When I was in Peru, I was entranced by this 10-stringed instrument and found a workshop where I watched a craftsman making these Andean ukuleles. I had to have one. It is a beautiful instrument with a haunting sound that I had heard forever in the subways and streets of the world, often accompanied by a flute called a zampona. My charango makes a cameo in my latest Record recording, around 2 minutes in.

Peruve it!

This blog is written irregularly for sure, but when almost two weeks go by with no word from me, I am concerned. Where have I been these first few weeks of March, if not dutifully transcribing my every move on the ORG? It turns out I have been in front of my computer for most of that time, playing with a new piece of software that is SO MUCH FUN! I have been a user of Propellerhead’s synth rack emulator Reason for a long time; it is an amazing studio tool with unlimited sound synthesizing potential, but it has always been limited by its lack of audio capabilities, meaning I had to use another program (Ableton Live) to record guitars and vocals. At last, Reason has incorporated audio into its brilliant interface, streamlining my studio “gear” and making music creation and recording an effortless and organic endeavor. I figured out the basics of the new aspects and in the past 4 days, I made these recordings.

Insomina

I Dream of Waking Up

Poach the Poachers

Upsidedown Underground

I love computers for lots of reasons, but in my world it is the unlimited free studio time that makes me happiest.

When I first heard Fela Kuti, I was a senior at Middlebury and it sealed the fact that I needed to visit West Africa as soon as possible, which I did eight months later in Ghana, Burkina Faso and Mali. Unable to visit Nigeria then, I was transported on Wednesday to Lagos (sort of…) on Broadway and treated to some great Afrobeat courtesy of Antibalas and (an actor portraying) Fela. He was an incredible character and fierce musical guerilla warrior, constantly antagonizing his oppressors and receiving due punishment. The music he created is hypnotic and powerful, wise and inspiring, and just plain fun. At one point, Fela asked the crowd to stand up, which everyone reluctantly and awkwardly did, then he described a clock around our midsection and encouraged us to thrust in every direction. While Broadway theatergoers might be sheepish in their suddenly active participation, I know that my pre-schoolers will love this game!
The next night was a doubleheader; first a viewing of “It Might Get Loud”, a great documentary featuring Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White performing and discussing the evolution of the electric guitar, followed by an intrepid trek through a blizzard down to The Bell House in Gowanus to see Ulrich Schnauss, a German composer who performed solo on a laptop with video projected behind him.
All of these performers are so different, yet each of them inspires me in a unique way. Music is so diverse and it is clear from watching these artists at work that what is played is insignificant compared to how it is played. Whether expressing moods or ideas, it is passion that truly makes greatness.

The Backwardest Mountain is The Best. It is some of the most challenging skiing on the East Coast, with steep gnarly pitches over rocks and through trees covered in the best moguls (thanks to their no-snowboard policy) all serviced by a double and a single chair. While every mountain around it is owned by a ski resort mega-corporation, Mad River is cooperatively owned. It is an amazing ski experience. Eastern skiing definitely means contending with ice and trees and other natural objects impeding your progress, which makes it a very technical exercise, but also makes it more exciting and MRG’s terrain, ungroomed and covered strictly with natural snow, is the perfect showcase for this type of challenge. The ultimate throwback, it makes me nostalgic for a period before I was born…

That was Saturday. Sunday was spent at Mad River’s “younger sister”, Sugarbush, which exemplifies state-of-the-art resort technology. Of course, the lodge is amazing and chairs whisk you up the hill rapidly, maximizing downhill time, but something is lost in that evolution. Regardless, I managed to have one of my best Sugarbush days ever, discovering some great woods that I had never found before. This is one recent development in skiing that I have been very impressed with: resorts’ willingness to open up their woods and allow skiers to take their own risks. Terrain parks have also been an example of increasing risk of bodily harm at skier’s discretion. It is a dangerous sport (which is why I just purchased my first helmet) and people are injured and even DIE recreating this way but, and perhaps it is for precisely that reason, it is my absolute favorite day-long activity and I enjoy doing it on any mountain.

I love this. They have had some issues to be sure with uncooperative weather and malfuctioning zambonis and torch hydraulics and DEATH! But when it happens, it is some of the most beautiful expressions and extreme limits of the human body imaginable. In competition, emotions run the gamut from highest highs to lowest lows and in the Olympics, they are telescoped to planetary proportions. Two of my favorite events are the Downhill and the Halfpipe and yesterday had both, with Americans Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso – both stunningly beautiful ladies! – winning gold and silver and Shaun White proving once again that he is light-years higher and better than his competition while inventing and mastering new tricks at warp speed. Incredible. But wait, there’s more… Speed Skating, where Shani Davis, who four years ago became the first African-American to win a medal in the Winter Olympics (Think about that!), defended his title in the 1000. When watching Short Track Speed-Skating, I find myself constantly leaning to the left as they make their turns; it is one of the most intense 4-way races on razor edges at ripping speed. Most of the games involve speed and danger. Not so much for curling, which is a hilariously slow, yet still highly engrossing, game of precision sweeping.
My other favorite competition, moguls, was held earlier in the week and produced an American winner in Norwich, Vermonter Hannah Kearney. Men’s moguls won Canada it’s first gold on home soil when Alex Bilodeau beat ex-Canadian Internet spam king Dale Begg-Smith with blazing speed and perfectly executed flips and revolutions and a heartwarming tale about a brother with Cerebral Palsy.
I am getting very itchy to strap on some skis, for which I will fortunately have to wait only until Saturday morning when we will be in the Green Mountains of Vermont. The last time I attempted an aerial maneuver – a simple helicopter – I broke a rib, so I’m probably done with doing it myself, but I love to watch these competitors make everything look so smooth and easy on the precipice of disaster.

I choose to live in the city for many reasons, mainly its efficiency and culture, but there are also some crucial deficiencies to life in Brooklyn, namely tranquility and nature. Luckily, I have some very special homes away from home, one of which is the lovely village of Sydling St. Nicholas in Dorset, England where Alaina’s grandparents reside. This is beautiful countryside of rolling hills occupied mostly by cows and sheep with tiny human hamlets in the valleys. In the city, it is the immensity of our buildings that inspires me; in the country, it is the immensity of space. Living in such close proximity to so many people forces us city dwellers to turn inwards and guard our personal space closely. I love people and communication, but oftentimes I find myself introverting and wearing mental blinders to the chaos that surrounds me. Seeing the complete sky is almost impossible walking through canyons of human construction so when I travel somewhere that the sky arcs like a dome from horizon to horizon I can finally look outward. Being part of this environment reminds me of our planet’s true scope and gives me perspective.

Much Love to G and Grand for hosting us and being so incredibly generous and kind and insprirationally lovely! Gail and Kevin and Piera also deserve praise and gratitude for making it so Bucklandtastic. And of course, my Alaina… for being the best wife in the whole wide world and bringing me into her amazing clan!

In my music classes, I love to sing an old Australian folk song called Kookaburra:

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
Merry merry king of the bush is he
Laugh Kookaburra Laugh Kookaburra
Gay your life must be

It’s a nice melody and a beautiful round and I had never known who the original writer was until yesterday. Marion Sinclair wrote the song in 1932 and died in 1988, with publishing rights currently held by Larrkin Publishers, who just won a lawsuit against the band Men at Work claiming copyright infringement for a flute solo on their classic 80’s tune “Down Under”. Millions in back royalties are owed. This is a typically pathetic money grab by people who had absolutely nothing to do with the composition of either of those songs. Should I be worried that I have performed that song hundreds of times in my classes without paying a dime in royalties? Music is not owned by any one entity, but by anyone who enjoys it. It is not a commodity like any other because it can be infinitely reproduced, both orally and digitally, without any additional cost whatsoever. It is truly shared among people and serves a crucial purpose in our cultural bond. Music is fundamentally free and priceless and its liberty must be protected by the people against any attempts to restrict our access.

The Supergood ORG was hacked recently and I apologize to anyone who was randomly redirected away from the site. Luckily Matt at Bluehost Help Center worked it out, finding the offending code in my Wordpress Theme and eliminating it. I’m not going to take this cyber attack personally, and I am assuming that this is not a declaration of war on supergoodness, but it is still frightening how obviously vulnerable we are to dorks…

Ever since I celebrated what I considered to be one of the greatest political victories of all-time, it has been a constant losing battle. Obama’s victory felt like such a reversal of bad trends that had consumed our country during the Bush administration, but since that peak in November 2008, we have been subjected to more of the same; more bailouts, more troops, more gay-marriage defeats, more inaction on climate change. On Tuesday, my home state of Massachusetts dealt me a blow by electing Scott Brown to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat. When Kennedy died, I cried. He was a a lion in Senate and a personal hero; everything he did represented something good as he fought for truth, justice and equality for all. He was especially a force in the health care debate, a champion for universal care and when he passed away, the movement lost a great leader. Yet it seemed as though the Democrats, enjoying a 60-40 advantage in the Senate, were on the move towards passing a bill that would protect the people from the tyranny of the insurance industry. And then those Massholes elected Brown, giving the Republicans the filibuster they will use to crush our hope. That hurt.

But the worst news came on Thursday, when the Supreme Court struck down major campaign finance regulations to allow corporations unlimited election spending. When it comes down to it, I believe that this is the very root of American politics. We The People has been replaced by We The Capital; money has become infinitely more powerful than voters in politics, as influence is bought and sold by those who direct its flow. Lobbyists, Special Interest groups and Corporations buy votes and candidates with their “donations” and focus political discourse on their own issues and needs, shifting policy away from serving our best interests, and towards their own political, financial or moral profit. Our elected officials are then forced to vote for the money over the people. I don’t see any way that a politician could justify doing the best thing for the population by voting against health care, but I do see how a few groups wielding a ton of cash could initiate fear and convince the public that any changes to the current system would lead to a (terrifying!) socialist state. In exactly the same way that advertising works, our perceptions are based on information (true and false) and we are, as consumers, highly susceptible to our media. While money has always influenced politics, this decision opens the door to unlimited abuse and worse, makes a mockery of democracy. Whatever fears people might imagine about a “Socialist” USA should be completely undermined by the realities of our current Capitalocracy; our votes and our candidates have become commodities and the marketplace has just been completely deregulated. The only person who can truly benefit from this political structure is not a liberal or a conservative, but a corporation, to whom we have granted the unalienable rights of personhood.

In theory, Democracy works…

I love my job. Teaching music to kids all day is awesome and my workweek is Monday – Friday with siestas most days. It is very satisfying work, but while I love doing it, I l also love not doing it. The weekend is so crucial and this weekend was MLK Day so the time was increased by 50%. I took advantage. Friday night was a final blow out at Monkeytown. I will always remember that space as the site of special times and will miss VJing and being inside the giant video projection box. I can only hope to find a suitable alternative soon…

Saturday was a day of travel to the Adirondacks, where Phil was having a final celebration of bachelorhood with the men in his life. It featured the requisite Poker, Beer Pong and Asshole tournaments, as well as a nerf dart gun to add just a little bit of danger. It also involved a day of skiing at Gore Mountain and although they had not had snow in over two weeks, the slopes were well covered. Even in the trees there was a good base, and I always love some rocks and ice mixed in to add that classic Eastern element…

Monday I returned to Brooklyn and added a new member to our family. Lynx was adopted on January 18, 2010 so he now shares a birthday into my life with Caitlin! He is an amazing kitten and I am excited to give him a great cat’s life.