Good . . .

. . . news

 . . . some kindness, compassion, appreciation and NO GREED!

(from https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/25/business/gravity-increases-employee-minimum-salary-to-70k-trnd/index.html)

". . . A maverick CEO who slashed his own salary four years ago to raise his employees' pay is doing it again. . . Dan Price, the head of Seattle-based Gravity Payments, said . . . that all of the employees in the company's new Boise, Idaho, office will earn a minimum annual salary of $70,000 by 2024.

"This morning we cut the ribbon on the new @GravityPymts Boise office AND announced that all of our employees here will start earning our $70k min salary," Price announced on Twitter. "I'm so grateful to work with this amazing team and to be able to compensate them for the value they bring to our community." . . . In 2015, Price decided to hike his employees' pay after he read a study about happiness. It said additional income can make a significant difference in a person's emotional well-being up to the point when they earn $75,000 a year. . . He then made the decision to increase the salaries for all of his 120 employees in Seattle, raising the minimum salary to $70,000 -- and slashing his $1 million salary by 90% in order to make it happen. . . The move doubled the pay of about 30 of his workers and gave an additional 40 significant raises. . . Price says the higher wages have transformed the lives of his employees. They have been able to grow their families, more than 10% of employees have purchased a house for the first time and individual 401(k) contributions have more than doubled. . . Since then, Price has shared his story all over the country and has inspired other business leaders to do the same. . . "

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Different . . .

. . . but the same . . .


(from Thomas Jefferson; The Art of Power by Jon Meacham)
". . . Both Federalists and Republicans believed the fate of the United States could turn on the confrontation of the hour. In the broad public discourse, driven by partisan editors publishing partisan newspapers, there seemed no middle ground, only extremes of opinion or of outcome . . . "


Unique
rough demo Sept 2017

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Songs . . .

(from I Am Brian Wilson, a memoir with Ben Greenman)
". . . What is a song, exactly? It's something that starts as an idea and becomes more than that. It becomes physical and emotional and spiritual. It comes out into the world. It can soothe you when you're feeling at your worst. It can make you happy when you're sad . . . But if you spend your lie trying to find songs, you realize pretty quickly that you're not the first. People have been doing that as long as there have been people. And if there are periods in your life when you stop doing it - because something distracts you or makes you weak - you realize how important it is to jump right back into the game . . . "

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(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
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Drama . . .

. . . is perpetual . . .

dra·ma

[ˈdrämə]

NOUN

1. a play for theater, radio, or television:

   "a gritty urban drama about growing up in Harlem"

   synonyms: play · show · piece · theatrical work · dramatization
2. an exciting, emotional, or unexpected series of events or set of circumstances:

   "a hostage drama" · 

   [more]

   synonyms: incident · scene · spectacle · crisis · excitement · thrill · 

   [more]

Drama
©2016 Raymond M. Jozwiak

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It's True . . .

(from http://edwardwillett.com/2009/03/science-shows-musicians-really-are-more-sensitive/)
'Researchers at Northwestern University have found that the more years of musical experience musicians possess, and the earlier the age at which they began studying music, the better their nervous systems are at interpreting the emotional content of sound.

The study was led by doctoral student Dana Strait, who conducts her research in the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at the university (and who is herself a pianist and oboe player).

Strait points out that scientists already know that emotion in speech is carried less by the specific meanings of the words being used than by the sound of those words.

. . . Strait and her colleagues enlisted 30 right-handed men and women, with and without music training, between the ages of 19 and 35. The ones with music training were grouped using two criteria–their total years of music experience and whether their training began before or after the age of seven.

Participants watched a subtitled nature film to keep them entertained (“entertained” is apparently a loose term) while listening through headphones to a “scientifically validated emotion sound”–specifically, 250 milliseconds–a quarter of a second–of a distressed baby’s cry.

Sensitivity to the sound, particularly the more complicated part of the sound that contributes most to its emotional content, was measured through scalp electrodes, which allowed the researchers to track brainstem processing of the sound’s pitch, timing and timbre. . . '

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Art, Passion, Success & Jazz . . .

 If I evaluated the level of my success in enumerable sales of physical items alone, I, with a multitude of others, could easily and realistically be deemed failures.  But there is so much more to life.  Viewing my own objectively, I am happy to report that I do not view it as such.  Upon the realization many years ago that my own art could reasonably and truly entertain my own self with a sufficient level of emotional content and technical ability was to attain a certain, albeit modest, level of success in and of itself.  That, combined with the good fortune and personal contentment my personal life has awarded me, give me the distinct impression and definite opinion that, with all modesty and humility, I am a success.   Unfortunately, others have not experienced the favorable circumstances nor made the necessary choices to enable themselves to feel quite the same way. . . 

In 1940, F. Scott Fitzgerald suffered a third and final heart attack, and died believing his work forgotten. In the last year of his life, he wrote his daughter, "I wish now I'd never relaxed or looked back—but said at the end of The Great Gatsby: I've found my line—from now on this comes first. This is my immediate duty - without this I am nothing." By his own admission, Fitzgerald viewed himself as a failure, and only 25,000 copies were sold at the time of his death. His obituary in The New York Times mentioned Gatsby as evidence of great potential that was never reached. However, a strong appreciation for the book had developed in underground circles; future writers Edward Newhouse and Budd Schulberg were deeply affected by it and John O'Hara showed the book's influence. The republication of Gatsby in Edmund Wilson's edition of The Last Tycoon in 1941 produced an outburst of comment, with the general consensus expressing the sentiment that the book was an enduring work of fiction.

By 1930, Scott was an alcoholic and Zelda had suffered the first of her multiple breakdowns, fighting her way back to sanity over 15 months in a Swiss clinic. After Zelda’s release in September 1931, the couple and Scottie, then 10, returned to the United States, but five months later, Zelda fell apart again. When Fitzgerald wrote to H. L. Mencken for advice, the latter suggested the Phipps Clinic at Johns Hopkins, in Baltimore, at that time the nation’s premier institution for the treatment of the mentally ill. Phipps director Adolf Meyer advocated a scientific approach to psychiatry but believed that psychogenetic factors, not physical disease, caused most mental illness. He thought that people became mentally ill “by actually living in ways that put their mind and entire organism and its activity in jeopardy.” The Fitzgeralds— whose marriage Meyer diagnosed as a “folie a deux”— seemed a living embodiment of his theories, which perhaps explains why they both detested him.  (thanks to both http://www.baltimorestyle.com/index.php/style/baltimore/baltimore_f_scott_fitzgerald_in_baltimore/#sthash.cD1aikhO.dpuf and http://www.wikipedia.com)

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Connection. . .

During our semi-regular and all-too-frequent dinner-time discussions regarding our government, political parties, facts and the lack thereof, the tendency of the general population to latch onto the emotional aspect of an issue and cling to it like a dog with a bone to the detriment of the general population resulting in polarization and inaction, we inexplicably found ourselves discussing Radiohead.  Logical, right?!  

These primarily political discussions generally result in Russell or myself getting particularly boisterous, always a result of passion since we are always both sitting firmly on the same side of the issue. 

But Radiohead!?  Really???  

Now talking about polarization, my perception is that one either loves or hates Radiohead, while Radiohead commands a large and fiercely loyal audience and for that I certainly give credit well deserved.  My issue with Radiohead is strictly subjective, as matters of taste most certainly are, in that I find my scant experience with Radiohead takes me back to the 80s, a musical period that I perceive to be chock-full of heavy reverbed, emotional English crooners belting dirge-like, string-heavy and unintelligible ballads which I find neither intellectually challenging nor emotionally satisfying.

I'm just saying. . .

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Musical . . .

. . . life . . .

Many folks get many different things from music.  Some people care very little for it, or at least do not pay it much attention.  Still others are attracted, mesmerized, addicted, absorbed, delighted, voracious, dedicated or dependent upon it.  Those truly dependent upon it derive an oblique, ethereal or indescribable satisfaction from it.

Some people dive into it with the intention of obtaining huge material gains from it and some do.  While others dive into it with the intention of obtaining huge emotional or 'spiritual' gains from it and do.

One of those was Paul Tanner, who recently died at the age of ninety-five.  No Grammy winner, Mr. Tanner, but not only did he play trombone on the 1939 hit 'In The Mood', he also played the electro theramin (which he helped develop) on 'Good Vibrations' and other Beach Boys recordings.  A musical life, long and well-lived.

Who could ask for more?

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Quotes from Trane. . .

. . . John Coltrane, that is. Forty fours years gone, last week. . .

“I never even thought about whether or not they understand what I'm doing . . . the emotional reaction is all that matters as long as there's some feeling of communication, it isn't necessary that it be understood.”

“All a musician can do is to get closer to the sources of nature, and so feel that he is in communion with the natural laws.”

“Over all, I think the main thing a musician would like to do is give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things that he knows of and senses in the universe. . . That’s what I would like to do. I think that’s one of the greatest things you can do in life and we all try to do it in some way. The musician’s is through his music.”

“You can play a shoestring if you're sincere”

“I’ve found you’ve got to look back at the old things and see them in a new light.”

“Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music for the first time, as if I had never heard it before. Being so inescapably a part of it, I’ll never know what the listener gets, what the listener feels, and that’s too bad.”

"My music is the spiritual expression of what I am — my faith, my knowledge, my being...When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups...I want to speak to their souls."

"I start in the middle of a sentence and move both directions at once."

“The first violins have the most interesting part.”



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Not quite sure. . .

. . . how we can ever stop such ridiculousness as the Terry Jones/Koran-burning/Afghanistan riot/killing or whatever you want to call it.

The situation provides a vivid illustration of what can be achieved when ignorance and reactionary violence are combined. . . death.
Of course some parties involved not only have no objection to the resulting death, they actually welcome it.

Since I clearly see which side of THIS argument is the correct one - NEITHER side - I won't belabor any point here at all.
I only want to use it as another opportunity to repeat what I believe to be a lesson learned, or more importantly, a preventative measure to such nonsense-induced tragedy - EDUCATION.

Take the time to LEARN. I mean real objective LEARNING. This would and should entail the consultation of MULTIPLE sources (and not merely or exclusively one or another 'holy' book), discussion (objective, non-emotional discussion) followed by some REAL thinking. . .

although I wonder now if the number of human beings truly capable of such educational endeavor is, of late, dwindling. . .

Coming April 5th - ANOTHER SHOT

by Ray Jozwiak