I was up all night!~on YOUtube!

WOW, this is a brave new world! Last night my super cool Blu Ray player downloaded a new program, it can interface YOUtube directly to my TELE! YEA! Okay, if you know me, you'd know how much I despise broadcast Tele~vision, I believe that it is this brainwashing device that feeds you --packaged processed poop; Information that at some point may have been new or newish, but not necessarily what is really true or even wholly complete. I have seen them make these news shows, they chop them into oblivion, and they cut and paste worse than a congressman with a seat to sell. Dont even ask me what is on, or what is the latest Lost episode, or what is the new ad that bothers everyone the most, I dont even want to know. We just dont do it, and if I need John Stewart I go to HULU.com and then I get my laughs and my news, and yep that is plenty! hes just too funny. See what a distraction it is, and its not even on! Our BLUE RAY HAS YOU TUBE! I know! I was on there downloading all sorts of great music, I an pleased to see Musicians using this outlet for us to see things we might never have seen, even the oldest concerts can be found-- Al Di Meola One Night in SF was on there, and my old favorites Laaz Rockit, just about brought me to tears! I put a few movies up that I love of my family and I enjoying Redding, very personal and silly, but they are keyworded in Shasta or masloff. I plan to do some new movies and yes the panda book. But what a time I had looking for all of my favorite musicians, and people and places, right there. My teenagers love to hear my stories of growing up and the people I knew, (and they often wish I still knew, but) seeing them is good enough, for us.

Wow, what memories are linked to music, and this is proven in a new book that is out that I have been enjoying
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks
A serious collection of storied documenting the brain and how it reacts to sounds, even non musical sounds. When I hear a train, I always think I am in a house that we lived in Cotati, weird, but I just get this strange time and place feeling, even though as a young child my Mother lived quite near train and bart. The train sound that we get here in Redding is at least ten miles away, its nowhere near here, but the terrain is just right for it to echo sound for us to hear. Trains come through Redding frequently, it is still home to the largest land owner Southern Pacific, and these trains often pass through in the earliest dawn hours. I hear it usually in my sleep, so that is why I can easily go back to a different time and place with one sound. Its always a nice familiar feeling, thought startling how vivid the memory is associated with this sound.

This is the same with music for me, I have a particular oddity to some music that haunts me, even though I have tried to tried to deny it. My peculiar prophetic life, has brought me signs that are unavoidable, and sadly there is one that is a tell tale sign. I can say, that I have been able to obtain every job I have ever applied for, but I can also say that GOD, let's me know when it is time to go... To make this a short story, if I hear, "Mother and Child Reunion, " by Simon and Garfunkel, I know its over. The first time-I was sure I heard that song, for miles , I was in my car and it was weird, I could hear it, like an ear worm,over and over- but it was on the Radio, and the words just haunted me, " well I would not give you false hope on this strange and mournful day, but the mother and child reunion is only a motion away" If you have heard it, you might have wondered the meaning behind the words, I too have wondered! I wrote Paul Simon, and told him my strange affiliations , he must have thought I was --not worth writing back to, I never heard anything back, but what is there to say? Paul Simon, he's got profound lyrics that haunt the most common of people and sure anyone can put meaning on words when it makes an epiphany apparent. What is this human connection with music, why does it becon us with personal experiences? T.Berry Brazleton, a Pediatrician, once said that the African mothers sing special songs to the children , short songs when they would be going on short leave, and long songs for those times when they had to seek comfort for long treks accross the desert to find food, water or shelter. I loved this image of comforting a child with music; words that comfort with a tune, a respective familiar tone to create memories of life consistant with the eminent passage ahead.

I was looking back at the Live aid concerts, and thinking when did musicans stop having this kind of inviting contributive concerts? Was is a lost cause? Remember when we thought protesting with music was effective, and not just --entertaining? Youtube actually offers what is, essentially-- free outlets for any type of protest and advertising and even imagery for anyone to invite contributions for any group, without the need to pay broadcast TELE-poop! What would it take to start a grass roots awareness of taking back our government for the people by the people, of the people? What song would we sing? One two three , what are we figting for....
Those who are up in arms now, all steamed up, they are the ones so happy for the past 8 years and sat on their hands happy to have thier president, but now, they are so unhappy? If they expect our country to get fixed in one month what took the past 20 years to defile, think again...
I am thinking of a song, and it sounds like --how can you say your saving me when you have to have that gun, how can you just walk away when you just shot and killed someone, how can you lie to me and say that isnt wrong, how can you bring the peace when you have to have that gun...It was a song , and I heard it in my dream, my dream of the War in Iraq, and a tiny robed child stood there with a huge automatic weapon, and he stood on the bodies of american men and chanted to me...while the dirt swirled around his body...

Music is the window to the soul, and when it is opened it can take you anywhere you want to go, just by listening.

We can effectively try, to control our surroundings, to create a life we are familiar with to comfort ourself from strife, a bubble but that will burst. And when our lives get too complicated we can jump into a vehicle and travel far far away from all things familiar to avoid the responsibilities of humbling house and chores. When we get far away, we miss home, and then we long to return! A song brings us back to the romancing of the ordinary and it is all so much simpler, to see. In a book that I love, by Theodore and Kermit Roosevelt, Titled, " On the trail of the Giant Panda" the Roosevelt's are traveling through the Mountains of Tibet, and they meet the illuminous Tao. Tao is quite taken with this Influencial American and his stories of travel and he says , "why must people travel so far , so that they can just miss home? To be where you are is good enough" I loved that, and then Tao let Roosevelt name his child! Yes, he named him Quenton, after Jacks Brother! Ok, that is a whole other story; but the music I hear with that is this is something by George Harrison, when he was in his Shankar stages, and this sitar is playing and they are singing, Know everything without going anywhere, be all things without being ...Oh how I wish I would have seen one of his concerts. When I hear beatles , I hear my childhood, I just can hardly bear it! So I will close with the link to a concert that I would have liked to have been at, but loved to see on DVD and now on Youtube,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAkZyCvlWsg