(Feb 2004)
Holy shit!! This section needs some updating.

(Dec 2001)
I think this will be my forum to spout. Better here than within reach of someone who might be tempted to choke the living...

"Little Cosmic Radio"


So much in the world is fake these days. Politicians lie about everything (gasp!). Many people, desperate to convince others that they are something that they aren't, use bragging, white lies and ridiculous but politically correct nomenclature to describe a mundane occupation. Performers can and do have video digitally altered to make themselves look fatter/skinnier/whatever. Singers can and do have their off pitch and tonally desperate performances easily altered so that every note is perfectly in tune and blended with other voices/instruments/effects to achieve a sound that wouldn't wilt flowers. We have all heard a live performance, and I mean really live and bare, by a big well-known act, that really sucked. What else can be expected when there is a product to sell, and sometimes not even a product, but simply selling 'cool'. If you give your money to them, they give you an item that makes you cool. Obviously, I have a bit of a problem with all of this. I sometimes wonder if electricity is the best or the worst thing that ever happened to music. I owe so much of who and what I am as a musician, to recorded media. However, even the best recording, of the greatest performance, doesn't come close to actually being there. Not too long ago this was the only way to listen to music. At best, a recording is like a photograph of your friends; a nice reminder but hardly comparable to being with them. Products are just for sale. To me there is something deeper, underlying and so much more important about music. When I play, I try to touch something, and I feel like such a bumbling neophyte when I do. Just a child reaching. It's like I'm talking to the song, listening to God or being taken for a ride on some roller coaster of improvisation. I don't feel responsible for the creations. It's like I'm a little cosmic radio. I just try to listen as best I can and then amateurishly imitate what I hear, for my own or someone else's enjoyment. For me, this is the point, the place, the quest and the journey. No matter where in the realm of fame and fortune that this passion carries me, fame and fortune is not what it's about. I know the truth of the matter. I'm just a beggar. A musician, a madman, a monk, each occasionally accepts the charity of others, wandering helplessly in the grasp of some vision.