Hatred & opportunism go down to defeat at Ground Zero

Ground Zero, where the Towers fell on 9/11, is--ought to be treated as--as sacred site: a place where we are all to be reminded of the pointless loss and human suffering that hatred and political opportunism can create. It was thus particularly contemptible when Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Palin, and a raft of hateful right-wing nutjob political and media hacks, campaigned against the building of a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero: as if no Muslim suffered and died in the Towers that day! What arrogance!

So I was really, really happy to get this note from the J Street folks who are working to create more effective interfaith dialogue [redacted].

The best part?

The embrace.

Dr Coyote --

Yesterday, J Street New York City supporters and I delivered over 10,000 of your signatures in support of the Islamic Center in Lower Manhattan to a critical hearing of New York City's Landmarks Preservation Commission.

The response by our community to our call to action on this issue was overwhelming and demonstrated that J Street supporters clearly understand that tolerance and religious freedom are not only essential values, but that sacrificing them weakens us in the fight against extremism.

And I've got great news -- despite the outcry against the project, the Commission voted 9-0 to allow it to proceed.

Yesterday, after the vote, Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave a stirring defense of the project and religious freedom on Governor's Island with the Statue of Liberty in the background.

Mayor Bloomberg was joined by a group of interfaith leaders as he gave his remarks in front of the Statue of Liberty:

Every local official I spoke with at the hearing truly appreciated our support for the project.

I also had an emotional moment with the Community Center's lead developer -- Sharif El-Gamal -- who couldn't help but give me a hug, even though we'd never met before!

For those of you that stood with us, thank you so much. Our voices are so needed in the national political debate and within the American Jewish community.

If you would like to support J Street financially, allowing us to keep standing up for our values, click here to make a gift.

Until next time,

- Isaac

Isaac Luria
V.P., Communications and New Media
J Street
August 4, 2010

Give thanks and praise: Beryl Marriott

A damned shame. Beryl Marriott was one of the greatest English-style ceilidh-band pianists. She gave Dave Swarbrick his first fiddle gigs, and she ruled on his great solo discs Swarbrick and Smiddyburn.

We owe her a lot.

Great moments from The Wire

...as if any moments from the The Wire weren't great ones, but still:

I love that the smartest police on the whole team, Clark Peters's masterful Lester Freamon, has the most diverse drinking habits: from one show to another he drinks Jameson, Guinness (in the nitrogen bottle, thereby confirming that Lester knows an American pour sucks), and Red Stripe (Jamaica).

The point is that Lester is the best police on the team because he pays attention to details and never loses patience or gives up. If you can't pay attention to your beer you probably can't pay attention to a wiretap either.

Nice touch.

"Music is the weapon of the future" --Fela Kuti

Fela Kuti said that. In this performance, the great Hugh Masekela, who wrote the song for the magnificent stage show Sarafina!, about the children-led protests of the Soweto Riots, proves it.

I was playing this song, with my brother-in-music Dr Jolt, in Bloomington IN, in Jif & the Choosy Mothers, the night that Nelson Mandela walked out of prison, after twenty-seven years.



As Andy Irvine said, "You all have to sing very very loud, because fascists are very very deaf."

Gandhi said: "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win."

And, to paraphrase the great Emma Goldman, we going to be dancing all the way.

"Engaged and Integrated Scholar"

Requested responses to university Provost's "Engaged and Integrated Scholars" series feature. Surprising how much more honest you can be when you've got tenure:

1. What is your research objective/interest(s)?

Interests:
American and African-American Music, 20th Century Music, Irish traditional music and other folk musics and cultures, improvisation, music and politics, performance practice, historical performance.
Objectives:
To do work as a research scholar which enriches historical understanding, empowers communities, and overcomes cultural boundaries.

2. How do you feel your research impacts the globe?

In my research, I am a proponent of Patrick Geddes's dictum to "Think globally, but act locally". I believe scholars should recognize wider impact and responsibility for their work, not only within their own disciplines, but also as part of wider research communities and, indeed, as part of all communities worldwide. Because my own work is especially engaged with the histories of marginalized, colonized, ostracized, and working-class musics, it also engages issues of politics, race, class, and power and I am particularly aware of my responsibilities in these areas.

3. Where do you get your inspiration?

I am inspired by my own teachers and predecessors, within and beyond the field of musicology, who have modeled for me the combination of rigor, curiosity, insight, sensitivity, and work-ethic which I strive to realize in my own work. My own teachers J. Peter Burkholder, Austin Caswell, Thomas J Mathiesen, Thomas Binkley, and Richard Bauman were giant intellects and inspirations. Beyond musicology, I am inspired by the poetics of Gary Snyder and Peter Mathiessen, the spiritual insights of Dainin Katagiri Roshi and Thomas Merton, and the stunning beauty and emotional depth I have found in many different forms of traditional music. As Bob Dylan said, "traditional music will teach you everything you need to know to live. If you let it."

4. What type(s) of service projects do you enjoy doing?

I am acutely aware of the unusual privilege I enjoy as a a white, male, tenured, heterosexual college professor. That privilege--though hard-earned and many years in coming--obligates me to work to help others. I donate my time writing, teaching, playing, and speaking as much as I possibly can. Possibly the most gratifying service projects of all are those in which, through teaching, I am privileged to help people become participants in the creation of their own artistic lives.

5. What projects are you currently working on?

My primary current research project is a large-scale scholarly monograph on the earliest roots of blackface minstrelsy, the early 19th century street idiom which synthesized African-American and Anglo-Celtic styles to create the first great American popular music. I am also heavily involved in expanding the range and visibility of the work done by my own Vernacular Music Center, and the activities of the Celtic Ensemble, a unique ensemble among North American music conservatory programs.

6. What advice do you have for new faculty members on balancing all of the components of an integrated scholar into their careers (academics, research, service)?

Although I would certainly not think of myself as exemplifying effective integration of al these elements--I am acutely aware of my own limitations and inefficiencies--I have found the following dicta to be practical and useful:

• Cultivate the ability to concentrate closely in short bursts of time. Available time for one's own research is never sufficiently great and it is always prone to interruption; therefore, it is important to be able to muster concentration in shorter bursts.
• Related to the above: identify those patterns in your calendar and schedule in which your concentration is best and most suited for certain types of activities, and protect those times for your own work. I get up at 4:30AM, six days a week, for this reason.
• Develop a physical and a spiritual discipline. Do something outdoors and something physical every day. I bicycle, garden, do yoga and martial arts.
• Invest effort not only in your own work, but also in communicating and collaborating with colleagues, making sure that they know what you are working on. Work a little bit harder and be a little bit friendlier--this pays large dividends.

7. Lastly, please provide us with some background information to help people get to know you. What is your official title, educational background and hometown?

I am Associate Professor of Musicology; I serve as Chair of Musicology, director of the Vernacular Music Center, and director of the Celtic Ensemble. I hold a BA (Music) from the University of Massachusetts, and a Master's in Music (Jazz Studies) and Ph.D. in Musicology, from Indiana University. I was born on the north shore of Massachusetts, in a small town called Marblehead (home of the painting The Spirit of '76), but have lived, worked, and played music in Cambridge MA, Manhattan, Chicago, and New Orleans, as well. My wife Dharmonia (also professor of Musicology at the university) and I lived in southern Indiana for 12 years, and here in Lubbock since 2000, but my heart is still in the foothills and seashores of northern New England.

Learning to really dig it when my own students come up with music/nerd jokes we did back in the day, viz: "International House of Purcell".

"The collective intelligence of a wine flask"

Marc Ambinder nails the Republican "leadership":

The Republicans want to be mayors of crazy-town. They've embraced a fringe and proto-racist isolationist and ignorant conservative populism that has no solutions for fixing anything and the collective intelligence of a wine flask.

No great surprise there. It's the same thing they did in '56 and after in attempting to shut down the Civil Rights movement. Equally stupid as a long-term policy, but in the short term, it led to lynchings, bombings, and a whole lot of needless suffering.

Probably will this time, too.

The world's greatest newspaper and the greatest-ever TV program: the Guardian UK's episode-by-episode guide to The Wire: http://ping.fm/pxdJN

Music is magic

Every kind of awesome. These folks have been married sixty-two years.



All created and uncreated phenomena arise, flourish, and pass away. But love endures.

Jesus, what the FUCK is up with these people?!?

Next to me on regional jet: gray ponytail, earrings, bifocals, Dick (whoremonger) Morris's "Taking Back America" (sic). Another ex-hippie who drank the Tea.

Home. For about 8 hours. Then out again, to O'Flaherty Youth Camp (D/FW)

More evidence that animals are better than humans: http://ping.fm/Re8py

On the road again: Houston, Amsterdam, Terschelling; keynote: "Afro-Celtic Musical Exchange in the Age of Sail"

Five worst EVER: Johnson, Buchanan, Harding, Pierce, and GWB. Way to go, Junior: you finally excelled: at WORST. http://ping.fm/N3mmI

Tom Clancy "Patriot Games": contemptible on every level: exploitative, simplistic, macho, manipulative. Clancy's a fascist; H. Ford a whore.

Boomers! Prayin' for rain!

Only down-side to Germany v. England? That they couldn't BOTH LOSE.

Diggin' the sublime ferocity of Mason Brown & Doug Goodhart, this mawnin': http://ping.fm/ntwxb

How to control an Ulster Scotsman's taste for single-malts: keep 'em sealed--Presbyterian tightfistedness takes care of the rest!

Remembering Ali Akbar Khan, whose last act, on the day he died, was to *teach a lesson*. May I depart with such grace & courage.

Re/ Barton's "apology" to BP: 82% of Texans think Barton was wrong & President right; these are OUR beaches: http://thinkprogress.org/2010/06/23/barton-18-percent-apologize/

On-the-ground wisdom re/ Mullah McChrystal from a remarkable and courageous Afghan blogger: http://ping.fm/yQf1z

Little pub in a storefront or mill building somewhere in the Berkshire hills, patch of ground w/ trees, time to write... Someday, I promise.

Animals are our brothers. We should protect them--not kill them: http://ping.fm/P35kY

Re/ McChrystal:

From the Uniform Code of Military Justice:

"Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct."

90,000 singing "Nkosi sikelele Afrika" at the Big Calabash and I am weeping.

After melodrama of past few days, it's not JUST chauvinism that makes me hope S Africa kicks the merde out of France today. WOZA! Woza woza!

Oh, and BP, who've trotted out a professorial black guy in ads for all you're doing to "make things right"? Just go die, OK?

Diggin' World Cup no end, learning a lot, but (no revelation here) the absurd histrionic flops are wussy in the extreme.

Moved inexpressibly at receiving Father's Day greetings from non-biological young'uns & thinking of Greg Brown: http://ping.fm/IeO3d

Aphorism: the "job" of a teacher, ultimately, is facilitate others in becoming more fully themselves. Hence not a job; more like a privilege.

Reality TV: further evidence that "core American values" are sloth, voyeurism, and stupidity.

I am content.

In the High Hills w/ Dharmonia & good friendS

Zoukfest Day 01: early PM

Trying a slightly different approach this year w/ ZF blog: instead of a long, semi-carefully-composed tome assembled in the early morning, commenting retrospectively on the events of the day before, am going to trying spot-reporting (sorta expanded Twitter feed).

Nice orientation last night--chance to see old friends, some of whom haven't been back to ZF for a number of years. Interesting classes offered--new staff (Will Harmon, Blayne Chastain, Martin Hayes) bringing great new vibe to the mix. Doug Goodhart holds forth, playing agogo, on rhythm as comprising "the figure and the ground", Moira Smiley leads the room through a call-and-response world tour of global vocal styles, Luke Plumb lays it down on mandolin.

Then adjourn to one of the two session pubs for which Zoukfest has engineered a welcome: the Two Fools Tavern, good friends to the music for a long time now, and a local pizza joint. I've said before that, for any regional/local grass-roots arts initiative to flourish, it needs spaces: music houses or pubs in which management understands that the intangible benefits music in their rooms provides are nevertheless quite concrete.

Good food at the Two Fools, management comps the drinks for the players, and before long we're around a long table with Messers Harmon, Hayes, Plumb, and company. Nice evening of Clare-and-other tunes ensues, with one of the nicest aspects of the right kind of festival sessions: the sense that these are old and new friends having a conversation, renewing (or forging) acquaintance, getting to know one another better--and that the music is only a part of the process. The music is better precisely because it is serving this larger purpose. Pleasant evening, we hated to leave, but it's only Sunday--and Monday morning of a festival week is entirely too soon to start out sleep-deprived (we'll save that for Thursday or Friday, when we'll run on caffeine and adrenaline).

Morning classes done: great (small) group in the "Playing for the Sets", but with a good parity of goals & vision; all seem to have "signed on" for the idea of learning to play the tunes better for dancing. A lot of musicians--especially American musicians--learn to play the Irish dance tunes in all kinds of circumstances, and a lot of them--again, especially the Americans--could stand to have more time at actually playing the music for dancing. So the "Playing for the Sets" class is about how to play the music for dancing. In acknowledgment of Mr Hayes's presence and the impact of his family's Tulla Ceili Band upon set-dancing, we're focusing on their sets, and the tunes they played for the Clare Plain and the Clare Lancers, probably the two most widely-played and widely-danced sets. Will probably also pull in the Sliabh Luachra set, just to get some polkas & slides in with the preponderance of Clare reels, and maybe the final figure of the Caledonian, for hornpipes.

Then a great inaugural meeting of Stanley Greenthal's "Feist Breizh" class on Breton music, which both Maestro Doug Goodhart and Dr Coyote are auditing. No doubt each of us could learn these tunes on our own, but when you have free access to somebody with as much knowledge and musicianship in the world of Breton dance tunes as Stanley, you take advantage! And, just speaking for myself, it's a huge, welcome luxury--kinda like going to a spa, only for musicians instead of rich folks--to have somebody else teach you the tunes, when you are usually at the teaching, rather than receiving, end of the experience. Beautiful set of an-dros in a great bouzouki arrangement from Stanley.

Then lunch at the UNM cafeteria, which is a pleasant, well-appointed place with good food, but which we just happen to hit right at the same time as the literal, physical waves of schoolkids who are doing their pre-college summer experiences and elbowing their way past us. Once through that, a pleasant lunch with Will Harmon and Dharmonia, before we head back to the air-conditioned comfort of the SUB to practice, prepare, and generally crank-up for the afternoon's classes: another audit of Professor Doug Goodhart's West Virginia long-bow fiddle class (Dr Coyote will never be a fiddle player, but as a clawhammer banjoist, it's pretty useful to know what the fiddlers want to hear), and then "Playin' in the Band", the Doc's new offering on ensemble approaches to arranging and presentation.

Goin' good so far! Thanks, ZF Board, for making it all happen!

ZF Day 01: Morning

Feels like it oughta be the opening, courier/bullets screen overlay of a Bourne Trilogy flick. But we're here, on the top floor of the UNM Albuquerque Student Union: hard to get to--hafta park and then walk, schlepping stuff, across acres of asphalt parking lot, past the hundreds of school-kids starting first day of pre-college summer experiences--but a very pleasant environment: top floor, nice big open atrium with skylights and lots of natural light, which makes the luthiers displaying (Herb Taylor and GD Armstrong, both old friends of Zoukfest) very happy, comfortable chairs & lots of space for hanging out between classes, even a top-floor terrace. Lisa Wright & Lauren Flanagan powering-up the registration desk which'll be ZF's nerve-center, staff stumbling in seeking coffee, luthiers schlepping dozens of cases and assembling their displays (trust a luthier to have an ingeniously-designed and beautifully-finished display rack).

Class session I (0900-1015) looms. We're glad to be here!

From the belly of the mercantile beast (South Plains Mall)--I love *not* buying shit.

Enough with the goddamned ash-cloud!

The Buddha taught that, having taken the Bodhisattva vow, we are all exiles. A good lesson, perpetually re-learned.

Limerick: 5 recitals yesterday, 6 today, 6 tomorrow, meetings Thursday. Gonna wind up with both ears in one socket!!

Gone beyond

My mother died in March. At the time, the exigencies of dealing with her deterioration (48 hour trip to New England, return to Lubbock, only to have her decease 2 days later), the memorial service and accompanying family complexities, a hellacious semester with multiple personnel and budgetary melt-downs, and my own crisis-moment tendency to go into emergency-coping mode, meant that I didn't do much conscious mourning.

I was moved by the open sorrow expressed by my siblings, especially by my brothers--two remarkable, admirable men--and their spouses, which quartet had been primarily responsible for her care in the wake of my step-father's death last summer, and her subsequent and very swift descent into Alzheimer's. I could weep for them, and their sorrow--but not so much for her.

But, as I said to another friend at the time, "my relationship with my mother was sort of classically fucked-up", and it was--mostly due to the absolutely horrific legacy of family dysfunction to which both my parents were subjected as children. My mother was too unhappy, too damaged, to be an especially effective parent, despite the fact that she manifestly loved her kids. And she fucked me over, over and over again, in the area of my vocation to music. There are reasons I was in therapy for 12 years, and she--and the legacy of my monstrous grandmother--were two major ones.

Here's my own brief articulation, from eight years ago:

These Wooded Hills

These wooded hills and rocky shores
are the
memory of my childhood;

whipped by salt Atlantic waves,
traced by crumbling dry stone walls;
marked by cowshit and the cry of gulls,

gouged by retreating glaciers of a last Ice Age;
and the faint whispering voices
of old wars, old words, old violence, old victories.

Granite, oak, slate, and pine;
topsoil's topography ripped away,

leaving the bones.

So I was pretty damned grateful when Dharmonia wrote this, which expressed pure, open, Bodhisattva mourning for Bobby Smith Thomas in a way couldn't. And then I could weep for her:

While driving to a funeral

Bobby is gone, gone, gone beyond
Gate gate paragate
Parasamgate bodhi svaha
Her son at the wheel driving east
Rain is lashing at the windshield,
spraying up from the passing trucks
and while thinking of how we pass
from life into death, around us
life continues its circus
in the sheeting rain, driving wind
Massachusetts bumper stickers:
Obama is still President,
My Other Car is still a Broom,
Jesus Saves and the Yankees still suck
This my home state, and now, and now
One last journey to the North Shore
At least for reasons tied to blood
And bone, and the love of this man
And the others who share that blood

And how strangely appropriate
The blinding rain and shrieking wind
To sagas stories and plot lines
To complicated webs of past,
To layers of pride and of doubt
To all the love and the anger
Kneaded into the famous bread
And those who came to adulthood
In the eye of this hurricane
Each making their own peace with her
She was not my mother, and yes
I saw the complicated side
But I loved her for bringing him
Into the world in the first place,
And for what she wanted to be,
And for the things she tried to be,
And was, when clarity could cut
Through what had been handed to her.
A friend of mine once said to me
“One can be a difficult parent
And still be a great friend,” and
She was that to me, and it is
A terrible thing to witness
A heart beating in the shambles
That Alzheimer’s leaves in its wake--
So you will understand, when I
Saw the ashes mixed with earth, why
I spoke the mantra “gone beyond”

Gate gate paragate
Parasamgate bodhi svaha

the doorless doors of the Pure Land
do not require us to bring
All of our Stuff along with us
No eyes no ears no nose no mouth
No junk no faults no garbage, but
Just the cloudless blue sky of mind.

I am grateful that I have such loving people in my life. I need them.

Gassho.

Nostalgic in all the wrong ways: blowout-preventer edition

The Deepwater Horizon spill--probably the most catastrophic environmental disaster of the past 50 years, excepting possibly Chernobyl--was apparently caused by failure of one of these:

This is a blowout-preventer, a massive hydraulic-powered valve used for sealing an oil well and regulating the flow. They are

When I read, two days ago, that the spill was caused by one of these failing, a mile down, I was chilled. I used to repair these, for Cactus Drilling Company in Midland, TX, in 1979-80.

A blowout-preventer is subjected to huge pressures, as well as to highly corrosive acids, salts, and other outflow from a well. It doesn't come up as only crude: there are all kinds of other substances in such a flow. So the blowout-preventer can only be used for a relatively short period of time, before the well has to be temporarily shut down and the preventer replaced.

They used to come into the repair yard where I worked, with the huge rubber gaskets in rags and most of the heavy-duty lead-based sealing paint corroded off (for scale's sake, the BOP pictured above is a "small", and is substantially taller than a man). We'd sand- and water-blast them, paint them with an acid-based paint-remover (which you had to keep off your skin, as it would burn you), break-loose the giant bolts that seal them: bolts as big as my arm, often rusted solid--I still have a big dent on my right shin from where a 12-foot "cheater pipe"--additional lever arm--shattered while we were trying to open a bolt.

Then we'd take them completely apart, wash all the components in an acid bath and discard any that seemed unrepairable, replace the parts and gaskets, re-paint 'em, and stick them on a hydraulic test-bed, where we'd crank up to a pressure as high as 1 ton per square inch (we were supposed to stand outside the steel-reinforced room as we did this, but often didn't). Then, when we'd confirmed that the repairs were complete and safety-secure, we'd call the truckers and they'd come pick up the BOP, to store in the yard until re-used.

When I read, two days ago, that the spill had been caused by a BOP failure, Dharmonia said "yeah, I read that a while ago but I didn't want to tell you"--which was smart, because when I saw it, I nearly fainted.

I would not want to be one of the crew who might have sent that particular piece back out to the platform.

Eleven guys died. BP and Halliburton (Dick Cheney's butt-buddies--the same people who betrayed American soldiers in the Iraq theatre on a daily basis) may well have killed the Gulf Coast--permanently.

Some corporate crime ought to carry capital penalties.

Checkin AM @ NYC for long day til evening SNN flight. Thank Universe for cheap Prez club booze & wireless!

You miserable racist fucks--GET OUT OF MY HOME TOWN!

NY weekly shows Obamas as 'Sanford and Son' actors

A weekly newspaper photo depicting President Barack Obama and his wife as characters from the TV sitcom "Sanford and Son" was intended as political satire and not a racist commentary, the publisher said Wednesday.

Phillip Sciarello, publisher and part owner of the Smithtown Messenger on New York's Long Island, defended the decision to publish the photo, but added the newspaper would run a retraction in its next edition for anyone who might have been offended.

Phillip Sciarello, you dirty little cowardly punk, my direct patrilineal ancestor founded this town. My great-great-great-great-etc grandfather was an illegal immigrant, a miscegenator, a political radical, and a warrior, and his offspring fathered children with black mothers and, eventually, granted them all their freedom.

And he would have chewed you up and spit you out like the worthless little piece of trash you are. Claudius Smith, the "Terror of the Ramapo," wouldn't have bothered to hang you in your chimney--a waste of good rope--but he would have horsewhipped your gutless little ass on Main Street. I'm only sorry that I'm 2,000 miles away.

Get your racist garbage, and your racist garbage self, out of my town.

Missing my CE guys, a bit. Even missing the 9pm Wed sectional. Gettin' soft in my old age, I reckon.

Spring 2010 Ireland seminar Google map/intinerary: join the band! http://ping.fm/41hyD

IAH en route to NYC & SNN.

My hero, Gary Snyder

I hope, when the time comes for me to die, that I will have lived a life this valuable:



Gassho.

Malcolm/Jean-Paul: "By any means necessary." http://ping.fm/E8rQ0

BB Tour (with replaceable SIMS card--Ireland hooray!) is pretty awesome; thanks, @glenrhunt!

New BBerry Tour: reminded of Fam Guy episode: Old Guy says of lightbulb: "when I saw this at 1927 World Expo, I almost crapped my pants!"

Charlie Ives's band

Further to the General's comment, below--it must've sounded something like this:

I R a music major

Dear God, this is painfully accurate:

h/t to the Sarge.

re/ petition to REMOVE the "Tornado of Ideas" sculpture because it includes non-conservative books, news-flash: CENSORSHIP IS COWARDICE.

Solidarity forever! The people united will never be defeated! One Big Union!

If there is anything at all to love about England, this song captures it: http://ping.fm/wELj6

Just back from trumpet recital. Last solo ended, they blew sigh of relief; thought of Katagiri "practice--make effort".

Watchin' FZ w/ 88 band, thinking of Muddy, Monroe, Miles, Messengers, Ellington bands, wishing C Ives had one too.

AZ joins the Third Reich

Presumably yellow (or maybe "brown") stars are not far behind:

Dear Governor Brewer:

I am shocked and appalled that you should have signed into law SB1070. The potential for egregious, arbitrary, inconsistent halt-and-questioning of people on the street violates the spirit of the protection against unjustifiable search and seizure. More to the point, the law itself, its intentions, its likely execution, and your own official ratification of it, are deeply, deeply un-American. I will never spend another dime on or in Arizona, I will urge all friends, relations, colleagues, and business associates to likewise boycott the state, and I will actively seek to bring about your defeat in the next election, unless and until this law if repealed.

You should be ashamed of this action. Please act to rescind.

Sincerely,

Dr Coyote

Growin' 'em meself

Boomer-aged Bay Area English Country Dance teacher, to Dr Coyote, after I walked into the Dallas traditional dance group's Country Dance weekend with 14 young'uns in tow, all of whom could sing, dance, play, and focus like demons:

Where on earth did you get these great kids, you wonderful man?!?

Dr Coyote:

Aw, hell...I just grow 'em in cold frames.

Damned proud of my guys.

If you lie down in a dunghill...

...you're going to smell like crap:

I am shocked and appalled that ZeroWater would advertise on the Fox News program of Glenn Beck. Mr Beck, a cynical opportunist, preaches hatred, practices misinformation, and works actively to erode democracy and free speech. Any association with Mr Beck tars ZeroWater with these same crimes. Please remove any advertising or other sponsorship between ZeroWater and Mr Beck at your earliest convenience.

Until such time as you do, I will actively advise friends, relations, and colleagues to avoid any ZeroWater products.

Sincerely,

Dr Coyote

Death, taxes, greed, suffering, and legislative stupidity: samsara will always be with us.

Instead of blogging...

...I'm doing shit like this.

Never fails: paper due-date of Mon, Wed, Fri--and undergrads will STILL stay up all night and come into class late on the deadline day.

Weeping. Last concert with this (wonderful) band. I love my guys, and I am beyond-proud of them. Gassho.

From "Towncraft": "fuck it. We could build our own thing *here*."

Azerrad's book "Our Band Could Be Your Life" (http://ping.fm/Mgzip) and the documentary "Towncraft," on Little Rock's self-made punk scene (Hulu), give the lie to anybody who says "it'll never happen here."

You'd think I'd know this, after 10 years: Big Lebowski wallpaper over PPT projector instantly destroys undergrad concentration.

Most profoundly valuable teaching from the Dharma: that even temporary alleviation of suffering matters.

Most profoundly difficult teaching from the Dharma: that suffering cannot be permanently eradicated.

LBK "Tea Party" (trans: frightened white people who'd rather yell than learn) rained out: way to stick w/ your revolution, folks: http://ping.fm/Mv60h

The greatest television ever made

All praise to The Sopranos, Northern Exposure, Homicide: Life on the Streets, The Corner, Six Feet Under, etc, etc,

but this is what demonstrates what that incredible idiom can accomplish:

Featurin' The Wire on NPR--which HBO TV show has told more truth and conveyed more real news than NPR themselves have in recent years.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe: "Oh didn't it RAIN, rain, rain, children, didn't it RAIN."

Working with stone professionals (http://our1home.com) is a pure joy. Thanks Kate & Jason! http://ping.fm/92KJm

Watchin' Patty & the Boss school U2 in "Because the Night" at RHOF 25th & remembering PSG at CBGB, that cold winter of '77. STILL STANDING!

Hey, whyn'cha check out THIS link? http://ping.fm/qgbeQ

Trying to control my nausea as I pitch for public radio (a "good thing") while Glenn Beck (a "bad thing") plays on muted TV in background.

Re/ students: am reminded that they're ALL "good kids". Not "good" vs "bad"--rather "happy" vs unhappy".

Don't bother me with facts, my mind's made up!

As someone who grew up in a place where Dr Franklin's sectioned-snake flag is actually history rather than cheap political bullshit-where people died to try to create independence from what they perceived to be tyranny--I am profoundly offended by the gutless, ignorant drones, many of them on one form or other of government paycheck, whose selfishness and cowardice leads them to scream bloody murder only when they think that "someone else" (typically someone who works harder, owns less, came from elsewhere, and has six times as much guts and work-ethic as they) is getting something that they're not.

This cartoon captures it.

Just rescued a moth the size & beauty of Gandalf's rescuer (http://ping.fm/XJwLb) from inside J&B windows. Better mean good karma!

Another "terrorist fist-jab"

On Jun 8 2008, in the wake of Michelle & Barack Obama's celebration of his nomination as Democratic candidate for the Presidency, the vapid Fox "News" talking-head bimbo E. D. Hill notoriously referred to that celebration as a "terrorist fist jab". The hysterical absurdity of the accusation--and the lily-white racist subtones which underlay it--reveals the hysterical terror which Fox seeks to inculcate in its low-information, mostly elderly, mostly ignorant listeners.

Well, guess what, E. D. Hill?

He's the President now. And the people in the US armed forces, the people who actually put their bodies in harm's way, for your safety, you gutless talking-head bimbo, those people know he is their President.

You Tea-bagging imbeciles? Get used to it. It's a new age.

And about damned time.

I find meself disinclined to accede to your request.

Means "No."

'Tis the season

...when the panic is upon us and the academic dishonesty spikes. Comment on student paper:

Extensive paraphrase from Wikipedia. You were informed in class that Wikipedia is not a permissible source. Moreover, with this extensive paraphrase, and some literal and uncredited block-and-paste, you are dangerously close to plagiarism. Re-write COMPLETELY and resubmit for consideration of passing grade.

Dr Coyote

Sigh.

Not here. Not now. Never again.

Billings, Montana stands up. "Not in our town."



You hear that, Randy Neugebauer, you cowardly incompetent mob-mentality sheep-brained phony? As the General put it: "only a coward and bully yells anonymous insults from the midst of a mob of his friends."

Try it again, Randy. Try it in person. Say it to our faces, and see how far it gets you.

Not here. Not now. Not any more. Never again.

And even more importantly, VH at RC? *I* know who you are--and how unprofessional is your conduct.

Outrageous: letter of rejection sent to one of my PhD's applying for job: "Thank you for your application... By this time you certainly realize that it was not successful.”. Naming no names, but, VH at RC? You know who you are. You should be ashamed of yourself.

re/ iPad: If I'm blowing $500-600 on technology, it better be a tool.

Changing the channel on Sarah Palin

Palin's Fox Channel program tanks, even on a network only preferred by terrified, delusional, ignorant fools who want to be lied to.

The money quote?

At least 1 out of every 5 viewers who started out watching the show changed the channel or turned off the set.

Kinda explains the 2008 Palin/McCain campaign in a nutshell. Americans actually don't like greedy, lying, bigoted, murderous, phony yahoos.

"To conquer them with love, stand up now, stand up now..."

Gunn High School (Bay Area) gets word of the arrival of the Westboro Baptist Church (psychotic Baptist anti-gay hate group) cowboys up, sets up a Facebook group, surrounds them with love, and forces them to surrender.



You noble Diggers all, stand up now, stand up now.

Through the looking glass

How bad is my schedule that I now look forward to plane flights and classroom lectures as brief windows of comparative relaxation?!?

Waterloo?

"Waterloo," Jim DeMint, you psychotic asshole?

Yeah, it is, you fucks.

Yours.

Jiggity-jig, one more once

Slowly digging out here. For a Spring "Break", there sure has been a hell of a lot of eventuality in the past 7 days. Got back from a family affair on Wednesday, leaving for Dallas with a van-load of students today. Where exactly was the "week off", again?

"Aw, c'mon, we're not all named Paddy, y'know..."

Beannachtai la feile Padraig, ya feckin' eedjits!

Sorrow

Sometimes sorrow can crack open the heart, so that healing pours in.

That's what I saw today. I hope.

Beyond burnout, but worth it

Battlefield Band rocked the house. Not only fantastic virtuosos, with an incredible, high-energy, and off-the-cuff hilarious stage show, but also easy-going, friendly gentlemen--the antithesis of prima donnas. I'll have a post for another day on the things that having been road musician in your own past tell you the visiting road musicians might want, or not want, to deal with--and how that helps improve the hospitality you can figure out to offer.

Gig dropped at 8pm, they played the last note--joined by the TTU Set-Dancers and your numble narrator--at around 10:30pm. Sold over 100 CDs, which was fantastic news in terms of the bottom line, but deferred escaping the building.

Back to our crib 11:30pm, for an after-party that stretched toward 3am. Fantastic crack with the lads, introduction and re-introductions that crossed decades between meetings (nice to see The General and Alan Reid get re-acquainted, after a good 25 years). Around 3:15am, boot 'em out the door, so we can spend an hour cleaning so Taiyo doesn't have to do it, and then leave for the airport around 4am, to check in for the 5:15 crack o' dawn flight.

Connections in Houston and Chi, arrive Hartford to be met by Dharmonia's mom. Quick trip up the Mass Pike, and now crashing big-time.

Helluva lot of events in precisely the past 24 hours.

Aw haw hey!

Battlefield Band in the LBK hizzouse.

Titanic.

digital gratitude

I absolutely flippin love dropbox.com. And my feelings for code-slinging computer-superstar student assistants ain't far behind. Thank you Glen Hunt!

Still standing

Enduring some losses, but still here, and grateful for beloved friends and students.