Keeping Time (as if I had yet awoken from some singular and wonderous dream)
		Lately it seems as if I am running in a different time signature than the rest of the world's plodding onward in a basic 4/4 beat, while I seem to be doing something different - maybe in 12/8 like "Send in the Clowns" or something (not that there's anything wrong with that) or some strange 5/4 or 7/8 kind of thing. I know that the polyrhythms come together every so often when the multiples intersect, but right now I must be entirely out of sync because I can't hear the tune and I can't feel the beat. Some days I even feel like I am drifting without any rhythmic signposts at all. The workers out on the factory floor where I am employed spend 8-10 hours a day 6-7 days a week working on the same piece of equipment in an assembly line - some for nearly their entire lifetime. Their beat is as regular as a heartbeat or mid tempo ballad. Meanwhile, I sit in the same office day after day and sleepwalk through my "occupation." Often I come to think that I am a mistake and that I was born out of time and perhaps should have existed elsewhere instead in another, more tuneful era. Nearly every day I go out during lunch and walk the same 3 miles around the same oval of concrete through the same barren industrial park like some rat in a wheel while attempting to shred the tangles in my mind. I used to think time ran like a reel of tape in one direction, but now it seems clear that it moves in circles/cycles like a record or a compact disc. In terms of musical history we unfortunately hear no Mozarts or Cobains in the present, but are instead gifted with a plethora of Patty Pages. So how much IS that doggie in the window? And with the country's Christian Soldiers Sousa marching onward to clash with the Crescent's microtonality, I fear a great cacophony is in the works. Rollo May says that in times of great anxiety - courage and belief in your self is a must. The anxious timbre doesn't concern me - adrenalin will take of that - it is the grip of utter inertia that holds me in its thrall. I once played with a bazouki player and discovered that true primal rhythms are timeless. Unlike the sequenced, computerized mechanical falsities that abound, the natural "Swing" follows the rhythms of an undulating sea the waves moving in and out; or like bodies in motion during sex. Like listening to Joy Division while reading Kafka in the bath, I find myself reminded of Jim Morrison choking up bloody chunks of pineapple in his dying spasms. If this missive falls short I apologize, I know I am supposed to entertain, forgive me if I find myself merely aghast in your iron heaven.

Past, present & future
misguided ramblings of the MusiCurmudgeon
Stroll through the vaults of a diseased mind!