The Worst Evil

I'm not sure what America is anymore, and net neutrality has something to do with it.  At first the World Wide Web was a warm and fuzzy collegiate entity.  Netscape Navigator was a seductive blue browser that opened portals to pleasure.  Music streaming was at its inception.  Steve Jobs built the iTunes store, and the commercial music industry failed.  I am an Apple fan, but also I am a musician.  I could not afford the prices of albums or CD's in my adolescence, but as an adult I appreciate recorded music not in an MP3 format.  The internet has ruined America.  We don't know how to be, so I assume more than ever you must pick your aesthetic.  Our Founding Fathers were geniuses, but the process for choosing a President is flawed.  A popularity contest with no confirmed credentials is no way to pick the leader of the free world.  We have seen this first hand.  It has been a lack of knowledge and integrity which have doomed America.  Academia sold out.  Health care sold out.  What else is there?  We cannot be healthy, and we cannot be smart.  We are ignorant and compliant.  Now is an episode from the "Twilight Zone," and I am having nightmares.  We need relief.  I fear the American military is an opportunistic haven.  Thom Tillis is their cheerleader.  It has become blind allegiance for money.  The wives and the children are methods for profit.  The marriages are business agreements to benefit both parties.  Love is far from the equation.  I have met two Army families, and the husbands are the oldest sons.  Vivian Howard puts it bluntly.  Matriarchs run the American South.  Women.  Women have become the problem.  Original sin is real.  Eve is offering us a bite out of the apple, so man must understand.  Man has become polluted, and young girls are his temptation.  R Kelly.  Jeffrey Epstein.  Bill Cosby.  We need examples, and there are none.  Instead we are presented with sickness, failure, and desperation politicizing integrity.  How could a disease become political?  I should be grateful, because I am revisiting the past.  I have been through this before, so I am resistant.  I am familiar, but my soul is being chosen for me.  The problems are the same as they were thirty years ago, but we have grown into adults.  There isn't much to lose.  You are afforded the right to exist.  The playing field is clear, but it is not level.   Achievement should be notable and rewarded, but only in a free and honest society.  As Fred Rogers said, "The worst evil is trying to make you less than you are." 

Orange is the New Red

Depression is a physical illness, and the mental malaise is a direct result.  Imagine trying to dry yourself in the rain.  It isn't possible.  Try cooling the planet when those responsible won't acknowledge their guilt.  It is bordering on evil.  Destroying the planet and ultimately the human race is severe.  It has become religious in proportions, so God must enter the picture.  We are battling Satan.  Evil is surprisingly immature.  It is easier to justify with mental illness.  Mental illness is obvious, because the effect that is being created directly is caused by the irresponsibility.  Microwave transmitters are appearing everywhere with no state or federal regulation.  Once regulations existed so cell phone towers could not be erected by schools or in neighborhoods.  Some caution was extended for human health.  Suspiciously this has disappeared.  Not only is the human race under direct assault, the safeguards of American government have been repealed.  Donald Trump is responsible.  Fake news says he did not want to become the American President, but his four years as the leader of the free world have created bedlam for the human race.  It will take years to recover, and this recovery cannot begin until Donald Trump is eliminated.  Joe Biden is the correct President, and we are grateful he was elected.  He can only do so much when America is controlled by evil.  It is disheartening trying to dry yourself in the rain.  The line of demarcation between freedom and communism is more obscured than ever, and this is purposeful.  Donald Trump's rants as an honestly elected American President were too extreme to take seriously until now.  Listen to his words and reflect.  This assault on America has been his.  Once I felt George W. Bush may have been Satan, but color doesn't lie.  Orange really is red.  

Without God in Our Sights, America Will Be no More

We have reached a turning point in American history, for our lifetimes at least.  Inefficient, lobby-driven, irresponsible leadership at the state and federal levels have failed to shore up the foundations of a free America.  Without the crystal clear vision of our founding fathers, necessarily our mission statement has morphed into a contract of economic fruition for the wealthy.  The wealthy always have been around, but pundits of our democratic republic always have been successful keeping America on her clear path.  Now that path has strayed.  Not unlike America's irresponsible exploitation of her near virgin Alaskan state, leadership in the last three decades has failed to recognize and preserve our national infrastructure.  This infrastructure, while necessarily brick and mortar in some ways, philosophically has been deconstructed and retooled in the looming shadow of the internet.  The internet and wireless communications rapidly have destroyed the majority of America's previous economy.  Without a clear picture of what America should be now, her destiny ultimately will be shaped as the byproduct of the newest generation of entrepreneurs.  Are Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates well schooled enough in civics, politics, and leadership to offer a shored and fair America?  The answer unfortunately is no.  Exploiters of America never have learned to give back.  Down the road less traveled the Gates may have seen fit to charter a charitable trust, but what they are incapable of doing is understanding the basis of America.  Never have they taken the time to become statesmen, because this is a gratuitous undertaking.  One does it for the sheer spiritual feeling of Christianity, and this American feeling with God in its sights has been battered by Satan.  If ever Satan was present, it would be now.  America as a nation has failed to understand the necessity of Christian spirituality.  Without it we have nothing but the dark bleak path to which we wake every day without God shining His light on us.  Communism has become the chosen system of America without our even knowing.  The American populace has forgotten our country must be lead by the people, not wealthy, communist, Satanic zealots.  When America was nearer the dream of which often is spoke, the picture of our nation was crystal clear.  It was steeped in statesmanship, savvy governance, and honesty.  It was driven by Christian tenets and guided by God.  Today the other force has driven its way into power.  I do not see a return in America.  The American Dream, its sentimental and emotional bubble, easily has been popped by elites.  They are so immersed in their high lifestyles, it would be too much to try to understand what America has been.  Without continual reinforcement of our civic responsibilities in our system of public education, America is doomed.  This system always has been the necessary infrastructure of a renegade nation seeking asylum from the repression of tyrannical England.  Always it was clear what we were choosing to leave.  With the unpleasant taste of the Covid Oppression, it should be becoming clear again.  The freedom for which America always has stood is not difficult, but it is complex.  About it must be thought a lot, and we have stopped teaching it in public schools.  The public schools, once the cornerstone of American mobility, now are a scrap yard littered with refuse.  We are the junkyard rats scrambling for the bits and pieces of sustenance.  

Reggie Hammond is in Town.

There is a Covid outbreak in Cumberland County.  Although my consciousness won't allow it, it is deja vu.  We have been vaccinated twice by Pfizer in March and April.  Yesterday we self-administered our first Aegean Covid 19 test at the drive through pharmacy at Walgreens.  Still we wear masks everywhere in public and have been sheltering in place.  We will receive results in four to five days via E-Mail notification.  My lymph nodes have been swollen for a week, and I have a slightly sore throat.  It is better today.  I have other medical issues.  As I watch the myriad of those administering Covid vaccines, all I can think is how unskilled their needle technique is.  It if it a metaphor for health care in America, we are in trouble.  No one seems to know how to give a vaccine.  Nurses are health care professionals who have studied for many years.  It would be logical their technique is superior.  No longer is America a specialty nation.  Once we were.  Once our economy provided a diverse landscape for work.  Without control of our health care system by Big Pharma and insurance, once there were many varied, well-paying, professional health care occupations that flourished.  Now Big Pharma, insurance, Walmart, and Apple, and Amazon control everything, and they are not liberal with their spoils.  Specialty jobs are extinct.  Everything is generic, and you can control it with your smart phone.  You can pay online.  You install your own cablevision.  You renew your driver's license on the internet.  For the majority of our household goods, we now shop on Amazon.  Dramatically and deliberately the American economy has been dismantled and replaced with Communism.  The things that made America free, diverse, and rebellious have been replaced with generic, mundane, party-administered services.  Democracy has been dealt a severe blow by the tyrant Donald Trump.  His four years in the presidency have put into place the foundations of American Communism.  "Those wonderful loving people, my party."  "Are you affiliated with the party?"  In four years eight hundred billion tax payer dollars were allocated to the United State military.  Afghanistan has been a ruse to take this money.  The siege, the insurrection, and the campaign have been waged by defense contractors.  This is nothing new, because Haliburton set the state.  Past VP Dick Cheney paved the way for private interests to fleece Washington.  He did it, and now they have been doing it for twenty years.  President Joe Biden has said, "Enough."  The heroin supply will dry up.  Trump's funding will dwindle, and the military industrial complex fueled by burgeoning technology will have to reset.  How can they sell to now?  Saudi Arabia?  Donald Trump was their broker, and they bought from us through the president of the United States.  (conflict of interest)  Joe Biden is in town.  There is a new sheriff, and it's not Reggie Hammond.  Cool.  All right. 

The Gravy Train of Afghan Terrorists

 Life is a funny thing.  I support President Biden one hundred percent for pulling America out of Afghanistan.  It has been too long a war.  I grew up in Viet Nam.  I lived from three until thirteen with the extreme violence of Viet Nam on the evening news each night.  Violence.  Murder.  Baby killers.  Richard Nixon became President, and in 1975 he pulled America out of Viet Nam.  It was a crazy turn of events.  Pol Pot was poised.  I am glad Joe Biden is intelligent enough to pull America out.  It is all they ever have wanted.  "Get out of my country!"  (which means leave our oil alone)  The Bush Clan wanted that oil, and Dick Cheney was the mark.  Spiro Agnew was a traitor, but Dick, Colin, and Bush?  It was a mirepoix of bad fortune.  At the moment, the gravy train has embarked.  The Biden administration necessarily is evacuating a host of personnel all seeking refuge from the Taliban.  For the first time in several years "ISIS" has been mentioned.  ISIL was created when the invasion of Iraq failed, and the United States military left equipment in the desert.  This terrorist group succinctly took control of our abandoned military equipment, and rose anew.  We would hope this would not happen again, but surprise.  In less than the blink of an eye, the Taliban has taken control of Afghanistan.  The conundrum is the influx of refugees.  Immigration has been on the docket for years, and now in one strategic political decision by President Biden the flood gates have been opened.  Covid does not seem to be an issue.  The only pressing issue reported by the media is people want to get the hell out of Afghanistan.  They were living a good live there, and now the jig is up.  While General Milley seems to think those seeking asylum are being vetted appropriately, America has opened up her doors to a network of potential terrorists.  Covid seems of no concern, and sorties of boatloads of refugees now are streaming into Texas, New Jersey, and Florida via the United Stated military.  It is time to stop and think. 

Havana Syndrome and the Invisible Enemy

Mitch McConnell is transparent.  Is it not difficult to believe the senator from Kentucky suddenly has grown empathetic about women's rights in Afghanistan?  Since he cares little for the general populace of America, perhaps he could fare better as an interim President of that remote nation?  He is so sincere in his opinion on the botched pull out.  One would almost think he has vested interests there. (along with the rest of them)  Is it the poppy trade?  Is it minerals?  Certainly there is something other than 9/11 and the Taliban that have drawn America  there for two decades.  Hypocrisy is so transparent.  Listening to the senator from South Carolina, Miss Lindsey, the same story unfolds.  In pure Trump fashion their glaring cavalier irresponsibility to the American people no longer will garner irreverent support.  Those times are over.  That contingency is being hobbled one insurgent at a time.  Does Mitch support the infrastructure bill?  Does he feel Apple and Amazon owe America something in return for their achieved wealth?  It is okay to pillage our country with no finders fee?  No need to pay it forward or back?  Just keep all the money.  No one has taken a basic Economics 101 class or Polysci.  The money must flow through the system.  It cannot sit idle in sheltered overseas accounts growing mold.  For Capitalism to function the money must flow through the classes.  People must earn money, and they must earn enough money to be able to spend for themselves.  This is how the system works.  Evidently there is no Covid in Afghanistan.  They must feel their turbans magically shield their nostrils from the Covid molecule, because no one is wearing a mask.  No one is sick.  They are just doing what they do best in the tribal Middle East.  Rape and pillage.  Take child brides.  Kill elders.  Fun for them.  War is all they know, and it is more visceral and satisfying than peace.  Perhaps if they had Rock 'n' Roll?  Do they partake of their own poppies?  Such sincere sentiments for a foreign surrogate territory, the United States territory of Afghanistan.  What the f?  No Covid there, but select individuals are being targeted with ISR.  (If you rearranged the letters it would be IRS, a more frightening and taken acronym)  Intelligence.  Surveillance.  Reconnaissance.  ISR is huge in the aviation industry.  More specialty aircraft have acne than teenagers drinking coca cola.  Protrusions.  Pods.  Spheres.  Bays.  All of them contain state-of-the-art surveillance systems spying on everyone.  Infrared topography is a big one, and only defense contractors are licensed to use these frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum.  That was Bill Clinton.  He is responsible.  Perhaps they are just surveilling certain people, but those high tech surveillance systems haven't been tested, like AC Traction hasn't been tested.  No one knows what the effects are on human beings, but they have a pretty good idea.  In the process of surveilling the pulsed microwaves are so strong they start to cause damaged to the human organism.  Brain damaged.  Symptoms of concussions with no blows.  Perfect.  Untraceable.  It is spreading.  The invisible enemy.  

Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley 8/19/21 Press Briefing

This is likely to be probably the second-largest NEO conducted by the United States. Our key tasks are to establish and maintain security at the Kabul International Airport. Defend the airport from attack. Evacuate all American citizens from Afghanistan who desire to leave this country. Evacuate any third country national, or allies and partners as designated by the secretary of state. Evacuate personnel with State Department-designated Special Immigrant Visas. And evacuate any other evacuees that the State Department designates.

The president of the United States made a decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan on April 14th. Since that date we conducted a deliberate and responsible drawdown of U.S. forces to less than a thousand with the specific task of securing the U.S. embassy and our diplomatic presence in Afghanistan. Since then, the security situation rapidly degraded. Today, the situation is still very dangerous, very dynamic, and very fluid. And all of us can be proud for the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who are executing this mission. They are currently in harm's way. That needs to be our focus. There will be plenty of time to do AARs, but right now our mission is to secure that airfield, defend that airfield, and evacuate all those who have been faithful to us.

There will be many postmortems on this topic, but right now is not that time. Right now there are troops at risk and we are the United States military and we fully intend to successfully evacuate all American citizens who want to get out of Afghanistan, all American citizens who want to get out of Afghanistan. They are priority number one. In addition, we intend to evacuate those who have been supporting us for years and we're not going to leave them behind. And we will get out as many as possible. Our troops in Kabul are taking high risks to accomplish that mission. Every minute these troops are on the ground making difficult decisions with incredible skill, incredible bravery, and incredible valor.

Currently, the security situation at the airport is stable. However, there are threats and we're closely monitoring those at any moment they could happen. We can identify them. If we identify them we will take immediate military action without hesitation, and according to our rules of engagement. And the Taliban and every other organization in that country knows it. The Taliban are in and around Kabul right now, but they are not interfering with our operations. Through the State Department, the Taliban are facilitating safe passage to the airport for American citizens, that is, U.S. passport holders.

We also have a risk, as you saw the other day, of unarmed innocent civilians massing on the airfield where they became a safety hazard to our airplanes our aircrews, and also to themselves. And we currently have that situation under control inside the airfield. There's many other risks out there. And the troops are dealing with those every single day in this volatile environment, which can and likely will change rapidly.

Let me make one comment on the intelligence, because I am seeing all over the news it that there were warnings of a rapid collapse. I have previously said from this podium and in sworn testimony before Congress that the intelligence clearly indicated multiple scenarios were possible. One of those was an outright Taliban takeover following a rapid collapse of the Afghan security forces and the government. Another was a civil war. And a third was a negotiated settlement.

GEN. MILLEY: However, the timeframe of a rapid collapse, that was widely estimated and ranged from weeks to months and even years following our departure. There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days. Central Command submitted a variety of plans that were briefed and approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, and the President. These plans are coordinated, synchronized, and rehearsed to deal with these various scenarios. One of those contingencies is what we are executing right now. As I said before, there's plenty of time to do AARs, and key lessons learned and to delve into these questions with great detail. But right now is not that time. Right now, we have to focus on this mission because we have soldiers at risk. And we also have American citizens and Afghans who supported us for 20 years also at risk. This is personal, and we're going to get them out. And we, in uniform, have a deep commitment to this mission.

Now, let me give you an operational update. The security situation, as I said, is currently secure at this time. And since 12 August, we've deployed 12 -- or correction, two United States Marine battalions, one battalion from the Minnesota National Guard, all three of those were pre-positioned in theater, CENTCOM AOR, as part of the contingency planning. In addition to that, we alerted, marshaled, and deployed the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters and a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division, consisting of three airborne infantry battalions and associated enablers.

And finally, there was an infantry battalion from the 10th Mountain Division, securing the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. In addition, we are operating on the ground with a variety of Special Operations Forces. That in combination with the ground forces, we have some of the best soldiers and Marines the world has ever seen. In total, there are 20 U.S. maneuver companies currently on the ground with about 4500 troops, and the flow continues. The President has authorized, as you all know, up to 6000. On top of them as the United States Navy and Air Force. We have multiple squadrons of F-18s, AV-8s, F-16s, AC-130s, B-52s, and MQ-9s. We have a significant amount of rotary-wing aviation on the ground, including attack and lift helicopters. In addition, we are working with our allies and partners through our British infantry rifle companies, along with British special forces on the ground working with us. There's also a Turkish security force; there are other international Special Operations Forces. This force is capable of extracting a significant amount of people on U.S. Air Force aircraft. Right now, we're averaging about 20 sorties of C-17s every 24 hours. We have the capability to significantly increase that throughput as the Department of State makes evacuees available.

As the Secretary said, we've already evacuated approximately 5000 people, and we intend to increase it. In addition to the military airflow, has a variety of commercial and charter flights, taking out evacuees, and we have various other countries and NGOs. The military side of the airfield is open, and the civilian side of the airfield is also open. And we intend to keep them both open for military, commercial, and charter flights. One caveat on the civilian side, however, is that the airframes have to come in by visual flight rules only. And a NOTAM has gone out to all the aircrews. The State Department is working to rapidly increase the flow of passengers available to get out on the aircraft, and we are fully supporting them with our military personnel at the entrance gates. In this highly dynamic environment, there's a number of unexpected challenges that can and likely will continue to occur, and we rely heavily on the talent, skill, and training of our troops. We've got great people across all the ranks and services out there right now on this mission. In addition to Afghanistan, which is clearly our main effort, we're also conducting humanitarian assistance operations in Haiti in the aftermath of a 7.2 magnitude earthquake with a significant loss of life. On the West Coast, we're fighting wildfires, and we continue to conduct COVID support and other Operations around the world.

As we reflect on these difficult and challenging times, every soldier, sailor, airman, marine, Coast Guardsman was fought or conducted operations in Afghanistan. Almost 800,000 should hold their head high. For more than 20 years, we have prevented an attack on the U.S. homeland. 2448 lost our lives, 20,722 were wounded in action, and many others suffered the unseen wounds of war. To each of them, I want you to know, personally, that your service matter, as the Secretary said, for both he and I, this is personal. And I know it's personal for each and every one of you. Thank you.

 

The New American Musical Voice

When I was applying for financial assistance for medical care on Monday, abruptly I was reminded that jazz music radically expanded the technique of many instruments.  I know this, because recently I began researching a college level jazz history course.  The music evolution transpired in the first two decades of the twentieth century are significant and substantial.  I would be bold enough to say most people aren't aware of their substance and sophistication.  Early jass or jazz most often is characterized by the term Dixieland, which was coined in Chicago to describe New Orleans jazz that traveled up the Mississippi River when Storyville was closed by the Navy in 1917.  "Dixie" commonly was applied to the American South.  "Dixieland"mistakenly has been applied to Early Jass, and upon closer examination it represents a genre of itself not necessarily the same as the early black music of New Orleans.  Most likely it was a white term.  Dixieland does represent a particular body of American popular songs played in a style very different from later jazz music.  It was loose rhythmically and played in a "Two Beat" feel.  The term "Two Beat" itself merits its own study, but I will suggest that musical term alla breve is the root.  An important distinction in playing jazz music is how and when to play with a two feel rather than "Straight Four."  Early Jass for the most part utilizes a two feel or "Two Beat," and this feel is a major characteristic of the music.  The genius of the two feel is it is poly-rhythmic, and you can count or feel the music in either of two ways.  One is with a two beat subdivision, and one is with a double time straight four subdivision.  The most effective metaphor for alla breve used in jazz allows dancers to articulate either rhythm of their choice.  If they dancing couple does not possess the gumption to Jitterbug or Lindy Hop at its fast and athletically demanding tempo, simply they can choose to "Glide Walk" or Foxtrot.  It is graceful, elegant, and conservative movement.  The "Two Beat" feeling of Early Jass is a unique and surprising rhythmic feeling.  It is tighter than later jazz, and this more compressed rhythmic subdivision is articulated with a zestful and energetic energy.  Musicians play swing sixteenth notes derived from the natural strumming pattern of the American four string banjo.  That jazz music transformed the technique of many instruments also is of equal significance.  The refinement of European orchestral and chamber music adequately did not express emerging African-American exasperation, desperation, or need.  While there is a similar depth of feeling in "classical" music, a more primitive, visceral, and often erotic expression was desired.  It was rebellious, playful, and sexual music, and most importantly it was infused with manic energy.  The ready availability of cocaine is a likely source of this exuberance.  The "Blues" emerged as a necessary African-American expression after the Jim Crow laws were passed in the American South.  The slaves had been freed by Abraham Lincoln's "Emancipation Proclamation" and a bloody civil war, but the South failed to acknowledge the equality of Negroes.  Instead they waged a horrific campaign against American blacks, which often resulted in their hanging from ropes dead.  Africans captured, bound, and trafficked to America for sale to plantation owners against their will now were fraught with equal consternation about their rejected entree into American society by Southerners.  It was a shite state of affairs, and the lamentation inherent in the new "Blues" music was crucial to Negro psychology.  Moaning, crying, and the mournful wail of the steam engine's whistle combined to create a new canvas for African-American musical expression predicated on white oppression.  It was a natural evolution for black musicians to express these deep feelings in a different way on musical instruments.  Because they had been slaves working tirelessly in the masters' fields, their physical prowess readily was applied to musical technique.  While classical and jazz instrumental technique are not mutually exclusive, a division has been created by the same racism and discrimination expressed by the American South during Jim Crow.  Donald Trump successfully unearthed this seeming dormant white nationalism during his 2016 Presidential campaign, and implemented a similar policy of divisive, extreme, and inciting rhetoric in America while President.  Jazz has not recovered, and again America is searching for her appropriate musical voice.  For the nation to heal it is imperative for this expression to come to fruition quickly.  

The Second Coming of Jesus Christ

 I am reluctant to voice my dreams, because always it is best to live in the trenches, unobserved and innocuous.  One's dreams always are their flanks, and when one's flanks are exposed they will be bitten.  It must be human nature or God's animal kingdom.  It is survival of the fittest.  If you want something, it is your greatest weakness.  Shakespeare knew this, but to love and lose is the crux of the human condition.  One must be careful.  I don't pontificate much about what I want or don't have.  If you have survived depression, then you know it is counter productive.  You can't get what you want, so it is best to move on.  You move on by changing yourself and your desires.  The more I remember things once I have desired, the more disappointed I become.  This disappointment isn't really that at all.  More it is anger that my enemies are determined to defeat me by not allowing me what I want.  If you don't attain monetary success, there is no reason why you can't be hugely successful in other ways.  This has been my philosophy of music, and also this is why I designed and assembled my own music recording studio.  I am going to indulge myself for a moment and express some desires I have had over the years.  First I wanted to be a college professor, but I had not learned the political skills necessary for this extremely high profile job.  It is more politics than knowledge or talent, and also it is diplomacy.  I never paid much attention to either, politics or diplomacy.  If I had I would not have accomplished the things I have.  Instead my philosophy was, "Take no prisoners," and make the best music possible any way I could.  That I have done with the aid of musical technology.  I am tired of playing with myself.  I am too vain to musically masturbate, so all of my music is distilled and important in some way.  Usually it is a documentation of something I have learned.  As I continue on my musical quest, it has become more apparent that what interests me musically derives from other aesthetics.  The main one is dance.  Dance.  Dance is a volatile word in the American language like jazz.  No one really knows what it is.  It is surprising that dance itself, which I will be bold enough to say merely is human courtship, is misunderstood.  If we knew more about it and engaged in it, we would be a more content, peaceful, and loving society.  Both music and dance attempt to provide this impetus.  That is why there exist.  Life without either would be a vacuous, empty, disappointing session of torture by those who voted for Donald Trump.  The line of demarcation has emerged in America, and it is stark, brutal, and tragic.  This is because God has been eradicated from out consciousness, and only God can provide the appropriate spirituality for His earth and people.  We have become a lot of Satan, and it is startling and disconcerting.  The crux of it all is we don't know how to swing, and now it has become clear those running America don't want swing.  With fake news the real, tangible, and rewarding spirituality falsely has been labeled socialist.  To care about one's fellow man or spurn economic wealth would be inconceivable.  The most simple concepts of life, the things for which I do pine if I acknowledge it, are humanity.  I have lived my entire over half a century of life without the things truly I want.  All I ever have wanted is a jazz rhythm section with which to play professionally.  Even without verbalizing this desire, somehow your enemies all ready are cognizant.  Traditionally "Jam Sessions" exist so anyone can come play, and they seek talented musicians with which to perform.  The more talented you are, the more fun and rewarding the music is.  This no longer is true.  In Nashville now you must "Pay to Play."  I never have heard such an absurd concept.  I will rot in a box in the ground before I would pay a Nashville club owner to allow me to perform in his club.  You can go fuck yourself.  Satan seems to know the exact thing you need to open your creative and productive petcock.  His job is to deny you those things.  I knew this early on, and it determined my musical philosophy for the rest of my life.  "Take no prisoners!"  I have not, and consequently I have written, recorded, and performed a lot of music.  Much of it is original.  I have many copyright claims for my original music.  Each and everything I have written is copyrighted in the Library of Congress.  No one can steal my music.  If they chose to use it, it is probably I would consent.  Today no one utilizes music.  A once highly musical and human nation now has become a dull, lackluster, stupid populace of narcissists.  We don't know how to swing, and we don't know God's will.  We don't know how to be human.  It is ironic that all three seasons of Gene Roddenberry's "Star Trek" were based upon trying to be human.  As the crew of the Enterprise traveled through the universe encountering alien species, the message always was recognize our humanity and all of its gifts.  This is what Jesus, the Son of God, sought to teach us.  We have forgotten, and in our lifetimes perhaps we will get lesson number two. 

A Hugely Unswinging and Communist America

After our extended and continual bout with Covid 19, and when our reality gets misshapen beyond our control, necessarily I adapted by abandoning my traditional pursuits.  Because I am a musician always there is some goal to be tackled.  Because most of my life has been on hold since 2013, my musical path has been divergent.  There have been  pitfalls, and when these occur I change gears and turn.  Consequently my accomplishments also have been divergent, but there have been a lot.  Consciously I must sit back and reflect on what they have been.  I won't go into it here, but I have accomplished most of the things I have set out to do.  I am at a new juncture where Covid has affected my path.  Like millions of Americans finally I am succumbing to this disease's evil grip.  I have not had to worry about eviction or bankruptcy, but I have had to contend with the ill effects of Covid.  Never have I been tested, but never have I had a fever above normal.  Never have I had flu-like symptoms.  Contrarily I have had a host of other physical maladies which mirror the symptoms of Covid.  This is when I learned that this engineered pathogen purposely exacerbates your underlying conditions.  It is a dangerous, often deadly, ruthless and macabre foe, and still it continues to wage its war on humankind.  The most unsettling sentiment is that we do not know who unleashed it upon the world.  Rest assured Covid is not a naturally occurring virus.  For it to exhibit the characteristics it displays, thousands of years would have been needed for it to develop and mutate.  It is an engineered pathogen, and most likely its source was the lab in Wuhan, China.  The only question which remains is who sanctioned and paid for this virus.  This scenario would be golden for the literary world if we still had one.  We don't.  Americans no longer read, and this absence reading novels has left a void in American consciousness.  Similarly film provided a necessary foreshadowing of the future.  The speculation and its accompanying scientific logic created a burgeoning industry in Hollywood.  Rational life as we have known it could be capsulized by the genres of Hollywood films.  No these categories seems foreign and dull, because our emotional senses have become altered in response to the Communist plot.  Ironically the pursuit of red often has been of interest to America, and yet we can't remember that.  McCarthyism was such a tenant.  Hollywood itself embraced the eventual threat of Communist ideals with a tangible black list of known sympathizers.  Can you believe this?  If you were found to sympathize with Communist ideas, then you were singled out and scorned in public like a witch.  Evidently the threat of  Communism in America over the decades was a formidable and important threat to America democracy and freedom.  These witch hunts continue to look like histrionics, but I am beginning to understand that this pursuit of red was merited.  Why?  In the last few days while Covid seems to be making a resurgence, somehow my mind has been cleared of the spin.  We have taken Covid seriously, and I am fully vaccinated.  Still we continue to shelter in place, and it makes a difference.  The information about the disease has become hearsay and a political tool.  What are we to believe?  People fully vaccinated are spreading the delta variant?  It never has been more clear this pandemic is closet genocide, and its goals are far reaching.  If we still had a functioning literary community, a populace intelligent enough to understand complex human issues, then Covid should be a gold mine.  We are not.  We no longer speculate on the future.  We no longer explore human emotion, and consequently the genres of film are becoming increasingly extinct.  Do we still possess the capability to synthesize varying emotional states and enjoy them?  I think not, and Covid has not helped.  Live music and theater traditionally are a core vehicle for these indulgences.  Television once provided such a need, but all of that has been stymied with the onslaught of Communism.  The freedoms, emotional reactions, and indulgences of man, which are the core components of American life, have been assaulted.  Consequently we have mutated into a dense, insensitive, and uncaring animal.  We have regressed  to mother nature as speculated in the novel "The Lord of the Flies."  Communism, if anyone cared to look, wants what is happening in America, and the major titans of the American way of life have been film directors, musicians, and other artists who understand what swings.  In the last few days it has been distilled in my mind like pure alcohol.  The determinant is and always has been, "Who can swing?"  

America's Covert Conversion to Communism

 I never spent time thinking about red.  Red and blue states emerged  as a political distinction.  Whence this came I do not know.  I paid no attention.  When Donald Trump ran for president, I was required to understand red states were the new Republicans (extreme far right), and blue states were democratic.  A schism occurred in American history, when the parties reversed.  All of it is a fabricated attempt at chaos and anarchy in American politics.  It has succeeded.  I live in a red state, which in my memory always was blue.  Once this state truly was conservative.  When Jim Hunt was governor things were tight.  Now this state is a circus of crime, military warfare, and corrupt republican politics.  Phil Berger and his majority Republican state house are a disappointment.  What kind of state senate enacts legislation which reduces a governor's power because of his party affiliation?  It is corrupt.  Gerrymandering is as common as spraying agricultural fields with animal feces and urine.  Kinlaw Farms has done this a long time, and luckily a judge ruled in favor of the poor black folks who live near these farms.  Contrarily our state no longer is desperate for revenue.  This revenue goes mostly to wealthy republicans.  Our General Assembly refused Obama's Medicaid Expansion money, so millions still are uninsured.  Our state voted for Donald Trump, and he is a criminal.  Talk about being in the lion's den.  Always I have known our state inherently was evil, and it continues to prove itself.  Thom Tillis has proposed another pay raise  for the military.  Why?  The answer is to secure their votes.  Soldiers with no collateral are given sizeable mortgages ensnaring them in military service for life.  This works for Uncle Sam.  Get a soldier on the hook for a house he can't afford, and he must stay in.  This began with Bill Clinton and the entire sell anyone a house policy.  Who cares if they can't afford it?  Sell it to them anyway, and write it into the mortgage their payments will double or triple unbeknownst to them.  The United States Housing Crisis was begun and resulted in our 2008 Financial Crisis.  We have not recovered.  The era of honesty in America is gone, and Communism covertly has taken hold.  It has been a sly on the down low transition.  The modern generation is too ignorant to know any different.  Basic human desires and inclinations have become skewed.  Only this could explain the current Conditions of America.  There is no rationale to our lives, and human needs no longer are important.  We are a herd of cattle, and the vestiges of American freedom and happiness are gone.  We don't even know what freedom is.  Basic human need is not considered much less accommodated.  Trophy Wife may be the best title.  A trophy wife feigns the appearance of success, but rarely is she.  She is desperate and thinks Cooking and Fucking are cities in China.  Trophy wife families are dysfunctional, because they are chasing the grail.  In military families the marriage is a business relationship which seeks to exploit Uncle Sam.  Rarely are the based on love.  Instead they are opportunists with very little formal education.  I have traveled all around the world, and America is the most maladjusted.  Our pattern of behavior has been on television for a long time.  Zombies have been in fashion, and zombies we have become.  How could it be worse?

The Orchestra Piano Gig

I have had lucid dreams about the cruise ship orchestra piano job.  Somehow I got stuck with this gig, and it is because there are not many brave enough to tackle its challenges.  While often the position becomes a lame duck spot (because keyboardists simply can't do it), and when this is the case the musicality of the entire vessel sinks to the level of "canned" or "industrial" music.  The music on a cruise ship by default is such.  They have elaborate production companies who design, implement, and produce their shows.  Within this construct is an amazing amount of ship politics, and this political regime is infused with homosexuality.  Why?  What does being gay have to do with producing ship production shows?  Your guess is as good as mine.  I don't care to spend my time thinking about such things.  It is an unnecessary evil, and exactly like the American military (directly from the horses mouths) you better accept it.  It is not spoken about.  It just is.  We have the Catholic Church, their clergy, and their alter boys.  We have the Boy Scouts, their leaders, and their prey.  We have Hollyweird.  We have Bill Cosby.  We have Jeffrey Epstein.  (or we had him until conveniently he leaned against a towel tied to his bed and seemingly suffocated)  We have gay Army generals, of which no one speaks either.  I am beginning to think this Gay Mafia is the new enemy.  I did not intend to write about homosexuality.  I would rather never think about it again, but it has become entwined in every aspect of our lives unbeknownst to us.  Necessarily when you do a ship orchestra piano job, you will be dealing with homosexuality part of the time.  What a drag.  What more it is a total and complete distraction from the job intended.  It becomes manipulated into something other than what the company intends.  The creative or artistic component of society often gets skewed to the gay side.  Why?  There is enough on the plate of an orchestra pianist without being distracted by this.  If the employee who finds himself in this position is not capable of fulfilling its requirements, then the cast and orchestra become a drag show.  This often is one of the slants applied to cruise ship production shows.  If your production singers are not strong, then the easiest methodology is to turn the shows into camp.  It is disgusting.  In one particular show the capable and strong female production lead belted, "I am the Man of La Mancha."  Clearly she wasn't, and it was a tragedy those on the production end were irresponsible enough to ignore the gender identities of the original songs.  This is an issue with which America is faced today.  The idea that human beings have become androgynous amebas, big globs of non gender fat cells with no identify of their own is ludicrous.  It is gender or sexual orientation that makes life interesting.  To regress to the level of earthworms is disgusting, reprehensible, and sickening.  It is a requirement to become gender neutral when working in the cruise industry, but I won't go into why.  Certainly it is easy to control your herd if they are mindless, sexless, amebas.  With that idea in mind lets look at America.  We are Communist.  Our major providers who pay no taxes are Amazon and Walmart.  Legislation was passed by the Donald empowering corporate America and enabling them to take from the coffer but not give back.  We are Communist.  Our rebellious voices have been quelled, our artists and role models have either died, sold out, or become sexually depraved, and there no longer is economic or social mobility.  We are addicted to smartphones and walk around looking at our palms.  What does any of this have to do with America, the orchestra piano job, and the rest?  The answer is you must adhere to these unspoken principles to survive.  Fine.  You know that going in.  There will be little or no creative license in your keyboard performances.  You will do as you're told, and you will try to play to match the rhythmic concept of the "canned" or "industrial" nature of the production music.  In a nutshell this means there is no live feel to the music, because it is prerecorded with a rigid click track, and the 'tracked' performances usually realized through MIDI are generated by a computer sequencer.  These computer programs choose the most base and rhythmically devoid rhythmic concepts in existence.  As you will find trying to match a keyboard track for many cruise companies, the physical motion is stiff, robotic, and unmusical.  This is a musical fact, and never will it change.  It would be far too difficult and costly to ask a producer to provide human musical performances.  Some cruise companies are better than others, and whether you believe it or not groove, musicality, and humanity in the production shows predicate ratings.  For one ship only I was allowed to bring keyboard equipment to my job.  I designed and assembled a small rack of keyboard modules that sounded much better than the stock Kurzweil provided in the theater.  I had worked on the ship before, so I knew the shows.  I brought to the productions a heightened musical sense with keyboard performances to match.  In less than one week the ship was rated number one in the ratings.  Suddenly new enthusiasm emerged for the shows, and they began to renovate the sound and lighting systems in the main theater.  New equipment began to arrive including a sophisticated espresso machine for the crew mess hall.  This is the power of music and a well conceived, produced, and performed musical show.  The majority of ships do not have this.  They have compromises, because the musicians hired do not have the skill or understanding how to articulate a quality performance.  Live music is a thing of the past.  How does a keyboardist confront this problem?  It is not rocket science.  Often I say my compositional collegiate training allowed me to keep the job on the ships.  I spent the majority of my time re-writing the keyboard charts, so that they could be read and played.  Most often they were a travesty of fly specks, gibberish, and compositional narcissism.  If you want the music to be performed, it must be written and copied well.  There is no short cut.  The rules of classical composition apply, and these guide lines allowed me to wade through the ego of cruise ship production politics.  People feared me, because I knew more about music than anyone on a ship.  This meant you had to take this music seriously, study it, practice it, learn it, and perform it each week.  Often it was a major drag, but then again this is work, not fun.  The concept of the "Showband" piano job was it was meant to be a "pick up" gig.  That means that the music should be written in such a way that a new hire should be able to pick up the music in a few tries.  There are no overly complicated sections.  There is little classical fare.  Often you fill in the gaps like most commercial keyboardists playing in bands on land.  Again certain cruise companies are better at this than others.  A keyboard can add a certain dimension to a show if needed, but often the orchestration is rich enough on its own and features the production singers.  One particular company used the piano sounds as the basis for everything, and its content was not unlike the music of J.S. Bach.  It was written in four voice style the way a classically trained pianist often would play.  This is unusual in commercial music.  As such these notes in the piano parts were the foundation of the entire show.  This piano part had to be articulated accurately and clearly, because everyone in the cast relied upon it.  (What a drag!)  The aid to learning a densely composed show was analyzing its content.  A copy of the prerecorded tracks was a necessity.  You had to sit and listen to these tracks (although often they were musically painful) and watch the music go by.  You would be watching poorly notated, computer generated, piano notation with few corrections.  Often the show had been transposed for a needy production singer.  It was your task to organize this music into numbers, put the numbers in the proper order, and learn the sequence of music.  More often than not the transitions between numbers were more difficult than the numbers themselves.  You learn this trick over time, just like you learn how to play Count Basie arrangements for a Captain's Cocktail.  Count Basie was a pianist, and later in his life as his skills waned he created a style of minimalist piano "licks."  He sat and grinned most of the time, and then he would drop in a few tasty piano "licks."  If you were to be successful as the pianist in the ship orchestra playing Count Basie tunes, you had one task.  Before the set you would put your music in order and look through the tunes to find these particular "licks."  Often they would be intros or endings with a few transitions thrown in.  The notes were specific, so you had to learn them cold.  Then it didn't matter if you played much during the arrangement.  What mattered was you feigned Count Basie accurately.  There are many tricks of the trade, and the biggest one is to have recordings of your shows.  If you could listen to an upcoming show ahead of time and get it in your ear, you would survive the rehearsal better.  Rest assured with certain Guest Entertainers the playing field was tilted the pianist.  Taking your written music seriously and designing and setting up your keyboard rig are the two largest requirements for the orchestra pianist.  They will try to divert you, and they will try diligently to make you fail.  Like any college trained pianist, you make the music your own.  That means having a quality digital piano set up exactly the same way with the same sound for every show.  You should program it yourself including the necessary sounds you will use on any commercial gig.  To date I have yet find one simple MIDI module that provides all of these sounds.  Instead you will have to program the given digital piano on a particular ship.  This is a drag and is time consuming, but it is the job.  If you accomplish these things, then the ship's orchestra can function without neurosis.  They rely on you to hold it together.  If you fail to do this, the gig will become a drunken sideshow.  It could be fun, but those who call themselves musicians really prefer to play the music.  

The Deeper Accomplishment

I'll start with a "hats off" to the Washington Post.  They are a quality newspaper, and one of the few that still focuses on factual, authoritative, in depth news reporting.  It would help that its owner has money to fund it.  That is how the world works and more importantly how Capitalism should work.  Make money here, spend it there.  I read my digital subscription each day, and it is worth the price.  On the other hand I am sick of reading the news in general.  We have regressed to the doldrums of the dog day summer.  Masks again, because people are too hard headed to get a shot?  One of our most notable world class athletes bows out of the Olympic games, because their leadership is lackluster.  Dig a little deeper and the pig Larry Nasser snorts from inside prison.  The debacle of his sexual molestation of competitive female gymnasts is yet to rest.  One would begin to believe these sexual molestations are normal in America.  Lying is normal.  Dishonesty is normal.  Inequality is normal.  America is not the same.  We are a pallid shadow of our former selves, and I have to wake up to it every day.  I like to keep up with the news.  I like to stay informed.  I don't like being depressed at the current condition of America.  Necessarily I must change my focus and find my own beat, and I will be the first to admit I have lost it.  I have abandoned it.  I have chunked my beat to the ground, because not one ounce of it is being supported.  When I resurrect my beat and bang it loudly, I do feel depression, and that depression is because my immediate environment is not capable of marching to this beat.  They are Jimmy Buffet fans.  They choose not to get the vaccine.  They voted for Donald Trump.  They blame Nancy Pelosi for January 6th.  What prison camp is this in which I am living?  America?  Still some faction of the world is trying to kill us daily be dropping Covid from the sky.  American industry is burning the country alive.  (A cardinal couple pair is looking at me through the window perched on a dead dogwood limb.)  The female is chattering.  I do believe birds are angels and the eyes of God.  They don't like the infrasound, and with each gargantuan blast of each wave the air is tainted with pathogens.  Havana Syndrome now purports to cause tangible brain damage, concussion-like symptoms with no concussion.  It has spread to other countries, and each ISR pod on each plane is capable of delivering the blow.  They map topography with microwaves.  There are so many aberrant planes who is to know who the enemy is?  It is difficult to find on what to work.  The Protestant work ethic always has provided a structure for success.  Today honest work no longer is rewarded, so what is the point?  We are all fucked, because America is going down the tubes.  Speaking of the toob, turn it on and what we see is glorified altercation.  Then there is previous American television, television which does not seek to separate us, incite violence, or disrupt out society.  There was a time, believe it or not, when America did function.  That time is not now, and it is a major disappointment to most adults.  When we work in the cruise industry, the young age of crew staff predicates an immature social environment.  I thought by going on ships, somehow I would find a fairy princess from a foreign country who would love me for who I was.  What was or am I?  I am having trouble remembering, because now in America we are inundated with shit.  I am a musician, but who cares?  Our country can't vaccinate itself in the midst of impending death from disease.  Who could care about music?  Music only plays a role in society when Maslow's Hierarchy of needs is met or at least acknowledged.  There are era's of American history where music became a catalyst or catharsis.  The "Blues" emerged after the Emancipation Proclamation when President Lincoln freed the slaves, but the American South refused to accept this societal and governmental change.  The Federal Army enforced the freeing of Negro slaves for several years in New Orleans, but as soon as they sailed back to Yankee-land, Jim Crow emerged as the dominant Southern behavior.  They lynched Negros.  Although the United States of America fought a bloody civil war and eventually freed the slaves, the South would not accept this decision.  Southern Blacks were loathed, hunted, and murdered.  If they were not they were subject to strict segregation from white society.  If one had a need to feel "blue," then this was the time.  There was no place for you in American society.  There is no feeling of the Blues in America now, because the Blues requires honest and sincere feeling.  Instead we have the most superficial masquerade in American history.  The soul has been sucked from our bodies, and instead we are walking zombies.  It is not surprising, because television has been teaching us to be soulless, violent, degenerates for a while.  This assault on American sensibility obviously has come from afar, and we have yet to discover whence it has come.  It could be Putin.  It could be China, because although we feign peace with this vital nation, they have stolen much American intellectual property.  They are the pirate kings of pop America.  The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and we never should forget this as the Olympics tarry on in this island nation.  I will buy Japanese electronics, but I won't trust this country.  Who do we trust, and who is carrying out this attack?  Domestic terrorism rears its ugly head often, but I don't think fundamentalist militia members would attack their own.  They could be coerced into attacking Washington, but they are not smart enough to stage a full blown coup.  Trump on the other hand fully is capable of such a revolt, and most likely he is behind it all.  All he has ever wanted was to topple democracy and morph into an American dictator like his communist friends.  For some reason no one seems to remember this.  America never will return to business as usual until the Trump Clan is extricated from their failure.  Otherwise they will continue to sew the seeds of anarchy in our democratic republic.  Meanwhile petty dribble, hearsay, and fake news will continue polluting American contentment and security.  Like Afghani soldiers, I don't want to devote the rest of my life to hunting the dissidents and systematically eradicating them with violence.  I have better things to do with my musical skills.  Music in America does not possess the power it once commanded through Rock, Funk, and Heavy Metal.  Instead we have complicit, compliant, country pop which has little message at all.  The era of Hendrix, Dillon, Elvis, Frank, and the rest is dead, and I don't see the possibility of resurrecting their messaged.  Perhaps anarchy is the best path forcing most Americans to forget their preconceptions and simply say, "What the fuck."  I can do that, but my soul tells me to work on more. 

Pay Me, M.F.

I am pretty tired of being surveilled.  When I first began working on cruise ships as a professional pianist, I was anxious to find out if the tinnitus I was experiencing would follow me out to sea.  We were sailing in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, and still my left ear was ringing like a banshee.  Quickly I surmised this tinnitus was being caused by aircraft noise.  There were no freight locomotives, the major cause of my tinnitus on land.  There were on the other hand a host of commercial jet liners flying above us en route to the Caribbean and South America.  The roar of jet noise was of equal value to the infrasound produced by invasive diesel-electric prime movers.  My left ear is an accurate litmus test for encroaching transportation.  There is an armada of air, rail, and highway traffic in a military town.  I have become familiar with most of it, but the culprit that makes my ears ring in real time as a dynamic surveillance force is elusive.  There is someone on the other end, and they seem interested in my thoughts, feelings, and other sundry human activity.  Also it is an infringement upon my civil rights this unwarranted surveillance.  How do I know they are listening?  The answer is simple, when your evening dinner conversation ends up on the front page of the Washington Post.  Amazon's Alexa app always is listening, although they purport not to spy on your life.  If you own and use these smart speakers, you agree to this surveillance.  What I do not agree to is the active surveillance of my activity by the United States military.  It stands to reason that the largest military installation in the world practices these techniques constantly.  It is their job.  The multitude of defense contractors constantly are supplying the most up-to-date technology for this activity.  L3/Harris, Lockheed, and the rest are heels deep in ISR.  Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance are the new American Army.  If there is a such thing as a pulsed microwave weapon, it would be provided by these companies.  The "Havana Syndrome" was studied by Chinese academics, and they reverse engineered the noise creating this physical malady.  It was fighter jets.  Trump's Big Lie is a metaphor for universal denial.  There is no infrasound.  It doesn't exist because it is invisible.  Science knows nothing, and there is no electro-magnetic spectrum.  Therefore nothing could be warming the earth, harming human beings, or wreaking havoc on global politics.  All of it is tangible, and this denial is just the easiest and most convenient way to disperse blame.  The causes of climate change are multi-fold.  Aircraft, rail, and vehicular traffic all contribute, but cellular communications also are to blame.  The regulations for millimeter wave transmitters have become so lax, they are everywhere.  No one seems to be alarmed that microwaves are the operating system of smart phones.  We are too selfish to ponder life without our addictions, and the level of ignorance of Americans is frightening.  Our neighbors may be killing us, and that is with what we must contend upon waking each day.  How can ever solve the world's problems?  I take pride in my musical innovation, but I will not provide it to Uncle Sam free of charge.  I have no interest in musical achievement at the moment, because inquiring military minds seem to want to know.  Go fuck yourself.  

Castrated America

 Necessarily the depravity of Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and the rest of the American male sexual Olympic team must be accommodated.  How could America's favorite and black television dad be a sexual predator drugging his victims and molesting them in front of his wife?  He disputes this behavior, but often Hollywood stars believe their own hype.  A slate of female victims did not conspire to bring Mr. Cosby down.  Instead they came to understand his subtle and mostly covert sexual advances were selfish indulgences rather than contracts to promotes their acting careers.  This abuse of influence has become systemic in America but why?  In other nations much older than America, prostitution is legal.  It is not earmarked as a soul defeating sin.  Instead they way Jesus suggested it is allowed, because love or merely sexual fulfillment is a core component of human existence.  Today it is something not publicized, because the treachery of these men's behavior is embarrassing.  In a nutshell these men believed they deserved free sexual service in exchange for their prominent positions in American society.  Who deserves such spoils?  Down in the trenches common Americans struggle to unearth a vestige of love from a fellow human being.  When we are unsuccessful with a distant tradition of American courtship, a faction of American society has attempted to level the playing field by changing the rules.  The rules in this case are defined by gender.  The disparities of gender definition are not new.  It has been reported native American cultures have many degrees of gender identity.  Perhaps the simplistic man woman construct has become inefficient in America.  LGBT isn't new, but its definition and promotion in mainstream American society may be.  Most likely it is riding the coattails of the "Black Lives Matter" movement.  Minorities are sick and tired of public oppression.  This rebranding of alternate sexual identity should be understood in historical context.  Political Correctness continues to be a plague, and severe life situations do no always deserve a glossy title.  Transgender once was called cross-dressing homosexuality.  Some gay men like to dress in women's clothing.  That does not mean you should be handed a title, accolade, or position of prominence.  What it should mean is your sexuality is private, and the rest of society is not required to support your choice.  It would feel more comfortable if they did, but what can be considered an extreme disposition cannot be expected to receive universal acceptance from a a traditionally heterosexual populace.  This is a major disruption, and to suggest androgynous sexual identity should become the norm in society is far reaching.  Most would agree that God openly did create man and woman, and this pattern has remained dominant for thousands of years.  To suggest that LGBT tendencies should become the norm for America is misguided.  It would serve as a major tool in "Cancel Culture."  An assault on heterosexuality is unwarranted and wrong, and yet this is what is occurring.  As a single, middle-aged, Caucasion man each day I am confronted with a sexual identity that challenges my own attraction to women.  Not only are there fewer heterosexual women in proximity, I am made to feel criminal for expressing romantic attraction to women.  This anomaly is promulgated often in the close confines of the cruise industry.  The presence of a "Gay Mafia" cannot be denied.  It would seem sexual persecution has taken a one hundred and eighty degree turn.  What have I done to deserve the perception I am not afforded a fair and level playing field in the game of romance?  It is with this realization often I rant about the misconception of lesbian behavior.  Not only are men competing with other men for the spoils, now we are competing with other women who feel it is their privilege to engage in sexual discourse with other women of their desire.   In my modest understanding it is a shortcut through the mountain pass.  Get in line. 

The Repubican Party's Sinking Armada

When reflecting on the decade of the 1980's, something which may prove difficult for the millennial generation, perhaps it also is a surreal window into a seeming alternate American reality.  As I have studied the "Jazz Age" the persistent reality is I don't connect with that musical aesthetic or social dynamic.  The "Roaring Twenties" can be construed as a reaction to the brutal realities of World War I.  Soldiers returning home dead in pine boxes would have been a stark and stigmatizing experience.  It is not every American generation which has been beset with war.  Prohibition or the illegality of alcohol fueled this rebellion or recalcitrance to governmental authority.  The "Roaring Twenties" was a party decade which came to a grinding halt at the onset of the Great Depression.  Ten years of reckless behavior, cavalier spending, and reckless investment led America into her greatest economic depths.  The Economic Crisis of 2008 can be understood as the same.  America has yet to recover from her irresponsible opportunism of the Clinton Housing Bubble.  Wall Street may never recover and reestablish itself as an honest and steadfast investment methodology for Americans.  Instead it was exploited by the most selfish, narcissistic, and self-serving gladiatorial bankers.  Their damage to American economics is irreversible.  One could consider the era of the 1980's a glimpse of a more successful navigation of available American wealth.  While Ronald Reagan's "Trickle Down Economics" staunchly can be considered an economic failure, in retrospect this decade was decidedly more successful, enjoyable, and fruitful for American society.  The "Gulf War" necessarily emerged as a vehicle for the empowerment of the Bush Clan, but until "Dessert Storm" America was reveling in a Viet Nam free  playground of television, film, and music.  The music industry usurped Hollywood in revenue proving how Americans were open to a musically influenced life.  In her best times America was guided by a musical language personifying what often can be a complex and misunderstood political dynamic.  Music in America rarely is a tool or propaganda of the establishment.  More often it is the voice of dissent, malcontent, or rebellion.  For the most part this artistic voice of freedom has been castrated.  Subtly and discreetly the rebellious voice of American freedom has been caged, and Kevin McCarthy has become its self-proclaimed false prophet.  He and Trump are nothing more than pathetic fallen televangelists attempting to collect the alms of the gullible and needy.  The Arts are the needed mechanism of "Checks and Balances."  If ever we did choose to take them seriously, the Expressionist movement of the 1920's would tell the story.  Everything all ready has happened in the world, but the false prophets are suggesting nothing is of significance.  We are to just let it be free and continue to empower the future fascist dictator of the American Communist nation.  While the 1980's can seem indulgent they are in fact a metaphor for artistic, technological, and industrial achievement.  Perhaps billionaires and the internet have grabbed the reins, but pure technology all ready has come to fruition through Japanese electronics, Apple computers, and pure American textiles and manufacturing.  Currently we are in a billabong of war profiteering, white nationalism, and re-emergent Jim Crow.  The essence of American ingenuity, freedom, and rebelliousness are asleep under the luke warm semen of misguided, right wing, soap box shouters.  While beautiful clothing, hair, and make up are just window dressing, they were an empowering vehicle for American artistic integrity.  It is time to return to that mind set.  I believe most of America is tired of swimming in the vestiges of Trump's sinking luxury armada. 

Military Life

I am beginning to feel friends are not worth it.  Moreover I am beginning to feel that a heterosexual romantic relationship is like a thousand scorpions in your crotch.  With what we see on television, in movies (what is left of them), and experience in real life, it would seem everyone is your enemy.  What's the point of trying to have friends?  In our neighborhood it has become the military way.  Young parents with no college education and rug rats under their feet.  This morning it made me for the first time understand and appreciate a college education.  We are surrounded by military people with no college education, and I am not disparaging them.  I am pointing out the difference, and that difference is four years of college adds four years of knowledge and experience.  It is not knowledge you must accommodate to keep your job like the military.  Civilian life is not regimented like military life.  You don't have to be physically fit nor show up for PT early in the morning.  You don't have a weight requirement.  You don't have to wear fatigues or dress blues every day.  You don't have to kill the enemy.  I would say there is a stark and vast difference between military and civilian life, although in decades passed military families tried to assimilate more into civilian life.  Four years of college produces noticeable differences in one's day to day life.  What happens in this four years?  There is regimen of its own.  You must register for classes and pick your sections establishing your own weekly schedule.  You must adhere to this schedule, attend these classes, study and learn their material, and pass exams proving you have learned the material.  Much of this activity is done while living on your own for the first time away from home.  Immediately you are tasked with achieving a balance between a newly emergent social existence and academic study.  There is a high drop out rate for colleges and universities, and these institutions are more than happy to take your money for nothing.  The North Carolina State Legislature has approved the highest level of tuition increase each year whether it was needed or not.  Hence a college education comes at an exorbitant cost in American dollars, and because of a changing world it is not as applicable to real life today.  Having a college degree does not ensure you will be offered a job.  Consequently states have cut corners and refuse to pay the extra benefits of further education.  Terminal degree holders have become forsaken in America, because they are deemed to expensive to hire and pay.  Companies like cruise companies would rather pay a beginner with no experience then a seasoned experienced professional.  Herein lies one of the problems with what has become our America.  Social mobility, wealth, and security no longer are provided or supported by the Capitalist socioeconomic system.  They are commandeered by the wealthy.  The Middle Class in America has shrunk like a cold penis.  We have become a third world nation without knowing it.  After working at sea in international waters for over a decade, coming back to America is a major downer.  Veterans are experiencing the same.  With all of this lack of social mobility, accruing of wealth, and security America is not much fun.  Now some unknown faction is trying to kill us all with a deadly engineered and manufactured pathogen.  A handful of truths have emerged in the wake of this pandemic.  One is Big Brother is watching and listening to everything we say or do.  While Amazon's Alexa is a logical choice for this surveillance, I think it is coming from satellites.  Google's satellites would be the most logical.  Okay, so most of these military families have not benefited from the collegiate environment.  In most likelihood they did not excel in high school or even graduate at all.  They are people looking for guidance and identity.  Making it past these needs is not a priority, because these things conveniently are provided by Uncle Sam.  When your Commander and Chief asks you to attack the Capital and stop the confirmation of America's presidential election, what do you do?  Are you smart enough not to follow these orders and make your own ethical decision?  That is not what is asked of you in the United States military.  Simply you are asked to go kill the enemy, and they tell you who this enemy is.  Needless to say military families operate in a different theater of life than civilians.  Why have I come to believe friends or romantic interests are undesirable.  Could it be that the extreme right newly emergent Republican party has pitted Americans against one another.  If you do trust or confide in anyone today, certainly you are exposing your flanks.  It is impossible to establish solidarity in America today, because half of Washington, DC is trying to resurrect the Jim Crow Era of the American South.  People are not able to care about you, and why should they?  Everyone except the wealthy merely are trying to survive in a war torn nation.  

A Few Universal Truths (that are overlooked)

 The good old U.S. of A has grown PC.  I don't mean "personal computer," although our reliance upon computers has become endemic.  The change in our lives completely has come about because of the commercialization of the internet.  Fully I don't understand "Net Neutrality," but I know for certain that whatever decision needed to be made to ensure the sovereignty and freedom of the web was forfeited for corporate profit.  This is the way of capitalism and thus America.  Perhaps once universal truth, good will, and Christianity were tenants of American life but no longer.  We as a populace were sold out long ago.  The internet has crippled television, cinema, and music.  If you can access and use for free any of this media, why would you pay for it?  Washington is not capable of leading America, and she has proven this unequivocally.  One only has to realize what has happened in America.  If we pulled out heads out of our iPhones, our palms, that once were better used giving us self pleasure, we would see the truth.  We are so empty spiritually and physically, we cannot free ourselves of the addiction of the smartphone.  There is nothing else.  All of our traditional amenities have vanished into the abyss of the internet.  We no longer know how to communicate in person much less express ourselves through physical love.  We are a  pathetic lot of losers.  Without knowing it we are afraid to see the truth much less understand it.  The truth is America has become a mass of absorbed borg not able to understand the need for a simple vaccination or the severity of an illicit attack on our federal government and democracy.  Any other day or age the savage attack on our Capital would have been met with brutal punishment for treason.  We have become P.C., politically correct, so we are able to deny the greatest domestic attack on America in centuries.  "It was just a little day at the park," and yet it should have been met with staunch, decisive, blunt American justice.  It was a covert attack done in full sunlight under the ruse of fabricated and false patriotism.  It was a communist siege, but still we are playing the diplomacy card.  Carefully we are finding these criminals, and quietly we are spanking their bottoms like aberrant school children.  The reality is real freedom in America has been castrated with one fell swoop of the iPhone, and while Communism isn't our desired political system the participants of this system all ready knew the probable outcome of this dangerous and unregulated network.  The internet itself is not the culprit.  The culprit is Facebook and what has become of Google.  Still I use both and will continue to use both.  It does not change the fact that Facebook has become Big Brother and only because its inventor inherently is flawed.  Without a moral conscience provided by God and the lessons of Jesus documented in the Bible, no mere human has it within them to know or understand empathy.  Only heartbreak and tragedy will provide this lesson, and it is due time for big tech to fall from grace and eat a huge slice of humble pie.  The only obstacle is America has invested in this faction as a major source of our economy.  They have become a corporate monopoly, and with this title comes most of America spendable capital.  If we are to return as America, the former America, then they must return our money. 

Return from the Dregs in Fayettenam

 I can't remember in my lifetime a black mayor, nor can I recall an all black city council in Fayetteville, North Carolina.  In response to what evolved into seeming racial politics,  the Vote Yes Fayetteville organization was begun.  This scenario is a metaphor for diversity everywhere.    A table slanted to the left demands more pressure on the right and vice versa.  Your viewpoint is constructed from your own personal experiences and knowledge, so it stands to reason the perception of life highly is influenced or even tainted by your own experiences.  Your own personal experiences are not enough to determine leadership.  It takes more.  If only it were personal experience, then America would be tribal.  Here education enters the picture.  If you are stuck in a low income, economically depressed, racially segregated area, it would be difficult for anyone to see past their own meager eyes.  To escape poverty, oppression, and discrimination more is needed than a home can provide.  Once television provided this much needed national perspective.  Radio before television connected America, and with traveling minstrel shows a mainstream began to emerge.  Radio and television were the two largest educators then.  They did not seek to spew propaganda; they sought to sell soap.  Something had to pay the bills of production.  With the onset of Covid 19 and its lock down, closure of schools, and limiting of human interaction a large toll has been taken on our population.  We are challenged to find truth.  Perhaps it was not bad this isolation giving us a new social and economic perspective.  With Mayor Mitch Colvin Vote Yes Fayetteville is attempting to tilt the table of what they feel is an unbalanced governmental power structure.  I would agree that an all black government is just as discriminatory as an all white one.  Diversity is the goal and a balancing of this blood.  From VYF's perspective they feel there is too much African-American influence in Fayetteville, and this perspective largely is based upon one incident, the looting of downtown at the inception of the Black Lives Matter movement.  How you view Major Colvin's decision not to send police isn't enough to assess his job performance.  It is one incident.  It is important, but it is not the only thing.  Personally I feel having a Black Lives Matter mural painted on the street around the Market House is racist.  It suggests Fayetteville is pro black.  The Market House itself is a volatile issue, because people are drawing conclusions only from their own personal experiences.  No ones knows what was happening over a century ago, and certainly because we have been selective in our history texts, the real truth never has been told.  It is time for that.  Your perspective is what assesses your opinion about anyone or anything.  The wider your scope, the more your knowledge, and the more experiences you have will change this perspective.  Putting yourself in someone else's shoes always is an effective lesson in life.  I think Mayor Colvin made the appropriate decision not to unleash a civil skirmish in downtown Fayetteville.  Because the Police were being protested, sending them in to quell potential violence would have ended in bloodshed.  Consequently no lives were lost, but the blow to Hay Street businesses was sharp and severe.  It will take years to recover.  I remember Hay Street forty years ago when all it was was strip clubs and beer gardens, but merchants were making money.  Where do the G.I.'s go now for diversion-  chain restaurants?  The original Cape Fear Railroad had a trolley to transport soldiers to Hay Street and back when they were too drunk to walk.  Good thinking I say.  The Urban Sprawl has returned, and the infrastructure of Fayetteville has deteriorated.  Never has it been walking or biking friendly, and it is because soldiers drive jeeps, trucks, and tanks.  The protocol of the military may not be the same as the desired living conditions of civilians, and this is the major disparity of 'Nam.  You can say Mitch Colvin has failed because of Black Lives Matter, or you can reflect on the other more tangible successes in Fayetteville.  What are they?  

1.  Segra Baseball Stadium

2.  Skateboard Park at Rowan Park

3.  Splash Pads at Local Rec Centers

4. I-295 Loop Interstate

5. Grove Street Bridge Replacement

6. Sale and Renovation of the Prince Charles

Maybe these projects were underway before his election, but still were completed.  Tribalism or special interest needs always will remain as the most prevalent issue-  Who wants what and where?  The major problem in Fayetteville currently is the leadership of the police.  It has been a difficult several years with widespread police corruption nationally, but the resulting lack of policing has lead to record breaking crime and violence.  Until the sixty vacancies are filled in the Fayetteville Police Department, lawlessness will continue.  I think it is time for a new chief, because traditional police work is not getting done.  Fayetteville is cited as one of the most dangerous cities in which to drive, and its citizens do not deserve to die because they drive.  With all of this being said about leadership in 'Nam, the more important issue is economic and social mobility.  Depression is caused when no solution is in sight, and it would seem Fayetteville is stuck in a ditch asleep at the wheel.  Those driving the machine are the same as they always have been, and it is not necessarily fair.  Who gets the tilt of the table is a matter of politics.  We should be giddy that Kirk Deviere and Ben Clark have been successful earmarking millions of dollars for both Cumberland and Hoke counties.  I would suggest you take some of that money and provide supplements for new active duty police officers as an inducement for their employ.  We need police, and yet like public school teachers they are viewed as expendable.  The strongest infrastructure of a community is solid schools and strong policing.  This way students can rise above their abject poverty with the confidence they will not die under the age of twenty in a drive by shooting.  With Covid 19 America has become a sink or swim school of hard knocks.  Teaching is at an all time low, and the violence is a direct result.  We need to restore both. 

H.A.A.R. P

It's time to talk about the "Heat Dome."  Isn't it suspicious that Alaska, America's most northern state, is suffering from a heat wave?  How is that possible meteorologically?  Alaska is higher up than Maine.  California, Oregon, Washington, parts of western Canada, and Alaska are experiencing record breaking temperatures.  In trying to deduce the cause of this weather phenomena one looks at the map of red and blue states.  The heat reaches into Nevada and Arizona.  Recently what has happened politically which includes these states?  Arizona has had vote re-counts spurred by Donald Trump and his Republican Party.  Nevada flipped blue, didn't it?  Ask yourself how blue states who publicly and verbally were loathed by then candidate Trump suddenly are beset with a massive life-taking heat wave.  Ask.  Then take a look at a map of the ionosphere and the little dip resembling a map of this heat wave.  Ask how would it be possible to create such massive and widespread heat.  Think about the Marx Brothers.  Think about Harpo.  "Angels Don't Play This HAARP."  Two months ago the HAARP installation controlled by the University of Alaska Fairbanks received a 9.3 million dollar grant to open the shut down facility.  Word is they are renting it out for five thousand dollars an hour.  What is HAARP?  Many have asked the same question, and rest assured when they figured out how to do what they were working on they closed the facility and sold it to the highest bidder.  Raytheon perhaps?  What is Raytheon?  The answer-  A defense contractor.  What is HAARP?  It is a phased array radar, I think.  At least it is a high frequency radio transmitter intended to-  are you ready?  HEAT THE IONOSPHERE.  They were trying to facilitate the propagation of VLF radio waves by energizing the sky.  To communicate with its submarines the Navy uses a huge miles long antenna.  Wouldn't it be nice not to have to use that?  First we must be able to create VLF radio waves and then with a  phased array transmit them around the globe for use by the navy.  Military men who worked at the installation used to sun bathe in front of the transmitters.   That's how warm it was in that once frigid Alaska air.  Two months ago HAARP, which has been shuttered since 2015, received a National Science Foundation grant for 9.3 million to open again.  Two months later in July the hottest temperatures on record have beset the Pacific Northwest.  Go figure.