I discovered an Electronica Internet radio site, and I've been stuffing my ears with Jungle for the past three days. I listened to some Goa/Psy Trance afterwards, and now I'm back to art music. The site is DI.fm. Great stuff. I met a DJ already, and someone that does digital imaging and story writing, and overall it's been a good experience. Meanwhile I've dusted off my shoes and looked at some fetish art, and I'm going to go compose some music in a little while.

I hope all is well here at Sacred Magick. I'm going to find some people and get their AIM addresses from the site, so everyone run real quick and delete them from their profiles! Just kidding, but I may add you if you have an AIM handle because I'm looking for things to do. Later!

Ok so I borrowed a My Chemical Romance CD from my nephew, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. Goth Melodic Punk. I like one song, The End, but not enough to put it in regular rotation. I'll listen to it some more; it's pretty much like AFI... I'm Not Okay is sounding okay too. I'm trying.

I went to Virgin on the Square and bought Classical Music and looked at the Top 40 rack. Gwen Stefani. Eminem. (I know them. They're old as hell guys!) My Chemical Romance. Death Cab For Cutie. JoJo. A few others I don' remember. I'm testing the waters a little. The punk these days has these kids voices in front, it weirds me out. Back in the day being a punk meant being real masculine and sort of "i've seen it all before" instead of young.

I've got to listen to something new is part of it. I swooned over a classical import I picked up last night; Beaux Arts Trio Schubert Piano Trios on Philips. I usually don't buy Philips but this was a great find. Is My Chemical Romance for teenage girls or boys? I'm guessing girls, but I can't figure any of this out. It's like Goth Green Day.

Green Day was a trip when they came out with their first big LP in like 96. I didn't like American Idiot. I saw their bio book at the store and they've got their eyes all modified to make them look kind of ghoulish... fun stuff. I remember on their second record Billy Jo did a video with a cracked tooth, because he managed to get in a fistfight before they started shooting the video. If you look real close, I'm sure youtube has it, you can see that the tooth is cracked. Really. I would not tell a lie.

As far as the new Eminem, last I recalled, Detroit Sound was in 4/4. The bumps are so unpredictable it's like listening to Anti-Pop Consortium. Maybe they just didn't sync the tracks right. Awful. That guy used to be able to write a hit. If that's a hit, then I need to buy my way into a studio, because I could do three of those a day. No problem, 6 out of sync tracks and I'm making bank.

I'm working on Death Cab For Cutie now. Okay this stuff kind of makes sense. It sounds too much like the Beatles or Guided By Voices, but if I ate an adavan and drank a Smirnoff Ice or two to this I would be very tripped out.

I'm sure you guys still smoke weed too. Do you still do gross things on the athletic and band buses, or are you too afraid to catch hepa C? People my age are deathly afraid of disease. I know a bunch of people 23 or 24 years old with hepa C and livers going to the toilet.

See in my day, lol, we'd put on Nirvana if the guys picked, or Lords of Acid if the chicks picked, plus some Led Zeppelin and AC/DC and the like, and the guys drank Heineken because we didn't know it sucked, and we drank dilute vodka and got stoned when we were being real bad, and that was sort of the party.

This isn't anything like what we listened to. I imagine it's good on muscle relaxers. But it sounds kind of good. Just a little Beatles-esque. Agh, I'm enjoying emo. Oh well.

Well I'm beginning to ramble. I'm going out with the family tonight, probably to Chinese, and then I may grab a six or twelve pack of something tasty after I'm done with that. Have I posted drunk here? It's a treat not to be missed. I only drink beer when I'm either bored or in a bad mood, but tonight I'm drinking because I'm in a good mood. And yes I'm an alcoholic. Life is great.

I messed with this one and I like the color and lighting effect I got. I think it looks almost like acrylic on canvas.

I'm bored, can you tell?



I cropped it because a great deal of the photo was of a blank wall. Kind of neat I think.

3 Songs that Guys Listen to When They're Coming Out

1. I Am Human by the Smiths
2. Narrow Daylight by Diana Krall
3. Orange Crush by REM

Anyway... I found a German photographer who did some Nude and Fashion photographer that is just stunning. His men were ok, but I've actually got a lot of men in my library so the sexy women were nice. There is one that looks precisely like my ex-girlfriend looked in her underwear, and it is... quite mesmerizing and stirs a lot of memories. Too bad your lovers never pose for you, LOL.

Well, I'm tired and I've been on the bed and on the computer and I just can't decide what I want to do... I think I'll just go get another glass of water and come back here. I will post again shortly...

Here's one of me standing in a slightly different spot in my room. This one is resized, I think.

This is the hallucinogenic version of the black and white. Imageshack is overloaded so I'm using photobucket now and I haven't figured out how to size them 320 by 240 so bear with me here.



And here's one from today. Sorry they're not more original but my digital camera sucks and I'm lazy. Hats off!

An unfortunately very dark picture of what I look like when I go out. I got a kind of poltergeist-esque background on the thing, but I couldn't get my face any clearer. I'm going to take some shots this afternoon.

Well I got up kind of late and dehydrated again, but at least I'm sleeping. Had lunch at the Arby's. Now I'm here, and I've got nothing much to say... I think it's funny that I know just about everything about the music scene up to 2000 and after that I'm lost. Even though Korn (we called it rap metal) sounded exactly like Screamo, I like Korn better. Etc... I'm obsessed with music. (Even though REM sounds like emo (we called it college rock) I like REM better) Sorry I can't get over this generation gap.

Anyway, I have a few more lists, they go better in groups, here they are:

Three bands not to listen to on acid:

1. Tricky
2. Aphex Twin
3. Self

Three Worst Songs On Acid:

1. Vent - Tricky
2. Come to Daddy - Aphex Twin
3. Superstar - Self

Close runners up:

1. Milkman - Aphex Twin
2. Strugglin' - Tricky
3. Lost My Senses - Self

Top 3 Songs about Breaking Up

1. Come Pick Me Up - Ryan Adams and Emmy Lou Harris
2. Go - Pearl Jam
3. Losing My Religion - REM

I'm done for now.

Well I got a call from my Dad's girlfriend and she needed someone to drive with her over to the Honda Service Station so she could get a ride home. It was one of those trips that makes you believe in evil spirits... nearly got in three or four accidents, and my stomach had a pit in it. Things went poorly and suddenly everything lifted midway through dinner at Panera Bread, and now I'm listening to Silver by the Pixies and kind of hanging out at home.

My Dad's girlfriend (I don't want to reveal a bunch of names on the Internet) is really cool, but she kind of wants to talk about difficult things and then act philosophical about them so it's like "No this is really difficult for me... I don't want to be philsophical about it. Let's just not talk anymore." That kind of thing. I think what it is... maybe she just knows I'm upset and wants me to feel better. My opinion is, "I'll talk about it with you, but it makes me upset, don't try to make me feel better."

She drove Dad down to the Airport today, and I think she's been really good for him. I can't figure her out exactly, but I don't really need to. I've got nothing she wants; no worries. Dad can do what he wants, and that is none of my business.

I really think she's just a tender-hearted older woman with some problems. Whatever happens I'm not involved in it either. I was happy to help her, and after I calmed things down a little with some of that assertiveness training (yeah!) the evening went perfectly fine.

This evening has had a really weird vibe. Smooth Criminal came on after Silver because my Songs folder in iTunes is in alphabetical order and it's sounding really creepy. Oh well, just sit through it I guess, meaning the creepiness and not the song.

Sober came on next. Ha. Didn't know Tool was straightedge did you? Listen to this part of Opiate where this guy is smoking hooch, and Maynard calls to security and says "Get that Bob Marley wanna-be motherf-er out of here!" So then why all the references to heroin? Maybe they just don't like weed, I don't know!

I'm the last hardline Gnostic jungle fan, and I'm the last man. I need a nap or something I'm getting all weirded out. I'll be back on in a couple of hours.

I'm sitting at Wendy's and they're playing canned music over the loudspeakers and it hits me, I don't know any of the songs. All the three year old stuff they play at Wendy's I'm listening to for the first time! Like "what the hell is this?" Damn it's getting hard to maintain a rep with when you can't tell what the three year old songs are. I know that R&B (they call R&B hip hop now, but hip hop is dead so it's ok) and emo are big, and other than that I'm clueless and I haven't heard anything but just a little bit of Gnarls Barkley and some of the emo stuff that my brother likes.

There's a popular screamo band from this area, I know that. When I think of emo I think of like Bright Eyes or something: out of tune instruments, nonsense lyrics, kind of wussy, and I can't cure myself of not liking it. I've turned into my Dad! Give me music that rocks! Or is intelligent, or something. I don't understand how you can be a teenage boy without the musical equivalent of Pearl Jam, and that is why I know I'm out of touch, old, and very "yesterday."

I'm bummed about it honestly. It just doesn't sound good to me. It's like, I listen to it, and I want something else. It's like... lima beans, they're no less healthy than broccoli, but I want my broccoli. Man that weirds me out.

Sorry, I just realized that I'm not supposed to swear. Swear words edited out of this post and no more in the future.

Top Jungle Songs of ALL TIME! WHY DID JUNGLE HAVE TO DIE?

1. A Sense of Rage (V.I.P. Mix) Goldie
2. Bite the Bullet - Roni Size
3. Bring the Danger - DJ Dara
4. The Descent (Decoder Remix) - Dieselboy
5. Dirty Beats - Roni Size
6. Duplicity (Klute Remix) - DJ Dara
7. Hostile - Dieselboy
8. I Got Five On It - Aphrodite
9. King of the Beats - Aphrodite
10. Kosheen - DJ Dara
11. Night Flight - Dieselboy
12. Shapecharge - Dieselboy (THAT'S RIGHT!)
13. 6 Million Ways to Die - Aphrodite
14. System Upgrade - Dieselboy
15. Take You There - AK1200 feat. Phife Dawg
16. Teebee & Calyx - Dieselboy
17. Temper, Temper - Goldie

A tribute to the best dance music ever! All praises to Jungle that sounds like Jungle!

Jungle - a short lived movement of fast breakbeat - two step dance rhythm - music that no one likes except for like five people in the world who are either music collectors like me, or DJ's. Died in like '98 or '99 and everything after that is a slow breakbeat and slow breakbeat isn't jungle.

Top Electronica Songs in my Library

1. Addiction - Skinny Puppy (KMFDM REMIX MUTHERFUCKER) - EBM
2. Blade Theme (Rammstein Remix) - Drill
3. WarlockED - Skinny Puppy - EBM
4. I Against I - Massive Attack and Mos Def - Trip Hop
5. Born Slippy - Underworld - Trainspotting Nuxx Mix - Drill
6. Eraser - NIN - EBM
7. Closer - NIN - EBM
8. Greece 2000 - Three Drives on Vinyl - Original Mix - Trance
9. Idioteque - Radiohead - IDM
10. My Red Hot Car - Squarepusher - Electropop
11. Smack My Bitch Up - The Prodigy - EBM

Best Songs to Make Your Parents Mad

1. Psalm 69 - Ministry - Industrialcore
2. Runaway #2 - The Dwarves - Psychobilly
3. Twist - Korn - Emocore

Songs your Girflriend Wanted to Make Out To in High School

1. I'll Take Your Breath Away - Sarah MacLachlan - Adult Contemporary
2. Tori Amos - Crucify - Adult Contemporary
3. Kinky Reggae - Bob Marley and the Wailers - Reggae

60's and 70's Songs Your Dad Can't Listen to At Home

1. Bitch - The Rolling Stones - Rock n Roll
2. The End - The Doors - Performance Art
3. My Ding A Ling - Chuck Berry - Rock N Roll

Top 3 Best Performers or Bands No One Has Heard Of

1. Frank Zappa - no genre
2. Self - Electrocore
3. Trey Gunn - New Age

Top 3 Most Violent Songs

1. Dead Wrong by Notorious B.I.G. - Hip Hop
2. Ænima by Tool - Melodicore
3. Down With the Sickness - Disturbed - Metalcore

I've run out of ideas for now, but will be back for more.

Well, I got out for a bit with Dad. Panera and then coffee. Could have had coffee at Panera I guess, but Dad and I didn't. I'm on a third bottle of water in like an hour. Worried about my blood sugar or my lithium levels.

So I'm wondering if anyone tried any of the classical music. Just to give you some ideas... Stravinsky's Rite of Spring is a good piece for young people because it sounds a hell of a lot like metalcore... not bad for adults when you're in the mood to hit someone or f%*! either. Modal piece, a ballet, and a piece with a whole lot of motifs in it that never get developed too much. You don't care, but I'm always listening to it and stealing shit out of it to develop. It's called "quotation," unless you do it to a contemporary.

The Haydn I suggested, the Emmanuel Ax Piano Sonatas on Sony are pretty mature. They sound real airy-fairy but they're not. There is a lot of depth of feeling in there and some of the best sonata forms you're ever going to see. Ax does a real nice job highlighting the architecture, and the emotional content is very good, if obscured. Some of that is the nature of the compositions.

The Magic Flute is a comic or low Opera with some great occult overtones. Practicioners of Gardnerian will enjoy hearing Tamino pass his third degree and enter the halls of wisdom with his new wife. I have the Deutsche Grammaphon, re-released from like '65, and it's great. Once you've listened to it enough that you start to understand the German you'll start laughing out loud.

Goldberg Variations. The one I have is the 65 Glenn Gould that I got for like $7.99. The thing with Bach keyboard works is that it sounds like 3 or 4 people playing at once because of the overlapping lines. However, there are a lot of people out there who listen to Bach and just hear sixteenth notes, one after the other. I'm not sure if they're immature, or if Bach is just honestly boring to some people. Bach is tied for my first most loved composer with Haydn.

I described Agrippina pretty well. Let's see; I've got an Itzahk Perlman and Daniel Barinboin (?) CD of Violin and Piano Duets by Mozart. Great pieces of music, but I think the intonation of the recording is a little glitchy. I'm not big on Mozartian cadences either. I far prefer his Opera. However, I like this CD a lot and I've been going over it to help me with some problems in the duet I'm writing for cello and piano.

I've got that Kronos Quartet CD: Mugam Sayagi composed by Franghiz Ali-Zadeh. I like Oasis and Apsheron Quintet, and find the rest of the CD horrible. Atonal or modal... hard to say... very hard to digest. I've listened to the whole CD five or six times and I'm still working out the motifs, which in plain language means I'm trying to figure out the tune. The form is coming clearer, but I haven't gotten it yet.

Then the Chanticleer, Sound in Spirit. Something here to please everyone. Something there to displease everyone.

Gregorian Chant. Buy it. Turn it on as much as possible. You'll be composing music in no time.

I'll be buying more CD's later this week. I am a slightly less than bottomless cup. For one thing, there is so much art music that I just don't like and I'm not recommending it here. I could give a steaming pile of shit about Mozart's or Beethoven's symphonies. Haydn's symphonies are good, but... I like his chamber music better.

The Horowitz recordings '65, Return to Russia, and the Last Recording have a lot of Chopin on them and the Chopin is wonderfully played. There is an arrangement of a Wagner piece on the last recording which is a real mind bender.

That leaves just a few people I've listened to: Berlioz... there is a very nice Symphonie Fantastique on Deustche Grammaphon. The thing about that piece is that it has that "Romantic period" shifting of harmony and melody in it, and after not having listened to it for a year I can't even remember the theme. Don't get the Damnation of Faust by Berlioz, it's awful.

Tchaikovsky... if it says ballet, then it's good. Get a good record label... Don't get one of the bargain bin ones. Tchaikovsky hated the Nutcracker, but I think he was just mad that everyone liked it better than everything else, the themes are really fun and the writing is incredible. I've heard it so many freaking times that I can't bear to hear it again, but it is good. Romeo and Juliet is a little less kitschy and very lush, and I think people would like that one. Other than that I don't like Tchaikovsky very much, but his 5th (?) Symphony gets a lot of play I think.

There's the Mendelssohn and Brahms symphonies which I don't recall too well, but what I recall was pretty blase. There is the New World Symphony by Dvorak, and I love the opening to the second movement in that. Moussorgsky has that Stravinsky feel, or actually vice versa because Moussorgsky came first and people might like Pictures at an Exhibition if they like that wicked sound.

I'll be back in a couple of hours on a different topic, and in a few days with more music. I know I'm repeating myself a little, but I'm trying not to repeat too much. Like most people I wonder if anyone reads. But I think probably, a few people do. Thanks for hanging in there with me people. I'm finally over the damn smokes. Took a 12 pack of beer and a lot of banging my head against the wall, but I'm smoke free... 13 days now. Later.

Once again it's about 6 and I'm up and about. The house is cold; I refuse to heat any higher than 68 degrees, and normally I'm very comfortable, but every once in a while, regardless of the thermostat, I feel cold.

Well I broke down and wrote the outline of the story of the Opera, and I think I'm going to write the libretto myself in English. I also decided that it's going to be a twelve tone atonal piece, and I pulled out the old notebook and got the twelve tone matrix written out and pulled out the series that I want to use in the piece.

Now I have to write poetry, and I have to write the piano reduction of the score. All of this is going to take a considerable amount of time.

Well, I'm going to warm up with a cup of coffee. Best of luck to all.

Well for whatever reason I got up at 5, fell asleep until nine and went back to bed until quarter to 12 today. Feels good to be so rested, but I'm kind of dehydrated and hung over from sleeping so long. No beer last night though. I've got 5 beers tucked away and the next time I'm in a bad mood I'm drinking them.

Anyway, I started on the first movement of my Impromptu, which is called "Configuration." It's a series of descending polychords in cut time and then I'm reversing the pattern here in a couple of days when I can stand to copy it out. The piece will be plenty long because I have another series of permutations to run on it when I get done copying this section out.

My self-consciousness about my pieces not sounding like the master's is getting me all tore up, but I know how they did it now, and even though I like the music they made, I don't want to do it that way. I'm afraid the sound won't please the audience more than anything. I'm happy with it, and I think the musicologist's will find it suitably complex and unique. I don't want to be a composer that writes music that isn't for the audience.

I wish I could hear my stuff played by a real performer. Everything sounds dry on a computer.

Mom is coming home from Church soon, and we'll be doing something together in between her next visit to church. It's near Christmas and there are all kinds of activities to do. Personally I wonder how anyone can trust a group of people that spend most of their time collecting your money and spending it, but she loves it so why be a prick about it?

My unusual beliefs about religion are pretty well known to my parents. In most every way I'm open about what I am. I'm not perfectly truthful, but I'm by and large very honest with everyone in my life. I get shunned quite a bit but I figure that will go away as a large percentage of my generation is institutionalized or goes to prison.

Well, that's about enough for now. I was thinking of posting something more complex later, but I'll have to see how the old brain cells are firing.

Well I bought a recording today called "In the Spirit" by a male vocal choir called Chanticleer. The recording was not what I have been calling here art music, but man the stuff was so incredible. The sounds coming out of the speaker are not from a synthesizer and they are beyond belief. It is also very beautiful. I think it deserves to be called art, but there are one or two passages that offend me. A lot of art is that way I guess.

I'm studying vocal music because I'm thinking about an Opera... I talked about needing the Italian portion of it earlier here. I want to call it something along the lines of "The Harlequin's Masque." There will be a murder at a castle, and then the Harlequins will appear. The drama will work itself out, and the Harlequins will leave at the end.

I'm also studying chant because it is sort of the roots of everything in the West. All of that old plainsong is really where it begins, and Chanticleer does modern variations on that.

I've looked back at the old scores and realized they need revision. My goal is to finish the seven pieces I've got right now, excluding the Opera, and to save them and revise them when I've got more knowledge of how to develop the themes properly. Undergrad music composition is kind of a crapshoot, and I'm basically teaching the permutations to myself.

Plainsong is commonly called Gregorian Chant. The absolute best plainsong recording is by Penguin Classics, and it's called just Gregorian Chant from the Choir of the Carmelite Priory. The Priory is in Italy if I recall correctly, and the Latin is perfect. (it's actually not even what people commonly call Church Latin, it's very historically correct!) That CD has changed my life a million times. That stuff is the beginning of Western Music, as I said before.

Well I'm off to do something else for a piece.

Well here are some of my philosophical ideas. You know how it goes: They're just musings and not meant to be dogma for some kind of new Church. I'll post the outline and then as I think of things that might be confusing I'll explain those things.

Intuitional Empiricism

I. The Scientific

A. Verification – The meaning of an object of study is it’s observation
B. Types of hypothesis – assertion, conjunction, disjunction, correlation, negation
C. Falsifiability – all scientific hypotheses must be able to be proven false

II. The Intuitive

A. The Bracket of Knowledge – historical science, physical science, social science, legal science, personal science, theological science, mystical science, unknowable science; The bracket of science is necessary because the scientific disciplines overlap but are not a unity.
B. The Intuitional Law – All things that cannot be fully solved by science can be partially solved by intuition.

Well, the second person in this KGB exposure case has been poisoned with thallium, and this one didn't have the consititution of a Clydesdale and is dead. The papers point out that this Italian contact that was at the dinner where Kitvenko (spelling?) was poisoned probably didn't poison him if she were poisoned herself. I won' t say it clears her, but it certainly does make it less likely. The whole thing is like something out of Hollywood; Mission Impossible or something.

Well it's very early. I was up at a quarter to 5. I'm having memories of this store in Mansfield. I told this story a long time ago, but no one will remember it from years ago. In Mansfield where I went for some jazz training, there was this occult store named Melnibonean High Kulture. The reference is to Elric of the Stormbringer series by Michael Moorcock. The guy in there had this real long forked beard. I thought it was hilarious. This thing was just there in the town square.

I think it just goes to show that low Christianity is slipping. I think we'll go through some more cycles like what we've just been through - periods of conservatism and fundamentalism - but I think Christianity as we see it now is kind of a relic of the past. I'm not sure we're going to see anything that looks like wholesale enlightenment; I tend to think that the Gnosis comes to individuals more than large groups.

So if one of the tools of tyranny is slipping, maybe some other ones are as well. It's funny; I linked a very intelligent demonologist at LJ who I later offended with a rant against people at large that is trying to expose and fight the military-industrial complex. My methods are a little different; I'm into fighting with pneuma. I am however, largely in agreement with this guy. I just don't talk that way. Maybe I should.

So let me be a little controversial here, in honor of Sammaelhain. Now, the Democrats will pull out of Iraq in short order. What will the next unjustified and wasteful war be? Iran? Venezuela? There will be one. America isn't happy unless it's fighting a war.

That's enough for now. I'll be back in an hour or two.

Ok... so this came up with a friend today. I have a thing for cello players, and I met one online, and we're sort of uneasy friends. She was raised that art music was good, modal music was bad, tonal music was nice for relaxing, atonal work for serious times, and that's all she needed to know. Having been only a mediocre cello player (she played like a goddess but not one of the great goddesses) she now plays along to Enya when she feels like playing cello.

Meanwhile my Mom loved the Beatles and Gospel music, my Dad loved Rock and Roll, and I'm 28 and I think that tonal music has the broadest emotional range, atonal music is better for one or two emotions, popular music is generally shit but I still fill my ears with it sometimes, and art music is the best music EVER!

So is it a game of reverse psychology? I don't think it is totally, but they kind of put my friend through the wringer. 8 hours of practice a day, hand exercises, hand soaking, not being allowed to clean house or boil water for fear of damaging her hands... she just didn't have the shine and they cast her off. That part of art music is really sad. In my opinion they should let performers develop their talents a little older and worry less about virtuousity, but I'm not in charge of the world either.

But, what I think it is really is that art music requires first a diseased mind that wants to figure out why it's felt to be at least nominally important to our culture, and second, a passionate soul when you figure out why art music is much more than nominally important.

I think everyone gets to an age, some people much later than others, that they want to go see chamber music and go to the art museum and take their time. Everyone gets there. But what the art music people don't get, is that art music is for mature people.

Only a handful of people of the age of 15 can play certain Violin Concerti, and that's because that kind of muscle movement is only available to a highly trained youngster of 15. If the music was written to be played by 15 year olds, then it's not art music in my mind because art music is for the mature. People with souls, people with consciousness, people who have lost their minds a few times and picked up the pieces.

Good art is the same. When I see a Caravaggio, I see an amazing technique, but there are people with better technique. What I want is the mature emotional content, and Caravaggio's have that a plenty. To expect a youngster to have the emotions of a 40 year old woman is preposterous, but there's a CD for every mentor who said they found one.

And that's why my cello playing friend, who is 19, listens to Enya instead of Art Music. In 10 years she'll be playing Haydn or something and making friends with real music. Right now she won't play my pieces because her hands are all messed up from cleaning house and nothing sounds right.

I'm not bragging but the piece was written for a female cellist, not her in particular, and the piece is good. There aren't many 32nd notes in the score, just a few mordents and trills, but it's tricky, kind of like a Czerny etude, much harder than it looks.

Well enough of that. I think the quitting smoking psychotic attacks are starting to wear off. Maybe it's because I fortified with beer yesterday. I don't know. More later maybe.

Alright, so most pop music that you hear is modal, not tonal. Modal means that it uses a scale construction that isn't major or melodic minor, and that it doesn't really have any tension other than the tension of the mode, or any resolution except for the way the mode ends... and typically it doesn't end, it just fades out.

Tonal music is constructed by either the hybrid melodic minor scale, or the major scale.

Atonal music has two types - free atonality which usually sounds modal and dodecaphony, which is way out of vogue right now and sort of hovers around modal without quite making a comittment to any scale, and so is truly atonal.

Right now most Art Music being written is freely atonal. I write tonal music. The style of music I write is called ahistoricism, meaning that I interchange old-fashioned devices with newfangled ones in a combination that leaves the trained listener wondering what time period it was written in. If you saw the scores you would know it was 21st Century, but the devices are often Classical in nature.

Ahistoricism was pioneered by Phillip Glass, a fine composer, but Phillip Glass and I differ in that one of my major interests is in form. Rather than building and developing a theme on a free canvas as Glass did, I'm interested in coloring in a form that was produced a long time ago, as well as altering that form to suit my needs, which was a Classical device as well... although we could get into arguments about the Romance period but you guys don't care, a music critic might...

Anyway, what I'm getting at here is that I'm not in the norm for Art Music composers. The use of modality is becoming common in Art Music, sometimes in ways that leave you wondering if it's just pop music, in a way that Andy Warhol can make you wonder if it belongs in a magazine or in a museum. The use of more complex modal systems that imply free atonality is most popular with the critics, and that pretty much leaves people like me getting no commissions and wondering when my next food stamp award will come.

I'll be back in a few hours with something else I'm sure.

Well, I thought it might be interesting to talk about my creative process, because I love talking about me. The first thing I do is that I look at pictures. They're usually naked or partially naked guys and gals. I look for something that creates a reaction that's unusual: not usually a gross-out but something unusual. A look in the eyes that says something to me or a sweep of the line of the body that looks like more than a plastic surgeon's dream. Stuff like that.

At that point I take Voodoo pad and make pages with different pictures and combinations of pictures on them. I start writing around the pictures. I also usually have some Bible reading I'm doing, some dithering in my handwritten journals, and then I start playing around with my piano. Sometimes I make images, but right now I don't have any paints! But I may make images of my own on the easel. I get the piece figured out as far as form and so on, and that determines what kind of writing I'm doing at the piano.

After a few weeks of this, I've produced another composition! Now, the hard part comes when it's for more than one instrument. Now I have to score the piece. I generally go out and buy music with the same combination of instruments in it... play the music while I do other things, and then when it comes time to score the thing I try to imagine what the instrument sounds like in that register and that kind of thing and I slowly score the piece.

I've never written a concerto, but I'm going to tackle a concerto grossi in a little while. I have a picture that will be great for a concerto.

Finally another quote from my offline journal: "When I use a photograph or visual image to inspire me to write music, I am not trying to recreate the image in music, but instead trying to recreate the range of emotions that the image produces in me in music."

Well, first off, I'm glad I had something to do today. I'm in a fairly good mood. We bought a Dell for my Grandparents and my Dad and I went over and hooked it up today. It went without more than a semi-hitch and we went to the Country Buffet afterwards. There is so much salt in that food that I'm parched. It was a funny day.

My Dad's parents aren't real with it; I have no idea how they are going to use that computer. Grandma can do a couple of things on it after I spent some time with her, but the monitor was the tv and they couldn't figure out what I meant when I asked them if they would like the computer in standby mode... And then Grandpa got the farts right as I was leaving. At least I'm feeling whimsical.

Alright well, I'm going to send an email to Grandpa and Grandma and then I'm going to sleep a little.

Well, I've talked about one thing. No penultimate spirits, just spirits of differing strengths, which means no God. Satan is a dark spirit, but I believe friendly to humans, and Lucifer is a light spirit that is friendly to humans, in my way of looking at things.

There is of course the Gnostic belief that the world of flesh is a cage, and that there is a way out of that cage. There are a whole ton of spirits whose goal is to make sure humans stay in the cage and don't get out, and there are a small few that want man to be free.

What would get free is the spark of life that is hidden in many humans, but not all. Some humans are children of darkness and don't have that tiny spark in them, that's what I believe. It is also my belief that we are doomed to reincarnate for an eternity unless we can get free. It is also my belief that everyone in the world of flesh has been here a very, very long time.

It is also my belief that the world of flesh is full of illusion, and that some of what drives a human mad is the discovery of some of those illusions.

The Bible is a repository of Gnosis, along with certain other texts, and can help free people from the cage they're in. There is no secret formula for getting free, but there is a process that one can win over a long period of time.

Well as usual I feel better in the morning. I got maybe 6 hours of sleep, and I'm not looking forward to this evening. I realized this morning that I drank 13 bottles of beer yesterday. There is no excuse except one: I cannot handle reality right now.

I was thinking that maybe all of this was a result of some human curse, but I really don't think so. I think it's the result of a spiritual curse. Gnosticism believes in that kind of stuff pretty heavily - Archons and so forth - and I'm pretty sure that's why I'm getting what's coming to me.

I'm mad. I put that in my journal yesterday. I have no clue what is really happening in my life except my immediate surroundings, I'm completely cut off. That's madness.

It's storming here right now - nice touch. Just to close, don't think I never tried light and love with all my might, because I did and it failed me. I'm happier now than I was back then.

Well I've finally beaten the depression, whether it's beer or just sticking it out is up to the viewer. I found a very refreshing and interesting nude model at artnudes.blogspot, called feminism without clothes which I won't link here, but should be easily found. My eyesight is bad because of the beer, and I've still got no one. I've put it all away for now.

Remind me to take out the trash tomorrow morning. Beyond that, goodbye for now.

Well, I went out and bought Sam Adam's Boston Lager, drank a six pack, vented spleen in my Voodoo pad, posted an oddly obscene post here, had several strange visions of alien intelligence (yay me!) and now I'm having a cup of coffee and sobering up. Honestly, this strikes me right now, if I were sane I would have no interest in the occult. Oh I might make cracks about Jesus and his disciples now and again, but I would never have ended up here, after I might add, being rejected pretty much every place else.

Life is striking me real weird right now. Straight women: you tied yourself to this guy so you could clean his socks? Straight men: you somehow thought having kids would be satisfying? Gay women: your occassional male fling doesn't bother your belief in your own persona? Gay men: you're more effeminate and you wash the guys laundry?

Weird shit that people do without thinking. Look, I know I came on this board like strictly Count Dracula style and tried to take the shit out of everyone, but I have a heart and right now it's black and rotten and it's got a great big hole in it. I'm a Luciferian Gnostic, or a Gnostic Christian. However you want to look at it. The big difference I described in another forum: to me there's spirit's, even greater and lesser spirits, but no penultimate spirits.

I am fighting to maintain my sanity. I am completely isolated from everyone and everything, and I can feel my brain tissue convulsing. I'm some kind of genius, but I fear I will end up a failed kind of genius. I can't break through the red tape. My work is good.

I want a lover. I want someone to talk to. I want a life that isn't so spectacularly full of bullshit. They wonder why I'm bipolar. I have days like this "f%*! this shit I'm exhausted," and days like that "f%*! y'all, I'm going to win!" It has nothing to do with genetics or brain chemistry. I'm being hit by the social sledgehammer right in the spinal cord and I can't make it stop.

Last thing: I recently realized after perusing the old occult forums I went to that the occult scene on the Internet has completely died. I was pissed about some of the behavior, but it's really ashame that guys like Caradoc and Rev and NuHad and Doh and Rin and even Mmothra, who used to make me peevish by spouting Shambhala and calling it Buddhism, it's ashame that these guys aren't doing anything anymore.

I mean this forum has like three posts a day, if that, and it's like, what the hell happened? It's fun to exchange knowledge, and it was fun being a pissant with those guys until the money got in the way. This forum is good because of one thing: When someone posts shit, everyone jumps in to help, instead of lambasting them. That is great. If this forum has always been this way than I'm very sorry to only have recently discovered it. I'm knowledgable, I'm smart, but I post shit sometimes too.

I mean, I tried to up the post count a little, but really, I can only explain that Chaos Magic is sort of this wishy-washy belief that the only thing that happens will always happen and that your magic is of little concern more than two or three times. That's how Peter Carroll describes it. Hine kind of turns it into this "become a Mage and you'll improve yourself" kind of thing, but there are plenty of books like that on the self-help shelves.

Really, I have nothing to explain. I live with the spirits, right now they're overpowering me, and that about covers it. I think they overpower me to get me to try harder, but it gets damn old. Every year my art is more sophisticated, my palette broader, my maturity as a person more, and every year I sink deeper beneath the jack-boots.

I came out to my parents; didn't help. I tried going to Church. Didn't help. I tried some other stuff and now I just buy a six pack and decide to have a bad day. This torture could last 60 years I figure, and I'm dumb enough that I'm trying not to rush it along.

I despise sucides for two reasons: 1) If you get in the habit you'll be coloring in coloring books and eating stale cookies in a group home, and I just can't bear the thought of the humilation and 2) Pain is hard currency and I'm going to be tough enough to collect a whole lot of it.

Well, that's enough psychopathic rambling. I'm going to be back, I can't sleep at all. The drunk gave me about thirty minutes of dreamtime and I'm completely unable to sleep right now, so trust me, I'll be back. I know you're looking forward to it...

I have just vented my spleen in Voodoo Pad, and this is the commemoration of me not putting it here and acting like a whiny baby, and shooting everyone nearby with an assault cannon. I'm going to get drunk now. My life is great, and I'm being treated like an utter turd. The average American is scraping me off his boots like dogshit. I better stop now.

This is a thing I wrote for a friend in the UK that is a horror writer. He's a secular Jew and one of those cynical Jewish atheists that always end up with emotional problems. All my friends are gay artists except one straight woman who is a writer, and we kind of have like a support group. I have a sort of system that I work by and I was telling this guy what I do.

I happen to be partly Jewish, possibly had a Jewish mother, and act about as Jewish as you can get, so I'm not making racial slurs. There are two kinds of atheists, Catholic atheists and Jewish atheists, and they're very different types of people. The straight woman is a Catholic atheist and she's just a hoot - but we all struggle a little bit.

I have a tendency to go mad and embarrass myself online, my friend in the UK likes Adavan when he can't take it anymore, the lady who I talked about before has a tendency of mixing large amounts of wine and stimulants. I go down to the bar for a few beers, but it's really my anti-social behavior that gets me.

Anyway, here's the kind of stuff I do. More later perhaps?

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Alright, so you get to hear my wonderful mad theory about the Bible. In my opinion, every time you read a piece of literature of any value, or listen to a wonderful piece of music, you assimilate parts of it into yourself. In my opinion, there isn't anything that can't be assimilated by reading the Bible. If I were you I'd start with Psalms.

Break into roughly 7 or 8 sections and read it slowly. Take your time, don't rush. You can read the Psalms leisurely, but don't expect to get through the 8 sections in 8 days. Shoot for six or seven weeks to complete it. I broke it into 7 sections and have been reading for 5 weeks and have 20 some pages left. While you're doing that, I recommend Matthew. There are anti-Semitic overtones, but if you interpret it a little personally, I think you'll see how it applies to people in authority more than anything.

That one might take you two or three weeks. Once you get started you'll find youself going quickly in the New Testament, and remaining relatively slow in the Old. The Old is far more important and the prophets are a test of endurance. One thing you can do is read short books to clean up things that aren't going to take much time.

Buy an RSV, not the New RSV, the old one, with all the Apocrypha and not just the Deuterocanon. Thank you so much for taking my advice. Everyone I talk to goes and commits suicide after I talk to them. I hate counseling artists, but it's kind of fallen on me to do. If you can't get a good RSV Bible, it's like impossible in the States, then get an NRSV. It's perfectly fine, it's just not as classic.

Okay, now as far as music goes: Agrippina by Handel, an unconventional High Opera; Mozart's Magic Flute, a low Opera; Schubert's Leider about the Winter, Die Winterreise; Haydn Piano Concertos, Emmanuel Ax, Sony Recordings. That is a good way to start. Goldberg Variations, anything on a major label or Naxos, Glenn Gould can be found cheap; Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and Firebird, Boulez if you can get it, or something like Bernstein (very fiery and sloppy) that will appeal to you; Vladimir Horowitz recordings are always good. The Last Recording, The Return to Russia Concert, and the 1965 Performances are very good.

That's very funny that you should say that. Mozart we believe was a hetero, but he was also a bit flamboyant, might have been bi, but you wouldn't say it in front of straight people. Beethoven was a definite hetero, constantly falling in love with young girls in his old age. Bach had a big fat ugly wife and a bunch of kids, and was hetero. Tchaikovsky was out: he is historically known to have been gay. I feel that Haydn was gay and simply was discreet about it, but have never seen a description of his love life.

Tchaikovsky's music is not my thing. He preferred Orchestral works, his symphonies are more like tone poems than symphonies, but he did have a talent for writing ballet. The ballet to get by him is Romeo and Juliet. Try a major label or Naxos, although I have never seen a ballet on Naxos.

Naxos is a budget CD record label that makes very fine recordings. Around here they go for 9.99, but it will be probably be 11 pounds or so in the UK.

The thing to remember with art music is that when you buy a recording you need to buy a recording that is done well. There are guides to help you buy them, and one trick is to leaf through the guide in the book section and then go over to the CD section and pick out one that rates well. Art music is kind of like any good piece of art. My recommendation is to turn it on so you can hear it in the background while you go around the apartment and do other things, and just let it sink in. Eventually you'll find the stuff you like.

I also recommend that you occassionally buy a 3.99 "classical sampler" with some pieces on it you've never heard before, and then you can branch out and buy whole recordings of the things that struck your fancy.
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