White Bread

WhiteBreadTc“Could you play it a little less ‘white bread’?” Forrest asks, his eyes kind, but steady on mine, his fingers, as always, delicate in their grip on the neck of his newest guitar, a beautiful instrument that sounds as exquisite as it looks.

We’d just finished a run through of ‘Cheap Sunglasses’ and, despite it being a challenging piece for me rhythmically, I’d done a pretty darn near perfect, note-for-note performance of it.

I blinked, stared, blinked again. “Ah…oka-aay,” I said, hedging.  “Which part?”  I asked this because, honestly, I know I’d just done it as written.

He tells me.

I blink.

He’s talking about two embellished notes, same pitch, the first three-sixteenths in length coming a sixteenth after the fourth beat and a quarter note coming on the one beat of the next bar.

He explains what he wants, then demonstrates it vocally.

I nod. He starts the riff; I come in when I should, mimicking his vocalization.

“Not really,” he says, stopping, again.

I laugh. “Okay. What, then?”

Feel it more.”

He starts moving his fingers, playing out the riff, his head bobbing in that just-off-the-beat kind-of-way that seems pervasive among rock musicians. He looks at me, his eyes urging me to come in.

I do.

He stops …shakes his head. “Feel it. Don’t count it.”

“Oka-aaay.” I try again.

A huge sigh answers that attempt. “Could you try not playing it like a classical musician? …Try playing like a …a….” He shrugs. “…LIke you don’t have a rod up your backside.”

By now, I’m practically giggling in gleeful hysteria (Very inappropriate!). Damping down my giggles is taking supreme effort. “But I am a classically trained musician.” Then, more soberly: “And I’m really trying, here.”

“I know….” He groans. “…But it’s just so…’white bread‘!”

He’s getting exasperated. Perfectionist that he is, I know how serious he means this. Still, I can’t help myself: “I like white bread,” say I.

His eyes flash. “You don’t even eat bread.”

“That’s true.” (I’m grinning, and I know that exasperates him even more, but, honestly, I can’t help myself.)

“Then, don’t play white bread!” he practically bellows.

I sigh. Watch him fondly. Finally, I shrug a bit. “Hon-, I can only do me. I’m not a ‘bro-‘. I ain’t got no rhythm that way. But I did play with Santana for a few weeks long time passing, and they loved my playing.”

“It’s too ‘white bread’,” he repeats. Emphatically.

“Yes, dear. I’ll work on it.”

…Anyone know how to make white bread brown?
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The Rise of the American Bully Tyrannists

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There’s a complete and utter irony to it. It comes from all sides right and left–from the homophobes, bigots, and religious fanatics to the vegans, the anti-war, the anti-racists, the anti-discriminists, animal rights crowds…you name it. On the right and the left, we have calls to arms, calls to action against anyone perceived to be exhibiting any trait or tendency that one or another group fears, despises, or finds abhorrant and intolerable, whether in the name of human rights or in the name of outright extreme fanaticism.

The most ironic is to hear activists scream out their hatred and intolerance of anyone they consider to be … spewing hatred and intolerance. And all of them, including the self-named pacifists, are willing to wield weaponry and go to war to force everyone to comply with their vision of ‘what should be’ …which, of course, is exactly what tyrannical governments do, what slave-owners did and do, what every exclusionary group does and has done on down the line through history.

“But,” you scream, “our cause is just!”

So said the Catholics of the Spanish Inquisition, so said Robespierre of French Revolution infamy, and so said and says every dictator and tyrant the world has ever known. Can’t you see that you are only promoting the exact same system that you claim brought about the institutions you abhor?

Maybe you can. Maybe you don’t care. Maybe you think your version of tyranny is sanctified. But your version of tyranny is, in actuality, no different than the worst version of tyranny ever seen in human history–it subjugates, coerces, punishes, oppresses, and eradicates.

Do you realize that the only reason why you are free to repudiate those things to which you object is because you have the freedom to disagree, to choose differently for yourself? Yet, you want to take that right away from others. Don’t you see the danger in that?

Be careful what you promote, because the system you support and in which you engage to force others to bow to your agendas will, ultimately, enslave you, your children, your kin, your friends, your neighbors, your community, your country, your world.

Think about it. Then adjust what you support and how you support it accordingly. Tyranny is not the way forward to a better society.

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Hate is Hate, whether it comes from the Right, Left, or Middle. Get Down Off Your Outraged Pedestal.

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I just read an article linked to by a gentleman in my feed. Now, this gentleman and I don’t see eye-to-eye. At all. But, still, I like to read his viewpoints, just like I do folks who hold other perspectives which I might or might not share. Listening to different perspectives with which I might disagree allows me to learn and to constantly question my own perspectives. I like alternative narratives. I love it when some new viewpoint makes total sense to me and changes my mind…using legitimate arguments, well-substantiated by fact and logic.

I listened to Black Lives Matter…and wound up dismissing them as just more hate-mongers and racists. I listened to the new feminists and came to the conclusion that they were the Female Supremacists, just like, previously, I’d dismissed the Black Panthers, the Christian Coalition, the White Supremacists, and similar groups, finding in them just more hate and intolerance, advocating violence against those who didn’t share their faith, mores, ideologies, and/or perspectives.

I’ve listened to the [insert label of choice] and found, by and large, that most groups, most movements, are simply promoting hatred and unfairness toward some other group, using blame and scorn, encouraging castigation, excoriation, punishment, subjugation, and even eradication of whichever group they decide is their victimizer, responsible for all injustice in the world, all of their fervor fueled by self-righteous rage masquerading as righteous outrage.

The article I just read, concerning the murder of MP Jo Cox, used phrases like ‘toxic masculinity’ and blames homophobia, misogyny, the right-wing, and a basket-full of other buzz-terms as promoting hate and fear, never acknowledging that ‘toxic feminism’, heterophobia, misandry, and the left-wing are equally to blame.

The only thing in the article that actually speaks any fair truth is this, and we need to apply it INDISCRIMINATELY<Important!:

…that we all unite to fight against the hatred that killed her. Hate doesn’t have a creed, race or religion, it is poisonous.”

 

It’s not too late to pump this poison out of the system. One brave woman is dead. Others must work now to emulate her example: to place compassion above fear, hope above hatred, to fight against the intolerance tearing apart our communities. To work and speak and vote against bigotry and blame.

 

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Sport Jock-Rapist Brock Turner & the Privilege of Wealth in America

I’m betting that “white male privilege” is being bandied around about rapist Brock Turner’s light sentencing. But it’s not. It’s about ‘wealth privilege’. Wealth gets you a lot of perks. So does being a sports jock, especially one with Olympic potential. Poor baby has no taste for prime rib-eye steak, now, he’s so upset about his conviction. Poor baby is depressed. Poor baby is going to have to register as a sexual offender the rest of his life. Oh, poor baby.

But the woman he raped? Oh, well. You know, it doesn’t matter that she’s going to suffer the consequences of his “20 minutes of action” as his wonderful dad put it for THE REST OF HER LIFE.

You know what poor little Brock Turner is REALLY upset about? That he didn’t get off scot-free. He was supposed to, don’t you know. After all, he’s a jock. After all, he’s a star athlete. After all, he’s the child of privilege.

But, then, he almost is getting off scot-free. Had he been poor White, Black, Native, Asian, or Latino, he’d be in for years, not mere months. And he certainly wouldn’t be staying at the county jail. He’d be in the state pen.

But, worse is Judge Persky. I can’t figure how a judge could even consider such a light sentencing. Maybe the Turners slipped him a bribe. Only thing that makes sense to me.

As for Brock-y-baby’s daddy, I’m very certain he’d be singing a whole different tune if it was HIS daughter who got raped by some jock having “20 minutes of action”. You think?