QQ : NUMBER SIX - August 26, 2011

A ONCE-A-WEEK (or so) LIST OF WHAT I  GIVE A  DAMN ABOUT. WITH 10 = MOST IMPORTANT;  AND 1 = NOT SO MUCH


week 6


                      Sometimes I live in the country,
                      Sometimes I live in town,
                      Sometimes I have a great notion,
                      To jump in the river and drown.

                      Irene, goodnight.


QQ = 10 :   RIP Jack Layton. (Federal leader of the opposition in Canada).

                     One more nail in the coffin of Canadian democracy.
                     With that comment, “I am not now and have never been a member of" the NDP.
                     However It seems to me that the unprecedented lineup of thousands around City Hall
                     today is as much a profound political statement as it is a tribute to the man.
                   
                     Cancer, the ultimate un - equalizer.

QQ = 9 :     And the cure for the common cold is?
                     Fibromyalgia anyone?
                     The legal firm of Epstein & Barr? 
                     And that old guy Alzheimer?
                    
                     It seems we have a long way to go Dr. Doctor!

Throughout the Jewish tradition, one is aware of the tension between the concept of God's omnipotent will and the concept of humankind's free will, manifest in an unspoken compromise that leaves the care of the body to man.
In this matter, the intervention of God is not to be assumed. (Sherwin B. Nuland)

QQ = 8 :      “You Aint Nothin’ But a Hound Dog”.
                       A Jewish song?
                       RIP Jerry Lieber.

QQ = 7 :       And then Dr. Doctor, there is the Jewish question.
                      I have often pondered the Catholic question, the Tao question, the Baha’ question,
                      the Buddhist question and the Wicken question.

                      I offer no “final solution” other than to encourage my people to relinquish their control
                      of  the economic future of the world, all media, the federal reserve,
                      the White House, their suppression of the cure for Cancer, the fate of the planet     
                      and the destiny of the universe.
                    
                      Then we can all relax.                                   

QQ = 6 :        However, then we can almost all relax.
                       But not before we ban, eliminate and vanquish the following :

                       the entire song output of  the Brill Building, Broadway and Hollywood
                       (those pesky Jewish songs)  
                       the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics  (a Jewish concept)
                       the Salk vaccine for polio, Penicillin, Novocaine, Aspirin and the Pill.
                      (a conspiracy alongside  flouridation) 
                       Google and Facebook
                       and of course Levi jeans.

                       With all that in mind, what was Jesus’ religion? And his mother Mary?
                                 
          
QQ = 5 :        Who are the rebels in Tripoli? The images show young men with baseball
                        hats on backwards, clean shaven and wearing printed T-shirts.
                       Their hair is groomed. They show gang hand signals from the ‘hood.
                       The trucks have gasoline, the guns have ammunition and of course
                        everyone has a cel-phone.
 
                       It is reported that their number one agenda is the institution of Sharia Law.
                
QQ = 4 :        There exists a universal unmitigated morbid fear of women in the 
                        undeveloped world.
                       
                        Tent them, rape them, subject them to genital mutilation
                         and on no account let them drive.

                                        
QQ = 3 :         Fracking.....there’s a great word.
                        Take away the gas and the oil, and then plates collide. These are the earth’s
                        natural lubricants. The earth’s precious bodily fluids.

                        And then the earth begins to shudder and quake.

                        Exxon, Mobil, BP and Shell ...........Frack You!          
                    
QQ = 2 :         Economic apartheid, the one we prefer not to talk about. It lives and breathes
                         in the restaurant kitchens of Toronto,
                         the produce agri - business farms of California
                         the oilfields of the Saudi
                         the suburbs of London
                         and across the tracks of every city in the USA
                         and of course most of the two million people currently in US jails.

                         Which reminds me of another Jewish song : “Jailhouse Rock” and its gay
                         double entendre verse  :

                         Number forty seven said to number three
                         You’re the cutest jailbird I ever did see
                         I sure would be delighted with your company
                         Come on and do the jailhouse rock with me

                          Apartheid was ironically originally defined as “separate but equal”:
                          I propose that the organization “Queers against Israeli Apartheid” hold their
                          next wedding event in downtown Damascus followed by a celebratory stoning.        
                          Perhaps one of the better applications of Sharia law.

QQ = 1 :           Fallen off the news : 
                           Whatever happened to the woman sentenced to death by stoning in Iran?
                           My Q.A.I.A. friends didn’t seem too concerned. 
                           Perhaps a honeymoon (after the Damascus wedding) in Teheran. 

                           I guess it was just a woman thing.

QQ : NUMBER FIVE - August 22, 2011

A ONCE-A-WEEK (or so) LIST OF WHAT I  GIVE A  DAMN ABOUT. WITH 10 = MOST IMPORTANT;  AND 1 = NOT SO MUCH

QQ = 10 :  "Keep the company of those who seek the truth- run from those
                   who have found it"   — Václav Havel

QQ = 9 :     When Bach composed his three part inventions he was visited by a higher
                     power. When Glen Gould played them, his realization made him insane. Layer
                     upon layer of revelation that never ceases to amaze and inspire, sometimes
                     too much

QQ = 8 :     I am conceiving a Baroque Opera. Sarah Palin, as Broadway musical. Show
                     stopping song titles include : “I Can See Russia from my BackYard”,
                     “A Moose is Just a Moose”, “Climate Change, You Must Be Joking”
                    “Paul Revere, Paule Revere Let’s have a Beer”.
                     The story line is a tragi - comedy with a King Lear connection, with Sarah as
                     Lear, and  Bristol and Piper as Goneril and Regan. It has a sad ending.

QQ = 7 :      Why do we prefer to type? QUERTY is so 1870’s. With that in mind, the
                      gasoline engine of 1885 is conceptually unchanged. Shakespear and Homer
                      wrote compelling stories and Mozart wrote a decent tune. Innovation is severly
                      lacking. Is Mark Zuckerberg the great innovator of our era?

QQ = 6 :      When Charlie Bird added strings, he touched heaven. When Buddy Holly
                      added strings, he pushed the envelope. When Henry Mancini wrote for
                      the orchestra, he embraced melody, and when Arif Mardin wrote a string
                      chart, he had an aesthetic unlike any other that embraced the zeitgeist.

QQ = 5 :      A summers night at the Hollywood Bowl is an immortalizing experience. I
                      have seen Dudley Moore play the Rhasody in Blue, Jaco Pastorius play
                      an entire show with his back to the audience and the 1812 overture with
                      fireworks. I love LA. (Sad to miss the forthcoming "Q" show).

QQ = 4 :       Reality check :

                       Carol Kaye : "Good Vibrations" (The Beach Boys);"Wichita Lineman" and "Rhinestone Cowboy" (Glen Campbell);"River Deep - Mountain High" (Ike & Tina Turner);
"Scarborough Fair/Canticle" (Simon and Garfunkel);"The Way We Were" (Barbra Streisand) etc etc etc.

I've been working hard since I was 9 years old, day and night (grew up extremely poor), had a hard life of hard work, fought off criminals trying to steal my pub. company, after working extremely hard in the studios, (professional musician since the age of 14, providing for family since 16, day and night studio work since age 22, worked evern harder for my publishing/teaching/seminars/studiowork/live-jazz playing and raising 3 kids as a single mother. I've written, published over 30 items, sold over 1 million, the educational stuff is a nickel and dime business and now most of my books are being illegally downloaded on the web at over 41 Pirate websites (just in my first 10 pages of my name on Google alone!)...I really don't feel up to working hard to finish my book only to have it be stolen too...I just lost a home due to Piracy (and bad bank: Wells Fargo, after paying mortgages on-time for decades)....at 76 am starting over, I really don't want the rest of my hard work pirated by working hard to finish my book and then have it stolen online. Having dealt with publishers with my own Gwyn Publishing co. inc. I wouldn't trust another publisher as far as I can throw my own car.....that in itself is a book.    
                 
QQ = 3 :        Rob Ford (Toronto Mayor) digs his own trench    
                    
QQ = 2 :        Wars that never ended :
                        The Civil war
                        The Crusades
                        Catholics vs. Protestants
                        Yugoslavia
                        Cyprus
                        Afghanistan
                        Korea
                        India and Pakistan
                        Israeli Independence
                        The war of the sexes
                        The war against drugs
                        The war on terror
                       

QQ = 1 :         What, me worry?   

QQ : NUMBER FOUR - August 17, 2011

A ONCE-A-WEEK (or so) LIST OF WHAT I  GIVE A  DAMN ABOUT. WITH 10 = MOST IMPORTANT;  AND 1 = NOT SO MUCH

QQ = 10 :  Anthony Bourdain reading Sarah Bakewell’s terrific “How to Live: Or a Life of                   
                  Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer.” 
                  “I suspend judgment”

QQ = 9 :    “Financial Times” is the best (and last great) newspaper in the world. It is not a
                   coincidence that it is also making money.

QQ = 8 :     Read “Leap of Faith” The making of a Republican front-runner.by Ryan Liz
                   in the August 15 issue of The New Yorker. And then begin to pray.
   
QQ = 7 :     Somalia. Prayers will not help. Manna from heaven is an outdated concept.
                   Unless of course you happen to be Michell Bachman or Rick Perry. They have
                   a direct line.

QQ = 6 :      Jack Diamond forgot that buildings have sides and backs. Nice facade dude!   '

QQ = 5 :      And speaking of buildings, what the hell is that top hat thing, RoyThompson     
                    Hall  in Toronto’s entertainment district. This city has architectural issues.
                    Bad architecture should be severly punished. And as for Libeskind’s
                    monstrosity....OMFG! One can only weep.

QQ = 4 :      Glen Gould continues to slay me.       
                 
QQ = 3 :       Monetize this! What a strange word...”monetize”, a word utilized as a goal for a
                     decimated recorded muisc industry. How do you monetize an aesthetic?
                     How do you monetize a cultural sensibility?For that matter, how do you
                     monetize human compassion?
                    
QQ = 2 :       Steve Jobs eliminated all the jobs. The machines have taken over and there
                     are no jobs, just algorithms. 

QQ = 1 :       You can google me, tweat me and facebook me, email me, IM me and linkdin
                      my profile. Blog me, poke me, like me, youtube me, translate me and map
                      me. Search me, group me, alert me and share me.
                      Is this a good thing?

QQ : WEEK THREE - August 14, 2011

A ONCE-A-WEEK (or so) LIST OF WHAT I  GIVE A  DAMN ABOUT. WITH 10 = MOST IMPORTANT;  AND 1 = NOT SO MUCH.


QQ = 10 :  Technology is neutral.

QQ = 9 :    Is there an app for moronic stupidity?
            
QQ = 8 :    What does Bill Gates think about Picasso’s Periodo Azul and whether Miles                    
                  Davis made an appropriate commentary in his Blue Period album?
                  How does Bill feel about Humberto Eco? Is Magic Realism?
                  Does he feel that Pablo Cassals was a revolutionary innovator?
    
QQ = 7 :    After the Famine : After we feed the Somalis, do we abandon them?
                   Feed + Heal + Abandon = Terrorist 

QQ = 6 :     ''l'art pour l'art'',  Perhaps there are other purposes?

QQ = 5 :     When the news is devastating, Huffington reports that there will be a SpiceGirls
                   musical and CNN tells us that Kate Middleton’s eye makeup is too severe

QQ = 4 :     Albert Einstein developed his ideas on relativity while improvising on the violin
                 
QQ = 3 :     Afghanistan defeated the Soviet Union

QQ = 2 :     Afghanistan continues, as the greatest illicit opium producer in the entire world
                    Follow the money.

QQ = 1 :    It’s a brave old world
            

QQ: WEEK TWO - AUGUST 11, 2011

A ONCE-A-WEEK (or so) LIST OF WHAT I  GIVE A  DAMN ABOUT. WITH 10 = MOST IMPORTANT;  AND 1 =NOT SO MUCH.

QQ = 10 :  The audacity of hoping to hope.

QQ = 9 :    If I had a portfolio, “I’d hammer in the morning”.

QQ = 8 :    A Clockwork Orange

QQ = 7 :    The times, they are a’changin

QQ = 6 :    The PIGS have eaten the Euro
                  The BEARS have eaten the Dollar
                  The result : A pile of BULL shit!

QQ = 5 :    Let’s have another Royal Wedding - anything to distract the masses -
                  Let them eat cake

QQ = 4 :   Peruvian pipe bands at the Italian summer fest
                 Peruvian pipe bands at the Greek “Taste of the Danforth” festival
                 Peruvian pipe bands at the Beaches Jazz fest

                  Does Peru rock, or am I missing something?

QQ = 3 :   Canada is now officially a one party benevolent dictatorship.
                 Let’s make Stephen, KING !
                 Or, perhaps he already is Stephen King.

QQ = 2 :   Art is not a democracy

QQ = 1 :   Bring back the Medicis or at least a Papal Benefactor.
                 I need my ceiling painted
            
                    

QQ: WEEK ONE - AUGUST 2 2011

A ONCE-A-WEEK (or so) LIST OF WHAT I  GIVE A  DAMN ABOUT.
WITH 10 = MOST IMPORTANT;  AND 1 =NOT SO MUCH. 

QQ = 10     Oslo... The horror. 

QQ  = 9       America...Hope was an audacious concept after all.

QQ =  8      America...Bachman-Palin OverJive. Whatever happened to compassion? 

QQ =  7      When did Unions become Un-American?

QQ =  6       Lewis Taylor.  The New Stevie Wonder.  Check him out. 

QQ =  5      Climate Change and The Environment...Who gave us permission to make the planet into our                    own, personal trash pile? 

QQ =  4      Bill Maher, Lewis Black, Russell Peters.  Our contemporary truth- tellers.  

QQ =  3      Johann Sebastian Bach. God speaks. 

QQ = 2       Mark Rothko.  Mystery man. 

QQ = 1      Daniel Liebeskind.  Aluminum siding?  Mr. Liebeskind-    TEAR DOWN THAT WALL!!                          (reference Canadian building:Royal Ontario Museum)