Checking in

Sorry for the lack of rantage, but I decided to go back to school (Georgia State University) for my masters degree in music composition.
Don't get me wrong, the world is still fucked up, we need a socialist revolution, and religion is poisoning the minds of our youth.
I just need to write music and play piano for a while OK.
I believe that beauty will save the world, and art is even more neglected and shit on in America than the working class. So I go where I am needed.
Here is my Soundcloud link

After a few months, I should have actual recordings of humans playing my music available for download. At this point, the pieces are just robotic MIDI renderings. Subpar for sure.

My music is getting more atonal as my mind is freeing up and appreciating the higher partials of the overtone series; harmonies that result when melodies are born in the sky. Music that is free to be music, free to be whimsical, capricious and rare.  Music that will not condescend to be marketed or packaged into any preconceived notion of what music should be. Music that is not a slave to any beat or any human construct or idea.

Furu ike ya
kawazu tobikomu
mizu no oto

Love you,
Brighton

PS I'm back on FB as David Brighton if u need a friend.

REPOST: A Holiday Letter to the Tea Party, from Occupy Wall Street

This is you

Dear Tea Party persons:
  Hi. I'm Brighton.  I'm a liberal.  Can I have just five minutes to say a few things?  Thanks.
  First of all, I'm not a witch.
  I'm not you, either.  I have a job, and I'm an American citizen, but I'm nowhere close to being you. I think you suck, and you think I suck. Let it out. It's cool. No shame in it.
  There are some things we agree on.  Y'know, you probably like rock and roll music, for example.  I love rock and roll, too. You also probably like beer. I like beer a lot.  In fact, I'd drink your brand without complaining.  What do you like?  PBR? Miller Lite? It's all good. Sex - you guys probably like getting laid.  Who doesn't? Sex rules.

Dispatches From Col. Kurtz

Yoko Ono said:
   "wood becomes a flute
   when it's loved."
I say a flute becomes melody
   when it's loved.
When melody is allowed to
   dance and sing,
   it becomes attractive to other melodies;
Melodies in love lie with each other
   in counterpoint
   and give birth to Harmony.
Before the child Harmony opens its eyes
   it sees and knows
   the form of the song.
There it is. A finger pointing to the moon.
The bright-voiced siren, Ligeia, a bird-woman, sings,
   you sail to her, you love her, and you die.
A good composer is one who doesn't compose:
   he allows music to grow
   in this way; by itself,
   naturally, without force,
   without cleverness, without effort.
Sacrificing his life to the muse
   in an act of love.

 

A message to my readers

  I may be taking a break for a while. Sorry, but glowing rectangles are becoming a tumor on my soul.
I'm getting old and am apprehensive about not finishing the important business of my life. Much as I love this blog, it doesn't go in that "important business" category.  Music does.
  Plus if I don't lighten up my oversized head is going to explode.
  Solidarity.  Je ne regrette rein. 

The Gospel of Failure

   

I'm a loser, baby - -

  Last weekend, I watched my kids in a production of "Godspell." I always liked the score, although it is stylistically inconsistent. It occurred to me that the young performers didn't know that it was originally a hippy musical.  As I recall, a lot of the hippies had grown up without any real knowledge of scripture or christian philosophy, and the production was supposed to be "jesus freaks" turning us on to His peaceful message of love and kindness. Back then, being a freak was not a bad thing - everybody was a freak of some kind and it was OK. The original show wasn't preachy, is was groovy.
  Anyway, after the show, I felt like writing a musical.  every time I see any kind of musical concert or production, I want to write one of whatever it is I just saw. So I'm thinking, how would one write an Atheist "Godspell?"

Forget Bin Laden; Can We Have the 4th Amendment Back?

My two cents:
  1. Obama wishes the election was tomorrow. Joe Sixpack thinks he's the shit right now.  This gives him cover to do anything he wants for a week.  Wonder what he'll pick?  Long term, 2012 is looking really good for him.  His relevant record, for the purpose of wooing male white independent voters, is stellar: he lowered taxes, got the Dow Jones back to 12K, got employment trending up, stayed above the fray of Washington gossip and bickering, and can now end the wars, not because he's giving up, but because we "won," and we need to  control costs and rein in deficits. Oil prices just dropped today, too - if he can get gas back down to $2 he can phone in the election.

Deficit Spending is Good. More, Please!

Bozo

  I woke up to my NY Times this morning and saw a snarky full page ad against the deficit.  As usual, it threw around terms like budget, deficit, and debt in order to scare and confuse readers.  Of course it opened with the big 46 - you're going to be hearing that number a lot - 46% of the income taxes come from the top 2% of earners.  The tag line was that even if we taxed ALL of the income of the top 2%, it would only cover half the federal budget, and then all the wealthy people would "Go Galt."
  First of all, whoever paid for this ad, fuck you, you liar.
  Second of all:
  1. Income taxes are not the whole picture.  There are lots of different taxes we pay, including payroll taxes, sales taxes and property taxes.  When you take into account ALL of the taxes we Americans pay, the bottom 98% pays more than the top 2%. Liar.

Statistics, Art, and the Grapes of Wrath

Author John Steinbeck

  Measurements have no value, except in human terms.  When the government claims its going to save a billion dollars, it means absolutely nothing: it’s only a number. 72 trillion, 64, −7: by themselves they mean nothing.  If there are 72 trillion stars in the sky, to humans, that means a lot. To a computer, it wouldn’t mean anything. 64 has no particular meaning, unless you sing a song called “When I’m 64” and talk about still loving each other as old people.  −7 has no meaning unless that’s the temperature, and you’re outside naked. Nothing has meaning, except in human terms.
  So if you’re searching for meaning, it can’t be measured objectively. Meaning can only be subjective, measured by yourself and by others around you.
  So meaning starts and ends with human awareness. Mindfulness, but subjective mindfulness - your world on your terms.
  Art gives us a means to share meaning.  Sometimes subjective meaning doesn’t translate, or isn’t shared, and art doesn’t work.  Art is often tied to culture - the physical experiences of the artist are too foreign sometimes.  We americans don’t get Indonesian gamelan music or whale song.
  Anyway, budget numbers being thrown out start to have meaning only when voters can assign a subjective experience to them.  It is said that there will be no revolution until people turn the faucet and no water comes out. I think that’s so.

Ah, the Bluebirds are Back - Time for an Environmental Disaster!

black + blue bird

T.S. Eliot wrote "April is the cruelest month."  Perhaps he was an environmentalist.

• April 5, 2009 - 29 die in the worst coal mine disaster in decades
• Earth Day, April 20, 2009 - 11 die and minor ocean ruined in the worst oil spill in decades
• March 10, 2011 - 4 American-designed nuclear plants in Fukushima, Japan destroyed by Tsunami, requiring evacuation within 20 mile radius, contaminating water and food. 
• April 19, Almost Earth Day, 2011 - Hydrofracking explosion contaminates Pennsylvania countryside. 
• March 2003 Bush starts war in Iraq for oil
• March 2010 Obama's Afghanistan surge of 30,000 troops in place
• March 2011 Obama starts war in Libya over oil currency, political control of oil

  What is it about energy-related disasters and wars all happening in March and April? You try and enjoy springtime, and it breaks your heart.  Can we all at least finally agree that coal, oil, nuclear and natural gas are bad, dirty energy sources with no future?

Why Can't the USA Refuse to do Business with Tax Dodgers?

  It has been pointed out, in response to US Uncut and other protest movements, that Bank of America, GE and other companies that paid no tax last year have a duty their shareholders to maximize profits.  That's true. 

  A corporation can be sued by its shareholders for taking action contrary to maximization of the share price. A company's managers and board of directors have a fiduciary duty to run the company for the benefit of shareholders.  Large pension funds, which have huge sums invested in certain companies, occasionally sue when a company is guilty of mismanagement. These are huge class action lawsuits. There are also derivative lawsuits that can be brought under state law on behalf of the company.
  A company that fails to utilize offshore tax havens theoretically might have some exposure to these kinds of shareholder lawsuits, although I have never heard of one.

OK, Scratch that Last Post about Libya, Sort of

  We have invaded Libya because Gadaffi threatened to sell oil for Euros instead of dollars. I was wrong about the whole war for oil thing.  Kinda.
  Y'know, how is a person supposed to keep up with all the shit he has to know these days?  Plus hold down a job and a weight-loss program?
  Jesus Coconut Christ.
  OK, I may still be wrong, but check this out:
1.  Iraq switched to the Euro, even though it lost money, just to fuck with us. Here's TIME magazine reporting Saddam's decision to sell oil in euros in November 2000.
2.  Here's what some people were floating before the Iraq war in January 2003:

"The real reason the Bush administration wants a puppet government in Iraq -- or more importantly, the reason why the corporate-military-industrial network conglomerate wants a puppet government in Iraq -- is so that it will revert back to a dollar standard and stay that way." (While also hoping to veto any wider OPEC momentum towards the euro, especially from Iran -- the 2nd largest OPEC producer who is actively discussing a switch to euros for its oil exports)."

Libya: Is it Really About Oil Again? Yup.

The United States, a traditionally isolationist, non-warlike people, is willing to go to war and slaughter people for no other reason than cheap gas.
Bullshit, you say.  OK, here's my argument:
According to the US Department of Energy:

"Oil is the lifeblood of America's economy.  Currently, it supplies more than 40% of our total energy demands and more than 99% of the fuel we use in our cars and trucks." 

  War is legal when it is in self-defense.  None of our wars has ever been started in self defense. OK, maybe Pearl Harbor was our justification for declaring war on Japan. So that's a maybe, but Japan was never in a position to seriously threaten our mainland.
  Technically, wars are now also legal if they are carried out according to a UN resolution. But let's look at the UN. Every country is a member, but the UN security council is the group that votes on war resolutions, and the USA and its best friends UK and France are permanent members of the security council with veto power.  So UN resolutions are not exactly voted on by every country in the world democratically.
  That being said, the 2003 Iraq war wasn't even approved by the UN security council. Nor are the many military actions undertaken by the CIA and covert military forces in, say, Pakistan.  We also introduced a computer virus called Stuxnet into Iran's nuclear power plants at Natanz last year. We interfere in South America and Africa.  All without UN approval.
  Bottom line: we as a people are willing to break international law and routinely use deadly force to keep gas cheap.  America.  Fuck yeah!