You’ll notice few if any comments on this site. Occasionally, it’s because, well… nobody comments! But usually it’s because I don’t ‘approve’ them. And the reason is simple: as a rule, I don’t like how they usually work out.

Don’t get me wrong. I think the concept is fantastic. And I love it when there is a real discussion of most any topic. But the Comments section never seems to work out like that; not on this site and rarely on other sites I frequent regardless of the sites popularity or imprimature. (Wanna see some real food fights? Just check out the New York Times blogs! If they can’t have a civil engagement, I sure ain’t got a snowball’s chance in heck.)

And even when the comments aren’t spam, they are rather like the Facebook ‘wall’—just random ‘shout-outs’. But the only purpose of that for most sites is simple ‘SEO’—increasing ‘page-ranking’.

So please do use the comments to send me a note. I read and respond promptly to anyone who takes the […]

N.B. It has been pointed out recently that if possible, I am ranting even more psychotically than usual. I blame it on the weather… which in Seattle and Dublin has been the most crappest in perhaps a century. There hasn’t been more than 48 hours of straight FUCKIN’ SUN all year. And I can’t take much more of this. Even the littlest things drive me nuts. For example, right now some schmuck conductor is waving his arms and taking the Brandenburg #5 -way- too fast and I want to find him and stick his snippy little baton right up his ARSE for ruining my Chi. This whole global warming thing has come at a really inconvenient moment and I’m fairly well put out.

I can no longer hide it: I hate Harry Potter. Always have. I’ve tried to avoid coming out about it, but I can’t take it any more. I rant a lot about the decline of culture and the whole Nietschean weakening of humanity. And yeah, people like […]

I just happened to look in the paper last Wednesday and look who’s in town? Milton Nascimento! So off I go to Jazz Alley to see some live music. Which happens for me now… oh, the phrase ‘once in a blue moon’ comes to mind.  So why drop everything for this particular guy? Well, that’s the whole point of this little essay, now isn’t it?

Well, first off,  the word ‘legend’ is now something of a joke due to overuse, but Nascimento is truly that. I think it’s fair to say that he is to Brazilian popular music what Miles Davis was to jazz: a guy who maintained the highest level of musical integrity, reached a vast audience far beyond his home genre and who was able to really incorporate a number of other genre’s holistically into his work as he went. And to me—it’s that last part that makes Milton totally ‘prog’.

I first encountered Milton in 1980 […]

The other day I was listening to the local NPR station (I’m being purposely vague, simply because I don’t want this to come across as a schpritz against the individuals or the institution. The points I wish to raise are generic.)

Moving right along. So the generic local events host was chatting with the generic local movie reviewer and he was recommending to her a DVD TV series that had just been released (apparently there a new Dr. Who emerged from The Tardis.) And he just happens to mention how he had ‘loved it since he first saw it last year.’ Which the show host thought was odd because—get this, the movie reviewer is quite fond of mentioning that he disdains ownership of a TV (trés Seattle.) So, she happens to wonder… how does the guy watch the show a year before it’s released on DVD? Bittorent of course. And what was intriguing is how off-handed he was about it. If the generic show host hadn’t mentioned it (delicately of course–one […]

I remember reading a while back about studies in human compatibility based on ‘smell’. Apparently, members of the opposite sex are attracted by smell. It’s a dirty little secret (no pun intended) that this overrides the higher faculties. People will be attracted to potential partners based on their smell because (apparently) the smell communicates a lot of potential info on your IQ, strength, health, etc; in other words, stuff that really contributes to compatibility.

And though Coco Chanel rises from the grave to object, from an evolutionary perspective, the key benefit of slathering on eau de whatever is that the smell will mask your natural odor and thus make you acceptable to a wider array of partners. Of course now that we have on-line dating, we can mask who we really are without everyone else having to endure Axe Body Spray. But I digress.

TEMPO COMPATIBILITY

It’s taken me a long time to realise that there must be something like this in musical courtships—as well as ongoing relationships. And I’ve decided that […]