Getting in the Mood of 2011

Carnival Colors B

The Wind

Peggyann , an on line friend on Facebook ,wrote "I hate the wind" in response to current ,early December weather conditions.There was a response from one of her friends of "Boo for the wind" and both of these phrases caught my eye.Perhaps I haven't really seen this kind of phrase too often but I have been panned in the past,the criticisms stinging me at times.. haha.Some people aren't aware of my past associations or ancient history that is not associated with Akhnaton, the 18th Dynasty Egypt,or Essene literature from Qumran.Peg was responding to the weather but I thought of her all morning and went on line just to write down what had gone through my mind because of her inspiration of ,"Hating the Wind".

The repetitive refrain from my old song , sang:

"Love is the wind , Wind is my love , Who knows the wind, Who knows my love , Where blows the wind , The wind is my love."

Love, like the wind , and in my song is abstract,an illusive ,changing picture that relies upon individual interpretation. Change is the only constant as in the rest of life yet we try to make a moment last , a feeling return, an orgasm continue that is intrinsically fleeting as are all of our entire existences,fleeting.We come and go as do all our friends and our families.Nothing last forever.The poetry recognizes the fact that change is coming , the wind represents changing.The poet isn't really in love with the wind , he is repressing his hatred of change by expressing an embrace of change.The wind is cold,brittle, and unmerciful yet the wind is not a being .The wind is intangible,without feelings or meanings. The poet wants to emulate the wind and have no feelings for anything anymore.The verses of the song tell stories of changes,some unwanted ,yet the resolution is to embrace the change and recognize that love is intangible and fleeting.

What if I had written :
"Hate is the wind , wind is my hate,who knows my hate, where blows my hate, the wind is my hate."

The effect would not be poetry but a narrative.This song was never written to be a hit song and ,indeed, succeeded in that respect, yet many diverse people did hear and relate to the lyric.In recent times I have been surprised at the responses from all over the world from people who remember when they heard the tune or listened to it again and again ,reporting the radio stations and personalities that played the record on the air.A couple years ago I was new to Youtube yet I found that someone had already uploaded the "Wind"."Zoodden" is listed as posting to Youtube from Sweden,certainly he's not from around these parts,pardner,yet he has heard and shared his recording with about 25,000 people at this point in time.The comments found at the site of our 1967 recording have been generally fascinating to me considering the age of the recording."Wind" was different than anything we did in that group and ironically was the one tune that was played the most.I sang out of tune and overdubbed solos but the poetry prevailed.The recording engineer was actually fired from the company shortly after the recording because of a splice he made in the tape.Sometimes the "Circus Maximus" was panned as a "Byrds" copy group but ,though I often played a jingle jangle type lead guitar ,I never owned the twelve string Rickenbacker guitar that was the center of the Byrd's sound but we used one that was rented a couple of times for the recordings. I normally played a 1959 Fender Stratacaster until it was stolen.We sang folk music in trio harmony before we had the electric guitars.We had some successes as a band including playing Carnegie Hall together but also had downers as well.The group was panned terribly one time by WBAI NY who played the entire album at 45 RPM and then again at 78 RPM . We sounded like the chipmonks and then maniacal chipmonks , our close harmony becoming a cartoon parody.In spite of their critical review WBAI still played the "Wind" in it's entirety night after night.(Right click these links to listen in a different window and continue reading)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-aBYqVAYNo
((((Here is another example of our first album now uploaded in it's entirety by"sbritt":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-joV3S5kxvs
..and from our second album "Neverland Revisited"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wADej1kPLk

The wind blowing through hair is often an image of freedom ,like a convertible driving fast with a beautiful girl in the passenger seat , her hair blowing while she laughs.Actually, not everyone wants their hair to blow uncontrollably. Even the models are set up to create the illusion , the fans blown from a certain angle , the hairspray already applied to keep a style throughout the effect.The wind this morning was cold and made the low temperature colder and the image of a beautiful model who's hair was blowing never entered my mind.I never achieved a hatred of the wind.A cool breeze on a hot day might be enjoyable as the sunny day but the sunny day doesn't love you back any more than the cool breeze means to bring you pleasure.You might love the sunny day ,a rainy day , or even a windy day but this is only the environment and there is no reciprocation from the weather. The character of the weather is an invention,sometimes poetic, sometimes not,but there is no "Jack Frost". "Jack" is a cartoon representation.Poor Jack, subjected to hatred like a Cold Wind. The winds will change and Jack's winter will come and go and soon we will want to see Jack again and again , everything changes . Change is in the wind .

Terrorist and Ye Olde Mafia Protection Racket

Have you noticed that it seems like there have been public busts of late of would be terrorist that wouldn't have had a clue if not for the entrapment , the stings that were set up ? The public statement afterword is that the US Government is sending a message to would be terrorist that if you try to bomb us we will get you. Sending messages is frivolous and like Emailing , there isn't always an answer .Generally , it seems like all the terrorist are consorting with the FBI . It makes me wonder why the FBI doesn't just go ahead and bomb some innocent people without waiting for another inept, would be , "Could have blown" to come along.Nixon now more than ever !

This is the same government that invaded Iraq as an aggressor nation in a "preemptive strike" against the threat of weapons of mass destruction that apparently didn't exist .The entire premise is faulted as we never invaded Korea who waves their atomic weaponry in our noses . It almost makes you sympathetic to the Iranian cause. The only thing that keeps America at bay is the threat of atomic weaponry or the unknown possibilities of violence. America hasn't blatantly invaded Pakistan in the name of getting Al Qaeda . No, America has become the bully , beating up those it can beat up . That is why people are blowing themselves up all over the world in desperation.


This is the same government that infiltrated the anti-war movement of the early seventies . This is the same government that spent unknown amounts of money to deport John Lennon as if he were a terrorist or advocating violence. The Kent State shootings were not in support of students or civil rights or a show of self control but nothing different than the Tienanmen Square Massacre by the Chinese Communist Government which put down a rebellion.Freedom of speech became a dangerous idea at Kent State in 1972 when the American National Guard opened fire on the students.At that time there were blatant outcries from super patriots that said , "They deserved to be shot." That was this government and is this government ,the same governing body which has continued a policy of "non- disclosure" of campaign funds since the Supreme Court second guessed the congress in January of 2010 and suggested that corporations have the same rights as individual citizens.


How can the people trust a governing body that continues to perpetrate lie after lie. Both the extreme right and the extreme left are more than disenchanted . Who is happy with the current policies? The only people being served are the extremely wealthy and this has been a consistent theme across both party lines. I can understand the frustration that has brought about the "Tea Party" while I don't agree them.There are things that we could come to agree upon but it doesn't appear to be anything the American voting public can do to stop this runaway train of partisanship which refuses to co-operate and do the right thing . Not one member of congress is attempting to work for the people . They spout words like "..What the American People Want IS.." but what they do is what they want.

All the protecting in the name of the American people should be questioned by the American people. The public humiliation of people caught in "Stings" or forms of entrapment who are then put on the television news may not be people who were really threatening at all.Even writing this thought seems like a form of treason in this climate of lies and spins and media bites. Having doubts is a treasonable offense in a nation where we are supposed to have freedom of speech. Not only are the individual stations controlling the air waves and news bites but the current administration and both political parties are also directing their own slants. The entire concept of journalism has somehow escaped the United States.

It would seem that if the agencies that are protecting the people of the United States were doing their job correctly , they wouldn't have to broadcast their results in the manner of a Broadway Show or a political candidates campaign.The reality is that ,like NASA, the results have to be what is predicted or they are afraid of losing their budget . They support their budgets by producing results that are predicted and not by achieving actual results. This sham of "The tail wagging the dog" is not doing the job but pretending it has done the job . Meanwhile untold money is thrown down the government's expensive toilet ,supporting government jobs that should not exist anymore . How many people are working for the agencies ? How many agencies are there? How much money is in the current budget that goes toward this abstract protection ? It seems like the cost of the military, the drug enforcement , the National Security, and the Intelligence Agencies are all indefinable numbers .

I truly believe that the native born American terrorist is much more dangerous than some cartoon character that has been imagined to be part of Al Qaeda . If America loses the American credo, or even the belief in the possibility of freedom as it was promised here in America , then there will be no agency , no police force , and no governing body that will survive terror from within. Our basic premises must be adhered to as well as our aesthetic values and civil liberties even in the face of all threats from what ever possible source.

The police force of Afghanistan is worthless if our own American police force is corrupted . The possible governments of Iraq or Afghanistan are not our concern ,especially if our own government is out of the control of our own people. The American troops should be brought back to America . Every night there are reports of deaths in other countries but we rarely see the entire death rate of this entire country . What is reported to us locally is our local crime . The total crime of America dwarfs Iraq and Afghanistan . Why should we care about those countries at all? If this country is really so paranoid and obsessed with National Security , why doesn't the government enforce the laws here and stop pretending to enforce and support laws that are impossible to enforce in Iraq or Afghanistan or , for that matter , the entire Middle East .

I don't believe any of the "protective agencies" anymore,including the TSA , the CIA, the FBI, the DEA.. etc etc .This government is out of control and media "Spins" (Lies) have become what we expect as opposed to finding and facing the truth of what is happening here . We are separated ,polarized Democrats and Republicans, Black and White,rich and poor,we are left and right wings who are arguing as we all accept our characters and play our parts in the debacle we are witnessing,a play called "Greed and Power".This charade continues pretending to be for the protection of the American people ,similar to the flag waving lie that our American soldiers are fighting and dying today in Afghanistan to preserve freedom and the American way.The "Lame Duck" congress might well continue for another two years as congress votes in partisan blocks as they have for the last two years.Can there be any compromise ,cohesion,or agreement if we remain polarized and pointing fingers of blame at each other?


Speaking of terrorist ,let's not forget Paulson, Bernanke,and Geithner and their Great Bank Heist ,putting money back in banks that the banks had stolen and gambled away in a system unfettered by the regulations that had been put on banking and the market since the Great Depression.This unelected triumvirate of economic terrorist were also endorsed by Obama ,who took up where Bush left off enabling big money interest from off shore ,foreign banks,and businesses that cross the borders and boundaries of the ships of state to actually affect this Ship that is the State of America .The Bilderberger Group and the Tri Lateral Pact never pretended to be interested in preserving democracy but US Presidents usually get elected by spouting democratic Americanisms not openly paying off Wall Street and the financial institutes.Bush listened to Paulson before he left office and Obama kept Paulson .He either bought the whole cock and bull story or learned the truth as he continued with Bernake and Geithner,to promote an agenda that transcends party lines which has nothing to do with the welfare or the will of the American people . What happened to auditing the Federal Reserve? Where did the money go? Nobody will tell and they sometimes,like January 2010 ,they say they don't know. Our Congress endorsed bail outs for the very people who caused the economic crisis in the first place . The United States has been economically terrorized and there were no"Muslim Fundamentalist" involved .

Akh A "Crock" or a MSH

Messiah, the translation of the Old Testament Hebrew word pronounced maw-shakh ,meaning Anointed One , which when translated into the New Testament Greek is Christos.



The Egyptians saw the king as divine and as early as the Fourth Dynasty (27th century BC) the king was looked upon as the Son of Ra .The king was anointed ,not with oil but with the fat of the holy crocodile. This ancient Egyptian word for crocodile was MeSeH or msh ,as there were no vowels in ancient Egyptian or Hebrew. This word seems to be the origin of the word Messiah.The image of two crocodiles were used for the title of sovereign,bestowed on the king at the time of coronation.In their time ,the 25th century BC,the builders of the pyramids venerated Osiris. He was looked upon as an ancient king ,slain on a Friday( like Jesus ) but by his brother Seth,who dismembered his body in order to deny him a second life.His wife Isis was able to collect his remains and,using a magic ritual ,reassembled his body to restore him to life again after three days ( again like Jesus), but to a life not on earth but in the underworld, where ,physically resurrected,he became the god and judge of the dead."The Pyramid Text",carved on walls of burial chambers,contain the recitation by the priest of Osiris:"This Osiris,is thy son.Thou hast caused him to flourish and live. He lives , this king lives... he has not perished... he endures, this king endures." The scholar J. Gwyn Griffiths comments in his book The Origins of Osiris and His Cult:"These words and others like them are some of some significance in human history,for they are the earliest expressions in literature of a belief in life after death."



In the latter years of the 18th Dynasty the Osiris cult morphed into what became a cult called Serapis whose followers were promised eternal life without the need for mummification if they confessed their belief in the deity and went through the initiation ritual. As a result the Serapis Cult, open to the poor as well as the rich , became the most popular religion in Egypt and eventually replaced the other cults as the official religion of state.

Ahk In Hell , A Response Note On Intolerance

Pt 1

Intolerance seems to be built into the first commandment which is a trait of monotheistic religions that followed since Akhnaton ,( the father of Tut),decreed the very same commandment "Thou shalt have no other god before me,"except he substituted the "Aten" in place of all the other gods in the temples of Egypt.He enforced his theocratic monotheism under the threat of death with the might of the Egyptian army of his era.His preoccupation developing a cult that allowed him to do what ever he wished morally and loot the considerable wealth from all the other temples (gods),almost brought down that entire Empire,in fact the Egyptian Pharonic blood line really stops at his son,Tutankhaten ,known to us as Tutankhamun.Tut changed his name or had his name changed by his uncle , the next king ,as a gesture of goodwill to bring back polytheism to Egypt .The worship of the"Aten" was outlawed on punishment of death by Horemheb , the Pharaoh after Aye( Tut's uncle)and continued by Rameses after Horemheb died.Later Judaism,Christianity, and finally Islam continued this same self supporting tradition of intolerance when they come to their powers with the threat of violence and death to all who opposed them , the non believers ,over the centuries.Theoretically, at least , people should be able to express varied opinions on Facebook. I haven't noticed the "Atheist wing" of Facebook ,not that I would wish to join in. I would rather be seen as one of the "Shepherd Kings"who were enemies of the Egyptians and feared because they didn't join together but worshiped different gods and had their own armies and supported individual agendas.That sounds like "Freedom" to me.


Pt 2 a further response..

"The Golden Rule"looks good on paper and spouting the party line will gather the tribe together for a chorus of "Amens"but the ancient Jewish tradition of arguing in the temple wasn't a rote memorization but a way of reasoning with the ideas of morality from the Torah and the old books ,their meanings brought forth clearer by discussion and commentary.My bringing up the topic of recorded ancient Egyptian history here may not fair well but what I cited was the birth of intolerance,the beginning of monotheism and theocracy.Monotheist have spun commentary on history to suggest that monotheism was a step up from polytheism in it's abstract personal omniscient,yet omnipresent god that abandoned idolatry,but polytheism intrinsically was tolerant of others. Now, when the first commandment is cited in each sect of the continuation of monotheism in the Hebraic tradition, each denomination or each monotheist tribe of Jews, Christians,or Muslims,is really pointing to their own personal gods,versions endorsed by their communities,supported by secular commentary on the basic writings as seen by the individually developed and separated tribes.Do the Muslim martyrs go to the same heaven as the Jewish and Christian martyrs?There are as many sects of Islam as there are Christian variations.Are there as many heavens?Their interpretations of the Koran vary from Jihad to Submissive peace but,again,it all looks good on paper.Off the paper and into the world, Muslims can drink,smoke,take drugs,kill,divorce,lie,and generally sin just as well as Jews and Christians.Do they go to the same hell?The answer depends on which church survives the"Rapture","Armegedon",or the final"Jihad".This moment,now is real, typing, thinking,reading,and communicating.Good or bad, this moment we are alive.The goodness of this moment is universally accepted across all religious denominations.It would be nice if the world could concentrate on this moment and accept the goodness of life and see the agreements and not the differences.

Ahk In Hell Continued

There was a hell in ancient Egypt , too , way , way back as far as 8 to ten thousand years BC. We really see their gods as myths now but the main characters (gods) ,Isis, Osiris, and Set were an epic Greek myth-tragedy before there were Greek myths. Osiris was married to Isis and his brother,Set,was jealous.Set seems almost like a character out of an old time movie western with the guy twiddling his mustash and putting the heroine on the railroad track. Set attempted to kill Osiris by giving him a coffin which Osiris had to try on for size ( he never saw the Wiley Cayote movies). When he got into the coffin Set closed the lid , trapped him and sent him down the Nile in the coffin. Isis searches for her husband and eventually finds him by playing the role of a nurse in one of her adventures incarnated as a human. She is discovered by the mother of a little boy when she is performing rites with the child she is supposed to be watching.She seems to engulf the child in fire to the chagrin of the mother till she learns that it is Isis, the goddess of love and wife of Osiris.Isis found Osiris in a tree that had grown in the house she was posing as a nurse.Isis takes the tree, gets the body of Osiris ,and puts it on a raft traveling down the Nile again. She sits on the dead Osiris,evidently,in a particularly opportune place and thus she incredibly becomes pregnant( a variation on the virgin birth ) with her son,Horus,who becomes the embodiment of Osiris on earth.Osiris becomes the god of the underworld,and the thrown of Egypt becomes the "Thrown of Isis", the Pharoahs of Egypt are given the honorary name or title Horus as one of their many names.



All the pharaohs were anointed ones,Christ in Greek,anointed with oil when they took office as King and sat on the Thrown of Isis. By the 18th Dynasty,politics played a deeper role in the rites of kings in that the kings were named after other gods,for instance Amun Ra,was the most popular,rich,and,powerful god since the time of Hatshepsut (a woman pharoah)who wouldn't relinquish the throne to her young nephew ,heir to the throne , Thutmosis III(dedicated to the god "Thoth").She called herself the daughter of Amun and was endorsed by the powerful priest of Amun Ra to keep her in power in spite of the true succession she detained for years.Akhanton's father's name was Amenophis III a son of Amun as was his previous namesakes. Akhnaton was Amenophis IV but changed his name to Akhenaten in favor of a new father,an old god, but a new way of looking at Aten Re.He declared himself the son of god and told the people that the only way they could gain favor with the Aten was through him. Akhetaten was the name of the city he built after taking all the gold from all the other temples and left town with his cult followers,his court.



In those days the Pharoah of Egypt was a god on earth with his name ,dedicated to one of the gods,his father. When he died and was buried, the expectation was that he would have eternal life like Osiris in the underworld.Being buried with all his toys and a lot of loot,he was expecting to come back and party. After Akhnaton's revolution,his cult of Aten made it possible for all people to be buried and dream of coming back in an afterlife and having those things that most people say "You can't take with you.."This was part of the promise of Akhnaton.Akhnaton was a heretic, a child molester,possibly a real mother fucker, the original Oedipus, a giver of laws,and a leader of a revolution from the top that was unprecedented throughout history.He created Theocracy and monotheistic intolerance which he enforced with violence ( like the current Taliban)as he had the entire Egyptian army of his era which he inherited.He screwed that up too,all in the name of a god and a cult he invented.



Sigmond Freud concluded,in his last book around 1933,"Moses and Monotheism" that Moses was probably a diciple of Atenism.Immanuel Velikovsky wrote "Oedipus and Akhnaton" in the early sixties in which he successfully shows the many similarities between the Greek tragedy and the historical reality. Ahmed Osman wrote "Moses ,King of Egypt" in which his motive is to show that Akhnaton became Moses after his dethronement and banishment.William Theau brought a lot of like minded people together in 2000 with the premise that Akhnaton was several mythic characters ,namely Oedipus, Moses, and Hermes Tri-Megistus.Hermes,a root name associated with Hermeticism is often cited in secret societies and can even be found in the ancient Gnostic literature found in 1945 , the Nag Hamadi Scrolls,the "Discourse on the Eighth and the Ninth".



The occurrences of incest in Egypt were not necessarily indicative of that culture.There may have been this aberration in the Fourth Dynasty but the re-occurrence and acceptance of incest in the Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt was not something that went unnoticed by the general populace as graffiti from that era has suggested the King,Akhnaton, was not thought of in normal terms. It is my opinion that Egypt was corrupted by the nearby Mittinian culture which was probably around ancient Persia.The Magi who were priest of Surya , an ancient Persian god before the later,related ,Zoroaster. A Magus became ordained after having relations with his own mother through the rite of"Xvaetvadatha".The Persian practices were known but were not accepted by the Greek culture later or even the Romans. Xvaetvadatha is a topic that might be of interest to the seasonal topic of the Magi traveling from the East to see the new king (Jesus) and what kind of people they actually might have been.

New Blog and Links

I did try a few pages with Google and worked within the parameters set by them. My comments are kind of general ,universal ,bigger than life paragraphs that go with the pages there which have slide shows ,again ,inside the smaller parameters . I do have a links page there which will take you to other sites where the paint shows are designed for full page view . All of my sites have music played and recorded by me over many years."Zoot's Sweet Suite" is the newest relative of all my sites . I am sharing links to down loads there from my 4shared account . The links to other pages are at the bottom of the first page . This is a direct hit to the "Links Page" Where there are the many other links to links to links to links to links to more Bob Bruno than even I can take ..haha , a virtual river of "Zoot". The top painting is called "Big Red" which happens to be on my desktop right now. The second is "River Water Color".

Characters

I don't know why I thought of Danny Gatton this morning . Thinking of Danny made me think of Bruce Swaim .Going to "Club Soda" on a whim to visit Bruce when he happened to be playing with Danny was a surprise deal.Even then , when I drank alcohol,I rarely went out on my nights off. Bruce didn't seem like the kind of guy to play a character in Danny's act with the Fender guitar.On the other hand, he did play gigs with me that weren’t all jazz. I don't know , I can't remember all the gigs but I played and sang a lot of pop things . I would play and sing anything for people. It isn't that Danny was outlandish at all though it was hard to escape that "Elvis","Rockabilly",fifties thing he had with the guitar. Having Previty on stringed bass working so hard ,pulling the strings ,pounding , bullying the instrument to be heard at the volume of Danny’s electric guitar tricks added to the “Rocking”character of that band. Danny was unassuming the night I met him there ,introduced as a friend of Bruce Swaim's. Downing a few beers between the sets backstage,his ability and guitar tricks didn't really affect Dan's regular guy character off stage. He was small and quiet while when he played he became rather large , a monster . The loudness of his ax and the obvious control of the many facets of the Fender guitar made him stand out and become larger among the many guitarist of the world.In the little club where I met him , he was a little guy . It was his band but I was there to see Bruce ,a reliable tenor sax man who I called regularly to play with my bands.Dan and I hit it off right away. I don't know why. I have known quite a few recognizable musicians as regular people over the years. Maybe they want to be treated as regular people and they aren't approached by many people that way. My lack of respect might help.(haha). It's a dirty job but somebody has to do it .It might be something else , too , a kind of comradery , a brotherhood of experiences,or maybe I am just old.

I never saw Jimi Hendrix perform in front of an audience . I did play with Jimi in the recording studio a few times,"The Record Plant",where I rehearsed my own band many times, and met him from time to time in clubs we would frequent and sit in and play when we were in New York . Jimi also was quiet . He wasn't small as he was taller than I am , but he wasn't anything like the act he put on screwing his guitar and playing louder than anyone at the time. By the time I met Jimi he was already swinging with major hits , in fact , he well might have been on the other side of his great popularity that came before “Woodstock”. He wanted to play jazz, to play the blues , and not continue to do his act of tricks.I have no idea if he was able to get away from the exciting character he had invented on stage but that wasn't the person I knew and ,like Danny,it had nothing to do with our conversation or how we responded to one another.Our scene wasn't all "getting high" and groupies though that was a part of it . Part of it was improvising, yet another addiction to hand eye co-ordination.In this addiction , we became closer to past historic musicians. I can understand Bach playing the organ ,improvising till his sight became blurry . I am sure that the same synapse were excited in his brain as he played as were in us and as are excited by the use of cocaine. Playing can be an addiction . Knowing other addicts , perhaps a nod of knowledge , might be a part of making what might be unnatural ,more natural. There was a Spanish term , I think it was "Cokaliso",that illustrated that "nodding" knowledge between cocaine users.

Both these guys are gone now. They didn't do anything I didn't do,didn't feel any more pain or pleasure than I felt . No, I didn't play the guitar like them and didn't strive to the larger characters that ,in retrospective, they have become in their deaths.I don't think I could handle it any better than they did if I had continued in popular music or the character I was in my era of the sixties , the character of sex drugs and rock and roll.I think that even though both Jimi and Danny had achieved recognition as the characters that they invented with their guitars, they were also trying to escape the character that other people assumed they were in life. These characters had both an aspect of "freeing" them and enslaving them . It might have been these monstrous characters that drove both guys to their ultimate escapes. I don't think that Jimi intentionally intended to kill himself ,he was just having fun, but he was tortured by a character that he could not escape, a character that his audience insisted he had to continue.Danny , sadly,did that other number, a final number that unfortunately he shares with other suicides.

In death they are larger as they sometimes were in life when they played . The guitar can be so loud , so threatening , a tool , a prop for the stage . Once , a long time ago , as I played the guitar on stage ,I saw a man approaching my girl across the dance floor . I walked across and through the dancers , still playing with the band . The guitar chord stretching to my amp across the dance floor as I played , I had to shout at the same time ,"Leave her alone!" ,which startled the other guy . We had a few words and he left . While I was still playing the set , he came back with a cop . I came down from the stand to speak with them and found that he was accusing of "assault" with a deadly weapon. The character I was on stage with my guitar in hand was like a character on the screen coming down into the dark movie seats. When I told the cop my side of the story, he laughed,dismissed the imagined assault,and told the other guy to leave.Each moment has a reality from different perspectives.Sometimes an objective point of view can clarify what is real and what is not, sometimes it can never be clarified.

Furthermore

Brian Williams asked a direct question of the new,phony PR front man for BP but he was completely unresponsive ,speaking much as our Congressmen and Senators have as they come under indictment.Our American character as flag waving,card carrying("You vill show me da papers") policemen of the world had better repair home before there is no home.The fact is that Obama has done nothing but help big business screw America into an oily future just as the Republicans did for the last twelve years or more. 1996 was the last democratic hurrah , then came the ditto heads and now , the impostors , phony Democrats.Why bother to vote anymore?The terrorist aren't the enemy , we are ! Circle the wagons and start defending this country ,not Afghanistan , Iraq , Saudi Arabia, or Israel .The number one invasion spot should be the shores of the District of Columbia .A new Constitutional Convention , over forty years late,should be formed .Get rid of all the current representatives. As a country , we have to stop waving flags ,throwing sound bites around ,throwing parties ( the big fireworks display around the corner ), and work on repairing the intrinsic political problems of capitalism.Capitalism across the globe does not care about the idea of Democracy at all and neither do our congressmen ,senators, or president.

..and this guy did nothing ..

Number one , regulate the banking industry and Wall Street as it was after the Great Depression.If the boat is filling up ,stop the water coming in! Two week ago , regulate the cut off valve , the protection against spills by the companies drilling off the coast . Stop the oil coming in! British Petroleum is working toward raking in the oil, not stopping the flow.Allowing the company to take care of the problem is unacceptable.There is no reason to believe that big capitalist business has any concerns other than bringing in more money. Does the sentence "Tobacco does not cause cancer" ring a bell ? Our elected officials are not acting in the interest of their constituency but responding to big money across the line , the party line , the state line , and the lines that separate the countries of the world . At least with Bush we knew that he , as a Republican , was in support of big business and less regulation . With the current Democratic administration we had a smoke screen of promises ,none of which have come to fruition. The identity of the Democratic party as the party of the people , the little people , is proving to be a sham .Where Bush had the Gaul to say that questioning the policies of his administration was treasonous , Obama has a position of political correctness that quiets dissent . It somehow reminds me once again of the emperor thinking he is dressed to the nines but actually he has been fooled naked and his people are afraid to tell him for fear of reprisals . March of 2009 I brought up the subject in another context ("Trippin")yet the theme has raised it's ugly head again this year.A President has to do something and stop talking about doing something . Somewhere the studies , the experiments, and the theories have to give way to deeds .


This guy has done absolutely nothing . It started with not regulating banking and Wall Street when he came into office . What he did do was exactly what Bush did and threw another 850 billion dollars at banking and Wall Street . The health bill was a diversion of no consequence . The resulting bill is a watered down fantasy that nobody understands . That failure supposedly took most of last year to conclude. The current oil crisis in the Gulf is yet another example of inactivity. The government has done nothing ! No regulation has been changed to insure that the same problem won't reoccur on any of the 3500 oil rigs in the Gulf or proposed to be erected in new territories on the East Coast . Relying upon the fox to fix the problem in the hen house doesn't make sense . Why should America rely upon British Petroleum to correct the current catastrophe ? Collecting the oil has been the first priority of BP instead of stopping the flow . The actual flow is much greater than original estimates or later or still later reported .



The protection of our shores is the job of our government but our government is being run by big business, corrupted beyond any one's understanding , including what might have been a junior Senator from Chicago that was elected on promises he has completely forgotten. Iraq and ruin , Afghanistan and heroin, paranoia and scare tactics , and don't forget foreign policy over the control and protection of our homeland are all the same policies that came into place in the Bush era , recognized as flawed but have become the Obama administrations policy.




Tonight the news shows an emotional Obama , angry , as if that means a damn.Like congress , he is doing nothing . The television stations , slanted by their various political views apparently have agreed to spin in the same direction down the toilet of lies . They are using spin words like "The blame game" to misdirect much as a magician . What is this saying , that no one should be blamed , that something should be done . It is saying that BP isn't responsible , that the government isn't responsible , that it's no ones fault . That isn't true . It is some one's fault . It is firmly on the backs of all those corrupted by big money and big lobbies. It is across party lines , the corruption is so deep that you can see the suits getting more expensive by the day on the newest Senators getting the benefits of air travel , health insurance, limousine services,body guard services , all being paid by "Uncle Sucker", that is tax payers . Incidentally , everyone pays taxes. You pay at the pump , you pay at the counter, you pay ,at the grocery store , and you pay in April. Everyone pays but not everyone collects. Welfare is a drop in the bucket , another diversion, as is pointing at the borders and saying it's the fault of illegal immigrants. We are all illegal immigrants here . If we start the guilt trip , it will never end . So the terrorist won , the war is over . America has compromised it's principals and has thrown in the towel . The actual winners are the big businesses taking advantage of a capitalist society self destructing.The corruption will not be stemmed any more than the oil though we have the technology to resolve both problems . We are willing to blame immigration, welfare, the idea of health care for our citizenry, and the voters of this country but not the elected officials who have sold us out . There was once a thing called the Guillotine that had terrible yet positive results against tyranny. Let us not forget that revolution doesn't have to wait for four years .


No, I am not going to the "Tea Party". Losing me is just the tip of an iceberg as I have found over the years and especially since accessing the Internet , I am not alone .


So , who should we name ?

Do da name Ruby Bagonia mean anything to you , Kingfish ? Uh oh,no more Kingfish . Da fish is dead ! He died of oil.



This is one yellow dog democrat that will not vote for that dog again . That dog don't hunt !


"The king is in the altogether , the altogether , the altogether ,He's altogether as naked as the day that he was born." ( a song from the Hans Christian Anderson movie )

Big Brother Riding the Gun

Trusting private enterprise to help the needy brings more corruption and the government seems to make the simplest items much more complicated. So what should we do ?We have just come through another era that will be looked back on as dirty with corruption. Last February instead of throwing billions of dollars to Wall Street and the banking industry , congress should have been re-regulating both Wall Street and US Banking the way that they were regulated after the crash of 1929 produced the great depression. The corruption and calamity that came from the greed of both industries is the cause of our continuing economic crisis. Needless to say , no regulations have come about. The lobby for Wall Street and Banks across this country is more powerful than the promises made by candidates running for office after they gain their position. The lobbies that represent the Lawyers, Doctors, and Insurance Companies also are beating down the would be "Health Reform" bill .It seems like the Democrats can't even bully their way through with their precarious majority.In my opinion this bill was a diversion from the fact that congress didn't really address the current problems of regulation but politically dropped the ball while stewing , arguing , and pretending to act in behalf of an American People who they do not and will not be representing as they continue to fumble till the next election which promises more of the same. Big business has stepped across party lines just as it has stepped across State lines across the globe.Big business doesn't care about "Democracy" and , in fact , has been actively working against the principals of democracy since the Council on Foreign Relations of 1921, the Bilderberg Group , started in 1954 , and the Trilateral Commission , in 1973,.The world could tumble toward the sun and big business would still be controlling congress and indifferent to any population of any country.This is the result of "Capitalism" come to fruition and unbridled in America . This is what the American Dream is , making money ,not democracy or the principals it was supposedly built upon when the population was much smaller.


I don't believe our military should be fighting wars or creating wars ,especially wars initiated by a military machine that eats more than Haitians or even Americans.I saw that it will cost a million dollars a year for every American soldier in Afghanistan . Man, what are they feeding these guys , heroin? The character of the American soldier has changed tragically away from the good soldier of WWII.


Seeing our military on the ground in Haiti reminds me that we should have had more men on the ground in New Orleans and not in Iraq.I saw that story about the Israelis being set up as well as seeing that the Americans were holding back the flow of food and water for fear of violence.This seemed counter productive to me yet in character. Do they want to wait till the people starve and die and are quieted down by disease before they help ? It seems like the newscasters didn't have a bit of trouble getting in country and broadcasting for their sponsors.At least they dressed down a little for the gig to play their roles.The close ups of hungry children would be nicer to me if just one of the talking heads would stuff a sandwich or some candy in one of the crying kids mouths.

I am and have been against this military identity that has become America.We are "Big Brother", a character that was hated since George Orwell conceived it.Since 9/11 we have accepted the "Thought Police" as well as other ideas which are supposed to be protective devices for our society. You don't have to actually commit a crime but just talk about it ,think about it ,or write it down on paper and dissenting in a democracy became complicated affair during the Bush years . If our "Intelligence" can be so sensitive why didn't they pick up on what was really going on in the mid east before the attacks on the Trade Center Buildings or before the advent of the invasion of Iraq. I thought that the USSR was that "Big Brother" character till 1965 when I got a closer exposure to what Viet Nam was doing to our men as I worked a mere month at Travis AFB where men were returning as well as embarking to that costly "Police Action"in fear of imaginary "Dominoes" falling .We can develop a more benevolent "Big Brother" that doesn't have to threaten to gain respect but considering we are willing direct our military to fire on our own students who are practicing their right to dissent ,for instance Kent State, how can we think there is any control over the character or direction of our military much less the direction of the country.I will vote to break up all the monopolies in congress ,both democratic and republican in an effort to not allow either to do much because they both just screw up things all the more with their continuous lies to get into office and to maintain their seats and power. No more congress and president of the same party. Period.


My vote will still not change the fact that The Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg Group, and the Trilateral Commission are still running the show and not the Congress of the American people.

Stop Pointing ,You Are Naked Too

Everybody is getting arrested . Everyone is pointing fingers. It looks like a football game and the guys are pointing at the other team,"They did it!" Everyone is innocent . Everybody wants to see somebody else blamed for all the things that have gone wrong , for all the injustice , for all the times the bad guy gets ahead in the world , and for all the people who don't deserve to be where ever they are in the imagination of the imaginary American People .

They are busting people for laughing at people .Today the people who run professional basketball fined the Washington Wizards players ten thousand dollars a piece for laughing at a man who was pretending he had guns ,pointing his fingers as if he were shooting them . The man pointing his fingers may or may not have had guns in his locker room , may or may not have had them loaded, may or may not have pointed one at a fellow player, may or may not..... The point is he has been ostracized on innuendo and gossip . The finger is pointed at him , a millionaire professional ball player ,overpaid , athletic entertainer .

The evening news has focused on the "Gate Crashers" , recognizable people who were able to get into a Whitehouse party . This has preoccupied the attention of serious newscasters, if that concept exist anymore . The idea is that there could have been an assassination . Suddenly there are other "Gate crashers" and other would be scenarios .What were they thinking ? The finger pointers seem to know what they were thinking . They were thinking that they would kill him ! Good grief ! George Orwell rolls over and sighs.

"The Thought Police " are here and they are us . Our paranoia has finally allowed us to self destruct . Someone in the rest of the world is pointing their finger at us . We , the American People ,are the overpaid , uninformed, people who don't deserve to be where ever we are in the imagination of those people pointing their fingers at us . Every one seems to be pointing a finger . They did it ! He did it ! She did it ! What if we all did it ? So fucking what ! We all did it ! We all have done it !

If we all did it why are we all so guilty ?

Is this a continuation of "Original Sin" ? "Original sin" is a concept that has outlived it's use except for Bible thumping telemarketers.We are not guilty. We didn't do anything wrong by being born . The king ,once again ," ..is in the all together , he's all together as naked as the day that he was born ."
Stop pointing your finger at him , you are naked , too .

Capitalist Art Directing Culture

It has occurred to me that I used to have friends who listened to music . We all liked the "Waltz for Debby" live album from the Vanguard by Bill Evans when it came out . We were crazy about Coltrane and "Favorite Things" was nearly a pop tune to us but "Africa Brass " was just terrific . We didn't get high to listen to them or drink , we just liked it , we all liked it . Most of my friends in high school were older musicians but I did have some friends my own age and they also liked jazz . I do think that back then I clung to the first statement of the melody and the arrangement before I got deeper into the improvisation. As I became more involved with my own playing I appreciated the individual solos more as well as the way the individual player approached their solos . Eventually I had opened my ears to electronic music , music concrete , modern classical , and free jazz which seemed to come together around 1959 . Listening to music became like watching athletics in my mind . A fine player was indeed to be compared to an athlete except ,in my opinion , the ability to play and listen is more intellectually stimulating.

Working as sideman wasn't exactly the dream I had in mind yet I always improvised even on the straight gigs . Surprisingly enough , it was a jazz job that turned me off the stringed bass in the mid-sixties . While on the road I entertained myself town to town with a guitar I bought. I guess I was playing bossa nova songs and even performing them with the band I was traveling with occasionally in our shows. In Louis and Clarkston ,on the border of Idaho and Washington , we played a Moose Lodge for a month ,December to New Years Eve and during one afternoon I went to see "Hard Days Night" at a movie house and things started changing fast . In Dallas I had a month lay over after the gig at the hotel and I stayed with a girl I met , a waitress in the hotel who had all of Bob Dylan's recordings till 1965 or so.I wasn't really receptive to the Beatles or Dylan but after listening I began to think that I could sing and started writing lyrics ,still to entertain myself as I worked on the road . This departure from jazz was an important event and I wasn't the only person caught up in it . After leaving the group , totally drugged out in Louisville Kentucky , I stopped in Washington DC and , after a few months , headed for Austin . The jazz work I was expecting didn't materialize right away and again I was entertaining myself with my guitar between gigs .It was at this time that I met Jerry and Pete and we formed the basic vocal group that continued till 1968 . It was also at that time that I played the Austin Jazz Festival and one of the people I had to perform with was Fathead Newman. Fathead saw where music was going and was ahead of his time incorporating rock beats in his jazz vehicles much as Stanley Turrentine would be doing a few years later .This was fine for Fathead but I wasn't personally happy to play the stringed bass behind him in this style. I left Austin and dedicated myself to the folk rock scene adapting myself to the lead guitar position with the other rhythm guitar ,folk players , Jerry and Pete . Leaving jazz yet still improvising around the folk music with my guitar , the rock beat prevailing , I was happier playing the guitar than the stringed bass in the era.

While rock grew and became more and more complicated in production , the bass lines stayed a dance beat , sometimes simply the tonic rhythmically. Pop music had ups and downs with currently interesting venues that came and went . Jazz seemed to be going backward on the bottom , the bass line , which became a work horse not the creative independent line that came forth with Scott LaFaro with Bill Evans . Ron Carter had to hold down the changes for the illusive nature of Wayne Shorter's music with Miles Davis in the sixties and the walking bass was about all he could do with it . When Miles switched horses and went to a rock beat and found a greater popularity , jazz was advancing as rock but also staying the same like pop music .

Sometimes I hear music , guitar music , "head bangers" that seem to move through the changes like elephants just taking enormous steps without contrary motion . The power alone of the instruments carry the vehicle like a tank over the audience raising their arms and hands as if at a Hitler rally . Pop becomes something like a cult to join or be run over and excommunicated from society . Jazz was going a similar path in "Fusion" with the melodies so complicated as to make it impossible to improvise . The melody became the only thing to cling to and the individual solo was going by the way side .

There are still great players but they have to work inside the character that is recognizable by a culture that has taken the easy route much like water going down stream .There are many songs that seem to call to people from the venue of the simplest or lowest common denominator.The advent of "Rap" music using primarily rhythmical undertones could be seen as another step backward toward the primitive entertainment of basic drums without melody at all but featuring poetry and sensationalism .



Many of my friends are gone , dead , or maybe I just lost touch with them . I don't know where they are at with it all any more . I do know that I still crave the improvisation, the independent line , the counterpoint of jazz. Unfortunately I don't think that this is supported by our current culture or where it is headed.I question intrinsically the idea of capitalism as a driving force to art , if there is art .I thought that there was art in Coltrane yet I still saw him as an entertainer grasping upon the ideas that he saw his audience responding to like "Favorite Things". Once I had an argument with Dizzy Gillespie about his choice of an electric bass player as opposed to a stringed bass player in his band . Diz had the patience to explain to me that he was merely trying to reach the greater audience . I admired Dizzy and I wanted him to remain in the crest of the wave as he had been in the late forties with Be Bop . Diz knew better and continued till he died ,surviving in his field , while not in the fore front , at least in the game . My characterization of Gillespie is now recognizable to me as people characterize me as someone recognizable to them ,though I may not be that person.Wasn't Miles striving to entertain and make a living in our system when he went to rock? The capitalist way has brought about an influx of singers and dancers who merely want to get their share of this market.



As music has grown to such a big business and even a contest we lose sight of the idea of art in favor of mob popularity. The idea of having a contest between Rembrandt and Van Gogh would seem funny yet we have come to the conclusion that we can have contest between songs ,singers ,dancers,players, musicians, and composers. I think that capitalism has corrupted art to the point of no return . If singers are judged by how good they sing the cliches of forty years ago , where is the art ? Popular phrasing is similar to what Ray Charles was doing in 1956 . So the masquerade is the art ? It would be different if we were recognizing interpretation but still it would only be comparing one painting to another . Is beauty in the eye of the beholder or not ? Is beauty in the ear of the beholder ?



Somewhere back there I was inspired by players , musicians , and composers who seemed different ,individually different . This difference is what is missing in our current format of capitalist art directing our culture . What we are witnessing is the effect of capitalism creating the same mold over and over again . The same movies are redone ,the same tunes are re-sung , and the same phrasing is overdone in the rush to success and the big pay off .