SNJ06-13-09 A Study in Vibraphonage

Yesterday I was introduced to Accujazz Radio a web site that focuses solely on playing jazz. I started to listen to their “Good Vibes” channel, which focused on vibraphone jazz. It was really fun. If you haven’t been there yet, do yourself a favor and check them out. It’s a really nice site with lots of jazz listening pleasure.

Anyway, as I listened, I thought that it would be cool to focus on the vibes for this episode of SNJ. I’ve always been fascinated by this instrument. It can produce anything from the haunting, to the exotic, from blues to swing and make you a fan of all of them. I love watching people play the vibes. They always make it look so easy. When the mallets fly, you can be transported to Latin America or the heart of Lonelyville. Tonight I’ve hunted down some of the best of the best for your listening enjoyment. Hope you enjoy.

As always if you have any requests, leave me a comment or drop me a line by using my new contact page (click the button on the menu right underneath the header). Now let’s get to the music.

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What Liberty is Not

It’s as inevitable as a great TV show being canceled by Fox Television after the first three episodes, or your brand new puppy peeing on your brand new carpet.

You’re sitting in your car at an intersection waiting patiently for permission from the traffic light to once again tromp down on that skinny pedal to the right side of your foot. Your not in too big of a hurry so you are kind of enjoying the ambience of the surrounding city life, and aren’t too pissed at having to wait for red to change to green. Life is good.

Until the Moron shows up.

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The Dilemma

I’m stuck and I’m not sure what to do about it. Not really stuck but kind of…well let me explain.

I’m fiddling with this blog. I’m beginning to find my passion and focus. When I first started I worked with a variety of topics from motivational to social media tutorials to jazz. I didn’t really know my voice and my passion. I liked all of these topics a lot, but as I’ve continued faithfully writing 4 posts a week, I’ve become more clear about what really grips my heart. I’m moving more and more toward writing about the philosophical principles that form the foundation of liberty.

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The Big Question (Part 2 – A)

For those of you who are just joining, you might want to start out reading The Big Question (Part 1) to help set the context for what is to come. I’ll also warn you that for the next few weeks I’m not going to be drawing to any obvious “motivational” conclusions. That will come later. If you stick with me through this series, though, I believe that you’ll find it to be worth your while. Now on with Part 2-A for this week.

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SNJ06-06-09 Jazz Trombonists

As I told you before, when I was a kid I wanted to play trumpet, but the music teacher convinced my mom and dad that it would be better if I played Trombone. So Trombone it was, and actually it wasn’t a bad instrument. I liked it, even though it wasn’t the trumpet.

The trombone produces a nice mellow sound and there are some great jazz trombonists, though it’s not a popular contemporary instrument. It is, however, one that is worth listening to, especially when it comes to jazz. Hope you enjoy tonight’s collection of great trombonists.

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A New Series on Liberty Coming Soon

I’m going to be writing a new series on Freedom Friday. It’s about Liberty and the Tragedy of the American Mind. It will cover things about liberty that our collectivist politicians media don’t want you to know, and it will explore why it is that so many Americans are perpetually bored and so self-absorbed.

I’m still doing some research and organizing, and will be doing so both this and next week, but the following Freedom Friday I’ll begin the series. I’m really excited about this and am so looking forward to sharing my thoughts and observations. I think it will offer a new kind of hope in our rough economic times as well as a new vision of who and what we can be both as individuals and as a free society. I hope you’ll join me on June 19th, 2009 as we begin a journey of learning, thinking, and adventure.

In the mean time this week and next week I’ll be posting some quotes about liberty for your perusal. Feel free to comment on any of them that strike your fancy. Enjoy.

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Twitter Competition?

If you’ve been breathing at all over the last few days (and I sincerely hope you have), you’ve probably heard about a new Google application called Google Wave.

If you haven’t, you can read about it on the Mashable site at this link: http://mashable.com/2009/05/28/google-wave-guide/. You can also see a demo of the application on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ. Be prepared. This app will blow your mind.

When I first heard about this I thought we were about to see serious competition for Twitter. Now that I’ve had a chance to learn more about Google Wave, I’m not so sure. It actually looks like it could be the enhancement that Twitter needs to really make it take off. I don’t know. I’d like to hear your thoughts about it.

One of my biggest complaints about Twitter is that if you engage in a conversation with another Twitter user or users, you can’t organize the responses into some kind of threaded display to make it easier to follow where the conversation is going.

Well, another article at Mashable shows that with Wave, this problem just might be resolved. You can read about Twave (Twitter integrated into Google Wave) here at this link: http://mashable.com/2009/05/28/twave/. If this Wave extension works the way I think it might, then Twitter will suddenly become much easier and nicer to use and TweetDeck just might take a back seat.

Currently, Google Wave is in alpha testing, so you won’t be seeing it released to the public real soon, but the developer did say that it will be released sometime later this year. I’m really excited by what I saw and think that Google has hit another one out of the park.

Take a look at the sites listed above and let me know what you think about it. It looks like it could be really handy as well as fun.

NOTE: Mashable, just yesterday got access to the alpha version of Wave and put it to the test. You can read their opinion here at this link: http://mashable.com/2009/05/31/google-wave-test/

The Big Question (Part 1)

In the last Monday Motivator article, I told you that I hate it sometimes when my mind goes certain places. This week it has started orbiting around one of those really esoteric topics that no one seems to have an adequate answer to. Yet everyone wants to blab what there answer is and they tend to get quite tetchy if you don’t buy into their particular illusion.

Let me get specific. I don’t know why, but the question of meaning has been popping up in my reading, and in some of my conversations lately. No the Universe isn’t trying to tell me something. The Universe neither speaks, nor does it listen. It simply is. That’s all. Existence exists. It doesn’t think.

However, I do and sometimes a pattern in my thinking catches my awareness. This one about meaning did and now I’m stuck. Not in a bad way, but damn if I’m not curious enough to want to follow the trail and see if I can come up with an answer that might, pardon the pun, mean something.

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