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Merry Christmas 2014

There is a lot on my mind today.  In some ways, I’m deep in a purple haze. My mind continues to return to the state of humanity and my own inadequacies.

Helplessness and hopelessness are the attributes of the inability to change the world. The inability extends beyond the inert physical world into the realm of humanity.  To be more specific, into the world of violent humanity.

Empathetic mind-state only amplifies emotional pain and frustration inside of me. I search for the formula for peace, true peace. Is true peace oblivion through death by one human exercising his or her will against another?  Is that were the answer sits? If so, then why the joy and experience of live and life that comes through living and music?

And what of religion and politics?

Turn it off, turn it off.  That’s all I know at this moment.  Kill them both.  Shut out the sounds, the noise and the irrationality of belief that empowers one human to desecrate the life of another based on some absurd and faulty belief in what some other dead prophet supposedly uttered.

Killing people over what some dead human supposedly said and did, it seems to me, is the summit of stupidity and absurdity.  Yet, that is the world in which most, if not all, humankind exists.

The time has long past to evolve to a higher level of consciousness, a higher level of mass consciousness that is righteous, without hypocrisy.  The level that is belief without religion.  A place beyond geographic borders and rationalized ideologies. Life love.

As much as I can tell, the “ism” and “ists” and “ocracies” are nothing more than “hypocristic” in the hypocracy (neologisms).  And, dare I tell you that Hypocracy includes any and all theocratic and geo-dominant political systems of belief.  For within all such theocratic and political systems is abuse, torture and killing of innocents who have been judged unworthy of life and living based on the mere incident of conception.

I’ll not bother you with the facts, as you can read or here them in the daily news.

There burns within my mind the idea that Hypocracy is wrong and that I don’t want to be a part of it, in any manner.

Jimi, i hear u.  Manic depression’s a frustrating mess.

Peace.

Everyday is Holy

This is “The Season.”

Peace. That is the cry. She echoes from land to land, order from sand to sand, by woman to man and hand to hand.

The Season exists eternally, but only in those who are free. Those who see no time, to those who need no rhyme, the dove is hard to find among the faithful blind.

This is “The Day.”

RIP:  Joe Cocker.

The love in your muse will be missed.
This is a melody to you: bliss.

 

Villa Serena

My mother-in-law (former Willow Glen resident) now lives at Villa Serena Apartments, an adult living complex for senior citizens.  Sometimes, I have the pleasure of playing with other musicians there.  It’s always wonderful to see the power of music that revives the rhythms of life in those who are slowing down.

Mike Megan and I did a set a few days ago.  Carol, his wife, provided the hat!

Charlie Channel joine me on bass.   (Carol supplied his hat.)

We had a great time playing Christmas tunes.

Charlie and Mike Megan at Villa Serena's Christmas set 12/13/2014
Charlie and Mike Megan at Villa Serena’s Christmas set 12/13/2014

Checked out Joey this Weekend

I went down to Cafe Stritch Saturday evening to experience Joey De Francesco, after playing a gig at the Menlo Park Veterans Administration Hospital under the auspices of Bread and Roses.

I’d never seen Joey perform before, although I’d dug so much of what he’s played.  It was a great experience.  I got to meet Pete Fallico, too and experience the wonderful odor of ozone as he opened the back of the B3, so I could marvel at the vacuum tubes, transformers, capacitors and stuff I hadn’t seen and tinkered with since 1967!  :0).

All I can say is that the Stritch is about as close as one can get to the East Coast scene in NYC on the Peninsula!  It was a great evening.  I hope you get down to the Stritch to experience the Muse, whenever you can.

 

Practice …

This week marks an awareness of my inadequacies.  Perhaps all musicians go through feeling as I do.  It seems there is so much to learn, so much I am not accomplishing in the moment of performance, or even in daily practice.

I am aware that the little things that seemed impossible, only moments ago, will usually proceed to a better level of competency as the future becomes the present. — provided I expend time working on and confronting the failure.

Failure, it seems, must be the goal to strive for every day.  The more failure and the bigger the failures, the more I have to work on and, in the course of so doing, the better I shall become. That is a difficult mind-set to maintain.  My ego tells me that failure reflects on my inadequacy and value as a human being. However, there’s another part of “self” — the objective, above the noise of the crowd part — that tells me, what I’m experiencing is the only way to get to what I’m trying to achieve:  being an accomplished bassist!

I’d have to ask:  Does the need to practice ever stop?  I guess it depends on what one means by “practice.”  Of one thing I’m certain: I’m going to go fail now, once more.

The interesting phenomena is how we connect with our unseen realities.  I commend to you Michael Klinghoffer’s blogging on PERFECTION!