Hrm...

First off - I just spent the last two or three hours looking at the myspace pages of people I went to high school with. God Damn!@@#%%^ I don't know why. I have been thinking a lot lately and I'm just going to share.

I think that there are three truly famous people in this world. George Bush, Barack Obama, and Will Smith. Everyone else is only locally famous. I think that these three people can go almost anywhere and be recognized. Therefore, all the people that we think are famous - Brad Mehldau, Tom Waits, Charlie Kaufman, Bela Fleck, John Coltrane, Bjork, etc, etc, - are just popular. It may be easy to think that everyone knows about our heroes or the websites we check regularly or the albums we buy, but most of the time, no one gives a shit. As a performer, that's a little depressing, because there's at least a smidgen of "ooh, I hope I get famous", but we play fringe music anyway, so we'll never be as famous as the in-crowd. Of course, we all already know this, so don't think I'm trying to enlighten anyone. God forbid. I know that the best-case scenario is that Adam, Jamison, and Courtenay will read this and you guys all know at least as much as me about any given subject, but I'm a little tipsy and I need to spew some stuff.

Buckminster Fuller has written that in 1900 in the United States, 90% of the population lived on farms. When he wrote "Critical Path" in 1980 this number had shrunk to 10%. I'm sure now it's even less. To me, this means that in 1900, at least 90% of the population felt that the work they were doing was vital to sustaining the existance of themselves, their family, and the rest of the country. They were doing important work that meant something. The rest of the population could have also been doing vital work - doctors, preachers, firemen, etc. Everyone may not have had their dream job, but they were contributing and must have felt a sense of responsibility. Nowadays, almost everyone coming into the work force has spent some time in either retail or the service industry. This shit is not important. Even the best restaurants can go under and life will go on virtually unchanged. If most of them went under, our country would probably be better off. Retail is the same. The most important function these industries serve is to give day jobs to people who have bills to pay. Basically, you don't have the right to just live and be merry. You have to earn that right. You can't exist as a person that does what he needs to do for himself and goes on with his life. You MUST do what others tell you until you reach the age of 65 and then if you're lucky, you can retire to the life you've been waiting for since you left home. In the interim, most of us will have to make do with spending hours and hours a day at a job that probably doesn't make the world a better place and that doesn't give us the feeling of being responsible for anything significant. Although, as I'm writing this, I realize that Adam is doing woodwork for a boss he is friends with, Jamison is touring around bringing joy and music to people, and Courtenay is teaching the next generation of Town Meeting. Damn, I guess it's just me and the rest of the country that's stuck in this rat trap...

Sometimes I hate the internet. I'm sure you can all relate to this in some way. We didn't grow up on this shit, so it's probably stubborn Luddite-ness that makes us feel this way. I'm sure we all remember doing reports in libraries and looking through encyclopedias and card catalogs. We can easily recall when our families got some bullshit dial-up connection and had to pay an hourly fee for internet use (my brother once ran up a $250+ bill playing online games). Or maybe your parents were even more resistant than we can be and refused to let it into their households until you could get a monthly unlimited plan. Now I have to spend regular time on motherfucking myspace just to appear interested in keeping up with some people. I don't want to be one of these nostalgic kids that talks about remembering stuff from three years ago and buys the "retro" t-shirts from hot topic (you see, I'm a snob, after all). Of course, I remember Saved By the Bell, damn it! It wasn't that long ago! Our parents talk about getting their first color tv and we talk with the same wistfulness of getting our first cell phones (which may mean something for someone who has been through as many as Jamison, but for most people, it was still in this century). I recently went to the Field Museum and saw a great exhibit on the Aztecs. I just got more and more enthralled in this fantasy of the simple life - although mine didn't involve ritual human sacrifice. There's just too much to adjust to and not enough time to do it. I don't want to get swept up, but I don't want to just be a stubborn back-to-nature pipe-dreamer either. I guess I want things to get better, not just different. Not just more technologically advanced and faster and smaller and whatever. All the technology was supposed to make life easier. All the farmers are off the farms. The machinery can handle it, but instead of an easier life, it seems like it's harder. The work day on a farm is not an arbitrary 8 hours. You do the work that is necessary when it's necessary and then you're done. More work during the sowing and harvesting times and less while it's growing. Not just 40 hours a weeks so that you can afford heat and electricity.

I don't know... maybe I'm rambling...

BALLS

This may be inappropriate, but I recently went on an adventure and ended up seeing an old blind guy's balls. That was but one facet of the adventure, but I wanted to share it. As it turned out, the guy was an incredible musician and we were having a very pleasant conversation when he pulled his pants down and started going to the bathroom without having closed the stall door. At that point, I stopped talking and left. Just thought I'd share...

Phthpbtt!!

Jesus Jesus! My computer crashed about two weeks ago and I just got it back last night. Unfortunately, my recently-former roommate, in her typically self-centered-not-giving-a-damn-about-how-her-actions-affect-other-people-way canceled our internet connection, so I'm still a little incapacitated (I'm on the work computer now). Also, Jamo shared a similar computer-fucking-up experience, so the techno Gods must be paying us back for something. Anywho, shit's been poppin' here, and I wanted to share a little recent nugget. It's a rap video I'm in. Maybe it should be my next career move? I think I look decent in booty shorts...

Greetings,
My trip to Chicago was utterly fantastic in every way. I had been worried that I would not have enough time to take it all in since I really only had three days there but I can honestly say it could not have worked more perfectly. Seeing John Chicai and Hamid Drake was so incredible. I feel I grasped something major about improvised music that I had never thought about. My realization was that improvisation is about being absorbed in the present moment, completly. It is about listening to everything happening right now and at the same time being a part of it. This ability to be completly aware of everything and at the same time act through the creation of sound was what I percieved while watching John and Hamid play. At one point Hamid described John as having a radiance about him that is so unique. It seemed to me that someone who can embrace the present so fully and who has done so for so long could only produce a person with that kind of radience. For me, really listening to everything and letting my environment affect me deeply whether hearing music or sounds of nature or sounds of people has produced the most amazing experiences. The show at the Hideout definitely clicked something in me with regard to the unique power of improvised music.
The next night Jeremy and I recorded some music that was by far the most free I have ever played. It was one of the most incredible musical experiences I've had. Jeremy is a creative force unlike anyone else I've ever known. Wow.

Last Night at the Hideout

Last night Adam and I went to night 4 of the Umbrella Music Festival, which has brought in a wonderful group of improvisational acts from all over the country and Europe. Perhaps the most significant highlight of the night for me was the duo set with John Tchicai (johntchicai.com) and Hamid Drake. I don't want to name drop, because it seems to say that past achievements may trump what happened last night, but John did play on "Ascension" and Hamid list of collaborators is much too long to even begin. Last night, though... There was a whole host of things I'm not going to endeavor to articulate, but I can say that as a musician that often has more of an abstract concept for what I would like to be playing than concrete experience in hearing it or playing it, Hamid and John played the sounds that I only have only experienced in the foggiest most non-descript way in my head. And they killed it! It was like having the concept of rich chocolate after only having Snicker's bars and then being given a gourmet hand-made artisan dark chocolate truffle. Is that I sensical analogy? Additionally, the way they worked the audience and laid bare personality and humor. Shiiit! It was fucking exciting, that's all I'm going to say about that...

The last set was also a very unique and wonderful experience. Douglas Ewart & Inventions played what was certainly the closest I've come to seeing the sensibility and style of groups like Sun Ra's Arkestra, Pharoah Sanders, and some of the later Roland Kirk stuff. They didn't come on until almost midnight if not after midnight and I was dead tired. Adam and I finally got some stools to sit on (it was pretty packed) and throughout the show I would have moments of almost dozing off and going to these very bizarre places in my head before being snapped back into a music venue with a hundred or so other people. It was totally surreal. The whole group was perfect, but Dee Alexander's vocals were probably my favorite part. I've not heard much "free jazz" vocal music, but she was mind boggling. Mmm!

Just thought I'd share that...

Hello Earthlings. This is my first post which I am really excited about. I just arrived in Chicago and Jeremy just showed me hosw to log on to Spiralsonic andis currently in the kitchen making tea. pate amazing indian food this evening. The cats name is Indie. I saw a girl with headphones on a few weeks ago walking down the street dancing her ass off and thought "wow what an amazing thing music is."

Art Clothes

Like many, I had little admiration for the fashion industry until Project Runway opened my eyes a bit. What is on the other end of this link, though, blows all that shit away and has opened my eyes to the possibilities...

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/style/fashionweek/runway.html#/maison_martin_margiela