A Tall Skinny Guy From Illinois

I watched the inauguration this morning. Me, and a few billion other people were interested in seeing this transition take place in the USA. I won’t go into my dislike for the Republiklan and Dubya because that’s been spelled out by a lot of other commentators.

America is a conundrum of sorts. I like Americans. They are open minded and friendly folk. At least the many I’ve met fit this description. The people of the USA are as nice as any you might meet, anywhere. There is also a societal thing about America that I can’t figure out. As individuals, you can’t find nicer people, but as a society, I have issues. The entrenched mentality of “every man for himself” and mistrust of government that pervades their society is hard to fathom. Stuff like their gun culture and their unwillingness to create a universal health care system make me scratch my head.

I think I’m qualified to speak about this, because I’ve spent some time living in the states. Back in the late eighties, I took up residence in Texas for a couple of years. Other folks had always spoken about how weird Texans were, and I found them to be very warm hearted and interesting people. Like anywhere else, there were rednecks as well as worldly and well educated people. Not unlike Ontario except we don’t speak with a drawl. I also met some people who had an unhealthy contempt for government of all kinds, and found it worrisome. One guy in particular had a gun collection that could have outfitted a small army, and he had enough ammo to kill every man, woman and child in town several times over. He said he kept this because “the government tells me I can’t have these things.”

The American people know how to work in cooperative ventures. The whole of their society is greater than the sum of it’s parts. Over the course of the twentieth century, America changed the world. Nobody can do that alone, and in the post depression era, men like FDR transformed the government of the USA into a galvanizing force for good. A cursory glance at the history books will instantly prove that an involved government isn’t always a bad thing. It wasn’t a collection of individuals, but a cooperative society that did it.

The last few years have really shown how the American people have abandoned that view. Their zeal to deregulate banking and industry has caused all sorts of problems, not just for America, but the whole world. The government has been starved of resources to do what should be done and the results are telling. Witness the banking meltdown and the overdone consumerism that imperils our environment. Some healthy government regulations could have saved a lot of the current misery that abounds. Dogmatism and pragmatism are always at odds.

It’s a breath of fresh air to see America choose a man like Barack Obama to lead them. Here’s a guy who has worked inside of government from the municipal level all the way to the Senate. He knows the positive effect that government can have on the day to day lives of people. He has arrived at a time where the government has to step in  to fix some serious mistakes and become more involved in the day to day lives of Americans.

Self reliance is all right and fine, but Americans are going to have to reexamine their dogma. Mr. Obama’s call to reinvent America will be an empty statement unless America thinks about the whole of their society rather than the selfish desires of it’s individual members. Me, and those few other billions of people can only wish Barack Hussein Obama luck in his quest. Perhaps a little of his cooperative vision could rub off on Canada.

Chord Soup

 

Solos are taken in the C Dorian scale (Bflat Major starting on the second note). You can also hit on the odd Gflat note. The only note to avoid explicitly is the E.The tune is based on a Cminor11 chord. From this, the following chords can be derived from it, and will always fit:

• Cm
• Cm9
• Eflat
• Eflat M7
• Gm
• Gm7
• Bflat M7
• Dm

This is just the beginning. There are a bunch of inversions that will give you some juicy sixth chords and suspensions. The recipe calls for just trying to flesh out the big minor eleventh chord by expressing parts of it against other parts of the chord. The Bass part can focus on playing the C minor triad for the most part, but this is a recipe, so you’re allowed to mess with the ingredients.

Find as many musicians as you can. Spice liberally and cook for as many minutes as possible.

It might sounds like shit for all I know, but theoretically, it should work nicely.

I’ll let you know how it tastes.  

Gnu Year, Some Cheer

It’s an odd anniversary for me, because at this time two years ago, I was facing the prospect of blindness. I think the treatments were starting to work, and my eyesight was improving slightly. Still, the doctors weren’t willing to say how much or how soon I would see much of anything. Despite my best efforts to keep my chin up, I was daunted. I kept a positive viewpoint and did my best to keep my cool.

Since that time, I’ve made a remarkable recovery, and my vision is pretty good relatively speaking. I’m not blind. I need strong reading glasses, and my eyesight gets a little uppity in changing light conditions. It’s a minor inconvenience and not a showstopper. After all of that, I figured the only way to look was up.

For a while that was true. Then something much worse happened. My partner of over 24 years went to Scotland and died.

It’s been a few months since PJ died, and life goes on. I’m back to work, and trying to keep from losing my grip. It’s harder recovering from this than my blindness. When I was blinded, at least I had PJ to look after me. Now, I’ve got a whole lot less. I have nobody. I wake up in the empty bed, and go through the motions and go back to an empty bed. It’s hard to know what I feel some times.

I look around and realize that I’m alright. I’m physically fit, more or less, and my day to day comforts are still available. I have the little fuggers and my friends to provide some solace. The material world is good to me. Not having anyone to share it with is the issue.

None of this crap matters sometimes. It’s fine to have clothes, books, and musical instruments. It’s nice to have the freedom to travel around in my automobile, but an almost crushing feeling of emptiness infuses every other sensation I have. I can still laugh, but I wonder if it’s the right thing to do. Am I allowed to be cheerful? Sometimes I cry, and wonder what the point of that is. Is there a requisite amount of crying that needs to be done?

I think all of us feel isolated from the world around us at times. The tension between individuality and society is ever present, and irreconcilable. It’s impossible to know exactly how anyone else really feels despite their best efforts to describe it. It’s hard to talk through whatever rough patches there are. Words are inadequate, but it’s all we have to deal with our feelings in a concrete way.

We can deal with our feelings in the abstract I suppose. Some of us play musical instruments. Some of us dance. Some of us assume other personalities and characters on  the stage. Some of us create physical objects like paintings or sculptures. It’s part of the human condition to use a lot of different means to describe our feelings. Words are direct and the most accurate way, but even so, nothing we say or write can cover all the bases.

It’s like calculus. We can approach the right answer, but we never actually get there. Happy New Year everyone. I hope I have a happier year, but I sure think it’s off to a miserable start.