The Invisible Devil that Should be Gone

I have been preaching relentlessly about the ills of the rail industry since I discovered them.  Having been a model railroader since my youth, the novelty of trains always has been intriguing.  Although few of my handmade layouts ever functioned well, I persisted in building them until I could not take it any longer.  The best running layouts were an .027 mammoth in our attic on McGougan Road, and a small HO empire in our garage on Westchester Drive.  On these two pikes at least the engines ran.  Electrical continuity made its way from the electrified track to the contacts on the wheels of the model locomotives.  The trains actually ran.  When I switched to the "better " nickel silver flex track, they stopped running reliably.  They would hesitate, lurch, and falter.  After scenicking my last HO layout in that Westchester garage, I tore it down with one fell swoop of the axe.  I couldn't take it that all of that work yielded failure.  The track was coated with some black wet oxidant preventing the electricity from flowing to the wheels of the locomotives.  The trains ran like shit.  The mountainous scenery was something to behold, but with the trains not running it was ridiculous.  This was not the last railroad I built.  My last still sits on its side upright in the same garage.  It ran.  I was determined.  I did use the same kind of track, but I purchased new engines with clean wheels.  In the process my father and I had taken the locomotives back to Hayes Hobby shop.  Gentry Hayes attempted to clean the oxidation off of the wheels in vain.  Even a Dremel mototool with a grinding attachment couldn't loosen this evil substance.  I never knew what caused this failure of fun.  Only decades later working in the same garage did I realize that pollutants from the environment are rampant.  In this area of North Carolina pollutants are rife.  They have gotten worse over the years.  After coming back from abroad for twelve years, it has taken two long years to come to terms with this pollution.  Not only do I have allergies I never have had before, each and every day seems like a battle against the elements.  As a wearer of gas permeable hard contact lenses, life can be a challenge.  Add pine pollen to the list of irritants and suddenly life becomes an epic struggle.  There is one other struggle that occurs daily that should not.  We American people have enough worries.  With the "economic crisis" America finally has become a third world country.  It was inevitable.  Without someone looking after her with moral and ethical integrity, the once great nation of America almost overnight has slid into darkness.  Unguided, unled, and unfed our difficult history has returned with a vengeance.  The list is so inane.  Video games.  Television.  Music.  At one time in our history when Ms. Pack Man, Crazy Climber, and Galaxian drew the nation together in amusement, now we have become a disparate band of rogue outlaws.  One only has to turn on the television set to see its newly conceived agenda.  The programming is so far extreme right it almost is unfathomable.  Without spending millions of dollars researching the programming, only can one say that what is being broadcast on television is not good for the American way.  It is extreme.  Easily we can assign that term to radical Islamist terrorists.  Easily we can assign it to today's television programming.  Easily we can assign it to today's video games.  Music no longer matters, but it still is there confusing the populace like seventy virgins.  With all of this distraction there is one other element that in my opinion is complicating life in America.  Unlike our extreme corporate-produced mass media, this element effects us at an even more intimate level.  In certain ways it defies explanation.  To this day and since I have been raging a war against this pollutant, nary has there been even one news article about its ill effects.  It is because the railroads built America.  Necessarily they deserve a certain amount of respect in the annals of American history.  It is when these institutions with the help of newly developing electrical technology become dangerous that a line must be drawn.  No explanations have been rendered for the numerous mass shootings that have occurred in America other than a probable connection with medications.  If there were another element, an antagonist, a culprit that more directly could effect the human mind then the indecision could be lifted.  What is causing America this undue grief?  After being sick with the flu for four days straight and battling those horrific symptoms, again it has become apparent to me that in addition to our daily challenges the American people have been beset with an unfair foe.  I have been battling it head to head from my bedroom, since this is where I have been resigned. To describe "it" is difficult.  Probably it has not been described in words before.  The effects of infrasound have, but the actual entity itself has not.  In this case it is more than just a low frequency sound wave.  I may be unique, because I have a small amount of hearing loss in my left ear.  Probably this came from playing keyboards sitting in front of a drum set on the Carnival Conquest.  As many military veterans know hearing loss occurs as tinnitus.  As many people do not know, and the well established medical community in America will deny tinnitus is created by infrasound.  When there is a low frequency sound wave present the spectrum of hearing loss rings with tinnitus.  This is how I know when such a phenomenon is present.  I can predict an jet or diesel locomotive before anyone actually can hear it, because my left ear begins to ring.  It took me quite a few years to discover this trick.  Upon moving back to Fayetteville, North Carolina it has been quite upsetting that this occurs a majority of the time, because of the mainline of CSX-T.  Several expensive rail studies have been commissioned by our local government, and all of them have been ignored.  It was discovered twenty-eight freight trains travel through downtown Fayetteville every day. We had almost the same amount, when I lived near this same line in Columbus, Ohio.  It was disturbing then, and it is disturbing now.  It would be difficult to say if I didn't experience the tinnitus if I would notice the other physical invasion.  I would.  It is tangible.  As a lucky soul and talented musician I have been blessed to be a part of the four percent of the population who can sense low frequency sound on their skin.  In addition to this I have been the proud recipient of an iridotomy in my right eye allowing the aqueous humor to freely flow between the anterior and posterior chambers of my eye.  Infrasound pushes on the mucous membrane of my eye and forces the fluid to flow allowing me to perceive its frequency.  These are unwelcome gifts.  While sensitivity to sound is a blessing as a performing musician, conversely trying to survive in what now has become the "Great Void of America" is a huge hindrance.  Almost every aspect of my daily life is predicated by this phenomenon, because of where I live.  This just happens to be less then mile from the CSX-T mainline, and roughly two miles from their Milan switching yard.  Throw in the Aberdeen and Rockfish and Norfolk Southern lines and Fayettenam is one great rail whore.  It never stops.  For four days as I have been convalescing in my bedroom, the sound and vibration from the diesel locomotives has been making my life a living hell.  [sic].  This is where the corporate headquarters of CSX-T, a fortune 500 company pioneered by former Secretary of the United States Treasury John Snow, would break into mocking laughter.  The Interstate Commerce Commission assure we can do whatever the fuck we want, and they do.  Federal oversight agencies and boards have turned a blind cheek when it comes to regulation of America's railroads mainly because we are reliant upon STRACNET for our nation's security.  A study that was commissioned by Fayetteville's local government made two recommendations for rail traffic.  One was to build a direct entry into Ft. Bragg from the CSX mainline necessitating a new bridge be built over Cross Creek.  The other was a new interchange in Pembroke eliminating the same time consuming "back up" method of moving trains from Ft. Bragg To Sunny Point.  
When a two mile military train exits Ft. Bragg it must "back up" on the CSX line that runs down Russell Street before being diverted in the correct direction.  This one line could be an indication of how  unregulated CSX really is.  If this one section of track is the backbone of our national security getting military munitions overseas, then how could it be so neglected?  One only has to walk the section of track for a quarter mile to see its poor maintenance.  It is a travesty really.  Broken ties, uneven ballast, half way driven rail spikes.  It is a mockery of our cutting edge military, and yet it persists.  It persists like the continual invasion of CSX engines breaking power axles regulations and basically doing whatever they please despite the invasion of Fayetteville's citizens.  For four days straight I have sat in a room trying to get well, and my one and only companion has been the continual undulating, humming, and disturbing of diesel locomotives seemingly at large.  It never stops. There is no respite.  I have this sound in my head 24/7, and I think they enjoy it.  

Being Sick

A number of interesting things transpire when one is ill.  There are different stages of being ill.  Later forms of illness may merit a doctor visit or a stay in a hospital.  Usually the initial stages of common illness merit a stay at one's own home.  It is here an individual attempts to weather the storm and convalesce into a normal healthy individual.  Isolation in one's home can be interesting.  Depending upon the number of occupants at one's home the isolation could or could not be beneficial.  I recently have found that this isolation is useful.  When one is ill and not operating at full capacity, life is different.  One's environment becomes paramount in providing a certain amount of comfort to weather the storm.  Because illness means we feel bad it is important to have these thing in place to ease getting well.  Metaphorically we begin to interact with our environment on a much more intimate manner.  Our ability to provide a social perimeter is weakened.  We begin to rely upon our immediate environment to provide us the comforts we may take for granted while we are well.  With this isolation from society it is interesting how the things we have chosen to surround us provide for us in our illness.  Do they reinforce the things that are important to our well being, or do they distract from our chi with superficial distractions?  I always have felt the process of surrounding one's self with life's most important things is paramount.  Eliminating life's distractions, short comings, and disappointments is crucial to beginning to reinforce life's successes.  At this point in history in America there is not much helping anyone advance in their individual lives.  Corporate America has abandoned the common man.  The arts are moot.  It seems our little individual surroundings are all that we have to propel us forward in our lives.  Via America.  We have not changed.  Get what we can get.  In a Socialist society things are different.  People look out for one another, because it is the right thing to do.  People do not look out for one another in America.  In fact people do not matter anymore.  We are indispensable, unusable, and a burden.  This is what America's broken system of education has fostered and for a reason.  It was not without purposeful effort that employees of state and federal government decided to turn a blind eye to corruption and influence.  While they siphoned off their piece of the pie, policies and practices of rule turned a blind eye to the constituency they were created to serve.  This is Capitalism.  Capitalism is a segregating warrior that effectively has stratified America.  When reflecting upon the most influential factors that have unified America through her years of strife, it is disconcerting.  Music has been influential.  Television has been influential.  Diesel railroad freight traffic has not been influential.  Diesel railroad freight traffic has been instrumental in the growth of America as has been its predecessor, steam.  As has happened in the past at particular point of political conversion, the railroads once again have taken precedence over the common man.  For over a decade freight rail traffic has increased as government oversight has decreased.  Catastrophic accidents have begun to occur killing many innocent people.  The Interstate Commerce Commission is standing by their man.  "Freight rail is supreme, especially in transporting that newly harvested oil in North Dakota."  It doesn't matter that those old tanker cars are not certified for hazardous materials.  This only is a minute glimpse of how many of the departments defined in the hierarchy of our federal government casually have looked the other way as private businesses have flourished.  These corporate monopolies have little to do with the day to day well being of the American people.  If I had to make a choice of whether I wanted diesel rail freight to continue, or if I wanted my domicile to once again be healthy, I would choose the later.  I would choose to convalesce in my home without the rude and selfish invasion of sound and electromagnetic wave after wave.  Battling my strain of the flu would pale in comparison to fighting these evil demons.  In fact the majority of the time I feel bad is not from my symptoms of the flu.  It is because they grossly being exaggerated by these massive and consistent infrasound waves.  If I described it figuratively it is like having a little bird standing on your shoulder who never shuts up.  It is a consistent movement, disturbance, and distraction from the zen peacefulness we need every day to heal our bodies and minds from the onslaught of mass media.  I am not sure America ever will recover. 

Unnecessary TEXT, not SEX.

Quite a few things are upon my mind.  The first is in response to posts on social media that are portraying texting automobile deaths.  
My only thought about this is if texting never were invented, these adolescents would not be dead.  It has been reported that texting related deaths now have surpassed alcohol related deaths in automobiles.  Candidly I remember when past North Carolina governor Jim Hunt changed the acronym D.U.I to D.W.I and instated a mandatory two night stay in jail for such an infraction.  Driving while impaired was implemented and overnight the drinking culture at UNC Chapel Hill changed.  The place that consumed more beer per capita in the entire United States quickly had to regroup.  Many years later an almost ridiculous practice now has surpassed alcohol related automobile deaths.  The production and use of alcohol is intertwined with man's history.  Texting is not.  Texting is a novelty, and there is no better novelty to act as a metaphor for the sheer disrespect America has for her young people.  Let's create a lucrative communications device that will kill our young adults.  What was the concept?  Who dropped the ball?  Who exactly was responsible for enacting the proper protocol for this wireless communications invention?  It will not be the first time agencies in our federal government have faltered.  FEMA usually takes most of the blame, but others are guilty for looking the other way.  Was is the responsibility of the Federal Communications Commission to recommend legislation to regulate wireless communications?  If they operate anything like the DOT, the best interest of the American people is not their concern.  What is of concern via corporate America is interstate commerce.  Anything that fuels the economy through very specific corporate channels is their concern.  How it effects the people of America is the absolute last thing on their minds.  People are dying.  People have been dying for a long periods of time, and they are overlooked.  It should raise the bar somewhat that young people needlessly are dying for such a ridiculous thing.  

My Mind is Spinning Like the Wheel of Fortune

Really my mind is spinning, spinning, spinning, and not like the great popular song "Wheel of Fortune."  It is spinning or reeling rather trying to try to avoid the lobs of B.S. that have come my way this month.  Let me clarify.  B.S. or bullshit I should define as "jive."  Let me clarify.  The definition of jive is something that is worthless or more problematic, deceptive.  Satan is deceptive.  He masquerades as goodness but really is evil.  The old adage, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,"  I have found in my experience to be true.  One must lie in the bed with evil to fight it.  It is tiresome.  Sometimes I just want to be good and kind. I don't want to expend my now limited creativity dealing with evil or more precisely jive competition.  How is "jive" competition different than true competition?  Jive competition knowingly is fake.  A fake is a forgery or a sham.  Professional Wrestling is jive.  It is okay, because they are not hurting anyone with their harmless exhibitions.  Jive is a word that today seems to be defining the music industry.  In a video that is circulating in social media, pop artists are being exposed as lip sync-ers.  I do not have a problem with Madonna or Britney lip syncing.  Their shows are not meant to be vocal extravaganzas.  They are burlesque shows, shows that are meant to titillate sexually.  As a professional musician never have I found sexuality to be component of any music with which I have been involved.  Maybe this is abnormal or unique.  While romance has been at times a crucial concept in music composition and performance, never have I acknowledged that music could be a whore of sexuality.  Music is the breath of God, and to reduce it to a hedonistic vehicle for self gratification would be a sin.  It happens every day.  It has been happening.  I have ignored it.  I know innately never I have been attracted to the music of Motown.  I respect it, but four singing sweating black men do not turn me on.  There only has been one female pop artist that even suggested that sexual arousal was possible from a singer.  That was Shania Twain singing "You're the One."  Listening to that Canadian country brogue whisper in your ear was enough to get your juices flowing.  Her performance was not sexual.  It was intimate and sincere, something that long has left the music industry.  The historical concept of country music long has left country music.  The innate melancholy of traditional country music has been replaced by selfish hedonism.  When traditions in America that have been sincere and earnest become selfish and sexual, then they can be considered "jive."  They are not sincere efforts at producing an art form, something meant to entertain and enlighten.  Let me clarify.  Talent.  What is talent?  Talent doesn't seem to be important any more in the music industry.  Talent once in America was the thing that earned revenue.  It was an element that transcended humanity and crossed over to the spiritual realm.  We all know that the spiritual realm in America has been on the chopping block for a decade.  Radical right wing extremists have tried to exorcise God from every corner of our country.  Consequently tried and true formulas for entertainment and commerce have been rendered impotent.  This is why the economy is floundering in America.  This is why the dollar is weak.  We have no clue about what America is, because she has changed.  It could be said she has changed for the worse.  Was it a good idea to change the rules of the game leaving its players running in circles chasing an invisible rabbit?  I find it troubling trying to figure out the new America.  I find it infuriating dealing with "jive."  Having spent the entirety of my life studying and playing music, it is insulting again and again as a true musician being disrespected by jive.  The rules have been changed, and traditional talent no longer is important in music production.  Again what exactly is talent?  Talent is a transcendent entity that allows the experiences of an artist extemporaneously to manifest themselves as wisdom in a particular medium.  Once this practice of communicating with an audience at an intimate level was the desired vehicle for entertainment.  It almost guaranteed that the show would be a success.  One only has to watch the STAX/Volt Live in Norway DVD  circa 1968 to witness this phenomenon.  There is something happening that to the untrained eye seems inexplicable.  It is only a band and some singers, but.....   The songs they are singing are metaphors for life's experiences.  They communicate almost directly to and from the human soul.  That is why it is called soul music.  America does not have much soul music today.  That is because the rules have changed.  What used to be the cash cow now has been deemed the enemy.  That is because it takes talent to write and perform soul music.  One must possess a soul to engage in it.  A soul.  Let me clarify.  Soul is emotional or intellectual energy or intensity especially as revealed in a work of art or an artistic performance.  Let me clarify.  In short this means a performer or artist must have "something to say."  They must feel an urging to express themselves for some reason.  The reasons for this urge can be diverse, but without this emotional or intellectual energy driving them the product will be lackluster.  Talent comes in when this urge is recognized, a medium is chosen, and a performer seeks to become artistic in their rendering.  They must hone their skills first into craft and then into art.  America is to ADD to have time for this anymore.  It's all about immediate gratification.  Upon coming back to America from over a decade abroad, it is like hitting a brick wall.  The generation that understood and consumed artistic culture almost is extinct.  America's new youth only have learned from MP3's or streaming media.  It is a shite state of affairs.  What is phenomenal about the STAX/Volt revue is that each and every performer on stage is "feeling" the musical flow of energy.  That means that the songs or vehicles of music are well-written, naturally expressive, and have something to say.  They "flow."  The song from beginning to end is a flow of energy that ebbs and flows.  It creates tension and then seeks to release it.  It is a near perfect metaphor for most musical compositions.  There is a beginning and an end and something interesting happens in between.  An analogy can be made with the three great composers of the Classical Era.  In a symphony the piece builds and builds to a climax.  At the climax each would offer an extremely diverse denouement.  Franz Josef Haydn would make a joke.  Ludwig Von Beethoven would dazzle you with his fireworks.  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would treat you to the most beautiful entity he could devise.  Good popular music seeks to do the same thing if it is not "jive."  Jive in this context is a non-musical enterprise trying their best to capitalize in the music industry.  They have failed.  It is disheartening to see musicians with integrity become diverted down this road.  Apparently it is easy to sell out.  Let me clarify.  I observed a skilled group of musicians last night completely drop the ball.  It was heinous.  Much like singer and guitarist Dominick Allen, they masqueraded as something else.  They ignored the historical meanings of the songs and made them selfish vehicles for themselves.  They faked it, and it was noticeable.  Not only was it noticeable it was grotesque.  There was not one ounce of music made at this concert. How can I say such a thing with notes flying around all night?  The quintessential flow of energy that is necessary in a musical performance was absent.  Whether it was the arrangements that were lacking or the acoustic of the arena, something did not allow a drop of sincerity to find its way to this concert.  It was "jive" with a capital "J."  It was weak, it was tepid, and it was jive.  Fake.  Deceptive.  I don't really understand how a group of talented musicians can "lay down" like this on the job.  Let me clarify.  The first time I heard an instrumentalist play like this was on a cruise ship.  I had no idea there could be such a musical concept that would allow singers or instrumentalists to blow puffs of air in your ear like a fairy.  All my life musicians have sought to expend energy from their souls by playing out.  The very idea of using music as a vehicle to weaken the fabric of life is unsettling to me.  It is wrong.  Art to does not seek to make you weak.  It seeks to empower you.  God does not seek to make you weak.  He seeks to empower you.  This kind of music is a disgrace, and if professional players need this kind of gratification they should seek it elsewhere.  The field of music is a professional area, and the meek and lowly do not qualify.  It takes gumption to be a musician, not submission.  

Thanksgiving is Over

Thanksgiving is over.  The landscape that is looming around me seems like a minefield laced with altercation.  We have from now until the evening of December 25th to assemble all of our Christmas decorations and presents.  It has been programmed for decades fueling retail in America.  Does the Christmas season, the celebration of Jesus' birth, still have relevance to the economy in America?  Its impact greatly has waned in recent years.  I wish I could remember the exact date in history the Christmas season was rendered moot because of economic stress and inequality.  For years wages have not kept up with inflation.  Corporate America vivaciously out sourced our jobs and thus our incomes to the Indians and the Chinese.  They would work for a small percentage of our wages which at one time were a part of the "American Dream."  We in America unlike third world countries once were afforded civil liberties, economic opportunities, and a social security that long have been left by the wayside.  The turmoil of Viet Nam in America has returned.  The glamour of war has worn thin, and the reality of war starkly has presented itself.  The Veteran's Administration like most governmental social program grossly was unprepared.  Like FEMA floundered at the onset of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, the VA like our entire Congress has abandoned the citizens they are supposed to represent.  With indignation white supremacists fully have empowered themselves over the rest of the country inviting a coup.  How else will the corruption stop?  It if humorous to me that these staid, robotic, antagonists feel they are immune from such a thing.  How long will a comfortable nest in Washington's congressional buildings shield them from reality?  Certainly an angry looting mob will have no success intimidating Washington.  Such an entity only will reinforce their legislative power over us.  Republicans only defeat Democrats with their encyclopedic knowledge of the law.  They manipulate language to create dissent in legislation meant actually to aid the citizens of America.  They do not want to aid the citizens of America.  They want to continue to empower themselves at all cost.  How long can this continue?  How long will this continue?  The contingency capable of electing democrats to Congress failed to show up at the polls.  After witnessing an angry mob in Ferguson Missouri burn their own town, my opinion about some minorities in America has been sealed.  I have been witnessing it first hand for several years where I live.  I have tried my best to believe that all men are created equal.  Living in America today it is evident to me that while we may have been created equal, many have been left behind in terms of what must be education.  I can't believe the ignorance I see daily.  I feel very isolated and also persecuted.  If I wear the wrong thing to the grocery store, I am a sitting duck for grifters.  They see someone not dressed like a ghetto rat or a construction worker, and they assume you have money to spare.  I consciously have to remind myself not to wear any of my clothing purchased while working on cruise ships.  It is too happy.  It is not ostentatious.  It is not flamboyant.  It represents something other than the dire straights facing most Americans today.  I enjoy fitting into the masses.  I like living in a trench.  Today I like consciously to discard most of the things that are important to me, because it makes my emotional life more tolerable.  When I try to be creative like I once was, it creates a drowning wrinkle in the local status quo.  I feel it wrap around me like the angle of death.  If I am sleeping, unguarded, and subconscious often I feel physical pain on my body.  I awake to this most days with an intimidating nightmare fresh in my mind.  Imagine two (or rather one) distinct source that has the ability to bully my creative being and stalk me in my sleep.  This is why I choose to avoid at all cost the musical practices that have sustained my mind and soul for fifty-two years.  I do not want any longer my creative impetus and emotional output to become entertainment for the man.  This is not what music used to be.  A perfect metaphor for this sacrilege was a gig I played recently at a local country club.  Unbeknownst to me one member of the quartet gravely had been ill the three weeks prior to the job.  Evidently he still was reeling from this strain of flu.  The scotch didn't help.  When we finished our first tune of the night, after we had stopped playing he continued for almost two minutes with his eyes closed oblivious.  The entire evening he phased in and out turning the beat around, dropping out, and playing on his on.  I performed in spite of this intrusive stimuli.  Suddenly in a few minutes my job of playing quality jazz music on the piano to the best of my ability changed to trying to play quality jazz music against almost insurmountable odds.  My thoughts were distracted from my primary responsibility of remembering and playing tunes.  Instead they at a second to second level became desperate trying to hold together a song being performed in two different meters.  Constantly I had to listen to this debacle and second by second choose with whom I was going to play.  It was extremely unpleasant.  It was not so unpleasant to me as a player.  It was embarrassing to the audience who were sitting so close to us.  Interestingly at the end of the evening the ultimate irony took place.  Like the man does to us each and every day, these people enjoyed the set like it was being performed normally.  The drama that was ensuing was entertaining and gratifying to them.  With no thought of the strife and difficulty that was being placed upon me, I was put into my place once again.  No need to preach to the choir.  Suck it up and take your money home.  I believe that in modern American entertainment this has become the chosen vehicle.  No longer is art important, because that means that we must acknowledge an artist as being empowered and thus monetarily valuable.  The man does not want this anymore.  They made a conscious decision to kill the honest and creative force of American music and replace it with blasphemy.  It seems our entire nation is operating at this level low.  Simply turn on a reality show on the tube.  

Smooth Jazz

Never have I really liked the term "Smooth Jazz."  Vaguely I remember it seeping into the public consciousness in Columbus Ohio back in the late l990's.  It's major artist was trumpeter Rick Braun.  Having played cruise ship in Australia, I am familiar with the Sydney pop opera scene.  I have played piano for scores of these artists, and I understand the repertoire.  There is a sentiment present in the music that is used as a vehicle for music performance.  If the artist taps into that potential, the success of their show is assured.  In this way the term "standard" can be understood.  There is a standard repertoire in varying styles of music.  In Motown inevitably you will play "My Girl,"  "I'll Be There," "Can't Help Myself," and others.  In Pop Opera inevitably you will play "Nessun Dorma," "Granada," and others.  In Swing you will play the Rat Pack's repertoire.  It's not rocket science.  Aside from these mainstream and reliable sources, there are other styles of music.  I would call these radio styles, because they are recognized by Billboard Magazine and other record labels.  It is rare to hear this music on a ship, unless a particular artist is guesting on a charter cruise.  Where does "Smooth Jazz" fit in? This term was coined specifically to promote careers in music.  It's roots are in music that is more developed and sophisticated than itself.  It is a derivative.  Derivative.  Pop is derivative.  It seems that taking an artistic product and dumbing it down for the public has become vogue in America.  There was a time when this was not necessary, but then again America used to be an adult country.  Now we are a nation of adolescents, and adolescents living in the year 2014 because of the failure of public education have no knowledge of America's art music.  Perhaps to play music it is necessary to dumb down what once was an acceptable level of performance.  What I object to in Smooth Jazz is that the value of the music is secondary to the Razzle Dazzle.  While in most instances the music is good enough, it as an amalgam of songs from varying artists that satisfy a chosen need.  The need is that the music must be a vehicle for a particular performer.  While this obviously is not uncommon in the music business, traditionally songwriters and arrangers were much more involved in the process.  This is not the case with most Smooth Jazz.  It is interesting to contrast Smooth Jazz with two leading jazz fusion bands that have been pioneering in music.  What is the difference?  The difference is their repertoire.  Both the Jeff Lorber Fusion and Spyro Gyra each play their own original material.  Not only do they play their own original material, that original material is skillful and highly developed.  It is what has ensured their successes as bands in America.  This nugget of information clarifies my ongoing rant against pop music in America.  The once thriving and supported venue of songwriting has dissipated.  Musical composition and arranging has taken a backseat to an army of wannabe performers who have circumvented the processes necessary for becoming an artist.  When I listen to the Jeff Lorber Fusion, which I have done since 1980 I hear a highly developed compositional sense that is coming from a specific place in Jeff Lorber's mind and soul.  He crafts songs, verses, choruses, and solos that compositionally all fit together like a sonata.  His songs simply are not merely vehicles for personal gratification.  While he enjoys playing them they owe a debt to other entities in this world besides selfish performers.  We live in an artificial age in America that has been ushered in by Steve Jobs.  Effectively he shifted our consciousness as a nation from humanity to cyborg.  We have fused with our machines rendering the real humanities extinct.  What is going to happen when the electromagnetic vortices in the earth erupt disabling our electronic systems?  While bells, whistles, and apps are entertaining they in no way ever will be able protect mankind from the world's destiny.  In my eyes just as I have changed my opinion about Barry Gordey's Motown, it makes the survivalists of America a little more respectable.  Are you going to entrust the security of your future life to a microprocessor?  As well musical artists should not entrust their careers to cheaply made and produced children's lullabies.  The composition lives in the time it takes to compose it.  This is what life is, yet we have been programed as an attention deprived, violent, and sexually confused child.  Adult life as we know it is over in America, and I don't like it much.  

Pop Music, The Hollow Egg of America

I am at an unusual point in my life.  I am somewhat of a caregiver.  Not completely, but now I know how it feels.  I cook, and oddly enough I enjoy it.  Cooking, despite all odds and except when done poorly and without thought, always is a triumph of the human spirit.  I guess the phrase, "You are what you eat" really is true.  Music on the other hand now offers me nothing.  Ironically it has served me my entire life, yet now I cannot remember why ever I pursued music.  A large part of it was selfishness.  I wanted to be successful.  I wanted a mate.  I wanted to be popular.  Largely it worked, but I can't remember any of it anymore.  I can't remember performing music in my youth, and because I have matured into an adult now I pursue music for different reasons.  As you age you become so familiar with yourself that you tire of yourself.  I am not interesting to me anymore.  Therefore the gift or rather voice of music I have possessed my entire life has become silent.  There has to be a reason for you to pursue music.  It is a need to express emotion and thought.  You have to have something to say.  Currently I don't.  In the year 2014 with our current socioeconomic and political systems, I have no desire to say anything because it will be met with deaf ears.  What I have said during my life time has been rendered anachronistic.  I am out-of-date.  The voice of jazz has changed again.  I observed this first hand when the British Invasion and Elvis Presley ushered in Rock 'n' Roll in America.  Traditional swing could not help but be effected by the new rhythm.  Slowly over time old school swing became anachronistic, and the aggressive shuffle of the new music found itself the new foundation of jazz music.  Rock 'n' Roll cribbed jazz with nary a tilt of the hat.  The sentences in jazz music became subsidiary to a mindless droning quarter note time feel.  The actual conversation, the content of jazz, became the whore of what was intended to be a musical dance form.  Always I have said instead of disrespecting America's only true art form, why not just do something else?  The cruise industry is notorious for this disrespect, and I have dealt with it in some capacity since beginning in the cruise industry in 2002.  I have come to terms with this callous and often homosexual disrespect of American jazz.  I have learned that the expression in real jazz music does not represent the aesthetic of homosexuality.  I have tried to separate music from this choice, but I cannot.  It is part of the cause of the disrespect of jazz.  Jazz has been exploited because it is there.  It is a large body of work that is well known as America's unique offering to the field of music.  Just as I feel one's sexuality should not be a platform for one's existence, I feel jazz music deserves greater respect than being used as a whore.  That is exactly what it is today, but in a different way than Rock 'n' Rolls influence.  Now it is being exploited as pop music.  Modern jazz musicians including iconic figures are now playing jazz with a different rhythmic feel.  They are using the feel and thus technique of realizing pop.  Over time I have come to understand that this is a conscious effort.  Modern jazz musicians explicitly know that old school jazz fails with the greater public.  Why is this?  It is because we have grown ignorant and immature as a populace.  This also has been a conscious effort.  It became a conscious effort during George W.' presidency with or without his knowledge.  Almost all of Saul Alinsky's predictions have been implemented with the education and respect of America's youth first on the chopping block.  Systematically and purposely the government has undermined public education and began a campaign to exploit money from America's youth.  They also have become whores.  It seems America is anxious to fuck anything and everything she can for monetary gain.  Posthumously George Carlin still speaks of this ill in his comedy sketches.  He talks often of being screwed by the man or Uncle Sam.  In my short lifetime I had managed to avoid this sentiment until now.  Now I feel it, and I feel it most deeply in the exploitation of my chosen vocation, music, specifically jazz music.  It infuriates me that no living person today seems to be aware that the jazz music being marketed today is fake.  It is pop disguised as jazz.  It is using the language of jazz for a different purpose than traditional jazz.  Traditional jazz like many American traditions was serious.  It was adult.  It dealt with real everyday issues of the American situation.  It dealt with civil rights.  It dealt with persecution.  It dealt with slavery possibly at its root element.  Slavery.  Slavery is not a happy subject especially today.  Certainly it is not a sentiment that openly will be embraced by the music industry.  The same could be said for the blues.  It is not often we hear blues music anymore, and yet one of the most prolific and successful rock bands of all time, Led Zeppelin, used the feeling of the blues prominently in their music.  The feeling of pop music for a while was an enigma to me, but then I realized what it was.  It is vanity.  It is a vanity that openly and happily exploits anything and everything it possibly can from the body of American music.  It solely is used for personal gain.  Selfishly discarding the content, value, and talent of artistic music it purports to be the same, but it is not.  It is an eggshell that masquerades as the egg.  It ignores the processes necessary for producing the egg.  It is a hollow egg, but it seems few people today including our miseducated and brainwashed youth take the time to confront the egg itself.  They will be disappointed, because there is nothing there.  We have become a fascist country.  It only was a matter of time before the influences of Communism made their way across our great oceans. It is not a very long leap across the Bering Straight.  Unsettlingly Vladimir Putin has returned to the Presidency in Russia.  Many are predicting a new cold war.  Fascism has entered America the same way it entered Italy, through fascist leaders.  The timeline can be traced back  to the George W. Bush presidency.  During this time warmongering became a main tenant of American existence.  Not only did war sanction privileged presidential executive powers, it fueled Haliburton.  Both our president and vice-president instigated fascism in American politics.  We have yet to recover, but their message bellows on with the pointless widespread criticism of Barak Obama.  American politics like American pop music is a hollow eggshell.  There no longer is an egg, and it seems to be wanted.  The question must be asked how are we going to survive as a nation with no philosophy?  How are we to survive with no unifying principles upon which to live our lives?  It will devolve into anarchy and the government will be overthrown.  I guess it was just a matter of time before European historical precedents came to America.  First we must get rid of pop music, the propaganda of fascism.  Only then do we have a chance.  

Historical Television

The Bob Newhart Show.  The Mary Tyler Moore Show.  The Partridge Family.  The Brady Bunch.  Love American Style.  Man with a Suitcase.  The Wild Wild West.  Star Trek.  You could plan your week by what was on television in the afternoon and evening. Each of these seminal shows had music recorded by live musicians.  This was before the advent of the PC and the MIDI sequencer.  There were no VST plug ins.  I remember when Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine first used the sequencer on stage.  There was no looking back.  I remember that a record executive heard that quantized rhythm, and decided that it was the new direction of music.  Now we are stuck with pop.  Not only is my adversary, my foe, and my opponent the defense of America, it is the musically illiterate.  Today that is just about everyone.  Each day I wake I want to crawl back into bed, close my eyes, and live in my subconscious mind.  It is more pleasant than this world.  When I time my sleep correctly, I dream of much more interesting things than with what I am confronted each day.  Driving.  Surrounded by the uneducated.  Buying.  It is a fruitless life.  When I dream I solve problems.  I play politics.  I fight for my life.  Whence these scenarios come I do not know.  Only I can think that they are things that may transpire in the future.  Writing music entitles me to nothing.  I have boxes full of music.  I have music that will become America's next chapter of contemporary classical music.  It has not been written before.  It is the natural evolution of modern music.  It cements in contract the sentiments of America or at least one American that has witnessed the twentieth century.  When I was motivated to be a musician, how did I progress?  These days I am self-deprecating.  My fingers are stiff.  My physical kinesthesia is nonexistent, because of standing waves in my home.  The motions of my extremities once that were comforting and provided me musical skill are dormant.  I can't feel.  With no music in the environment and absent kinesthesia, it is easy to understand why I am depressed.  These used to be the things that made me happy.  Without them, what is left?  What is a human being without vibration?  Emotion.  Thought.  Electrical activity that controls the organs.  It is easy to understand why people are killing each other.  When you take away the necessary systems of the human body to function, then what is left?  What is left are the empty eyes of serial killers with no conscience.  Zombies.  Republicans.  What I need is sleep.  I want to recharge.  I want to escape.  

The Death of the Sound Stage

I have been musically depressed lately.  Again I feel like a broken record.  Perhaps a broken record is the wrong analogy.  Maybe I should say a scratched record.  A scratch in the vinyl grooves causes your turntable's needle to get stuck repeating one particular passage of music.  Often I feel this way when criticizing America's music industry or rather lack of a music industry.  I am so out of touch with commercial music I don't know what is happening.  I have read a missive published on the world wide web that purports to tell it like it really is.  The bottom line I guess is in the internet, the MP3, and streaming music services have put record companies out of business.  I don't know if record stores still exist today.  I have not been to the mall lately to see if Fye still is there.  Rather than singing the ills of pop music again, I rather would simply explain the differences in America's music industry from past to present.  It is easier to understand why I am musically depressed.  It is tangible.  First having been born in l962, I am old enough to remember the twentieth century.  Because I have studied music at the collegiate level, something I have forgotten, I know first hand how music and its industry has changed in America.  While I assume other cultural practices also have diminished or become extinct, still I fail to understand how this has happened to music.  Looking at the film and television industries it becomes a little clearer.  Both of these mediums at one time largely used music as a major component of their product.  It was natural.  The marriage of music to drama heightened their achievement.  Only can I say that music education in America must have faltered.  At one time in my life I was involved in academia.  I have been a Graduate Teaching Assistant twice and an adjunct professor.  Also I have completed all of my course work for a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Composition at The Ohio State University.  This chapter of my life far is in the past.  Barely can I remember it, because I do not have things in my immediate surroundings that support it.  While I do listen to WCPE and my own recordings at times, still I am deprived of positive music reinforcement.  That huge vacuum is coming from television.  When I grew up television was rife with cutting edge commercial music.  There was a viable industry, and thus competition was high.  This created a vital musical canvass upon which our lives were drawn.  Music was like air.  It was all over Saturday morning cartoons.  It was in prime time.  It was in made-for-television movies.  Do these still exist?  I am so digusted with modern television that I am depressed.  During my life I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by high level creative music.  It was on the radio, and it was on television.  Just to name a few television shows that had REAL music, there were crime dramas.  I mean real crime dramas.  Tony Baretta, Barnaby Jones, Joe Mannix, The Rockford Files are just a few, and I almost can remember the theme music from each of these.  Highly they were influenced by jazz music and included elements of funk and soul.  Quincy Jones was a large influence on this music.  Off the top of my head I can think of two African-American shows with theme songs written and produced by Q.J.  Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, and Sanford and Son.  I cannot think of one theme from modern television programming that sticks in my ear.  That is why television today is not effective.  We would be better to put our TVs in the garbage bin, just as we would be happier never logging into Facebook.  Still it is a hard habit to break.  Always I have been a late night TV junkie, but that is changing.  For several weeks there has been absolutely nothing worth watching on my 70 some cable channels.  Nothing.  Time Warner's stock shares should be at rock bottom because their programming is terrible.  At one point it was reported that the internet was responsible for the demise of television.  Possibly this is true, but it doesn't seem possible.  As Zuckerberg struggles to sell advertising to satisfy his stock holders, are others streaming television through their iPads?  I do know that the bandwidth on these newer devices allows this feature.  I have not yet delved into this practice, because I do not agree with the iPhone.  Watching Americans staring at their palms instead of interacting with one another truly is ridiculous.  With compromised eyesight from the disease kerataconus and two resultant cornea transplants,  I want my text bigger, not minute.  There are other underlying issues with music other than its absence.  Music as I have expressed before no longer possesses the sonic capabilities it once had.  That because the airwaves in America all ready are filled with noise.  Not all of it is audible.  Resultantly music that once was capable of making us feel good no longer as the same power.  While I must digress at Mr. Stravinsky's guffaw that music is not related to human emotion, it is.  It is surprising to me one of my favorite composers would think such a thing.  This traditionally has been on of the thing music offers to humanity.  In jazz terms let's say the ballad and the up tune.  In music theory let's say tension and release.  I feel ridiculous qualifying the validity of music, something that has been deemed a Liberal Art since ancient Greece.    Then again America did not have a contingency that wanted to eradicate God and change history.  It is a shite state of affairs.  Fundamentally quality of life in America now must be purchased, and it is expensive.  The people of America are miserable, at least they are in my town.  We are an exception living in the refuse of the world's largest military complex.  With its presence comes its supporting infrastructure, and that is planes, trains, and automobiles.  It is non stop, and with their noise music does not stand a chance.  Perhaps this is why music has waned so dramatically.  I feel it.  Instinctually I have absolutely no desire or motivation to pursue music.  As jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollens now says, music is pointless.  He believes he wasted his life.  I will not go so far as to say I have wasted my life, but in retrospect now I would have chosen a more needed vocation.  I am more intrigued with cooking these days, because you get to eat what make.  It used to be that music would make you feel good, and that feeling would translate over a longer period of time.  That is not happening today. The dynamic of our air is so polluted, music does not stand a chance of creating vibration anymore.  Once it did.  Unless this changes, there will be no musical renaissance.  We will continue to stare at our palms while relying upon a cyber existence.  All ready this process has taken over my life.  My waking hours are so overridden by the military industrial complex, my soul no longer possesses the will to extend my own humanity.  I have given up, because the opponent to too large.  The defense of America is my adversary, my foe, and my opponent.  With no substance or life, what are we defending?  All ready America is a shell of her former self.  We have no products, and the products we once did have been been eradicated.  Once we had music.  

Evil on Earth

For anyone interested and those all ready familiar with the book of Revelations, some shit is going to go down in the future.  I was confused about the Second Coming of Christ.  I mistakenly thought Satan was going to make an appearance on earth vested in a human being.  There is no second coming of Satan.  All ready he is here.  All ready he is manifested in millions of human beings.  I have been in a spiritual vacuum working in the cruise industry.  It is not a vacuum devoid of spirituality, it is a vacuum of love that seems impenetrable by the evil which surrounds me daily in America.  I am scolded by my family that working in this industry for over a decade has sheltered me from reality.  It is not so.  Contrarily I have both lived and worked in some of the most upstanding places in the world.  There must be a better word, but to find it I must point of the shortcomings of my own country, America.  There are many, and these many were not always in existence.  Truly as an intelligent and Christian nation we have faltered.  I can't believe my eyes and ears most of the time.  Each day when I wake in a secure paid for home, I feel less secure than floating in the ocean in a big hunk of metal.  Why?  The reason is not only am I working in the hospitality industry, but I am working in an environment that is humane.  Not only does it earn its revenue from its guests, truly it cares about their wellbeing.  It would be easy to say that this care comes from a desire for revenue, and it would be true to some extent.  Surprisingly unlike the United States, people cruising are well adjusted happiness seeking beings.  They want to live a stress free happy life.  I don't find that to be the case in America.  It used to be.  Instead of seeing well adjusted Christian people I see violent evil people.  I am around people like I was in junior high school that want your life to be less pleasant than it is.  They scream sour grapes around seemingly content people.  I see people who enjoy inflicting pain and sorrow on others.  I see greed.  I see  racism.   It is exactly the same as it was when I grew up here in the late l970's before Ronald Reagan became president.  Luckily I was able to experience the glory of the l980's, a decade when an actor was  President.  Did it make a difference in the arts?  Yes.  the l980's were a pinnacle decade of artistic expansion.  Film, music, and commodities were at a high point and to many peoples' surprise Trickle Down Economics worked.  It worked because the money that merchants and manufacturers made was invested back into the products and their means of production.  It was not filed away in some bank in Grand Cayman to mold and strangle the U.S. economy.  For the economy to function marginally, capital needs to flow.  It cannot sit unused in the wealthys' banks.  The 80's were a decade of love and romance.  The entire country circulated around this heterosexual interaction.  It was the basis of life.  Who cared about money if there was not romantic interest with which to share?  American has changed.  I do not see this romance anymore.  Films, music, and products no longer reflect romantic sentiments.  I think that this particular sentiment no longer exists in mainstream America.  We have become jaded and rude.  I myself, although I want such a thing, am having trouble justifying my sentiment.  My conscience tells me to give up on it, and I may.  The music I have written is based upon this feeling.  It is rife with emotion, both happy and sad.  It really is pure emotion in sound.  It is intimacy, intimacy I have been deprived of since working in the cruise industry.  I don't mind.  It has been a trade off.  I was able to find sexual fulfillment from prostitutes, and spiritual and artistic fulfillment from music.  Now I have neither, and I am unhappy.  I live in a country who has discarded music from its consciousness, and who has become so ridiculously far right that any human need or weakness is eradicated.  Not knowing what puritan roots are, it must be what I am experiencing.  It is not human.  The force that has occupied America plainly and simply is trying to eradicate God.  What an idea.  How can any human being have an ego so large that they entertain the idea of usurping God?  I can't help but think that I wish He would show up and defend Himself.  I am sure many also feel this way.  Where is God when you need Him?  I do not have room to complain, because I actively do not worship.  Still I have a deep and great reverence for the presence of God in human life.  We cannot exist without It.  I thank Him occasionally for good things that happen, and usually they are small.  I understand I am not fulfilling my duty as a Christian by worshipping God in church each Sunday.  Still I believe and need Christ.  It is because I have come to realize there is evil all around me.  While I have gotten better at warding off Satan, in others it feels like a lost cause.  It is everywhere.  Certainly President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are the only symbols of God tangibly I can recognize.  Television is rife with untruth and hypocrisy.  I turn on a news program and see Congressmen lying to the American people.  It is strong, and I don't like it.  I miss my vacuum of the cruise industry, because I have not felt cared for in two years.  I am the good guy.  I write real music.  I am an artist.  The music I have written satisfies the requirements of art.  It will sustain the test of time.  As much music does not attempt, my work synthesizes many fundamental American ideals.  In ways it is nationalist.  Like Tchaikovsky's work, it represents patriotic sentiments.  Since 2005 I have experienced life away from America, and have written more American music than many composers.  I do not market it, because our country is too ignorant to understand it.  It's a bitch being ahead of your time, and perhaps the course history has shown that other countries will be more capable of understanding it.  It is not a hollow shell of pop music.  It is the sorrow of Handel, the joy of Copland, and the machismo of Beethoven.  It is alive, full, and human, something that the American people are not.  It is disappointing being back in America.  

A Broken Record

Each and every time I blog about this subject, I feel like a broken record.  A broken record just repeats itself ad nauseam until finally the motor dies.  The music on the records fails to reach its audience.  The question reveals itself as, "Why?"  Why does it fail to reach its audience?  If the record repeats itself in a time loop reiterating its message again and again, then the question must be asked, "Why isn't its message being heard, understood, and acted upon?"  I am finding this out firsthand.  The midterm elections in America has presented this question.  "Why isn't the message being heard, understood, and acted upon?"  For the election the answer is simple.  It had the lowest voter turn out of 37% since the l940's.  As I blogged earlier, without Barack Obama's rousted minority vote, this contingency was not interested in securing the democrats their majority in the Senate.  Damn.  All they had to do was go to the polls and vote.  It is interesting no one was inclined to do so.  I was for the first time in North Carolina in many years.  I wanted to cast my vote for the politicians on the ballot who merited an opportunity to lead.  Fully I researched and chose my candidates, and fully they lost.  A second contingency, the Republicans, bought the election.  They abstractly bought the election.  What I still do not know is if the Electoral College was involved in these mid term elections.  If they were, it is easy to understand where that 100 million dollars of dark money went in North Carolina.  Certainly it did not go into the making of flimsy paper and metal campaign signs.  Possibly a portion of that dark money did line the pockets of local television networks for smear ads.  Would the Republicans have won if more people voted?  Probably not.  We have no one to blame except those who were too disinterested to care anymore.  The message was not heard by the minority vote, or they turned a deaf ear.  Positively the contingency still is in existence, the minority vote or the democratic vote.  This vote is important, because it is unveiling itself to me as the Christian vote.  The other vote, the Republican vote, metaphorically is has begun to represent pop music.  When I use the word pop, I do not mean popular.  This definition in fact is extremely undefined in the history of music.  Some believe the word pop does mean popular.  It doesn't in my eyes historically, because they are many other varied styles of music that have been popular over the decades in America.  Disco is one.  It was extremely popular during the decade of the l970's and with the release of the film Saturday Night Fever.  While the music of the Bee Gee's is pop oriented, disco spawned a large catalog of hit songs from other bands, producers, and record labels.  It is not pop from the stylistic musical definition.  I have explained this repeatedly in previous blog posts ad nauseam.  I had to explain it to come to understand it myself as a professional pianist.  Never in my forty years of playing the piano did the musical style "pop" ever present itself to me.  I am gracious or was until a few years ago.  Then it seemed everywhere I listened there was this other style.  In short the rhythmic style is a direct metaphor for the technique of strumming the guitar.  When one mindlessly moves their forearm in a reciprocating motion over the strings of the guitar, this rhythmic feel is created.  It is mindless.  Anyone can do it.  With no thought, idea, feeling, or concept almost anyone can make this motion.  In a fell swoop this motion became the voice of the Republican party.  Mindless.  Like the way they have failed to govern, the message is empty.  There is no message.  It has been difficult to get my mind wrapped around mindlessness.  Only it means that a sheltered, instinctual, selfish contingency has adopted a survival only plan.  With no message except sheer survival of their party, they parade like mindless zombies.  They do not know their plan, because there is none.  The only thing that matters subconsciously is survival and domination of an opposing species.  Perfectly the genre of pop music represents the Republican message.  It cannot change minds.  It cannot teach.  It fully is impotent.  I have been wondering whence this came, and now I know.  The same contingency that has tried to erase God from America is singing the songs of pop.  That is because real music, God, and christianity are the same thing.  Without this spirituality there is no substance.  There is no love.  A contemporary classical piece I composed in Italy is entitled "Genova."  It was inspired by the landscape upon which I gazed as my ship sat its port.  Like most of Italy the architecture was breathtaking.  How ancient artisans sculpted that rock so ornately is beyond me.  There were domes and bell towers.  As a skilled composer easily I was able to paint a musical picture of Genova.  When I played, recorded, and listened to it, conspicuously it was devoid of the entity of which I am describing.  It was devoid of spirituality.  It was beautiful.  It was haunting.  It was modern, but it unike most of my other pieces lacked the feeling of God and thus humanity.  I should correct myself, because recently there has been a diversion.  The feeling traditionally associated with God and love now has become the enemy for the Republican party.  That is why pop music is their chosen voice.  In the greatest masquerade in musical history, politicians have ruined the art of music.  As they bought the presidential election in Florida through the court system, also they decided and castrated real popular music.  Simply and mindlessly they just knew with no reason they had to steal the balance of money from popular musicians.  They just decided no longer would average medium income people have a pot in which to piss.  We have not recovered from this economic crisis.  When I harp about the ills of pop music, now I will harp about zombie Republicans.  At least I can understand why my broken record falls on deaf ears.  They can't get it.  When you can't get it, destroy it.  Many soap box shouters on television blame God.  Why has he abandoned us?  I ask myself the same question.  Why the hell does my adult life have to be fettered with the annihilation of my chosen profession?  It is a daunting question of which I have no answer.  My mind is so confused that it shuts down much like the Republicans.  Was I lucky because of my studies to understand the precept of spirituality in music is necessary?  It really is the same thing.  Music is poetry.  Then again certainly America no longer is poetic. There was another hugely popular style of music that rhymed.  Its basis was that of rhyming messaging.  This rhyme scheme meant the lyrical content of Hip Hop had to be thought about.  Above that it had to be artistic.  Without defining artisty again, we can say for certain pop music is the emptiest shell.  It is this way for a reason.  Anyone can do it.  There need be no real knowledge.  Therefore it should be free.  I cannot think of another thing in history that deserves such treatment.  Of all things Republicans could decide would be devoid of value, why couldn't it be milk, or coffee, or gasoline?  Why music?  It is because music carries the spiritual message of God, someone they are unwilling to worship.  Instead like the rest of use they want to dominate.  When one understands such behavior it is more palatable.  We are dealing with something less than animal.  Animal have feelings and instincts.  Like most of mother nature they are filled with joy and love.  It won't be long before animals will be decided to become extinct.  Unless the nonvoting populace makes themselves known again, the tyranny of Republicans will continue.  Capitalism must be driving this mindless instinct.  Brainwashed to get all you can, can it, and sit on the can zombies inhabit the Senate.  My only logical conclusion is they must be shot.  

Qualifying for Obamacare

There has been way too much going on around here.  Foremost it has been the midterm elections.  Thank God the The Koch brothers accomplished their goal getting North Carolina Speaker of the House into the Senate.  It doesn't mean for a fleeting moment the Republicans will get anything accomplished.  They have the majority now in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.  Let's watch them continue with their ridiculous agenda suing the President and trying to dismantle the Affordable Care Act instead of governing the country effectively.  I am not happy with the result, but it was surprising.  I learned that without an African-American President rallying the minority vote the democrats don't win.  Evidently the populace supportive of President Obama and his agenda weren't motivated to vote in the mid term elections.  That is disappointing.  Is it any different than the Republicans' take on Obamacare, Welfare, Medicaid, or food stamps?  Perhaps this contingency are the same old deadbeats.  That will remain to be seen.  What I now for certain is that I personally will have my Obamacare relinquished come its end on December 31st, 2014.  Because I have been staying with my mother in her home because she is aging, I will post no discernible income for the year 2014.  I have been a cook and a yard attendant, but that is not easy work.  I feel to abide by the rule and regulations of the Internal Revenue Service, officially she should claim me as a dependent.  I feel sure stogy Republicans surely will not allow a fifty two year old son to be claimed as a dependent by an eighty two years old mother.  Under the Affordable Care Act I will not have to pay the penalty for not having health insurance, because I didn't earn enough income to file a federal income tax return this year.  It is unsettling. I qualified for Obamacare like millions of other moderate income singles and families.  That means you work and make roughly between fourteen thousand and twenty-eight thousand dollars a year.  The kicker is low income Americans who make less than the federal government's poverty level do not qualify for Obamacare.  They are left with Medicaid.  With a cousin who works in the Department of Social Services expressly for this contingency, I have been told unless you are disabled and can't work you will not qualify for Medicaid.  Just today I received a notification from the Health Insurance Marketplace stating what I all ready knew.  While I did qualify for a subsidy originally, because I have been living with my mother and not earning income this past year, I will not qualify again for Obamacare.  I will fall into the category of low income Americans who will not be able to receive either Obamacare or Medicaid.  Interestingly enough President Obama took into account this faction of low earning Americans and offered the states millions of dollars for a Medicaid expansion to help cover these people.  Because Republicans staunchly disagree with the Affordable Care Act and want to dismantle the legislation, many governor's turned down the money.  That includes North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory.  The money that was meant to insure me in the year 2015 was refused by my state.  While my current tax status  is an anomaly because I have been working in the cruise industry for over twelve years, I must understand the nature of my situation regarding eligibility for a health care subsidy.  I did not earn income, because voluntarily I stayed with my mother in her home on her dime.  It feels very uncomfortable to surmise because of this change in income status I may have to re-pay my subsidy on my 2015 tax return.  I must re-apply for Obamacare through the health care marketplace between November 15th and December 15th.  After updating this income information simply I will not again qualify for the subsidy.  I will lose my coverage, because I chose not to work and take care of my aging mother.  After working as a ship's pianist since 2002 traveling the world, it is not as simple as returning to your childhood home and reinventing yourself.  The work in the music field that was available the entirety of my adult life starkly now is absent.  Upon coming back to my childhood home to help a family member and needing plausible employment in my chosen field, I am faced with a dire situation.  It seems while I gainfully have been  employed as musician at sea away from my childhood home, the music industry has collapsed.  While particular cruise companies have reduced the number of musician jobs, my line has maintained them.  Possibly this is why joined the cruise industry to begin with.  In the year 2001 I was working steadily as a pianist in bands.  When my father recuperated from a small stroke he began playing again, and I was free to take the cruise job.  I never have looked back until now.  While taking another ship still is an option, the notion of leaving my mother alone is not appealing.  It is a difficult situation.  For other looking in it seems simple.  "Get a job."  Get a job in a country where the music industry recently has collapsed.  Of all the times in thirty years of musical performance that I need employment, it is now that the American music industry has become extinct.  Intriguingly the notion that music somehow should be free has inundated social consciousness in our country.  On any conceivable level this does not compute in my brain.  As human beings in a Capitalist socioeconomic system we pay for everything.  That is the nature of the system.  I never have agreed with our chosen system, but the choosing of music somehow to be exempt from our system is uncanny.  Perhaps air is the only thing for which we do not mechanically pay.  Now by corporate America's choosing we pay for drinking water.  It used to be available inexpensively through our public works commission.  Someone decided this provided water no longer was fit to drink, and so corporate America began to sell it to us.  I am surprised also they have not bottled our free air.  This too will come when the magnetosphere collapses, and we are forced to dwell in a man mades structure shielded either from nuclear fall out from the sun's harmful solar rays or an exploded reactor or bomb.  Then they will be able to charge us for oxygen.  Until then we continue to pay property taxes for our land.  We buy food.  We buy cable television.  We buy internet services for the World Wide Web.  We buy wireless communication for our smart phones.  We buy Hollywood movies.  Why should we not still buy music?  My answer only can be that the effectiveness of music as a soul moving social conscience has been rendered impotent by the polluting of its medium.  Air.  Since the invention of the internal combustion engine and the burning of fossil fuels for energy our air has become more and more polluted.  Consequently the protective layer of Ozone in our atmosphere is becoming depleted most notably over the South Pole.  While this contamination is alarming and important, it is not of which I speak.  Music has been weakened as an art form simply by the polluting of our air by industry.  Unlike electromagnetic waves, mechanical waves require air to travel.  If there were no air we could not hear music.  Slowly our air in America has been commandeered for other purposes.  It is host to noise pollution.  While noise used to dissipate naturally over distance, the invention of the diesel engine has changed this forever.  Because of its firing rate each and every diesel engine produces a low frequency sound wave.  Unlike the transient nature of sound waves produced by music, infrasonic waves created by diesel engines are continuous.  They act as a both a modulator and carrier wave for all other sound.  Because there are so many diesel engines in existence operating simultaneously, music no longer has its same sonic capabilities.  These severely have been diminished by the commandeering of air by industry.  If music is compared to America's need for the energy created by the diesel engine, it will pale.  Obviously this has what has occurred in America.  Ironically as so many jobs systematically have been outsourced to foreign countries, industry has become important than art in America.  Our country is an unsavory salvage yard for mass transportation.  I cannot make sense of it.  What is it Americans do everyday at their jobs necessitating reliance on a car or SUV?  I only can surmise that the automobile is our new culture acting as host for our smart phones.  I cannot support this newly chosen direction for the American economy.  I cannot support my life long devotion to the field of music, because the decision has been made to annihilate it.  In its place is a tepid, selfish, patronizing entity with none of the ideals of traditional music.  Instead of seeking to engage humanity with ideas and opinions, instead it masturbates.  This is the solution that has arisen from still working musicians in America.  Collectively a decision was made to abandon the traditional intentions of music and replace them with selfish ones.  I cannot do it.  In good conscience I cannot sacrifice something so engrained in my soul for monetary gain.  It never has been about the money.  It is about the human condition.  I would rather martyr my musical inclinations than pollute them with such filth.  The only simile I can deduce is this choice somehow is related to the recent onslaught of homosexuality in America.  While the man woman relationship has been paramount to the human condition since our inception, this has changed.  Music has changed.  I am not interested in the change in either.  I would rather continue my convictions both musically and sexually as I always have known, but I can't.  They playing field has been slanted.  The rules have been changed, and I no longer am interested in playing.  

Jazz Music and Its Necessity

For all intents and purposes I was forced to put my jazz skills on a shelf in the closet.  I have engaged most of my adult life with the jazz aesthetic.  Today I am not sure why.  I know without a doubt that jazz music is dead.  It is dead because the genius's that created it have become extinct.  Dinosaurs became extinct, but not for the same reasons.  The jazz sensibility still today is one of the most tangible, intelligent, spiritual, and artistic endeavors of this earth, yet is too is going the way of the dinosaur.  Why?  Is it because it is mammoth, violent, and cold-hearted?  On the contrary jazz is one of the most humane processes the world ever has known.  I am sure it has existed in many forms throughout history.  With a bit of study the strict boundaries of Western classical music easily are disrupted, and elements of jazz can be found centuries ago.  The most obvious one is "Figured Bass" which existed during the Baroque Era.  Composers of this day would write a "chord symbol" over the top of a root note on a continuo part expecting the harpsichord player to "realize" the chord from intellect.  They had to calculate the note intervals from the written numbers (example:  inversions of the dominant seventh chord, 6/5, 4/3, 4/2) and realize the correct chord in lieu of the composer writing a specific voicing. In essence this is what the jazz musician does relying upon this nomenclature to realize complex music without the need of reading dense "clumps of grapes" on the gig.  It is a short cut, but not an undermining.  The process of realizing jazz harmony in such a way equally is as challenging as performing the most virtuosic concerto.    Not only must the jazz improvisor know enough to realize the correct harmony from these chord symbols, he them must on the spot create a musical and expressive melody over them.  That means choosing notes not only that fit into the specific chords but notes that will act as passing tones in between.  Varying intervals must be used for variety and interest, space must be left for breath, and a story must be told with tension and release.  Rhythm is of key importance, because in addition to all of these tasks the musical performance must swing.  Ouch.  I do not know too many people that are capable of this, and the ones that could are dead.  It was not that long ago with the passing of these truly great jazz purveyors that an aberrant form of jazz snuck its way into the public's eye.  Because jazz is intelligent music and a certain knowledge is required to understand it, easily "pop" infiltrated the jazz world quickly disguising the true feeling of swing.  For this reason it highly is unlikely real jazz will experience a renaissance anytime soon.  No one seems to understand the difference.  Each and every day I listen to jazz performances on the radio, and they are nothing more than "pop" covers of jazz tunes.  I believe, because great artistry is required to understand and perform jazz music, that this is the world's feeble attempt at re-creating the legacies of John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and Dizzy Gillispie.  These are huge shoes to fill.  In America's current climate of immaturity there are not many platforms available to pitch America's one and only true art form.  For me when the scales tipped too far in the "pop" direction, and I began to be criticized for being able to play real swing, I stopped.  Why would any artist choose to be chastised for their artistic ability?  We could ask Jesus this question, because it was this phenomenon that defined his word.  Often good is labeled as evil.  Certainly I alone do not harbor the strength of Jesus, and therefore the desire and need to fight for the longevity of jazz music.  I rather would be congratulated on my skills and rushed off to the next well-paying gig.  Disappointingly real swing has been replaced with a phony.  "Pop" will continue to masquerade as jazz until it dies.  As for the necessity of jazz in my life, it is the one thing that has driven me to excel as a musical performer.  While I appreciate many styles of music, and I was trained in the classical genre, the visceral aspects of jazz are what demand higher levels of performance.  I have had no desire to perform any kind of music recently.  What's the point?  The point is that when I sit down at the piano or the organ, I have nothing to say.  I begin to doubt my abilities, because the voice always that has driven me to play jazz is absent.  It is simple.  Why would any artist choose to be chastised for their artistic ability?  I would just choose to be thanked for my efforts.  Why is it my generation has inherited the survival or extinction of the human condition?  Is it not enough just to stomach the disappointment of living in the remnants of America?  It is not enough to watch as Baby Boomers live off of their children destined to inherit nothing?  My generation is out of luck.  No one watched out for us.  No one thought it important to hand over the reins empowering the next generation of America.  That is why we are failing as a country.  If I intend to empower myself again musically it is becoming evident that I once again will have to embrace the jazz aesthetic.  In spite of all of the crooning, the smoothing, and masquerading, and the downright lying, I will have to pick up the torch.  I can't tell if it burns.  

A Debt of Self Gratitude

I feel a substantial amount of responsibility to be accountable for my harmonic offerings in the contemporary classical music field.  This was not my sentiment a few years ago.  It is a line to toe.  It is the future hanging in the balance.  The pursuits of one's own selfish needs versus the development of an art form, now that is a predicament.  I gave up my own selfish pursuits years ago beginning with women.  Still I love them and sex.  I just can't make myself grovel in ignorance of music or women.  Before self deprecating first understand that you are or are not surrounded by assholes.  Sigmund Freud.  Fully I understand that I am, assholes of a major proportion.  I understand also that I am surrounded by the holy grail of the vagina, the all-knowing, all-understanding, all-empowering pleasure unit that seems to deserve the reverence of God.  (at least in the American South.)   I am not sure ever I have met any vagina that felt it was "all that."  I have not.  Never have I been slain by such a device.  I'm not sure ever I have wanted such a thing.  Once I did, or at least I got used to it being slain by vagina.  (Translation:  the woman does the work.)  Fairly it is easy to get spoiled by such an occurrence.  It not was until twenty years later, I realized it was more fulfilling to do the work one's self.  (Rather I would do the work rather than being worked.)  It seems the American South is all about the "getting worked."  Her people daily are worked in the culo.  I don't like it much.  I used to feel a substantial amount of responsibility to be accountable for my harmonic offerings in the contemporary classical music field.  I do feel a certain debt to be accountable for my doctoral dissertation material.  I am.  I wrote it.  I conceived it.  It is mine.  Why should I have to defend it?  That is the path of American academia.  As a rebel I resisted and erased some of my "chord symbols" (i.e. harmonic analysis)  above the written notes of my piano pieces.  I decided it was the responsibility of the next generation of music theorists to decipher my newly conceived harmonic system.  It as of yet not has been invented.  Who would believe such a thing?  No one.  Still, I have the bounty of work.  Each day I feel a small amount more of responsibility to publish a treatise of the method of my composition.  With the current states of affairs of the Conditions of America, it wholly is unlikely anyone ever will understand or appreciate my musical offerings.  Like a stiff academic trumpet dick up my ass, I feel compelled to make the fat lady sing.  I must expose my genius, not that I consider my aesthetic so advanced.  It is a natural and artistic evolution of history's music.  It seems that I only am capable of synthesizing these disparate temporal concepts.  (Don't get it really)  Is John Adams the only still living American composer?  I have no real desire to rub salt into a wound.  I only want to advance the art of music composition and thus the human condition.  We are staid, again.  We are stuck.  We are vacuumed into a black hole of human selfishness.  Why really must the needs of the LGBY community usurp the awareness of God?  It only is selfish.  When did one's sexual choice suddenly negate the human condition's responsibility of worshipping God?  To make an aberrant sexual choice's platform  grounds of existence is beyond me.  Only is this may I ask the thing that defines you?  Only is your personal sexuality the one thing that makes you whole?  Is there no other philosophical, spiritual, or intellectual platform that satisfies you?  Only is it the love of your mate?  Indeed while this is important to human survival, it is not its root.  To believe only one's selfish needs are necessary for human existence is a grievous mistake in the eyes of God.   I know that my personal offerings are paramount to musical evolution, yet I resist making them more important than my everyday life.  Delusions of grandeur are a mental illness, and yet there are times when great men must call upon their trump card.  It is with great humility and reluctance I summon the energy to tout my wares.  My harmonic concepts are evolutionary, not for genius but for lack of competition.  There is no interest in what I have sought.  Still these concepts are important to mankind.  They push and at times break the boundaries of human sensibility.  Living once again in the American South this is a stretch.  To evolve one must push the envelope.  One must call out the status quo and demand acknowledgment.  Really that means evolution by force.  Damn it, I am tired of this shite.  Really?  I guess this is the definition of being a leader, not a politician.  

The Three Doc's or the Three Stooges?

Once again I found myself back at Fayetteville's Botanical Garden Friday evening "on the lawn" concert series.  Once again it was advertised as a concert by the Fayetteville Symphony.  Once again only three out of the seven members of the performing group actually were members of the Fayetteville Symphony.  Once again it should have been billed as "Friends of the Fayetteville Symphony."  All of that said I had an inkling about what may transpire.  I was wrong.  It was an all together different group than last week's tribute to Dave Brubeck led by the symphony's pianist Dr. Scott Marosek.  I had forgotten that a pianist with an orchestra does not get to perform that often.  The same applies to the both the brass and percussion sections.  It wholly is reliant upon what era literature the symphony performs.  I was trying to wrap my head around why the first trumpeter with the orchestra had any interest in being involved with a jazz concert.  It turns out it was gratuitous.  Dr. Timothy Altman was not the leader of the group.  Neither was Dr. Larry Wells.  Neither was Dr. Dean Olah.  That is three doctors in one jazz group, or was it really Three Stooges?  I think the leader of the concert was The Moonlighter's Orchestra Terry Blalock on woodwinds.  It seems the drummer and vocalist was from the Midwest.  That is a long way to travel for a two set gig in Fayetteville, North Carolina.  Again as with the last concert on this series I was a bit confused.  I was not confused about its content, because instinctively I all ready knew for what I was in store.  Jazz is dead in America.  The feeling of swing long has been usurped by the feeling of "pop."  Without once again arguing this personal musical point, only I can say is that real jazz swing is connected to the soul.  Each and every note conveyed is a direct result of a gumbo of feelings, thoughts, and ideas.  More resolvedly the improvisors solo is spontaneous composition.  At the level to which the art from of jazz has evolved, it really is an experience non other than anything in world.  Ironically it does in abstract ways resemble the sport and art of skateboarding.  The process is similar.  Timing is crucial.  Balance is necessary.  "Carving lines" is important.  Responding extemporaneously is paramount.  This is why real jazz is not heard that much anymore.  We are living in a time that does not promote the general mental and physical health of humanity to create such a thing in real time.  There is too much distraction.  I was interested to hear how this ensemble would tackle such a challenge.  I was interested to see how the principal trumpeter of a symphony would fare in the jazz idiom.  More hauntingly I wondered why there was an interest in adopting such a challenge.  I think for the most part I overthought the process.  It seems musicians in this area are trying to earn money.  They are scrambling.  I don't quite see how three doctors would have much interest in playing a little two hour set at a country club.  As usual I felt very uncomfortable at the concert.  While my mother and I were more prudent in choosing our sitting neighbors, a local member of the classical community and her husband sat right next to me.  Because I knew I would not pallet the music well, again I felt like a big black cloud.  (It is difficult for an artist to disguise their true reactions to their own chosen art.)  I tried.  I listened.  I did not judge.  Although I am a collegiately trained jazz trumpeter and pianist, and have been working as a professional for twenty years, I was open minded.  As a professional jazz musician I have certain standards I cannot change.  Why is this?  It is because to learn to play jazz music, it takes years and years of study.  It is like religion.  Its principles are deep, far reaching, and often difficult.  Why are they difficult?  They are difficult because they break stretch the boundaries of the human condition.  Jazz is much more than a music.  It is a spirit.  With such clout brings a mantra that cannot be altered.  Certain crucial axioms must exist for jazz to flourish.  This means in no way can jazz stoop to the superficial levels of pop music, yet it has.  This concert was a swing-oriented affair with a rhythm section and four horns.  There were written arrangements, and these were more specific for the vocal charts.  Like any cruise ship gig they encompass the standard musical repertoire appealing to the masses.  There is "Rat Pack" material.  Luckily these seminal arrangement by Quincy Jones, Nelson Riddle and others are timeless.  If they are played reasonably well always they will satisfy.  Small group "head" arrangements are a horse of a different color.  When trying to play small group jazz, this is when the axioms of jazz come into play.  There are rules of protocol, rules that were well known by Miles Davis and his bands.  Small group jazz is not a "jam" session.  There are strict rules of form and behavior on the bandstand.  These things are what make jazz jazz.  At their deepest level they are metaphors for human life.  It took me many years of study to amass this code.  The group for the most part adhered to many of the standards of a good jazz performance.  No one instrumentalist plays too long, they divide the solos up, and they attempt to end a song the same way.  (Sometimes this fails, but popular culture attributes this to showmanship.)  They really are not interested in a polished product.  This is a difficult pill for me to swallow.  Having studied jazz music for for over fifteen years, it is difficult to watch a group who really have no fundamental understanding of "how" to play jazz.  Orchestral players are competent musicians and instrumentalist.  They play in time, with a good sound, and with musical taste.  They read notes written by a composer in often transcendent compositions.  Jazz musicians compose spontaneously at the gig.  They embody the same musical principles of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Revel, Debussy, Stravinsky, and others.  The study of this music is what made Miles Davis such an effective and iconic band leader.  As a fan of Sly and the Family Stone and Jimmi Hendrix, also he was a fan of Penderecki.  The bottom line is this.  Jazz is an intellectual music form.  There are many music forms in existence today that are not.  The majority of these forms are not artistic.  They are utilitarian.  By intellectual I mean that one simply cannot play jazz with a smile, a desire, and some showmanship.  To play jazz really a theoretical understanding of harmony is necessary.  Not only must a song's chord changes be known intimately, the scales that are actualized over these passing chord changes must be known intimately.  This is how an improvisor knows which notes to play in a solo.  While one's ear is a guide in the process, is is subordinate to the cognitive knowledge of "knowing" the musical theory of a particular song.  This particular group did a reasonable job of bringing off the concert, but it hugely was frustrating to me to watch how politics completely negated the necessary process of jazz improvisation.  It was strange once again to have a concert billed under a member of the Fayetteville Symphony, and have it actualized as someone else's group.  Without being blunt this is a misrepresentation.  Tim Altman while a substantial trumpeter had nothing to do with this gig.  He played some lead trumpet on the charts.  Rarely he played an improvised solo.  All I can think is the gig must be paying heaps to attempt such an amalgamation.  I was required to support the players in an very unrealistic way.  Anywhere in America where you go hear jazz, the politics of an area do not dictate how an audience member is required to behave.  I actually resent being engaged by the group's leaders as a second grader in an elementary school workshop.  I feel no responsibility to boost the egos of orchestra members who have no true ability to understand the process of jazz improvisation.  While I will watch and support their efforts, I cannot make myself lie in public.  I can't clap for improvised solos that sound like beginners.  Especially I cannot clap for improvised solos that sound like beginners that are being purveyed by doctors of music.  It just rubs salt into my wound.  Finally I cannot stroke the egos of college level professors who also hold full time jobs with the Fayetteville Symphony.  It feels too much like corporate monopoly.  What is most distasteful of all if watching these men pull the wool over the eyes of the listeners with immature references to behaviors that are a part of the jazz soul.  Being capable of drinking half a bottle of bourbon in one sitting and improvising an authentic jazz solo, jokes about "adult beverages" and "drinking after the gig" miss the base for me.  For the jazz musicians who are part of America's historical lineage, many were heroin addicts or alcoholics.  It was much too serious of an issue to joke about casually on the bandstand.  To me at least they were not funny.  It was not funny in the least to see a cotillion club attempt to get blasted in public.  Never in all of my years of experience with authentic jazz music has this behavior been witnessed.  Never has a jazz musician stooped to the level of the informal banter of Frank Sinatra.  That is because often they relied upon alcohol as a known and necessary aid to the art of self expression.  Why would anyone find it necessary to joke about the need to eat, shit, or fuck?  We do it because we have to.  Jazz on the other hand is something we think about at a very high level and respect almost as much as the Creator.  That is because art forms in a nutshell are a refection of Him.  They are the quintessential axioms of life.  It is disheartening to watch it.  It was disheartening to watch America's only true art form depicted as such causal selfish musical folly.  It was disheartening to watch human beings empower themselves selfishly with falsehoods.  It happens everyday in North Carolina, and her people are so ignorant they do not know the difference.  While I have no desire to disparage the musicians,  I leave their concert with a more conflicted conscience.  While fully I am capable of representing its artistry authentically, this concert with complete and total deliberation quelled my desire to try to expose its quackery.  It seems you can't ever change the cultural biases of the American South.  We have been hiding in our plantation homes shielded by cotton fields for too long.  Why would we ever want to keep pace with the rest of the world and evolve?