The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Not to be overly dramatic or anything, but nobody alive today remembers how the Romans watched the Senate become ineffectual, and the Emperor become a dictator...certainly I don't, but I read about it somewhere. Seems to me there may have been many, many regular Romans who were uncomfortable with the way the Emperor's military campaigns depleted the treasury and left problems unattended to at home, and with the way the Emperor went on and on about Family Values.
I also bet there were many regular Germans who were puzzled and uncomfortable with the Nazi Party's rise to power, and didn't participate in it, but had to live with the consequences. I bet they wondered, at the beginning of it, what the next few years would bring.

A friend of a friend of a friend, named Paul, sent out the following email which was forwarded to me and I offer it for no reason other than I can't come up with anything near as good, in my present state of shock and hurt. (not awe). It's his advice about how to go forward in this time. Even with the San Francisco Bay Area-specific stuff, I think it's relevant enough to post. Here goes:

1. Everybody gets money. Every payday (if you're lucky enough to still have paydays), write a check, even just a small one. Today I started off the next four years by giving money to a local strike fund (hotel workers are striking here in SF). Next payday, I renew my ACLU membership. After that, it's NRDC, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, etc. The great thing is that once you send that first check, you'll get all kinds of convenient postage-paid return envelopes for next payday's check. Do it; you'll feel like you're doing something and that alone will help.

2. If you haven't already, shift your phone service to Working Assets. It's easy, it costs about the same, and they give part of your money to good progressive causes. Better that extra little bit go to the Sierra Club, for instance, than to SBC profits.

3. Nourish the bubble. For those of us fortunate/determined enough to live in the Bay Area bubble, remember how lucky we are. True, it is a bubble, a veritable echo chamber of progressive viewpoints. True, it is cut off from a lot of the country. But it isn't cut off from all of the country (see below), and there are things we get to do in the bubble, things that make life worth living, worth treasuring, things that point the way to a better tomorrow. You have to have laboratories in order to figure out what will work. We live in a left-wing laboratory. Keep the lab clean, make sure the apparatus are in good working order, check to make sure the supply room is well-stocked, and remember that publishing the results is an important part of the process.

4. Remember that we are not alone. There are at least 56 million people here who roughly agree with you. That's a lot. It's a whole lot. It was almost enough. We Are Not Alone. And because we are not alone, despair, cynicism, defeatism, hopelessness, and withdrawal are Not Allowed. You don't abandon the team just because we lost the game. Show up for practice with your cleats on; there are more games on the schedule.

5. Remember that we are, despite everything, fortunate. We were born and/or live in a very rich country, one with an enormous amount of power in all senses of the word. We have a responsibility to each other and to those around the world to do whatever we can to try to ensure that that power is exercized for the good whenever possible. We couldn't quite make it this time; that doesn't relieve us of the responsibility to keep trying. One of the other side's Big Lies is that they have a monopoly on morality; giving up the game lets them continue to believe that.

6. We haven't lost everything, and it isn't all hopeless. 5 isn't 9. 55 isn't 60. If you don't know what those mean, find out; it's important.

7. Take care of yourself, your friends, your family, and your communities. This is closely associated with Nourishing the Bubble, but even closer to home. Keep volunteering with your theater company, your BDSM social organization, your domestic violence hotline, your gay rights organization. Keep doing pro bono work. Keep holding social events. All of this makes a difference, and usually a bigger difference than most things coming out of Washington.

8. Finally, keep thinking of other ways to survive in the darkness and let people know what you come up with.

You ARE going to vote today, right?

If you're from the States, that is. You're registered, and you're going to vote? You know where your polling place is? You know when they're open?

Good.

How it all began. Sort of.

Reverse psychology works pretty well on me.

It was 1985ish, if memory serves, and I was home doing homework and listening to the radio. The station was 105.3 here in San Francisco. At that time I had been playing the flute for awhile already (about 10 years). It was about 9 in the evening and the DJ on the air was Steve Masters. He played a song by Men Without Hats, who at that time were trying to make a comeback. The song was "On Tuesday" and it featured a guest appearance by Ian Anderson.

I don't remember much about the song or Ian Anderson's flute solo. Truthfully that was the only time I've ever listened to him. I kid you not. I haven't been purposely avoiding him or anything. I just have never gotten around to hearing any Jethro Tull.
But anyway Steve Masters started talking after the song and he declared, "You know, I just don't believe the flute has any place in rock music. I just don't."

I took that very personally, for no good reason other than I was a teenager and therefore prone to overreact. I sat up really straight and scowled and said, "Hey!" indignantly to the radio.

I wish I could say I started practicing feverishly that very night, and wore my lips out every day thereafter for the next 20 years, trying to become the Next Great Rock Flutist. I didn't. I went right on following the path toward being a classical flute player for quite a long time after that. But at least my mind was open enough to disagree with old Steve Masters.

The MusicVine

I have a summary page on mp3.com. Mp3.com has a feature called "MusicVine", in which artists orbit around each other in alleged "spheres of influence". As far as I know artists aren't consulted about who their influences are. Somebody else comes up with that.

So if you click on the MusicVine while you're looking at my page on mp3.com, I come up in a constellation where my closest influence is Steven Halpern. This came as a bit of a surprise since I have never listened to his music on purpose. There was a time when I worked at a metaphysical bookshop, and his music was on sale there, and sometimes we played it over the PA system for atmosphere.

The music industry is just a big alien galaxy. Most musicians just shake their heads over it. But, if you want people to hear your music in any appreciable numbers, you have to engage with it somehow. One of the first things that has to be determined is how to classify you.

I know my music is very hard to classify and that's how I like it. When my last two albums came out, I hired radio promotions firms, and in order to do their job and get me added to radio stations, they had to come up with a way to pitch me. For Summerland, Peter Hay, who promoted me, focused on the Celtic slant of my lyrics and pitched me as a modern folk artist. For Diogenes, Musik International zeroed in on my mysticism and promoted me as a New Age artist. The album even charted on New Age Reporter.

So this is apparently what stuck for mp3.com, who have me in a sphere of influence with Steven Halpern, and a little bit further over, Gabrielle Roth (who I have listened to quite a lot on purpose). I would rather be orbiting around with my real influences but there's nothing I can do about it. So go listen to my tunes anyway!

Alexander technique. Maybe that will be the ticket.

Tomorrow morning I've got an appointment with an Alexander teacher.

My first experience with Alexander Technique was when I took a masterclass with Ann LaBerge in 1989. She is also an Alexander teacher and that one lesson I had was really eye-opening. So when I was making my list of things I would try in order to treat my injury, Alexander Technique was definitely on the list.

Repetitive stress injuries are common in flute players (and all instrumental musicians). Mine is tendinitis. I suffered with it originally in my left forearm ("tennis elbow") and later on in my shoulder -- bicipital tendinitis. Various practitioners have treated it with prescription drugs, physical therapy, cortisone shots, Chinese herbs and acupuncture. All of them helped somewhat (except for the cortisone shots. Those were an unqualified bust). My forearm pain actually went away. But the shoulder continues to be a problem. I have had pain of some kind, from mild to severe, every time I've played the flute since 1988.

I now have a flute with an offset G key, which has been a goal of mine for years. It's taken the stress off my left arm that the inline flute keys of my old flute used to put on it. Now that the instrument is no longer in my way, I've got to make sure that I myself stop getting in my own way. I hope the Alexander lesson tomorrow gets me on the path.

He's so sweet with his jet-black stare...

A few weeks back somebody from the SFPD came on TV and warned the public not to feed the pigeons, because, he said, "they're taking over." And I came out onto the street from some building that day and there *did* seem to be more of them. That's really the kind of takeover though that I could get behind. It would be a liberation of sorts. Pigeons have such mellow energy. I think if the pigeons took over and marched in formation down the streets of San Francisco, I would stand on the sidewalk and wave my handkerchief.

On Polk Street I saw a pigeon who had lost a foot and was gimping around on the stump of his leg. I tried to target him with some pieces of granola bar. The others fought him for the food, of course. This went on for a little while and then all of a sudden, a homeless guy appeared beside me on my left. He seemed to come out of nowhere, and I wondered if maybe one of the pigeons, making use of some transformative powers we don't know yet that they have, had turned himself into a homeless guy...he said that he was really hungry, and that he hadn't eaten in three days. I was very impressed and gave him the whole granola bar.

I walked down to the corner and another woman shook her head at me and said, "You really shouldn't feed them." I wondered whether she meant pigeons, or homeless people.