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Month: June 2013

Snowden and Hastings Signal a New Darkened America

June 25, 2013

        As NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden continues his escape from the hands of United States government officials abroad — he left Hong Kong for Moscow on Sunday reports say — news is continuing to leak about possible foul play in the auto accident that killed Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings. One can read the article here. (No need to rehash the details of the story here). Hastings is a hardcore journalist. Blew the lid off of several important stories over the years. He was being investigated by the FBI and at the same time was researching another explosive story about the government evidently; he sent a blind-copy broadcast email out to his friends and family alerting them to these facts and warning them that they would probably be questioned by the FBI in regards to him. Some believe the email itself to be suspicious, that perhaps Hastings didn’t really send it. Others believe that it was he who sent it but that the panic in his tone of the email and the fact that he died a few hours after sending it is fishy.
        Earlier today we were catching up on the latest events related to Edward Snowden. Sunday’s news shows were primarily quiet on the issue, except for the now-repugnant Meet the Press (David Gregory is destroying the once admirable benchmark Sunday news show formerly hosted by Tim Russert). Gregory spoke about Snowden as if he were a criminal and a fugitive, as if he had committed some kind of massive terrorist plot that killed hundreds of people — no different than how the United States government is talking about and handling the Snowden leak.
        At this point we expect that from the United States government (not everyone who works for it, but a seemingly large majority of them); but not from journalists. I am not sure if one could call Gregory a “journalist” per se. He’s more of a gossip monger and media whore for U.S. elected officials. But it was still surprising how willing he was to hang Snowden out to dry without any benefit of the doubt. Worse yet was Gregory’s handling of his interview with fellow journalist, The Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald. On live TV in front of potentially millions of viewers Gregory asked Greenwald whether he believed that he should be prosecuted “to the extent that you aided and abetted” Snowden.
        It was a shocking moment for anyone who understands what is happening in the United States at this time when it comes to American government tyranny and their broad-sweeping and consistent moves to lull citizens into thoughtless zombies with little or no rights. Gregory’s question was shamelessly less a question and more of a statement — a tactic he uses frequently in order to sneak his opinion into what should be objective journalistic dialogue; it was asinine to begin with because what person in their right mind would answer in the affirmative to such a question? “Yes David, I believe I should be prosecuted for aiding and abetting a criminal. In fact that’s why I’ve come on your show, to turn myself in.” So clearly David Gregory knew what the answer was going to be. The problem is he should never have asked the question. Especially now that even mainstream journalists in America are coming under attack so blatantly and on such a constant basis by the federal government for still attempting to do their job.
        [It should be pointed out that it isn’t the media who is doing something wrong as of late by reporting on issues they suspect to be possibly illegal or harmful to the citizens or the republic by the current American government. The fact that they do not agree with what the government is doing or wants to do is what’s at issue. The government is trying to brand anyone in the media who leans in a different direction as being partisan, or illegitimate or even criminal. They are doing the same thing with American citizens now too. But it isn’t the job of the media nor the people to agree with or approve of what the government does. In fact some might argue that our mandate is the exact opposite of that, to keep the government in check. Unfortunately the current government of the United States no longer seems to recognize that they work FOR the people. The set up is quite ominous now. There is a strong sense of fear in the air now about not appearing too opposed to or critical of this particular White House administration. As if it’s nearly a matter of life or death. The media for their part is still out there battling it out trying to do their job. At least some of them are. Fewer and fewer it seems.]
        And so it is now. Today is June 24th. The year is 2013. It doesn’t FEEL like the United States of America anymore. There is a palpable sense of worry and fear in the air among most people regarding the American government. As if we are in the throes of breathing our last breaths before some major final calamity. There is something terrifying and ominous about the sitting U.S. president Barack Hussein Obama. It’s not that people wish Mitt Romney were elected… (Republicans still do surely; but that isn’t what’s in the air.) It’s more like this strange dark-hearted mystery character that no one really knew too much about is starting to show his true colors… a suspicious evil is slowly leaking from his pores and Americans can sense it. One might say it’s a frightening unconscious awareness of just how wrong America got it when they jubilantly elected the man five years ago. But unfortunately it’s not just a vibrational unconscious fear at play.
        There are very specific and overt reasons for America’s pessimism and quick about-face in regards to Obama. There are so many heinous and egregious actions being taken by him and his administration both here at home and all over the globe that it’s erased any sense of hope or positivity the country once felt when he was first elected a few years ago. Unmanned drone strikes kill inumerable people all over the world without anyone knowing except the government or the people doing the killing. Along with them, other more sinister “targeted assassinations” are also being carried out now on a regular basis in what is being called “America’s Dirty Wars” in some fifty countries around the world. No congressional approval or declaration of war is necessary anymore. Obama writes a name on a piece of paper and a whole village in Yemen or Pakistan is bombed overnight, killing the man for suspected “terrorism” or even just hate-speech without an arrest or a trial AND countless innocent civilians along with him.
        It may sound outrageous, like some movie plot about a dystopian nightmare of some future fascist world, but it’s happening now. And it’s happening on a regular basis, everyday. Add to it the government’s continued attack on privacy and civil liberties — more now under the Obama administration than under the Bush/Cheney regime, their consistent attacks on media outlets, wire-tapping, giant spying programs that log ALL American citizens’ call records and internet usage without their knowledge, more arrests for minor drug possession than any other sitting president, continued torture and force feeding of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, government support and protection for giant evil monoliths such as Monsanto despite loud protests by the majority of the people, and a slow and steady devastation of the air and water from fracking by big oil companies due to a lack of regulation and a complete disregard for environmental protection laws already on the books. On and on it goes.
        This is just a random list off the top of one person’s head. With some study and research by a more knowledgeable person I am sure one would quickly become aware of many more countless harmful activities that are taking place that are not in the best interest of the American people. Unfortunately we’re not even discussing the more sinister conspiratorial issues that are at the heart of America’s downward spiral into indebtedness and decrepitude here. These are just the day to day news headlines that we live with on a daily basis now. And that’s what makes it so damn sad. Bush was scary. No one will argue with that. At least his agenda was. But this is more than scary. It’s terrifying. And sad. It feels as though America has quickly fallen into the hands of some kind of wicked police state overnight without our knowing. 
        Perhaps the worst part of it is that it appears that every time someone steps up to speak up or speak out against the U.S. government in today’s world they mysteriously die of some odd unnatural causes. Or they are hunted down like a fugitive and imprisoned and never heard from again. It’s making the Bush/Cheney years start to feel like the good old days. And that is a frightening prospect. If only it didn’t feel so true.



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Uncategorized Edward Snowden, loss of rights and civil liberties, Michael Hastings foul play, new frightening America, Obama starting to show true colors, terror state

What IS Real Music?

June 24, 2013

        Last night Vancouver and I were on the phone about the new album the band and I have been recording. I brought the hard drive that the whole album is on to his place in my suitcase when we flew to LA for the Sunset Sessions gig. Vancouver called me screaming that he had just listened to the tracks and had vomited in his mouth. He couldn’t believe how raw and rough they sounded. He especially couldn’t believe how insanely rough the drums sounded. I had told him I was bringing him “the finished tracks” so he could add all his parts. (This is a technique that is becoming more and more popular fyi for those who are not musicians. Transcendence is a band. The same band that has been touring and recording together for 11 years. Same guys. But we do presently happen to live in five different cities. All over the country. From Miami to Atlanta to New York to Seattle to Los Angeles. It’s crazy. Normally we fly to one city to record. For the basic rhythm tracks for this new album we did. But then we parted ways. I’ve been recording my guitar parts in New York and my vocal parts in Seattle. Father Bloopy (now-The Ex Norwegian) adds his bass and keys and guitars in Miami. Vancouver will add his guitars and keys and vocals in LA. All through shipping hard drives around the country. It’s a fascinating process. Sometimes if we are just doing one song, we will just fly the files over the internet. And yet the end result is still the same thing: a finished track. (the latest one I just described is about to appear in an upcoming sports film being released later in the year. We were never in the same room once together. But no one will ever know or even think about that aspect of it… They’ll either “like” the song or not. This is a side note, but it’s essence is actually pertinent to the major theme of this post.))
        Vancouver knew we had started tracking the project using v-drums triggering a multitude of high grade drum samples. It was an experiment based on several different needs at the time. Using drum samples is so common today that 98% of the music we hear on the radio is made that way. Even if the drummer of the group originally recorded his parts on real drums. Often times the mix engineer will substitute better sounding drum samples if he thinks he can improve the track or he wants it to sound more current or even if he just wants to change up the sound of the drums a bit from section to section. Again, most people don’t know this. Then again, they don’t care. They don’t think about it.
        So The Ex Norwegian and The Poet and I fill Vancouver’s head with days and days of stories about how incredible “the new stuff sounds”. And he can’t wait to power up this hard drive and listen to the tracks and start adding his parts to them. But I had brought the wrong hard drive to LA! So what he was listening to were the rough demos we did of the songs back in July of last year. He was aghast. He couldn’t believe this was our idea of “amazing sounding finished songs”. And for good reason. Demos can be notoriously shitty sounding. Even if you’re used to listening to them as we are. But he had been set up to believe he was about to sky dive over the Grand Canyon with a choir of angels or something. And instead we throw him out of the back of a plane over a garbage heap with a couple of crack whores.  
         The conversation soon turned into a debate about using drum “samples” versus “real drums”. (Drum samples are “real drums”. But they are samples of real drums. The sound itself isn’t being created there in that moment. The PART is being played live there in that moment. But the SOUND could have been created thirty years ago. Google it if you aren’t familiar with the process.) Granted, in our genre of music, rock, (pop-rock in general — ALL of the various different radio formats and genres and sub-genres included) we almost exclusively use real drums. Rock bands that is. Yes the engineer then replaces a good portion of them with what he considers “better sounding” real drum samples IF the band lets him or her do so; but the playing is all real, the feel is real, it’s human. And that’s what we the artists are used to. Again, the people, the music consuming public, has no idea that this paradigm or any debate about it one way or the other even exists.
        [It is still shocking, funny, twisted, trippy, controversial and disturbing to US, musicians, when we see an artist pretend to play live on TV with a little group of musicians behind them also pretending to play drums and bass and guitar and keyboard when we know that the album was almost entirely made on a keyboard and that those musicians were hired just to show up and pretend to be playing — their mics aren’t even turned up. It’s still an “issue” for most musicians to see that. Especially if the singer is also pretending (lip-synching).]
          The conversation got me thinking about this whole ongoing debate about what is REAL music. To be fair, it’s primarily only musicians that even think about this kind of thing. Music lovers especially casual ones don’t seem to even know the difference between what we call “real” music, i.e. traditional music instruments being played, and “non-real” music, i.e. music that is made on computers or keyboards or beat/drum machines. But as much as non-musicians don’t give a shit, musicians really give a shit. Trust me. They are ADAMANT about how important it is for music to be made on “real instruments”. Typing it here it sounds ridiculously inane and funny. I know. But believe me, it’s a subject that much passion goes into when you get a room full of musicians together.
        To my mind, though I used to agree with this sentiment and it’s taken some getting used to, I just couldn’t really rationalize it. I believe it’s a generation thing more than anything… more on that later. I couldn’t figure out why the rest of the world didnt seem to care as I and other musicians did… for example, EDM (electronic dance music) is the most popular music in the world today — if we go by certain statistics… And it is made entirely on computers — no “real” musical instruments involved. Why didn’t average everyday people care “how” this or any other music is made? I struggled with this question for years. Both as an artist and as an ardent music lover.
        As a listener I could care less how the music I love is made. I LOVE Nabukazu Takemura. Everyone knows that. he makes “blip music”. It’s just a sound or two repeated over and over — all chopped up using a laptop. For the most part. And if a band wants to go all keyboardy like Bowie did with Eno back in the mid-seventies, if i LIKED the music they produced, I didn’t care HOW they made it. But why did I care as a musician? Why did it matter to me if a band used drum samples versus real drums? Or if a guitarist used a guitar amp modeling app from a computer instead of a Vox AC30 amplifier? No matter how I tried to piece my logic together I just could not rationalize my criticism.
        So I did what all musicians should do. I continued to contemplate it and feel into it and at the same time I listened to the Top 40 — Billboard’s Hot 100 list of the “most popular songs on radio and in sales” — to try to get a better understanding of what the differences were. Truth be told, there are no differences in the bigger picture. The WAY that the music is being made may be different, but the passion and skill and sentiment behind it is still surprisingly the same. That’ s why the average music listener or even the aficionado doesn’t care or even notice. To them it’s just MUSIC: a feeling and/or a thought expressed through the filter of the art and craft of music. They either vibe with it or they don’t.
        I kept on listening to popular music. Not just the popular music that I perceived that I “liked”. But ALL popular music. Studying. Learning. (I will grant anyone that the lyrics to 99% of popular music suck. That is, they just don’t offer anything intelligent, meaningful or new. AND that popular music is for the most part ingratiatingly repetitive. Not only within the construct of the same song, but from song to song and artist to artist — they all sound phenomenally similar. As if ONE artist made them all rather than 100 different artists (on the Hot 100 list for example). These are valid viewpoints. As valid as a purely subjective viewpoint can be that is. Most people share them. (this is a false and illogical attempt to rationalize a viewpoint, i.e. “everybody feels this way…” I know that). But to be fair, these aren’t new ideas. Many people have this complaint about pop music. This is why the majority of popular music is geared towards and consumed and enjoyed by young people between the ages of 10 to 18; and why most people move beyond pop music once they reach a certain age. They are searching for more meaning, for something new, for more intelligence and variety lyrically, etc.
        One thing to bear in mind though is that we as young people don’t listen to popular music because we like it or dislike it. We listen to it to be a part of a scene. To feel a part of something bigger than we are. Because most people — or at least the perceived majority of people we come into contact with in school when young — listen to whatever is being played on pop music radio and TV, we tune in in order to have knowledge of it and to share in that collective experience. Black sheep and outsiders, like myself when I was younger, do the exact same thing by taking an opposite approach. We fit into and become a part of a different scene by refusing to listen to what is popular on the radio and instead join a smaller niche group where everyone does that. But our primary goal often times at that age is just to be a part of something big due to our limited access and mobility.
        So yes, popular music does have it’s limitations as mentioned above. Few would argue with these distinctive markers of popular music. There is only so much one can listen to songs exclusively about dancing, drinking, falling in love, making money and fucking to a 4/4 rhythm set to 120 beats per minute. I grant the music snobs that.) 
        But I did and do find a lot of the music that is popular today and has been since the beginning of the “popular music” concept first developed remarkably entertaining and intriguing. So I have continued to listen. Genre and format and “how it’s made” be damned. It finally hit me one day while taking a walk outside to get some fresh air. It really shouldn’t come down to “what instrument” is used to make music. As long as its “good music”. Meaning that “we like it”. Music like all art is completely subjective. Our perceived like or dislike of it IS purely subjective. So too is our transparent judgment of what makes it good or bad. Those are just terms we use to reflect what we like or don’t like. This idea of course drives so-called music snobs CRAZY. They will scream and argue till they’re blue and pass out that there IS a difference between “good and bad” music. That they can somehow qualify it. But they’d be lying; to whoever they’re arguing with and to themselves. (It’s much like the visual art world in that aspect…. What makes a valuable painting versus one that sells for $1 at a yard sale?)
        If we discovered a another species of conscious beings from another planet or solar system entirely who knew nothing about out music or how it is made and we played them a wide variety of music that has been created on planet earth over the last fifty years, they would have NO idea what we consider good or bad. They would have their own opinion and feelings about it. The last thing they would probably think about would be “what instrument is that song being played on?” They just wouldn’t care because it wouldn’t occur to them to care. 
        So whats to stop regular folk from worshiping the music of the Black Eyed Peas? or Drake? or Usher? or JT? or Kesha? Or anyone else they happen to love…? The same way musicians tend to love The Beatles or The Doors or Led Zeppelin or The Boss? So what if Kanye and Jay Z make their music on little MPC beat boxes or laptops or keyboards as opposed to on traditional musical instruments? Isn’t that MORE inventive and innovative in a way? I began to see that perhaps it was. After all, any 13 year old can pick up a guitar and learn to play a power chord well enough once some overdrive is added to make it sound “cool/hip/authentic/real” and write a “song”. But these new music makers (and they aren’t really new anymore –(that’s what I meant about this being a generational thing…) are pioneers in their quest to make music withOUT any traditional musical instruments. We can no longer use the term “real instrument” because what IS a REAL musical instrument? I would assert that it is ANYthing that one can make music on. So we are reduced logically to calling them what they are: traditional musical instruments, versus just “musical instruments”.
         I began to see that the only reason we care is because we are musicians. It matters to us… For a variety of reasons. Sure. And there’s nothing wrong with that. What’s wrong is when these musicians use this idea to justify insulting or criticizing the music that others make just because they don’t make it the same way that they do. Their true claim, their only claim, is that “they aren’t making it using traditional music instruments”. But what does that really matter? It’s a principle issue. And all because of this illogical reason of “principle”, many musicians are willing to ignore entire social trends of modernization and progress transpiring all around them in the art and music world.
        Some call these types “traditionalists”. We’ve all heard the term before. In a variety of contexts. I’ve never liked tradition myself. I’ve spent my whole life trying to avoid it at all costs. Rock ‘n’ roll certainly didn’t start off traditional. It was all about bucking the system and breaking with tradition. What’s with this small group of close minded musicians who refuse to accept the various new methods and processes that their contemporaries are using to create music with? It’s an odd anomaly when you consider it.
        I used to belong to this group until recently. I don’t want to mislead or misrepresent. I have always been open to ANY kind of music, purity or tradition be damned; as a listener. I liked what I liked and that was that. But as a musician I must confess to playing the music snob millions of times when critiquing other musicians. Why now I don’t really know. But that is pre-epiphany. The whole paradigm has changed for me now. I find music snobs annoying. The funny thing is that there are so many little sets and subsets of music snobs in every category of music, all claiming that the music that they like is the “best” or “only real” music. It’s ridiculous. Pair up the classical music snobs against the indie rock snobs against the classic rock snobs and let them verbally duke it out for a few days or weeks. They’ll eventually realize they’re all saying the same thing based on early-adopted transparent beliefs that have no justification and make friends and laugh it off, or they’re most likely mentally or emotionally challenged and we shoulnd’t be entertaining adult dialogues with them in the first place.
        After all, it’s this same group who 70 years ago protested against the “electrified guitar” versus a “real guitar”, or 100 years ago complained about the switch from classical to pop composition not being “real music”. Ten years ago you wouldn’t catch a “real musician” recording “real music” into a computer (rather than onto analog tape) even if they were dead. Five years ago it was “they suck; they use autotune!” Now who in their right mind releases music withOUT autotune??? Perhaps only people who don’t want to make living from making music. All of these distinctions eventually become arbitrary and archaic because society continues to move forward without us unless we r willing to keep up and embrace what it is we r actually doing: making popular music, i.e. making music that is popular with the masses as our job. To make our living.
         It took me a while but I actually love technology in music now and see no difference between a great guitarist or a great loop or beat creator. About eight years ago, I watched for the first time this DJ kid take our music — as we were creating it in the studio on acoustic instruments — and import it into his laptop every night and come up with the most insanely catchy “new” music from it by the time we arrived in the morning. Like totally new songs… The result can be heard on our All Your Heroes Become Villains album from 2011. We combined what we did and what he did to create an absolutely thrilling sound. It was like he had a whole different aesthetic and artform to music making than we did. Yet he was using OUR music… but making it all on his laptop. It was wild.  He couldn’t play a note on a guitar or piano. But he could talk music and he understood music just as well as any of us did. [An interesting note: Our nomenclature is also different. Artists like him, Moby, David Guetta, Skrillex, Akufen, Jam and Lewis, Kanye, Mark Ronson, et al. DO have an entirely different way of speaking about music. They might not refer to notes and chords in the traditional sense. It may take traditional musicians some time to learn the vernacular of their style of music making, but the final result — what everyone is going for — is the same.]
         I have heard so many musicians over the last ten years attempt to qualify why and how their music is better because they play an instrument versus those who don’t. They use terms like genuine or organic or authentic. But I believe that all those terms are more indicative of something mysterious inherent in the soul of the music rather than in how it’s made. I have worked with too many “musicians” now who don’t play a traditional instrument but they still believe they are organically creating “music” and so too do their fans. The DJ guys and beat maker guys. It’s just a new form of music… It sprang up around us all while we were digging rock music. So maybe we missed it. But I’ve watched them. They’re doing the same thing we are. Just on different instruments. It’s a trip. It’s glorious. Their inspiration is the same. Their commitment to purity and greatness. They know no different than how they make music. They never thought “hey I’m going to try to create music NOT on a traditional instrument. They take it for granted that that’s how you make music. Just as many “rock” musicians know no difference. But it’s all music.
        I look at it this way now: If an artist comes out one day whose main instrument is a cardboard shoebox and whale samples (weirder things have happened) and he finds a way to make it sound cool and it catches on and people like it, there is really NO way that someone can rationalize saying it’s “bad music” — just because it’s created on a shoebox and not a “real instrument”. They can try. But they’d just be spinning their wheels. No one would care. The song is already at #1 and now inspiring a whole new generation of kids to go find old shoeboxes and write hit songs on them. And THAT’S the real beauty of music/art. 



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Uncategorized authentic music, Daft Punk, drum loops, drum samples, Guetta, Kanye, Mark Ronson, Moby, Music, Real music, sampled music is not real or genuine, Skrillex, using samples in music, v-drums

“Monday” music video by Ed Hale and the Transcendence

June 22, 2013

Music video for the song “Monday” by Ed Hale and the Transcendence from the album THE GREAT MISTAKE

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Music Videos ed hale, Monday, Transcendence

James Gandolfini and the 8 Foods We Eat in America That Are Banned in Other Countries

June 21, 2013

The news that Sopranos actor James Gandolfini had died on Wednesday hit most Americans with at least a little surprise. Death does that. It’s so permanent. As sad as the event is to some, if not everyone, (especially those close to the man one assumes), there was an odd sense of something uncannily not surprising about it.

(I only met Gandolfini once. We shared a pleasant three hours together with a few other guys smoking cigars in Midtown Manhattan a few years ago. Though I would not classify us as being close, he was as nice a chap as anyone else you’d want to hang out with.) Wednesday’s news could have been about anyone. In fact it was. James Gandolfini was after all just another one of the many thousands of people who die everyday. And lest we forget, approximately every four seconds someone on planet earth dies from hunger or thirst alone; in addition to all the people who pass on from accidents or natural causes.

The only reason this event received more attention than the ten to fifteen souls who died in the last sixty seconds while I was writing this will is because of America’s insanely hard to rationalize obsession with Hollywood celebrities. There’s no logic in it. No anthropological undercurrent of genetic or survival instincts at play. It’s just a very strange disorder of priorities, most likely created by the evolution of American society into a thrill, luxury and pleasure seeking society as opposed to a day to day survival based one.

As I expressed through various social media a few moments after we heard the news, the biggest take away from Gandolfini’s death — besides the obvious empathy for his family, is just how young he was. Because life expectancy continues to increase as knowledge of health and wellness information expands and technology advances, 51 years today is what 31 used to be. Most men aren’t even peaking in life yet in many Western and even Asian cultures. It’s a terribly young age to die, as in the forever kind of death. In this regard its shocking and more than sad. Though for those who knew Gandolfini even from a distance it wasn’t the craziest thing ever heard. He certainly didn’t look 51. Personally I thought he was closer to 65. Not that that would be any less disturbing. 65 may have been a ripe old age to die once upon a time but these days it seems just plain tragic. The man did appear to be much older than he was and he certainly didn’t appear to be healthy or even health conscious or concerned.

This got me to thinking about what a strange place the United States is in regards to our beloved capitalism and our health. On the one hand we pride ourselves on possessing one of the most liberal free markets in the world today, i.e. very few rules laws and regulations and thus an easy environment to make a ton of money in fast. On the other hand this has led us to simultaneously have one of the most inhumane and criminal set of circumstances and practices related to the public health. America is one of the only “civilized” or “first world” countries in the world where people can still be notoriously dishonest with each other to the point of killing each other in the name of making money. Whether it’s poison food or deadly drugs and so-called medicines or environmental toxins in our air and water, it ain’t hard to get away with committing alarmingly egregious acts in the name of business and free enterprise.

I’ve said it before but it’s worth repeating. There is no way the average person in America could grow up here and raise a family and know how to live a healthy lifestyle unless they actually do a ton of research on their own and are willing to almost entirely buck the system and go against the status quo. If you just live your life doing what everyone else does or what you see illustrated in the mainstream or recommended by the medical establishment you’re bound to get sick and die of unnatural causes. This is primarily due to the legal bribery and blackmail system that governs and controls the United States White House and Congress; they call it “lobbying”. 99% of Americans don’t even realize this is how the government works (or doesn’t work better put), so they don’t understand that there is a problem to fix. They assume everything is okay, safe, secure, been set up already, and all they have to do is follow the rules and they’ll be fine. Little do we all know.

Only in America can you manufacture and sell poison food and get away with it while being fully aware that 1 out of 3 people will get cancer but be fine with it because “everybody does it.” Below is an interesting article on 8 poisonous foods that Americans consume daily but are banned in other countries. You can see the list by clicking here.
And this list though shocking is actually pretty slim compared to the reality. It just touches the surface. Americans are so accustomed with the notion that most people get cancer and heart disease and Alzheimer’s that they take it for granted. They seem to believe that these diseases are “natural causes”. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

There’s more. Much more. Because the practice extends way beyond our food. It’s the environment. The air. The water. Over the counter medicines and toiletries. Prescription medications. Doctors and the health care system. Everywhere you look you see blatant causes of America’s leading causes of illness, premature aging and untimely death. And though there is common knowledge about these facts within the industries that produce these goods and provide these practices and within the government, the knowledge is not shared with the people because it would limit the amount of money that tens of thousands of American companies could generate unless they changed their business procedures and practices or their entire business model.

This would hurt the economy we are told. We have always been told this since the invention of invention and commerce. It’s the oldest excuse in the world. And yet it is firmly held belief by many. A rallying cry of big and little business across the board. Fluoride is a great example. Cows milk is another. On and on. So for now, as things stand, each and every person in the States needs to look out for their own health and wellness and yet of their family. No federal agency or sitting president or mainstream media outlet or medical doctor is going to advise us to not grill meat because it causes cancer or not drink diet soda because it has been proven to make one MORE obese and cause brain tumors. This is all information one has to find out for themselves. It’s unfortunate for the James Gandolfinis of the world. Whether they’re famous actors or just good old fashioned regular folk.



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Uncategorized America, banned foods, James Gandolfini, nutrition

Fracking Means We’re Fucked

June 19, 2013

It’s well past midnight. But I can’t sleep. I heard about Josh Fox’s documentary on hydrolic fracturing, better known as fracking, from Bill Maher. (Say what one will about the ever vigilant pornography loving, womanizing, pot smoking, religious hating, ultra-liberal, potty-mouthed late night talk show host, but the man is smart, funny and one of only a handful of people in the American entertainment industry intelligent enough to not be willing to sell out and at the same time stay committed to somehow making valuable issues topical in our modern highly degraded and degenerate society. Leno, Fallon, Kimmel, and the rest of them, even Letterman unfortunately, only add to the collective garbage that spews forth into America’s polluted mass consciousness with their focus on meaningless celebrity, pranks, and the usual irrelevant non-news bites of the day.

I’ve been watching the documentary entitled GASLAND based on Maher’s recommendation for the last hour and half. It is late and I am tired.

[Editor’s Note: Over the last few weeks I have started to get a substantial intuitive feeling that it is no longer enough to simply post and share on the social networks such as Facebook and Twitter that we all know and love and depend on for the latest and greatest. It came first as an intuitive hit, sometimes I call them voices, or visions; no words or even thoughts that can be translated into words except very basic generalities… something to the effect of “I wonder if posting to social media rather than the more traditional blog is actually hurting the cause more than helping…. then more as thought-clouds… frequent thought bubbles would appear in my brain about the subject. How many people actually see a post? What if it’s an important post? Something that everyone should be aware of? How many other posts and status updates is that one post competing with? And worst of all, hashtags and all, it’s still damn hard to FIND information on social media without a lot of work, and impossible to bookmark or save it. So sure putting something up on Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr gets it out there “fast” and it sure is easy for us… but how many people does it actually reach? Even when you have a fanbase in the tens of thousands or millions…? Furthermore, once a post is a few days old, it tends to hit the proverbial bottom of the barrel, seems no longer relevant; hell, it’s no longer even visible to most people except for the real hardcore deep diggers and bottom dwellers. But how many of us are like that these days in this age of too much information..? No, posting to social media may have temporarily seemed like the quick fix we all wanted so we wouldn’t have to keep posting to our blogs and all the upkeep cost and maintenance necessary to keep them, but it just isn’t going to work in the long run for hardcore lifetime information providers or artists and content creators. So we’re back to blogging now, pretty much everything minus only the most mundane items, with auto-feeds going into Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr to alert non-subscribers. Hell, this should be a blog post on its own. But fuck it, if you’re reading this, now you know. Heed it. It’s only get worse. If your message is important, get it back into a blog format. Don’t just rely on social media. It’s just too damned overloaded.] End of Editor’s Note

In 2005 Bush/Cheney passed their Energy Act, a law that allows all oil and natural gas companies (using Haliburton technology, Cheney the former CEO) drilling for oil and natural gas in the US to be exempt from all the previous 1970’s laws that protected our air, water, environment and even our drinking water. This was illegal for thirty years prior to their passing of this ludicrous and criminal law. It made anyone drilling for oil or natural gas in America to NOT have to be bound by or abide by the Clean Drinking Water Act, the Natural Water act and the Clean Air act. In other words, they can do whatever they want to the air or water in the US when fracking or drilling and not be regulated, or fined or even scientifically researched. “WTF???” you might ask. Yeah, me too. When I first heard it I thought maybe I was having a flashback and kept rubbing my eyes… surely I misheard that. So I rewound and watched and listened again. Nope. Got it right the first time. feeling irritated. But it only gets worse.

       There are 596 chemicals — the majority of which are poison to the air, water and the environment — that are used in #fracking fluid that is pumped underground in over 450,000 wells in 30 states across the United States currently. This is happening NOW. #Mindblowing. Colorado, Texas, Kansas, Wyoming, Pensyvania, Louisiana, on and on. And it’s only getting worse. This documentary was made in 2010 for God’s sake. God only knows how much worse it’s gotten since this was made. One of the most devastating aspects of the whole situation is that one of Dick Cheney’s many milestone achievements while he was in the White House, along with covert spying, torture, and mass killings in the Middle East, was convincing the powers that be to allow oil and natural gas drilling on PUBLIC LANDS. All those millions of acres that Teddy Roosevelt preserved in the United States to save generations to come — land that belongs to every legal U.S. citizen — are now now being destroyed from fracking.

I don’t want to go into a lot of the details here. That’s one of the benefits of his new age. There’s no need. Suffice it to say: GO FIND A WAY TO WATCH FILM CALLED GASLAND. Do it today. Make your whole family watch it. That spouse of yours, the one who’s all “I’m not into that kind of stuff” — male or female, make them watch it anyway. Force them if you have to. It’s that important.

The truth is that this isn’t even a debatable issue anymore. It’s not something that needs more research or exploration. It’s more like already a freaking disaster that’s already happened. Even in large cities like Dallas / Ft. Worth — one of the worst places hit by it, some parts now deserted, people all sick and dying. It’s beyond discussing or debating. It’s already a public health and environmental disaster. I’m more than irritated. I’m sad but more than sad. I’m angry but more than angry. Can’t really describe what I’m feeling yet. Overwhelmed maybe. Over it. Like “it’s time to seriously consider where we are going to move now and start planning on when” over it. America is fucked if this continues.

You’ll have to see the film for yourself and then start studying it. Study the numbers up above. Consider that all this natural shale that is underneath half the United States that they are drilling into or want to is surrounded by lakes and rivers and streams. We are talking about doing something here that cannot be undone. A catastrophe so mammoth that we may destroy half or more of one of the most beautiful countries on planet earth. And ruin it’s natural water supply. Basically the best way to look at it is this: for those who live in any of these states where fracking is already taking place, they’re screwed. They’ll get sick and the survivors will soon realize that they have to move. Big cities will get bigger. Smaller cities will turn into big cities. And that’s really just the beginning. There is no governmental oversight on any of this because of Cheney making it all exempt from any kind of oversight, so as one of the higher-ups at the EPA said “We need to be investigating this and we know it. But we need to be directed to investigate it first. And so far we have not been directed to investigate it. No matter how many nightmare stories we hear of people getting sick or being able to light their tap water on fire etc… We are presently being told that it is out of our jurisdiction.”

Funny. So if protecting clean air, drinking water, and the environment that is being poisoned all over the United States is out of the jurisdiction of the EPA, then who’s jurisdiction is it in exactly? Right? Well that’s the catch. No one’s. Like I said, we’re fucked. Belize anyone? Italy? See ya there soon. Ciao.



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Uncategorized cancer, dangers of fracking, environmental damage, fracking, Gasland, health damage, hydraulic fracturing, importance of posting to blogs rather than social media, Josh Fox, natural gas

Why Promote Your Status Update? Exploring the Personal Expression Age

June 18, 2013

I now notice that Facebook is offering a Promote button on personal profiles, where for a few quid more you can advert your status updates to receive more attention/exposure. (I’ve promised a new blog entry to The Transcendence Diaries daily from now on, as in days of old, so if any status update goes beyond 4 lines I turn it into a blog btw. Standby and we’ll see what happens here…) Point being that this new trend compels one to realize that the world is quickly jumping to a “whoever has the most money gets the most attention” model, (in point of fact it is actually swerving damn fast towards “whoever has the most money gets ALL the attention” — but this jumps the gun a bit) even on traditionally free platforms such as social media. Of course there is the “whoever makes the biggest arse of themselves that day” model as there’s always been, but that’s usually just good for the requisite “fifteen minutes (now fifteen seconds) of fame” type of exposure; in one ear and out the other faster than that pregnant mom of eight sea-monkeys in Kenosha, Wisconsin can find a crack publicist who’ll take her on for a three month stint.

In general the prediction made in the book We Are the Revolution — Welcome to the Personal Expression Age about the coming trend of “the commoditization of the individual, of every individual” as a Signature of the age, is slowly inching toward becoming a very solidified reality in Western culture and thus globally. (Even the most ardent despisers of all things American still recognize that, one, in order to make a big splash financially one normally has to make it in the USA, and two, that in terms of cultural perception of mainstream success on a global scale, “making it in the US” is still the benchmark of how successful one is perceived to be). But that’s subtext.

The bigger picture point is that if regular everyday folk using social media to communicate mundane daily activities with friends, classmates, family and neighbors are now being encouraged to “Promote” their status updates for no obvious or immediate economic benefit, what’s next? [Okay so now this is where we switch to a cut and paste from this Facebook status update to a blog entry usually, which despite my aversion to the extra work involved and a deep seated though irrational longing to just stay right here and keep typing, I will now do. Here we go. That’s better.]

In order to answer this ‘what’s next’ question perhaps it would be helpful to remind ourselves of the primary driver, and trigger, of this new Age of Personal Expression, i.e. we’ve now entered an era where growing up moderately healthy and successful — doing well in school, graduating from college, getting married, buying a house of your own, having 2.5 kids, retiring by age 65 with a decent pension — is no longer enough to fulfill the average human being’s need for personal gratification, satisfaction or validation.

The need to be publicly acknowledged and/or recognized through Personal Expression (PE) of nearly any and all means necessary (or available) has replaced the more traditional forms of personal satisfaction. Becoming public, becoming a public sensation, even if for a brief moment, has become the new “got married, had a kid, just earned my Masters or bought my first house, etc.”; UNLESS any of those events happens to make it easier for someone to “draw a crowd” or gain more access to the plethora of perceived public attention that appears available now to anyone, i.e. if getting married can be perceived as being a unique form of Personal Expression that may garner one more attention than the average bear, then that event is still perceived by the person to be a major life moment worth investing in.

If not, then it feels plain, ordinary, pedestrian and therefore might not be as exciting as endeavoring to attempt something else that feels more authentically PE; at least and especially while one is young and still believes themselves to have plenty of good years left, (or old and feels like they’ve already “been there done that” with the more traditional vehicles of personal satisfaction mentioned above). [This is a deliberately short synopsis of a much larger paradigm explored fully in the book, but it should suffice in order to follow the main point(s) of this blog entry.]

From where we sit now — nine years into the research of this age and the book that explores it — the above summarizes both the primary continuous driver of the age AND the primary trigger that got us here in the first place. So, with the “commoditization of the individual” Signature now starting to trend in real time, e.g. “Promote your status update or Tweet to your friends to “let people know it’s important”” [a direct quote from Facebook June 18th, 2013], which costs money, it is clear that our global society as a whole is definitely heading toward a “whoever has the most money gets the most attention” or better put, “whoever has the most money gets all the attention” model of day to day life. And yet ordinary folks with no financial or career-goal gain to be had from going more public will still feel compelled to participate in such activities such as promoting their status updates or tweets or anything they can think of in order to garner more public attention, even if it just means among their local community or friends group.

The truth is that most people will never gain much of anything from such an action. One promoted status update or tweet in this overcrowded marketplace of pseudo-celebrities (another Signature of the Personal Expression Age) does not a celebrity make. And yet because of the two primary factors triggering, allowing and continuing this trend — the relatively new longing of the average individual to feel famous, and the corporate greed that creates the technological platforms to make the fulfillment of that desire or at least the perception of it available — people will still jump at the chance. Facebook will bring in tens of millions of dollars in extra revenue this year from regular everyday Joes being willing to pay for the perception that “more people saw their promoted status update”. No one is claiming that Facebook will not in some way “promote these paid status updates” to a larger target audience than if one didn’t pay to promote it. That isn’t the implication. Nor the point.

The intriguing takeaway is that people will do it in the first place; and the fact that someone who works at Facebook actually had the idea in the first place — and furthermore that someone else higher up actually thought it was a valid enough experiment to at least try. It is a clear indication that we have now passed the threshold in mass consciousness of understanding the undercurrent drivers of the Personal Expression Age — they are beginning to be taken for granted — AND have reached the first stage of a global trend toward the Commoditization of the Individual en masse.

More later. Much more. Just thoughts in the moment.



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Uncategorized commoditization of the individual, facebook, social media, status update, the harm of promoting status updates

A private little world for me… a private little world for you. The online journals and musings of singer-songwriter author and activist Ed Hale. The Transcendence Diaries have been posting regularly online since 2001. Comments are always welcomed. And so are YOU.

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