Comments on:

In 46 Words, Biden Sends a Clear Message to Israel

~Thomas Friedman 
 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/12/opinion/joe-biden-bibi-netanyahu-israel.html

The last of the 46 is disquieting as it was deliberately and delicately measured: "Building consensus for fundamental changes is really important to ensure that the people buy into them so they can be sustained.”

In this 7th inning stretch of a tight ballgame right here in the good ol' US, our political national pastime has been marked for over a half century with essentially this very type of authoritarian usurping of judicial integrity, and heavy hitters of Trumpism are still very much on deck.

Isreal, albeit operating without a constitution, has the same forces within and without, in the form of very real "othering" and fear-mongering seeding whatever uprisings of nationalism and militarism, it seems to be evolving into a none-too-ethical power play with strong arming holding sway in the battle.

Although Friedman cites the peril of Israel succumbing to the fates of Turkey, Hungary & Poland, he failed to cite the global pandemic of algorithmically agitprop-fueled "consensus building" that put many other societies in the middle of this slug fest, as ours is here. If a passion base is successfully cultivated through grievance exploitation and disinformation, we're all clamoring within the same crisis, constitutional or otherwise.

It's refreshing to see the outpouring of youth protest in Israel on the front end, unlike the much more carefully considered and, yes, intimidated protest movements here. If the anti-rights forces gain control, we'll all be closer to that moment that will stand one emergency declaration from true chaos.

~JC 
 

 Comment on:

In 46 Words, Biden Sends a Clear Message to Israel

~Thomas Friedman

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/12/opinion/joe-biden-bibi-netanyahu-israel.html

The last of the 46 is disquieting as it was deliberately and delicately measured: "Building consensus for fundamental changes is really important to ensure that the people buy into them so they can be sustained.”

In this 7th inning stretch of a tight ballgame right here in the good ol' US, our political national pastime has been marked for over a half century with essentially this very type of authoritarian usurping of judicial integrity, and heavy hitters of Trumpism are still very much on deck.

Isreal, albeit operating without a constitution, has the same forces within and without, in the form of very real "othering" and fear-mongering seeding whatever uprisings of nationalism and militarism, it seems to be evolving into a ethical power play with strong arming holding sway in the battle.

Although Friedman cites the peril of Israel succumbing to the fates of Turkey, Hungary & Poland, he failed to cite the global pandemic of algorithmically agitprop fueled "consensus building" that put many other societies in the middle of this slugfest, as ours is here. If a passion base is successfully cultivated through grievance exploitation and disinformation, we're all within the same crisis, constitutional or otherwise.

It's refreshing to see the outpouring of youth protest in Israel on the front end, unlike the much more carefully considered and, yes, intimidated protest movements here. If the anti-rights forces gain control, we're all one emergency declaration from true chaos.

~JC

Commenting on

Democrats Overhaul Party’s Primary Calendar, Upending a Political Tradition

 “It’s like asking New York to move the Statue of Liberty from New York to Florida. I mean, that’s not going to happen." ~former NH Gov. John Lynch

I mean, what?

This is exemplary cannon fodder for the party that has had to rely upon "trumping" up what used to be more convincing conflated arguments, vapid slogans and snark culture fuel for anything running contrary to their agenda.  

At this point in the electoral cycle, the facts and pluralistic numbers favorably land heartily on the Democratic side of most every argument we'll hear concerning actual issues, with the possible exception of immigration reform, which is a stumper for most anyone anywhere who hasn't properly appreciated the myriad challenges surrounding climate refugee issues and accelerated overpopulation.

If these GOP members continue on their tack of upending, rebranding, stoking, bloviating and ridiculing their way to any sort of prevailing (and legitimate/legal) popular victory, well..."that's not going to happen".

~JC

I began reading Mohamed Sadek’s piece A Musician’s White Whale: Perfectly Recreating the ‘Funky Drummer’ Beat  with piqued interest as a music maker, session musician, composer, etc. Its subject and his recreating efforts intrigued me. But as I read further my arcane attention became less benign, and my once eager interest became disgruntled astonishment at the nascent then firmly established creative procedures within what was once an industry comprised largely of creators creating with others who physically performed and recorded body-felt inspired music.

In the “classic” rock era of recording (as in years before) the prevailing process was in pursuit of an ideal: players, singers in synchronous simultaneous fashion. There was an innate veneration informing each individual that became manifest in an ensemble effort.
 

The current laboratory-like process of seek, scan, scroll, review, formulate, emulate and import seems antithetical to that collaborative performance-based spirit, more aspirational than inspirational. I doubt the joy during the process as well as the gratification after is at all comparable to those found and shared after a live ensemble performance which was also recorded. Having worked within both live ensemble tracking processes, “one at a time” live tracking as well as file import-based "loop productions", I’ll attest to the disparity between the overall goofy zeal that players show when listening back for the first time to that "nice take" together in the control room, or on the headphones they’re all wearing, and the mere successful completion of a cobbled together track comprised of bits and pieces of performances recorded elsewhere by others.  I've indeed been involved in both processes and know that for me there's no comparing the voltage and sweat of those two particular giddy "celebrations". 

Production processes have steadily and constantly innovated, adapting to fashion/style/trends etc and ushered toward larger economic compulsions. But the most brilliant innovators and pioneers (such as the oft cited and reasonably artistically worshiped drummer Clyde Stubblefield) were bringing their own body, mind, heart and soul to that event, creating music anew informed by vast and myriad influences, such as ever was the case. See this piece by Brian Eno.

Rap, Hip-Hop and other Avant-Garde brought audio sampling into the process, which led to further “needle-drop” tactics that were, and are still, exciting within the paradigm of anything becoming art, with and to which I truly  agree and occasionally subscribe. Digital recording has accommodated further and admirable “democratization” of musical creativity with prerecorded loops that undoubtedly allow more meagerly-funded and otherwise under-resourced artists to create on a higher, daresay, competitive level.

 
The forensic aspects of re-conditioning recorded music have always been fascinating, as any conversation with a “remastering” engineer will bear out, especially those who technically revitalize older, deteriorating ad/or primitively recorded pieces (hello Smithsonian Folkways).

I'm all in for creativity for its own sake, live and let live, live and let play. But I’m also an advocate for righteously corrective legislative efforts such as Fair Play/Fair Pay, and have been to Capitol Hill to help grass-roots lobbying for the rights of my fellow musicians who’ve been historically excluded from performance royalties by dint of the fact that US terrestrial radio had never been required to pay for those repeat usages via a legal loophole unchanged since the 1920’s. Those remedial efforts have been marginally successful despite--and perhaps due to--the confluence of transitions in market paradigms precipitated by non-unit based sales, digital streaming and subscription platforms. These developments--beginning in the mid 1990's--and the opportunistic measures ushering them to the fore have been the culprit for a tragically decimated income stream for songwriters and musicians. Perhaps not as much for deejays, but that’s another story.

  
There are, nevertheless, some fascinating forensic aspects in the re-conditioning of recorded music that have always proved fascinating, as any conversation with a “remastering” engineer will bear out, especially those who technically revitalize or restore older, deteriorating ad/or primitively recorded pieces (hello Smithsonian Folkways) to new improved sonic appreciability. 

But when this current "blueprint the lick" niche market emerges (and I’m surely not intending to disparage anyone’s admirable work ethic here, much less those that are cultural and arts-based) whose very existence was born from the sonic pursuit of a “more affordable” requisition option other than the statutory norm, thus enabling the "client/buyer/creator" to sidestep higher fees and royalties that would be paid to the owner of the master recording (which could perhaps eventually trickle down to the artists, players, producers, etc., but more often does not) then proceeds elaborately, intricately further by laboriously recreating as many nuanced aspects of that original artistic expression as possible, the line from homage-like dedication is thereby brazenly crossed into the realm of “just business”. At that point, it's cultural appropriation and exploitation, all procedural artistic admiration notwithstanding.

I've personally and repeatedly seen my work as a writer, arranger and player become part of a larger licensed income stream for other business entities. I've seen musical notes that required reverent artistic deliberation and many hours formulating, creating and expressively performing end up as commercially marketed sheet music, the proceeds from which I've seen nary a penny. These situations aren’t rare. Artist's recording deals are signed and recording sessions (contracted and not) eagerly occur, but by the time the lucrative “back-end” is in someone else’s pocket, any efforts to reclaim some rightful share would require lawyers, energy and time. As many a struggling (most are) artist might attest, we’ve got more creative things to do. The litigious process can not only sap one’s muse, it can eat one's spirit along with other more wisely spent elsewhere resources.

In light of this all, I read here of a fellow musician, surely blessed with formidable talent and developed craft, glowingly praised for his entrepreneurial spirit and industrious efforts in meticulously recreating/re-manufacturing/reselling what someone else has already created, thus achieving a purvey-able facility that surgically removes the remunerative rights of those who are the original conveyors of such work as well as those of their survivors. 

On the one hand, it’s quite impressive. But on the other, it sheds a scorching and unbecoming light on this increasingly more normalized but lamentably vampiric era. Whose hands made that nearly exact but always better music in the first place? 

~JC

                                                                                                                                                                 Wanda Gág

 Preaching Empathy, Compassion and Solidarity from Boo Radley’s Porch

She stands transfixed in the wake of recent turmoil, stilled and swooning in the all-knowing hum of the hot summer night. An ever observant eight year old girl reflects inwardly and outwardly. She takes in the view of her home from a new angle, one that until this night was but a panicked and perilous intersection of fight and flight, danger and sanctuary. 

A new and profound knowledge courses through her, bestowed by this wondrous experience: the sight of her house, her entire neighborhood—from that diametrically “other” place. How unimaginable this scene and sensation has been, with nary a hint glimpsed during her few young years. But now, all has changed and from now on, all will be cast anew. 

Scout, the young protagonist of Harper Lee’s classic adventure novel To Kill A Mockingbird  expresses her astonishment at the unexpected simplicity of this discovery as she  states with humble certainty, “Just standing on Boo Radley’s porch was enough”. 

A  deceptively basic, undeniably stark proclamation: the larger world awaiting would be inhabited by myriad and disparate realities, inconvenient and stubborn, just beyond the reach of most, unless a conscious choice is made to acknowledge, imagine and explore a perspective other than our own. 

The grand effervescent arch of literature is comprised of these hero’s journeys, each culminating in a rewarding homecoming, a return to where all is as it should be and as we want it ever to be: safe, nurturing, unconditionally supportive, understanding, charitable, forgiving and loving. 

It’s a widely accepted and wisely appropriated narrative model in Greek mythology: characters jostled from their “ordinary worlds”, stirred by a call to adventure, who initially refuse the call, then finally accept it before being irreversibly thrust upon their personal odyssey. Along the way they discern and cherish faithful allies, while becoming wary of lurking treachery in enemies. Mentors on high advise and guide them as thresholds are crossed, battles are fought and crises are confronted in every imaginable form of obstacle. They are dared to grow. 

We've notoriously identified with one particular protagonist as she gazes down upon revelatory ruby slippers upon her own two feet. Our hearts resonate with this moment as we wait longingly for the one earnest incantation that will launch us with her back to a safer, more sensible, serene and familiar world. 

Consistently, and only after learning to rely solely upon their own fortitude and a newly discovered inner strength, the heroes “find” themselves. Yes, they return home, but that is not the ultimate resolution of their quest. They arrive to a newly transformed origin to present the retrieved gift—a magical elixir—for the larger tribe, a salve that enhances new courage with which to brave its larger plights and woes: the no longer hidden codes of redemption. 

This achievement is not a “return” to what once was, for that would merely be a regressive retreat, but rather the progressive evolution of character and spiritual growth. 

We invented the word quixotic to describe a futile effort-- windmill leaning, as it were--for it was Cervante’s anti-hero that endeavored to rediscover and recapture a time when all was right, noble, fair and good, essentially to “find what was once home”, yet failed to realize that his retrospective was illusory. He pursued not transcendent knowledge, but merely entertained a nostalgic obsession with what was at best a vivid aspiration, a fleeting man-made impossible dream which never completely existed. 

That is each our own private place of reckoning. Our future is informed with our past, but that past is enhanced with the same creative imagination that fashions our desired future. We’re encouraged to optimism by promises of an imagined reward, yet hindered by wary skepticism born of the still stinging scars of past experiences. We fear first for ourselves before turning a braver gaze outward to others. 

Our larger society is comprised of smaller, closer communities. Within them dwells our respective individual realities. An endemic struggle exists between these tiered cohorts as we each experience the varying degrees of loosenings and tightenings of the societal harness, each pulling (or pushing back) his or her share of cynically resistant or civically responsible load, cultivating a future for both our smaller and larger selves. 

As the world continues to be exponentially more humanly populated, an ever more inescapable fact insists: each is not alone but affected often profoundly by the consequences of behavior from the parochially trivial to the globally pervasive. 

Today, chronic dysfunctional divisiveness increasingly proves to be the competitive currency, baiting individual responses, feeding the larger special interests of consorted commerce and mega-industries. 

But there still remains a larger and more reliable truth. 

It says that one is all and all are one, whether or not that’s ever consciously perceived. It too often is not, and I, for one, am frequently astonished by our seeming inability to accept even our one common planet as a unifying concept. This truth bears out in the scientific conclusion that everything we do or say begets consequential effects for us all. It's in these ways, from the nuanced and trivial to the profoundly impactful, that we are each other. 

Western capitalists may decry socialism, collectivism or any other myriad “taboo” non-competitive systems, but these too are cynical and manufactured precepts. The larger, longer continuum is comprised of individual lives, each beginning and ending at their own respective points within it. Moments become life chapters become lifetimes become historical epochs. Along the way, those who episodically subscribe to an “on your own” meritocratic approach to citizenry are the least likely to consider any extensive exploration of an other’s life circumstance as worth the time and effort. What useful insight might lie within striven for for sympathy? Why bother, when compared to one’s own more nourished state, the revelation may prove to be abject, poignant and unpleasant? Once elements of protective avarice and caste-related guilt are added to the recipe, the resultant mixture becomes a repellant—forcing one to push from the true self those uncomfortable notions until they're out of sight and mind. A handy helplessness is a byproduct of the process, and apathy is disguised with its uncaring cloak. 

Prejudice and bigotry are endemic to the human species as we’re blessed and cursed with a stubborn proclivity to imagine. We perceive through lenses of experience, veils of suggestions and the fluid metrics of convenience, comfort, cause and compulsion. We navigate like animals, ever mindful of possible threats, and we discern these dangers with information that we’ve learned first hand or have supposed from related portrayals and narratives. With these templates we build our personal “realities”, and we rush to defend them whenever they’re threatened, for fear they may be dispelled. 

Haven’t we each, since childhood, constructed our own ideas and images of upcoming events, persons or places with no more fuel for fancy than a vague description or notion? We instinctively create the overall tones, settings, faces, voices, feelings— anything with which we can initially relate before actually posting in person for the genuine experience. 
Words create pictures, verbal accounts evoke experiences, either impressively real or vicariously interpreted. 

The class trip, the party, the blind date, the audition, the concert etc.—those words alone evoke a faux reality based upon an inner perception we’ve weaved from descriptive yarns and the threads of our own recollection. We treat ourselves to a supposed reality and without these “gifts of expectation” those people, places and sensations lurking before us in time would be quite literally unimaginable, perhaps frighteningly so. 

Having taken that trip, having had the experience, we’re bemused at the newly discovered disparities between those “before” and “after” renditions of truth. We only then realize that what we’d imagined (sometimes in spectacular detail) was merely a “stand-in” reality that we could conveniently anticipate. The ‘before’ scene existed purely behind our eyes. The ‘after’ was vividly before us as three dimensional reality. We continue to edit, enhance and shape the experience afterward, as well. 

Often we’ve heard “I don’t know what I was expecting but…” or “I wasn’t prepared for that...” , but we indeed did expect something in our attempt to gird ourselves for the unknown. 

We compulsively prepare. It’s instinctual, involuntary and survival oriented. We as a species suffer from chronic prejudice, and the fear of losing that sufferance results in chronic bigotry. 

As children seeking understanding with limited experience, we asked questions: 
Why is that child crying? 
Why is that man angry? 
What is happening? 
Why is it happening? Who are they? Who are you? Who am I? 

We received answers from our supreme mentors—our parents and elders—who replied with “explanations”. As youngsters, we’ve no other contradictory information with which to question or challenge, so the explanation is largely accepted and becomes what we anticipate until we learn for ourselves otherwise. With enough verifications within a small number of possible contexts—sometimes only one—we're delivered to an ever more intransigent place where we’d rather our “certainties” not be challenged. We have, unwittingly, embraced our own “confirmation bias”. 

We are doing the same as a society. Our legacy is to be the natural victim of hand-me-down partial-truths, convenient misrepresentations, carefully cultivated faux-fact, to put it charitably. More bluntly put, we’ve been lied to, sold myths and kept ignorant. Although hardly a fresh concept, I believe that this societal ignorance, with its critical peaks and nadirs oscillating throughout the eras, has recently gained a chaotic momentum delivering us to a desperate moment. This chaos must be attenuated with reason, knowledge and self-discovery lest the ugliness become a self-manufacturing entity all its own. 

In the face of lament or a sincerely expressed grievance, when faced with the prospect that our words, actions, policies or intimations have indeed offended someone’s sensibilities,  we hear time and again the incredulous: 
“Who says?” 
“I don’t see why they can’t just…” 
“After all, what was so offensive?” 
“Apologize for what?” … 

…all selfish inquiries, pleas for charitable exemption and undeserved clemency. 

I’ve one personally peevish button-pusher: “They have all the same rights and privileges as the rest of us. Why can’t they appreciate that and stop whining”, and its many related variants. My reply in such conversations is to encourage more exploration of “the other’s” realities, after which you may not be quite as perplexed. 

As inexperienced children, we created realities with which we could eagerly anticipate a journey. As “experienced” adults, we close the doors and windows, pull up stakes and put down the periscope in order to minimize any new information that may challenge long-held sometimes sacredly cherished beliefs. We may even be offended ourselves when such ludicrous complaints issue forth from theretofore negligible quarters. To acknowledge the challenge, problem or "squeaky wheel" would be an admission of having been wrong or unfairly neglectful. But in the hero’s journey it is knowledge that fuels our forward motion. It is what we learn, more than what we know, that steers us home. 

There was prejudice throughout To Kill A Mockingbird, in young and old, within and without, before and probably after. From Scout the weight of her particular prejudice was lifted as if by angels with just one gesture. She’d made a years-long journey to see, hear, learn, feel, try, fail and finally succeed in making her way home only to take a few additional brave steps, delivering Boo to his home. She’d by then learned first-hand that he was not the cryptic monster she had imagined him to be, but a true and caring ally. He had held her dear, being a crucial friend in his unique way. He’d been a vigilant protector for Scout, Jem and Dill for longer than they had realized. He was an ally they’d yet to size up as such. He saved them. 

But the larger, more profound reward was earned merely by turning on her heels to take in the scene before heading back home. The street had not changed, nor the houses, but nothing would ever again be exactly as she’d once imagined, for her real experience was now enhanced with a new angle, long denied to her by circumstance, fear and predisposition. 

The lesson is the elixir: One must make the journey to the other place to earn it, to have it. We must see it for ourselves—in ourselves. But if that’s not physically possible, we might usher our mind’s eyes a few steps further, prevail upon our natural gifts of invention to consider what we may very well have overlooked. 

Only then can we widen our souls’ horizons to prepare ourselves for other truths before those actual trips. It requires imagination. It requires creativity. Those human gears already turn with each day’s plan-making, but when we’re challenged with an alien concept, behavior or customary tradition or a belief strange to us, we might put aside a bit of knee-jerk caution to take a few steps farther outside our comfortable yards. 

If we can heroically summon the will, we might venture part way into the misty veils of faint plausibilies and imagine how someone else’s circumstance may look and feel from where they live. If you’ve not been there, please refrain from throwing up helpless hands. Take a breath, count to three, take a closer look. You may still be wearing the ruby slippers, and you can make that trip. Upon arrival you’ll have won the reward: a fresh take on the origin of another universal sensibility. The glimpse will look different to you. But you’ll also see something familiar that allows you to relate, even a little bit. And it’s all relative. 

There’s  a North Star winking above us all, and we each and all have multitudes more similarities than differences. We all have hearts, and we’ve all been hurt. And we all have imaginations. 

But we must take that walk—in our own minds and in our own shoes. When we resist, we shun the challenge. But if we’re to prevail as heroes, we must finally accept that call and make the journey. It may be dark and we may need a lantern, but that light will show the way to where truths exist. If we turn it inward as well, we may catch a glimpse of some fairy tales whose truths aren’t as reliably absolute as we had once preferred them to be. 

 We can then return stronger with eyes, hearts and minds opened wider with hard-earned enlightenment. That elixir might help to join some smaller pieces of our world into larger sturdier ones. 

We can then “find” ourselves on that other porch that, albeit in the very same neighborhood, offers an altogether fresh view. Sometimes just standing on it and having one gaze is enough to change the look and feel of your own street forever. 

~JC

A Songwriter’s Appreciation:

Anyone passingly familiar with the mystique and work of Lou Reed would be aware of his status as one of the primary progenitors of the “new honesty” in rock: an unflinching stylistic trend that preceded "punk" in the mid to late 70's. Ian Hunter & Mott the Hoople, David Bowie, NY Dolls, Iggy & The Stooges, Alice Cooper, etc. were fresh new voices that returned to and embraced a stark expressionism. Vivid and lyrical, it was not altogether nascent, but a return to the blunter styles of early blues and rock. Eric Burdon & The Animals, early Rolling Stones—perhaps even Buddy Holly-- were ‘punk’ in that the delivery was direct, forthright and unadorned with pretentious production trappings. They were stripped down to big notes and sounds with a won’t-run-can’t-hide presentational approach that torched all chances for misinterpretation.

In An Unreal Play, Here's Something Real. We're Not Rotten. #NoWitnesses #Sham