Our Lost Democracy

The Washington Post prints quality stories, and they have improved.  The new editor-in-chief is proving to have integrity.  Often a day after I blog about an issue, an article will appear reporting upon a similar thing.  This makes you feel like democracy is working.  It is the only thing, freedom of the press.  With an upcoming election the decadence is rife.  Local news broadcasts are spattered with pro Trump political ads, and they are low brow, pathetic, and misleading.  Many are blatant lies.  The same tired rhetoric about building a wall, fixing the economy, and making America great fail to resonate after the Covid debacle.  Always there will be MAGA extremists, and their profile is the same as before.  They are threatened, uneducated, white men wanting their country back.  The populace has matured, and Trump candy no longer can tempt the babies.  When you are trying to provide for your family, rear literate children, and prosper no one has time to fixate upon racism. Discrimination is alive and well, and SCOTUS proved that.  There are no more racial quotas in the university system.  Opportunity in America always will be an issue.  Do we want to sublimate into a nation of tribal wars with gang violence and hand to hand combat?  America is splintering, and it is worse after the Donald Trump presidency.  We had problems, but Barack Obama was a virtuous leader.  The country held together under his presidency.  If Donald Trump's plan is to make America great again, it is with a devolution to Jim Crow segregation.  Given a choice I'm sure he would reinstate slavery, along with other extreme members of the GOP.  He proved this time and time again hiring workers, exploiting their labor, and refusing them payment.  He thought they were slaves.  If you vote for Donald Trump in 2024, you are voting for white supremacy.  This may seem exciting as a television pilot, but we are talking reality, not fantasy.  Donald watched a lot of television, and he has difficulty discerning the difference.  Watching Mitch McConnell concede his Senate leadership position is like watching a bigot gracefully step aside avoiding persecution.  He and what he represents are what have made America what it is today.  No longer are we a nation governed by the people.  We are governed by a small group of wealthy autocrats who are concerned only with advancing their own personal interests.  "Democracy is in peril is the headline," but we all ready have lost it.  We are not governred by the people, because those we elect to represent us are seditious.  Donald Trump is a traitor to America.  We have not ruled ourselves since his electing.  Mitch is the prime example of ignoring the people.  Yes, he represents a constituency in Kentucky, but that constituency is not our people.  It is a polarized group of elitists clinging to the ideals of America's racist past.  Donald Trump is Jim Crow Jr.  When we see only decline, crime, and inequality, then we know we are not being represented.  When government makes it more difficult for you to canvas their work, that is when you know they are not looking out for you.  Changing a city council meeting time to keep the public out is wrong.  Joe Biden's infrastructure legislation has allocated money for states and cities, and these local officials are like kids in the candy store.  Tennis complexes.  Baseball stadiums.  The streets are full of pot holes.  There are no police, and the air is dirty from jet exhaust.  We are sucking the fumes of those wealthy elite who prefer for everyone to own a black man.  If he resists shoot him in the drive through of a Wendy's.  You can choose to ignore reality, turn the other cheek, or don the rose colored glasses.  Each day when I shop for home staples, I am confronted with this reality.  Homelessness.  Poverty.  Despair.  America has not been governing herself for a long time.  When corporate America does what ever they want at the expense of the people, democracy has failed.  Cell phone towers every block.  PFAS in the water.  Shot Spotter sensors all over town listening to your lives.  Big Brother is here, and that ugly menacing image on the screen is Donald Trump.  We will bide our time until the week of April 22, when SCOTUS will decide if Trump is immune from prosecution.  If they protect him, then we will know democracy is lost.  

The Post-Covid Snake Oil Show

America has lost focus.  So many things changed us during Covid.  We are walking with limps, breathing with gasps, working with limitations, and trying to feign normalcy pre-pandemic.  I don't think it is possible.  Long Covid is a grievous wound, and the labor force is the worst casualty.  Not only are we physically weaker, our mental faculties have become strained.  We use drugs to feel normal.  Interesting predicament.  Our environment has become so abrasive, almost antagonistic, that we need drugs to survive.  Is this a naturally unfolding scenario, such as the questionable emergence of Covid, or is it deliberate?  Perhaps it is a byproduct of the lack of regulation and oversight by the appropriate agencies.  When I drink a glass of home-brewed ice tea, I am ingesting PFAS.  Although I use bottled spring water, the ice from my ice maker uses city water, the worst water in the state of North Carolina.  If I fill my tea glass with ice, I drink more of this water than water from my bottle.  This is unsettling, and buying ice trays is on my "To Do" list.  At every turn in my average every day life, there are health challenges.  I have thrown away most of my flower pots for fear the dirt is tainted with viruses.  I ditched some of my house plants.  Recently we ground, sealed, and coated the garage floor.  It is when I sleep that I am susceptible to illness.  Why is this?  This is a contradiction of human existence.  Sleep is supposed to rejuvenate us, and yet it has become the most sacrificed therapy.  Why?  The answer is the trains run after sundown under the cover of blackness.  Since it has become Precision Scheduled Railroading, the trains should be predictable.  They are predictably longer, because of Locotrol (a crazy gringo driving the train).  Intermodulation.  If we can't decide whether or not to wear a mask that doesn't even cover our eyes, how can we understand this concept?  The top of a GE locomotive is a transmitting station replete with Wifi, Cell, and traditional radio.  My internet slows down when a train goes by.  Is this acceptable, a rail monopoly?  The Post-Covid Snake Oil Show is a campaign of misinformation and down right lies.  Scare the people, and they won't pay attention to the polluted environment.  Corporate America has become slimy with malfeasance.  No one is looking out for the people.  Within several miles our our home, which is near historic Haymount, trees are being razed like there is no tomorrow.  Trees that have taken decades to grow, and which provide rich oxygen for us to breath into our lungs, are just being pushed over with bulldozers and hauled to the city dump.  There has been no thought as to how to integrate a tree into a yard or neighborhood.  "0 Jura Drive" is a newly proposed Fayetteville subdivision.  Miraculously, with a huge housing shortage within the city limits, a fifty acre, ninety home subdivision materializes out of nowhere, at the expense of fifty acres of trees.  Similarly on North Edgewater Drive in Van Story Hills, a hillside of oaks, pines, and maples that has been in existence from the beginning, suddenly is razed to the ground in one fell swoop.  The precursors to these events have been "The Shops at Village Green," and the pine forest on the corner of Glensford and Cliffdale Roads.  Several years ago this wooded lot which bordered a middle class neighborhood off of the All American Expressway was razed to the ground exposing the flanks of these homes.  Their property values decreased immediately.  No sound barrier from traffic.  No privacy.  Nothing.  Nothing has been built there, just as nothing has been built on the corner of Village Drive and Robeson Street.  They felled all of the trees, and now it sits.  Less oxygen.  More noise.  Urban decay.  The air is rife with the smell of jet fuel and diesel exhaust, and the things that manufacture breathable air are not valued.  We needs drugs to survive now.  Pretty soon we'll need bottled oxygen.  Who is going to sell it to us?  America, the biodome.  It's depressing. 

The Raveling of the Hem of America

 Ironically during the Covid sequestering, when air travel was limited, the ozone hole over the South Pole almost healed itself.  When the quarantine was lifted, and the world was declared safe to resume a convalescent recovery, the checks and balances of the democratic system were weakened.  From the pulpit of his Presidency, Donald Trump limited federal regulation and oversight.  What does this mean?  It is easiest to cast Fayettenam as a metaphor.  Environmental protections always have been important in assuring the quality of life of America citizens penned in the United States Constitution.  During his Presidency the nature and purpose of our declaration of rights has come into question.  In addition to a physical and violent insurrection on the United States Capital, when they were attempting to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, the philosophy of America postulated in the Constitution has come under attack. Two substantial, tangible, and legal attacks are enough to convict an entity of treason.  For treason should Donald Trump be held accountable.  It makes no matter that he is a silver-tongued sloth, and seasoned cult leader, and a sociopath.  The courts will find him guilty of his crimes, and criminal trials will exclude him for running for reelection.  Until then it is hedge, hedge, hedge.  As a nation we do not care what his deranged mind aspires to accomplish in his new fascist regime.  If we are banking on America empowering a communist upheaval, it would contradict the essence of American Way.  If you desire authoritarianism, feel free to immigrate to Moscow.  Incarceration, poison, or death will be the result of your resistance.  In America we are free to speak our minds, but organizing a second revolution will take more than the fanatical posturing of the anachronistic Ku Klux Klan.  Historically lynching sent a gruesome message, but as a matured and intelligent nation, hopefully we have moved past that probable propaganda.  Constitutional peace still is possible. 

The Covid Debacle

 Covid was too convenient.  If one wanted to disable an economy, a supposed free market system with rule by the people, then attack its country with a deadly pathogen.  As the socioeconomic system falters Robber barons are poised to take the reins.  Big Pharma, who all ready have undermined America's health, will benefit by providing the appropriate remedy.  It was Editor-in-Chief Holden Thorp who told me that to become affluent and famous, one has to create the malady to which they all ready possess the remedy.  Like HIV and the now invisible and rich Anthony Fauci, it took a few years for the Covid vaccines to emerge.  Hundreds of thousands died of AIDS before the virus was isolated.  Misinformation about treatment was rampant.  It really seemed as if they wanted those intravenous drug users and homosexuals to die.  There was the saga of Judy Mikovits, "And the Band Played On."  Political and economic maneuvering for the appropriate patents, and people just kept dying.  Covid was too convenient, and its development at the Chinese Wuhan Labs was financed by the United States.  It could be interpreted as a brazen, fascist, domestic, terror attack, and its gains were financial for a specific few.  Amazon all ready was established  as an internet-based mail order powerhouse, that had dealt a stark blow to brick and mortar stores.  When an entire citizenry is forced to shelter-in-place, who prospers?  The State.  People must eat, so internet-based meal ordering and delivery appeared.  Grub Hub.  Uber Eats.  To ease the pain, suffering, and death of Covid 19, we would become addicted to our smart phones.  The availability of meals.  Graphic sex.  Products.  Entertainment.  Games.  All in the palm of your hand.  Once it was your genitalia.  If the Robber barons could minimize our sexual desire and the actual methods of sexual fulfillment, then they could replace them with meaningless commodities (anodynes).  Games.  Videos.  Music.  Shopping.  Sex.  All in the palm of your hand.  It is too good to be true, and it takes the challenge out of human interaction.  We become docile lambs led to the slaughter.  Covid 19 was a ruthless ethnic cleansing and reduction of the global population, and it is frightening to think who has it now.  A strong Secretary of Defense, like Leon Panetta, would be a good start.   

Remembering Our Lost Friends

 Cumberland County has the worst water in the state.  The presence of the Chemours plant, an offshoot of DuPont, doesn't help.  After polluting the watershed with forever chemicals for decades, Chemours now is professing to care.  Locals are not buying it.  Irresponsibility runs deep, and Camp Lejeune used similar chemicals to clean grungy locomotives on "Track X" back in the day.  These chemicals seeped into the ground water and contaminated wells causing disease and death for many locals at Marine Base Camp Lejeune.  National defense has a long powerful arm, and unfortunately the Pentagon feels local citizens are expendable.  It is not a sentiment dissimilar from corporate America.  The needs of the masses outweigh the needs of the few.  While their is a mass migration into North Carolina, because of its relatively low cost of living, there are trade offs.  The host county for the world's largest military base has the worst water in the state.  This is a contradiction.  If we wanted our defending troops to be strong and intelligent, then we would treat them better.  Life at Fort Liberty is no walk in the park.  Fort Bragg has a history of violence, and it is understandable, because it is a training ground for ensuing war.  It is difficult to balance that training, fierce dedicated fighting with enlightened living.  Fayetteville suffers consequently.  It is common knowledge that children leave Cumberland County and never return.  It does not offer the amenities of other cities.  Military personnel who move here become disillusioned.  Since the outbreak of Covid 19 the quality of life in Fayetteville has plummeted.  During the pandemic it remained relatively steady, while people sheltered at home.  When the disease began to ebb, urban decay emerged.  With a severely disabled work force, middle class businesses quickly succumbed to a markedly changed clientele.  It was difficult to find quality labor, and the socioeconomic status of neighborhoods changed.  Suddenly Fayetteville resembled a ghetto, something I never have witnessed.  Parts of Fayetteville have waned in the past and fallen into disrepair.  In time these properties are purchased and rejuvenated.  Joe Biden's ending of the War in Afghanistan had major consequences for Cumberland Country.  Defense contractors, local businesses with contracts through the Department of Defense, began to disappear.  Those free flowing dollars sanctioned by war dried up.  It has become obvious these types of war-related entities comprise a majority of Cumberland County's middle and upper classes.  This not always was the case.  Once Fayetteville had a substantial societal class  funded by businesses outside of the United States military.  Merita baked fresh bread on Ramsey Street.  The Coca Cola bottling plant was torn down and replaced with government agencies.  Black and Decker closed.  There was an elite group of business professionals living on "The Gold Coast," Skye Drive, and many other upper middle class neighborhoods.  With the absence of these businesses, the influence of this old money has lessened.  The older generation has died off, and as many know, children do not return to Fayetteville.  Consequently these reputable historic neighborhoods have suffered from disrespect.  That disrespect comes from corporate America mainly in their activity supporting the Military Industrial Complex.  While BRAC painted the moving of Ground Forces Command to Fort Liberty as positive with its influx of dollars, it in fact has contributed to the neglect and decline of Cumberland Country infrastructure.  Yes, we have I-195, an outer loop that serves the post.  Also we have other eye candy which is meant to feign civility and enlightenment such as a baseball stadium, new tennis complex, and skateboard park.  The reality is none of these things can overcome the brusk reality of industrial activity such as freight rail, military air traffic, and now commercial air flight.  These three things have forsaken the city of Fayetteville and turned the city into a small nuclear reactor with people living in its core.  A Facebook group named "Remembering Our Lost Friends" is necessary to commemorate the memories of so many lost souls.  People die more rapidly and more often in Cumberland County, and it is no mystery why.  Downtown Fayetteville a few years ago was a focal point of revitalization.  It would seem Covid 19 and its effects on the population largely are responsible for these societal changes.  Urban flight covertly drained Fayetteville of its middle class dollars, and a ghetto remains.  The police force has numerous vacancies, and drug distribution in particular through "Vape" shops has flourished.  These legal fronts for drug distribution, gambling, and prostitution are a smear on virtuous living.  They are unneeded temptations, a short term fix, for the now long term problems of a military city. 

The American Oligarchy

It is difficult not to wax pessimism, when most of what we see in the media is controversy.  If we turn to traditional avenues of enlightenment, academia has become marred with plagiarism, discrimination, politics, and corruption.  College sports have bolstered capitalism and undermined the virtue of academia.  It's all about the dollar, and America has lost a myriad of ways to earn that dollar.  Like American Popular music or more succinctly, the "Pop Star," the shallowness of capitalism has indoctrinated us into win/lose.  Controversy.  Competition.  Dominance.  Battle.  War.  Win!  Lose!  Most people will agree some competition is positive, but traditionally academia was a shelter from the cut throat dynamic of Wall Street.  It was thought of as a nurturing place intelligent students could learn and hone their craft.  The illusion of the "College Town" remains, but it is less present.  Georgetown.  Chapel Hill.  Athens.  Asheville.  These places were Camelot back in the day and were far from the inner city ghetto.  If you are not careful you could be seduced by the college town.  As soon as you drive away from the collegiate environment, things change back to the countryside.  Iowa Farm Boy.  Corn Huskers.  Midwest Diary Farms.  The values of the small town have been a mainstay in the history of America, and perhaps they found their origins in Puritan settlers and their beliefs.  The temptations of the modern city did not suit them, and they felt the values of a working community were enough.  Farming.  Building.  Harvesting.  Was it the sexual allure of Rock 'n' Roll that seduced America's youth and created a sexual revolution?  Bob Fosse's choreography was a metaphor for this modern perspective.  The "Crooning" of our parents time no longer was relevant, and America's Youth sought a more aggressive, powerful, and empowering aesthetic.  Blaxpolitation has negative connotations, but after the assassinations of Martin Luther King, John F Kennedy, and Malcolm X, popular culture necessarily changed.  The dynamic of music, television, and film changed with the rise of the Black Panther Party.  Characters like Shaft, "Who's the private dick that is a sex machine to all the chicks?" were born in contrast to the passive and docile image of freed slaves.  After decades of segregation, Jim Crow, and lynchings, STAX records felt a stronger black persona was needed.  With the Viet Nam War raging, drug trafficking, and gang violence, crooning romantic music no longer was viable as an outlet for America.  Rock 'n' Roll was here to stay.  In our current search for identity and solidarity, there are many American choices.  Necessarily with the history of slavery they unfold over racial lines.  Integration was implemented in America's public schools offering equal opportunities for all.  Acutely we remember this scenario, Rosa Parks, George Wallace, and the Kennedy Clan competing in the arena of Civil Rights.  In a great disservice to America, bigotry and white supremacy would not allow the further dissemination of these principles.  Reganomics overshadowed the Civil Rights Movement and replaced it with the Yuppie, Young, Upwardly Mobile, Professional.  Reducing the 70% tax rate on the wealthy, expendable capital was released changing the economic landscape of America for better or worse.  Stagflation was thwarted, and people have mixed views on the result.  Instead of stuffing money into their pockets like our modern breed of billionaires, businesses, companies, and corporations invested back into their interests creating an American Renaissance of television, film, music, fashion, and commerce.  Not unlike the "Roaring Twenties," readily available cocaine fueled this mania.  As Americans we have our choice.  MAGA is an empty, politically motivated, manipulative ploy to destroy American democracy and self governance.  If we do want to make America great again, we need to increase the tax percentage on the ultra-rich, empower the middle and lower classes, and spread the dollar out through smaller businesses and practices.  The age of the "Pop Star" cannot sustain.  All men are created equal, but as a sovereign nation we have forgotten this.  America is an oligarchy, and our rulers are not adept at governance.  

Elder Care and Planning

What is difficult is when your mom wants to come home.  It is after all her house.  Mostly it was my father's house.  He paid for it, but it became hers when he left this earth.  I need to remember that some times.  What I need to remember always is things never will be the same.  That is what aging is.  I never experienced this until now, because I always felt young enough to make something else happen.  Then your family begins to pass away, uncles, aunts, grandparents, parents, and their friends a different reality presents itself.  You are in a different place than the rest of your life, and you have to make changes.  Upon what you relied before does not apply now.  Things never will be the same.  You must have a clear vision of your future plan, and that plan accommodates loss in your family.  My plan included a self-actualized estate sale, but there will be no money exchanged.  There will be no sale at all, but the process of the estate sale occurs.  That means everything your family leaves behind is examined, evaluated, and tasked for its future.  This is a hulking daunting job, and that is why Estate Sale companies exist.  It is too much for most families.  Allowing your family heirlooms to be sold off for a fraction of their value is sacrilege.  I am doing it myself, and it is sad.  You are looking at the loss of a family square in the face.  Christmas decorations, ornaments, and memorabilia.  All of the things that made a family a family.  It is heartbreaking, but it needs to be done.  My mother wants to come home, but it would not be good for her.  Her tenure in the family dwelling lasted until 90.  It was a quality run, but it had run it course.  The day she picked up that forty pound flower pot is the day life changed for her.  Without kyphoplasty she never would have gotten out of bed.  Five broken vertebra later her spine is crooked and weak, and she barely can stand up.  She sits in a wheelchair, and keeping her from falling keeps her alive.  It is the same with my aunt.  Not that long ago she tried to get up and landed on her head.  It is a necessity to keep them sitting in their chairs.  Our house is inaccessible, and no matter how hard we try, there is just no way to make it different.  The most pressing reality is even if she could stay here, it would not be good for her.  There are all kinds of environmental problems, and those include invasive low-flying aircraft, rumbling freight trains (like now), menacing Apache helicopters, and more.  Life is not the same in Fayettenam, and steadily it has gotten worse.  She gets the daily newspaper.  I take her periodicals.  She has television, mostly Turner Classic Movies.  But her room is comfortable, and they take care of her needs.  She gets three meals a day, and they take her to the restroom.  It is an adjustment for sure, but mostly it is in the mind.  If she decides to accept it, then she could be happy.  Always she is consumed with what I am doing, and that is attempting to accomplish the large task of feigning the Estate Sale.  It would entertain her to see it happen, and it did with my aunt.  There is more to it, and that is me.  If I had married and spawned a family, then perhaps we wouldn't care.  It is a difficult decision how to handle elder care.  She thinks the family that sold us the house has moved back in.  I have no idea where she thinks I live.  I'm not sure she cares much anymore.  You plan your work and work you plan and stick to it.  That is what I am doing.  Her home will become turn key, and the prospect of that hassle in my future will dissipate.  I am getting it done now.  Then I can rest.  

Walking to the Beat of Your Own Drummer

 Choosing a college was difficult.  I had five choices.  They were Appalachian State University, East Carolina University, North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  The purpose of the state university system is to offer affordable quality education.  Unlike Ivy League schools, which earn from out-of-state tuition, colleges and universities within the state system are there for a specific reason.  When I chose Chapel Hill, there was no doubt in my mind it was the best school.  I didn't necessarily want to go there, but I felt like if I was offered the opportunity, I should respect and take it.  In retrospect and at the urging of my Professor uncle, Dr. Peter Reichle, perhaps Appalachian State could have been a better choice.  I majored in music for lack of a better choice.  I did not want to become a music teacher, but like many others, I completed the Bachelor of Music Education degree as a backup.  Graduating from UNC was the single most difficult thing I ever did.  On graduation day I had to look in the program to see if my name was there.  I nearly failed Sight Singing ll under Dr. Ann M Woodward, the wife of noted musicologist Dr. Howard E. Smither.  My final exam score was a 59, and she gave me the extra point to allow me to graduate.  I spent no time working on the assignment, because it was my last semester.  We were expected to sight sing the opening to Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" in seven clefs with moveable do.  I could not do it, although I was a good sight reader and aced the piano proficiency test.  I could read and sing pitches and intervals, but it didn't make sense to me to have to remember syllables to go with the pitches.  It is a different mental process, and it takes a lot of effort.  Fixed do made more sense to me.  I was able to play all of my scales four octaves, both major and minor keys.  The piano faculty was impressed, because I was a trumpet major.  You had to harmonize a few melodies at sight and then transpose them to a different key.  This process is related to jazz, and while that was not the chosen topic of this blog entry, it would be good upon which to expound.  Lately as I have been trying to play the piano more, I am becoming more aware of the difference between a jazz education and a traditional one.  My undergraduate degree at UNC-Chapel Hill was traditional, so I satisfied all the requirements of a European-based university music degree.  That meant part writing in the style of J.S. Bach, counterpoint of different centuries, orchestration, music history and the rest.  It is a bear, and my interest in jazz got me through it.  You can be musical and be learned.  Many academics in music are not musical at all and don't have talent.  There is enough substance to music theory to keep you occupied.  If anyone wants to listen to you play or hear one of your tunes is a different story.  American jazz musicians for the most part were not traditionally trained.  The Creoles were different, and their European/African mix allowed them to attend institutions of higher learning.  It was not until Jim Crow laws were enacted in Louisiana that Creoles lost their once white status and became lowly slaves.  Classically trained musicians playing in orchestras and opera houses turned to jazz as a viable vocation.  The disparity or battle between jazz and classical music never has waned, and like the return of Trump versus Biden, it is a mainstay go to issue that never will go away.  There is a lot to debate.  In the position I find myself, the difference between the jazz vernacular and classical music is stark.  While the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra and the military bands bridge this gap well, the difference is most obvious at the lower levels of music proficiency.  The place to learn less formal music, popular music, folk, jazz, or gospel would be in the black churches.  Easily this designation could suffice for the difference.  I have been interested in the history of the Black Church for this reason, and freely I admit I am ignorant.  There only are a few documentaries on PBS and Youtube.  Less than a week ago in in the throes of Black History Month, I stumbled upon Louis Gates' offering.  I did not have a fond opinion of his show researching celebrity bloodlines on PBS.  He seemed like an ordinary talk show host without much knowledge.  His newest offering, a four episode two hour long history of the Black Church was exactly what I was missing in my research of jazz history.  I had finished my study of Early Jass, and necessarily was moving to American Popular Music.  this nebulous and oft cited entity, the Black Church, has not been documented well enough.  In light of the recent Woke movement it is understandable.  White America has not interest in the roots of American Popular Music and the exploitation of black musicians.  Best to stay in your own neighborhood, church, or community.  When you begin trying to influence the American mainstream is when assassinations begin.  Unfortunately America was racist enough not to allow this proliferation of black Civil Rights.  We swept it under the rug, and recently with the Black Lives Matter movement it has erupted again.  As it turns out the Black Church is a metaphor for black Civil Rights.  It is a metaphor for survival of the black race in America.  When the stakes are this high, then the content of this movement is valid, relevant, and important to document and sustain.  I find myself squarely in the middle of this racial tug of war.  I grew up in the Episcopal Church playing the trumpet at Christmas and Easter and engaging in "high" church.  The Eucharist was followed in our prayer book, and the service was formal.  As I have matured, grown, and aged musically as a human being playing jazz and American popular music, it is difficult to adopt this aged approach as my source of worship.  It would seem there are other viable alternatives for worship embracing more modern kinds of music.  Of course this is true, because traditional learned church quickly is becoming extinct in America.  All denominations are having difficulty attracting and keeping members.  I would say with the advent of the interactivity of the internet and its accompanying technology, traditional church has become passe.  It is reasonable that a new generation of younger Americans seek more modern and familiar surroundings in their place of worship.  This includes "Shobiz," a term that always has denoted the glamour and pageantry of Hollywood-based television, film, and music television.  Rock 'n' Roll would be another metaphor for this style of worship.  The mixing of American Popular Music and church is new to me, but I don't feel a problem with it.  My interest in traditional jazz and the origins of the Hammond organ lead me to the Black Church, where openly they choose this instrument as their major voice.  The major difference between traditional European-based music is its source on paper.  Because audio recording was not invented until the 1920's, written manuscript was the only choice for documenting and preserving music.  When I sit down and read out of a songbook, like I have been doing for the first time recently, the disparity between the two processes is stark.  Those written notes on the staff do purvey some of the intent of the music, and certainly expressive markings for dynamics and phrasing help.  What the written music does not convey is sound.  What audible sounds are you trying to make, and what is the human process for creating these sounds?  Jazz music bypasses written music and jumps to the chase.  It mostly is an aural tradition, one that is passed on by mouth through human beings.  No one can dispute the musical artistry of Louis Armstrong, although shallow and discriminatory bigots may call him an unpleasant-looking Negro.  Some will say he is unrefined and gross, the same way American bigots characterized the freed slaves.  African blood and culture is different than European influenced America, and it is what has made America rich, unique, and artistic.  The quest of the black race to survive and flourish in America is our most viable identity.  Addressing the effects of slavery are necessary for an understanding of the history of America and who we are as a people.  While as a nation since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950's and 1960's, we have shuttered that unpleasant history.  Are we better for it?  It was Donald Trump and the Far Right who reignited this bigotry.  It is a broken record.  The red state MAGA ads are appearing on television now, and they are a sickening concoction of formula, manipulation, and lies.  They no longer are relevant, and they will fail to sway any voter.  The assembled cast of gruesome characters are a tepid lot of figure heads chosen by and driven by selfish, corrupt, and almost fascist Political Action Committees.  Vladimir Putin himself admonished Donald Trump for his high crimes and misdemeanors, and suggested Joe Biden should be reelected in 2024.  Trumps egocentric tirade to shield himself from prosecution by being reelected is a huge, unwanted, detrital siege of American consciousness.  For America to survive, regroup, and begin to develop a new identity with solidarity, Donald Trump should wane in presence. 

The Havana Syndrome

 I sit here with my left ear ringing from what has become chronic  tinnitus.  Always I have lacked the two upper tones in my left ear, and sitting in front of a drummer's cymbal in a ship orchestra pit didn't help.  I have some hearing loss, but never has it effected my ability to produce music.  The military industrial complex has become microwaves, and the urge to digitize everything isn't always the best decision.  Digitization allows easier manipulation of data, sound, video and more.  It best is seen in the movie theater, which in actuality no longer is a movie theater.  It is a huge "device," a large screen playing back digital content made up of pixels.  Thus the once unique movie theater experience is nothing more than watching one of your devices but in a grander scale.  I don't like digital sound, because the industry has tried to paint it as better than analog sound, when in fact it is not.  Bombastic volume has been substituted for rich and varied sound.  It is an orchestra verses a synthesizer.  There is a handful of film composers who took great strides to make synthesizers sound rich, varied, and expressive.  They too have been replaced by bombastic volume and canned sound effects.  Film scoring is a lost art, and much of it will die with John Williams.  America's example of selling out art for digitization is our life.  This is our battle, humanity verses tyranny.  Good verses Donald Trump.  Bill Clinton made this decision, and it was not a good one.  He says it balanced the federal budget, auctioning off these frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum.  Previously the FCC deemed these particular frequencies harmful to human health, and they were unused.  President Clinton feigned God and changed America for the worse.  We and our military industrial complex are microwaves, and we are no better than when we used wires.  In my reflection we are worse.  With the exception of Wi-Fi, relying upon wires for personal communication never was a burden.  It was part of our culture, and it was rich and meaningful.  When you have to work for it, it becomes more meaningful to you.  Before wireless everything we still were human beings.  Now we are robots being led by devices in our palms.  It is infuriating that America is not smart or prudent enough to take care of herself.  To see every day drivers not watching the road and instead looking down at a screen in inane.  In reality it is much more than that.  The consequences can be lethal, meaning you could lose your life from such a habit.  Evidently America doesn't care if you kill yourself or others with your vehicle, or there would be a federal law prohibiting the holding of a device while driving.  The more appropriate action is to prohibit any graphic visual device to distract your vision from the road and your potential prey.  What is more important, another human being or your To Do list?  That state governors and legislators continue to allows the practice is insanity.  Your kids' health and safety are not important to you if you allow them to drive while looking at a smart phone.  All of this is a direct consequence of microwaves and their ability to beam graphics and video quickly.  It is addictive, and finally now parents with dead children are speaking up.  It has been a massive breach of trust and human health in America.  Who is responsible?  Bill Clinton.  Are we any better off?  The answer is no.  We have become dysfunctional human beings wrought with health maladies and suffering from addiction.  It is exactly what Donald Trump wants, because it is easier to tend the sheep when they are docile and dumb.  There is no question the emergence of the smart phone has changed the human race and how we live.  It is immediate but discriminatory, and it now it discriminates against human beings.  Any time when a device takes precedence over a person, we are in trouble.  Truly it is the beginning of the Borg, and why would we want to relinquish control of our planet and our culture to a machine?  It is predicted in a host of literature and film, but how could we succumb to such an extreme?  Who would desire to forsake the Earth and build a new existence on Mars?  It is delusional, and most likely this desire is being nursed by substances.  Addiction.  Freely and fully I admit that our reality is no cup of tea.  It has become stark, brutal, and unpleasant, but it was our responsibility as human beings to protect our habitat.  The reliance on microwaves is a major strike against the Earth and the human race.  Its widespread use in all militaries has become a plague, a non-lethal weapon cleverly disguised as surveillance.  If no overt cause can be found for fatigue, pain, vertigo, cognitive dysfunction, and tinnitus then bona fide microwave surveillance protected by national security, Special Operations, the Pentagon, the NSA, and the rest is the culprit.  It is a beautiful GOP-crafted antagonist hidden behind the red tape of The Swamp.  It is the obvious foreign infiltration and attempted imperialism of our free nation.  Red is and always been Red, and the Red of MAGA is nothing more than attempted fascism, tyranny, ego, and sadism.  Our right to be happy and healthy has been breached, and it will be SCOTUS that either saves us or throws us to the dogs.  If they do chose to protect Donald Trump, then clearly we will know who the enemy has become.   

The Old Jazz Devil Music

My time is split between house, mother, and music.  Music is on the back burner, and it takes manic energy to bring it to a boil.  House and mother demand compliance and submission, but music needs extroversion.  It is a delicate balancing act keeping the neighborhood at bay, the overt vibration of the household.  Usually anger is the operative stimulant for music, because emotional, sensitive, caring music breeds parasites.  Largely they are invisible, and they attach themselves to your spirit and torment you with unwanted commentary.  Dominance is the only solution, so when I am properly motivated I take no prisoners.  Often I do not feel like driving this bus, because that invisible enemy is the United States military.  It and excessive freight rail activity and commercial air traffic expose themselves as undo pressure on the house.  Its frame contracts and expands from the barometric pressure created by destructive sound waves.  Some of these can't be heard, but you can hear the pops and cracks of the wood in the house.  Also you can hear the ceiling fans chatter as their normally smooth and periodic rotation is modulated by unwanted infrasonic pollution.  Usually it all hits at once, like they think one nuisance will camouflage the other.  The PSA or Piedmont direct flight to Charlotte at 6:00 am strafes the house in the cover of a long and rumbling CSX freight.  For some reason they think the necessity of a few flyers needing to get to Charlotte merits sacrifice of the many.  Instead of climbing to a reasonable altitude, the pilot turns immediately after take off from FAY and blankets downtown Fayetteville and its accompanying neighborhoods with severe wake vortices.  If you ever blow leaves in your yard, you will experience these as miniature tornadoes that appear out of nowhere spinning your bounty into a disheveled mass.  It may make a nice story line for a Peanuts cartoon, but battling invisible gremlins with enough force to move mass is an extra burden to a homeowner.  The military, the railroads, and the airlines perfectly are aware of their influence, and I feel they laugh underneath their breath when the torture citizens.  It is sadistic.  Then again Donald Trump was president for four years.  The entire country knows what it is like to be tortured unnecessarily.  My musical activity at its crux is governed by this unregulated muck.  Either I have to fight it, ignore it, or dominate it.  When I dominate it, my fans latch on and it takes several days to disperse them.  Who decided music-making should be this difficult?  Adolph Hitler?  

The Trumptopian Coup

It is easy to blame the Trump presidency for a languid interpretation of the United States Constitution, but it began with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.  They cozied up to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and forged a liberal and overstepped role for the Vice President.  Courting SCOTUS is nothing new, but it has reached a critical point.  Today is the day for which Donald Trump planned.  There has been undo pressure for the United States Supreme Court to decide a blanket ruling that will effect all fifty states.  I do not agree with this political pressure, and if SCOTUS does hedge and allow Trump to stay on the ballot in Colorado, how and why should it blanket litigation in every other state?  This is what for what state courts were devised, and elections are and should be governed by the states.  Preemptively trying to rely on self-appointed justices with favors is a reinforcement of political malfeasance.  It will be interesting in a very short time to hear how these justices rule.  My feeling was until Trump is convicted of insurrection, and he has hedged that Washington case with an appeal, there is leeway for interpretation.  It is, "He said, she said," and the justices can assert their own personal opinions.  This has not been favorable in the recent past.  Trump's skullduggery is winning at the moment, but allowing him to stay on the ballot does not assure his future political success.  There is plenty of evidence against him.  It only will take time for that to unfold, and there is time before the 2024 election.  If SCOTUS does try to make a blanket ruling, which they have done before, it undermines the entire reason for having state governments.  State governments proved to be the weakness when Trump won, because his campaign exploited individual electoral weaknesses in various differing states.  This is the nature of checks and balances.  We are moving toward an autocracy supported by a band of thugs.  Instead of political posturing the court should render a thoughtful and nonpartisan rendering of the part of the Constitution that seeks to protect America from insurrectionists.  Is Donald Trump an insurrectionist?  That has yet to be proven, because they have hedged on the applicable case.  If anything allowing him to remain on a state ballot should not effect the decision of other states.  

The Rebel American Garage

The garage in our home was an oasis.  Somehow disconnected from the smothering roof of domesticity, the garage offered creative and intellectual refuge.  It was separate from school but educated us in ways more beneficial to human survival.  The garage is the Boy Scouts, before it was exploited by homosexual pedophiles.  My father was an Eagle Scout, and the skills he gleaned in the scouts augmented our lives.  Many American traditions recently  have been undermined by foreign sentiments.  The goal of Japanese video game designers was to disguise the boundary between fiction and reality allowing digital manipulation of information.  Effectively they created "Big Brother," and Big Tech calls it AI.   We do not want this.  In one fell swoop the grand scope of Cinema was undermined by digital video.  The movies now are just another device, and the communal experience of feeling the film with the fellowship of our neighbors has been lost.  America has been sterilized.  Our humanity, the uniquely American things that were offered by the geography of North America have been sold.  The Eastern Seaboard largely is the Military Industrial Complex.  Tourism, once a mainstay of the American economy, has been forsaken for national defense.  Our beaches are stormed rather than enjoyed.  America has suffered the adverse consequences of a problematic adolescence.  The innocence and naivete of our youth has evaporated into a dire and desperate battle for survival.  This is where America has gone.  If all we can do is survive, then prosperity and happiness have died.  The complete intent of the United States Constitution has been hobbled in less than a decade.  The garage is the maverick.  The garage is the rebel.  The garage is the Easy Rider openly rejecting the mundane, staid, and anachronistic requirements of the British Monarchy.  America is "Appalachian Spring."  America is "The Florida Suite."  The geography of America was her moxy, and it has become a rail corridor.  The fertile soil producing wheat, soybeans, corn, rice, cotton, and tobacco now is fracked for natural gas.  Instead of producing for the health of the people, it rumbles from freight.  The air is wrought with fumes, jet exhaust, and toxins.  Where America has been led is fatal, and we covered our tracks.  Wounded Knee.  What has become the American Way is a hucksters ploy to turn a buck.  If it's only about the money, then we should consider a different system.  

Proactive Bereavement

Loss hurts, and bereavement can be a full time job.  Here are the real things at play when nearing losing someone. 

 

What we really grieve

 

 The memories of our life before they passed away.

The inability to create new memories.

The conversations that can no longer happen.

Unfulfilled plans for the future.

The sense of safety and comfort.

The familiar day-to-day activities.

Someone to confide in.

The emotional closeness.

All the milestones.

A unique and irreplaceable bond. 

The advice and wisdom they provided.

The sight of empty chairs at the dinner table.

Life without them in upcoming events.

Changes in friend's circles and social life.  

 

My mother is ninety-two years old, is lucid, and is comfortable.  She has adapted to assisted living, because she realizes she needs their care.  Having broken her back multiple times, she needs assistance moving.  Often assisted living gets a bum rap, and there may be facilities that skimp on actual care.  It probably is more the norm.  Covid made elder care more challenging.  In reality they get her up in the morning, they dress her, they bring or take her to meals, and they administer medication.  It is a challenging and laborious job to work in such a facility.  I am appreciative these facilities exist, and that my mother saw fit to buy long term care insurance.  It was my number one goal to make sure she used it.  Almost two years later, it is a blur.  The amount of work and dedication needed to make your loved one comfortable is formidable.  I learned to change gears in my life and apply effort to new things.  Her care has been the most recent.  Hidden in the blankets of elder care are many life-effecting scenarios.  When discovered easily they become a full time job, because the path is set, and there is no changing it.  You will make the best of your time, but you cannot avoid the ending.  The list compiled above is accurate.  When I look at my digital photographs in iPhoto on my Mac, my heart aches.  The photos that are the most disturbing are the ones documenting our familiar past, the past that existed before the newest chapter began.  (the newest chapter being injury, hospital, rehabilitation, and assisted living)  This year and nine months is the most recent and familiar, but a peculiar thing has happened.  On a dime both of our lives changed drastically.  There was not time to think about it much less lament loss.  You hadn't lost anything yet.  You are still living in the same house (me), and I still have my mother.  Perhaps time is the seeming evil sword that inflicts the wound in your heart.  As things resolve as best they can, you have more time to understand what has changed, how this effects you, and what you are missing.  The only thing I miss is my musical activity, and I don't openly grieve it, because I know I still have it.  It will not go away.  When I look at those infernal digital photographs in their rich vibrant hues, I see in retrospect for the first time the penultimate chapter of our lives.  They were productive, creative, and industrious years.  Most of all they were artistic.  We made the best of our situation, and it was fruitful.  My mother lived to be ninety, and she was healthy all of that time.  I learned to cook gourmet meals for the both of us, I landscaped our yard, and I rebuilt vintage musical instruments.  I designed a collegiate level jazz music history course, and I expanded my music collection greatly, both classical and jazz.  I have not missed these things, because other than the yard suffering neglect, I still can benefit from these investments.  (You have to be proactive though)  I actively have to take advantage of these resources, and this I am trying to do.  It's those photographs!  To see what we had accomplished is heart breaking.  I planted flowers in pots, in the ground, and tended them through the summer.  Our yard was a botanical garden.  It was because this is where I focused my creative energy.  Cooking was the same.  It is not dissimilar to jazz.  You mix things up to get a pleasing product.  I am sure some of the grief I feel is from my mother.  She works hard to disguise it, because ninety-years is a productive lifetime.  She is grateful for what she has had.  I am realizing I am better off not looking at the photographs.  Herein lies the rub.  This is the quintessential challenge of losing a family member, especially a parent.  The process of cleansing is tedious, time-consuming, and sorrowful.  There is no escaping it.  Most defer the experience by using an estate company to sift through their family belongings.  We did not have enough stuff to merit that, so I pledged to do it myself, and I am.  In essence I am grieving my mother's passing proactively, and the true bereavement is in the list above.  It is all true, and when I look at the photographs the loss is stark and painful.  The beauty we created now creates intense pain.  I know that in myself these things are possible again, because they, life music, have become a part of you.  I could plant flowers again.  I could remember how to cook gourmet meals.  As I do these things, the absence of my mother is dire.  I would not have done these things if it had not been for her. 

"The Swamp," Bought and Paid For

It was not surprising to read in the Washington Post that the rail lobby has defeated Congress.  Gridlock is a like the familiar taste of semen.  Big Lobby goes hunting in "The Swamp," and they are adept at changing absolutely nothing.  The feed the alligators and keep them circling at bay with scraps of whole chickens.  Troy Nehls and Sam Graves wouldn't understand anything about the rail industry and its adverse effects on human health.  They are not interested.  Bury some money under a rock at the fork in the road, and nothing will happen.  Two people are enough to alter the quality of life of millions of Americans.  Since the inception and implementation of AC traction, a host of new maladies has appeared.  FINE, the acronym used by Hollywood actors to describe their inexplicable emotions, is a description of the effects of radiant, aberrant, airborne electricity, and low-frequency sound created by locomotives.  "Freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional" are the tangible, emotional, human results of forsaking the dangers of airborne electricity.  Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, but more importantly Attention Deficit Disorder, are caused by AC Traction.  The Big Rail Lobby will not let you know that.  It is their number one priority to disguise the far reaching and dire effects of excessive rail activity.  It's like the people no longer matter, and infernal three-mile-long freight trains controlled by one individual are a graven image to shareholders.  They want their money.  The sabbath in Fayetteville or "Da Ville" is rife with train activity.  What else is there to do?  Go to church?  Worship God?  "On the seventh day he rested."  Let's build the rue.  CSX on the burner with a little Aberdeen and Rockfish stirred in.  Simmer and add the newly created Raleigh and Fayetteville Railroad compliments of Archie Goldman.  (or is it RJ Corman, a holding company of short line railroads?)  Taking over for Norfolk Southern, they roll into Da Ville in the late evening to service Fayetteville Block with heavy aggregate.  The "hum" of an SD-40-2 is unmistakable, especially in Notch 8.  It has returned with a vengeance, and it is the job of Troy Nehls and Sam Graves to make sure you'll get your dose of turbocharged two stroke each and every day.  Norfolk and Southern leaves the rails and spills toxic chemicals all over a town killing wildlife and agriculture.  They ignite the mess with nary a thought about the residents, and a huge toxic cloud fills the sky like a nuclear bomb.  Two guys, committee chairs, and the proposed legislation never makes it to the floor for debate much less a vote.  They effectively stymie much needed protective legislation for the people, such as the banning of assault weapons.  It is more important to pay shareholders.  

The Loss of the American Voice

 Verbally I am constipated, but language flows like music.  It is driven by emotion.  Both can be articulated conservatively without passion, and the results can be effective.  Do they have the same effect,  cognitive versus affective?  I am a product of both processes, but using feeling as your impetus is challenging.  It can be dangerous, because when you expose affective activity, nefarious players may enter the game.  Life is a consistent battle warding off evil.  The conundrum of art or merely expressive communication is that it flourishes with feeling.  Feeling not always is available.  More so since the Trump presidency, the appearance of sincere feeling or appropriate sentiment has become a commodity and weapon of the Right.  It may be the most heinous breach of benevolence in our lifetimes.  It is this with which we are contending in our now struggling democracy.  In the search for goodness America has faltered.  Our Capital violently was attacked.  Our regulatory agencies have been compromised rendering our geography a mine field of lethal obstacles.  A deadly pathogen killed millions.  If one looks, it would appear foreign ownership of American interests has contributed to this decline.  What has made America great are our expressions of the American voice to which we have become deaf and blind.  History plays a vital role defining and reinforcing these attributes, and the recent misinformation campaign has dealt a stark blow to American consciousness.  Misinformation is "Newspeak," and the culprit is "Big Brother."  George Orwell's novel, "1984," predicts it perfectly.  Communist and fascist behaviors have infiltrated America.  Many won't recognize it, but it is a severe loss of personal freedom.  We may be free to go where please and speak our minds, but society ignores us.  We must submit to their rules and concepts.  This hierarchy is covert and subtle, but it is concrete.  It is similar to the politics of the social ladder, but now those controlling the purse strings are evil.  They are not benevolent.  There is good deep in the human soul, and it has been quashed since the 2016 Presidency.  Evil masquerades as good, and evil only can manifest itself in human form.  If our instincts become confused, we are vulnerable.  We must discard our feelings and adopt a streamlined cognitive plan to survive, leaving us empty.  That feeling or expression, that affective voice of America has suffered.  We don't ouselves, and it is because our creative and artistic voices have been muted.  Film, television, and music have been our blood vessels carrying the rich nutrients of humanity to America.  (and eventually abroad)  Covid hindered our creative efforts showing us an unsettling retrospective of the Dark Ages.  We have been reduced to surviving, and our souls are not quenched.  Taylor Swift is providing an invaluable service for America.  A decade ago pop stars, pop culture, and counter culture were mainstream in America.  A suffocating blanket of Trump has stifled America with a smelly, stodgy, anachronistic mindset.  The empowerment of the wealthy, government deregulation, and limiting of social programs to those in need were the key constructs of Ronald Reagan's premeditated presidential agenda.  He was run by a group of California elites with a specific national goal in mind.  Neoliberalism was the result, but it was called "Reaganomics."  As a counter to stagflation of the 1970's, the economic reforms of 1980's appeared productive to me as a young adult.  While often thought of us self-indulgent, I saw forty percent of the wealthy's income siphoned back into their businesses.  This policy created Donald Trump, because prior to Ronald Reagan the tax rate on the rich was above seventy percent.  The money of the affluent was funding the federal government and their war in Viet Nam.  Film, music, and fashion burgeoned in the 80's, and while costs may have been high to the consumer America flourished as an artistic and expressive body.  Do we want to see our blockbuster movies?  Do we want MTV?  Do we want interesting alternative music?  Do we want fashionable clothing?  Yes, and it is absent today.  We don't want to live in the trenches, where we have been since Covid.  For goodness to prevail, we must eliminate the scourge.  That scourge is Donald Trump. 

The "Red" Army

 To an average American it should seem surprising that pro-Palestine protesters erupted in Raleigh, North Carolina heckling Governor Roy Cooper.  What is the logic of this?  Palestinians are governed by Hamas, a terrorist group who savagely attacked Israel, murdered thousands including women and children, and took hostages.  For such a following to have the gall to assemble and protest in North Carolina should raise caution flags.  These are extremists.  Nancy Pelosi linked some of these dissidents to Russia, which is a logical deduction.  They are the same, Red, meaning Communist.  China, Russia, and Iran are Donald Trump's business partners.  Publicly he says he hates the Chinavirus, but he lies.  When elected president, Donald Trump quickly dismantled the Iran Nuclear Agreement carefully crafted by Barack Obama.  It allowed Iran to continue developing nuclear grade weapons shared by Red.  Red State.  MAGA.  Antifa.  Antifa is not anti-fascist.  They are an extreme militant group who enact fascist tendencies.  Red is the same color it has been since the Cold War. Donald Trump is the heart of it.  Red Heart, not Bleeding Heart  Commie Bastards.   

Fighting for Our Freedom

The newly-emerged but ancient conflict between Israel and Palestine was reignited by Donald Trump as a ploy to detract scrutiny from his ensuing legal battles.  It could be considered "Spin 101."  In politics the easiest and effective tactic is to create a diversion.  Suddenly the emphasis on his stolen documents cases has shifted. There are enough other cases to absorb the attention, and the gamble was lost.  Trump was ordered to pay eighty-three million dollars to a harassed woman for his bad behavior.  Stolen government documents stored at Mar-a-lago, of which he brazenly bragged, were the source of intelligence for the heinous attack on Israel.  How else could Hamas plan and articulate such a detailed two year attack on Israel?  He sold the intelligence, and he told you he was going to do it.  God was ready for the conflict, the attack on Jews, and it is nothing new.  Perhaps a raging holy war is appropriate to shore up our religious values.  This man is a stain on America, and the people are ready to regroup and move on.  The decision of SCOTUS will cement the political perspective of America for the next five years?  Do we want unrest, violence, division, and war, or do we want peace and civility?  If America is the country she has been, then the United States Supreme Court will not allow him to be on the ballot for inciting an insurrection.  If they do, then America has been reduced to a common third world nation.  The court is nothing more than an autocratic cast of Trump minions.  Is one man worth that sacrifice?  It is a battle between Communism and freedom, and Putin wants his U.S.S.R back.  Americans don't want to be Putin pawns, and we will fight to the death.  

A Sexual Impetus for Jass

Previously I was writing about jass.  The origins of jass are nebulous.  Professor Bill Messenger, the Baltimore-based jazz historian, pianist, and lecturer suggests that jazz is related to "chaise."  Americans know this French word as chase.  (or a long folding chair)  When the United States Navy shuttered Storyville in New Orleans at the onset of World War I, the musicians working there were forced to migrate up the Mississippi River on riverboats.  Some made it to Chicago as did Louis Armstrong.  The ongoing joke among black musicians was they would not to get off the boat in Memphis!  The reason is self-explanatory.  The Mississippi River was important disseminating jazz  north from the port of New Orleans.  Bix Beiderbecke remarked he first heard Louis Armstrong's trumpet wafting in the breeze as his riverboat sailed by.  St. Louis, MO and Kansas City, with their abundant cattle trade, were meccas for jazz, gambling, drinking, and the "Sporting Life."  Cattle and meat workers needed a place of relaxation and entertainment.  The United States government closed Storyville, because it was close to military bases.  It offered an unfavorable temptation to young recruits.  Because they were shipping off to war, the Pentagon didn't look favorably upon venereal disease.  After twenty years of legal prostitution, (1897-1917), Storyville was closed.  After "Satchmo" made it to Chicago and rejoined his old bandleader, Joe King Oliver, it was rumored that a drunk patron of a club stood up in the middle of a heated musical refrain and yelled, "Jass it up!"  The owners of the club seized on the phrase, and put it on the billboard outside.  It wasn't long before someone came by and scratched out the "j" leaving the word ass.  Quickly the "s" was changed to "z" and the word "Jazz" was born.  Because of its origins in the Sporting Life, the word jazz sometimes is equated with the the word jizz. (slang for semen)  Most agree a more appropriate term is preferred, such as African-American Classical Music (in the words of trumpeter Lee Morgan).  The most important question concerning American Jazz is whether it is tethered to these roots.  Is jazz music a metaphor for sexual activity?  Does it use sex as its impetus?  As a studied academic jazz musician and composer, I never felt this connection.  My introduction to recorded jazz was through Miles Davis.  The voice of Miles Davis through his trumpet was far from the intents of Early Jazz.  It could be called melancholic or even "Third Stream."  What Miles Davis was expressing through his horn were his experiences in American life, and unfortunately many of them stemmed from racism.  Often he decried that notion.  His father was an affluent dentist, but Miles' chosen path of jazz was pitted with the familiar ups and downs of any career.  These included heroin addiction, poverty, and oppression.  You can hear these travails in his jazz voice, but they are what make Miles Davis Miles Davis.  He was not Louis Armstrong or Dizzy Gillespie, and he was not keen to "Uncle Tom" for the audience.  He demanded to be appreciated for his own perspective.  Miles also grew and evolved in his career changing with the times.  Again the question arises, "Are the carnal characteristics of Early Jazz necessary for its existence?"  More importantly 

The Elements of Jass

When I worked as a professional pianist in the cruise industry, musical knowledge was slight.  There was no lack of ego, and most of the young musicians who thought they could play jazz in essence were just just covering up that they couldn't.  What is the big deal with jazz?  You really want to know?  Jazz - the quintessential American art form, but Bluegrass should be in there too.  The thing about jazz is it takes a long time to amass the skills necessary to play it.  Why?  The reasons are specific.  There is a lot to it, as there should be with any art form.  Lots of things to study and understand.  Can I be concise?  I'll try.  

1.  You need a stellar sound concept.  (you must be able to produce and sustain a beautiful, expressive, and in tune tone on your instrument)  You can learn this with classical training, BUT - the variety of sounds found in jazz run the gamut.  Sound concept is one exceptional and transformative element of jazz.  Early Jazz circa 1920 transformed the sounds of traditional European instruments.  These sounds got adapted to life in America, the New World.  America was a very different place than Europe, and consequently America needed her own music with its own expression and identity.  Jazz created and provided that.  

2.   You must be able to "Swing."  What the "F" is swing?  This remains unanswered today.  No one knows, and those who don't or can't swing spend their lives covering this up.  (like young cruise ship musicians)  Swing most succinctly is a feeling, so if you can't produce an emotion or emote when you play, give up.  It is necessary above all other things.  If you have a crappy sound, you still can be part of an ensemble providing rhythmic feel.  You play a "riff" maybe on one single note.  There are different concepts of swing, and I am familiar with most of them.  Listening to Dexter Gordon you will hear his concept of swing, and it requires playing in different parts of the beat.  You can lay back or play behind the beat, and you can play ahead of the best.  You can use swung 16th notes, 8th notes, or even triplets which are the easiest.  The Count Basie band uses both at the same time.  The rhythm section plays a tight shuffle feel and the horns play looser triplets on top of this beat.  Duke Ellington plays a specific swing feel on the piano, and you can see it as he plays, because he accentuates his arm movements.  Some of this was for sheer volume to be heard.  If you were playing with a Big Band with an un-miked piano, good luck being heard.  Glenn Miller had their own sense of swing as did Woody Herman and Stan Kenton.  Swing rhythm is subjective, BUT you can't swing without playing good time.  In short to swing you must be able to play time, in time, in many different tempos.  The "feel" of a tune is the result of a groove, time, being played at a certain tempo.  If you internalize that feeling, say a ballad and the emotion it conveys, it is easier to realize it.  Producing this emotion magically creates the time.  Discuss.  

 

3.  You must be able to improvise.  All ready we have three things most musicians can't do.  If you went to university and studied classical music, then maybe you can create a beautiful sound on your instrument.  Maybe you can play good time.  If you understand time and tempos, then you are ahead of the game.  If you know how to phrase you are advancing up the ladder of musicality.  That is not enough.  To play jazz you must know tunes by heart, and that means knowing the melody (how it sounds) and the accompanying chord changes.  Orchestral excerpts are not enough nor are studies.  You must have a repertoire from the Great American Songbook.  This is where most musicians fail.  It takes conscientious work.  You must go into the woodshed and "shed."  Charlie Parker practiced over twelve hours a day.  It is a bug you need to get.  Even after you know the song and the appropriate chord changes, you are not a jazz musician.  It may get you through a gig, and I would welcome anyone who could play the "heads" of a lot of songs.  To be called a jazz musician, the most paramount thing is:  You must be able to improvise a solo over the form of the tune.  This is the way it all started.  All of the Early Jazz, like the music of Jelly Roll Morton and Joe King Oliver sounds improvised.  Surprise!  It was all written down.  It was not improvised.  This blew my mind when I discovered this.  John Phillip Sousa was one of the most popular recorded musical artists as was Enrico Caruso.  Ragtime also was the popular music of the day.  There were skilled and educated musicians in America, and they came from academia and classical training.  A handful of them, including the Creoles from New Orleans, needed a new gig.  When Jim Crow laws were passed in the American South, educated Creole musicians lost their classical and opera jobs.  Many turned to jazz for income, and that is why Early Jazz was so virtuosic.  Jazz musicians like Louis Armstrong played in ensembles playing arrangements of American popular songs.  These arrangers, such as Paul Whiteman, Benny Moten, and Don Redman were instrumental in the birth of Early Jazz. It varied from geographical place to place in America, such as NOLA to St. Louis to Chicago.   Before Bill Basie became the band leader of Benny Moten's band, their repertoire was rife with ragtime, novelty tunes, and blues.  When Bix Beiderbecke and Satchmo took a chorus or improvised a second verse of an arrangement, this was the blueprint for improvised jazz to follow.  They would play the first chorus straight or as notated, but their second improvised chorus swung more freely and took liberties with the limited rhythm of the time.  They could bend notes, distort the time, and superimpose more complex lines over a simple song.  In the Big Band music that followed, swing music for the times of war, the improvised solos became a part of the arrangement.  The vocalists of swing, while they sowed their oats singing in time and harmony in a big band, later began to paraphrase the melody of a song.  Louis Armstrong may have been the originator of this practice.  It is a contentious issue to alter a composer's carefully printed notes, but in live performance on the road things evolved.  Musicians such as Louis Armstrong quickly became self-contained composers singing and playing tunes and inventing things on the spot to fit the audience.  This extemporaneous improvisation was exciting and entertaining and developed into what we know as jazz.  

That Which Goes Around, Comes Around

 Inexplicably on Sunday evening I was pulled into an undefinable funk.  After spending several weeks preparing for a cocktail piano gig, I was able to muscle my way through.  Nothing had changed, and all of the pitfalls I knew were coming were there.  My forethought minimized these hazards, but the long term implications of work sustained.  I conquered, and the gig was successful, but this event was a catalyst for repressed energy.  This is the plight of family.  You come from this familial heritage, so part of it is your own blood.  Often they say children come "through" their parents.  I have lived in my father's shadow my entire life.  As he aged this influence waned, but as a part of my own blood necessarily it always will be there.  When I first began playing piano I modeled after my father.  It was a good start.  When I went to college, especially graduate programs in other states, you grow in other directions.  The more you learn the more your playing changes.  You can't go home.  This is a deep statement, and what does it really mean?  I understand, but the chips fall where they fall.  To go to a gig and expect to be heard like my father is challenging.  His model is quality, and never could I replicate his playing style.  There was a reason for that, and I didn't discover it until recently.  His method of playing cocktail or jazz piano was based on a specific music theory called "Locked Hands."  Milt Bruckner was the originator of this style.  It widely was used by many keyboard purveyors including Hammond organists.  The technique was playing the melody in octaves with your right hand and filling in the harmony with your other inner fingers.  George Shearing played this way as did many jazz pianists who were known for a more sophisticated style.  Barry Harris was the most influential teacher of this method, and it began with using only one scale.  He would have you play up a major scale and harmonize I-V the whole way up.  What resulted in actuality was using a seven diminished seventh as a V for each I.  I think it is melodic minor.  Over the years as I looked at my father's miniaturized hand-written fake books, his chord "changes" or chord symbols were different than those used in the Berkley "Real Book."  They resembled the original chord notations from printed sheet music of the published songs.  As I perused these piano renditions of American popular songs, I began to understand that jazz notation or harmony was different than the harmony used by America's greatest popular song composers.  It was from a classical source, four part writing originating with J.S. Bach.  If you took Music Theory 101 in college, you will know what I am talking about.  Four part writing is a complicated thing.  You must begin from the beginning and learn it from the ground up.  "No parallel fifths."  Over the course of music history, Bach's strict four part writing evolved and changed, and these differing harmonic approaches defined the stylistic periods that came later.  The Baroque is an odd horse as is Renaissance music.  We like to believe what came later was more advanced, when in fact the roots of 20th century Expressionism can be found earlier.  The modulations I heard in Renaissance music are similar to what I hear in my own head.  I have devised my own harmonic system called "Multitonalism."  Pieces have no key signature and freely fluctuate between tonal centers or use modes as points of reference.  There are a lot of accidentals, because they are not found in a specific key signature.  The way my father played was sophisticated and required a deep understanding of the chord changes, the melody, and voice-leading between chord tones.  I could be called "learned."  George Shearing sounded the way he sounded, because he used this style.  So did my father, but I never knew it.  He wasn't "faking" a tune.  He was playing it the way he had learned with the specific chords he knew.  I choose to play more freely, and I change my approach often.  Always I have had the urge to explore this technique further.  Being expected to sound like someone else is difficult.  It is flattering in ways, but also it is a damp cloth over your flame.  Knowing when to be a whore is key.  It would seem in America we spend most of our time being whores for others, rather than seeking our own spark.