Jim Alfredson

OCD winning.

Not much to be said here.

If she does have B.O. she can just pray!

James Randi FTW.

His hypothesis is exaggerated (the dumbing down process has been going on for a lot longer than 2004) but the article is witty and the list at the end is spot on. What's the last book you read?

https://medium.com/@thatdavidhopkins/how-a-tv-sitcom-triggered-the-downfall-of-western-civilization-336e8ccf7dd0#.ymena23n8

'The New Jim Crow' is an eye-opening book. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend that you do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJnEQCMA5Sg

Ugh. Waking up to the news of the attacks in Brussels. The perpetrators are nothing but cowards. That's all I can say right now.

To go along with my new 192kHz audio interface, I just bought a Super-HD video monitor that outputs "extended visual range frequencies" including x-rays and gamma rays. My hair is falling out but it looks SO much better than regular 1080p HD video.

I just sent Sen. Mitch McConnell an email via his website. It took everything I had not to include the phrase "you worthless pile of elephant feces in the shape of a human turtle" after I asked him to do his job and allow Obama's nominee(s) for the SCOTUS to have a fair hearing.

Playing Scooters in Flint with Greg Nagy, Glenn Giordano, David Uricek, and Ray Goodman. 7pm.

I'm obsessed with this record lately. If you don't have this, you need it. Future of jazz organ on this bad boy. Brian Charette is the BOSS.

Where you is? You should be here with us at Gina's Jazz & Soul Food in Detroit!

Playing the Wilson Center in St Johns tonight with Jim Cooper on vibes and Jeff Shoup on drums. 7pm

Get some of that sweet caysh and put it to work for YOU!

Get some of that sweet caysh and put it to work for YOU!

"Distressingly, it’s exactly routine work that once formed the basis of the American middle class. It’s routine manual work that Henry Ford transformed by paying people middle class wages to perform, and it’s routine cognitive work that once filled US office spaces. Such jobs are now increasingly unavailable, leaving only two kinds of jobs with rosy outlooks: jobs that require so little thought, we pay people little to do them, and jobs that require so much thought, we pay people well to do them.

If we can now imagine our economy as a plane with four engines, where it can still fly on only two of them as long as they both keep roaring, we can avoid concerning ourselves with crashing. But what happens when our two remaining engines also fail? That’s what the advancing fields of robotics and AI represent to those final two engines, because for the first time, we are successfully teaching machines to learn."

Matt Tecu, this is for you.

The main problem with a wide swath of the American public and perhaps the human race in general is not necessarily intellectual stupidity (though there's plenty of that to go around) but more destructively emotional stupidity. In other words, a lack of empathy and compassion. Which is ironic considering the majority of people consider themselves members of a faith that is supposed to be built around empathy and compassion.

Fear seems to override all of that, however; the reptilian, fight or flight part of our brain that reacts automatically to perceived danger which is the manifestation of not being in control of your own life. This leads to stigmatization and demonization of large groups of people for being 'different' while glorifying those like ourselves, those stuck in the same morass, as we scapegoat the 'others' in a feeble attempt to exert power in the face of our own powerlessness.

It takes more than book smarts to see through the ruse, a ruse that dishonest leaders, businessmen, entertainers, marketers, etc. use to their own advantage. It takes self-awareness and self-control as well as self-confidence. But more importantly it takes emotional intelligence.

Powerful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlsPcYFYaG0

Hey look, one charlatan endorses another.

A beautiful piece (if unfortunately on a site that looks like it was made in Netscape in 1992) from Dave Stewart (Egg, National Health, Hatfield & The North, Bill Bruford) on Keith Emerson.

http://www.davebarb.com/dsbgemerson.html

organissimo is about to hit at the SpeakEZ Lounge in Grand Rapids. 7pm to 10pm.

Snuggling on the couch with my girls the other night.

More thoughts on Emerson: It's really easy to dismiss ELP as the pinnacle of everything that went wrong with progressive rock in the 70s and how the excess and pretentiousness of the prog scene ushered in punk rock. And there is certainly some truth in that. I was teased mercilessly in middle and high school for being into ELP. They were NOT cool at that time.

But you know what's harder to admit? That those three kids (and they were kids at the time of their debut album... Palmer was 20 years old, Keith and Greg only 26 and 25 respectively) made some incredible music with passion and creativity and experimentation and audacity and freedom and yes, ridiculous chops. And they were unabashed about it. "Yeah, motherfuckers, I can play classical music and I'm a rock star and I'm going to be loud and in your face and play a synthesizer the size of your goddamn car. And when I'm done, I'm going to write a concerto and perform it while spinning end over end on a concert grand piano in front of a stadium of fans. Fuck you." What's more punk than that?

RIP Keith Emerson.