The Darkness All Around Us

It is uncanny, surprising, and nauseating how unseen forces negatively can influence your life.  If one is religious and acknowledges some form of higher spiritual power such as God or Allah, the devil is this force.  Spirituality is required and necessary largely because Satan has been ascribed by medieval ecclesiasticism to be able to change forms.  In modern American cinematic scope this could be called "shape shifting" or "tuning."  Kiefer Sutherland, the son of actor Donald Sutherland, has played many effective  and influential roles in American films.  As I watch DVD movies in the evening for entertainment, because cable television has become mediocre, often an particular actor emerges as a thread.  It becomes gratifying to watch a series of an actor's films, because their personality becomes familiar and comforting like a friend.  Perhaps camaraderie once was part of the fabric of Hollywood film-making, but not anymore.  On a lucky day the strains of Hollywood film characters echo in my head, and their monologues enrich my own sheltered life.  There is no question "Nature versus Nurture" is the most operant process in my life living in my childhood home absent of both parents.  There are no disciplinary senior voices guiding me.  What is there is Nurture, and today that equates to homelessness, pollution, oppression, and violence.  In the film "Dark City" Kiefer Sutherland plays a doctor tasked with helping a population of energy beings wreak havoc on the world.  Could they be the devil?  To me it has become indisputable that evil is everywhere, and often it is invisible.  This invisibility has become potent force in the social and political message of the GOP.  They contend because you cannot see it it does not exist.  We cannot see sound, but we know it exists.  Almost it would be unimaginable to consider human life without sound, not just because music would be excluded, but because the sounds of nature would be absent and communication would be excruciatingly cumbersome.  Our lives would be a shell of themselves without sound, and yet modern society has forsaken sound as an enriching and artistic medium.  As the enraged protests of the 60's and 70's amplified through Leo Fender's new inventions are reduced to the quiet church like incantations of ear buds, so are our lives.  Sometimes it is necessary to yell, because the power that drives that sonic message also fuels other social and political processes.  Modern American society seeks to quell our dissent, herd us into a corral, and march us to the edge of the abyss.  Our American freedom is what allows us to survive.  Without it we will perish. 

American Fascism

Of all current events perhaps the celebratory parade in Washington, DC this past Saturday is deserving of reflection.  Like many other wholesome American traditions, the parade grossly has been tainted by murderous violence.  What once was a joyous and very American experience of community and celebration now is reduced to a vehicle for insane extremists and would be dictators.  The devolution of America is unfolding before our eyes, and it couldn't be more disconcerting.  One only has to look at other once Third World nations to see the model.  Hugo Chavez.  Muammar Gaddafi.  Saddam Hussein.  Vladimir Putin.  In a gross homage to the two hundredth and fiftieth anniversary of the United States Army, the parade lacked any semblance to a joyful patriotic celebration.  With no floats, marching bands, horses, or twirling batons, the eerie squeak of an Abrahms tank track was more reminiscent of a Nazi invasion of American soil.  Upon reflection that is what it felt like.  Covid all ready has dealt a huge blow to Americana, traditional America cultural practices that make citizens proud and engage them solidarity.  Instead the misery of Fascism is upon us limping weakly along like Jim Crow Junior.  Racial prejudice, extremism, and oppression have crept into American society through the illegal drug trafficking of Vape shops, violent messages in video games, and propaganda in social media.  If only the creepy memory of this parade will fade away.  Out of left field a strike on Iran, the pinnacle of what to avoid at all cost concerning foreign policy.  Barack Obama had a nuclear treaty in place to stop Iran from enriching Uranium.  Upon election Donald Trump immediately withdrew us from this treaty.  The ultimate and guaranteed result of an American strike on Iran will be a dramatic and stark increase in the price of gasoline.  That would be the sole purpose of this strike, and it is a grievous mistake.  The first Heat Dome of this summer is settling over the nation, and it is man made.  Those responsible continue unabashedly creating havoc, fear, and trepidation in America.  

Extremism and Ensuing Anarchy

 North Carolina does not adhere to many common sense practices.  When trying to deduce why Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger wants to allow eighteen year olds to carry a concealed handgun, ask yourself why the states or the nation as a whole never have outlawed holding a smartphone while driving.  If Mr. Marshall, the drivers education teacher at Terry Sanford High School, were still alive he would be blunt.  So would have been Percy Warren.  Driving an automobile is a full time responsibility.  Your requirement when operating a motor vehicle is to watch the road, not your phone.  How these requirements have been diluted is not dissimilar to how Washington eases regulation on corporate America.  They weaken the agency by withholding their money.  Sound familiar?  DOGE.  When you drive a vehicle you need to be seen by other drivers, and you need to see other drivers.  There should be no hiding behind tinted windows.  Recently two elected officials have steered North Carolina's extremist/anarchist bent back to logic.  Governor Josh Stein for the first time criticized vape shops and what they represent.  Americans have been under siege, and it was not just Covid.  It would seem North Carolina has a death wish, or at least a desire for chaos.  Let's allow any eighteen year old to tuck a .380 into their pocket before they run to the store.  You can open carry in North Carolina, but this law does keep me from doing that.  When I do carry I tend to conceal, but I am sixty-two years old.  Eight hours of gun training and a written permit are the appropriate means to conceal carry.  It has been proven over and over again how misguided youth are prone to murderous violence when guns readily are available.  Making it is easier is not the right answer, nor is offering addictive tobacco products to vulnerable and unhappy teens.  We have been exploiting our youth for so long, we have forgotten what it is to be Christian.  Marty McCarry, the acting Commissioner of Food and Drugs, was forthright in his condemnation of ultra-processes foods.  Almost everything we eat today is not fresh nor nutritious.  It is the main cause of obesity.  To hear these two men speak with logic and candor was refreshing. 

Where to Begin?

 There was pond scum in the bottom of my Keurig.  They got into trouble for this before, when the tank was not visible and detachable.  I drank coffee yesterday, and it made me sick.  The need for clean water is paramount.  America's answer to clean water was to bottle polluted tap water and sell it for a profit.  Polyester resin bottles have become a worldwide nemesis.  The film Chinatown chronicled the "Water Wars" of Los Angeles at the beginning of the twentieth century.  Plentiful clean water and a healthy burgeoning populace are synonymous.  Cumberland County, the host county of Fort Bragg, has the poorest water in the state of North Carolina.  Michael S. Regan, the sixteenth Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under the Biden Administration, made strides in regulating the amount of PFAS in local water supplies.  While DuPont continues to disguise the hazard and dissemination of Gen X into the Cape Fear River Basin, Mr. Regan successfully classified the substance as a carcinogen.  Immediately upon election President Donald Trump announced plans to rescind regulations on four types of toxic PFAS compounds keeping only two in place.  Largely these two chemicals have been phased out having been replaced by various mixtures of these nebulous and nefarious toxins.  It is a deceptive game of Three Card Monty gambling with human mortality.  In local news Kirk Deviere, Chairman of the Cumberland Country Board of Commissioners, nixed the one hundred and fifty million dollar downtown event center project.  After having been approved and was underway, Deviere commissioned a review conducted by Scott Flowers of the Hutchens Law Firm.  It was prudent stewardship in light of both W.B. Brawley Company and Mohammad Construction LLC (which changed its name to Apex Contracting Group) defaulting on their multi-million dollar city contracts for a new Fire Station No. 4, a Mazarek Park Tennis Center, and various Mable C. Smith Park recreational projects.  In the last year certain parts of Fayetteville have come to resemble a forgotten ghost town.  Half-built abandoned structures, burned carcasses of dilapidated buildings, and now a barren, empty, dirt lot that cost the taxpayers thirty million dollars and relinquished needed parking spaces for downtown.  Mr. Deviere, a former democratic state senator and city council member, has made a wise decision to reel in aberrant spending with judicious city contracts that have proven detrimental to Fayetteville.  The Mirror Lake dam cost the city over five million dollars for what is now a sludge-covered duck pond.  The Chinese Communist Party has been using graduate students at the University of Michigan and Stanford to spy on American research.  Likewise a Chinese researcher and her boyfriend have been charged with smuggling Fusarium Graminearum, a fungal plant pathogen into the country.  U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement is at the forefront of a flashpoint for civil rights.  Recent raids on undocumented aliens have provoked protests which have spread nationally.  President Trump has dispatched the National Guard and the Marines to quell potential violence citing an alien invasion.  With tanks rolling into Washington, DC for a Saturday parade commemorating the anniversary of the army and his own birthday, the stage has been set for what could unfold as another Kent State or Tiananmen Square.  Trump carefully has set the stage for more divisive and polarizing activity staging the United States military against American citizens.  The enforcement of current immigration legislation along with many other federal programs now are more difficult with recent severe cuts by DOGE.  As an aside, and although the United States does not have recent history of domestic deployed troops, I feel it is appropriate for the Commander in Chief to make that decision.  Widespread drug smuggling and human trafficking at the southern border merit a forceful response, and the federal government has not been effective curtailing either.  The dissemination of Fentanyl has worsened as have deaths by overdose.  To use the deployment of troops to fight such issues should not be an example for the widespread domestic use of the military, especially against citizens.  Considering the history of violent protests and looting in Los Angeles, it is reasonable to utilize these resources to ensure peace.  What is interesting is President Trump quickly and easily deployed the National Guard to California at the objection of its Governor.  On a day when the nation's Capital was besieged by violent protestors, no such deployment occurred.  It would seem we have a selective President who chooses to use national resources for his own use.  The stage has been set for Saturday.  The first ever militaristic commemoration in Washington, DC and hundreds of thousands of protestors is an ominous foreshadowing of ensuing human carnage.  Will Donald Trump use this opportunity to solidify his new role as a self-proclaimed American dictator? 

The Commander in Mob Boss

 Other than negatively affecting our 401K retirement accounts by way of the stock market, firing hundreds of thousands of federal employees, promulgating inflation and consumer prices, and embarrassing the nation, we must ask ourselves, "What else is Trump doing behind the closed doors of the White House?"  While these things are newsworthy and merit media coverage, with a severely oppressed and now limited Associate Press, what actually is happening around the world is speculation.  What is happening in our own back yards is hidden from us on purpose, because the unethical, immoral, and often criminal behavior of corporate America continues unabated.  The DuPont family never has stopped the polluting of our watershed with PFAS.  After a seven year respite in court proceedings and a scientific study of the effects of PFAS on the human body, DuPont continued to settle lawsuits on a one on one basis.  The Sackler family used the same approach.  They will do anything to keep their wealth, divert guilt, and live the good life off of the backs of the American people.  This is what America has become.  No longer are we the land of the free.  The taxpayers dollar has become the ultimate holy grail, and now Donald Trump and Elon Musk are after it.  Already they have gotten it, spent it, and driven America into irrevocable debt.  Trump's newest budget does exactly the same thing handing free money to the rich and oppressing the rest.  Stealing from the American people has become the status quo.  It no longer is necessary to devise, manufacture, and sell a product.  The rich feel entitled.  The metaphor is simple and clear, and it has not changed over two centuries.  It is racism, classism, bigotry, greed, narcissism, and egotism. This is what Donald Trump is.  The United States Constitution as penned by the framers, created a democratic republic of self governance with a free market system.  No longer does this exist.  The people do not govern themselves, and our market is not free.  Congress, the elected body chosen to govern its constituency along with the President, has chosen to represent themselves separate from the American populace.  It is a club that steals from the people.  Once the federal government separated themselves from corporate influence, The Lobby, and attempted to regulate and tame malfeasance.  Instead of stealing from and oppressing the common man, mostly poor, they took a rational and proportional percentage of the earnings of corporate America.  It would be much wiser to take America's fair percentage of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerburg's fortunes seeing as they have most of the money.  How oligarchy became vogue for America is unknown.  Always we have had the Carnagies, the Rockefellers, and Kochs, the DuPonts, the Mellons, the Mars, and others. After the stock market crash in the 1930's popped the venture bubble and the excess of the Jazz Age, prudent, honest, Christian law makers watched America suffer in great depth.  There was no escape.  America proved she was not bottomless well of prosperity.  We could infer God had something to say, proving we, the human being, are not the be all.  God created the heavens, the earth, and man, and for eternity as along as the human race endures, God will have the last say.  Where is He now?  Some believe it is about time for His second coming.  I would agree, if we want America to continue as her former self.  A Godless society is the only explanation for Donald Trump's Administration's governance.  Perhaps the largest example of this is the United States military suffering from lack of oversight and leadership.  If the Commander in Chief himself is setting these examples of almost criminal behavior and irreverence to the Constitution, then how are we to keep our military from adopting the same philosophies?  Trump's gaslighting has become so forthright, it is far overdue to scrutinize the largest piece of the American economic pie.  During the first Trump Presidency, the American military was rebuilt.  Almost a trillion dollars was spent shoring up the defense industry's finances giving this boys club unheard of leverage over the American people.  They control the military, not the Congress or the President.  Who are they, and what do they believe?  Do they still intend to defend the common man and his meager salary, or have they strayed into a paid security force for themselves and the rich?  If anything they do, if any piece of equipment they own and operate, or policy implemented infringes upon and does not protect Americans from harm, then they have sold out.  Living in close proximity to the world's largest military base, emphatically I can say much of their training methodology infringes upon the peaceful lives of average Americans.  The effects of their addiction to the electromagnetic spectrum are well represented in my own domicile.  Not only do they exert control of wireless technology, sound now is included in their arsenal of Intelligence, Reconnaissance, and Surveillance.  As an electronic musician who relies upon audible sound and electronics for music production, is it fair that when the military is practicing their craft and training recruits, I must stop my work?  When I produce music in any of my small studios the military listens and responds with mortar fire using me for practice.  The dispensable public.  It doesn't matter if we kill them or make them sick in the process of training for  war?  Really?   What possibly could they be using that would compromise the health of millions of Americans?  As the cell phone industry, the legacy created by Bill Clinton that sold off dangerous portions of the electromagnetic spectrum, balanced the budget, and paved the way for the Electronic Age, a predicted era when wireless technology was the most coveted product.  Only pilotless drones, aircraft, and trains can administer a deadly pathogen.  Starlink is not the only satellite network being built and administered by Elon Musk, and DOGE was not the only reason he went to Washington.  He was there to acquire his federal contracts assembling Star Wars in a stealth and abstract fashion as so to disguise its true purpose.  For a military to shift and obey an evil leader takes only 180 degrees, and it is far more common than a military protecting its own people.  Musk's partner in building a covert spy satellite network for our government is a retired four star general.  Apartheid is not democracy, and South Africa is not America.  These oligarchs with their accruing of most of America's money are not meant to be in Washington or near our system of governance, much less should they be cavorting with a chain saw in the Oval Office.  This man's presence in an abomination, and one of his claims is taking ten percent of your eBay auction for himself.  I am not anti-military, but with little oversight and leadership and manipulation by the defense industry for their own personal gain, I cannot say it is for us, we the people.  They are their own little club just like the rest picking the pockets of the American people. 

The Enemy that Music has Become

First and foremost I am a musician.  My father was a musician and an educator.  Unbeknownst to me being a musician marked me for life.  Like other archetypal American vocations, I was cast a failure before I began.  Because I was not aware of this discrimination, I ignored it and pursued the profession of music with gusto.  This resulted in a Bachelor of Music Education degree from UNC-Chapel Hill, a Master of Music in Composition from USC-Columbia, and finished coursework for a D.M.A. in Composition at OSU-Columbus.  During this journey of higher education, I held two Graduate Teachings Associateships and an adjunct faculty professorship in Jazz Studies.  I never stopped to smell the stale beer and cigarette smoke, because academic music has nothing to do with playing in bars.  While jazz music needed a place to proliferate, and clubs were convenient, the reality of "dying in the bottom of an empty liquor bottle" never was an option.  It only when I was separated from academic study that the moniker of musician sat in.  Now I was expected to be a rock star and curry favor from everyman.  I wasn't interested in every man, because the musical sensibility of average Americans is limited.  Certainly they do not favor African-American based jazz music, Black Church, Reggae, or Hip Hop.  It was Beach music and country, so I played shag music to get by.  Racial boundaries or discrimination mostly were absent in my musical education.  Personally I was influenced by the laid back vibe of the west coast music of Los Angeles.  In a nutshell what musicians play in bars and at jam sessions does not interest me.  This repertoire and culture falls outside the lineage of most American popular music.  It is its own tart, terse, protected thing.  It is local.  Without the hustle and bustle of a college music program, music drops back to the archetypal American stereotype.  The challenge is continuing to recognize America's rich history of popular music.  It nearly is impossible, because of the extinction of radio.  The industry of radio was the foundation for the dissemination of American popular music.  Not only did radio connect America, it provided a vehicle for the production of and consuming of music.  Music was a part of our fabric.  Now that is gone.  Why?  I have tasked myself with the acknowledgement and appreciation of this music, and to a small extent a meager attempt to rekindle it.  This task is daunting, because the catalog of American music is so vast and diverse.  In certain ways it may be more substantial than European orchestral and chamber music.  It is at least equal.  America seems to think this lineage and cultural heritage is not important, but it is crucial.  It is our identity over the decades.  If as a population we were privy to this American music from the past, we better would understand ourselves now.  The internet has created a large vacuum, and it is ironic.  Music was not meant to thrive in the digital realm, because it is too isolated.  Solidarity is what music can create if allowed to live and breath in real life.  Radio did that.  Television dropped the ball, and film is a pale shadow of its once former musical glory.  It is stark and unpleasant to me living in this reality, a reality where common Americans know little about music of any kind.  Society today does not want you to affect change.  It is burying American history, American identity, and American opportunity.  It is digging a hole in the ground and trying to hide its money.  The Trump Administration is a staid, oppressive, suffocating vacuum of existence, and it seeks to annihilate any relevant  human tendency.  I never wanted to be a rock star.  Some appreciation for you music is welcomed, because music is meant for humanity.  It is universal, but we have lost sight of this.  All God's children have music, and it is and should be a natural part of human behavior.  It is a language more far reaching, complex, and rewarding than the spoken word, because it organizes both rhythm and time.  Understanding these relationships gives us models for living.  Works, forms, and songs provide patterns for healthy living.  Often and sometimes quintessentially these models parallel intimate sexual expression.  As I continue to rekindle my interest in music and express my feelings in musical performance, I am met with the abyss.  I feel no plural synaptic chain event.  I feel obvious, vulnerable, and silly. Was music really supposed to feel this difficult? 

Where are the Founding Fathers When You Need Them, or God for That Matter?

 I would say if there were any time in my lifetime America needed a sense of Godliness, it would be now.  Systematically our nation, although imbued with the spirit and presence of a Supreme Being, began quietly to suppress the essence of God.  Broadly defined God could be considered acknowledging and caring for our fellow beings. Hellfire and brimstone preachers would have us believe something different, possibly feeling in servitude to God like slavery.  Because God is not physically present on earth, would it not be best to exercise our Godlike tendencies toward our fellow human beings?  Empathy, or one's acknowledgement and understanding of others' hardship, is fundamental to a fulfilled life.  It is difficult to live in a vacuum.  With all of this said, without the presence and spirit of Godliness our lives, we would succumb to what we have now.  The list is long.  Maslow's Hierarchy of needs shows this.  We have to look no further than the first tier of human need to find our problems, and they are grave.  The upper levels of the Maslow pyramid largely still are present in American life, but surprisingly the most basic requirements, those on the bottom are what have become compromised.  How is this possible?  They are breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, and excretion.  Each and every one of this requirements systematically has been undermined in American life.  It is difficult to argue.  How have we come to this?  While Capitalism as our chosen socioeconomic system comes to mind.  When it is not working is when we suffer.  In retrospect I'm not sure wireless communications and social media were the best choices for the American economy.  Both of these concepts, electromagnetic energy through the air and living through a wireless network via a device, have proven consequently we have neglected the Earth.  We have lost the fundamental connection and relationship with Mother Nature.  In America this is a staid topic, because native Americans who relied upon this symbiotic relationship with the Earth largely were eradicated as North America pushed west toward the Pacific Ocean.  The prioritization of Americans over native Americans, like the enslavement of Africans, will forever be the cloaked albatross of our nation.  We cast native Americans as heathens, and Africans as as substandard species of human life.  Both were mistaken and grievous in consequences.  While we continue to grapple with resulting Civil Rights and reparations, largely we ignore native Americans.  We have tucked them away on reservations and given them the rights to gamble for monetary profit.  There can be no greater disparity of philosophy than this.  A race of people who respected and were able to live off of the land were robbed of their sustenance, herded as cattle, and stricken with vice.  Is this unfortunately not the same scenario as the American public?  While we feign civility in our meager lives addicted to the internet, are we really free?  I think not.  The freedom for which human beings yearn is more spiritual, but it is reliant upon Mother Nature for its roots.  As a nation we have become irresponsible and have a cold shoulder toward Mother Earth.  The consequences of the breech of this relationship have become dire.  It is easier to deny it or simply cover it up by changing history or the perception of truth.  When I am effected by these shortcomings, which now is often, I am angered.  Anger can be an operative emotion.  When I think about the who is responsible, only there is one answer, and the list is long.  During Covid when airline flights in mass were grounded, the hole in the ozone over the South Pole shrunk dramatically.  Carbon emissions are nothing new, but we are quick to dismiss commercial airlines, because we have become reliant upon their novel service.  Most people like to fly.  Because of deregulation in most industries, it is these entities largely that have become responsible for the rapid demise of American life as we once knew it.  They are not required to consider, much less have empathy for American consumers.  They do not nurture us and care for us in a Godlike fashion.  Instead they pollute the environment in which we live and sell us poisoned products.  Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is not rocket science.  Much of life is like a balancing act on a set of scales.  In Fayetteville these scales have tipped to the wrong side for various reasons.  Once such reason could be the economy or Capitalism.  We have a housing shortage, but only because there was concerted effort to remove much low income housing because of its unsightliness.  If we had allowed the trailer parks to remain in Fayetteville, perhaps there would be fewer homeless people on the streets.  Freedom Town Center once was a trailer park.  The effort to provide more housing on a larger scale has resulted in a lopsided decimation of trees.  Trees provide oxygen, shade, and other comforts.  As the scale can swing at certain times of the year, they can produce unhealthy pollen and required maintenance.   I know this first hand, because our family home is host to two large live oak trees in the front yard.  They are far from maintenance free and are guilty of producing byproducts that can problematic for human health, including my own.  It is a necessary relationship.  My anger over selfish business prospects easily is stoked, as I drive through my own neighborhood.  A swath of trees that was a line of demarcation created by the local watershed recently was felled.  It remained there over the years for a reason.  The grade of the property was steep, and the trees provided a natural barrier against traffic noise.  They also provide needed oxygen to breathe.  It would seem the human race needs less and less oxygen to survive, because rapidly we are eliminating the sources and augmenting the offenders, or the polluting industries that burn our oxygen and replace it with deadly carbon emissions.  As I rode my motorcycle around Fayetteville, the effect was noticeable.  Places that had trees were cool and smelled sweet, and urban sprawl including downtown were hot and depleted of oxygen.  They smell like diesel or jet fumes.  Every time a commercial aircraft climbs or descends over our historic neighborhoods, clearly I understand global priorities.  They did not used to do this, creating wake turbulence on the ground for inhabitants and unhealthy almost unbreathable air.  The decimation of two large swaths of trees in Vanstory Hills has lessened the quality of life for its residents.  We are not the only neighborhood.  If one were to ask the inhabitants of Murray Hills in particular about the development of 1 Jura Drive, a large forest of formerly inaccessible trees, the rumble of diesel excavators daily for over two years would not be their choice.  As with the development on North Edgewater Drive, which has been in the works for years, these gaping wounds of red dirt and stark absence of trees is not a pleasant though.  There was no effort whatsoever to retain any of the trees.  They simply were slaughtered to make it easier for the developers to make money.  Thus far we have a half built Disney haunted mansion of a house looming over the entrance to Vanstory Hills.  How long will it take to sell these properties knowing that this house is the example?  Its cost is well over a million dollars.  If it is not difficult enough to find clean air in Fayetteville, our new President has reversed the small gains we have made on the recognition and removal of PFAS from the Cape Fear River Basin.  Further down the list...  The availability of healthy food for the average American is scant.  Contrarily American farms that produce freshly grown crops for local consumption have been bought out by the Farm Bill.  In many cases they are paid NOT to grow fresh food.  "Soylent Green is people!"  On the shelves of our grocery stores is a potpourri of ultra-processed, additive laden, addictive substances that don't qualify as food at all.  Fast food is no different.  The availability of healthy fresh food has become the most dire challenge to people in Fayetteville.  As for sleep and the possibility of restful peaceful slumber, that went out the window when John Snow merged the Chessie System with Seaboard Coastline to form CSX-T.  Invasive freight trains rumble through our communities nonstop producing heat, air pressure, vibration, and now electromagnetic emissions.  Lack of oversight of these offending corporations is the root of this evil.  It may not look like much on paper, but when you have no clean water, no clean air, and no healthy food, human existence will cease.  Is this the goal?  American cleansing. 

June's Sewing Machines

 I have been here before, when things you did previously and were important to you become painful.  How is this possible?  It is related to loss, and now those things, which at one time seemed important in your life, no longer resonate.  There is a clinical term.  Anhedonia.  "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most."  Two things are hanging me up.  One is spring, because the entire last decade of my life as a care giver I embraced spring as planting season.  My mother's influence on me was substantial, and I transformed our yard into one continuous garden.  No longer can I look at the photographs.  They are so beautiful they hurt.  When beauty disappears is it all the more painful?  How about ugliness?  How about art?  It is a glaring reminder that you no longer are engaged in those same things.  Are they important to you now?  It is important for me to understand this.  My cousin Phyllis Ann Greene White passed away on April 4th.  While I was ill with what probably was Covid, my sister and brother-in-law drove to Shelby to attend her celebration of life.  With them they took my mother's surger and sewing machine to give to the daughter of one of my first cousins.  They sew in this family among other notable things.  It was the appropriate gesture passing these important machines on to a younger generation.  They sat in our sewing room like anchors mooring the house down.  While I cleaned this room after my mother's passing on Nov. 11, these machines continued to sit uncontested.  They belonged there, and it was the purpose of this room.  My parents had custom cabinets and shelving made for this room which included a folding down sewing table and a counter for the machines.  Now that they are gone I am adrift.  There are plenty of sewing accoutrements still in the room, but the two machines now are gone.  I miss them.  Over time as children we relish the belongings of our parents.  Not?  I can say with certainty that was not the case for many things in our home.  When my father had to move to assisted living the brown couch in our den made its exit quickly.  I took his Ampeg flip top bass amp straight to the dump, because it no longer worked.  I had hauled that heavy box to many a gig of his, and I was done with it.  Not everything lasts forever.  We also had an empty Hammond speaker enclosure which sat in our foyer as a piece of furniture.  It went to the dump as well, because I lacked the sentimentality needed to appreciate it.  Our master bedroom closet is full of my mother's hand made, often wool clothing.  Those machines were tools, and fervently I believe investing in tools which allow you to create things is wisest.  That was the case of my Yamaha DX-7llD synthesizer purchased in 1987.  As a professional musician I used that tool to create and produce a great amount of original music.  When another one appeared on eBay recently in very good condition, I opted to buy it.  Will I ever use it again?  Who's to say if I'll ever play another gig?  I did decide without a rig your chances are less.  I underestimated the impact of passing my mother's sewing machines on to a younger generation.  I feel the same way about our white Toyota Sienna van.  When parents die things must change, and I didn't need three cars.  But I liked that van, and I enjoyed driving it.  It took a lot of work to keep it running, and I put in those hours.  I don't need it back, but the time I spent driving it are etched in my brain.  The hours my mother spent sewing also are etched in my soul.  Spring is here, and my mother is not.  I have to figure out if this yard will get the same treatment.  There is one point of contention.  Working in the yard when Covid hit began to make me sick.  Having your hands in black cow manure, rotting leaves, and fungus is not the healthiest practice.  Always I felt this was good for your body to build up its immune system.  Covid changed that.  I developed some annoying allergies, and my fingers often were broken open from these.  I also caught foot fungus from the shower in cruise ships, and never fully did it go away.  I tilled the yard, breathed dirt, and relentlessly built a beautiful green space in which my mother reveled.  I did also.  The reality that gardening or working in your yard could now make you sick was disturbing.  The severity of your illness will have a life long effect on you.  This particular Spring though I am about to traverse the Covid barrier.  I purchased an N99 respirator which filters out 99% of airborne particles.  Now I wear this when I blow leaves as well as protective goggles.  The mask works.  My mother observed as I used to curse at the low flying aircraft.  Anytime I would venture outside of the house, a plane would meet me.  They were menacing, annoying, and unwanted.  It became routine that I would get sick just from being outside.  Over the last year I had to curtail my gardening experiences, thus I have not prepared the soil for a garden this year.  It is not too late.  With the occurrence of hurricanes different insects have made their way to North Carolina.  One of them is fire ants, teeny little ants often you never will see that live in the ground.  I was stung numerous times by these elusive creatures waiting to pounce.  Covid brought its own kind of plague and pestilence to our lives.  I never would imagine how much the absence of my mother's sewing machines would effect me until I figured it out.  My things are all around me, but most of them now bring me pain, the pain of loss.  I have been here before, and it meant changing yourself.  I only can change so much.  I thought I had a new vision for myself musically, and that was singing.  Quickly I found out our neighborhood would rather not hear you sing anything.  We are a mute community.  It is stark when you realize the sheer amount of melodies you have in your head, but you can't use them.  The average person is threatened by the Great American Songbook, and if my neighbors present the correct example I was instructed to listen to J. Cole as the pinnacle of local musical success.  Always I have been able to feel and play the blues, but 20 something white Americans don't connect with the African American slavery experience.  The greatest suffering was Jesus, the Son of God, hanging on the cross dying.  He sacrificed Himself for our sins.  If we think we are important in the scheme of life, think again.  Lack of empathy is the single most overt characteristic of fascism. 

Dick Cheney's Contempt for Mother Nature

I have ignored President Trump's malfeasance.  His previous Presidency, while better behaved, proved he is not for the common American.  When he was fighting for a second term the blows began to fall.  The people were subject to a shit storm of slander, lies, misinformation, and collusion.  When he was reelected this vitriol subsided, public verbal assaults of his competition.  The onslaught ensuing is a carefully planned GOP mandate.  Trump was under pressure to reimburse his illicit Russian benefactors, and the GOP's agenda was premeditated.  The executive orders began the day he was inaugurated.  Many undermine or completely ignore the United States Constitution; many are illegal and borderline criminal.  None of this is new, and his manipulation of the stock market and insider trading are common methods amassing wealth.  How long will this go on, and when will he be held accountable?  Presidents are immune from criminal prosecution.  This is why a second Presidential term was crucial.  Did he win honestly?  Considering the hearsay supported by his campaign of misinformation, and his blaming the Democrats for what he was guilty, it is doubtful.  The country needed a rest.  The Democrats were noble, and like Al Gore conceded the loss.  There was little scrutiny of the vote, which is unusual considering the sheer amount of doubt placed on the system.  When things are in his favor, vitriol is quelled.  "Yes, I will become the dictator of America, but you will be happy."  Happiness is the freedom which America has guaranteed.  That freedom has begun disappearing, and it is subtle.  I feel zero freedom.  I can walk around and do what I want, but my life is far from free.  I am being surveilled, and it is not subtle.  Everyone is being surveilled by the NSA, and this agency is an American Schutzstaffel.  It listens to our  conversations, tracks our web activity, and maintains its innocence.  There is no freedom if we are being monitored by Big Brother.  We live in the little black box.  I didn't understand this until graduate school.  Everything that happens is known.  There have been exceptions to this postulate, but the UNC athletic scandal usurped Dean Smith's "Carolina Way."  Winning or monetary wealth is more important than honesty, integrity, and empathy for your fellow man.  We are corrupt, and we feign virtue when it is financially rewarding.  America no longer is Christian or recognizes God.  The proof of this was the advent of Covid 19.  The second Bush Presidency pushed the envelope.  America is not humane, because humanity does not decimate a nation under false pretenses as a vendetta for revenge.  Was this erroneous decision to blame and attack Iraq the beginning of the end of America?  Are we reaping the repercussions of Bin Laden's covert and vicarious revenge through the Saudis?  Interestingly they no longer are in the news.  Because Donald Trump is the Commander and Chief, it is difficult to draw a line of demarcation between his administration's ruthless and immoral behavior and the methodology of our armed forces.  How can his unconstitutional leadership not influence our global and domestic military philosophy?  We have the Covid pathogen; because Dick Cheney championed Anthony Fauci and made him head of America's strategic biological defense, Covid is alive and well and living in the tanks of those constantly flying C-130 Hercules aircraft.  It is no coincidence when they are present people get sick. (including me)  Because viruses need a host, what better choice is there than Mother Nature?  

Returning to the Fold of Nature vs. Nurture

 "You can't go home" is common.  Vaguely I understood what it meant.  In my adult life I have been most successful living away from home.  This meant living in a city different than my parents.  I never openly disparaged Fayetteville.  She provided a rich solid environment for my social and musical education.  It was not easy, and my two years at Washington Drive Junior High School were spent in fear.  I used Fayetteville and the comfort of my parents' stability as respite in needed situations.  I came home more than once.  Often I would realize I needed greener pastures.  It would be helpful to explain this phrase, "You can't go home."  Anyone?  Bueller?  Shall we guess?  Without beating this dead horse, most of us know why.  The best reason may be children spend a lot of time trying to escape their homes.  Many movies have been made about "locals, " and for some reason it usually involves a beach.  It may be your hometown doesn't offer employment.  More importantly your hometown may be small, sheltered, and base not offering you the cultural or social opportunities you seek.  Fayetteville, North Carolina is this; it is common knowledge.  Most kids that move away do not return.  While I speak about Fayettenam in jest and with levity, I have pleasant memories.  I made the best of it.  Quickly I discovered that a partner or mate of the opposite sex was good.  America has lost touch with this notion.  Our population has been pitted against each other in many ways.  Without disparaging the LGBT movement, I feel they are responsible for this gender war.  It vitally is important to me that today's children be exposed to unbiased sexuality.  We have lost this also.  Parents are molding their children with premeditation, and it may be that heterosexual behavior and its implications are too challenging for the LGBT community.  (No pain, no gain.)  The basic "War of the Sexes" or natural push and pull of gender are crucial for human development.  Without it human beings are deprived of essential tools to traverse life.  In the film "Soylent Green" or was it "A Clockwork Orange," mention is made of seeking to abolish the human orgasm.  Without it humans would be more compliant with no desire for personal gratification.  God gave us gender and sexuality for a reason, and anyone who has experienced healthy sex understands this.  This physical, emotional, human bond helps us survive a brutal often cruel world.  What does any of this have to do with cumming home?  Only now am I discovering this.  You are your parents' children, and when you are home this is what you are.  It is a necessary relationship.  If and when you return home as an adult, those who do know you know you as your parent's child.  This is not liberating.  While it could be helpful finding employment or for social support, to be happy one has to be an individual.  That means not being defined by your parents or society.  If you return to your childhood home as an adult, you must start over.  How many times in life can we begin anew?  I have done it  moving to different places.  Each time I embarked on a new geographical journey, I reaped the benefit.  Returning to my childhood home as an older adult is challenging.  It is because we are winding down in our lives, not ramping up.  The energy does not exist to recreate yourself again.  What I have found without being egocentric, is that the person into which I have grown has outgrown this community.  As a product of diverse, often international places, my values have grown.  My knowledge, talent, and skill have become competitive to the local community.  It is likely your community does not understand you.  This feels oppressive.  In our current political environment we are being brainwashed into fighting what is not just like us.  In Fayetteville it is LGBT.  There are so many clicks of people, and they seem to revel in their separatism.  Solidarity is not an overt quality of Fayetteville, North Carolina.  The times I relocated to continue my education, I was met with open arms and a more challenging artistic pallet.  Nature vs. Nurture is this predicament.  Can your inner self continue to evolve and define itself in the midst of a colloquial agenda?  "No man is an island entire of himself."  I am realizing it is a near impossibility.  Trying to play jazz in a community that does not understand jazz music?  Playing gospel or praise music in a community that is conservative, staid, and segregated?  Trying to find heterosexual companionship in a community that favors LGBT behavior?  Let's add insult to injury.  Since Covid 19 Fayetteville has become survival.  Gentrification is imminent and poor areas are being developed, but traditional middle class areas have succumbed to degenerate behavior, poverty, and crime.  Murder is common.  Drug use has driven this statistic.  Try reinventing yourself to an audience of junkies and indigent homeless people.  It would seem Jesus is speaking.  I ask myself not to discriminate against those less fortunate, but finding common ground is difficult.  Fayetteville has become a sacrificial lamb.  The influence of Ground Forces Command and an Apache helicopter range are brutal.  The glamor of Pentagon money is gone.  I returned from the sea to help look after my aging parents.  Families deal with parental aging differently.  Assuming offspring have their own families, it is likely parents remain in their own homes or move to assisted living.  Having an adult child return home is challenging.  While I was living with my mother, an agreement emerged.  Consequently and without my asking, she bequeathed our home to me.  After her death in November of 2024, the shit hit the fan.  Everything in Fayetteville changed.  Her death had a sizeable influence on Fayetteville.  A stable and respected figure now was gone, like many others in her influential generation.  The foundations of our community began to move.  My friend calls this progress, but I am not sure that is appropriate.  What are these changes that seemed to come in one fell swoop?  Gentrification all ready had begun in Fayettenam, but the opposite also emerged.  The shopping center nearest our neighborhood fell victim to the pandemic.   Both the workers and patrons of local stores began to exhibit stress fractures physically and mentally.   It became more difficult to find healthy competent workers, and the clientele of the stores changed.  What once was a middle class shopping center became overrun with poor, drug addicted, indigent vagrants.  The products in the grocery store changed, and often the shelves are empty.  The employees work diligently, but the shoppers no longer are blue or white collar workers.  They are strung out looking for the bathroom in which to get high, or trying to steal.  Shoplifting has escalated, and the employees police the front of the store.  Is this our new experience shopping in America, or has our local strip mall morphed into the ghetto?  There is a word for this, and it is the same thing that happened in Detroit.  There has to be a local economic stimulus.  Napster and Steve Jobs annihilated the music industry.  In Nashville you have to pay to play.  What kind of absurdity is this?  The value of music has been lessened, because of its availability for free on the web.  I can't say digital distribution isn't convenient and rewarding.  It is immediate gratification, but the traditional process of creating and performing music has been undermined.  Bands plays to a track.  Our local economic stimulus is vape and drugs.  They may be illegal, but they are bought and sold like over-the-counter medications.  No one bats an eye, and you can get whatever you want.  The one thing that everyone used to pay for was the opportunity to "hook up."  Since the decimation of "Back Page," how are people getting together?  It is not by looking at a phone in the palm of your hand.  Sex always has sold, and the LGBT community has sealed the coffin on much of heterosexuality.  While our current President is unorthodox and is doing illegal and unconstitutional things, his irreverence to authority and tradition has its merits.  Boinking underage girls on an island is not a wise decision for anyone, and to see leaders falling from grace because of their libidos is insane.  America is so far behind the rest of the world culturally, it is no wonder our democracy is about to fail. 

Cotton PIckin' Values

 "How have we become fascist?"  It is amazing how susceptible humans are to temptation; it is not coincidental.  Almost everything around us is addictive in some way, because the traditional tenants of human interaction and fulfillment are absent.  The exploitation of the internet is responsible for much of this.  I have been watching Ken Burns' documentary about Congress, and it is telling.  Congress is problematic.  In a broad sense Congress has regressed 125 years to being mob bosses.  This era was known as the "Millionaire's Club," and our elected politicians were the richest and most powerful people in America.  Trusts were powerful, and inherited money accrued more wealth and power over time.  A "Progressive" contingency fought back and eventually won power, but it tested the fundamentals of democracy.  It happened in the streets by presence and with vocalization.  There was no internet.  With the shift of the American economy to technology and the internet, we, as a people, have lost touch with this responsibility.  If a free American market is to survive, then this turn toward automation, AI, and the replacing of live workers is not wise.  What does it say about America, once was a democracy?  Corporations are downsizing firing live human bodies and replacing them with software reliant upon wireless telecommunications. The resultant profits are absorbed back to the most wealthy.  We are becoming a Third World nation or "Banana Republic."  We, the people, no longer are in control or actively participation in governance.  Congress has failed to lead the country for the good of all.  No one can deny this change.  Internet commerce is key, but it was the Covid pandemic that has steered us down the wrong path.  To this day we do not know the real origins of Covid 19.  If we rely upon traditional means of enlightenment, the interview with Dr. Robert Redfield is helpful.  Why should we not trust him?  Former Vice President Dick Cheney appointed Dr. Anthony Fauci head of "The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases." NIAID became America's biodefense program.  Other departments, agencies, and centers, including the military, were relinquished of this responsibility.  Fauci was given billions of dollars in funding and had a direct political liaison from Scooter Libby giving Fauci complete control.  He receive the highest salary in the federal government and an open line of communication with then President, George W. Bush.  He held this highest paying position until 2022.  Dr. Redfield recently conceded Covid 19 was a highly engineered virus not capable of natural evolution.  HIAID was responsible for the creation of Covid 19 with the help of the Wuhan Lab in China, Fort Detrick in Maryland, and labs at UNC-Chapel Hill.  (my alma mater)  This is disturbing information.  It is probable this highly infectious and often deadly engineered pathogen inadvertently escaped the lab in Wuhan, killed its makers, and made its way to the United States on a cruise ship.  As the passengers disembarked, they were collapsing to the ground.  Because America, through her reaction to 9/11 and as evidenced through her erroneous decimation of Iraq, was responsible for sanctioning this kind of biological/chemical weapon, it stands to reason we have it now.  Dr. Anthony Fauci has disappeared from the public eye.  In retrospect we have discovered America's response to Covid 19 largely was misguided, ineffective, and dictated by those bearing the burden of responsibility for killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people.  Only now and extremely slowly is America renewing faith in her own honesty and people.  The evil of Covid has begun to subside, but a second Trump presidency has muddied the water of a complete revival of truly American ideals.  I agree with some of the things President Trump is doing.  If we pay our troops only to train, and we are not engaged in war with boots on the ground, why not send them to curtail illegal immigration?  Transgender ideology clouds the efficiency of the military.  I did not have faith in the Secretary of Defense nor the Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff.  They were figureheads.  Inasmuch as people personally do not like Pete Hegseth because of his media past, an Ivy League educated military veteran is a better choice to lead active duty troops.  Knowing that America has the capability to use Covid 19 in the future, whether we choose to or not, demands active democratic leadership.  We cannot allow this to happen.  In a narrow view the Covid pandemic was similar to the Holocaust.  It just was cloaked in anonymity.  Its purveyors have disappeared like Nazi officers.  There is no telling where they may emerge. 

The American Crusade

 I worked as a professional pianist in the cruise industry for a decade.  My compatriots thought this "work" a paid vacation.  There are perks.  You travel and see foreign places which is enough to validate the job.  Compared to America now, it is appealing.  There is a blatant irony.  Becoming a caregiver for my mother, which was essential for our family, I made this unusual and possibly unseemly situation work for us.  My mother, a teacher, was no pushover.  She was a hard ass, and   cohabiting with her I learned as an adult it stemmed from being an educator in the North Carolina public schools.  When she returned to the profession after having children, she was at the predominantly black high school in Fayetteville.  She caught the bus home from school, and often she was crying.  This uncultured, low-income, prejudiced black student body did not welcome whitey.  She developed a tough skin, and it was not a stretch.  She grew up poor on a Shelby diary farm picking cotton in the fields during the Great Depression.  I always will remember one of her chores was cleaning the glass chimneys on kerosene lamps.  They did not have electricity, and it is interesting that people can be without it.  Perhaps the values then were more tangible and beneficial to the human experience.  Our values now in America because of the internet are detrimental.  America is slow to notice, because those making money participate in ruthless, immoral, and criminal behavior.  One that springs to mind is companies that benefit from detaining seeming immigrants.  Can there be such a thing, companies or corporations that profit as private pawns of the government?  A loud guffaw escapes from my coughing lungs.  This is America.  We have become a nation that the government subsidizes almost everyone, whatever political ideology that is.  I believe there still is an open market system, but the odds are so stacked against a newcomer it takes more than a village to reap the benefits.  Perhaps the last one to do such a thing was NWA, Niggers With Attitude.  A small group of rappers, musicians, and artists harnessed the rebellion of American youth.  This became Hip Hop.  Popular culture has preened successful business before, and it is one of America's great offerings.  It possibly is the American Dream.  That has faded, and the evil seeds of other governments have crept in.  While most populists won't acknowledge it, I feel our current "Conditions of America" are nothing more than the fight against Communism.  The Cold War ended, the Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet Union disbanded during the Reagan Presidency.  Ronald Reagan was a pawn, a hired actor to play the part of the American president.  I do not like for what he stood.  Contrarily I have positive feelings and recollections of his time in the White House.  America was at her creative and artistic peak.  It was the age of MTV, blockbuster movies, prime time television, and American popular music.  The substance of the precedent music was more relevant because of civil rights and Viet Nam, but a more beautiful era cannot be found in American history.  Look at any notable film from this time and you will see and hear unfettered, unabashed, artistic beauty.  Today this kind of beauty does not exist.  We are damaged, so  we mock society like we have no control.  Democracy has failed either because it has been hijacked by subversive parties like Donald Trump, or because we have lost sight of our own constitutionally awarded power to govern.  Congress has regressed to its worst form in recent history.  Because of the absence of God, our country has regressed to the brink of fascism.  It is difficult to discern our own responsibility.  If the meek are to inherit the earth, then do we just lie down?  America is not this.  If we look we will find the "Good Fight," the kind of moral crusades that eventually pay off.  Today moral behavior is punished. 

Driving the Herd

 It's the small things that matter.  At the ripe age of 62, I reinforce to myself that adolescent love is not an option.  There is zero chance that another human being will ever consider me a love interest.  There are several reasons, and these reasons are reasonable.  We get old.  Our bodies go through a transformation, and we turn into different people.  I may be the same inside, but the stark changes and challenges to our bodies are inescapable.  It is more wise to understand from a younger person's vantage point.  You are a fat old man.  Without being both sexist and discriminatory, I can say without a doubt that women are not attracted to the inner man.  They are not attracted to your intellect, your wit, your humor, or your talent.  These can contribute to the overall package, but when it comes to love or lust animal desire driven by a visual image is what stirs women.  Women are not interested in fat men.  They require the beef.  It is the way you look to which women are attracted.  The gym should be your friend, because if you are looking for love a geometrically balanced physique is your ticket.  In my experience the only thing that can counteract this primal urge of Freud's ID is money.  If you have money, and you are willing to spend it on women they will manipulate you.  It seems to be what they do, at least around here.  Before they will consent to let you express a carnal thought about them, they will require a life long commitment of financial support.  They want your house, your car, and your money.  The sex will disappear quickly, and if you resign yourself to marry a man-eater, you will be stuck in a loveless marriage with no physical release.  It is not worth it.  It is best to move on, and the world outside  America understands this.  More intelligent countries would not let their political leaders by toppled by simple infidelity.  Everyone needs love and sex, but to make it paramount in life is ridiculous.  In most European countries you visit legal houses of ill repute and purchase what you need.  It is a mature and satisfying experience, because the parties involved are mature enough not to trip on love.  America uses sex and love for control and monetary success, and the strip club is the perfect metaphor.  Why would any man choose to spend hundreds of dollars in a strip club, when in any other country simply you purchase exactly what you want and need.  It is a callous, shallow, unfulfilling exploitation of human desire.  Trying to earn the affection of someone is a complete waste of time.  You fare better ignoring them.  Better yet your hold them in contempt and build self esteem by excelling in the other areas of American life.  Otherwise you will sit around crying in your own beer lonely and forlorn.  Recent circumstances in human existence make this more difficult.  We were assaulted by a deadly virus that wreaked havoc on the human race.  Not since the Black Plague have we seen a more disruptive pathogen.  Multiple infections and organ failures.  Covid was devastating and the world has not recovered.  Human health is the most challenged in our own lifetimes.  It would seem there is a tangible force trying to thin out the human race.  We must fight for our existence, and it is a huge challenge.  When we rise each day we confront an unbalanced playing field.  Things have become stacked against us.  Almost everything is more difficult than it once was.  Perhaps Covid caused this, a weakening of the world's food supply.  In my point of view a shift away from humanity is the answer.  The digital age or our new reliance upon streaming digital images and information has undermined human accomplishment.  The things that a human can do no longer are important.  The economy has shifted to this technology driven dynamic, but average humans have little to contribute.  We cannot build and launch satellites and rockets.  We cannot build weapons.  We cannot form networks of wireless information.  While digital visual imaging is becoming more accessible to the common man via AI and smart phones, these concepts are icing.  The substance of art representing the human condition largely is absent, because we have forgotten how to achieve it.  You can't use AI.  The human element is what is necessary to achieve art, and the process is as old as this earth.  Humanity has been reduced to a herd of cattle.

The Midnight Special

As I listen to Leadbelly sing the "Midnight Special," I realize that song writing once was a valued commodity in America.  Songs were the voice of the people, and the styles varied according to the cultures they represented.  This is what makes the history of American popular music interesting and complex.  Harry Belafonte sings "Midnight Special."  It was a hit album for him, and interestingly the songs on it represented the pirating of Roots Music in America.  The chord progressions of the songs he sings are exact replicas of traditional Old Timey, Gospel, and Country songs in the public domain.  Good composers borrow, great composers steal!  Imitation is the highest form of flattery!  As you listen to Harry Belafonte sing, you are singing along with him; you all ready know the melodies from having heard and sung them in your youth.  It was the era of Stephen Foster and his song "Old Folks at Home."  The Black Church had a strong influence on American popular songs, and that has continued through the decades.  Khruanbin's guitarist and drummer played at Beyonce's church in Houston, Texas.  The Black Church has been a cornerstone of American music.  Black influences on American popular music are syncopation, improvisation, and The Blues.  Pundits suggest the The Blues spawned in the American South during and after slavery are the sole source of this emotionally moving music.  If suffering and sorrow are the overt traits expressed in The Blues, then everyone will understand all cultures throughout time have faced equal adversity.  It is not just enslaved and trafficked African-Americans.  Scot-Irish, German, Italian, and Jewish cultures all are infused with The Blues.  The Ballads in particular of the Appalachians not only express hardship, but impart wisdom to their offspring.  Any music in minor mode going back to Gregorian Chant expressed piety and sorrow at the crucifying of Jesus.  Sadness and hardship are nothing new, but perhaps the prospect of riches in the Wild West of America usurped these trials and tribulations.  All cultures have vehicles to express grief and sadness, and they are important.  One listen to aria and recitative by George Frederick Handel, and you will hear bereavement personified.  What America did do was exploit The Blues, and that is okay.  The vehicle of The Blues, its chord progression in varied forms, was a worthy foundation for the creation of American Rock 'n' Roll.  Early Rock 'n' Roll was race music or Rhythm and Blues, and largely its chord progressions were from The Blues.  This feeling of The Blues is what is appealing, and always it does not have to be lamenting.  Quickly Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, and many others discovered you could superimpose overt sexuality onto the vehicle of The Blues.  The tempos went up, and energy, vitality, and physical showmanship became paramount.  I concur.  If you want to end a party early, have the band play, "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone."  With no disrespect to Bill Withers, that song will depress anyone.  Baby's love it.  It is common to exploit the poor and down and out.  "Them that's got shall get.  Them that not shall lose."  

King to King Level Zero

Often when one speaks the truth or does a good deed, they are punished by the masses.  When I am compelled to write about life, it is because a force greater than me insists upon it.  Whether this is called conscience, soul, or God I don't question.  When I compose music I listen.  I have discovered in the throes of survival often there is nothing to which to listen.  That which we do have to listen is manipulative, inciting, or antagonistic.  I feel this way about television commercials.  In their inception like many things, advertising sought to be honest, clever, and entertaining.  As a nation and culture America has moved backwards.  Solidarity which is needed to bind a nation together has been replaced with tribalism.  Because  we cannot get along as adults, we seek to manipulative each other.  The Capitalist socioeconomic construct is not helpful, because it pits us against ourselves for monetary survival.  I would not say I am a Democratic Socialist, but Capitalism has succumbed to corporate corruption in such a way that the American people's system of governance has been discarded.  The essence of the United States Constitution is being mocked by our elected leaders.  I cannot remember in my lifetime such an event.  Usually we elect and believe in our leaders, because our lives and livelihoods are dependent upon them.  When they turn against us, it is nothing more than treason.  When the entire government turns treasonous, who is left to charge and prosecute them?  America's judicial system now is tasked with policing our elected leaders as well as corporate and civilian criminals.  The precedent was set in 2000 with Bush vs. Gore, when the Supreme Court ultimately decided who became President.  It was a low point in American history, and it is upon what Donald Trump has trusted his dictatorial ambitions.  The fight for the survival of American democracy now is in the courts, but are they strong enough to save us?  Again I will ask the question, "What body is responsible for charging and prosecuting a criminal government?"  If the entire government and its civil branch are under the control of the President, who is immune from prosecution, who will police them.  Will the police step up and accept this responsibility?  This did not fare well at the Capital on January 6, 2021.  The Capital Police are under control of the President, and he purposely held them back from the attack on Congress, so they could not confirm what the Electoral College decided.  America has re-elected a criminal President, so it should be no surprise when he turns against the people.  A spiritual catalyst is needed in and by America, because a greater force is needed to defeat evil.  We it would seem are not capable.  When I compose I listen.  Although I understand theoretically how and what I am composing, I must listen.  Later in life I have come to understand more often there is nothing to which to listen.  This is true of mundane American life.  Film, television, radio, and the American music industry once provided this sonic stimulation for our souls.  Covid drove a stake through most truly American virtues.  The things that have made America great, such as the commercial arts, have been hobbled by the smart phone.  Our entire culture has been hobbled by the smart phone.  Seeing or hearing artistic endeavors rife with emotion and spirituality now make me weep.  This has become so foreign to America, we have dated ourselves.  What is being offered as our future is conquest.  America has not asked for or chosen leaders whose task is to change the charter of our country.  In good faith we have elected leaders to follow the  United States Constitution.  Unfortunately the precedent was set with the Supreme Court's selection of George W. Bush.  His Vice President, Dick Cheney, pushed the boundaries of the authority of his office ascribing new power to the Supreme Court.  Two decades later Donald Trump is continuing this pattern further separating the American people from self-governance.  His administration has begun moving backwards towards the monarchy against which America fought and was founded.  "We don't want no King." 

Wearing a Tin Foil Hat

Purposely I have chosen NOT to blog about our current political strife.  The ramifications of the President's ill actions in tandem with an American oligarch will reap the repercussions of the people.  It is the people who must demand justice and take back their Constitutional right to self-govern.  This right has been hijacked under our noses, but it is no different than other nations.  The pattern is well understood, and this is Donald Trump's life's work.  Is it possible for one man to accomplish such a goal, the deconstruction of the democracy of what once was the world's superpower?  I don't think so.  There are so many losing their jobs, how can any of Trump's words be taken seriously.  This is why I have chosen NOT to blog about it.  It does not merit my attention except there is treason, a high crime.  The jury will be the millions of Americans who may be cast onto the street, and the tables of January 6 may turn.  The revolution may be original Americans, with a well-armed militia, decide not.  What is more concerning to me is that a malady unlike Covid, a nebulous and invisible nemesis is causing serious harm to specific individuals in the public forum.  A covert, seemingly invisible, nonlethal weapon has debilitated thousands of civil servants, diplomats, and others.  The intelligence agencies and the medical establishment can't find a cause.  That is because the cause is the intelligence agencies.  We could be so gullible to elect Donald Trump again and to believe his accomplice is using his 30,000 low earth orbit satellites only for internet service.  IRS or Intelligence, Reconnaissance, and Surveillance is the new cornerstone of the United States military.  Thank Bill Clinton and Dr. Ross McNutt.  President Clinton auctioned off dangerous microwave portions of the electromagnetic spectrum which did balance the budget.  Also it created America's newest economy.  We have yet to transition away from it, although it is warming the earth and causing physical harm to everything.  Millimeter waves are not our friend, and while corporate America once had oversight and federal agencies provided protection, they now have been stripped like the millions of jobs held by civil servants.  It is the Wild West, and it is happening before our very eyes.  Microwave use is off the hook.  It erroneously has become the core of human existence, and it is not necessary.  Wires are better.  It was too easy for microwave surveillance to become a nonlethal weapon.  Probably it happened by accident like Covid.  Beam microwaves at Russian government offices for long enough, and the ill effects on humans will make themselves known.  the same is true for the Apache helicopter.  It is a metaphor of the Cold War.  It is braggadocio.  It says, "Look how powerful we are!"  With all of the armaments that can be fashioned to a Sikorsky helicopter from the l970's, we don't need to fire a single round.  The radiation coming from this attack helicopter's onboard targeting and acquisition systems are enough to humble any human being.  The same is true for what is under the radome in the front of every aircraft flying.  Carbon emissions are problematic, but radiation from the upper frequency microwaves are baking our brains.  All of the symptoms of the Havana Syndrome are those of electromagnetic radiation.  When the CIA or FBI are surveilling a person of interest, they discover that with their gathered intel also the person begins to suffer from unknown maladies slowing their activity.  Effectively these individuals can be accosted invisibly without effecting those around them.  A highly steerable wave of microwave energy has become the modern nonlethal weapon, and we don't know it. 

Where is Steve Bannon?

 When asked what the Trump Administration's number one priority would be if again they came into power, Steve Bannon's response was, "To go after the Deep State."  Upon hearing this term for the first time from a childhood friend, I was perplexed.  It elicited images of a long gone era of Jim Crow segregation, the Cold War, espionage, and Fascism.  Little did I know it was the Civil Service.  Fayetteville, North Carolina is no stranger to the Civil Service.  There are hundreds if not thousands of workers gainfully employed at what was  Fort Bragg.  Although like most Americans I am aware of the heinous atrocities of the Confederacy against freed slaves and their offspring before, during, and after the Civil War, my sentiment is keeping abreast of one's past, no matter how grievous, is important.  If we sweep criminal behavior under the rug, like the actions of Donald Trump and the Republican Party, we shall forget.  This is the plan.  All ready this has begun to happen in America.  Not only are American's not being educated properly, we are being "gaslighted" into believing falsehoods.  Keeping Fort Bragg named Fort Bragg is a good idea to me, because the name retains memories of the post's history.  Championing the Confederacy, like some modern Southerners do, is not prudent.  Racial discrimination and White Supremacy are evil concepts.  It must be difficult for most to understand such small-minded behavior.  We must.  Donald Trump got re-elected.  White Supremacy and discrimination of all kinds have been a covert trait of America since her inception.  Like many historical precepts America has done her best to navigate the minefield of slavery.  Whether Trump was a catalyst for this new, misguided, and mostly ignorant tribal warring, reparations a century and a half later are not the answer.  America was doing well until now.  Most of us know that immigrants seeking a better life often will do work Americans frown upon, but watching America's core get decimated and replaced with non vetted illegal immigrants is problematic.  It seems like every conceivable attack on mainstream Americans becomes a priority.  All war is simple genocide of the pure blood of a nation.  That includes the Civil War and Viet Nam.  Watching pure blooded, wholesome, hard working Americans dies fruitlessly has become commonplace to the point that there is no America.  We are scattered bands of mutts easily controlled and manipulated.  Well educated, intelligent, thinking individuals who can see through corruption, imperialism, and Fascism almost are extinct.  It would seem a present day "Lord of the Flies" has transpired.  The tenants which built democracy including opportunity, public education, and justice have been replaced with nepotism, greed, and quest for power.  One only has to look to the White House, again, to see.  Using America's military to enforce immigration laws is not that far fetched, but it is risky.  For soldiers to embrace helpless civilians as the enemy, American or not, is wrong.  As history has proven it is far too easy to make this mistake.  An overzealous dictator usually is at the helm.  Eventually it will be the military against the populace, and this is why our Founding Fathers penned the Second Amendment.  While assault weapons are not a good choice for home use, they are being made available for this reason.  North Carolina Senate President Pro Tempore, Phil Berger, feels every adult over the age of eighteen should be able to carry a concealed weapon.  Only can we ask why?  Misguided millennials who lack crucial life experiences and wisdom should not be carrying concealed weapons.  In North Carolina anyone can walk into a gun store and buy a hand gun with no permit.  It is the wrong approach to a civilization, and only can we think that the entangling tentacles of Southern fascism bred in the Era of Jim Crow are strangling our common sense.  War, oppression, and the pursuit of power are not the pinnacles of human existence.  Art, romance, and creativity, or the Liberal Arts are a more prudent model of life.  These disciplines glorify, inspire, and empower the human heart, soul, and intellect.  We have lost them. 

Can We Be Saved?

It is disheartening to hear that North Carolina has the most expensive health care in the nation in addition to paying its teachers the lowest salaries.  A state legislature that creates a super majority of Republicans to undermine the powers of the Governor.  What is one to think?  As a continuing red state and what has become the new norm for America, the rich are looking out for their own interests.  Stealing from the taxpayers is the new economy.  Using Fayetteville as an example may not be accurate, because it is a host for the world's largest military facility.  While diversity is present and evident, the population has grown more segregated.  There are few things left that bind citizens together.  Imported soldiers, proponents of the LGBT movement, Hispanics, and now other foreign ethnicities have subjugated the previous generation of Old Money which recently has become extinct.  Much of this money has been donated to the arts, and that is a worthy cause.  The mainstream is suffering from the same lack of leadership plaguing America.  Difficult policy decisions simply have been abandoned creating seeming lawless void.  Why are cyber currency proponents allowed to deplete the common power grid serving the people?  It is well known that these factions find the cheapest power and set up shop to mine bitcoin.  Its the newest "thing," although its guru was convicted and jailed for the Ponzi scheme he implemented.  It has not proven to be an effective investment, but still the facilities tool on depleting America's supply of electricity.  Elected representatives are responsible for making value judgements, and the Republican philosophy of free reign is a mistake.  Piedmont Embraer jets have been flying through Fort Liberty airspace for years, and no one bats an eye.  The misuse and exploitation of the skies is but one blatant example.  Fayetteville never had much of a problem with air pollution until Ground Forces Command established themselves at Fort Liberty.  This evening on the local television news, I can't believe I heard the news anchors hoping for 80 degree weather in February.  They are gaslighting us into thinking it is normal rather than destructive Climate Change.  The unseasonable warm weather that will ensue presently directly is caused by Operation Rolling Thunder, a large military exercise that takes place in February.  We are being lied to and mislead.  The majority of ads on television are criminal.  Oversight has disappeared in America, and no one is at the helm.  Most adverse health effects in humans are man created, and so they lie about it.  It would seem prophecy is coming true. 

America's Current Predicament

I have refrained from blogging for a reason, so I won't use the words genocide and Fauci in the same sentence.  We had to be patient until the former CDC Director, Robert Redfield M.D. decided to sing.  Perhaps a trained medical doctor with decades of professional leadership experience merits credible opinion on the Covid pandemic.  It was no surprise to me what he said, but clearly he felt the outbreak was an accident.  The pathogen had been developed, engineered, and manufactured for use as a weapon.  Repeat.  If that was the purpose of the virus, then America cannot hide from the truth.  We are hiding now.  I won't read the news or take it seriously, because it is inciting political rhetoric.  The newly elected President does not merit anyone taking him seriously.  Yes, he is the leader of the free world and the Commander in Chief of America's fighting forces, so the capability for the destruction of democracy is tangible.  The virus exists, and those involved with making it have perished.  A convenient alibi for the manufacturing of a deadly virus that killed hundreds of thousands of people exists.  If only by reading the news in the last few years, we know who sanctions such activity, poisoning your political enemies or malcontents in your country's populace.  Who does this?  Until now the United States has honored the Geneva Convention, and many non-lethal weapons have been discontinued.  The pattern that has emerged with a convicted felon at the helm of America's military is concerning.  The overall prospectus of this returning administration is eliminating oversight of all corporate activity.  Businesses, companies, or industries have become graven images given free reign to operate as they please with no concern for the health and well being of the American people.  American history is rife with such examples, and the tobacco industry became the step child of sheer greed and wealth.  Lacing tobacco with addictive chemicals is not dissimilar than over prescribing opioids, nor is it different from polluting America's water shed with PFAS.  America has not had an example of good-hearted Christian behavior in years.  On the contrary our nation has tried diligently to eliminate the presence of God altogether.  We are a changed nation, and not for the better.  Previously when I become vocal about America's issues, often I am punished.  This is possible because of the prospectus about which I am writing.  Businesses, companies, and manufacturers are treated like gods, although their moral and ethical policies have waned.  While I do not feel America's government has been "weaponized" in any way, I do see blatant and glaring examples that corporate America has been.  It is too easy.  For government agencies created to help and protect the American people to somehow inflict harm on them instead is ridiculous.  Instead these agencies get "unfunded" through government lead by unethical leaders.  Because of the Covid, the proliferation of PFAS in America's water, the opioid epidemic, and the massive and growing amount of electromagnetic radiation surrounding our homes oversight is crucial.  It has been proven again and again corporate America is not capable of operating ethically.  Our food supply has become the most urgent of these problems.  "Soylent Green is people!"  With this trend of immunity and the hijacking of America's courts, truly we should be alarmed.  If other countries are examples the military easily can be converted to a private security force for use against the people.  I am not sure if the mission statement of America's fighting forces is so clear anymore.  We do not know who the enemy is, and we are being coerced or badgered into fighting among ourselves because of our racial and cultural differences.  There is a plan in play with the second Trump administration, and how tiresome it is for the legal system to have to be the police of democracy?  Every executive order will be met with a lawsuit challenging its Constitutionality.  It is a recipe for political disaster and a catalyst for assassination. 

The American (and Global) Establishment

 After an intensely dark and slanderous Presidential campaign, the election results arrived in nauseating and insipid fashion.  Despite the predictions of contesting the results (if Kamala Harris won) and ensuing violence, an immediate and seeming miraculous Trump victory immediately tempered a previously vitriolic and hateful campaign.  The snow job by American media was meant to quell dissatisfaction or reaction to Trump's win.  "There there little child.  Take your medicine.  It was meant to be."  It must be the paradox of all paradoxes.  (and as I write this a menacing and intended to be intimidating Apache attack helicopter flies directly over my house)  It is a concrete metaphor for the Trump campaign.  Intimidation but mostly hot air.  A U.S. Army attack helicopter cannot fire on civilians, but it can practice its craft of warfare on American civilians.  We know nothing of the force that commands these war birds, and with a starkly divided nation the American people cannot be assured the United States military has not pledged their allegiance to the traitor emeritus.  If the federal government has become weaponized, in true Trump fashion his organization would be the first to use it but blaming it on the other side.  This has been their strategy all along.  The sickeningly pallid media declaration that Trump has become a living American martyr fighting his way back to the White House is at odds with reality.  It is a smothering blanket meant to quell resistance to the electing of an aspiring dictator.  There are a handful of postulates resulting from this uncanny turn of events.  When Trump lost he incited a riot that stormed the Capital and attempted to thwart the confirmation of the vote.  People died.  As Trump won (if that is the case) Johnny is urged to be quiet and take his medicine.  Because Electoral votes were manipulated in both previous elections, we are to assume the bribing of state governments didn't happen again?  Shut up and take the money.  What are the postulates?  It takes a specific point of view to understand.  The "Establishment" will not allow a black woman President.  That is too real.  With the history of suffrage and other women's rights, a strong woman President could effect change in America.  Jim Crow Jr. could not allow that.  White America, ignoring our true diverse history, won't allow a black woman President.  Social media and the internet have destroyed a once economically viable print media.  It has destroyed constructive, thoughtful, tangible, print media upon which the world has relied for centuries.  In the swipe of an iPhone screen, newspapers, periodicals, and other printed news have vanished into the digital domain (including movies) allowing third party assailants to hijack, manipulate, and redistribute information.  It is called "Big Brother," and the author George Orwell predicted this decades ago.  It was called "1984."  We are overdue, but it is here.  Without printed material, internet media has become desperate for fodder.  They need stories, and Donald Trump winning the White House for a second time is too good to pass up.  The sheer breadth of his evil musings have created novels of plots to be exploited in the next four years.  Kamala Harris in the White House would have been to real for America's  now television existence.  America always has been shaped by the entertainment industry, but for film and television largely it was a product of the misplaced Jewish community escaping the Holocaust.  They recreated their dreams in Hollywood through film and television.  Their vision helped shape the American dream, and it was positive.  A bigoted, White Supremacist, mostly Southern and Confederate faction has decided they have no interest in the historically accurate origins of America.  This includes Critical Race Theory.  My own personal study of American Roots music, Jazz, Gospel, and other racially diverse musical forms and habits staunchly were being discouraged during this presidential election.  It was a covert war on African-American influence in America, and now it will continue.  Do we remember Black Lives Matter?  Effectively it was quelled by a murdering pandemic that took the place of more specific single killings carried out by a corrupt police force.  The Establishment can not have a black woman President, nor do they want any recollection of American Roots Music.  Jazz, Gospel, and other art forms driven by human suffering at the hands of racially discriminatory white supremacists no longer are welcome.  Instead they created a political skirmish driven by stolen confidential documents sold to Iran and Hamas, attacking Israel.  Their immediate and decisive military response will effect the same change as a cataclysmic hurricane or flood rendering valuable real estate available devoid of its original indigenous inhabitants.  It is Wounded Knee on a grand scale, nothing more than genocide.  America now has suffered the same grievous atrocities of other third world nations.  It is incumbent upon the American people to insure that a Trump dictatorship does not ensue.  What would have happened if Kamala Harris won?  Would the Extreme Right have revolted again inciting violence and political unrest?  Perhaps it is best that Trump won circumventing a second American civil war.  The story line is too rich and economically viable to bypass.  It's drama!  The health and longevity of America on the other hand is not assured.  We are well on our way to becoming a Third World nation with the chasm between the elite rich and poor growing at the same rate as Global Warming.  Before the poor die of starvation or lack of food, probably we will perish in the remnants of a ruined planet Earth suffocating from lack of viable oxygen and growing fungus from the heat and humidity of Climate Change.  America always has been shaped by the entertainment industry, but the shift to the digital domain, promulgated by foreign interests, has undermined patriotic solidarity.  We have no main stream.  We do not know who we are, and there is nothing in the future without the vision of the creative minds of American artists and laymen.  The commercial music industry should remain a shining example of America's successes.  Jazz is crucial.  Sitting on a plantation porch, sipping lemonade, and collecting a fortune in rice assets earned on the backs of laboring enslaved Africans isn't the answer.  Only diversity, honesty, and forward thinking can save America.