Musical Cafe rocks!

I've been a camera guy for Musical Cafe for awhile, but, I admit, it's been awhile, with excuses like the holidays (excuses!). Just look at what a great experience it is! This New Year I'm going to make sure I drop those excuses and get back with it!

Pat Metheny , Joni Mitchell and Jaco Pastorius

Then there was when Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays joined Joni for a tour that I caught up in Portland Oregon. I believe the scenery here looks like The Greek in LA. Jaco Pastorius left The Weather Report to join them on the same tour that here looks like The Santa Barbara Bowl. Like a Black Crow flying in a blue sky..... That tour spoiled me for awhile.

Early Musical Influences

This afternoon I was listening to a local blues & jazz radio station. The DJ was playing some choice music from The Paul Butterfield Blues Band from the “East Meets West” album mastered in the late 60s. Around 1970, I spent some time at The Golden Bear in Huntington Beach, Ca. listening to the Paul Butterfield’s Band play, since they were there often There were influences of sitar in some of Elvin Bishop’s and/or Mike Bloomfield’s scales as well as minor and major scale runs. I noticed the counterpoint of major to minor scales for tension and release. Later on I noticed the same technique used by Jerry Garcia in his long jams.

What impressed me after all these years was how accessible the music sounded. It had a raw energy that was always appealing, brought soulful blues to the coast and helped to inspire a generation of musicians. I would keep the style of the music in mind when playing my guitar, jamming with friends often after classes and on weekends while in College.

My style included many influences over the years. I used a few open tunings since I learned Stephen Stills, Joni Mitchell (plus) and blues slide for practice. I was in a fusion band during my college years with a clarinet and piano player, while I also worked on Bach's Brandenberg concerto with flute and piano and thrown in there somewhere was a sitar effect in another genre of guitar using an open "E" tuning a la John Fahey and later Leo Kottke, with the base "E" dropped down an octave to approximate a droning sound. Blues was my mainstay with some Jorma Kaokonen thrown in, from The Jefferson Airplane

It was sad to see many years ago The Golden Bear had been closed.

Southern California on Fire

Much as I'm glad to see a focus away from the elections, it is with great dismay that so many Californians must add another layer of misery to the complications we face in the new year with an Obama presidency.
Attempts at protection from the unknowns coming next year have decimated most peoples' retirement savings. Can we feel comfortable that the excesses of the election cycle were just that; that everything the great orator, Obama said was just to get elected and that he'll not be such a socialist when in the hot seat? His inexperience coupled with several of the Clinton administration appointed by him shows that change is only relative, as one would expect. As we know, changes that are made without scrutiny of history can take years to repair, since the unintended consequences always ride in the backseat of good ideas.
At least we can pray that those who lost their homes to fires can find the courage to rebuild. I hope they can be filled with an unlimited optimism in the new year.

Giving Sardonic Comments A Rest

What a day! The sun was shining and the waves at Ventura Point were perfect! Got out on the waves for the first time in ages and picked up a mellow humm from the experience. The world situation has been just a little too bit heavy lately and I needed a break. Usually walking the dogs takes the edge off, but being in the moment with the centering required from riding little three to four footers off the point really cleared my mind and put a grin on this previously worried face. Things are somewhat grim, but so what? I can do what I can do and no more.

Democrats sidestepping morality?

Democrats are so lucky! From what we’ve seen lately, democrats don’t have the added scrutiny of morality to thwart their focus from the prize. Republicans regularly choose to step down from posts of leadership when under fire, while democrats brush off the significance of immoral acts with pseudo eloquent brevity: Could it just be a tip of the iceberg, and therefore relatively insignificant? There is not a level playing field.

The level of corruption seen in the voter fraud activity of ACORN is being downplayed with subtle vengeance, owing to the necessity to keep the true extent under wraps. There is no question one party has benefited from ACORN more than another. A senate subcommittee hearing has NOT been called, and, since the litmus test of Democratic involvement is silence rather than outrage under these circumstances, democrats are obviously benefiting, The American public has a right to know the full extent of the damage funded by tax dollars, but we have a quandary here, since Republicans distance themselves from the sense of entitlement necessary to insist on a subcommittee hearing.

Now is the time to take off the mittens of political correctness the democrats use to trap and stiffle their adversaries!

That sinking feeling...

To pull out of mutual funds into bonds or not? That is the question. Something needed to be done, but 150 billion in pork just to sweeten the deal? And sweeten it for the high level perpetrators???!!! With NumbersUSA I was starting to feel like I had just the slightest effect on my reps in Washington and now this! I used to have some respect for Bush, but it will only be in retrospect what clear choicez would have been appropriate under these impossible circumstances.

My greatest fear is that the dollar will lose it's prominance in world markets. If that were to happen, the cascade of troubles here at home would have a very viscous, syrupy layer of dismay. As long as the dollar remains the standard and our relatively free markets keep the layered flexibility intrinsic to our system we just might be able to stave off disaster! I will try to think of the bailout as a tool to stimulate liquidity and not evidence of a creeping socialism making inroads into our fragile society.

But then, again, there's nothing like a good crisis such as this to possibly rattle the frog savers loose long enough to realize that we can generate massive wealth in this country quickly if we were to dive after our oil here. I would be totally in favor of keeping the massive transfer of wealth here at home instead of it going to OPEC where many want to use our schools for their childrens' educations, suck up as much of our wealth as possible, then kill us! I've heard of save the whale. What happened to save the human from infinite stupidity?