A couple of random thoughts...

It is a beautiful day… The sun is shining and life is good in Ventura.  I’ve just fed A’s snake, Cuddles.  She was a hungry python.  The poor mousie had no idea what hit it.  I try to keep her mice calm; I don’t want them to suffer unduly.  Sometimes it is hard to watch the snake do what snakes do, but this is what and how they eat.  I just at a sandwich that had meat in it.  I can’t really draw any moral distinctions between what I ate and how the snake eats.  For one life to live, another dies.  That is the cycle of life.  We live now.  We die later.  Other life takes our place.  And it remains a beautiful day.
 
I went over to MM’s home this morning to make breakfast for her and for her son.  She has a migraine.  Food… the all purpose cure for what ails you.  Again, something had to die so we could live.  I prepared the meat, without any real concern for how the cattle died whose muscles I seasoned and cooked up, in a very savory manner, I might add. I had tried to be vegetarian once.  The whole thing seemed ludicrous to me.  Vegetable life remains life.  It does not possess self-awareness in the way that we associate with animal life.  But does that make it less a form of life to be treated with respect? 
 
I am gathering laundry to do at MM’s home.  I will play some guitar, too.  I want to begin some planning for post-production of the CD.  I’ve thought about it.  I want to gig.  I want to recoup my investment.  Beyond that, I’m not certain.  I need to put a band together and do all of the stuff that appertains to that. 
 
It is warmer than I like, today.  I am uncomfortable in the heat.  I like it to be cooler.  Days like today I usually seek out the relative comfort of Barnes and Nobles. Lots of people to chat with, books, music.  It works for me. 
 
I had mentioned that I would post some more of my favorite musicians’ sites.  Here are a few that are not so well known, but worth listening to:
 

Charles Law and Jagged – this guy mistreats a Martin guitar like you have never heard.  The do a kick-ass set and are as original as they come.  Cowboy Funk.  Damn fine music.
 

Benise – This is Flamenco that meets smooth jazz.  Again, incredible musicianship, original music. 
 

Matthew Alan Stuart – my buddy MAS does new-age music.  I would ignore this recent deviation into pop music.  His original stuff is stellar. 
 

Let's see how moral I am, shall we... Check out my Morality! 81% liberal, 19% conservative As if there was a doubt!


This is a recent picture that I am thinking of using for my webpage... I have some doubts. It looks like I am upset and my left eye is really exagerated here.


I suppose all that is left is the memory of our having been here… It remains a beautiful day.  Do live, laugh, and love today. 

 - tdf

Listening to music my mind wanders...

I’m listening to Frank Zappa’s classical music.  He once said that a composer is a man that imposes his will on unsuspecting sound waves often aided by unsuspecting musicians.  I never saw Zappa.  I wish I had.  This composition, Civilization Phaze III Act One, is non-linear.  It reminds me of John Adams, or of John Cage , maybe Christopher Rouse.  Some of it is in a similar vein to Erik Satie’s ambient music.  There is much beyond the music: it was a pantomime that included dance.  It almost seemed to be a scored and controlled version of theatre of the absurd. 
 
Whatever it is, it is genius. 
 
Theatre of the absurd:  the idea that there is no meaning, God is dead and life is just something we do to postpone our own annihilation.  The nonsensical dialog that reminds one of a Marx Brothers’ movie becomes the paradigm for the dialog of the actors on the stage.  Much of it is confrontational, demanding that the viewer participate in the event.  It the only proof of our own existence is emotional response then anger and love are the same.  Hatred and compassion melt into one act of evoking a response.  What is poetry?  Whatever the hell the poet says it is.  There is an act of petty divinity. 

Albert Camus  said: “The absurd is born out of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.”  We are creatures that demand communication.  We have minds that begin to imagine and grasp realities that exist beyond our experience.  But we falter when we can imagine, but not communicate.  It is as if we, as a species, are autistic. 

That’s why I wear my lucky rabbit mood ring.  It gives me meaning.

Really, how does that differ from any other object of faith?  Money has value because we have agreed that it does.  Moral force is the consequence of consensus.  My perceptions are real to the degree that I experience them and interpret that experience. This is no mere solipsism:  your reality can coexist with mine.  I can be the center of the universe, you can be its nemesis. 

I like my lucky rabbit magic mood ring.  It turns colors to indicate the heat in my hand, which in turn can be interpreted to indicate what mood I am in.  No emotional baggage, just empirical observations that originate from a source outside of myself to validate that the blue means that I am really in a good mood. 

Yeah, and the rest is silence… musical silence.  Play the silence… Maybe I’d best stick to Yanni.