I’m not bitching, just observing from an inside angle. The rest of the truth is that as musicians, we are beholden to no one. Except perhaps the booking agent. In that cosmically weightless state we are free to pursue the truth in our music and lyrics and to remain honest agents of real information, both literal and spiritual, for those that choose to listen. Our reward? I just stated it. Not to mention the chance to get “in The Zone” from time to time. The Zone is that place where given the right confluence of circumstance and personal effortlessness, the player ceases to be the player, but becomes a vehicle through which flows the sound. It is what separates the great musicians from the journeymen, the pretenders from the intenders. I have been graced to visit The Zone on occasion in my playing career. It is exhilarating and indescribable, I suppose similar to any route of escape from the apparent. I can’t get there at will, not yet. Consistently getting there requires a gift and a certain temperament and outlook about the music and about the world. Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Hank Williams, Louis Armstrong (he invented The Zone), Art Tatum, Jerry Lee Lewis, these are but a few of the names of those who are certified Zonesters. The fortunate few are those that live in The Zone. Their output transcends their actual physical and sonic presence. For a musician, The Zone remains the welcome gift and the ultimate goal.

In the meantime, it’s summer, I’m working, the bills are paid, my truck runs, I wrote a new song, and I wouldn’t trade this life for a pile of 401Ks and a brand new fishing boat.

Which brings me to point two, my recently posted Asshole Factor hypothesis. We have before us a textbook example of the factor at work. A few profit-driven people in the corporate world, fully sanctioned and abetted by the good old government and their sleeping watchdog, have just altered the ecology of one of the USA’s largest fisheries, right at the spawning season. The marsh now under attack from the oil slick is a seriously important wetland ecosystem which may not recover from the oil spill for centuries, if ever. The Assholes asserted the impossibility of such an incident. That group includes Mr. Obama, who when recently announcing his permission for new offshore drilling, assured us that the current technology precludes such a mishap. I guess that doesn’t apply to the rigs which are already operating.

I reserve a special place here for those who have been chanting “Drill, Baby, Drill”. Not a single peep out of those assholes now. Not even a fart of recognition of the current situation. Their taunting of opponents of further offshore oil exploration was smug, condescending, and selectively informed. Where, oh where have these assholes gone? Where, oh where can they be? I’ll tell you where they be. They be living the good life, their wealth allowing them to once again evade the consequences of their own destructive decisions. “No shrimp from the Gulf anymore? That’s okay, we’ll buy the imported tiger shrimp from Thailand.” Assholes. When you look up “asshole” in the dictionary, Sarah Palin’s picture is not there. She’s too big an asshole for the available space . Drill, Baby, Drill. Self-serving, short-sighted, out of touch Asshole with a capitalist “A.”

Then, every so often, we all take up arms, pick a target, and go about the business of killing each other and destroying each others’ homes and livelihood. You’ve seen photos of medieval warriors, dough boys in the trenches, face-painted jungle fighters, scruffy grey-clad farmers down south. Remember, these are the same people who just had you over for dinner, asked about your kids, and sent you off with a hug and a promise to do it all again sometime. Why? What accounts for such an apparently schizophrenic behavior?

I propose an explanation that I call the Asshole Factor. This theory maintains that any given population has a ratio of assholes to general populace. The ratio basically is a constant cross-culturally, although it does seem a bit higher among the Euro-American civilizations, perhaps because their political and financial systems are based on a God-given duty to be an asshole and set this world straight. Now the average asshole is nothing more than an irritant when viewed in the big picture, you know, the guy who jumps ahead of you in line, the woman who cuts you off in traffic because she’s on the cell phone and then flips you the bird as an extra reward for her transgression. These assholes are a dime-a-dozen, in fact, we are all capable on any given day of ourselves exhibiting assholedness, as we bear witness to it so frequently that we unconsciously absorb its basic components and tendencies

Every so often, however, there is a confluence of genetic predisposition, birth circumstance, childhood trauma, acquired sense of entitlement and profuse ill-will that results in the production of what I will term the Super Asshole. Among this group you will find kings, pharoahs, dictators, generals, industrialists, land speculators, and a variety of other assholes engaged in a plethora of predatory professions. Since these people already have the predilection to assholeosity, they are poised to generate mayhem when that tendency is enabled by positions of power and influence. So when the SAs decide it is their turn to make a profit, expand, or otherwise exert their influence to act, they concoct wars which are fought by the mainstream populations. They will tell us with whom we are currently at war, why it is so (although this is always a public relations concoction) and then they will hand out guns and weapons and let us have a go at it. Suddenly the guy who otherwise would be offering you tea and pastry in his home is in the crosshairs of your night vision laser scope.

Do the Super Assholes ever actually fight these wars? Do they get bombed? Do they lose their homes? Do they suffer the ravages of post-war in the aftermath? The answer to all of these questions is a resounding NO. What they will do, however, is throw a parade, erect some monuments, give out some medals and offer disingenuous words of praise for the fallen and their sacrifice. They prey on the emotional sensitivity of the victims and actually use the fragile condition of the shaken people to generate fear, anger and righteousness which they can exploit the next time they need to jump-start the money machine again.  Here’s my favorite trick of theirs: They create jobs in the industries which produce weaponry and tools of destruction, jobs which are gratefully held by those that are survivors of the last war and cannon-fodder for the next one. Ingenious! Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Super A’s count out their profits and figure out the next move in the bloody chess game which they seem to enjoy so. Over a nice dinner. With a vintage bottle of wine. What a racket!

The moral: When people start to listen to themselves instead of assholes, there will be peace in the valley.

1) Kennedy’s secretary was named Lincoln, and Lincoln’s secretary was named Kennedy, or some kind of Irish name.
2) John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in a theatre and ran to a warehouse, Lee Harvey Oswald (or whomever it actually was) shot Kennedy from a warehouse and ran to a theatre.
3) Kennedy was born on the East Coast and Lincoln was born in the Midwest, or somewhere.
4) Kennedy is on the half-dollar and Lincoln is on the penny. Another coincidence, you say?
5) President Obama still hasn’t shown me his birth certificate.
6) It’s now illegal to be a Mexican in Arizona.

Now, there may be a bit of room for doubt, but that’s plenty good enough for me. A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse. God bless you, and God bless America.

It’s self-evident that in order for someone to be rich, someone or more to the point, someones must be poor. That’s the way it works. The measure of wealth is completely relative. It is also the formula through which wealth is acquired. If you want to live in the house on the hill, you’ve got to find people who will drag all the bricks and mortar to the top, employees willing to work for the tiniest piece of the pie that you eat. Most of the pie for you? You are the rich guy. You can then tell the rest what to do. That’s the story of capitalism. It goes with Christianity the way chocolate goes with almonds. You’ve got to determine who is entitled to be wealthy, and there is Christianity, making it all so simple. Why, it’s those that God, in his infinite wisdom, has blessed with cleverness, guile, drive and the right genetics. Everybody else get out of the way. Remember, God has granted man dominion over every damned thing he put on the planet. It also affords the poor the comfort of the Sermon on the Mount. You might not have a pot to piss in, but Daddy loves you. What a religion!

The point? Creeping socialism had better break into a run if there is hope of avoiding the chaos and mayhem that this ever-expanding gulf between the classes will ultimately bring. There must be a fair and compassionate social contract to maintain social order. Ask Marie Antoinette. You poor pitiful over-taxed upper one percent of America could do worse than buying some schmuck a cup of coffee everyday.

What we’re really concerned with is where Tiger Woods has been putting his driver, and which club his wife used to register her disapproval. Now that’s news! Hmmm…a fabulously wealthy, good-looking, wildly successful, massively talented, incredibly accomplished and internationally famous man succumbs to the siren songs of a series of starstruck, gold-digging, collagen-injected bimbos who want their holes to be the ones. What a shocking surprise! Who would have thought?

Thanks, FOX news and AOL for lowering the journalistic bar in America. Thanks, my fellow citizens, for being stupid enough and sufficiently bored to follow the Murdochian agenda like a mule follows a carrot on a stick. God bless America, and God help America as it faces real problems without the informed, dedicated attention and determination of its privileged citizenry. Perhaps we will be able to solve half of the pressing problems we face before the next season of American Idol airs.

I have pondered the difference between this passing generation and our own, and in spite of the litany of explanations which can be trotted out, I think I have discovered the one quality which the Great Generation had in abundance but somehow does not live on in profusion in their children. It is humility. Webster defines the word as a noun which means “the quality or state of being humble.” That word derives from the Latin humus, meaning “earth” and is defined as “not proud or haughty, not arrogant or assertive.” Of the earth, as it were, connected to the source of our incarnation. One cannot be truly connected to his humble origins and at the same time possess a disproportional sense of his own significance in the big picture. In short, the Great Generation placed others above themselves while their children seem to insist on rushing to the mirror to worship their own inflated sense of stature. We refuse to age gracefully, we rush to bumper-sticker-slogan judgments and we delight in singling our individual selves out as more worthy than the rest.

What brought this to mind was a piece that I heard on NPR about Bobby Doerr, the oldest living member of the elite Baseball Hall of Fame. Doerr played for the Boston Red Sox from 1938 until 1951, a career span which encompassed the birthdays of the majority of Baby Boomers. He did not compile headline-making statistics, he was not a power hitter who regularly rounded the bases after a towering home run. He was a contact hitter with a respectable lifetime batting average of .288 (that’s one of the things I love about baseball, you can fail in your attempt to hit a pitched ball more than two-thirds of the time and still be considered hugely successful). His real claim to fame was his fielding percentage, a remarkable .980, which means he rarely made an error. His value to his team was incalculable, a fact to which his teammates attested, including Ted Williams, one of the greatest and most renowned players in the history of the game. It took until 1986 for Doerr to reach the Hall, when the veterans committee voted his admission. What is even more enduring about Bobby Doerr, who quietly went about his business with methodical devotion and self-effacing consistency, was what he said in an essay after he was elevated into the ranks of his sport’s elite. Here are some excerpts from that essay:

I’ve found that when I make a good play and take my pitcher off the hook, it’s just natural for me to feel better than if I made a flashy play that doesn’t do anything except make me look good for the grandstands. It works the same way off the ball field, too. Doing a good turn for a neighbor, a friend, or even a stranger gives me much more satisfaction than doing something that helps only myself. It’s as if all people were my teammates in this world and things that make me closer to them are good, and things that make me draw away from them are bad….. Maybe that’s the most important thing of all. Doing good in order to deserve good. A lot of wonderful things have happened to me in my lifetime. I’ve had a long, rewarding career in organized baseball. The fans have been swell to me, and I’ve always liked my teammates. But what really matters is that I’ve got just about the best folks that anyone could ask for. Doing what I can to make things more pleasant for my father and mother, and for my wife and our son has been one of the things I have enjoyed most because it seems to be a way for me to pay back something of what I owe them for all the encouragement and pleasure they’ve given me.

Can you even imagine hearing that kind of talk from one of today’s sports prima donnas? I doubt it. We are in the age when in-your-face displays of self-importance are the norm. Baseball sluggers routinely stand at home to watch their drives leave the field and then round the bases slowly, as if to emphasize their dominance over the pitcher who delivered the ball. Basketball players furiously slam the ball through the hoop to deflate their hapless defenders and then glare into the TV cameras as they turn to head back down the court. Football players thump their chests in rooster-like displays of self-congratulations after simply making a single tackle, a feat which is in their job description, a job for which they are already grossly over-rewarded financially.  Lip service is given to “the team” but the behavior is unmistakable egomania. Sportsmanship, with all of its implied sense of proportion, is dead, dead, dead.

I use sports as a glaring example of our contemporary lack of humility, but the syndrome can be found in every arena of our culture. How else can you explain Bernie Madoff or George “Bring ‘em on” Bush or the enduring popularity of bling-bling weighted gansta rappers? I’m not trying to make a religious point, but there seems to be a common thread running through all of the philosophical/spiritual paths which mankind has enunciated during his short tenure on the planet. That is that the farther we stray from the connection to our unfathomable source of being, the more we become mired in our own narcissistic self-destruction. The more we value “I” over “we”, the more we separate ourselves from true fulfillment. We can take pride in our meager accomplishments, but only by recognizing our limitations can we construct a society which honors intrinsic truth above self congratulation. In such a society, charity, co-operation and mutual regard triumph over self interest. In such a society peace replaces war, justice triumphs over inequity, and contentment is the norm rather than the anomaly.

Thanks, Great Generation. You had your flaws and made your mistakes, but you grasped a piece of the truth which currently seems to elude us. You set one hell of an example. Now if we could only find the wisdom to follow it.

There is at least one ready answer. We do so because we like to share our common interests with people who understand them, and as a result, will understand us. Having made such connections, we will continue to grow from the knowledge and experience we then gain from the bond. That sounds good, at least on the surface. But if you take a deeper look there, you will see some inconsistencies. If we indeed desire growth, why would we limit ourselves to people who share our perspective? I prefer to consider this: maybe we seek out people who are just like us so that we can feel comfortable, supported, vindicated, and exclusive. Who wants friends who challenge when we can just get rubber-stamped by hand-picked cliques straight from our own mirrors? So much easier, so little angst.

Of course, such a suspicious and cynical observation could only come from an iconoclast who seeks to flagellate himself and anyone in his path. Guilty as charged, but this is only due to the fact that I firmly believe that we are all full of shit. Did you ever see an animal deep in self-absorption, pondering a dilemma about the next move? Me neither. But I’ve seen plenty of people drowning in a sea of self-reflection, weighing how their course of action may be perceived by the clown in the next cubicle. We want to hang with people just like us so we can rest assured that either we are “right”, or at least we’re not the only idiot on the block.

I was taught as a child in school that God made humanity in his own image and likeness. I don’t think so. Maybe if you’re talking about a majestic soaring bird of prey, or a mother canine nursing her pups, or any poised, secure life form comfortably assuming its place in the grander scheme. But please don’t ask me to worship at the feet of a God who created the guy in the purple sweat pants, exposing his butt crack as he bends over to pick up a can of Sterno at Wal-Mart, and then tell me he’s the spit and image of our Heavenly Father. I must then take issue, and most of my Facebook friends would completely agree with me.

What makes this scenario doubly disheartening is the fact that information about what truly moves and shakes in D.C. is readily available from a plethora of creditable and verifiable sources, all just a mouse click away. It’s no secret to those who read and explore that the entrenched big money (largely the GOP and their corporate sponsors) began a decades-long campaign to dumb down America, steal the support of the middle class with an orchestrated syllabus of dis-information, and cynically seize on the so called “values issues” (which few if any of the long-winded orators themselves truly embrace) to propel themselves into power after Nixon fell. Suddenly Ronald Reagan, grade-B actor, union-buster, Darwinian capitalist without mercy, and closet racist became the patron saint of a frustrated Middle America. It wouldn’t hurt so much if these merchants of misinformation actually believed in their own rhetoric, but they simply spew their company line in an effort to get reasonable government regulation off their collective back. That way, they can live their splendid life, replete with piggish consumption, arrogant bullying, and “God-fearing” self righteousness. They’re entitled, just look in yer Bible dere, Edith. Little pink houses for you and me, sprawling 25,000 square-foot estates for the dear born and the greedy.

The Democrats, whose modern role as enforcers of fair play began with FDR are no innocents in this affair. Several of the Dem bigshots currently overseeing health care reform are among the largest receivers of contributions from the corporations which stand to gain from nothing changing at all. Who can trust any of these lying bastards. They have taken a page from their so-called “adversaries” in the GOP, posing for family photo-ops while they “reach across the aisle” to get theirs. Anyone who is angry at Ralph Nader for spoiling the 2000 election should remember that: a) the election was literally stolen at the polls in Florida, b) the crown was placed on W’s head by the packed Supreme Court, and c) Nader and any other visible third-party candidate are the only hope for rescuing us from our current one party rule. The Dems and GOP don’t compromise, they collaborate. They don’t represent differing political opinions, just different tailors. They may sit on opposite sides of the aisle in Congress, but their first-class seats on the planes to their tony vacation retreats are right next to one another.

Nothing about the economic and social dynamics has fundamentally changed since the Middle Ages, except that we serfs and peasants now live in an illusion of classlessness, courtesy of credit cards, cable TV, the NFL, Coca-Cola, Walt Disney and Fox News. The good life without soul, Christianity without compassion, freedom without purpose, and ignorance and pride dancing together at the ball. The Paupers’ Ball, that is. Most of us corn-fed yahoos couldn’t even get a job parking cars at the real dance. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, never before have so few conned so many with so little. Ain’t that America. Incorporated.