The History Of Popular Songs – Episode Three (2013Apr30)

XperDunn plays Piano
April 30th, 2013

The History Of Popular Songs – Episode Three

For Your Love, Love Is All Around, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, He Ain’t Heavy, and more!

Dedicated to the Memory of Mary Irene (Dunn) McIntosh

April 7th, 2013 in Port Charlotte, Florida RIP

April 7th, 2013 in Port Charlotte, Florida
RIP

 

Improv – Cloud Song (2013Apr27)

Improv – Drought and Famine (2013Apr27)

Improv – SeaSide Lullaby (2013Apr27)

(Three New Videos for April’s End)

Light’em If You Got’em

Well, well, well, I see the brain is functioning–one part resentment, one part despair, one part desperation, one part loneliness—and a jigger of optimism. The morning is bright (partly due to its being 2:16 PM) and the air is fresh and warm—my office (i.e. front) door is open and there’s a fresh-rolled, filtered cigarette smoldering in the ashtray.

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I am aware that such an opening becomes increasingly unlikely—the number of people who are ‘stupid’ enough to smoke tobacco dwindles—or so goes the cant. I can’t help noting that one will always see a knot of nurses and medical staff outside of a hospital, day or night, caging that furtive fix of nicotine and cancer.

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I understand them–and I feel for the senior staff, some of whom must gum or patch their way through to dinner time, whose respectability would be damaged, given current societal mores, by showing such a debased weakness as tobacco-addiction. And right here at the start I’d like to say that all those old commercials and movie scenes wherein the entire troupe luxuriates in a cigarette break—these were not the feint of Oscar-worthy actors, but the actual enjoyment the public once derived from this formerly welcome part of the ‘good life’.

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Back then, the Big Tobacco concerns were stuck in a vicious circle–firstly, their corporate goals were to increase profits, which included the necessity for investments in advertising and scientific research and development, and secondly, that same scientific research gave them both good and bad news. On the one hand, their manufacturers learned about nicotine-addiction as it applied to consumer motivation–and on the other hand, the legal department learned about tobacco smoking and nicotine addiction as health hazards and as increased occurrences of heart disease and lung cancer.

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So the ‘makers’ start controlling the dosage, so to speak, doping and dosing the ‘tobacco’ (which became more of a ‘processed food’ type of filler for the tubes). And then they messed with those paper tubes as well (they couldn’t just leave it as merely paper–profits, gentlemen, profits!). They encircled them with little gunpowder-charge-like spacers that kept the cigarette butt burning like a multi-stage booster rocket! They fixed upon a perfect ‘dosage’ which kept the craving going at maximum—and they fixed the tubes so you wouldn’t have any lit cigarettes going out, even when the smoker was distracted by something else that required one’s mouth—or both hands.

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I smoked those from the age of eighteen until about forty, when I became a totally different person. I went from being stuck with a disgusting habit—to being stuck with a forgivable habit. There were many steps along the way—I’m sure most of you think I should be ashamed of myself because of the whole second-hand smoke thing and raising a family in the same house. I won’t deny it—there’s some guilt there—but nobody’s died yet, so I’m off the hook about that, for now.

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But I didn’t like smoking myself, back then—I was using. It wasn’t the pleasure principle in action, it was the behavior of a lab rat. The second-hand smoke smelled like horse urine and the preponderance of additives made smoking less of an encounter with tobacco and more of a junkie’s fix. At some point, I discovered Rothmans, which were (still are, maybe) manufactured in Canada. They had a sweetness I had never tasted before—it was nearly unprocessed tobacco I tasted, and for the first time. But it wasn’t pure tobacco—and the paper was the same self-perpetuating stuff (when Americans want something a certain way, the whole world gets them that way).

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So I was living on a tightrope—imported Canadian cigarettes were premium priced and hard to find, outside of New York City. Once I began to work in Westchester, I was forced to depend solely on one stationary store/tobacconist’s shop in Katonah—I would buy them two cartons at a time—I was cavalier back then.  There seemed little to worry about—I could still get them at Smoker’s Harbor, in Mt. Kisco, too—and that was no great ride. And the City still had everything in the world for sale, as the Big Apple is expected to do, including hundreds, maybe thousands of cigarette stands, tobacco shops… why, certainly nothing could change the universe so drastically as to drop the landmarks  Dunhills, and Nat Shermans from Fifth Avenue itself? I didn’t buy a few humidors and start buying the Rothmans four cartons at a time until Rothmans were outlawed in NY State, and thereafter, only available from a tobacconist in Danbury, CT.

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This was at the time when frangible cigarette-paper was barred by NY State Legislation—the first toll of the Requiem bells for Smoking—a practice that deserved to be stopped both for what it did to people—and, while of little consequence compared to human life, what it did to tobacco. As I would learn, there is a distinct difference between smoking cigarettes and smoking tobacco, and this difference would give me a great surprise, eventually.

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While I mostly drink coffee. Wait. First I’d like to point out that coffee, a delicious miracle of a beverage, is a far greater luxury than we think. It’s a drug, it’s a hot cup, and it’s a taste sensation, served in a variety of ways (as if just plain coffee wasn’t wonder enough) and, to hear tell, sold on every street corner. If I’m not mistaken, it has even crumbled the great tradition of tea, for a sizable percentage of Britons. That’s nothing against English Tea (which I love), I’m just saying. And the French? The French act like they invented the stuff, as usual—or at least invented the only proper way to make it, as they did with food, and wine.

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But the growing of the beans is difficult, in difficult conditions; the roasting and whatever they do to raw beans. And the brewing of coffee itself, a complex task that no one shuns, simply because it is the only way to get a cup of coffee. What would life be without coffee? (And, once again, nothing against English Tea.) A hell on Earth—that’s what life without coffee would be.

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So, to start again–While I mostly drink coffee, I still enjoy the occasional cup of tea—if one is nuking a mugful of water, late at night, it hardly matters what one throws into the hot water. And tea has a rich history and an aeon’s-worth of traditions—it is an indulgence. All orthodoxies that prevent caffeine make a cup of tea just as forbidden as drinking a Vente-double-shot-something-or-other from Starbucks. But are there not hundreds of millions of old ladies drinking tea, right this minute, around the world, right now? How can one defame such a genteel pleasure? Only by a tunnel-vision-ed focus upon the chemical caffeine contained in coffee and tea—and ignoring every other consideration that tea, or coffee, may be due.

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When it comes to life and death, matters of degree, of relativity, cease to be unimportant caveats and become the difference between the aforementioned pair. So please don’t think I plan to draw analogs of kind and type between caffeinated beverages and tobacco use. The only thing I wish to demonstrate is that, in trashing our pleasures for health reasons, there is a universe of peripheral cultural resonance that goes completely unconsidered, shouted down by the ‘life or death’-ers. But, where the threat is seemingly insignificant, by comparison, the opposite is true—the wealth of the habit’s ties to daily lives, to personal histories, and to individuals who, for one reason or another, will refuse to accept the health ban placed upon the one thing that makes their lives comfortable, once in a while—all these things will tip the scales of justice to find in favor of the habit, and grant us liberty to indulge.

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Let’s take Prohibition—it is the only experience that paints an unvarnished illustration of human nature with regard to bad habits. Prior to Prohibition, no head of a family, no husband, no man of any kind, was held to account for their lapses when drunk. It was waved away—he’s just got a drinkin’ problem, don’t worry—hey, let’s us go have a drink, huh?

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And that was wrong on many levels, and all the hurt women and children unlucky enough to be dependent upon alcoholics, have a historical backlog going back to centuries of persecution and suffering. And it still happens today (which I’ll come back to). My point now is that Prohibition twisted society too far in one direction, which created an underworld outside of government—and that’s no good for nobody. So they Repealed the Prohibition Amendment and legal liquor boosted the society’s spirits, and left little for bootleggers to do except find new businesses (don’t worry, they found some).

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And, finally, after ‘both sides now’, the 1980s & 1990s saw a shift in perception—drunk driving was not a laughing matter—at least, not when one was sober again. And legal protections for victims of domestic abuse began to be enacted. And Alcoholism itself lost its luster and became an Addiction. Like all addictions, it brought its victims to a bad end. But there were treatments now, and restraining orders, and rehab. We came at alcoholism from the point of view that we had already tried Prohibition and we knew that wouldn’t work. ‘So let’s think a little bit about how to deal with this problem, and come at it in a more effective way’.

Which is pretty funny, when compared to our country’s drug problem. The media changed that bit of language—it started out drug ‘abuse’, a more individual perspective based on people who used drugs without caring about the consequences. There were others, people who enjoyed it but escaped being swallowed up by it. Many of them, or I should say us, didn’t know about long-term effects and potential damage from the stronger drugs, or about the phenomenon of addiction. But we nevertheless enjoyed trying drugs, managed not to kill ourselves, and have never used intoxication as an excuse to do bad things. Still, each and every one of us were, technically, outlaws before we even came of age. We didn’t want to be outlaws—we would have rather heard about sensible guidelines, or anything that wasn’t just a steel door snapped shut upon our curiosity and eagerness, and young peoples’ rapt attention upon the forbidden.

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Meanwhile, no one cares if there are carcinogens in the birth control pills (back then, I’m still talking about)—and I mean that literally—no one cared. That controversy was wholly based on the issue of morality. It became an excommunicable crime to the Roman Catholic Pope-dom—just like abortion. And if I know the Catholic Church (which I unfortunately know well) it still, technically, is banishment-to-the-outer-darkness-worthy.

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On LSD, people were talking to God like there was a shortage about to set in. We know now that there is a special spot in the brain that is our center of charismatic/spirituality sense. What we didn’t know then was that the psychotropic qualities of LSD, Peyote, Mescaline, and other hallucinogens had a profound effect upon that part of the brain—hence the many personal conversations with the almighty creator. We didn’t know that. There was a serious question as to whether the LSD mind-frame might bring one closer to (or farther away from) God. Nobody ignited any controversy over the spiritual qualities of ‘tripping’. All they saw was lack of contact with the communal consciousness, awe-filled eyes, and stupid grins—and some very irresponsible behavior. That is why it is classed as the same risk to public safety as opioids and prescription painkillers—because it pisses off the cops and the suits and, of course, The Man.

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Since LSD mimics some mental-disease symptoms, it has often been accused of taking someone on a trip they never returned from. But a certain percentage of any early-adulthood population always sees actual mental-disorders present themselves, because adolescence triggers some of these disorders. It seems to me that many of those never-returned were probably straddling the border before they dropped acid at a party. And I don’t know anything about how LSD overdosing could affect someone, so there’s that possibility as well. The truth, for 99% of kids surveyed, is that they returned from their acid trip, and quickly became tired of LSD, and left it behind. So, don’t let anyone tell you different—there will always be drug experimentation wherever there are adolescents—and I don’t mean just coffee, beer, pot and cigarettes. It’s all in how society treats that situation—teenagers certainly can’t be expected to change themselves, especially when they are so busy being changed into adults, and without any say in it.

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And it would be base hypocrisy, after the over-use of the ‘protecting-our children’ meme employed to win today’s legislative restrictions on drugs, pot, and tobacco, to even suggest that adolescents could be trusted to look after themselves. Nevertheless, every parent eventually discovers that the last phase of raising children is to let go of the bicycle seat and let them pedal off into their own life, on their own. Would it be possible to find a compromise? Are we stuck with the fact that toddlers and teens are considered equally in need of oversight? We may wonder over the billions of dollars spent on the DEA, while the best place to acquire illegal drugs remains either a high-school hallway or a college campus. We may wonder if all this legislation over chemical compounds isn’t an anchor around our culture’s neck.

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So, it’s all very simple for people who are happy with just food and drink—that other stuff is dangerous, probably bad, and certainly irresponsible. But we are not all so happy with the ‘raw feed’ of life. Some of us prefer an occasional ‘filter’, a pair of rose-coloured’s, if you will, to add zest to our lives. Do we have the right to be greedy of life’s pleasures? Can we be trusted with adult responsibilities in spite of our indulgences? Perhaps not. Not all of us, certainly, so it’s the same difference.

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But, getting back to me—in time, I was bereft of Rothmans—I had nowhere to turn. And then online tobacco sales dawned. Before I knew it, I was rolling my own cigarettes—well, not rolling them, really—there’s this contraption that injects the tobacco into a prepared paper tube with built-in filter. And, at first, it was too good to be true—making my own was no biggy—and the taste of these fresh, handmade cigarettes was beyond belief.

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Then I happened upon Three Castles—a brand of cigarette tobacco from the Daughters & Ryan Company—made of pure Virginia Gold Leaf—so fresh it was still moist. I was in smoker’s heaven—and I was paying a third the price of those horrible American cartons. Almost as soon as that paradise came, it vanished. New York became one of the states to outlaw online cigarettes, and all my little universe of tobacconist shops around the globe were cut off from me. So I ordered via UPS, from out-of-state suppliers (no tax). Then the tax law was changed to charge anyone with a NY State delivery address the full NYS sales tax on all tobacco, even pipe tobacco.

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So, I won’t tell you what I’m doing now—I can’t afford the security risk. Although it costs me way more than it should (NYS Sales Tax on Tobacco is about 80%) I can still get my paper tubes and tobacco shipped to the front door—and I’m a past master at fixing the injector gadget—so my life of luxury, including both coffee and cigarettes, goes on.

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I enjoy making cigarettes—it’s no big chore and there’s little enough activity in my life that a little ‘arts-and-crafts therapy’ doesn’t hurt the situation. And I still enjoy smoking them. The only shadow on my enjoyment is public opinion and the lack of comrades to share it with. I understand when European settlers first came to know of tobacco they would gather in an ale-house or a smoking-house and become intoxicated by tobacco, which they smoked from clay pipes. I assume they were following the lead of native Americans, who packed their pipes somewhat differently. The newcomers were only interested in the tobacco part—they loved it. And who doesn’t, unless scared away be fearmongers? And even way back then, men’s wives and pious preachers grumbled about this disgustingly satanic form of amusement.

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And I think I know why those medical personnel, huddled together outside every hospital, completely dismiss the warnings against smoking cigarettes. They know that life is a crap shoot. They know that there are a million ways to die—and lung cancer kills non-smokers all the time—same with heart disease… But the pleasures in life are the best part—get’em while you can, you know? Cigarettes are also a tremendous reward for a tough job—the only one you can give to yourself.

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While I have no beef with the molly-coddling, self-defeating attitude towards bad habits in today’s society, it is only because their victory is not yet complete. I dread the day, but at the same time, I know it will happen—and a tragical day it’ll be—someday I’ll go looking for a cup of joe and a smoke—and they won’t be there.

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Here’s hoping I kick the bucket first.

The History of Popular Songs – Episode One

XperDunn plays Piano
April 22, 2013 (Earth Day)

The History of Popular Songs – Episode One

“Marching Along Together”
American Lyric by Mort Dixon
Words and Music by Ed Pola & Franz Steininger
(c) 1932 The Peter Maurice Music Co. Ltd.

“Masquerade”
Lyrics by Paul Francis Webster
Music by John Jacob Loeb
(c) 1932 Leo Feist Inc.

“Maybe”
By Alan Flynn
& Frank Madden
(c) 1935 Robbins Music Corp.

“More Than You Know”
Lyrics by William Rose & Edward Eliscu
Music by Vincent Youmans
(c) 1929 by Miller Music Corp.

“My Reverie”
(Melody based on Claude Debussy’s ‘Reverie’
French Lyrics by Yvette Baruch)
by Larry Clinton (c) 1938 Robbins Music Corp.

“No! No! A Thousand Times No!”
by Al Sherman, Al Lewis and Abner Silver
(c) 1934 LEO Feist Inc.

“Lara’s Theme” from
MGM Presents David Lean’s ‘Doctor Zhivago’
Lyrics by Maurice Jarre
(c) 1965 MGM, Inc.

“Just You, Just Me”
Lyrics by Raymond Klages
Music by Jesse Greer (c) 1929 MGM, Inc.

“The Last Waltz”
Words and Music by
Les Reed and Barry Mason
(c) 1967 Donna Music Ltd.

“My Little Grass Shack In Kealakekua, Hawaii”
Words and Music by
Bill Cogswell, Tommy Harrison,
and Johnny Noble
(c) 1933 Miller Music Corp.

“Like Young”
Lyrics by Paul Francis Webster
Music by Andre Previn
(c) 1958 Robbins Music Corp.

Mandelbrot On The Brain

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Monday, April 22, 2013      1:13 PM

Perhaps our imaginations are Mandelbrot equations that have evolved in our brain matter to follow the line of analog rather than that of awareness—we cease to see the thing and imagine a something that is like the thing, but only in a way—in another way, it is quite different—and the biochemical equation fills in the blank. Do you know how a thing is just beyond your mind’s awareness? When you can feel it there, lurking under the scrim of conscious memory, and it isn’t that you need more time—it’s just that you have to re-orient your mind to finally grab ahold of the thing, the word, the idea, the, the,..

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“    That was a way of putting it—not very satisfactory:

A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,

Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle

With words and meanings. The poetry does not matter.”

–        EAST COKER

(No. 2 of ‘Four Quartets’)

T.S. Eliot

I see all these fantasy-based series on Syfy and HBO—and the recent spate of fairytale-themed movies, ‘Snow White and the Huntsman”, “Jack the Giant Killer”, etc. and then just now I’m watching the made-for-TV TNT Movie of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s classic, ‘The Mists of Avalon’. And I realize that we have to embrace magical thinking.

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I’m not saying it is the truth, I’m just saying we have to embrace it—as much as we need to simulate our animal-selves’ existence (exercise and diet) to keep our bodies healthy, we also need to recognize the importance that mystery played in our earlier civilizations—with regard to our mental and emotional well-being.

Prior to the Enlightenment, there was primitivism and religious devotion—no third option. No one ‘knew’ anything, the way we think of ‘knowing’ something, today. Everything was up for grabs—a demon might chase you; a witch might enchant you; you could fall asleep for forty years and return to a home that has nearly forgotten even the memory of you; you might be imprisoned within a stone—or there might be a magic sword in there, instead. God could stop the Sun in the sky—and no one dared question it. That one little problem was actually what began our descent into businesspersons—astrologers had been observing the sky’s signposts for millennia—even the Old Testament was young compared to Astrology. Then came telescopes, and before you know it—well, now it’s out there.

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You can persecute stubborn-minded astronomers for a few centuries but, in the end, with planetary observations that stretched back to the earliest records of civilization, supported by magically-enhanced vision via the telescope, the truth was in the math for anyone to see—and then a bunch of other things, and then the Enlightenment happens. People begin to see that there is a certainty in the world that even the most terrible magician can’t refute—basically, they accepted arithmetic as more axiomatic than faith. One cannot make measurements of magic, and one cannot allow magic in mathematics.

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But even this would not have been a problem if we hadn’t reached a point where literacy and public discourse could root out the smoke and mirrors of magical belief, and shine a light on, —well, on bullshit, to put it bluntly. And in many ways, particularly in terms of human rights and democracy, the routing of magical thinking from our daily lives is a great blessing. However.

Religion is part of the old, magical-thinking-type way—and there are lots of people who would get angry at that statement for two reasons: one, their religion isn’t some hocus-pocus Las Vegas magician’s act!—and two, their religion transcends mathematics. So, we find ourselves very prettily stuck in a barrel—we can either drop the barrel to stand in the naked truth, or we can tote that barrel around while we try to lead a sensible life. I’m for dropping it, but then I’ve never been much of a stickler for form. And form is nothing to sneeze at.

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T.S. Eliot was known to be very attracted to rites and rituals—his conversion to Anglican was as much to regain some magic in his life as it was a shunning of agnosticism. He called it ‘meaning’, but I call it ‘magic’. As a lifelong atheist, I can attest to the emotional toll it takes to turn ones back on fairy tales. If I could make the slightest pretense of faith, I would work its last nerve—let me tell you—‘magic’?—much better way to go through life—illusory, vestigial, irrational?—of course. But, still, the way our minds are designed to work. Social interaction loses its coherence in a fully rationalized society—everything is a field of study but nothing is mysterious, unknown, or inconclusive. I know there are sub-atomic physics theories and cosmological theorems that will always glimmer in the distance—for that small group of people who can climb to the ridge of that mental mountain range. But for the rest of us there’s little more than electricity, clean water, medical insurance, and job security. There is no cathedral being built; there’s no crusade to fight against an exotically unfamiliar foe; there are no barren deserts for mad monks to wander in.

There is only the endless struggle against the brute animal that lives behind our eyes and the craven junky in our guts that’s willing to walk into traffic for something just out of reach and the hysterical, traumatized self-hater that’s always trying to break into our hearts.

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We need charismatic diversions, periods of wandering and wondering and being in awe. We need secrets—secrets kept from us and secrets we keep to ourselves. Any good therapist will tell you that is no way towards a healthy emotional life—that is the sort of thing that allows you to be manipulated, repressed, and overwrought. Which is true. The fact that we may need it to satisfy some other lack still remains, healthy or not, true or not, scientific or not.

Truth is truth and science is science—but that doesn’t make us happy, by itself. We need some blissful ignorance, perhaps a daily ride on a big roller-coaster—anything that will bring us to the face of eternity, even for a moment. Somewhere we can laugh in the teeth of a fiery dragon or soar on a magic carpet. Our species has spent all but the last few centuries feeling fear, hunger, lust, wonder, and curiosity—do we really think we can be okay with a desk job and a cable TV?

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“So ?” [Re-visited] –XperDunn on April 21st, 2013

XperDunn plays Piano

“So ?” (3 mins., 21 secs.)

 Improv – So? (Revisited) (2013Apr21)

Saturday, April 20, 2013 3:48 PM

So? It’s my music, so you don’t have anything to say about it.
If you don’t like my music, don’t listen.
Feel free to ignore me–believe me, if you’re giving off negatory vibes, man–I’m ignoring the hell out of you.

This is my song.
Here I am singing it.
Like it or not.

Hey, I’ve got th’palsy, man–it’s not like this is easy to do.
It’s not like I’ve had training or anything helpful like that–All my mistakes are my own.

Whatever I could’ve gotten out of training is moot now anyhow.
And it sure ain’t like I’m some kind of prodigy–I was born with a predilection for my right hand, and ‘ambidextrous’, to me, always sounded like magic.
And I don’t keep a steady rhythm–I was never a drummer.

So? Hey, it’s my music!
It’s not like I have the option to go jogging or curling or making stone walls.
It’s not as if I could just walk down the street, asking for a job.
“So, what are your qualifications? I mean, outside of being really old and unable to remember my name–after I told you three times…”
Of course, I could stay here at the keyboard all day–but after that first sixty minutes,
my mind will wander and
the next seven hours will just be
bad for my back
—nobody pays me to play Freecell.

So?
Hey, this is my song. Get your own, man.

Well, there it is—my poem for the day. Can’t post it, naturally. Maybe if I sang it, I could post that to YouTube—but even then there’s a very strong sense of ‘poor me’ about this lyric—and I think only an entitled, egocentric rock star could pull it off. I guess I’ll have to be a rock-god for awhile…

There is a longer, un-edited version:

 “Improv – So? (Revisited) -THE UNEDITED VERSION (2013Apr21)”

So?..  Re-visited (RAW FOOTAGE)

Improv – So? (Revisited) -THE UNEDITED VERSION (2013Apr21)

Which lasts about 17 & ½ mins.

-compared to the very first, original,    Improv – So?         (2013Apr20) , which clocks in at a respectable 12 mins., even.

 

XperDunn plays Piano

Improv – So? (2013Apr20)

 

 

Improv – On The Boston Marathon Bombing April 15, 2015

In which I convey my sorrow over the terrible ending of today’s Boston Marathon and my sympathy’s for everyone who participated in the race and their loved ones.

XperDunn plays Piano
April 15th, 2013

Improv – On The Boston Marathon Bombing

(c) MMXIII by Christopher Dunn

The End of Terror (Monday, April 15, 2013 6:40 PM)

20101 Boston Marathon Weekend

 

Well, I’m very upset. I have friends in Boston and I’ve always been interested in their annual Marathon. So the explosions and the casualties and the fatalities and the finding more devices—it’s all different from any previous terrorist attack, foreign or domestic. At least, it’s different than any I’ve seen on the news. And I suppose your high-end terrorist pig wants that, just as he/she/they want the international scope of a Boston Marathon incident, hosting scores of visiting foreigners with a passion for endurance running.

At the moment, CNN is saying “two dead and hundreds injured, many critical”. I expect those numbers to change in two or three days. There was an interesting governmental spokesperson pointing out that, considering the density of the crowd and the ease of movement afforded to people carrying backpacks and other luggage around a mile-wide ‘street fair’-type mob, there were incredibly light casualties, ‘relatively speaking’—and then went on to add (at length) that she wasn’t minimizing the pain and even death of the victims—it’s difficulty to make such ‘relative’ comments without enraging the more immediately-involved’s families and friends.

But she had a point. The nation is big. The attack at the Boston Marathon has all the earmarks of a PR ‘stunt’—as opposed to an all-out strike such as 9/11. To shut the nation down would be an over-reaction—even shutting down cell-service in the Boston area (preventing, hopefully, any further remote-detonation signals) will have to be a brief, emergency measure—as the possibility of further explosions begins to dwindle, the inconvenience and grief of losing communication services in a major city will grow larger.

But there’s one thing I’m sure of—I am not terrified. The shock has worn off—the bloom is off the terrorist’s rose. By now, we are all well-aware that there are people in the world sick enough to perpetrate these things. The death and the pain wound our hearts—we feel immense sadness over the victims and their survivors, the wounded and maimed and their families—but we are not afraid.

And another thing I feel is confidence—by now, I’ve developed (we all have) an awareness of just how powerful our country’s counter-terrorist forces are in tracking and killing these hate groups and individual psychopaths.

We grieve. We feel horrible—such needless, pointless violence against such innocent, happy people. But we are not afraid now. We will never be afraid again—we’ve given all the ground we are going to give on this subject and we are well on the way to taking it back and then some.

Whether there are crazed gunmen in schools, domestic extremists, or ‘al-qaeda’ cells, America has gotten over you all. Soon we won’t even report this stuff on the news—well, the attacks will be reported—but no one is going to waste time on asking these monsters about their goals or motivations or anything else they have to say. They will simply be brought to whatever justice they receive.

Judging from the recent, frequent reports of these public bombings around the world, the countries that had traditionally harbored these extremists are making them very unwelcome of late. Afghanis, Pakistanis, Iraqis—their people are as fed up with this insane destruction as we are here in the USA. And high time, too.

So, sorry, terrorists—you will no longer be called terrorists because you are the creators of terror—you will be called terrorists because you are terrible people—and nobody wants you around.

Bear’s Birthday Song – XD Featuring ** Sherryl Marshall ! ** (2013Apr10)

XperDunn   Featuring -** Sherryl Marshall !**   [ON YOUTUBE]

April 10th, 2013:
*** Bear’s Birthday !!! ***
In honor of which a Song :…….(click pic to watch)

Bear’s Birthday Song – XD Featuring ** Sherryl Marshall ! **  (2013Apr10)

VIDEO INFORMATION
Uploaded time: April 11, 2013 3:21 PM
Duration: 3:10

April 10th, 2013
Bear’s Birthday !!!

In honor of which a Song :
Performed by

XperDunn Featuring -** Sherryl Marshall !**

Bear’s Birthday Song (2013Apr10)
Written by XD
Music by Sherryl Marshall

So, I wrote these words
yesterday around noon
and then printed them out
so Sherryl could read them
(I had to lend her my reading glasses)
She had come to wish Claire a Happy Birthday
and I saw my opening and I asked her
to please improvise a tune
while reading the words on the paper.
I cajoled and coerced and Sherryl is such a good sport
that she actually agreed to do it.
I almost lost her when I went to start the recorder!
But I sat down and started to play four chords over and over
(That’s about the level of my musicality)
And Sherryl joined in (no doubt against her better judgement).
I think it came out great, for a one-day composition
(I suppose it was really a one-hour project
But I spent he rest of the day
Creating this video which,
while containing footage of the original recording,
unfortunately does not show Sherryl).

It was a bunch of fun and I’m so grateful that Sherryl was generous enough to allow me to post this on YouTube–Enjoy!

Here are the lyrics:

Wednesday, April 10, 2013 (Bear’s Birthday) 4:33 PM
Bear’s Birthday Song

All stories start with
‘Once there was’
And end with
‘Ever after’.
Their middles have
Some terrible fuss—
Their climax breaks
With laughter.

But life flows ever
From creation
And stops never
With ones death—
Our pasts flow backward
Toward creation
Our deaths look forward
To our heirs’ births.

So see not stories
As pure truth
Or your life
As start and ending—
The truer glories
Lie, forsooth
In the strife,
The hurt—and mending.

The evermore
Is ever now—
A river stone,
A wind-bent bough,
Stillness shouting,
Life’s blood gouting,
Old men doubting,
Young bucks mounting….

Send me back to childhood.
This old man’s life is hardly stood.

My love’s so old
It keeps me young;
My lover’s hold
So thrilling sung.
Through every nerve
A charge is flung
If love you serve
Your soul is sprung.

From Old on back to Childhood
Do love, and love will make all good.”

by Bozeau de Clowne

–In Honor Of
L’anniversaire de Naissance de La

Bear de la Plume (a Dix d’Avril, 2013)

Improv – Persephone’s Dance (2013Apr08)

XperDunn plays Piano
April 8th, 2013

Improv – Persephone’s Dance

Subtitles as follows:

Demeter and Persephone
(excerpt) by

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

“…Once more the reaper in the gleam of dawn
Will see me by the landmark far away,
Blessing his field, or seated in the dusk
Of even, by the lonely threshing-floor,
Rejoicing in the harvest and the grange.
Yet I, Earth-Goddess, am but ill-content
With them, who still are highest. Those gray heads,
What meant they by their “Fate beyond the Fates”
But younger kindlier Gods to bear us down,
As we bore down the Gods before us? Gods,
To quench, not hurl the thunderbolt, to stay,
Not spread the plague, the famine; Gods indeed,
To send the noon into the night and break
The sunless halls of Hades into Heaven?
Till thy dark lord accept and love the Sun,
And all the Shadow die into the Light,
When thou shalt dwell the whole bright year with me,
And souls of men, who grew beyond their race,
And made themselves as Gods against the fear
Of Death and Hell; and thou that hast from men,
As Queen of Death, that worship which is Fear,
Henceforth, as having risen from out the dead,
Shalt ever send thy life along with mine
From buried grain thro’ springing blade, and bless
Their garner’d Autumn also, reap with me,
Earth-mother, in the harvest hymns of Earth
The worship which is Love, and see no more
The Stone, the Wheel, the dimly-glimmering lawns
Of that Elysium, all the hateful fires
Of torment, and the shadowy warrior glide
Along the silent field of Asphodel. ”

Demeter and Persephone (excerpt)
-Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

{The complete poem is available online–indeed, all of Tennyson’s works are.
My preferred free literature online= Project Gutenberg dot ORG…}

Life on a Go Board

ancienmanor

I don’t like it when words are used as stones on a Go board, or statements used as chess-pieces—those are combat simulations—since when did communication become combat? For that matter, when did words become the only form of communication? Actions speak louder than words, but words, or perhaps videos’ scripts, are considered a life-connection from you or me to someone halfway round the world. Am I really connected to those people? Funny story (you know I accept friend-requests from anyone) this new Facebook-friend of mine only posts in Arabic—it’s beautiful stuff, but I don’t even know the basic phonemes of that written language—and I had to ask him to tell me his name (or equivalent sound) in Roman script.

I don’t want to get into a debate here about argument. Formal argument, or debate, is certainly useful and productive—as is regular old arguing, when it’s done with restraint or when its goal is an elusive solution or resolution. The Scientific Method, itself, is an implied debate—a conflict between prior theories and the new theories that overthrow them—or that are overthrown thereby—no, I’m not saying that communication isn’t rife with conflict—my purpose here is to discuss other forms of communication and sharing. So, please, let’s not argue (—jk).

ancienMask

I finally realized that all these unsolicited friend requests from the Mid-East were because I was using a photo of Malala Yousafzaya as my Profile Pic! I’m glad—now I know they’re not shadowy extremists trying to cultivate an American connection—they are instead the liberals of their geographic zone.

Such international friends frustrate me—the lack of words that I don’t type could be just as offensive as any thoughtless words I post—and there are plenty of those. I wish I knew what they were. Whenever someone wants to Facebook-friend me as their American friend, I start right in on criticizing all their grammar faux pas and misunderstood colloquialisms—they love it—that’s what they want from their American friend. I’m afraid geek-dom knows no borders—only my fellow geeks from faraway lands appreciate criticism—I’m sure people with the Cool gene flock together across the datasphere as well (but then, I’ll never know—will I?)

ancienRug

But communication, as a means of sharing ideas and organizing cooperative efforts, is far more than a battle of witty words. Political cartoons, cartoon cartoons, obscene gestures, and ‘making out’ come first to mind—although there are plenty more examples. The Media (a term I use to denote People magazine, other newspapers and periodicals, radio, cable-TV, VOD, cable-news, talk shows, private CC security footage, YouTube and the omnipresent Internet.) I say… the Media is looking for trouble.

They aren’t broadcasting cloudless summer skies or a happy family sitting around the dinner table or the smoothly proceeding commuter traffic a half a mile from the traffic accident. And I don’t blame them. Their job is to entertain—that’s what pays their bills. And I don’t blame us, either. We are happier watching dramatic thrills than watching paint drying. There’s no getting around that.

And I won’t play the reactionary and suggest that we go back to a time when entertainment was a brief treat enjoyed, at most, once a week. Even the idle rich (and this is where that ‘idle’ part comes from) just sat around socializing when they weren’t at a fox-hunt or a ball. To be entertained was almost scandalous—think of it—in a deeply religious society, such escapism went against the morality of the times—and even as a once-a-week diversion, it was frowned upon not only to be a stage player, but to attend the performance, as well.

ancientseal

But entertainment, like a gas, expands to fit the size of its civilization—those old scruples took a few centuries to kick over, but once the digital age had dawned it seemed quite natural that everyone should have access to twenty-four-hour-a-day entertainment (call it ‘news and current events’, if it helps). And now we have people walking into walls and driving their cars into walls while they stare fixedly at their entertainment devices.

So, trite as the word may seem, Media is a mandatory entity to include in any discussion of the human condition. And more importantly, it must be a part of the Communication topic, as well—most especially with a view towards a formulation of culture that does not make conflict our primary means of sharing and informing our minds. So let’s recap—Entertainment equals drama equals conflict equals fighting (See ‘Arnold Schwarzenegger’). Information equals scientific method equals discussion equals human rights (See ‘Bruce Willis’—jk).

capeBordr

To begin, there is one thing that needs to be acknowledged—learning is NOT fun. I’d love it if it was—I know fun can be used to teach some things—It’s a lovely thought—but, No. Learning is a process of inserting information into the mind. People talk a lot about transcendental meditation but, for real focus, learning is the king. To learn, one must be patient enough to listen; to absorb an idea, one must be willing to admit that one doesn’t know everything; to completely grasp a new teaching, one may even have to close ones eyes and just concentrate—nothing more, no diversions, no ringtone, no chat, no TV, no nothing—just thinking about something that one is unfamiliar with—and familiarizing oneself.

We forget all that afterward—the proof in that is that none of us graduate from an educational institution with the ability to ‘sub’ for all the teachers we’ve studied under. We have learned, but only a part of what was taught—it’s implications, ramifications, uses, and basic truths may have eluded us while we ‘learned to pass the class’. Contrariwise, our teachers may have bit their tongues—eager to share some little gem of Mother Nature’s caprice implicit in the lesson plan—and had instead put the ‘teaching of the class to pass’ before the ‘teaching of the class’.

dinPlate

And that is no indictment of teaching, that’s just a fact—it doesn’t prevent me from admiring great teachers. But I couldn’t help notice that great teachers always color outside the lines in some few ways. Teaching people to learn for themselves, with that vital lesson neatly tucked into the course-plan of the material subject of a course—it takes effort, discipline, and way more patience than that possessed by most of the rest of us—but it also requires an allegiance to the Truth of Plurality, that incubator of eccentricity.

merit

But we forget our Learning. It becomes something we simply ‘know’, something that we just ‘know how to do’. Part of good parenting is learning to teach well—young people have the luxury of just understanding something, while parents must struggle to figure out how to explain it, or teach it, to their children. And then we forget about that learning—and must scratch our heads again, struggling to explain ‘explaining’ to our grown-up, new-parent offspring. It’s a light comedy as much as anything else.

femIdol

So learning is not fun. There is a thrill involved, however, that is almost always worth the ticket price. The internet and the TV blare words at us in their millions, info to keep us up-to-date—just a quick update—and now there’s more on that—and we’ll be hearing a statement from the chief of police….—also, we are seduced by lush orchestrations or driven musical beats, by the gloss and beauty and steel and flesh of literal eye-candy, and that dash of soft-core porn that is the engine under the hood of so many TV series.

We see breaking YouTube uploads of rioting in a faraway land—we believe that our quiet little lives are nothing, that all our sympathy and concern should be spread across the globe to billions of strangers in distress. We are flooded with information by the Media—but because it’s the Media, only conflicts and crises are shown—the peaceful, happy billions of people that pass by those crowd scenes, that seek refuge across the border, that have families and generate love to whomever gets near enough—we don’t need to see them.

housOclay

But that isn’t true—it’s true for the Media, but it isn’t true for us. The Media can’t change—but we can be aware of its bias. We can take note of the fact that the Media should not be the major part of our dialogues with one another. Best of all, we can become aware of how much the Internet can teach us—if we can stop IM-ing and web-surfing and MOMPG-ing long enough to notice that the Internet is a hell of a reference book.

No, I’m not saying we should trust the Internet. I’m saying that the real information is there, and finding it and using it will be the road into the future that our best and brightest will walk along. They will pull their eyes away from the Mario Race-Cart, the YouTube uploads of kittens and car-crashing Russians, and George Takei’s Facebook page—and they will throw off the chains of Media and make it their bitch again, back where it belongs.

lareale

In WWII, fighter-group captains and flight-team leaders are always saying ‘Cut the chatter, guys—heads up!’ I think we need the same thing—everyone should have a little devil on their shoulder that says the same thing—“Hey! –so the Internet connects you to the entire civilized world—that doesn’t mean you have to say anything—it just means you can.”

Our high-tech communications infrastructure is no small part of the problem—the digital magic that flings words and pics and music all over the world bestows an importance and a dignity to our messages that many messages don’t deserve. Posting to the Internet is kind of like being on TV—it grants a kind of immortality to the most banal of text-exchanges—it can even be used against you in court—now, that’s very special and important—and now, so am I, just for posting!

precolumbnGoblet

So, yearning for the perennial bloodlust of Law & Order: SVU, our self-importance inflated, and our eyes off the road, we speed towards tomorrow. I hate being a cynic.

[PLEASE NOTE: All graphics courtesy of the Quebec National Gallery]

Back to Welfare (or How To Fix Public Education)

Image

Ah, the myth of the man-month, all over again. “The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering” by Fred Brooks, [“..First published in 1975 (ISBN 0-201-00650-2), reprinted in 1982, and republished in an anniversary edition with four extra chapters in 1995 (ISBN 0-201-83595-9), including a reprint of the essay “No Silver Bullet” with commentary by the author.]”–Wikipedia.

Brooks’ Law has been around a long time. However, Brooks’ book is jovially described as the ‘Project Managers Bible’, oft-quoted, but almost never followed. There are good reasons for not following the rational approach described therein—for one thing, it concerns group efforts in a business environment. Ask anyone with experience in such things and they will tell you, “Sure—in group efforts (or team efforts) there is nothing rational involved—it’s all about their feelings and relationships (and their hierarchy, corporate-wise).”

20130407XD-Mythical_man-month_(book_cover)

Like office staff during a prolonged period of ‘downsizing’, members of a ‘group effort’ assume a herd aspect—everyone looks to everyone else, ignoring their specific efforts while focused on the much more important mob-moods of the group as a whole. But the vagaries of corporate dysfunction and corporate survival are not my theme for today.

Today, in examining the exhaustive world of Insolvency, I’m going over ground that’s been gone over before—but is very worthwhile in reviewing and reminding us of key facts. Part of the Poverty problem is the enormous effort required to be poor and alive at the same time.

Let’s enumerate. Point One—if you cannot afford a car, you are forced to either walk or take mass transit, often for long distances, on a daily basis. This applies not just to the commute to a job (yes, many poor people have jobs—they’re just not good jobs) but to shopping, medical emergencies, parent-teacher meetings, etc. Commuting is, however, where it hurts the most—the likelihood of being late is magnified by the number of factors outside of the control of the worker—missed busses and trains, inclement weather, and heavy traffic on a street that must be walked across, etc. And this results in either docked pay or diminished perceived value as an employee—or both. In short, the lack of a car can be costly in effort, man-hours, reputation, and straight-up paychecks. And it makes certain destinations virtually unreachable.

Point Two—if you cannot afford a house, you must find a friend to let you stay on the couch—or find a homeless shelter. Either way, you are subject to all the disadvantages of not owning a home—you cannot accumulate appliances, furniture, or foodstuffs; you cannot give a home phone number or mailing address; and you can end up spending too much time exposed to the elements—which can lead to…

Point Three—if you cannot afford a doctor and you are sick or injured, you must spend a minimum of one whole working day at an Emergency Room—and then get less-than-competent health care at the end of it. Infection is more likely to find people who have no Band-Aids or Purell.

I could go on to Point Thirty-Three with this stuff—but I’ll spare you the rest—in truth, it makes me very tired to think about Poverty. So many people—so much injustice and unfairness—thinking how it would affect me, in my disabled state, if I were all alone, I can’t help but see it as a sort of hell on earth.

I can only surmise that the many angry voices on the Internet, that despise the poor and the hungry, are the voices of like-minded folk—with the important difference that they fear that hell-on-earth for themselves and, rather than empathize with today’s victims, simply wish to distance themselves from such a horrible condition. That fear makes them angry and such people want to insist that the monster could never catch them—thus their characterization of the poor as ‘lazy’ and ‘un-enterprising’. But they are no safer for all their hexing.

None of us are safe. That is why it makes a tremendous amount of sense to ameliorate the horrors of Poverty. It could happen to me tomorrow—then wouldn’t I feel like an idiot for trying to stop government aid to my new demographic? We should be making Poverty an embarrassment rather than a frightening wasteland. We should be making Poverty so easy to bear that the only damage it inflicts is the wounding of one’s pride.

20130408XD-Hungry0020

But please understand me—I’m not saying we should taunt the poor—that isn’t it at all. No, I’m saying that poverty should hold no fear for our lives, for our health, for our daily bread. I’m saying it should be easy to be poor, easy to care for our children when we’re poor, and easy to get medical treatment for us and our families when we’re poor. We should be tempted by Poverty—it should call to us when we are down and make us think, “O, forget all this trouble—I’m just gonna give up.”

Without such a safety-net system of support, none of us are safe, none of us can rest easy—the poor suffer, and the rest of us worry about becoming poor. It’s too primitive this way—and what is a civilization anyway, if not a collective effort to improve quality of life for everyone?

I remember the ‘Welfare state’ of yesteryear—how it became a black hole of government expense. But that was not caused by an army of ‘lazy good-for-nothings’, people who chose welfare over honest labor—even in those easier times, no one went on Welfare just to avoid working. No, the true cause of the arterial spurt of cash that Welfare became was corruption, not overuse.

Plus, no one thought Welfare through—it was an attempt to end the poverty of inner cities and depressed rural areas—when someone has lived hand to mouth for a lifetime—and then is handed money—that person doesn’t have any natural propensity for changing into someone new—no. When Welfare was instituted, there was no concomitant effort to guide those people towards a different way of life—so when they got money, they spent it as they always had. The idea that they would simply march straight into a bank and start a savings account, try to use some of the money to get a better education, and generally start doing things the way prosperous people were used to doing them—that is one big assumption.

It showed our ignorance of social dynamics and, more importantly, it revealed government’s (any government’s) weak side: envisioning what will happen tomorrow. Mixed up in there, too, was a lot of prejudice, condescension, and miserliness. And the Misers ultimately won out. The media painted it thus: calls for rooting out the corruption and illicit scams in the Welfare system were followed by pronouncements that it couldn’t be fixed, we should just trash the whole thing. And that’s what we did.

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A few years later, NYC (and many other places) noticed a new problem in the streets—homelessness. Coincidence? You tell me. Then we had years of debate over how to solve the homeless crisis. No one suggested anything as old and shabby as Welfare—we’d already tried it, hadn’t we? Well, not really.

Let me say this—if we tasked our armed forces with a war on domestic poverty, we wouldn’t be that far off. As I see it, much of the perpetuation of poverty is due to businesspersons that create an economic niche within the plight of the poor—slumlords, high-interest-loans, overpriced merchandise targeting customers who can’t afford the extra time and the extra distance travelled to reach an honorable establishment. It is a microcosm of how most of the world is eternally being ripped off by the rich—but I’m going to stay on task here—back to Poverty.

So there are businesses which prey on the poor—but there are the gangs, too. Modern gangs control many under-served, depressed areas—and our world’s largest penal system contains an inexhaustible supply of replacements for all the gangs. Between street gangs, our prison system, and organized crime, huge swathes of the ‘land of the free’ are so ‘law of the jungle’ that they actually could be perceived as foreign countries—thus my suggestion that the military take point on this issue.

If our armed forces can get rid of the thieves and tin-pot dictators of the Mid-East, rebuild the infrastructure, train and educate the native populations to the point where they can govern themselves—why can’t we do that at home? I say bring back Welfare, and enforce it with heavy armament! Then, when people stop starving and freezing, perhaps, the public education system can be fixed.

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Songs by Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart (2013Apr04)

XperDunn plays Piano Covers
April 4th, 2013

Songs by:

Richard Rodgers
&
Lorenz Hart

April Fool Me Once

April Fool 2013

(c) April 2013 Xper Dunn

(c) April 2013 Xper Dunn

 

Improv – April Fool  (2013Apr01)

The charge died on my camcorder just as I was discovering how to sound like Philip Glass, sorta–but what got recorded is okay anyhow.

Published on Apr 1, 2013

XperDunn plays Piano
April Fools Day, 2013

Improv – April Fool

(The joke was on me–the batteries died on me halfway through!)