line.  Largely this music is determined by the pluck of the acoustic bass on beats one and three, and when I did play this style and played bass with my left hand they were appreciated and happy.  Abruptly and to my surprise the limitation of the society gig presented themselves to me almost immediately.  The choices I had when playing bass with my left hand were Foxtrot, Ballad, and Bossa Nova.  These are the styles my father played in his band for many years, and they are tried and true.  The trouble was I had not played a gig like this in several years, and I do not hear this music.  Additionally I choose not to realize this music in my personal time.  I prefer to continue to learn new things and add them to my repertoire.  Unfortunately none of these came to mind when sitting in this position.  Quite normally you draw a complete blank.  You can't think of anything, and that was the case.  I sat and looked at my scribbles of tunes, and none of them seemed appropriate.  It stayed that way the entire evening.  Out of desperation I resorted to a few standards, and it felt immediately I was not present in the room.  It was the ghost of my father and my father's band that was there, and this is because my connection with this crowd was because of him.  They expected to hear his music, because always this is what they heard and enjoyed.  That was a tough pill to swallow, and honestly I resented it.  I have worked on a lot of music, and I pride myself in playing current media.  I cover some tunes, but in jazz you rely on your soul and your feelings to play.  In times such as this, often your expression is quashed by the intensity of the crowd.  All of them have their own opinions, and all of them have strong influence.  If you are not prepared for the fight, you may lose. 

The War in Fayettenam

I want to clarify one issue.  Most people never have experienced "Fayettenam."  Unless you have been stationed at Fort Bragg as a member of the United States military, the phenomenon of "Fayettenam" would be foreign to you.  Simply put the feeling of Fayetteville isn't what was created by enthusiastic pundits of tourism.  "History, Heroes, and a Hometown Feeling."  At times Fayetteville has had a warm subculture driven mostly by money.  With enough money many things can be ignored.  Fancy houses, country clubs, and good jobs are able anodynes for enjoyment.  Over the years Fayetteville has succumbed to the desires of Base Realignment and Closure.  Many in Fayetteville will tout the wonderful benefits of B.R.A.C.  There have been benefits such as military dollars infusing the local economy.  Personally what I have seen is a tipping of the scales in the opposite direction.  I will not argue with the benefits of military expansion, but I'll comment on other effects on the city and her surrounding community.  Largely these are ignored for good reason.  The ill effects of a burgeoning Ground Forces Command have begun to outweigh its benefits for city residents.  B.R.A.C. benefits those who decided Fort Bragg would be the hub of military activity.  Most industrial activity at Naval Weapons Station, Joint Base Charleston was moved to Fort Bragg, and rail traffic increased dramatically.  The Apache helicopter replaced Kiowa, and with its emergence came a new aerial gunnery range.  The mission of the Apache is to attack and destroy.  While those involved with flying the Apaches may not notice, the presence to the community of these menacing birds is significant.  They bring an air of intimidation, which is appropriate for a fighting machine.  They can intimidate the civilian population, when they are not understood.  While military personnel may become accustomed to the low thump of helicopter rotors, this constant drone by itself is intimidating, especially when the source is cloaked.  The sound is classified as infrasonic, and its effects have been well-studied.  The location of Fort Bragg is appealing to the military for many reasons.  One is easy access to Interstate 95.  With the newly built I-295 inner loop, munitions flow easily to Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point via truck convoy.  I-95 is the main north/south corridor of the Eastern Seaboard, and all ready brings its own ills such and drug and human trafficking.  Fayetteville could be nicknamed "Fayettenam" for its railroads alone.  Few places are a logistical hub for three railroads including CSX, Norfolk Southern, and the Aberdeen and Rockfish.  Ironically these three railroads intersect in downtown Fayetteville, and  few days pass without multiple consists in their yard on Russell Street.  Rail traffic in Fayetteville has increased, and the  Trump administration has something to do with it.  The A&R alone has increased their activity often beginning early in the morning and shunting freight into the late evening.  It used to be one train a day from 10:45 A.M. to 1:45 P.M.  Now their activity seems 24/7, and it is of consequence because their tracks transect many local neighborhoods in Fayetteville including the Carolina Inn Assisted Living Facility.  During the Covid "Shelter in Place" protocol by Governor Roy Cooper, when schools were shuttered and students were at home, the Aberdeen and Rockfish capitalized by using this track as a makeshift freight yard.  It was of no consequence that Berean Baptist Church and Academy and Montclaire Elementary School were only a few feet away.  The A&R promptly parked tank cars Labeled "Hazmat" in this location for months.  Only recently have they been relocated downtown next to the aging cotton warehouses.  It is convenient this short line railroad exploits its contracts in Fayettenam but continues to call itself the Aberdeen and Rockfish.  It should be the Fayetteville and Aberdeen, but "Fayettenam" provides them many clients near River Terminal.  What benefits do a short line railroad offer a community?  There is their property tax for the county, but with an extremely small work force, Fayetteville residents see few benefits.  The presence of this railroad is detrimental to Fayetteville's quality of life.  The use of decades old, two stroke, turbo-charged GP locomotives creates a sonic pallet of diesel knock and infrasonic vibration which can't be disguised.  The city knows when they're here.  Let's consider this continual local rail traffic and add CSX and their Milan Street Yard.  Two large clients demand continual freight service, and DAK Americas is serviced by their track in the middle of Russell Street.  Each day a CSX local makes its way on this Vander Line meandering through east Fayetteville until arriving along the banks of the Cape Fear River.  Similarly you know when this local is present, because CSX uses a "rebuilt" GP-38-3 replete with AC traction electronics.  Residents know when any AC locomotive is nearby, because its effects are tangible and negative.  Most noticeably AC locomotives tamp down the power grid robbing current from our homes.  When there is an AC locomotive nearby, our lights are dim and things run slow.  Wabtec, Motive Power Resources, General Motors, and General Electric will disagree touting the wonderful results adding AC induction motors to traction.  These locomotives are ambulent AC power plants, and the necessary precautions for their use largely are ignored.  (Such as the number of AC locomotives in a consist)  High voltage electrical processing is necessary to produce low frequency alternating current, and often these locomotives operate in this range emitting large amounts of EMF radiation.  Imagine a two mile long coal train being pulling by rotating electromagnetic fields.  These are some powerful magnetic fields, and this energy deeply penetrates human tissue effecting the the heart and brainwaves.  This radiation is so rampant and global the world unsuccessfully has tried to acclimate to it.  There are dozens of new tangible  ailments, syndromes, and diseases, and large pharmaceutical companies are eager to accommodate with their own drugs.  It should not be happening, and the appropriate governmental regulatory agencies have failed to police it.  There are deep pockets in Washington, and they don't belong to senators.  The Norfolk/Southern operates incognito, and Fayetteville Block Materials is their largest client.  I-295 is Fay Block's client, so this local business has profited greatly.  "Fayettenam" is created when the drawbacks of the military industrial complex outweigh its benefits.  How does it feel to live in Fayetteville?  It feels like "Fayettenam."  

It's Dog Joe Biden (Groundhog Day)

I get tired of complaining.  People don't like complainers, but what is going on in America in this rare in our lifetime, flexing of money muscle, almost inconceivable attempted dismantling of democracy merits continual scrutiny and complaint.  I would rather laud and praise the American democracy as a pinnacle of freedom for men.  I am not Carl Sagan, but what I am hearing discretely in the news, "Big money is flowing through Washington," may be the best explanation.  Why Congress have become gridlocked and the majority of the Republican Party have embraced "The Big Lie" are the same.  We must finally realize many of those who have been elected to leadership positions in our state and federal government are not real Americans.  I feel most people could agree to be American is to be free.  America has been the pillar of the free world since her inception.  Freedom is implemented by the system of democracy, and our nation is defined as a republic.  We have had a vague system of self rule, where traditionally our elected leaders do represent the interests of their voters or constituents.  Unfortunately that no longer is true, and it seems as if our elected officials have become self righteous, indignant, and narcissistic.  In reality they have no feeling for those who elected them.  Hence with a specific and passionate attempt to eradicate God from American consciousness, these elected officials can skew reality, distort leadership, and serve themselves and their friends.  There is absolutely no compulsion to do the right thing, the right thing being to behave with an active and strong moral conscience.  This conscience necessarily comes from God, from the church and its teachings, and from a strong belief in spirituality.  There is something more than man Who created man and is our spiritual leader.  Man in no way could ever aspire to possess the wisdom, the knowledge, and most importantly the love from God.  Gods does love this sinning faction, but He is disappointed.  It is a tenant of Christianity to love your enemy, and it is a popular adage to keep your enemies closer than your friends.  This recreation of the gods of ancient Greek mythology, a group of pseudo erudite aristocrats who morally are incapable of relating to the human race and their fellow man, must be what civilizations predicted for 2012.  Narrowly we missed that mark, but a short decade later this shit is hitting the fan in a way that almost is incomprehensible.  It defies logic, but that is because there is none.  The sooner we realize this is what we are fighting the more successful we will be at salvaging American democracy or more specifically rule by the majority, not an aristocracy.  With a specific intent of neglecting the public education of our youthful generation making them vulnerable and naive, and undermining democratic policies in American rule by dismantling many of these components in government, evil has crept in.  This evil can be best qualified as the presence of Satan.  Because we have eradicated religion from American consciousness, we don't know what this is.  It is characterized by emerging as good and appearing to be prudent and just.  Unfortunately behind this facade is the most heinous evil which manifests itself with total destruction of our nation and the decimation of the planet Earth.  That's pretty heavy, but it is synonymous with the predictions of 2012.  Those predictions were prophetic, but largely we slid past this date with not much ado.  Ten years later we are experiencing the real deal.  When I look back this subterfuge extends backward decades possibly to the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King.  These may be the last vestiges of good we can remember in American history.  For me the picture is becoming clearer, and because I have lived long enough I can remember.  (For this reason I humbly ask that these opposing forces stop dropping the Covid  pathogen on my home.)  I am tired of being sick.  I have had three vaccinations, and we have done everything in our power to keep dangerous particles out of our home.  I am prepared for a drive by shooting.  Humor aside, I have lived long enough to remember.  The last honest president we elected who was not a pawn of the rich was? It is mind numbing this carnage.  I spent ten minutes in the grocery store reading the labels of Ocean Spray juice bottles, a once reputable juice maker who didn't laden their product with artificial ingredients.  There were so many labels with sight differences, and cranberry was used the most.  Among all of these products I found not one with one hundred percent juice, one hundred vitamin C, and not so much sugar.  Most were addiction causing offerings guaranteed to establish their importance in your daily life.  This has become common, and the deceit in the food sector in America goes back to the 1910's.  No one is looking our for your health in this industry, and government oversight sold out a century ago.  Aspartame is wood alcohol.  Big money has been running America for a very long time, but perhaps not until now they wanted to kill us.  We can call it ethnic cleansing, genocide, or anything else, but like a covert coup attempt on Jan. 6, 2020 it is real, and it is what we are facing each day we wake.  Join the fight, because without it it is likely we all could perish and not just at the hands of Covid.  P.S.  The news has become propaganda, and beating down the President serves no purpose except to incite, separate, and depress.  The war is inching closer to established society, and the more they bring it the more likely a response will be had from normal American people.  Ridiculous, diversionary, extreme assaults slowly will morph into calculated responses upon those deserving as public consciousness continues to evolve. 

The Republican Dictatorship - Jim Crow Jr.

 Two different states interestingly in which I have lived both are fighting corruption in their state houses.  Corruption is a strong word, and the Republican Party would have you believe it is nothing more than putting your hand in the collection basket at church when you were a child.  It's a temptation no one can resist.  Stealing from the 7/11.  Skimming off the top.  Taking a little for yourself.  These men should not be in positions of leadership.  It is a poor example.  "They are not paying attention, so we just take advantage of them.  They don't know the difference.  They are too stupid to understand."  They do understand, but the severity of the police murdering black men is what demands response.  The rest of the time folk are just trying to get by.  "Meanwhile," back in America rich white men continue to do as they please, and they do as they please because of voter suppression and election fraud.  The Trump elector bribe slowly is surfacing, and in Michigan there is concrete evidence to suggest it was a multi-state class action assault.  Republicans always have been meticulous litigating American law.  This is how they win, understanding the system and its inherent weakness, such as the electoral college.  Many  states did not have laws which required the state legislature to accept the popular vote for president.  As such the Trump Organization targeting these "swing" states, sent covert operatives, and did their best to dissuade these local elected officials to believe there was a Democratic conspiracy.  In fact there was not, but again this is the Trump methodology.  Say it was the other guy, before the other guy even knows what he did.  He could not even devise what he did, because it was not important to him, to bribe electors.  Isn't that illegal?  Michael Cohen said Donald Trump didn't want to win the presidency.  That is another "Big Lie."  It was an effective scam.  Both state houses in Ohio and North Carolina diligently are trying to create unfair advantages for themselves to stay in power by manipulating voting districts.  What does this mean?  It means they selectively choose who and how they vote.  Take Texas for example who all ready have passed egregious voter suppression laws under the ruse of "Greenwashing."  "What we are doing is good and just."  In reality just like on television, the only advertisements you see are the ones where the manufacturers are desperate to sell.  It is the crooks who pitch their fraud with a big smile on their face and their fist up your ass.  With what is television littered?  Drug advertisements which have no reason to be there, because once doctors decided what drugs you needed.  It is no different than Big Tobacco.  America slowly dismantled that behemoth, but tobacco remains.  Why is all of this happening?  The answer is oversight and regulation.  When the CEO of most major airlines, freight and passenger, sign a petition to stop G5 wireless networks near airports, what happens.  A private corporation whose only service to to provide a convenient way to talk on the phone without a corded land line, a convenience, not a necessity, now is able to implement unregulated, untested, and possibly dangerous technology simply because they are?  What are they?  They make cell phones.  So what?  We can get by without them, and America has for most of her young life.  It was Bill Clinton who decided otherwise.  Here is one Slick Willie, and no one even knows what he did as President.  He did this, the empowerment of wireless technology that is proving to destroy the earth's ecosystem.  The logical assumption is that G5 has been scrutinized, tested, and retested.  The FAA, the FDA, and the rest of the acronyms all are in the pocket of Republicans who care naught for your health.  They just want your money.  The way they keep your money is by keeping power by gerrymandering voting districts to oppress the true vote.  They also pass unfair restrictive voting laws which make it more difficult for some people to vote and express their concerns.  "Quiet down, nigger." 

It's an Unfriendly America

The "Big Lie" is Republicans telling you they care about you.  They smile while they stick their fists up your ass.  The North Carolina State Legislature, a "Good Old Boy" network, is the worst.  Why should things change?  Why she we relinquish control?  We get to make the rules and keep all of your money.  You're a nigger.  Stay in your place, nigger.  You think you deserve an opportunity.  You're just a stupid nigger.  (Sorry, I seem to be writing a play)  What's the problem?  Who in their right mind believes the wealthy shouldn't have to pay taxes?  When Ronald Reagan became president (and yes, 1984 was the correct year to which to compare current inflation) the percentage the wealthy paid in federal income taxes was seventy.  I will repeat.  The wealthy had to pay 70% of their personal income to Uncle Sam.  Reagan changed that, and the Trump Dynasty was born.  The Yuppie, the upwardly mobile, metrosexual, newly wealthy Manhattan dweller.  From them Trump made his fortune.  The spectrum of income in America is so skewed at the top, his people now are a jury.  How are you going to profit from a committee?  That takes the fun out of free commerce.  America is fleeced.  There is no money left from the middle and lower classes.  We can keep beating them  until we all live on the streets robbin freight trains to survive.  What is on these trains?  Trains 24/7 a stones through from our neighborhood.  It is mail and packages.  A little boys club.  Mr. Havana.  Mr. Cheese Toast.  The Golden Gate (who is getting up there in years).  They are trying to burst through mining cyber currency with machines.  Nontaxable income with which they want to buy Puerto Rico.  Deregulation was a heinous mistake.  Why?   If you have no oversight of industry, then the crossroads of industry becomes congested.  Railroad number one.  Railroad number two.  Railroad number three.  THREE railroads in a city of less than two hundred thousand people.  Airport number one.  Airport number twenty seven.  Heliport.  Apache gunner's range.  Normandy Drop Zone.  The Marines from Camp Lejeune with the big guns.  Fifty thousand active duty soldiers driving to work each day.  Fifty thousand more civilian employees driving to work each day. It is excessive without oversight.  The President signs that proclamation of war (Dick Chency) and corporate has a free pass to do as they please.  The planets align, and it all hits at one time.  "Remembering Our Lost Friends" is a list of dead friends from Fayettenam who died too early.  It is not a friendly place, but Republicans get to do what they want.  Fuck the rest of us. 

Night of the Living Dead

 There is a simple explanation why American politics is so fractured.  The fight we see before us is a fight for survival of all of the offending corporate conglomerates responsible for Climate Change.  Since deregulation there no oversight of private industry.  Companies are free to do as the please, and this includes dumping PFAS into American waterways which provide tap water for millions of citizens.  The mentality of a corporation which thinks it can do such a thing with no penalty or repercussion is the mentality of the current Republican Party.  It is difficult to understand if viewed from an honest, civil, moral, and ethical perspective.  Abandon your own God-driven life philosophy and imagine Nazi Germany.  Remember the Holocaust and Adolph Hitler.  There is nothing sensational about that other then it was heinous genocide, and it was not that long ago.  Cancel Culture would have us forget this event.  A judge ruled a teenager passed out drunk in her underwear was the guilty party in her rape.  A man sexually assaulted her while she was unconscious, and he bore no responsibility for his actions.  Well, four years was enough.  It's apples and oranges, and corporate America  would like to continue massively to pollute our country and this earth.  The political fight in Washington and in state governments represents the discovery, the accountability, the mitigation, and the rectifying of grievous ills in wealthy industrial sectors of the world.  Energy, transportation, and communications all are to blame for Global Warming and its ramifications, but no one will say so.  Nary a politician has suggested railroads, wireless carriers, or airlines produce airborne electricity and heat in quantity enough to warm our environment.  If one examines what comes out of the tail end of a jet engine, its temperature, its velocity, and its gases, there is no denying these things are not friendly to mother nature.  In 2011 the FAA enacted a plan which allowed air traffic to ignore most previous regulation protecting citizens and fly wherever they want.  Consequently many subdivisions were burned to a crisp in Colorado.  The fight in Washington is to cover this up.  It is to allow Chemours the right to dump PFAS in the air and water of North Carolina causing illness, disease, and death.  They want to enact anarchy, because anarchy in the ranks is the best smokescreen for their wrongdoing.  When I stop and consider the amount of environmental pollution irradiating me right now, at this moment, all different kinds of extraneous unwanted energy, then stopping this is the current fight in Washington.  They want to be able to do whatever they want with no accountability.  The health of Americans in secondary and inconsequential.  We don't matter.  What matters is corporate profit, because corporate profit is what fuels the lifestyles of the rich.  The dynasties.  The royal families.  The Sacklers.  These oligarchs would not exist without the excesses of addiction, crime, and violence which create anarchy which fans the flames.  We were about to get Covid under control, but they chose not to.  Instead another trump card thrown onto the poker table to keep the money flowing.  Covid tests?  Vaccines?  Pills?  All of this has been to make these people richer, when they should be deader. 

American Maturity

I am listening to Pat Methany and Charlie Haden.  That is an uplifting thing.  The title of the recording is "Beyond the Missouri Sky."  On the other hand North Carolina politics is a major drag.  Phil Berger and his Burgermeisters.  The North Carolina Republican Army, the controllers of the state house, the General Assembly.  When Pat McCrory lost the governorship to Roy, the Burgermeisters immediately went into session and penned legislation castrating much of the power of the governor.  Before he took office Roy Cooper had less power as a democratic governor than did Pat McCrory.  This completely explains the shite state affairs of the state of North Carolina.  What is it?  What is it that makes North Carolina the 49th most honest and prudent American state?  Our state house is the second most corrupt in the nation.  The Republican led Red Army of Phil Berger are friends of the state, the communist state.  It is not conspiratorial.  It is not spiritual.  It is not fictional.  It is not fake news.  It is the current "Conditions of America," or more specifically the conditions of the weak, tepid, corrupt, but financially secure state of North Carolina.  We are the axis of the military industrial complex of the East Coast.  We are the whore of the pentagon.  We and Thom Tillis are blinded, brainwashed, extreme cheerleaders for the United State military.  Like Dr. Rand Paul it does not matter the issue.  It does not matter jurisprudence.  There is no God, no morality, or spiritual consciousness.  Only is there the extreme far right, the demented, mentally ill, minions of Trump.  It is simple and in a nutshell.  Money and power.  The Nazis.  It is the epitome of evil, a darkness so vast and so expansive that it is difficult to see through it.  God shows us the way.  The way up, the way out.  (Oh, I am quoting my own poetry from circa 1989!)  North Carolina never has changed.  My default, our status quo, we kowtow to the military.  It doesn't matter if their ethical compass has become compromised.  It does not matter that war mongering and an economy of war are paramount.  Have we lost sight of peace?  Certainly we have forgotten how to live in peace, because this would require an economy of peace.  The paltry and grass roots tasks and deeds of foundling America would become important again.  We are too bored, brutal, and satanic to live in peace and serenity.  We must kill.  Our minds are so shrunken from Havana Syndrome we can't entertain physical pleasure and bliss only from God's human form.  It is there to serve us responsibly, only if we were mature enough to understand it.  

Parliament Funkadelic

 I fixed waffles for supper.  Alton Brown is a bad man, and if you want to learn how to cook watch "Good Eats."  I have a manila folder full of my recipes of which most are scribbled on different sizes of paper.  There is the "Post It Note" size of paper.  There is the scratch pad size of paper which vary but usually is tall and thin.  Then there is the full 8 1/2 x 11 sized paper.  I had to go through them tonight and sort them.  Most of these recipes I can cook from scratch with no recipe.  Lately I have been feeling insecure about my cooking technique, so I decided to have a look.  My waffles came out well, and while I follow Mr. Brown's recipes I add or subtract things.  I don't use two ounces of melted butter in waffle batter.  I also use brown sugar instead of refined white sugar.  We happened to have buttermilk in the fridge, so I took advantage.  It was a satisfying meal.  Once I made "Tika" sauce, a tomato-based Indian sauce which uses Garam Masala powder.  I make this by toasting whole herbs in the skillet and grinding them into a powder.  It is heavenly and gives food that distinct Indian wang.  Parliament's album "Osmium" is a Potpourri of influences.  There is the STAX Records sound, Otis Redding, Donald "Duck" Dunn, Steve Cropper and Booker T.  What is missing is keyboard action, funky clavinet, synth, and electronica.  It is a more traditional instrumentation than later configurations of Parliament-Funkadelic.  Evidently there were a lot of permutations in the evolution of the George Clinton phenomenon.  I hear some folk in this music as well.  Not sure I like it yet, but that will come.  There is some Motown as well and R&B.  Eventually they will quash that in favor of a more psychedelic sound.  This is what I am learning in real time, since my attention has drifted from jazz for the time being.  The jazz vibe is not working in Fayettenam at the moment.  No surprise there.  Those Apache attack helicopters don't favor jazz music.  You need something stronger to compete with them.  I will had downstairs later to records some funky Rhodes.  What is striking about this genre of music I am addressing is bass and drums.  It was written by a critic that with the P-Funk funk style bass and drums came to the forefront of the band.  Word, and the drums sounds excellent as does bass.  I have been hearing and playing these sounds since I learned to play bass in graduate school.  The funny thing is I haven't really heard any of this music first hand, but I know it.  How far do I have to look back to find the African-American in our bloodline?  There are all kinds of influences in this album, but it has not yet gelled.  It sounds like a bunch of different people looking for a unique original sound.  They did find it. 

The Testicles of America

It was inevitable my recent researching of the history of American jazz music would lead to modern popular music.  I don't purport to know anything, because still I am assimilating the knowledge.  I have moments of clarity, when you forget what you've studied, and it comes back to you in real time for real reason.  Most of these realizations are common sense, and on the fringe I have known most of them.  An example is the importance of Louis Armstrong in the development of jazz in America.  A century is a long time.  Before Youtube, never would we have been privy to his image on film or television.  It is becoming increasingly difficult to spot influences of American popular culture in real life.  That is because now we live on the internet.  I have mixed feelings about this.  I have learned you can't live with your head buried in the sand.  You can't live down the rabbit hole of Youtube, because when you pop back up you will be hit with a shit storm of reality.  Covid 19.  Racial Unrest.  Violence.  Anarchy.  America finds herself at a tenuous juncture, and we do not yet know the outcome.  Will our democracy survive?  Will right wing nuts take over the country claiming all for their own?  Trump needs to be eliminated from this picture.  With his absence from public consciousness, quickly his insurgency will dissipate.  We are being manipulated, and we know not what we do.  It has been a challenging few years, but that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  I have continued to learn possibly some of the more important lessons of life.  I don't have much control over what happens.  You have to adapt and improvise.  The continual conundrum is, "Where is music headed?"  Louis Armstrong was very important in many ways to the development of jazz music.  Specifically he was America's first jazz vocalist which begs an explanation of "Swing Singing" in general.  Like many things in life, jazz becomes a dichotomy along racial lines.  There was sophisticated swing music in white circles outside of what became known as jass or jazz.  This word itself is a conundrum.  This word, like "classical,"  should be changed.  The white music best could be represented by Paul Whiteman, a sophisticated composer, arranger, and band leader.  He was not a racist, but his ensemble was employed by white society.  "Swing Singing," unlike jazz, doesn't take liberties with the melody or its phrasing.  It is ensemble music sung specifically in time and performed from written notation.  It is different from oratorio and cantata,  because it is secular.  Secondly it actually swings.  What is "Swing?"  So many questions, and I don't have the time.  Ella's early years with Chick Webb are a perfect example of "Swing Singing."  The vocal is part of the ensemble, and as such most successful working "Big Band's" had vocalists in the front line.  They even had small ensembles of singers.  Frank Sinatra got his start this way singing with the Pied Pipers with the Tommy Dorsey band.  America doesn't and never has gotten to hear much of this music, and it is very sophisticated.  Paul Whiteman's arrangements along with Fletcher Henderson and Don Redman were extremely well crafted, forward thinking, modern swing music.  The music was so polished, elegant, and effective it can be startling to hear.  The best analogy is to consider what other music was flourishing in the 1920's in classical music circles.  There is your answer, and there is the dichotomy.  (not lobotomy, although sometimes if feels like this trying to synthesize this music history)  These arrangements were radio ready, picture perfect, American popular songs.  Radio has much to do with it.  America has lost this very important and influential medium.  The internet does not suffice, although it makes up for it in other ways.  The immediate digital transfer of audible music via the internet is indispensable, but it negates much of the feeling of the music.  The intent of the music largely is lost and so is our culture.  We are not experiencing the kind of things once we did.  In fact we are a pallid shadow of what once was real America.  I am trying my best to mitigate this reverse metamorphosis, this retrograde devolution into ignorance.  It has been purposeful and most likely it has been instigated by the same enemies of our nation.   Cancel culture is an operative active process.  With the assembling of the Star Link (Skynet) network of low orbit satellites, we are on a path of global domination.  How can one individual businessman receive permission to launch such as an atrocity?  We are talking about the world's sky, not just America.  Did Elon Musk canvass and solicit permission from each nation to put satellites in their sovereign airspace?  This was Trump.  Trump did this, and this was the impetus for his "Space Force."   Does America know about our Space Force?  What we do know is there are little rocket ships flying into space now all the time, and America knows little about it.  The armed serviced are involved hence "Space Force."  The base is in southern Florida on the east coast, a previous Air Force base once I stumbled upon while tracking air traffic.  This is not a good idea one private citizen owning and controlling a network of low orbiting satellites with four phased array antennas each.  Discuss amongst yourselves.  Global warming.  Not only can they flick the switch at HAARP on consignment to heat the earth's ionosphere, now we have a new space heater.  Bathe the entire world in microwave emissions!  How about "pulsed" microwave emissions.  How about creating the "Havana Syndrome?"  What United States regulatory agency is watching what he is doing?  The EPA?  The FCC?  No one.  One man is building this global network, and Donald Trump gave him permission.  Am I wrong?  I don't think Joe Biden would approve.  Does he?  "Swing Singing," like many other musical devices, is sophisticated and important but not for the siege.  The siege seeks an inhuman existence.  If we are to understand human existence, then we must accommodate the presence of God as our creator.  Who could be so selfish to think man is the greatest example of mother nature?  We so miserably have failed, we are  not deserving to kiss God's coat tails. Man instead has become a mockery of God, and because of this He weeps.  There still is time.  Jazz singing is a different thing all together, and it allows the paraphrasing of the melody or improvising around it.  In my humble musical opinion this is jazz singing's greatest contribution to music.  Of course these vocalists are using the dedicated work of Tin Pan Alley composers.  The songs they sing are no fluke.  At the turn of the century music became important to urban America fueled by the availability of upright pianos.  Americans were able to purchase pianos for their parlors, and they wanted American music to play.  The European classical tradition didn't represent the hustle and bustle of American life.  This American process, this way of life is represented in jazz music.  Louis became America's first real jazz singer or popular vocalist, because before him and aside from "Swing Singing" in an ensemble, his predecessor was Enrico Caruso, an Italian operatic tenor who sold millions of 78 records.  The vocal stylings of Louis Armstrong are a far cry from Enrico Caruso.  It would be an interesting comparison, the gravel of Satchmo with the mellifluous tones of a lyric tenor.  This juxtaposition is not unique in that the world sometimes changes gears on a dime.  That has happened in America.  What was a prolific and elevated cultural existence, which itself fueled our economy for decades, suddenly was shut down  because of Napster and Steve Jobs.  We cannot blame these two men for the eventual digital proliferation of music via the internet.  Who shall we blame for the death of American popular music because of the demise of traditional radio?  There was nothing wrong, and there is nothing wrong with the radio medium.  It requires money for investment and upkeep.  There is a transmitter sitting at Fayetteville State University ourchased by UNC - Chapel Hill.  Now it is a "mirrow" of their talk radio format.  I can think of no other disservice to American society than the proliferation of talk radio.  Garrison Keeler would have something to say about it.  Watch the film "Prairie Home Companion," and you will understand what radio once was.  The decision to flood the airwaves with extraneous airborne electricity was predicted many times as the "Electronic Age."  Both radio and CD have been rendered impotent, but no one will say it.  Compact Discs are obsolete, because there is so much vibration in the air from corporate pollution the machines no longer track correctly.  Now a hard drive is required.  Is this correct?  Radio no longer could function efficiently, because there is so much aberrant airborne electrical activity.  Oh, the cell phone industry.  Bill Clinton made this decision.  Was it correct to shift our economy to wireless communications rendering American radio impotent?  Louis Armstrong also defines the "feel" or swing of jazz music.  His rhythmic feel or loose and swinging groove is why he is important.   His sister in time is Billie Holiday.  Their feel almost is interchangeable.  As America's first jazz vocalist, Louis's ability to improvise was what was most important.  While "Early Jass" was notated ensemble music, a huge misnomer in jazz history, eventually those playing it committed it to memory including the musicians of James Reese Europe.  They fleeced white society into believing they music magically flowed through the black consciousness!  Louis Armstrong could craft a melody from scratch based upon the original written notes rendered by a Tin Pan Alley composer.  He did this in real time in the moment along with Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, and Anita O'Day.  These vocalists were sublime in their ability to weave original interpretations through an existent melody.  Many times how they sang a song was better than the original.  Certainly and most of the time it was different.  These paraphrases ultimately were the roots of instrumental improvisation later to come.  This is why jazz vocal music is important, and I didn't know it until now.  The marvel of early jazz musicians was their virtuosic technique.  Bix Beiderbecke not only played lead trumpet in the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, he also played the "choruses."  Easily and adeptly he was able to switch between playing "straight" in an ensemble and expressing himself individually in a solo.  I have exhausted my jazz curiosity for the time being, so the next stage is from the more popular American styles.  I didn't pay much attention to this music growing up, because I was trained classically on piano.  My father played jazz.  This music didn't resonate with me as a white, conservative, Episcopalian male.  I heard some live music, but what was available was jazz.  I missed R&B, Funk, and Rock.  Yesterday was an archival of Kool and the Gang, The Ohio Players, the GAP Band, the Average White Band, Sly and the Family Stone, and Prince.  Mind blown, because what I have come to know and play myself has roots in this music.  I arrived at it from the fringes of Hip Hop and Soul.  The flipping of the switch in America, the dismantling of American born culture, was the death of Hip Hop.  Perhaps they killed themselves, because you can't sample or track from the grave.  Perhaps "Niggers With Attitude" spent their course, and America was ready for something else.  Nashville was ready with its permutation of pop and country, and Shania was their first offering.  We have yet to recover the testicles of America.   

Burning Planet Earth

 On cue the meteorologists report record breaking high temperatures for Christmas.  Always it has been unusually hot on Christmas, but this had not been happening forever.  Interestingly when they report this unusually hot and humid weather, there is no insight into its cause.  They mumble something about the Caribbean keeping the normal jet stream upended.  The map shows this recurring and menacing red trough of hot air, kind of like Trump.  (a menacing red coif of hot air)  If the shoe fits.  If anyone seriously would think about what causes unseasonable hot weather on Christmas, answers could be found.  We in America have become bought and paid for including the meteorologists.  As such they really should not be branded meteorologists at all.  They are amateur jocks and beauty queens trying to report news.  Most have had no journalistic training, and most never have taken a speech class.  Speech and language in America also has been manipulated like pop music.  What once was good now is bad.  Under the ruse of American pop culture, which once was fueled by honesty and a desired to state the truth, platforms have been commandeered and are used for deceit.  Trump started this trend.  Eagerly and for monetary gain or just plain survival, the country signed up for the "lie for money" plan.  Lester Holt now lies to the American people, and I guess we cannot blame him personally.  He is the same "Stepford Wife" as the rest of them.  He says what they tell him to.  He is no Dan Rather, Charles Kuralt, Ted Koppel, or any other serious journalist.  He is the man in blackface doing the man's bidding.  I'm sorry Lester.  We are breaking up with you and the rest of the repeating loop masquerading as national news.  Never have we been in a worse place in America.  It just took a while for the "fake news" to make it mainstream.  I drove around today, because Fayettenam often is the source of national disturbance.  If it is not Fort Bragg causing the environmental disturbances, it is something else.  We live in a Uwharrie, Horry, whorie state, whose mission is to sell.  Roy Cooper sells the state like a traveling merchant while sprinkling money on the incumbent population.  There are bitcoin mines in our  Appalachian Mountains.  CSX has set up shop in Rocky Mount and Hamlet.  All the while the bait and switch of finding affordable housing becomes more insulting when the environment doesn't keep up with or support these new residents.  It is the same old tired game.  Sprinkle sugar on shit, sell it big, make the profit, and toss them into the swamp.  North Carolina is nothing she once was.  She is a big, fat, smelly whore, and all you have to do is breath in.  Today I found Cargill's expanded industrial complex, a soy bean processing plant which is suffering from a massive cash infusion.  Hence and to my surprise, the lot next door was purchased and developed, and now there are scores of tractor trailer rigs lined up waiting for the goods.  There are lines of eighteen-wheelers, many with refrigeration units, sitting idling waiting to fill up with high octane vegetable oil.  There have been lines of trucks before now, but they were the ones bringing in the raw materials.  These new lines of trucks now are hauling out the increased product from the Cargill plant across the Cape Fear River.  I stuck my head out of the window, and it didn't seem obnoxious, the noise or heat.  Please know drying husks is what they do at this plant.  They have massive heaters and blowers that dry the soy bean husks once they are treated with a strong chemical to remove their oil.  It is a twofold operation.  This is new.  Only recently in the Fayetteville Observer did they write about the plant's recent expansion.  Cargill decided to invest in this particular plant for several reasons.  One is it sits on the CSX mainline which brings in the chemicals in tank cars.  The other is it is close the the Cape Fear River, the toxic waste dump of most local industries including Chemours.  They have been doing this for decades under the DuPont name.  When the heat got turned up, DuPont sold out to the Chinese the same way DAK got sold to a Mexican conglomerate.  Revenge must seem sweet to them.  We destroyed the South American economy with NAFTA, and many families lost everything.  I guess it is fair to blow PFAS into our local air and water.  Both plants like heat.  If I remember correctly heat aids their production either in transportation of materials or the processing itself.  It is no coincidence it is hot for Christmas.  They celebrate the birth of the Savior of the world by burning up His planet. 

Tight Ass Music

My soundtrack for blogging tonight is Marvin Gaye's "What's Going on?"  Always I have understood how influential this recording is, but like some other major genres of American music, I missed the bus.  I didn't get the Beatles, until I was in my mid 30's.  I was not interested in them in my youth, because I was taking formal classical piano lessons.  My father was a jazz pianist and a band director.  His aesthetic of music was pretty specific.  He used the "Block Hands" George Shearing style of piano approach, and it was not until a year ago I realized what this was.  Shirley Scott also plays this way, and she is a righteous organist.  Of all of the jazz organists she knocked me out the most with her authoritative right hand harmonizing the melody with five fingers and the melody in an octave.  She mostly had a bass player on the session, so bass did not demand her consciousness.  She was no "pick up" organist, and she knew the songs cold and clinical.  Perfection of melody like reading from sheet music.  Perhaps she had a photographic memory.  Miles Davis did.  That would help.  This is boring musical fodder, but my brain is tired.  About what did I want to verbalize?  After profusely complaining about the hot humid weather in December, it got cold again.  While this kind of dreary cold is reminiscent of Cowtown (Columbus, Ohio), it is normal for winter.  We must accept it.  I am finding the Marvin Gaye a little cheesy, but okay.  With the flick of a button it is cold again.  How long will it last?  They are predicting warm for Christmas, and this is fucked up.  Well, actually it is not here.  Usually it is 70 degrees on Christmas day, and I hate it.  When you lose your winter culture, snow and its accompanying activities, you lose some of life.  It is important the winter months for many reasons.  As for politics I hope the jury begins to deliberate for Ghislaine Maxwell.  I find it humorous that her first name begins with "jizz," and that is no coincidence.  They were sex traffickers of the highest order, and it is disgusting and criminal this exploitation of young women.  It is a huge temptation, but the notion you can demand sex for money from children is evil.  The only way they got away with it was that the women rationalized their crimes by getting paid.  It was a manipulative scheme, almost as seamy as Trump stealing a presidential election from Hillary Clinton.  As for Chris Noth there is such a thing as a statute of limitations.  Just because he gets a resurrected TV career doesn't mean you can slander him.  You should have reported him to the authorities twenty years ago, when it was a crime.  Now it is just hearsay.  You're a day late and a dollar short.  I am not digging the Marvin Gaye.  I know it is great, but the sterility of the Motown concept bother me.  Barry Gordy and his crew borrowed from authentic R&B music and glamorized it.  It was watered down for white radio.  That is genius, but it does not sit well with me this concept.  It is empty of the raw emotion found in original American soul music.  It is an illusion, but the catalog has stood the test of time.  They are memorable songs, which have become the landscape of America for many souls.  I prefer James Brown, and his grooves.  The "Pop" influence in the Motown concept is real and strong, and it is different than original jazz and blues influenced R&B.  It doesn't really swing.  All the years I had to play Motown music on keyboards, I played it the way I felt it.  Then I went on ships and found out quickly their concept of "Pop" has zero swingability.  Carnival and its major arranger Nick Thorp embrace soulful music, and its substance is great.  The European cruise lines miss the point or rather the American music thing.  It is a shame, but then again not everyone swings.  They would rather hold their tight asshole closed.  

The Proof is in the Pudding for Phased Array Microwaves

Perhaps a Dave Liebman recording from the early 1980's isn't the best sound track for my late evening blogging.  I am interested in hearing more of this accomplished and influential post-Coltrane saxophonist, so I will let it roll.  I know it isn't the vibe I need to write what is on my mind, but that is okay.  It's the effort that counts.  "Democracy dies when good men do nothing."  (or is it, "Evil flourishes when good men do nothing, or "Democracy dies in darkness.)  Whatever.  The fight is on, and each day now we are required to hit the ground running or enter the ring punching.  The question of who and what were are fighting is contentious.  Why would Senator Joe Manchin use a Sunday morning Fox News program to drop his "Go Branden" bomb?  That is a low blow, and while he may be a leader with proven integrity, using Fox News as his soap box was wrong.  This is the fallacy of social media.  The internet has provided immediacy for the human condition, and because of its instant communication no longer do we have to wait for the casserole to bake.  The time frame of life drastically has changed, but has it?  Take a look around outside.  Ignore the television and what it is saying.  Take a break from streaming, gaming, or masturbating to internet pornography.  How families can stay holed up inside a house is beyond me.  What allows this particular behavior is the immediacy of the internet.  Human life has shifted from real life live interaction to constructed scenarios on the web.  We don't take as much time to enjoy life live anymore, because the majority of our emotional fulfillment now comes from the computer.  It is an addictive pill.  The warm hues of color on the screen, the kinetic satisfaction of using our digits, and instant gratification all are addictive in such an immediate and accessible interface.  I would suggest we all are addicted to something.  The reality is fentanyl should be our enemy number one as an addiction, and its affect on our society is from foreign deliberation.  Foreign interests are making this drug available to young Americans, and in essence these foreign interests are murderers.  As a nation America is being attacked on multiple fronts.  I guess it is inevitable the great global free power of the world falls from grace.  We do not deserve this assault, or do we?  I don't want to reflect on bad politics.  President Joe Biden did what Osama Bin Laden asked.  "Get the infidels out of our countries."  So be it.  We on the large scale our out of the Middle East.  Of course we are not.  There is some large covert presence of American "boots on the ground" stationed around the world at military bases abroad.  That is par for the course.  (How is the Liebman recording?)  The irony is this particular Youtube album is a virtual pinnacle of jazz fusion talent.  Kenny Kirkland, Steve Gadd, and Marcus Miller.  Wow!  Those are names we haven't heard in a while.  I was into jazz fusion for a long period in my musical studies.  Interestingly Disco was a very large influence in this music as was Latin rhythm.  Some opt to call it pop jazz or instrumental pop, but it is not.  Pop has its own significant bubble of guitar-oriented rhythm, and it does try to swing in its own way.  Most of it is not successful, because "It don't mean a thing...."  Not everyone swings.  Elvis swung.  The Beatles swung.  Prince swung.  Swing is a particular kind of emotion-generated feeling.  In a nutshell swing mostly is happy and joyous music.  It is honest, authentic, and spiritual.  There is not much room for bitterness in swing, although like Miles Davis and Charles Mingus proved, jazz can have serious undertones.  In some circles it is called Third Stream.  I can think of worse music.  It just does not represent the dynamic of current American life.  We are not at liberty to snort coke, drink alcohol, and dance "under the disco round" till the wee hours of the morning.  That was a late 1970's kind of thing.  It also was an underground Manhattan gay thing.  Disco was a strong rhythmic music which required technical proficiency on both bass and drums.  The music "hits hard," which means there is no room for pussy performance.  Pop in many circumstances consists of weak technical performances where the mike, the amplification, or the "tracks" do most of the work.  There is some virtue in the "pop" approach, but it is not the roots.  The roots of musical performance are and always have been in classical technique.  Like magic it is not possible that musical technique suddenly became something else because of technology.  That is what today's pop culture would have you believe.  This is why I cannot watch or listen to most music on television.  It makes my physically sick.  Talk about posing.  I prefer to listen to something with value, not some product posing as something else.  Welcome to today's world.  Welcome to the world of Donald Trump.  We should be concerned about Fentanyl, because as the evening news said it has made it to the top of the list of American killers.  Covid and Fentanyl have become America's number one killers, and they both have been made available to us by whom?  We don't know, and that is upsetting.  To not know one's enemy's identity is a major strategical weakness.  We must know who the enemy is, so the source of Fentanyl and Covid need to be disclosed.  This covert assault on us is the metaphor for evil.  Those who understand religion would understand Satan walks the earth in human form, and these types of egregious acts are perpetrated by him.  Satan.  The Devil.  I think this title is a proper noun, because surely we need to know who he is and of what he is capable.  Two of those things are the Covid assault and the distribution of Fentanyl.  With the push of a button the 80 degree Fahrenheit temperature of yesterday, a record setting and disturbingly common occurrence, becomes freezing cold winter today.  In the push of a button the miserably hot and humid hell hole of yesterday, when I could not cool down my study, today again has become winter.  The HAARP facility in Alaska now which has been turned over to the university and is being rented out for monetary gain, was built to heat the ionosphere.  (I think that is the appropriate scientic term)  They want to experiment with heating the upper atmosphere to observe its effects.  In reality they wanted to learn how to send low frequency radio waves around the world in a super heated electrically charged space high up in the sky.  To accomplish this they devised the phased array antenna.  That is what HAARP is, and necessarily it spawned many conspiracy theories.  They are grounded in truth.  Like many things seemingly sanctioned by the United States government, they necessarily are not good or appropriate for the sanctity of human life.  Most often they are rooted in commerce or more specifically revenue.  It's all about money, the green stuff.  Fuck the human race and the planet Earth, so they seem to be doing.  It is tiresome having to think about it each day.  Then again I have lived most of my life within the comfort zone of not having to worry about my own survival.  So many other generations have had to worry about their own survival, so I guess it is our time.  (I have moved on to saxophonist Tom Scott)  If one takes a minute to reflect on a "phased array antenna," what reveals itself is that in place of one emitter usually of microwaves, there are multiple or many emitters whose signals become a summation of themselves.  The signal is addative, hence it is much stronger, because there are so many signals.  These signals are controllable, and by phasing them or shifting their characteristics they summed signal becomes steerable without having to move the hardware.  They won't show us these antenneas in the aviation industry.  "If I show you what is in the nose cone of this aircraft, I will have to kill you," quipped one military official.  Elon Musk's Starlink network consists of thousands of low earth orbit satellites with four phased array antennas per unit.  They can interface with one another creating an enveloping microwave transmission for broadcasting high speed internet.  The problem with this is, as anyone can imagine, is that this electrical energy or RF waves are much more powerful than anything that has proceeded them.  The same is true for G5, and if I am not mistaken, this relatively new wireless communication standard makes use of phased array antennas.  Global warming you say?  The proof is in the pudding.  

The Ruse of Global Warming

Let me gather my thoughts for just a moment, and it is difficult because it it HOT in my study.  At a glance at the weather statistics in Fayettenam, the expected high temperature for December 18th, 2021 is 77 degrees Fahrenheit with humidity of 77%.  It is that right now in December in winter.  Folks around these here parts sentimentalize this warm temperature as a good thing.  They don't like cold weather, so it is a benefit they don't have to wear a coat or turn on their vehicle's heater.  It is not much different from refusing to get a Covid vaccination, supporting Donald Trump, or declaring the human race androgynous.  We are not androgynous beings, and Adam and Eve are not the same.  Why would they be?  What kind of tepid, saccharin, lackluster existence would be the comfort of complete conformity?  The tussle between the sexes, male and female, has been the driver of humanity from its inception.  Early on the Greeks developed a fondness for pedophiliac homosexuality preferring the plump bums of little boys.  This does not make it right.  With no God there is no sin.  Isn't that convenient?  Trying to sidestep God's plans and wishes for your own is a sin.  No matter how you attempt to indoctrinate androgyny or homosexuality, it will not become a part of God's plan.  He invented the universe and the human race.  It is fruitless and futile to ignore this truth.  We can say Climate Change is a hoax and sentimentalize summer temperatures in December, but it is tragic.  This tragic denial only will reap a premature extinction of man.  It seems we are destined for our own self destruction.  Who knew our lives would take on such Biblical significance?  I am tiring of the never ending plight of the ignorant.  It is HOT!  A few days after I remove my air conditioner from a noisy window to attenuate the sounds of a Daytona race, the temperature grows to 80 degrees.  I take the time to peruse the Google offering for Fayetteville weather, and like the wave of some magician's wand, tomorrow is supposed to be back to freezing.  This is not normal, and there is nothing normal in Mother Nature that causes such a weather phenomenon.  I would suggest alternatively it is phased array microwave transmissions, where multiple emitters are phased to created a steerable beam of heat at the planet earth.  The signal is a summation of ALL of the emitters, many emitters instead of just one.  This summation is more easy to control, but I would suggest it is more harmful to the human condition.  How did Elon Musk receive permission to launch a private Starlink network in the world's airspace?  How do invasive, polluting, radiating AC locomotives operate tirelessly with no governmental regulation?  How did this technology escape scrutiny or study?  How did the drinking water in America become a toxic stew of forever chemicals?  How has Chemours been deemed a most responsible corporation in light of their massive purging of toxic PFASs into our air and waterways?  It is simple.  Newsweek like its brother Time has become a propaganda rag.  No longer is it a scholarly credible source of news.  Like Fox News it has become controversial fodder for amusement.  I have friends who believe there is no difference between the sexes, and perhaps there may be wisdom in that analysis.  I think it is possible to have joy in kinship with no sexual intimidation.  If we use the animal kingdom as an example, there are hermaphrodite species such as the earthworm.  What fun is the extreme comfort of the absence of counter-culture?  If nothing peaks our interest or challenges our sensibilities, how will we grow?  It is not supposed to be HOT in December, and it is not good.  It is a problem, and because easily and with precision our establishment reports these anomalies with indifference and amusement, we must ask for better representation.  We should ask for better representation from our national news, Lester Holt and the rest, because their broadcasts have become insulting.  It is not journalism.  It is not news, and we have turned it off.  My air conditioner is in the closet, and it is 80 degrees in December.  Global Warming is a hoax.