Timing is the Bedrock of Music

The most important aspect of musicianship is timing—you either have it or you don’t. This goes for all instruments: drums, guitar, etc. If you don’t have timing, then you won’t get far in music. You’ll never shine brightly. And more specifically, you’ll always struggle when performing with other musicians. Your jams will be disjointed, confusing, and lacking in magic.

I’ve seen hundreds of musicians over the years. And I’ve learned that there is something inherent to a sense of rhythm. It’s something in your bones: you feel the music, it bleeds through you. You lock into the drums and bass inherently. You don’t need to think about counting, since you count without thinking. You strum in synchronicity with the cosmos, directly connected with the Gods of Music. You are a conduit for the Great Wave of Sound.

Timing should come natural to the musician

If you need a metronome, then you’re not a musician. When a music teacher senses that a student is having trouble with timing, he’ll send him home with a metronome. But this is usually not effective. It’s like teaching somebody with two left feet to dance. It’s like teaching a stuttering person how to speak publicly. In short, the student is not a natural. It’s like when Elton John tried to marry that woman—it sounded good on paper, but it was a failed experiment at the end of the day.

Great musicians do not rely on  machines for timing (unless they are recording)

The one exception to this metronome solution is in the recording studio. It’s necessary to use a metronome in this setting, since recordings must be perfect. But the dynamics of a studio are different than a live performance.

In life, it’s best to focus on your strengths. The sooner you do this, the better. So if you have a poor sense of timing, then it’s best to focus on something other than music. There are millions of possibilities, and your true calling is lying in another place.

Should You Enroll Your Daughter in Co-Ed Karate?

I recently attended a karate class. It was co-ed (boys and girls) and consisted of children ranging from ages 5 – 10. They were learning kicks, punches, tumbles, etc. I took karate as a child and I never remember girls in the class. But this was many years ago and the social winds have shifted—equalism is now the rage.

I have a young daughter, so I pondered if I’ll put her in a karate class. But then I ask myself…What do I want her to learn? Most people are afraid of the question. They fear being called a sexist, an archaic troglodyte. But—as I’ve written about before—Americans are intellectual hostages, the philosophic prisoners of Cultural Marxism. We have an enemy within…a parasite that’s feeding on the flesh of our Great Nation.

But I digress…

Why do we have co-ed karate? We could argue that it’s for cardiovascular health—children move, burn calories, etc. And that sounds good. Yet it’s foolish to believe that physical fitness is the impetus for co-ed karate. The real reason for this trend is to teach women that they’re physically equal to men—it’s is a dangerous belief, and it could get your daughter killed.

Parents Should NOT enroll Their Daughters in Co-Ed Karate.

Imagine your 130 lb. daughter is walking down a dark alley. She’s approached by two men, each over 200 lbs. Do you want her to fight? Do you believe that she can physically overpower them? You’d be foolish to say yes; the answer is self-explanatory. Deep down, we all know that life is not a Hollywood movie designed to “empower” young girls.

Life is a concrete Serenghetti. It’s a world where the innocent are defiled, where the strong overpower the weak. It’s a world of serial killers, rapists, and predators. Good people die every day. To teach your children otherwise is to endanger them.

If a girl takes co-ed karate for fifteen years, then she’ll come to believe that she’s physically equal to a man. Normally, this might not be the case. But we live in America…a country where the equalism narrative has been codified into law. To infer otherwise will make you enemies. In terms of gender, America is now analogous to The Emperor Wears No Clothes: a place where the adults agree to lie to one another.

Remember: Ideologies are deadly. Believing in a false world can get you—or someone you love—injured or killed. In this light, co-ed karate is a dangerous activity. It promotes a false equalism that leads to danger. It’s a woman’s first entry into the “you-go-girl” cult, a movement that’s more concerned about her pocketbook than her self-esteem.

Teach You Daughter to Carry and Shoot a Handgun

The better option is buying your daughter a pea shooter. Teach her how to carry and use it, hoping that she’ll never have to. This is more logical, more practical. In front of a gun, all men are equal.

You plant the seeds of a Weltanschauung in a child. They come to reflect your worldview, the perspective that you’ve infused into them. That view can either align with reality, or it can serve your own narcissistic needs. If you care about the child, you should not subject them to socio-political fantasies that are divorced from reality.

Their well-being comes first.

All Game Leads to Alpha Frame

Tinder, Badoo, Ok Cupid, Plenty of Fish….you can have all these dating sites and meet thousands of women. You can have your “lifestyle game” on lockdown, wearing a fine suit and excellent shoes. You can be running a fantastic “clown game,” making a woman chuckle at your irreverent wit and comedic mannerisms. You can have “money game” where you impress her with a Ferrari that you just bought. All of these roads can lead to seduction.

But eventually, you’ll need to be an Alpha. You’ll need to exhibit self-confidence, a passion for life, and a desire to accomplish great things. You’ll eventually need to let her know that you’ve been anointed—that you carry the blessings of an all-mighty God. You’re living an amazing journey , a one-of-a-kind story. You have to believe these things about yourself…believe them in the depths of your soul.

Only then will she truly fall in love with you.

Song Review: “On the Turning Away” by Pink Floyd

I’ve been reflecting on a Pink Floyd song lately: “On The Turning Away.” It’s a song that moved me as a teenager—a song that encourages global unity, world peace and universal brotherhood. It champions the Weltanschauung of the 1960s, reminding us about the importance of social protest.

Now, years later, I see the song in a negative light. It’s now an idealistic fantasy, a pipe dream of liberal poppycock.

On the turning away
From the pale and downtrodden
And the words they say
Which we won’t understand

Some people deserve our help; others don’t. Most people that pretend to be “downtrodden” are really hucksters, predators on the prowl: male feminists, confidence men, lying seductresses, etc. They wear the coat of nobility, but it’s merely an affectation—a showy pretense. They are selfish people.

“Don’t accept that what’s happening
Is just a case of others’ suffering
Or you’ll find that you’re joining in
The turning away”

Not everybody is “suffering.” In the United States, we’re assaulted by a 24/7 Grievance Industry: sexism, racism, homophobia (rinse and repeat). Most of these people are not really suffering—they’re attention whores with first-world problems. Their incessant yammering is an attempt to deceive the public. And it pulls our attention away from doing real honorable deeds: helping children with cerebral palsy, for example.

It’s a sin that somehow
Light is changing to shadow
And casting it’s shroud
Over all we have known

That’s true. And most of “light changing to shadow” comes from the foul mouth of left-wing anarchists. They proclaim themselves to be open-minded, but they insult others, destroy property, riot, etc.

Unaware how the ranks have grown
Driven on by a heart of stone
We could find that we’re all alone
In the dream of the proud

Actually, a “heart of stone” is a good thing—at least at first. There are so many snakes in the grass that one must be careful. People should earn your trust. They need to win the right to enter the secret confines of your heart. Would you tell your teenage daughter to trust everyone, or would you tell her to be careful? Think about it.

On the wings of the night
As the daytime is stirring
Where the speechless unite
In a silent accord

Sounds like a Million Woman March. And by the way, what were they marching about again?

Using words you will find are strange
And mesmerized as they light the flame
Feel the new wind of change
On the wings of the night

I think that cisgendered and pansexual officially qualify as “words you will find are strange.”

No more turning away
From the weak and the weary
No more turning away
From the coldness inside

I will have to “turn away” if the order-through-chaos media continues to assault me with Cultural Marxism. I have to watch my blood pressure, making sure it does not spike to unhealthy levels.

Just a world that we all must share
It’s not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there’ll be
No more turning away?

Yes, there will be a “turning away”—from a mainstream media that feeds the public with lies. From cheap philosophies that lead to disillusion and chaos. From “feel good” mantras that are empty platitudes. From a failure to mentor the young with profitable advice.

I’m a bit sad today. It sucks to know that a song I thoroughly enjoyed is now a joke to me (at least lyrically).  I feel like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz when she find out that there is no magical wizard—just an old charlatan hiding behind a curtain.

Book Review: Crime and Punishment

I just finished reading this behemoth, the classic by Dostoevsky. It’s the story of a man named Raskolnikov who, in a fit of rage, murders two women. He spends the rest of the novel in tortured contemplation of the act. The mental burden that occurs becomes the punishment for his crime: he’s unable to sleep, he goes crazy, etc. Clearly, Dostoevsky is implying that punishments are not merely physical—they can be psychological as well.

Colleges Are Unable to Provide an Accurate Assessment of the Novel

Much has been written about the book. The halls of academia are filled with essay exams on the story. However, modern colleges are a prison of Cultural Marxism, a gulag of liberal groupthink. We can no longer trust the opinions of the teachers. Some are good, true. But many are the foot soldiers of Max Horkheimer, useful idiots in oppressor/oppressed Weltanschauung.

Remember…college professors are primarily High-T women and Low-T men. They are women who love to administer a dominatrix spanking to their metrosexual lapdogs (aka, husbands), and men who believe that cuckoldry is an act of defiance against the patriarchy. The Liberal Arts, in particular, are nothing more than an attempt to convert the male-female dynamic into an androgynous orgy. These teachers are not interested in analyzing great literature—their goal is to destroy the edifice of America: “The 1950’s hurt muh feelings,” etc.

Given the current state of education, with its growing cuckoldry fetish, a new perspective is needed—so I’ll go first. Here’s my important takeaway on Crime and Punishment…

The  Important Point: Chicks Dig Serial Killers

Raskolnikov has a relationship with a woman named Sonia. Eventually, he confesses the murder to her. Instead of becoming angry, she declares her allegiance to him.

“Then you won’t leave me, Sonia?” he said, looking at her with almost hope.

“No, no, never, nowhere!” cried Sonia. “I will follow you, I will follow you everywhere…I’ll follow you to Siberia!” (p. 608)

Sonia’s response highlights a grim reality—many women love serial killers. Ted Bundy received thousands of love letters a day when he was on death row. While Richard Ramirez sat in a Los Angeles jail cell, women across the country promised their undying love for him. And Charles Manson recently married a woman that is hotter than 90% of my friend’s wives. By contrast, how many love letters does the leader of the debate team get? The head of a physics department? That’s a rhetorical question, of course. Very few.

Men accomplish great things for the love of women. So when serial killers receive more affection than the great men of science, then society falls into a degenerate state. And that’s where we are now.

Feminists can never explain why some women love serial killers. To discuss the topic would expose a flaw in the “all women are victims” narrative. By supporting the female fan of a serial killer, the feminist is, indirectly, justifying the actions of the serial killer. So the feminist plea for equality morphs into a tacit, or direct, support for mass murder. The contradiction becomes too much, so the feminist chooses to avoid the subject altogether. They revert to the robotic wage-gap myth, or the “5 out of every 4 women are raped” line.

Conclusion

Crime and Punishment is a must read; and of course, there are many lofty questions in the book: What is the nature of punishment? Is an emotional punishment worse than a physical one? Is murder ok for some men (such as world leaders) but wrong for smaller men? These are all worthy questions, and they have been dealt with ad nauseum in the hallways of academia.

But what’s more interesting in this book is the relationship between Raskolnikov and Sonia. Why does she love him MORE when he confesses to a double murder? Why does his degeneracy turn her on? And, to a larger degree, why do other murderers like Raskolnikov receive so much female adulation?

I can guarantee you one thing – most modern college professors (aka, Cultural Marxist foot soldiers) will not be willing to answer these questions. They are too busy doing that new dance that’s sweeping the hallways of academia – the “socialism shuffle.” It’s a hypnotic, zombie-like movement towards a tenure-track position.

 

5 Great Things About Salar De Uyuni in Bolivia

1.) The Ride

Getting from La Paz to Uyuni involves a 12 hour, bone-rattling bus ride. The road is unpaved and it shakes the bus violently. You won’t be able to close the windows and dust will bellow into the bus cabin. You won’t sleep the entire trip.

Getting to Uyuni is a challenge…but memorable.

“What’s so great about that?” you ask. It’s simple…adversity is the underpinning of memory. We relish a victory when we fight hard for it; and we forget about the prize that came easy. I guarantee that you’ll remember the bus ride to Uyuni; conversely, you’ll forget about the time you spent in the air-conditioned lobby of the Marriott.

2.) The Altitude

Salar De Uyuni is located at 12,ooo feet. So you’ll be light headed, wandering around with a slightly-stoned feeling. You’ll be removed from your conscious mind, forced to deal with the natural world. You’ll be pulled into the setting in a very direct way. It’s like Woodstock, minus the green acid.

 

The altitude makes the experience more intense. The is not a Disney Ride, a short, two-minute burst of make believe. You’re in the tumultuous Andes, high above the rest of the world. And there’s the danger of sorochi – an illness caused by exposure to high elevations. The ever-present danger of Uyuni makes it all the more special.

3.) The Physical Beauty

Uyuni is natural beauty, the power of earth on display. The white expanse stretching out for as far as the eye can see – pure, blinding whiteness. Nothing like it on earth. That’s what makes Uyuni so great: it’s a one-of-a-kind experience that can’t be replicated.

Note the two best times to go to Uyuni; once during the dry season, and once during the wet season. When its dry, you can race atop the salt flat on a jeep (as seen below).

The giant salt flats if Uyuni

When it rains, puddles form atop the flats. This creates for some amazing photo options, as the sky will majestically reflect atop the watered salt pans (as seen below). This means that you need two trips to really “do” Uyuni.

Uyuni during the wet season…utterly surreal.

4.) The Salt Hotel

The Salt Hotel is located in the middle of the flats. It’s a mandatory stopover for any trip, given it’s unique location. You can stay the night, gazing at a million stars above.

Cozy up to the Salt Hotel.

Some hotels are all about the location – the Salt Hotel is one of them. Note that the hotels in the nearby town are not great, so you might as well stay at the Salt Hotel. You’re not missing out on anything in town.

5.) The People of Uyuni

As you leave Uyuni, you’ll notice the trademark of Bolivia: the people. They are the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Their poverty doesn’t come from failure in the Western marketplace; it comes from their genuine adherence to the ancient ways. They are stoic and unique. A trip to Bolivia would not be complete without them.

The women of Bolivia

Conclusion

A trip to the salt flats of Bolivia is mandatory. It’s a place where nature reigns supreme, where you witness a unique spectacle of beauty. And its remote location makes it all the more special.

If everyone could visit easily, it would not be unique.

 

3 Signs That You’re a Cheapskate

1.) You’re a Costco Whore

You constantly walk the aisles of Costco, pretending to be a shopper. Then you swoop in on the freebies…

Costco employee: “Oh, it’s you again…”

2.) You Pretend to Be Homeless

You stand in line at “Feed the Homeless” events, pretending to be indigent:

I hope this free turkey will fit in the front seat of my Mercedes Benz!

3.) You Eat in the Hospital to Save Money

You’re willing to brave an airborne disease for a screaming deal:

They serve a Pot Roast lunch for $3.50 at St. Jude’s Hospital…and you can’t get enough.

 

 

Insult of the Week

The following insult comes from Crime and Punishment. Katerina Ivanovna—one of the novel’s main characters—yells the following to her landlady:

“And you too?” she suddenly saw the landlady, “…you trashy Prussian hen’s leg in a crinoline!”

Excellent! That’s how they insult people in the the old country. But I confess that I was confused, so I went to Google for a gander:

Here’s a Prussian hen’s leg:

Picture a woman with legs like this

And here’s a crinoline:

…in a dress like this.

Now I get it.

It’s great to peek into history; we can see a place without political correctness. It’s a world where you can insult somebody, and you won’t get banned from Twitter.

 

A Remembrance of Marcel Proust

What separates the average man from a great writer?

The average man says, “It was the rain.”

A great writer—like Marcel Proust—says the following…

“A little tap at the window, as though some missile had struck it, followed by a plentiful, falling sound, as light, though, as if a shower of sand were being sprinkled from a window overhead; then the fall spread, took on an order, a rhythm, became liquid, loud, drumming, musical, innumerable, universal. It was the rain”

Such beauty. When I first read that excerpt, it burned itself into my memory. I saw the work of a master, a genius that was honing a craft. A wordsmith at the wheel of creativity: Marcel Proust.

My English teacher in college, when reading the line, stated the following: “That’s the kind of line that gets you an ‘A’ in a Creative Writing class.”

We all chuckled. So true…

The Wisdom of Seneca: On Mentorship

From Seneca:

“Withdraw into yourself, as far as you can. Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve. The process is mutual; for men learn while they teach.” – Seneca

Part 1: Associate with people that will make you a better man.

If you need to lose weight, look for athletes that have a great build. Go to the gym and get a personal trainer. If you know somebody that is a fitness fanatic, ask him/her if you can train with them. Be proactive—don’t expect happiness to come knocking on your door. You have to search for self-improvement.

Every great man has a mentor. Aristotle was a mentor to Alexander the Great; Ralph Waldo Emerson was a mentor to Henry David Thoreau; Albert Einstein had Max Talmey. These men were able to grow under the guidance of a great teacher. History was shaped by mentorships. Without these interactions, the world would be a paltry place.

Max Talmey, a Polish ophthalmologist, was the mentor Albert Einstein

Do you have a great mentor in your life? You need to find one if you don’t.

I’m afraid that women are handicapped in this regard. In today’s America, young women have a difficult time finding mentors. That’s because too many older women have petty jealousy, insecurity, etc. These older women will steer young ones in a poor direction – this is especially true in the secular world, where women are encouraged to behave in ways that denigrate their character.

Years ago, I overheard a conversation between several women. Two of them were counseling a younger one. They were encouraging the young girl to cheat on her boyfriend, telling her to follow her “emotions” and “feelings.” This kind of mentorship is not helpful, and is actually more of a poison than anything. It’s about two jealous women, trying to destroy the happiness of a “frenemy.”

What’s the solution? Well, I recommend that women seek mentorship from the Church. They’re more likely to find other women there that have a faith in God, as well as the desire to help others. These Christian women are more likely to give them advice on how to strengthen a family. Of course, the optimal place for a woman to receive mentorship is from her family. But not every young woman has this option: some come from weak or broken families, for example. So women must seek counsel in other arenas and, at this moment, the Church is the best of these options.

A good place for a woman to find female mentorship.

Part 2: Welcome Those Who You Can Improve

Mentorship is a two-way street; it’s about giving, as well as receiving. We get better by helping others, by sharing our experiences with the world. Note that there are a variety of professional mentorships available. But also, partnerships can be created from the people you meet.

Find young people with talent. Every now and then, you come across a young person with great potential. How can you help him? How can you guide him? Try to steer the youngster in a positive direction if possible. Remember that you were young at one time – how would you have benefited from advice, from the counsel of a wise elder? Personally, I would have benefited greatly.

You can give back to others

A simple reminder: people only care about what you can do for them. Your music is great if it tells their story, your novel is great if it glorifies their life. People are inherently selfish, but there’s nothing wrong with that; we’re all locked into our bodies, trapped in our own “movie.” It’s hard for us to step into the shoes of another, to understand the totality of their life.

Remember that people don’t care about “you,” per se; they care about what you can do for them. But once you do for them, they will be forever grateful. They will speak of you in glowing terms, writing your name in the appendix of their lives. You will become an idol of sorts, an individual that lit a fire beneath them. Their selfishness is not a curse, but an avenue for opportunity.

Conclusion

The wisdom of Seneca is a gift that keeps giving. And his words on mentorship are telling. We should seek out the advice of others, and we should look to uplift those in need of guidance. It’s a beautiful reciprocity of existence – a circle that will improve our lives.

For more on Seneca, see the following link: Letters from a Stoic by Seneca