Addiction

I know a lot of people who have succumb to the indulgences that were once fun and seemed harmless .Smoking and drinking were perhaps seen ,from the point of a child , as how to appear adult in those years when we used to add a year to our actual age. Remember being fifteen and saying you were sixteen as well as those years before you turned twenty one . Did you alter your drivers license? Through adulthood we faced many other temptations that , perhaps,were fun at first .Those seemingly innocent self indulgences came along in social situations. Everybody was doing it so it didn't seem to be so bad at the time.It was fun , things were fun , we were young and winning all our fights not reflective or bitter but hopeful and yearning.


Somewhere along the way the fun became a habit. If it was big enough , a habit became a maintenance. The social indulgence became an obsession.This habit building succession can be applied to many things including social communications like "Myspace" or "Facebook" but the physical challenges of drinking , smoking , and recreational drugs are more immediate,destructive, and consuming to the individual.The social indulgence became an activity instead of a sideline , a side dish to human interaction.


"What are you going to do this weekend?"

"We're going to drink till our gums recede."



At this point it might be still a social event however the timing becomes habitual. The drinker learns when his "Bar" opens and looks forward to the time that he can drink. Security is having a safe amount of booze available at all times . It may be a six pack or perhaps a case of beer , a quart , a gallon of vodka , an ounce or ten joints of pot, a gram of cocaine, or even just a pack of cigarettes.The body starts craving , the timing calls, a certain amount must be imbibed. The individual cannot see the progression objectively at some point in the progression of the monster taking over , the addiction taking it's due. Sometimes friends and family see signs of the problem , sometimes not. The individual does not want to hear negative remarks because objectivity is gone.


Sometimes drinking can be analogous with a disease. Actually, in my opinion much of any addiction should be recognized as a disease. A disease is bigger than will power and moral legislation. A disease isn't treated with law enforcement or supernatural promises. A disease sometimes can be treated with other drugs, medications to alleviate the need for the habitual problem. Sometimes the replacement can be as bad or worse than the original addiction , as in the case of methadone substituting for heroin .


In the early nineteen sixties the drug LSD was used to treat alcoholism with some good results. There might have been other positive uses for LSD but for the campaign of our government to stop the recreational use by the public before it was made illegal.The legal uses by psychoanalyst were cut off by the government deceptions of the era ,for instance the campaign to spread the word that LSD could cause malformations of fetuses like the another drug in the news at that time,thalidomide. This was a lie ,a myth perhaps created in an effort to stop the experimentation of people with a (then)legal substance.It is very possible that LSD could be used to treat other addictions but that will not be an acceptable theory to be tested in the current climate.What we see as laymen are "Bad trips" which are over-publicized while the benefits of the exploration of the self and the bringing to light of the sub-conscious has been neglected.Recently I was a approached to edit a theoretic paper on the "Eleusinian Mysteries"of ancient Greece.The theory was associated with an earlier period of time in Egypt .The theory had to do with the use of drugs during initiations and rites. The drug mentioned was ergot which had hallucinogenic effect , similar to LSD.While the paper was well constructed and well researched and documented, I advised the psychoanalyst to avoid any association with LSD. LSD has gone the way of "Pot" and the campaign "worked" to demonize and see the relatively harmless as producing horrendous habitual problems. The government has yet to truthfully associate alcohol with the problems it brings about and that is probably because of the strong alcohol lobby hanging around congress and their "Parties".

The idea that "I can control it," is a recognisable phrase to addicts. They might actually believe the sentence as they mention this idea to others but later ,when their bar opens,they have to attend to their ministries.One birthday , my step father gave me all the domestic sherries as a present.I did drink them all eventually and one that I didn't care for at the time was a dry sherry. It had a bitter taste and I drank it slowly over ice. Time after time when I decided to cut down I would drink the dry sherry with the idea that because I didn't like the taste I wouldn't drink as much. What actually happened was that I kept drinking more .I drank two bottles at a time , then three.Once I recognized that I was loaded I thought I might as well go back to my regular choice of booze.The point is that I found a way to sneak around my own limitations that I had put on myself.Later I found that the only way for me to stop was to stop and not to ween myself off gradually. There is no self control , that is the nature of addiction. That is the nature of disease as well. You can't recover from a common cold by willing yourself to stop sneezing.

The physical addictions are more immediate and demanding monsters.On the TV show"So You Think You Can Dance"there was a dance choreographed to show a dancer playing the part of "Addiction"torturing his partner,a beautiful blond young woman.It was an outstanding depiction of the theme as he caressed her ,pulled her, dragged her, bullied her, and successfully continued to drag her back to his control. It brought tears to my eyes because I recognized him.I think that perhaps addiction as a whole might classify as a disease much as does alcoholism.Almost ,like a virus,though small,it can become bigger than the victim.A social event brought many people innocently to drugs but as the plot developed , other people were no longer needed,only the habit.Treatment should not involve the idea of "Just say no!",moral legislation,law enforcement,or the supernatural.Keep up your own regiment ,if you can,but try not to blame yourself,if you fail sometime.

Almost two years ago I lost another good friend to the beast.His wife contacted me and said he was taking a lot of laxatives and wasn't interested in her anymore. I told her to look for his stash and she found the percadon.They went to the doctor and the doctor found a cracked rib and prescribed "percadon" , so now he was getting them from the doctor and from the black market. As things progressed he went on methadone maintenance to get off the percadon. He loved the methadone high but this treatment makes your bones brittle. He nodded out in his kitchen ,fell, and broke his hip. After the hip replacement surgery he was found dead in his hospital room slumped over his guitar.There was nothing I could say to him by phone as his phone seemed to magically run out of battery whenever I confronted him with the issue of his re-found addiction.My helplessness was nothing next to his own in the throws of the ecstasy of his habit which was a government supported maintenance treatment.

I know too many women right now who are wrapped tight in their cups. They speak with me sometimes sounding like I did as a young man , bragging to me about their sexual contacts, speaking too loud, and not focusing.Manliness isn't really attractive in women.The aggressive behavior is annoying and transparent. Neither of the three women can see themselves as I see them. They are all in their fifties and they wouldn't have a lot in common, if they even knew one another,yet they would be happy drinking together.The loss of control , focus, depression, and aggressive behavior would put them all in the same category , over compensating for their insecurities , calling me out of the blue though I never had a relationship with any of them.I wish there were something I could say to allow them to see that I have done the same , have known others who have suffered worse , even death , in the throws of their addiction and they aren't alone in the fact that the problem might be beyond their control. I did confront one of the women by day when I knew she would have a sober moment and told her that she calls me like an old boyfriend when she gets drunk.I haven't been able to reach her again for well over a year. Now, I try not to be too blatant in my observations.

I got a call last night which woke me up as I had to get up this morning . It was near two and I had probably been fast asleep for at least a half an hour when the phone rang. In a stupor I got up as I forgot to put the phone nearby. I fumbled ,looking for the phone but didn't reach it in time , standing next to it as it stopped. I went downstairs to see who called on the caller ID and I knew it was someone who knew me from way back when people called me around the clock. I called her this afternoon ,no answer. she eventually called back and said ,"You called me?" Of course , I told her I was calling her back . she said she didn't notice what time it was at the time she called . There wasn't a lot to say but I mentioned I had been thinking about her as I was writing this blog article about addiction.It wasn't like I was ever one of her old boyfriends , it was her husband who I had known since 1966 and died a couple of years ago( the methadone story above). Addictions have a way of being passed along to people close by as well as the children. She mentioned that his son was going into something "Blue" , a drug she couldn't explain but it is all the same drug , the same , monster , the same reliance , the same self indulgence. I knew that she also must have had a booze moment to call me.

I wish there were something I could say that would change anything about the addictive personality and destructive things that go along with it.I have spoken with people and recognized that they were just pretending and not really focusing on what they were pretending with me, namely that they were staying away from the monster. It does take one to know one and you can't kid a kidder and all that jazz . Recognizing the lie doesn't help a thing in my heart. Anything can be over done. I have a friend who carries a thirty pound bag and another ten pounds or more in a second bag. She didn't always carry all that weight but it seemed to accumulate. There was nothing I could do to keep her from carrying the forty pounds everywhere. The baggage was keeping her from getting work and people looked at her strangely. I told her the truth as I saw it and tried to get her to come out without the weight but she would even take it to the bathroom when she visited here.Eventually she lost her place , the second time in two years.Her habit brought her down yet she continued to cling to it.This is addiction, this is sickness, this is the nature of a disease. It becomes bigger than the victims needs. I wish there were something I could say that could have changed anything.

Rippling Torture

It is astounding to me that there is still a discussion about the merits of torture . Now, they are dragging out Sheik what's his name and showing how water boarding helped to make him sing like a "Canary". They didn't mention that he also confessed to being a witch and flying around the world trade center on a broom. There is no defense for torture or the negation of history. Why was the "Spanish Inquisition" stopped ? Was it stopped ? Wasn't this a further persecution of Jews? Why were the Salem witch trials stopped? Have they been stopped? Did "Goody two shoes" win over "Goody" the witch? The enormity of this situation is muddied in the "health Plan" smear campaign , the fear of euthanasia , as if this is an evil plan to kill the citizenry of the United States and not a blatant , political media lie. While the fingers point to a "liberal press" , why is it all we get is conservative republican posturing and moral nail biting.



Today , the end of August 2009, there is a debate in America about the right of our country to torture prisoners.What is it we are fighting for in Iraq or Afghanistan? Are we fighting for the right to torture prisoners throughout the world as well? How far can we go in the name of "National Security"? Does this right to torture include torturing Americans? Has this already occurred?Is it happening right now?



While we continue to wave the flag and shout platitudes of glory ,our system has been compromised. This isn't a new occasion as I saw it in 1968 Chicago.Today on "Hardball" with Chris Mathews I saw a woman , a recent talking head , say that most Americans sided against the Viet Nam War when the Chicago riots were televised . She was echoing the later Nixon Whitehouse political characterization of the "Silent Majority". That Democratic Convention put a nail in the party that was already self destructing by not recognizing the murders of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy , both major Democrats killed months before the "Riots"occurred. Incidentally, I knew kids who were going to the Chicago that year . They invited me to join because it was a planned social event , a "Be In" , a "Protest rally" . Those "Kids" weren't going to cause a riot at all.The right to assembly was supposed to be the right of our citizenry. While the Republicans won over the self destructing Democrats that year , within four years Nixon had compromised the CIA and the FBI in his own misuse of power in the name of his presidency. The political assassination of McGovern wasn't really needed to win the following election yet the "Watergate" break in was just a tip of that iceberg , another "Witch Hunt" which was to have forced answers.



Nearly forty years from that date and the climate become too dangerous to disagree with the party in power. The Bush Whitehouse made the line ,"..Have one doubt and they call it treason"( "Compared to What?") a reality in America .The Iraq War, founded in lies, continued with characterizations after the actual facts. While our economy has gone into the dumper, our cites suffer the lack of funds , and are actually physically threatened, as in New Orleans, our big businesses are supported with "Bail Outs"while our citizenry looks on incredibly , losing their houses and jobs along the way. Is it any wonder that the question of torture can be brought up at such a time in our history? Torture has been used by our government and the victims become scapegoats that deflect the attention of a flag waving public being swayed by political posturing and the vengeance of recent years.Obama says he doesn't wish to look back and is continuing the cover up by his inaction. Why would we expect him to be any different than the rest of Congress who continue to protect their right to a health care program , yearly raises in their salary, and continued benefits from big business lobbyist. In spite all the campaign promises in years since Reagan of campaign reform , term limits, and curbing power of the lobbyist , all questions are moot once the elections are over.The question of "Torture" also is becoming a dull roar but we should never abandon the principals of our ideology for the immediate gratification of political interest.

The fight of the "Chicago Seven" was another "Witch Trial" , another small war that was fought in the name of all of our rights as citizens. The trials continue. The problem continues. The Spanish Inquisition and Salem Witch Trials haven't really stopped as well as the persecution of Jews. Our founding fathers were witnesses to what religion and government could do in England and saw fit to provide a separation of church and state for fear of this theocratic possibility.Torture goes along with Theocracy . It can be seen in the Taliban of Afghanistan as they existed in 1998 . The idea can be seen in Akhenaten in 1200 BC who supported his monotheism with the military of Egypt.Both of these Theocracies were brought down temporarily yet re-surfaced in other places , in other forms. If America would be a democracy or a republican plurality , it still must adhere to it's principals and recognize history ,not coloring and characterizing politically or supporting torturous methods at any time for any cause lest our government becomes our enemy.This terrible repetition of bad history lessons passes state and party lines across the globe as well as in America.Bring the question to an end here and now. Torture does not bring any good at any time when used by any government for any cause.The next person tortured could be you.

Don't Look Back , Something's Coming

If you keep looking back while you're going forward , you might bump into something while you're not paying attention.My bad dream is walking into a parking meter but that is a minor mishap compared to the real catastrophes that can happen.Isaac Newton said,"For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction." Somebody else coined the phrase ,"If you don't pay attention to history , history repeats itself." Thisidea of controlling your life intelligently from an objective point of view looks good on paper yet , as things happen in life , emergencies bounce you about , one reacts as much as one plans . Certainly the argument of environment sometimes supersedes the fact of heredity. So we are looking back , bumping into things , not paying attention to history , and are constantly being challenged by developments beyond our control while time relentlessly passes . All we can do is look back at where we were and hope we can cope with where we are going.

Yesyerday I wrote two messages that were really reminiscences of things past . I was responding to just the mention of "Woodstock" , the event of the summer 1969 as well as a note to another musician that brought up the "Funkadelics" and I wondered if he knew a woman I know close by who went with a guy I knew from before "Woodstock" Joe Chambers . In "Facebook", Marshall Keys , a local musician and friend on "Facebook" wrote: "A friend of mine wants to interview someone in the Washington, DC area who was at Woodstock for its 40th Anniversary. If you were there or know someone who was, please let me know. Of course this person would have to actually remember the events of August 1969!" I responded :"I deliberately didn't go because of the weather but Jimi did even though he had a bad place on the bill . Monday Nt he came back still awake , still stoned , and we went to "Steve Paul's Scene" ( a night club)and sat in ,sessioning between sets on a "Sly"guitar riff we all liked("Sing A Simple Song") . We were asked to stop when they brought on "Sha Na Na" who did their show and moved rock and roll more in the show biz act that Jimi was hoping to get away from as early as Woodstock, the day before . So "Sha Na Na" blew Jimi Hendrix , me , Buddy Miles ,and the bassman off the stand that Monday Nt ."

I wrote to Greg Boyer, an alumni of Funkadelic connections (playing his trombone):"Hey Greg,I wonder if you knew Lynne Flanery who went with Furry ( I think that was his name) , anyway she was hanging around the George Clinton thing from way back when . I met her because she also went with Joe Chambers of the Chambers Brothers , a band of guys I had to hear every night they played the "Electric Circus" . We were the house band at the time as guys like them or Sly Stone came through and tore up the place. We were all "heads" in an era of "heads" . The "Circus" had a band room with black foam rubber that emulated stalactites and a flashing black light inside where we used to go to share a taste between shows , taking our choice of groupies. Those were the days . Man , I am on a jag as Marshall wrote something about Woodstock and I tripped off on another adventure from the same time ....."


Reviewing both of these memories for some reason another man popped into my memory , Buck Clark . Buck was a drummer here in DC when I met him in the summer of 1964. I stopped in his place for a taste and dug is scene as we listened to music . He was a painter of extraordinary works . The enormous African themes and striking colors drew you in closer to examine and enjoy his conceptions . Coincidently ,the year before ,I had met Les McCanne in LA at "Ciros" where he had another DC guy , Roy Airs with him. Buck traveled with Les in his later years playing percussion instruments when they became pretty popular and Les was singing some of the songs. Buck was a great guy , easy to speak with and get along with , at least for me . There were other men in the DC jazz click back then like Charlie Hampton , Buck Hill , Harold Chavis,Steve Novasel , and Butch Warren. Buck Clark and Charlie are long gone but not forgotten by many of us who knew them and worked with them.

In 1964 there was a white musicians union and a black musicians union . Steve and myself were invited to join the black union and I think Steve might have gone with it at that time . I left town before the end of the summer and went West to LA ,joining that union. The musicians union in LA at that time wasn't too bad a place to hang out because they had beer and pool tables and you actually could possibly get a gig right on the site sometimes as they did refer musicians when people called . Washington seemed like another system of graft as did New York when I got there . New York had a place where people hung on the wall and got club dates if they were connected. There were hundreds of men there listening to the cattle call at "Roseland" the ballroom on a lower floor of the musicians union building. The names were recognizable and the same names seemed to be called all the time . It was kind of neat to hear some of the names of the men in the room but if your name wasn't called it just made the city colder no matter what time of year it was .

I did get a call there and went out playing lead guitar with a band for a large dance . It was exciting with so many people dancing and such a good response . One of the tunes was sung by the organist which really was a soul ,boogaloo blues . He would stress the first beat with the lyric ,".. O K , we're gonna rock it one time ,now rock it !" He put it phrases there like ,"O K we're gonna suck it one time ..." It was kind of sensational and thrilling with all the people singing along with the dirty lyrics. Between sets a guy came up and asked to see my union card and I proudly showed it to him but I didn't know that the others didn't show him their cards or weren't in the union at all and he brought me up on charges . I had to appear at the musicians union at a hearing as if I were some kind of musical criminal. I thought it was rotten but paid the fine of fifty dollars and stopped paying dues not long after that but still I had to pay off the local representatives to work around town and New Jersey and Connecticut .

We all had to pay the union to get paid for recordings because all the money went through the union and they took their share first . Many of us would go around the corner to a drug store where we could cash our checks . One day as we were walking that way ,my band bumped into Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers coming from the same place . I was thrilled to meet him and Lee Morgan , who was still alive . Art said ," Electric Circus, right ?" I was really happy that he knew me . The Messengers had played "The Velvet Underground" which was downstairs from the "Electric Circus" and ,evidently , he had come upstairs just as I had gone downstairs to check them out . Art Blakey was a great man and never pretentious any time that we met over the years. It's funny how I remember those men I respected and who were real people ,not supermen or aloof characters ,too important to speak with me. Dizzy,James Moody,Coleman Hawkins,and Louis Armstrong were all like that with me and I will never forget them as good men. I wish I would have been as good in my life. Buck Clark was one of those guys , too.

The Confusion I'm Feelin' ain't No Tongue Can Tell

"The confusion I'm feeling , Ain't no tongue can tell." "With God on Our Side" Bobby Dylan



I used to play the stringed bass . I left the wrestling team in 1962 to work into the wee hours to my coaches chagrin as I had won all my matches except one in my junior year and the one guy I lost to graduated that year and also won the State championship. Wrestling was a one on one sport , something that was never as popular as football or the other high school sports and really didn't hit it's zenith till fairly recent years with the advent of mixed Marshall arts tournaments . Wrestling took a lot of time . We had to work out every night and sometimes it was hard to make the weight limit but the discipline brought strong will power . Working and making money in my senior year around town brought to fruition some of the dreams I had dreamed since I was about twelve of playing music for a living.Leaving wrestling seemed easy yet I have had second thoughts as my life in music has been a life of sacrifices as well as adventures.Second guessing and "The grass is always greener.." somewhere else never really helps and the time machine has yet to be created from fantasy to reality which might allow a second chance at anything , any decision set in stone in history .



My senior year was one of barely getting by . I , like most young men , was deep into the conflicts of a teenager , wanting to belong as well as wanting to become independent . I was in the throws of being directed and yet coping with the idea of making my own decisions and taking responsibilities . I was young in my collection of mistakes . My visions didn't fit with my family's idea of me and what I was supposed to be .My high school girlfriend had bought her fathers tears about me not being "Jewish" and fell for the entire program which included me not going to her brother's Bar Mitzvah . This seemingly small moment in my history came back years later when I realised that this was a betrayal and a separation , the first in many others that got easier and more frequent over time . I had a catharsis , an urge to separate from everything that was my life and what seemed to be in the future. I was lucky that I actually graduated from high school and left a week later for Los Angeles to find my father . While I had a lot in common with my father , I found that he also had designs on my life and he was affected by his current wife's jealousy of me . Though I had enrolled in college over the summer , my father informed me that he was going to send me back East . It was then that I walked out and found a place to live in Hollywood even before I started the college school year . I had crossed the Rubicon and there was no going back at eighteen.



A lot of years have gone by since 1963 yet that year's insecurities continues to this day . The stringed bass was left behind like the wrestling though I kept looking over my shoulder , wondering ,"What if ?" Chance has played an enormous part in everything.I have bounced and improvised at pivotal points with the basic instincts of a small animal trying to survive . I have been very fortunate along the way yet I still have to improvise and , while I see others accumulating wealth, family , and friends , there is little for me to cling to . Possessions are the toys of the past , the instruments and equipment I have used that are lined on every wall , in the closets , under the bed , and under foot .Yesterday I wondered what would become of my stringed bass if I don't have a place to store it much less to play it .It is only the tip of the musical iceberg and insecurities I face as I continue to age .The truth of the matter is that I am not alone in this life of insecurities and no insurance,or assurances any more than I am alone in the credit card debt I have accumulated.In the end , we all must face our responsibilities alone , and face the world we made for ourselves , good and bad. We have equality as human beings when the days get shorter and there is no insurance or assurance of anything for anyone,rich or poor.Those rich people who have already passed on ,including my own friends , couldn't buy another moment.There were a lot of "good" people who did the "right thing" and karma seemed to fail them . They may not be forgotten but the rest of us have to move on and find our good feelings again , rediscover our current dreams , and press forward and face tomorrow like we did yesterday as if there is no tomorrow.

Un Bel Di

I had never seen "Madame Butterfly" though I had heard it's haunting song . Vaguely I imagined the story and heard the Mills Brothers singing "Poor Butterfly". I thought that the most popular song was Butterfly's swan song , her ending but I found that the song was one of hopeful joy at the possible return , the return of Butterfly's lover . It is a song that reminds me of the song of "Porgy" in the end of Porgy and Bess called "Oh Lawd , I'm On My Way" as he leaves his friends and North Carolina for New York,the "Heavenly Land". I think that part of the tragedy , the pull on your heart ,is that while this is a hopeful song , there doesn't seem much hope of the cripple reaching New York much less regaining his image of the love of Bess , a cocaine addict. In "Butterfly" she sings her song and the opera audience knows the outcome as there is no surprise ending which has been kept a secret . "Un Bel Di" or "One Fine Day" is a dream of how beautiful and romantic the character,"Butterfly" imagines the resolution of her sailor returning to her will be. We all know what is coming , that he will return with his own wife and plan to take his son , Butterfly's child , and Butterfly will commit suicide . "If she can't live with dignity , she will die in dignity."The lyrics of this song , enormous as opera can be , universal as the lost loves ,the plans , and ideas of everyone in the audience, is hopeful yet an example of hopelessness to the fates, the lot of the character's faith in something that will never be ,"Butterfly".

"Weeping? And why? And why? Ah, 'tis faith you are lacking Hear me ...

One fine day we'll notice A thread of smoke arising on the sea In the far horizon And then the ship appearing Then the trim white vessel Glides into the harbour Thunders forth her cannon See you? Now he is coming I do not go to meet him Not I I stay upon the brow of the hillock And wait there And wait for a long time But never weary of the long waiting From out the crowded city There is coming a man A little speck in the distance Climbing the hillock Can you guess who it is? And when he's reached the summit Can you guess what he'll say? He will call, "Butterfly" from the distance I, without answering Hold myself quietly concealed A bit to tease him and a bit So as not to die at our first meeting And then, a little troubled He will call, he will call "Dear baby wife of mine, Dear little orange blossom" The names he used to call me when he came here This will all come to pass as I tell you Banish your idle fears For he will return Return ."

Deanna Durbin Sings "One Fine Day"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aAuxoWjpVg&feature=related

High Opera sung in character and film by Ying Huang:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpW8Jvl9low

"One Fine Day" Translated and sung by Mary Hopkin with still photos :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7kNFmlxfqM

Iran ????

Iran ? What about Kent State? The United States never corrected it's own corruption.Our troops have fired on it's own citizenry, it's own unarmed children .The continued pseudo obsession with false support of people headed for their own versions of pseudo-democracy is as phony as our own election of 2000 . Let's get back to covering Lindsey Lohan's tits where the cable news really is more at home.Furthermore , the current administration has milked the American coffers instead of putting back the regulations imposed on our stock market and banking industries after the Great Depression because of the un-hindered greed that was recognised then as a major cause. The money that has followed Bush's "Bail Out" is tantamount to waiting in the hallway for the guy to come back with the drugs after you have given him your money . He never comes back and it should only take one bad deal to learn this lesson.The banks received money and ,instead of lending the money and doing the business of banks , they bought other banks and have continued to speculate in commodities and the housing market .

Any Theocracy is built on a great lie . The idea that "absolute power will corrupt absolutely" should be applied to all of those states that pretend that "Prophesy" is real .This includes the Vatican, Israel , and Iran ,as well as the Taliban and ,if you scratch the surface , the Theocratic America . Freedom of Religion is every bit an illusion here as is the entire idea that we have a democratic government , for and by the people.

Don't forget Katrina ! Once there was a New Orleans not a gambling supported lobbyist retreat in the south. Iran can take care of itself without the help of American television which includes the sponsor's messages every five minutes .There is nothing that this congress , or this president can say that will change anything in Iran ,in fact it will only give more credence to the political reality that America doesn't continue it's pseudo-support when the time comes like in Cambodia in the aftermath of Nam or the Tienanmen Square massacre after continued press coverage by American television .

Not With A Bang But With A Whimper

I haven't really bought but a few Cds in the entire time Cds have come into existence . My friend ,Lenny ,copied some sides for me till I had a computer and I could start copying my choices . I put a Cd player in my car and this became the way to go for me , listening to what I chose to listen to and not ever turning on the radio . A few cars back I had an Olds that only had an AM radio and I was bombarded by Rush Limbaugh and never found a Democrat in the bunch . The "Pop" programing was terrible and I gravitated to what was called the "oldies" stations though they played many years past the fifties , my idea of "Oldies". I rarely listened to FM radio except for the listener sponsored or classical stations and they really were too conservative for me ,playing the same old stuff. They seemed to be avoiding twentieth century or modern composers . Yesterday I had trouble with my Cd set up in the car and , as I was traveling a bit , I turned on the FM in desperation . What a wasteland I found there .

I remember the wasteland , the middle of the country in the early sixties when I went on the road playing ,working the entire country , North, West , South ,the Bible Belt , that Honky radio sound when "Country Music " was referred to as "Hillbilly" and things seemed simpler. One of the happiest afternoons I remember was traveling on the road in Texas and getting the surprise of hearing Oscar Peterson playing a stride version of "Honeysuckle Rose" . One tune out of hundreds of nothings and pop flavored pap . Here , in the neighborhoods of Washington DC I once again have found the "Wasteland" , the "Bible Belt" religious fire and brimstone nonsense , the Am radio "Pap" , and the "Hillbilly" security of whining guitars and alchoholic complaints and it is all on FM radio . It's terrible ! There is no jazz in Washington DC . This town is lacking ! Gee, Las Angeles had jazz on Am in 1963 . New York had jazz radio when at least when I was there. DC used to have jazz radio . What happened ? What is called jazz is spoon fed "Smooth" bullshit which goes along with the political climate that prevails here , a life of "lies" and promises that are never fulfilled . People are nearly bouncing in the volume of their cars ,supporting "Rap" with "sub-sonics that Hitler might have admired as he was aware of the affect of sub-sonics to create tension for his rallys. It isn't that "Rap" has a lock on volume or sub-sonics because the Hispanic community has their share of idiots blasting one and five proudly Mexicali and the "Country music" folks certainly aren't left out in the mixed cacophony , an ongoing war at traffic lights .I could not find a classical station at all .

Sometimes it goes like that at times , I mean you surf television only to find that every station happens to have a commercial , sometimes the same commercial at the same time . Chance does play a part in selection yet if there is no choice , namely no classical music or jazz music left on the dial,then it isn't a chance of escaping the current push to take your money with overt sexual overtones , super sub-sonic undertones , and the brainwashing machine that is the music business , that is commercialism , that is capitalism and what has become of our culture . What culture one might ask or perhaps is there anything to art or culture if everything is considered art . When contest that are run by commercial establishment,namely the sponsors of popular television shows, what difference is this than having the newspapers and broadcast news colored by political point of view ? What is good is what sells in capitalism . What sells is what the company wants . The more it sells the better it is . The more expensive the better it is . The "SUV" craze is the perfect example . Here is a car that was generally un-needed , too much power, too expensive to run and repair, too big , and four wheel drive , at least here in DC is needed a few days a year ,if that , still the company pushed and exploited the character of this vehicle , associating it with the current American character and continued to sell it and push it successfully.Evidently they have pushed it beyond their own expectations in that GM and Chrysler are both on their way to bankruptsy . The CEOs took their money and ran , that is the capitalist way . What is good is what sells and money is the Machiavellian answer to any question posed . This is what we have in "Star Search" and in the car behind me five feet bouncing off the ground in volume while the guy is talking on the phone .

I was able to tape a connection together and listen to whatever was left in the CD player , though it wasn't my choice at the time , it was better than anything I could stomach on the radio . I could imagine driving full speed,crashing my car into the nearest radio station with my car if I listened to anything on the radio for more than a minute or till the next commercial. What a wasteland! I ,your humble servant promise never to talk again , never to eat again , never to think again until the next commercial break .This sentence is what the "Company" wants . The thing is that the "Company" have become "Mom and Pop" stores as well . Everyone wants to sell, after all , everyone wants to be successful . It's the American way . How can you mock the "sacred fucking cow" of capitalism you might ask . I will tell you how and why . There is no jazz in DC ! There are no choices . The politics are smug from both sides of the aisle and the music is repetitive and sophomoric . People are waving their musical flags in ignorance much as they started waving the American flag after the attacks of 9/11 . The morning of 9/11 I went outside and saw a neighbor and mentioned something about how terrible it was only to get a response from him of " What's on TV has nothing to do with me ." Two days later he had an American flag in the back window of his redneck truck . That is what we have become as a nation . We are responding instead of thinking and leading the way . We responded to the attacks with a vengeance that resulted in more tragedy ,more repression , and more "Flag waving" to cover the recognition of what we,as a country were doing . We have been responding since the Iranian hostage situation ,not noticing that our government was responsible for propping up the Shah , another good dictator like Mubarac in Egypt or the King of Saudi Arabia . What did we expect the Iranians to do bend over and ask for more ?

What makes money is not always what is good ! The time for recognition is now , this moment and not tomorrow or the next day . The emperor has no clothes and everyone is afraid to see the fact because nobody wants to be different than anyone else . "Big Brother" is here , George Orwell told us and we decided not to recognise him . Big Brother came with a whimper not a bang like the end of the world that the poet prophesised yet we refuse to recognise . "How does the world end ? How does the world end?" I doubt that it will be from a North Korean bomb or an Iranian bomb . Te time of being the class bully is past , neuclear proliferation is unstopable . We don't run the world . Korea and Iran are right in recognising that America doesn't threaten countries with atomic bombs . How does the world end? Boomaley , boomaley , Boom ...

The sacred cow quietly eats us all .