The New Aquarius blog

The Law of the Universe

2008-01-14T09:47:00.000-05:00

We draw what we desire to ourselves like a magnet. Are you sending out the right message? I ask myself that question all the time. Am I sending out the right message? Am I drawing to myself the things that I desire? The law of the Universe is a very simple one. If you want something, you only need to ask for it. Believe that what you desire is coming to you and that nothing can stop it. Feel the feelings that accompany receiving what you desire. Remove all doubt. Never give in to doubt. In time you’ll find that what you desire comes to you. It has to. It’s the law of the Universe.

There are a number of different names for the Universe and “sending messages.” Some call it God and prayer. Others may call the messages meditation. It’s all the same thing. Spirituality equals religion equals science. We’re all talking about the same thing.

There’s a wrinkle to this that one must be aware of. The Universe doesn’t hear negative adverbial phrases. This is very odd at first. For example, if you’re afraid to get sick, and you think constantly to yourself that you hope you don’t get sick, you’ll probably get sick. You’re associating getting sick with yourself and feeling not the positive feelings that you associate with wellness, but fear and doubt. The Universe “hears” that you want to be sick, because you’re feeling those awful feelings over and over, claiming them. The Universe gives you what you want. It has to. It’s the law. So if you don’t want to get sick, the message you should send is that you will be well, full of energy and full of life. Feel that wellness flowing through you. If you desire wellness when you are at peace and you don’t give in to the fear of being sick, wellness will come to you. It takes practice to control your feelings, but it isn’t beyond anyone’s abilities.

Many people wonder how they could possibly get what they want just by expressing the desire if, logistically speaking, everyone else could do the same thing at the same time. This is a particularly common concern for those who desire wealth. The first reason to be comforted is based in logic: Not everyone asks for the same thing. The second and more important remedy to this skepticism is more beautiful and freeing: There is no such thing as a traffic jam in the Universe. We’re all going in the same direction and to the same place. The best part is that in order for you to win, no one else has to lose. This concept is contrary to so much of what I learned in my life. Whether I was told that or I observed that by the way people around me chose to live, that’s what I learned. It’s a lie. For you to get what you desire, you don’t have to take anything away from anyone else. There’s plenty of everything to go around.

There’s a footbridge that I use most nights on my way home. It extends across a ravine of sorts. Using it allows me to stay on streets that are less crowded with traffic, which is my goal. On my bike, the last thing that I want is a lungful of exhaust fumes. It really bugs me and in the dense traffic that can build up where I live, I take any opportunity to avoid being poisoned like that. Ever since Daylight Saving Time ended, I have ridden across that footbridge in total darkness. All of the lights on it have been out for months. If there is no moon, I have to go on faith that all of the boards are still there. That’s how dark it is. It’s even harder to know if someone is walking in front of me, which is an even bigger concern for me than the bridge being out. I called the Public Works department about the lights on the bridge a couple of times. They said something about the bulbs being “on order” and how they would be replaced when they arrived. I thought for sure they were blowing me off. A couple of weeks ago, I called again and left a message for the Public Works Superintendent. He called back and left a message that he would try to get at least half of the lights working by last week. That Monday, the bridge was still dark.

Ever since I’d taken to calling about my lighting problem, every time I rode across that bridge, I would feel angry and minimized. For some reason, I was sure that I was being ignored because of someone’s laziness. Riding across that bridge in darkness re-invigorated those negative feelings every night. Last week, I’d had a particularly bad day. It was my worst day in a long time and I struggled to get myself back on track psychologically and emotionally. On my way home on the train, I fell into the most perfect meditation for my situation. I boarded the train in total dread. By the time we reached my stop, a feeling of warmth had come over the core of my body that only happens when I take tranquilizers. This warmth however, was more pronounced. The peace that I desired came to me through my own efforts. I knew that I was onto something. I’d also figured out that the reason my day had gone so badly was because I had been sending out the wrong messages. The law worked in my favor and against me in the same day. In both cases, it was because I had made clear what I desired.

On my way home from the train, I was determined to sustain the good feelings I had established for myself. The traffic light was red by the time I got to it, but I was able to go forward because no cars were there to take advantage of the turn signal. The next phase of my journey home was the footbridge. I told myself as I approached it that I would not give in to anger about the lights tonight. I would not feel minimized by the darkness. I rode around the hedge and the bridge came into view. Every bulb had been replaced! I could see my way across the bridge completely. When I got to the center of the span, I literally laughed out loud.

I thought that I would always remember that day because of the unpleasant experiences it brought to me. By the time I got home that night, I was ready to mark the day on the calendar because of the great lessons I learned. No proof of my ability to choose the events that transpire in my life could have been stronger. I know now that if I’m in darkness, all I have to do is decide. The bridge will be lit up before me and I’ll be able to cross unimpeded. It has to be. It’s the law.

Free steak for the free-spirited

2007-12-26T14:33:00.001-05:00

The other night, I took my wife out for her birthday. It was a very special occasion, because we get so few opportunities to go out for a nice dinner. We went to her favorite restaurant, which is a very expensive steak place with all of the entrapments of fine dining. The restaurant featured a well-attired wait staff who could recite the specials as if they were reading from a teleprompter and help you to make informed choices about the best wine to compliment your meal.

Though I’m not an uppity fellow, good service is a luxury I do enjoy. Actually, I don’t think it’s good service as much as it is that I enjoy seeing anyone take a time-honored charade seriously. I know very well that the waiters in these places are just regular guys like everyone else, but at night they assume the role of passionate servers. It’s a lot like going to the theatre.

We arrived earlier than our reservation time, but they seated us immediately since we had arrived before the evening rush. We exchanged pleasantries with the “cast” and ordered steaks. The meal was going very well. The room was quieter than I expected for a Friday night, which added to the experience. Our waiter returned to our table regularly to ask if we needed anything else. He refilled my Pellegrino several times without my even asking.

Near the end of the main course, I was involved in an interesting discussion with my wife when a shifty-looking character in a slick suit approached our table. In the dim light of the dining room, I could tell that his hair had the “wet look.” He leaned on an empty chair next to me and said, “Good evening, ladies!”

I looked over at the man, whose face immediately sunk. He was clearly mortified and delivered an apology that reflected more mortification than regret.

I’ve been through this several times in my life. Women, hairdressers mostly, often compliment me on how beautiful my hair is. It’s odd, but I’m always polite. I never take offense. I know as well as my wife does that I don’t look like a woman. I don’t dress like a woman, nor do I conduct myself as such. I often wonder about people careless enough to say “ladies.” I think they like the idea of saying “ladies.” They like the sound of it. It helps with the act. Theatre has a rhythm. Over the years, easily a dozen waiters have made the same mistake, looking only at my hair and continuing with the charade only to be shocked when I look at them. I’ve learned to play it well, because handled correctly, you become the boss. I’ve gotten free deserts a number of times. But that’s when it happens in a diner. It never happened to me in an expensive place. This was going to be good. I immediately assumed my reserved inquisitive tone. This is the one that conveys more curiosity than emotional reaction. Perhaps that what makes it so unnerving. Maybe I’ll never know.

“Excuse me, kind sir, but have you ever seen a woman with shoulders like mine?” (They are quite broad.)

The slippery guy tittered nervously, toying with the idea of digging himself in deeper by further abandoning his “role” and claiming that some of the women that come in this place…

“How about a woman with this much hair on her arms?”

The apologies started again. He was starting to lose his composure. It occurred to me that I still had more to do. He had unmistakably and irrevocably broken the “fourth wall” in this little piece of theatre, but now I could refuse to drop my role and carry on. This person had not identified himself and wore no name tag. It was like a game of chess in which he had inadvertently left a clear path to his queen.

“And who are you, exactly?” I asked. I was curious, but not irate. After all, wasn’t I just having an expensive dinner with my wife when I was disturbed by this oafish stranger?

The face of the man sank ever further and he almost mumbled. “I’m the manager…” and trailed off.

More apologies came and he soon skulked away.

My wife was entertained, but pensive. I told her that the incubation period had begun. Right about then, they were regrouping, trying to figure out how to repair the apparent damage. I told her that we could almost certainly parlay this into free desert. Our waiter returned with the desert menu and he apologized for his boss again. We ordered and then my wife noticed that a hostess had strolled by our table, looked at her and then jotted something down. She figured it was the table number. The waiter brought desert and informed us that the desert would be on the house. Nice.

Later, I asked for the check. When the waiter returned with the check, he informed us that our steaks would also be complimentary. Incredible. He apologized for the “confusion.” I examined the check. The bill had come to slightly over $150. With all of the comps, which included $80 worth of steak, the total bill was $67 and change.

It was good for us, what with Christmas and all. We really needed the price break. Everything your mother told you about your long hair was actually untrue. If you are free-spirited, you could even get free steak. Just keep your mouth shut. The less you say, the more they think you’re about to boil over. It’s a wonderful piece of theatre, if you’re into that sort of thing.

St. Paul and Guitar Hero

2007-12-19T12:27:00.000-05:00

I’m not a video game guy. I know many adults, all men, who spend an inordinate amount of time playing them. They get into it with a fascination I remember having for Atari 2600 when I was eleven, only with a more obsessive approach. When I was eleven, I didn’t have a salary that would buy me any game I wanted, nor did I play for eight hours a day like some kids I knew. Some of the grown men I know who indulge in video games seem so sad to me. They squander years of their lives with it, wasting away in virtual worlds, preferring to atrophy in the one in which they live. They have few strong relationships and seem to surround themselves with enough juvenile distractions to keep them from really looking themselves in the eye. It isn’t that I necessarily believe myself to be superior, since we all have our shortcomings, but I’m honestly glad I’m not one of them.

The latest game that some of my friends have embraced is one that many of them thought I would enjoy. It’s called Guitar Hero. You get to play this game, which is loaded with classic rock tunes, and pretend you’re playing guitar for points. I don’t know any more about the details, but it has been expanded to other instruments as well. They sell these plastic guitars that are used as controllers for the game. I saw a television commercial with a guy and his little toy fake guitar surrounded by chicks. (Trust me, chicks don’t even necessarily go for guys who really play guitar, let alone the sad little guys that pretend to…) As a guitar player, I have only one word for the whole thing. Lame. It’s just so lame. I spent a lot of time learning to play a number of instruments. Spending my leisure time doing the hi-tech equivalent of strumming a tennis racket like a five year old would be enough to give me pause about my life. It’s just so lame. I don’t see the value in perpetual adolescence, but our culture tends to encourage it. It sure makes some people a lot of bread. I think it has led to a generation of men who are very nearly spiritually bereft. It’s their own fault, since everyone has to decide what to do with his life, but it’s so awful to watch. There’s no power consumer quite like a complacent and spiritually bereft power consumer. How ugly.

I’m reminded of that bit Saint Paul wrote in Corinthians, which Todd Rundgren paraphrased in his lyric for “Real Man.”

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned as a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things.”

I think Paul was onto something, but it wasn’t the true nature of man, at least not the true nature of man bereft of spirit.

In the earliest days of radio, someone got around to wondering how they were gonna pay for all of the programming they wanted to produce, if everyone could just tune in and listen for free. Someone had the idea of producing a commercial. It was here in New York. The commercial was for an appliance of some sort, I believe. The day after the commercial aired, orders and demand for the appliance exploded and the company couldn’t keep up. Soon everyone got in on the commercial idea and our system of commercial broadcast media was born. The inevitable saturation occurred and making your product stand out became more important than ever. The marketing approach that still applies developed. I don’t know who the quote was from, but it went something like this: Don’t sell them your product. Sell them their hopes, their dreams and their fears and they’ll buy whatever it is you’re selling.

Is anything more perfect than Guitar Hero to illustrate this point? You can pretend to be the star you’ll never be. You don’t even have to learn the guitar. You can pretend and even gain the accolades of your friends if you do well at the game. It’s brilliant and apocalyptic in an Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, rat-in-a-maze sort of way.

If you look at it like that…

But I don’t. Originally, I was repulsed by the idea of Guitar Hero. As a musician, I found it to be stupid, juvenile and like I said before, lame. I’ve discovered however, that it wasn’t my musicianship that was driving that impression at all. It was the personality trait that brought me to learn how to play guitar in the first place. I’m a dreamer. I poured my heart into something I believed in when I learned how to play an instrument, myself. It felt good to be able to make those sounds. When I played the bass or guitar, I felt unmistakably that it was what I was born to do and that I had been given a special gift. I wanted to be a star too. Still do. But no matter how well my records sell, I know myself and my life is richer for it.

Making music is something so wonderfully human. Requiring both the right and left sides of the brain to work together, playing music can tap the full essence of human potential. Maybe that’s why it makes me feel so alive. No video game can give you that. The way I see it, it can only take it away. No video game company can ever sell that to me. No one, I mean no one, gets to mess with that corner of my heart.

But Guitar Hero isn’t about music. It just amplifies the fantasy of rock stardom as an archetype. Guitar Hero isn’t the end of civilization or modern musicianship. Anyone I knew who picked up a guitar just to be a star never ended up playing very well anyway. The music, even though it’s been moved off the radio and handed to independent artists as an underground art, is safe. Guitar Hero has just made our musicians’ club even more exclusive. Maybe one day, music will come back to the forefront and a slightly wiser people will know the difference between musicianship and stardom. Who knows? It’s possible then that musicianship and stardom will actually cross paths again. Or not. I think both scenarios have their place.

chrispreston.com and newaquarius.org

2007-12-06T13:51:00.000-05:00

I’ve been trying lately to reconcile the existence of my two websites, which are chrispreston.com and newaquarius.org. The former is one that I’ve mostly used for my musical identity, for lack of a better description. For some reason I’ve always felt

I've decided to make my sites point to each other. It's just me, so why not simplify things for now?

The first thing I'm doing as part of this merger of my sites, is to make New Aquarius recordings available by download or on CD by mail order right here on my site. I’m really excited about that. Up until now, I’ve been relying on various companies to sell my music. Over time, it’s become expensive and a little exploitive. Most importantly, it’s starting to feel wrong being associated with them. I’m infatuated with the idea of music being distributed artist to audience. It’s time has come, I think. In a world where recorded music has become questionable commodity because of its industry, it’s nice to be able to work outside of the industry proper.

I hope to open a discussion forum about New Aquarius recordings and music as well as New Aquarian ideas. Who knows what else? The challenge will be to do all of that and still make more music. I’m optimistic.

It pays to complain

2007-01-29T11:05:00.000-05:00

In my darker and more cynical moments, I can be heard prattling on about Americans and the way they eat whatever is put in front of them. Our culture is one of power players attempting to influence the not-so-powerful to think, feel and behave in a certain way. Most often, it’s because there is some money to be made. The system is horrible for most, because people are brainwashed into thinking that they don’t have a choice in the life they live, the products they buy and the corporations they buy them from. As an outgrowth of that brainwashing, a great number of people won’t rock the boat, so to speak. They’ll accept poor service or substandard merchandise, saying “What are ya gonna do?”

You know what I do? I complain. The amazing thing about the homogenization of the American marketplace is that most big businesses dominating it are run with what I’ll call “big balance syndrome.” If you’ve ever been fortunate enough to have a large balance in your checking account, you may have found that certain digits in the figures started to drop from your list of concerns. Big balance syndrome. For example, assume that you have over $25,000 in your account. The balance in your checkbook says that you have $25,477. Now assume that after balancing, the bank says that you have $25,389. Many would only be concerned if the number dropped below $25,000, and don’t worry too much about the discrepancy. The discrepancy in this case adds up to $88. If you have $100 in your account, there’s a whole lot of living to be done on $88, but because they’re doing so well, many people with $25,000 won’t chase it down. That’s what American big business does on the consumer level, only with millions of dollars keeping them stupid. The numbers are too high to worry about that $88. That’s why it’s pretty easy to make a play for it. How?

The marketing of big American business often includes some insulting hyperbole about customer service being the first priority, and that the company appreciates your business. It’s just talk though, especially from people like electric companies, who truly have no competition if you can’t avoid a solar conversion. More often than not, when I ask a company’s agent behind the counter or on the telephone to hold up to the supposed ideal, they have no script, no plan. The first reaction can be to start handing over that $88 to you. It doesn’t mean much to them, because most people won’t complain and it’s worth it to buy off the headache being created by this weird guy.

Here are some examples:

My first nephew was born back in the 90s. In visiting with him when he was a baby, I had occasion to share Social Tea cookies with him. Someone thought they were decent baby cookies. I hadn’t had them before and I rather liked them. I started to buy them myself. Over time, I noticed how often they would be broken by the time I got to open the package. Enjoying writing letters and such, I wrote to the president (always to the president) of Nabisco, the manufacturer. In my most creative and desperate language, I opined about the quality control at their plant. I continued by explaining how distressing it was to be purchasing broken cookies every week, and how embarrassing it had been for me, trying to serve Social Teas in halves. They thought I was an old lady. I would have to be, right? The letter I received from Nabsico had “Ms.” and “Ma’am” all over it and was enclosed with coupons for free boxes of Social Teas.

I bought a pair of Bass shoes once. Within a very short time, the sole had separated at the back of one of them, forming a “mouth” that would flap when I walked. Maybe they weren’t that expensive, but I expected them to last a year, not a few months. I wrote to the president of the company and explained how humiliating it had been to have a certain attractive young lady in my office laugh uncontrollably at the quality of my footwear. I continued by telling him how I’d tossed the receipt after I bought the shoes, but wanted to know what could be done. I also asked him why I shouldn’t tell everyone that would listen never to buy Bass shoes because of the quality problem. I got free shoes.

The killer is this one. Last year, I had H&R Block prepare our tax returns. They jacked up the New York State return and somehow, it was never filed electronically. After months and months had passed without receiving a refund check, I looked into it. What followed was the most infuriating buck passing act I had ever seen. In the process, I observed some of the most blatant disregard of “customer policy” of any company I’d ever done business with. I wrote another letter, to the president of H&R Block, of course, and described the ordeal. I included every conceivable detail about the cretins in the local office, how they had trivialized my concerns and despite the exorbitant cost of the preparation, made my returns and refunds my problem, not theirs. Within a week, I had district managers calling me. In another week, things started to move along. Before long, I got my New York State refund and a coupon for free tax preparation from H&R block for my 2006 returns. With all the special tax situations I end up in with self-employment and filing in multiple states, it’s going to save me about $350 this year. All for writing a letter.

The moral is that you should always complain. If you want something for your trouble, ask for it. Online retailers are especially flexible. There’s plenty of money, products and service in the budget of most big companies to keep up appearances. If more people did what I do, that budget would disappear, but the companies would be more accountable. Either way, everybody would win. Give it try next time you feel slighted as a customer. There might be $88 in it for you.

Just follow the bass part

2007-01-12T13:30:00.000-05:00

I used to pride myself on listing all of the things that I could do. I’m a musician, recording artist, writer, videographer, producer, recording engineer, an Aquarius. Christ. Anything else? Who is it that I was trying to impress? Probably just about everyone. Why was that so important? (Psychologically-speaking, I know why, but that’s not the point at the moment…) After the initial novelty of hearing my resume, I gather that most people returned immediately to resting mode, not caring much about it at all. So how many people did I manage to impress? One or two that I can remember. How many did I exhaust? I don’t know. Maybe everyone. I know I was tired. If you’re trying to impress others by overwhelming them, you have to keep topping yourself in order to impress them again and again. Especially if being impressive is your m.o. How many times can you blow the same person’s mind before you collapse in a heap, let alone the mind of everyone you meet? And what a terrible bore it is to have be terrific all the time!

I find that while I’m proud of my abilities as a multi-instrumentalist, it might have been better if I’d have just stayed with my first passion, the electric bass. Instead of that, I systematically learned every other instrument I could get my hands on. I soon became proficient enough to record albums all by myself. I needed no one’s help to realize my visions. On the surface, it sounds great. The reality of it however, is that if enough people see you doing anything alone, they get the idea that you don’t need anyone at all, including them. Not even to listen. So what was the point of making the music in the first place? Good question.

I could take a great deal of symbolic direction from the bass. You must have other musicians to work with if that’s your instrument. If that was the instrument that I chose, it speaks volumes about what my musical intentions were in the first place. The intentions were lost in trying to be impressive and superhuman. Somehow I got the idea that being superhuman was important. It isn’t. It isn’t any fun either. It leads directly to madness on many levels. No one with any real success has achieved that success in total isolation. No matter what Gene Simmons says, he didn’t do it. Not by himself.

I’ve taken recently to making it clear that which I cannot do. I’ve added to the list of things I cannot do, the things that I might be able to do with enough effort, but bring misery and distraction. A great example is web design. I hate web design. It’s a black hole of time for me. All I ever want to do is make my music or writing available on the Internet and before you know it, I’m completely submerged in code, exhausted and frustrated. I don’t want to be a web designer. That’s why I use somebody’s template to do this blog. I wanted to post writings and ramblings, not learn about feeds, syndication and php scripting. So I didn’t.

What a great thing it is to be human. It’s even better to do one thing well. These are goals I want to achieve in my lifetime.

Nudged by the Universe

2006-09-01T10:48:00.000-04:00

Every once in a while I experience a nudge from the Universe. Something in my environment pops up seemingly out of thin air to remind me of the truth that I already know well, but have set aside to service my own bias or current hang-up. It happened this morning.

I was walking down Broadway. (Are you starting to see a pattern here? Broadway is the same symbol for me that the river was for Huck and Jim. Geez.) While grumbling past Bowling Green, I saw a guy sleeping on a subway grating, presumably because it was warmer, right inside the park. All the flowers are still out around the fountain, but then there’s this guy. A little further south on Whitehall Street, I started to notice all of the cars that were parked in the No Parking zones. One after another they lined the street, causing delivery trucks to double park, disrupting traffic in an already congested area.

Two sets of rules, I thought to myself. This city always has two sets of rules. One for the privileged and one for everybody else. Why do I ever bother doing anything by the rules? They’re so malleable it’s sickening. On and on I spiraled, becoming more embittered. I remember my uncle, a retired New York City cop, putting his badge in his window so he could park wherever he wanted to. All of these cars had official-looking Police “I Reserve The Right” laminates on their dashboards. I thought of what September 11th did to Canal Street, with cops parking everywhere from yellow zones to, oh to hell with it, the sidewalks. It was insane to walk there before everybody had a hero complex.

I got to the last car in the row, but it didn’t have a Police Entitlement laminate on the dash. This dashboard was empty, except for a copy of The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz. I couldn’t believe it. I had been nudged.

http://www.miguelruiz.com/teachings/fouragreements.html

New York Smoke

2006-08-25T16:45:00.000-04:00

I was walking down Broadway this afternoon. It was early enough that the lunch crowd was jamming the sidewalk like an ant colony. By Trinity Church, there isn’t a whole lot of space to walk anyway, so it’s a real feat of navigation to get where you’re going sometimes without having your personal space ruthlessly invaded. I’ve heard that London is even more crowded than New York. I can’t imagine lunchtime there. Nevertheless, since New York is a walking city, if you spend enough time here, you get in some serious cardio, which I enjoy, most of the time.

Cardiovascular exercise by definition demands an increase in your heart rate, which in turn demands that you take in more oxygen. The irony is that in New York City, the only place to walk is now the only place to smoke. In front of nearly every doorway you pass is a smoker or three. Walk a few blocks on a New York street and you’ll likely develop black lung. I’m not a smoker, but the first breath I take every time I exit a building or a subway station is fouled with cigarette smoke. Somehow I never seem to remember the last time, and always look forward to that breath of outside air, only to be poisoned all over again. Great for my lungs, especially if I’ve climbed a long flight of stairs.

For a long time, I lived by the belief that in all cases, things are never as good as they once were. It’s a fatalistic sort of attitude, I know, but there was enough evidence for me at the time to proclaim it. On the discussion of cigarette smoke, it clearly doesn’t apply. I often think of how it must have been 50 years ago, when so many more people smoked and the rules for smokers were so much more relaxed, if there were any rules at all. People smoked in movie theatres, restaurants, elevators, hospitals and offices. I can’t imagine the stink that must have permeated every place you went, not to mention the yellow-brown hue on every ceiling. A good example of this color is left in a very small section of the restored ceiling in Grand Central Terminal. Look for it near the Vanderbilt Avenue entrance. Among other pollutants, cigarette smoke had completely obscured the aquamarine ceiling with its constellations behind a stain darker than a beer bottle.

I guess I should be pleased. Today, you can’t smoke anywhere. You don’t even have to ask for a table in the non-smoking section anymore. Just a table for two, please. That’s all. Of course, when you leave the restaurant, it’ll be two blocks before you’re granted a good lungful, but at least you get to enjoy your meal. Now, if only I could lobby for that back alley clause in the anti-smoking legislation, I could enjoy a walk down Broadway too.

Keep this area clear of buzz words.

2006-08-14T16:50:00.000-04:00

I hesitate to make mention of this subject because it seems so hackneyed now, but I experienced such an emotional response to it that I wanted to share it.

This morning, I was walking by that huge pit across from St. Paul’s Chapel. It’s the infamous World Trade Center site that people seem to delight in referring to as “Ground Zero.” I don’t use the term, partly because I always thought that the term referred to the exact location where a bomb had been dropped. That didn’t happen there. With all of the president’s nonsense about terror and now with Oliver Stone’s new movie, I always thought that using the term was buying into the culture of buzz words that dilutes the significance of things, the September 11th attacks included.

If you don’t see the World Trade Center site every day, you might not know that they’ve recently moved the visiting area on Church Street. They moved all of the memorial signs that used to hang high over the heads of tourists that would visit there to a more confined area near the PATH station entrance. They’ve set up a number of trailers just inside the steel barriers that are serving as offices for the police and security, so you can’t see much from the original location.

While I walked south on Church Street this morning, a small arrangement of white flowers wrapped in cellophane caught my eye. It was stuffed into the grating that keeps everyone out of the pit, near a sign that asks that you don’t leave things there. Stapled to the bundle was a small card, the kind that florists have. In a woman’s hand was written “Happy Birthday.”
Watch those buzz words. Ground Zero, heroes, 9/11, a generation’s defining moment. So many iconic images. I didn’t realize how desensitized I’d become. I allowed the whole desecration of the site by the media, politicians and those damn morbid tourists taking pictures in front of it, to take my heart away. I never embraced the horror of September 11th for what it could do for me, but I have entered the WTC PATH station in a hurry, without being completely mindful of the significance of the place.

The weather was perfect this weekend. I had a great bike ride in Central Park. Someone else had a birthday celebration, with a little bundle of flowers and a simple message, next to the most famous construction site on the planet.

The Loudness Race

2006-07-27T11:10:00.000-04:00

Last night I used my car for the first time in about a week. My car has 5 bands on the radio for storing presets, one for AM, two for FM and two for XM. When I don’t drive it for a while, for some reason, the radio defaults to the first FM band. I listen exclusively to XM because New York broadcasting is so abysmal. So when I started the car and an FM station began blaring, I was shocked. I wasn’t shocked as much by the music as by the sound. I hadn’t listened to terrestrial radio for a long time and it sounds even worse than I remember. It’s amazing what you can get used to. I actually liked the song that was playing (On The Jack, I think the station is called, you might get a song you dig once in a while.), but I couldn’t listen to it because it was so terribly mangled by dynamic processing.

How do I simplify this?

Terrestrial radio is regulated by the FCC. Stations have strict requirements to broadcast only at the frequency and at the power at which they are licensed. Therefore, through a process called compression, they electronically “crush” the audio they’re broadcasting as much as possible. The result is that all of the highest levels of the music are reduced to the same level as the quietest parts, and the whole lot is then re-maximized to the legal limit. I know it sounds technical, and I guess it is. The end result is a mess that sounds nothing like the recording was supposed to sound at the recording studio. The goal is to make your radio station loader than everyone else’s. I guess the reasoning is that if it seems to jump out of your radio, more people will listen. If you’re actually listening, like I am, the opposite effect is probably achieved.

Commercials on television are done the same way. Have you ever been watching a television show when the station goes to a commercial and had your head nearly blown off by the increase in volume? The level isn’t any higher than the one for the show, but all of the audio has been maximized to the legal limit, presumably to get your attention.

Did you ever notice how a song you hear on the radio sounds nothing like the one you play from the CD at home? I noticed the phenomenon at a very early age (with records), but it took about 15 years before I became a recording engineer and understood why.

If it still isn’t clear, here’s a perfect analogy. THIS ANALOGY IS USED ALL THE TIME TO DESCRIBE A TREND IN AUDIO RECORDING REFERRED TO BY SOME AS “THE LOUDNESS RACE.” HOW ANNOYING IS IT THAT I’VE TYPED THIS SECTION IN FULL CAPS? DOESN’T IT FEEL LIKE I’M SCREAMING AT YOU?

That’s what the music sounds like on the radio. To make matters worse, modern recordings of pop music are mastered to be “capitalized” at the studio! Then, when the record company pays all that money to get the recordings on the radio...

You can barely make out what that says, right? (It says “They’re Capitalized Again!”) You can’t make out anything in the recordings either. What happens when someone screams all the time? Don’t you stop listening? If you listen to one-dimensional, “full caps” recordings of music for long enough, your ears get tired. It’s true. They stop perceiving detail. Soon, music doesn’t matter at all. Sort of like what’s happened on New York radio. What’s the answer? To turn it up even louder? I'm tired of being hit over the head.

At a time when the technology exists to reproduce music with astounding clarity, the trend is to make it sound worse than AM radio. Why? Because somebody interested in selling recordings got the idea that louder is better, to the exclusion of all aesthetic standard. Louder is good sometimes, but life doesn’t exist at one dynamic. It’s made up of a wonderful collage of timbres, with innumerable louds and softs. Don’t miss them, even though the radio and record companies would like you believe that they don’t exist. Choose your music with your own ears. There’s plenty of it out there. Most of the best stuff doesn’t get to the radio, so don’t stop there. Check out as much independent music as you can. It’s the only hope for the art form.

Being human, sometimes enlightenment escapes me

2006-07-24T09:56:00.000-04:00

I think the hardest part about writing a blog like this one is that I’m always wrestling with whether or not I should mention a particular event, or personal emotional response to it. Writing a blog without a large readership tempts me to write about anything that floats through my transom, but that isn’t the wisest thing to do, is it? A strange dichotomy is at work here. I consider myself a very private person, yet I’m writing my thoughts and observations in a place where they can be read by anyone. I thought that trying to stay on point with my New Aquarian principles would see me through, but it isn’t that easy for me.

So I’ll try to get a bunch of my concerns, current obsessions and opinions out in a flurry of verbiage, in the hopes that free writing will calm me. I worry about oil and gasoline. I use my car as little as possible, to at least do what I can. I think the president is a psychopath and I'm deeply concerned for my children and their children because of the mess his legacy will undoubtedly leave behind. I find a great portion of the population to be asleep at the wheel and despite my supposed enlightenment, sometimes feel resentful that I must spend so much time and energy staving off the restless pull of complacency.

I tire of the uniformed soldiers of fear standing in front of the New York Stock Exchange with assault weapons. Are they out to protect the money, or the people? And since when did anyone attack New York City with anything an assault rifle could effectively counter? Maybe they think that it makes people feel safe. It’s so twisted that intimidation is the only thing our government can think of to give the illusion of safety. You know what it is? It’s fear. They’re scared shitless. Bullies usually are. They’re intruders in my city. They may as well be in airplanes.

…

I think these points are valid simply to show that even though I believe that it’s possible to live well in the world exactly as it is, the way to do that is not always immediately apparent. On some days, the way to live well can be the most elusive thing. Perhaps tomorrow will be better, or even an hour from now. I thank you for your indulgence.

Early American Art at The Met

2006-07-17T09:32:00.000-04:00

I discovered a good blog at howtolive.org. This guy Tom over there seems to share many of the same ideas I work with at New Aquarius. While I’m focusing on personal awareness, and using our talents and innate good sense to live well within the context of a society seems to discourage the endeavor, Tom takes a broader view: learning how to live. Many times, I think we’re talking about the same thing. I encourage you to check it out. Good articles and interesting links. I’ve decided that his will be the first link I publish here. Look down in the link list, and visit by all means, but remember to come back here! Tom has taken a lot of time to make his blog available for subscriptions. I’d like to do that as well. I have to look into it. The appropriate feed files are on my server, but Tom has links to a number of aggregators.

It was oppressively warm in New York this weekend, so my wife and I thought it best to do something inside during the hottest parts of the day. We decided to skip the bike ride and hit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The last time we went, I didn’t get to Egypt or Greek and Roman, so we went for it. While wandering about, I came across an enormous room of early American exhibits that I’d never seen before. It was awful! It seems that early American art consisted mostly of portraiture and poor portraiture at that. Many of the portraits were by unknown artists. Too right! It didn’t help that most of the pieces were mounted on an ad hoc steel grating that was painted white. The whole mess was set behind glass, upon which some genius at the Met shined floodlights from the center of the aisles. The glare on the glass was so awful it seemed as if someone was trying to soften the blow of these awful paintings by discouraging the views of patrons. The exhibit reminded me of a trip to Levitz, walking through the warehouse, looking for exits.

The portraits captured very little of the context of their creation and even less of the personas of their subjects. They seemed to have been created by artists lacking the ability, if not the understanding of what they were doing. I’m not an artist, and only a frustrated critic, but it seemed that most American art, if this exhibit represents any authentic cross-section, was created more by artisans than artists. Perhaps that’s exactly what one should expect from a fledgling little band of colonies trying to gain footing. But do we need a whole room of these monsters? American art had no way to go but up, and that thankfully occurred. Whew!

The subjectivity at work in the choices of the early American exhibits gave me pause. Who’s to say what ends up at The Met and what ends up in the fire? The lesson is to keep doing what you do. Attempt to do it well. That’s enough. The significance won’t matter that much to a great number of people, so it shouldn’t be about that. Just make your point, and contribute to the best of your ability. Maybe they’ll put your blog under glass on Lower Broadway. People gotta walk somewhere, right?

Don't do it.

2006-07-11T09:32:00.000-04:00

Last week, I did something that I thought I’d never do. I switched to decaf. The point of the exercise was to control my blood pressure, which according to my doctor, is creeping above normal. I never used coffee for medicinal purposes. Some people routinely cite a list of things they simply cannot do before they’ve had their morning coffee. I’m not like that. However, I always found the taste of regular coffee more satisfying than that of decaf.

Now that I’m into week two of the decaf experiment, the caffeine withdrawal headaches have disappeared, and though I enjoy coffee a little less, I’m feeling better. I hadn’t realized how amped up I’d become. Since I’m generally the excitable sort, maybe that wasn’t such a good thing.

Perhaps I thought I couldn’t drink decaf because coffee, as I would say, was my only vice. I don’t smoke or drink or abuse my brain with chemicals. More probably, I had become stuck. People get stuck all the time. For some reason, there’s a psychological barrier that prevents some people from making a change in their lives that might do them some good. They complain and can list in detail all of the reasons why they’re trapped in the situation or the behavior.
There’s a Henny Youngman joke that Woody Allen quoted in his 2003 film Anything Else:

“A guy goes to his doctor and says, ‘Doc, it hurts when I do this.’ So the doctor says, ‘Don’t do it!’”

It seems like a very simple remedy, but it’s often the hardest behavior change of all. I was in a marriage that was very unfulfilling with a woman I had been with since I was in high school. The concept of leaving the relationship occurred to me time and time again throughout my teens and twenties. I never thought I could. I stuck it out, because I believed it was what I was supposed to do. I missed so much of the enjoyment of those years because I was convinced that it would be impossible to change my situation. I couldn’t get divorced. People like me don’t do that. I made a decision and when I do that I stand by it. What would it say about me if I admitted that I was wrong?

What would it say? That I was smart enough to make changes when I was miserable. So that’s what I did. Years later, I’m married to someone else and much more able to look myself in the eye. I’m much happier. I’ve applied that Henny Youngman reasoning to all kinds of problems: jobs, poisonous friendships, musicians I’ve worked with. It has yet to fail me. It’s harder to stop doing what makes you miserable at first. In the beginning, it’s easier to stay comfortable in your misery. But if you choose to stay the course after you’ve realized it’s making you miserable, it gets even more difficult to endure. You may not even understand what you’re feeling, but it’s actually the misery killing you. I always try to climb the hill with the downhill coast on the other side. It’s almost never a cliff.

New Aquarius podcast music

2006-07-09T22:06:00.000-04:00

Today I began recording what I believe will be the theme music for the New Aquarius podcast. Podcasting is an interesting phenomenon. The idea is to create sound files of your “show,” upload them to a server and make them available for subscription. Your subscribers run a program that will check for new episodes and download them whenever they’re online. I can’t do that, because my computer is part of my studio and I need all the processing power I can get. I can’t have my computer doing work “in the background.”

I did some primitive internet broadcasting years ago, when all I had was a website to promote my music. No one had Mp3 players in those days. I uploaded my spoken word files to be streamed in Real. Remember Real? I wouldn’t recommend using it now, because their player essentially takes over your machine. I loved doing it, but most people were using dialup and fewer knew how to set up to receive streaming media.

Since I do voiceover work for Sirius Satellite Radio in New York, it makes sense that I’d create a podcast for New Aquarius. Ever heard me? I’m the voice of channel 17. They play jam rock. I talk like a hippie and read the copy. It isn’t authentic hippie anything. In fact, it’s exactly what you’d expect a company that sells stock to think is appealing to hippies. Whatever. I enjoy doing it. I’ve never heard the finished product though. I’m an XM subscriber.

I’m lucky in that I can create my own music for the podcast, or any other content I need for that matter. There’s this website that a friend of mine uses for his podcast. It’s what they call the “podsafe music network.” What that means is that independent recording artists upload their music for you to use in your podcasts for free. Podsafe means that no one will come after you for performance royalty bread. On the surface, it sounds good. Podcasters get music they don’t have to pay for and the musicians get exposure. Exposure is dangled like a poison carrot before anyone who’s ever made music. It’s rumored to be the key to success. I wonder where it stops though. Somebody uses your music for free and it catches on. Does that mean that it’s out there for free and you never get anything for it? Don’t know how I feel about that. But I don’t have to worry. Like I said, I can produce my own.

Perhaps with a podcast, I’ll be able to spread New Aquarian ideas a little more personally. The rough part of New Aquarius right now is that it’s just me. It would work better with more people. I hope to locate like-minded individuals that can make a contribution to this message of personal awareness in our time using their particular talents. I’m not the only one confused by our culture at times. I’m certainly not the only one who wants to live deliberately. But most of all, I don’t have all of the good ideas.

Cooperating with your brain

2006-07-06T10:01:00.000-04:00

I read an article in last week’s New Yorker and I thought it appropriate to make a comment, since the very long holiday weekend is now behind us and many are probably nursing the wounds of their various excesses.

The article I read was about brain surgery, particularly hemispherectomy. This procedure is defined as the removal of half of the brain. Christ! One half of it? Of course the first thing I thought of was my little comment at the top of this blog about my being a right-brained individual. I always thought it desirable to be what they call right-brained, because the right hemisphere controls the left side of the body and most often gets the credit for creativity. (As it happens the left brain is responsible for language, which as a writer is pretty important for me too. Thankfully, I don’t have to decide to part with any brain tissue at present.)

Hemispherectomy was initially attempted to cure cancer, removing the brain tissue that surrounded aberrant cells. This proved ineffective according to this article, as cancer had been shown to re-emerge in the remaining hemisphere. The treatment, if you could call it a treatment, seems to have evolved into one for debilitating seizures caused by structural deformities in the brain. The subject of the majority of the story is a two-year-old girl from Pennsylvania, who was experiencing something like forty seizures per day. So many seizures, that the affliction was interfering with her development. As a result, she had difficulty with movement on the left side of her body, and had not yet developed even the rudiments of speech.

I don’t believe there is any measurable certainty about why hemispherectomy is viable, but the brain is a remarkably resilient and adaptable organ. It reassigns available resources when it has been damaged, such as by stroke. People learn to walk and talk again after injuries. I once heard a story about the great jazz guitarist, Pat Martino, who had to learn the instrument all over again. But having half the brain removed? It works for severe seizures, if you’re young enough. If you take half the brain out of a stroke victim, you’re liable to kill the guy, but a child can learn to use the tissue that they have available. This article describes how recipients of hemispherectomy go on to be honor students and the like. The great void left in the skull of the recipient fills with the fluid that normally surrounds the brain, which is produced at about a tablespoon per hour. Drains are installed during the procedure that route the appropriate volume of the fluid into the body, where it can be absorbed naturally. The drains keep the fluid on the right replenishment schedule. Amazing.

It isn’t that simple, of course. In these seizure cases, even a small portion of the malfunctioning hemisphere will cause seizures to continue. One case required that the surgeons go in again, to remove a piece of the occipital lobe (in the back) no larger than the first joint of your thumb, which did the trick. Sometimes, the seizures are only made less severe, and still have to be controlled with medication. And don’t underestimate the effort required for all involved to train half a brain to function as a whole.

I found it so disheartening when the article described each time, post-hemispherectomy, that the girl would have even a small seizure. The brain is amazing, but still incredibly delicate. I think of this little girl and her little brain, fighting to develop and survive, her left foot vibrating uncontrollably, everyone waiting to see if she’ll squeeze out some sort of “normal” life, now that she has a shot at it.

After reading the New Yorker article last Friday, I listened to people at work talking about the upcoming holiday weekend. Some had gotten a head start, staggering in, bleary eyed, raving about how much alcohol they had consumed on Thursday night. I heard one guy talking about how he “couldn’t see straight.” A woman complained that her boyfriend had gotten a head start on Friday afternoon while watching a World Cup game at a bar, while she was stuck in the office, not drinking yet.

I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t understand the allure. After reading this story about how things can go so terribly wrong, I have not changed my mind. I wonder why so many people fill up their lives with drunken excesses. I haven’t gotten a straight answer out of one of them yet. The older I get, the more I see the effects in others. Their minds seem to work a bit more slowly, but I don’t feel mine slowing down. Is it because I never drank? I wish I knew. Alcohol has been the self-medicating drug in our culture for such a long time. Doesn’t everyone seem to have a distant relative who drank too much? Why do so many people think it’s what they’re supposed to do to enjoy themselves? Maybe they haven’t been provided with enough alternatives. Maybe they haven’t thought to seek them out for themselves. Regardless, their brains are drying out a little more every weekend. What a drag.

If you sit quietly, can you feel your brain? How much have you taken it for granted? What would it be like if it refused to cooperate with you? Can you visualize it as the container for everything you are and have ever experienced? It is. How much of it can you part with? Half?

The view from the Staten Island Ferry

2006-06-24T12:10:00.001-04:00

I had been planning all along to start this blog, as is my nature, with an appropriate intro and explanation of the intent. It probably won’t work out that way, because I experienced something this week that I thought would be perfect to document here.

I was taking the Staten Island Ferry back to the Isle of Staten on Wednesday. The 5:15, like I do so many days. I took my customary place on the second deck, on the Brooklyn side, where I usually stand by the rail, gazing at the water until we dock. I even stand there in the winter, when I have the whole outside deck practically to myself. Now that the weather’s warmer, I have to share it.

The ferry left Manhattan a little late that day. Sometimes we don’t pull away from Whitehall Terminal until 5:20. I went through my decompression ritual: Look up the East River at the tops of the bridges, to see if I can make them all out. Brooklyn, Manhattan and most days, the Williamsburg. Check out the FDR inclining to pass over the Seaport. Look over at the rush-hour traffic on the BQE, the multi-tiered highway along the edge of Brooklyn Heights.

As the boat turns west, I focus my attention on Governor’s Island, which is still a mystery to me. I know it was a military installation from some reading I’ve done about it, and as is evidenced by the unsophisticated, 1950s buildings that probably served as barracks. I play a game with myself as I pass the island in all seasons. I try to spot a sign of human life. It seems totally deserted, though well-maintained. The most I’ve seen is a pickup truck moving along the edge, or a couple of guys riding over from the old Manhattan terminal on a smaller ferry. Mostly the island is completely empty, with the brown water of the Upper New York Bay splashing up on the tarred bulkhead that lines its perimeter. I’ve been most everywhere in the city of New York, but never to Governor’s Island. I wonder if it was a bustling base during World War II, being so close to the draft center on Whitehall Street in lower Manhattan. As far as I can tell, Governor’s Island serves as an anchoring point for the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and as an obstacle in the bay, for both the ferries and water taxis and the Princess Cruise Liners, which I often see over the tops of the island’s trees, waiting for passengers to board over in Brooklyn.

The final and longest stretch of the ferry ride is when my mind starts to wander. As we approach the Verrazano, ever so slowly and steadily, I look back at Manhattan. I try to enjoy the winds that become cooler the closer we get to the Narrows. I look down at the water and across at the unremarkable structures in Brooklyn. Eventually my mind begins to churn on stories I haven’t written or records I haven’t recorded yet, or some other trivial concern that will undoubtedly plague me on several ferry rides home on typical weekdays. This week, those unidentified concerns were getting the best of me and I became non-specifically anxious. What was bothering me? I had no idea. It was probably the result of too much mental meandering, or that I had too strenuously tried to isolate myself from another passenger, whom I believed to be sharing my rail a little too closely.

The recorded announcement about the ferry docking shortly was playing as the boat began to slow. I looked down at the foamy water, which was swirling about in standing circles as the propellers struggled to overcome the momentum of our cruise. I couldn’t wait to get off the ferry that day and my feelings of anxiety increased even more. I turned to look behind me, as I often do, to find that many of the passengers that lined the benches on the outside deck had long since found a spot with less wind, or at least had left their seats to line up at the exits.

Last Wednesday, I noticed one of the few passengers that remained. She was older, maybe late 60s, but not much more. She was slightly heavyset, thought not exceedingly so. In short, she looked like anybody else on the Staten Island Ferry, going home after a day at work in New York. She wore a long skirt a simple “old lady” blouse. Over the tops of her walking shoes, her ankles were slightly swelled. Her hair was brown and would probably curl more if it were a little longer. She wore steel-framed glasses. As she gathered her belongings, an umbrella and a large bag, she turned and I caught a glimpse of the inside of her right forearm. It bore what looked at first like a bruise, blue-black. However, its edges were defined more sharply and never faded to yellowness. After a moment, I realized that I was observing a tattoo. A faded one. It was a holocaust tattoo. These were the ones that were used by the Nazis to identify the prisoners in concentration camps. I couldn’t make out the numbers. They had run into each other.

My heart skipped for second. I didn’t want to stare. I don’t think I’d ever seen a holocaust tattoo before. I’m not Jewish, nor do I know any Jews who lived in Europe in the 40s. I don’t know if any of my Jewish friends were close to a generation of family members murdered in the Holocaust. I’m sure there must be some, though I’ve never discussed the subject with any of them.

This woman appeared to be a living, breathing connection to that horrible event. This was as close to such a connection as I had ever been, and I felt fearful, in awe, and somewhat concerned, like I’d be if I encountered an injured stranger who I knew needed to be cared for delicately. This was a significant whirlwind of emotions, because up until the moment before, she was just another old woman on the ferry.

Though I’ve thought about the horror of the holocaust, and the evil and ignorance of which humans are capable, the closest I’ve ever come to the reality of that time in history was an odd afternoon in Queens, back in the 80s. For some reason, my grandfather showed us his bayonet, which he had stashed in a drawer in his bedroom. He had never talked about his time in Germany before my father was born, but that day he told my brother and me about how much time he spent playing the piano in Europe while the other soldiers got drunk, and how he and a group of soldiers had a hell of a time trying to muster up enough German to ask a family where in their house the bathroom was. I still remember the way my grandfather’s demeanor changed when he took out the bayonet in its long, dark gray, steel sheath. I never forgot the sound of metal on metal ringing as he bared the blade and held it up horizontally at eye level. It was almost a reverence he observed. His posture came across clearly to me as a warning of the seriousness of this object, and it never entered my mind to touch it.

Before I had processed all of my realizations about this old woman on the ferry, she’d gone. I felt the bump of the boat against the dock. I made for the exit myself, and tried to find the woman I had noticed outside. She was nowhere. She had disappeared into the mass of passengers crowding the stairwells and aisles. I started to speculate about her. What was her face like? Could I picture it? Did having survived such a terrible ordeal show in its lines? Was she joyful to be living in New York City in 2006? Is the tattoo a reminder every day of her life? She wasn’t that old. Was she a child when the tattoo was applied? Did she remember it at all? Was she separated from her mother, whom she never saw again? I’ve read that often women and children were put to death quickly, because they couldn’t be productive workers. How did this woman, who could have been no more than six years old at the time, escape? Did she make a bold escape? Or was that just Hollywood poisoning my imagination?

My anxiety had melted away in my distraction with this woman. I laughed at myself. What could make me anxious when a six-year-old girl could be abducted and sent to a camp because of her ethnicity? I have a job in New York and by the standards of war, ghettoes and concentration camps, I decidedly live in luxury and affluence. How silly that is that I allow anxiety to play any role in my life at all? We forget these things as we get wrapped up in our lives.

I was going home. I was getting off a boat on Staten Island. Never in my life have agents of my government “come for me.” I had never been taken from my home with the intention of being led to my execution. Most times, I’m concerned with my own obsessions, getting upset when people allow themselves to be controlled by run away consumerism. It’s never life and death. If it ever was during my lifetime, what kind of man would I have become?