HUMINT over SIGINT

I am watching a documentary on the Crimes and Investigation channel, called, "Uncovered".

They are saying that for decades we have not had enough feet on the ground to cover our intelligence needs and this, lead to the rise of Bin Laden and 9/11 and other attacks.

Why? Because, as I've been saying for two decades now, we needed people on the ground. I came to realize this before the first war in Iraq. All the writings by ex spies, those in charge of our spy agencies, and in other countries, all pointed at an attempt of government to do spying on the cheap, to use satellites and monitoring over that of actual people to be inserted in groups to ask actual people questions, to do real espionage.

I first heard of this in the 80s with the Reagan Administration. They wanted to cut taxes, and cut government, cut spending. Great, except that you need to expend money, LOTS of money in some areas to do a good job. Nothing works like a personal relationship on the ground, in a room with those directly involved in the area, the culture, and what's going on. Normally, I'm all for cutting expenditures.

The thing is, you cannot do espionage on the cheap. That is how you get Intelligence Officers, agents and civilians killed (please refer to 9/11). We of course cannot just blinding throw any amount of money into a black hole. But then again, yes we can, and have to. We do need oversight, but we also cannot have complete oversight. And therein lay the problem. When we do it right, there isn't enough accountability and so there is a back lash; so things change as they did, but then you have dysfunctional, as we've had now for years.

So what IS the answer? I'm not sure there is one. You need a blend of different types of espionage and some of it will, by its nature, be unaccountable. But we need to bite the bullet and do it. When it comes to light that your operatives have gone off the deep end, then you will need to take action. With good infra and command structures, if you hire and well train good people, this is of less concern. The issue usually is in trying to cut corners. We cut corners on the strangest things: teachers, espionage, infrastructure. It's like we are totally clueless as a people on what is important.

Most of the answer, I believe, lay in having professionalism. Quality people, quality training and quality support. Provide those things? And quality things happen.

But that's not cheap.

 A web site has an article on it with an overview. It also has a nice graphic of the hierarchy.

But it all really comes down to money: "U.S. expenditures for intelligence are allocated among three distinct programs or aggregations: the National Foreign Intelligence Program (NFIP), the Joint Military Intelligence Program (JMIP) and the Tactical Intelligence and Related Activities aggregation (TIARA). The NFIP is controlled by the Director of Central Intelligence. JMIP and TIARA are controlled by the Secretary of Defense."

 Finally as I mentioned,  there is the oversight situation. This page have a good review of all this so I won't go into it here.

The bottom line is we need better intel and it is not easy, nor is it cheap, but it has to be done. Think of it as a football game. We go onto the field with an understanding of our own capabilities and the other team's capabilities. But we also go on the field with an understanding that we are playing American football (not soccer, rugby, baseball, or hai lai). But we have been entering into the field, or the theater of war not even fully understanding what game we are playing. In the arena of out side of the theater of war, in the espionage field, it's even more blindly penetrated.

In the end, we need a blend of all possible forms of intel that we can get, coordinated and delivered to those who need the intel. Keeping intel secret and not using it, has also been a problem. There is nothing simple about it.

But first, to get to where we need to be, at the level we need to be in it, we need to not only open our eyes, we need to first have eyes available that we can open and open them in the right places as much as possible; which takes intel, before the intel, to get the right intel.

Espionage has always been a shady and hidden endeavor. To "win" (and the "win/lose" dichotomy is the wrong one, but one everyone seems to understand) one simply has to be better at it than the other guy. But in our case, we have to get into the field of play to begin with. And that takes not being so afraid of being found out, lacking the funding, etc., that you simply don't do anything.

Live it OutLoud, a music camp for kids

Remember Rock School, with Jack Black? What a blast that was. What a blast that was if you were a kid, dreaming of being a Rock Star.

Well, there is a very cool program like this for kids in Tacoma, WA called, "Live it OutLoud!" And they're on FaceBook. We need more out of the box programs like this for kids. But there is this one for now and there kids that could use a sponsor to pay their way, kids who would do good in this program but would never have the money to attend something like this. So if you have some spare funds and would like to support a young Rock Star, give Joe a call. If you'd like to sign up, here is an entry form.

Those who have set this program up, Ted Brown Music, Joe Wilson, etc., are trying to get some of those kids in the program using scholarships. Each student is placed in a band with a professional music mentor to create, develop, and perform on a professional level.

As for Joe, I know him very well, ever since I was in Jr. High School actually, and he's one of my favorite people. He's got entertainment in his blood, and in the blood of his children, who are also in the entertainment industry. Joe's worked with super bands in the past and during their high days in the sun, like Fleetwood Mac, Rod Stewart and others.

It's a good deal. Tuition is $250.00 per student for the entire eight week program. There are only a limited number of need based scholarships available from Ted Brown Music OutReach. 

Contact Joe Wilson at 469-964-1415 to learn what is available and how to apply.

"Live It OutLoud" is an eight-week Summer Music Program for aspiring (12 to 18 year old), non-professional musicians produced by Ted Brown Music Outreach and sponsored by Ted Brown Music. 

 If you are a child who is lucky enough to enter this program, then you're going to "Live it OutLoud!" No more singing in the shower. The program is educational, inspirational, nerve wracking (get used to it now, being a rock star is no easy or relaxing task) but most of all fun! 

The Professional Adrenalin will flow…the Power of Rock will be intense! Space is limited so Sign Up Now!

Here is one of the kids from the project with her video of a song she wrote called, Broken, by Cat Dewell.

Sign up. Be a Rock Star!

Here are two versions of the same video, they are very slow to load and I'm working on that.
Click here to view video of opening of the 2013 Finale

"With my dying breath, I do apologize to all I've known"

I was just watching Bill Maher's "Real Time show". They were talking about Rep. Anthony Weiner's (corrected: Democrat) photo of his briefs and his tiny appendage therein and his claims that it may have been hacked and sent out to demean him. Republicans in office don't need much help in demeaning themselves. This merely points out that neither do the Democrats. And apparently, neither do some readers. One might assume it has something to do with a lack of power and control issues.

Tony Weiner

Regardless, they got on about Carl Rove's mentor, Lee Atwater who Bill said was the "Grandfather of dirty political tricks".

Producer Adam McKay was on the show as comic relief and said he's doing a film about Atwater with a script by Jesse Armstrong who wrote the script for the film "In the Loop".

They said, get ready for a tangent, but about that Atwater apology situation... well let's get this Weiner thing out of the way first:

Gennette Cordova, is the 21-year-old college student from Seattle who received the photo.  She issued a lengthy statement over the weekend, saying that she has never supported Weiner’s claim that his account was hacked.

“Her name is Ginger — it makes sense he might have mixed us up,” Cordova said, referring to Ginger Lee, a stripper and porn star who follows Weiner on Twitter. 

According to Politicao.com: "In March, Lee tweeted about wanting “sexual relations” with Weiner and, less than two weeks later, she wrote that she’d received a private direct message from the congressman. Weiner had also followed Lee on Twitter but said he stopped doing so when he found out who she was."

Okay, whatever.

Atwater. It seems he got a brain tumor and was dying and sent out apologies to people for his actions during his lifetime, especially his nasty politics and lack of any kind of reasonable moral compass. Some of those people said they discounted his comments since he did it under the duress of dying.

And therein lay my point in all of this. 

A few years ago, I started trying to contact people I've known in my life. Those who I haven't already made contact with, or who contacted me over the years. I have no fear of near death, though I have had many near death experiences: hanging off of cliffs, parachute malfunctions, car accidents (not one, was my fault by the way and most were someone else driving), and other things. So I expect to live for more decades to come, hopefully very pleasant and interesting ones (and hopefully not the ancient Chinese curse types).

I have been writing for years. Some of my writings have touched on reflections (like my story, "Marking Time"). What have I done in life? Who have I affected? And most importantly, how positive have those relationships and interactions been? Have you thought about that? Have you done anything about it? Have you tried to change yourself consciously for the better through your life? Have you checked those conclusions with the actual people you no longer know, to find if your fantasy matches up with the reality of another's perception of you?

Is it important? 

My point here is that if you only do this on your death bed, it appears that many people do not give it much importance, especially, I'm sure, if you believe in any kind of religious reaction after death. Because then you aren't doing it for any kind of real reason, but for a self centered reason of saving your ass from burning in Hell for all eternity, which you should have been thinking about a long time before death was ever a consideration. 

Right?

I have tried to find these people, important to me at one time in my past but no longer in my life. I have found some of them, I have gotten contact information to others. And sadly, I couldn't find some of them anywhere.

So, my mind is at peace. For the most part anyway, because it may be those I haven't spoken with, who are the most incriminating, who have the biggest mirror to hold up to me. And in not talking to them I can continue on with my fantasy of my being a good guy in the past. The people I have talked to, and have in some cases reestablished a relationship with, have not always had the best of things to say, but I would say that for the most part, they have to the point that I can rest assured in my beliefs that I wasn't that bad a guy and that my view of my past was an accurate one. That is not to say, I was an angel, but that I knew where my good and bad sides and actions where.

One ex girlfriend, when I tried to apologize for any actions of being a jerk in High School just said that we all have done things and it's all in the past, let's let it go and we're more mature, have learned a lot through life and hopefully have become and tried to become, better people because of it all. A sigh of relief. But then, I didn't think I did anything that bad to her, the situation was reversed actually and I had most definitely forgiven her in my mind. But then, I wasn't here either. My downside with her was that I didn't break up with her in person, or on the phone. But hey, I was seventeen at the time.

It's a good thing to check your moral compass against reality, or against your best version of that, in other's evaluation of you and who you were. Then put that up against who you are now, how you see yourself, how your friends, family, colleagues, and acquaintances see you now. If you don't like what you see, do something about it. If you do like what you see, take another look, because you have to then ask yourself, are you deluding yourself just to self stroke your ego to feel good? Or, are you really a good guy (or girl)?

I've been a proponent for a long time, of people not having to do big things to affect change in the world; they don't have to make grand gestures to change the world.

Some of us aren't destined or designed for that. And that is okay. IF every person, people who would never make any kind of change in the world, were to simply do a small thing, have an attitude that is positive, do one thing, produce children who change something, and if there are many of those kinds of people, and each only did one thing, the world would indeed, be a better place because of it. I think this is played down a lot by people who do, telling people who don't (or appear to don't) that they don't count unless, they do something bigger and better and often. But that's not realistic. Better that everyone do something small, than think they can do nothing. Because if everyone thinks they can affect change, but only doing small things, or thinking a good direction, that itself can affect change in its own ways.

As long as life is, life is short. Don't come upon the conclusion, on your deathbed, that you've mucked things up and then is the time to rectify things. Leave this world with people missing you and carrying on good thoughts about you, don't just take that belief to the grave with you, inaccurately. Sometimes, changing the world a little for the better, isn't by running for office, joining Doctors Across Borders, or giving everything to charity. Sometimes, it's just in leaving people with a positive thought about you as a person, after you're gone. Or their thinking, "I wish I would be more like that", or "I wish I did something like they did". 

Maybe, just maybe, because of you, someone might do even one little thing to add some positive to the world; and you will be the one to thank for it. And that, in itself, is a quiet legacy all unto its own.

Weekend Wise Words

Be Sharp! Be Brilliant!

My son who is in his twenties, has taken a shine to the writings of Heraclitus. And so for this weekend, I give you, Heraclitus:

Heraclitus by Johannes Moreelse

"Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play."

"Men who wish to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details."

Ephesus on the coast of Asia Minor, birthplace of Heraclitus

"If you do not the expect the unexpected you will not find it, for it is not to be reached by search or trail."

"It is hard to contend against one's heart's desire; for whatever it wishes to have it buys at the cost of soul.

‎

Heraclitus by Hendrick ter Brugghen

‎

‎"Bigotry is the sacred disease."

"A man's character is his fate."

Heraclitus of Ephesus (Ancient Greek: Ἡράκλειτος ὁ Ἐφέσιος — Hērákleitos ho Ephésios; c. 535–c. 475 BCE) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom. From the lonely life he led, and still more from the riddling nature of his philosophy and his contempt for humankind in general, he was called "The Obscure" and the "Weeping Philosopher".

"Heraclitus is famous for his doctrine of change being central to the universe, as stated in his famous saying:

"You cannot step twice into the same stream".

"He believed in the unity of opposites, stating that "the path up and down are one and the same", existing things being characterized by pairs of contrary properties, and other explorations of the concept of dualism. His cryptic utterance that "all things come to be in accordance with this Logos" (literally, "word", "reason", or "account") has been the subject of numerous interpretations." - Wikipedia

Tower Records: Tales from the past and a documentary

Friday is a perfect day to talk about this: weekends, off time, entertainment, having fun, good times. And so we bring you, "Stories from the past about MTS Incorporated."

MTS, Inc. the corporate name on my old paychecks for Tower Records. Tower Video. Tower Posters. And also, Tower Classics. Tower Plants, even. The Tower stores international. Russ Soloman. The Man. It was a dynasty or sorts, really. A culture, certainly.

And now a documentary is on the way.

Russ Solomon - USA Today

I've mention before that I worked at Tower in my college years. I was on VA college benefits from the Air Force. When in Viet Nam Era, came out somehow, Post Viet Nam Era. Strange how the government can change things like that at the stroke of a pen.

And so, I didn't need to work to afford college and to survive through it, but I needed some extra cash to make life just a little bit easier.

I had always wanted to work at a head shop, a record store, and a movie store (okay those didn't exist then, but still....).

So I was out putting in resumes all over town one day and I though, what the Hell and went to Tower Records store. I ended up talking to the Tower Posters manager, not knowing who she was at the time. She looked like a kind of hippy.

She interviewed me on the front step of the store. She must have liked me because she hired me on the spot. That started my Tower career that lead to some very interesting stories, some I can't tell here for possibly obvious reasons. But they were good times, fun times, but still, I didn't have much money to speak of.

Tower Records Tacoma 38th St, Posters, then Video to the left - photo by  Bill  Hansen

After she left the company, one of the women took over as interim manager, hoping to become manager. She was quite attractive and one day walked up to me and asked if I wanted to move in with her. I was a little stunned but said, "YEAH." She then said, "No, you don't quite understand, my sister is moving out of my apartment. I need to make up for her rent." To which I said, in front of the other employees, "Oh. I see. YEAH!"

Later, they demoted a really bad manager down to Tacoma from Seattle. He fired her, then found a reason to fire me. One day he called me into the back room. There was a little ceiling fan in the tiny bathroom that I swear, if you scrapped the fan, you could smoke the residue and get high. The manager offered me a snort of something white and powdery trying to be nice. Then he said, "If I did something to [your roommate], what would you do." I was now in a heightened state of awareness which he should have realized and didn't. I reacted appropriately as one would to a manager in a situation such as this one. I said, "Well, I guess I'd punch you out." He didn't react well to this and I noticed that.

So, I said, "Well, if you mean a work related matter, that's none of my business. On the other hand, if it's not work related...." He stammered quickly, "Oh, no, it's work related." (and yes, I could have kicked his ass, he saw himself more as a hipster than a fighter, basically as I remember him, and how others told me, he was simply more of a sleaze.). So I said, "If it's work related it's none of my business." He was greatly relieved. I told my roommate. He fired her the next day. He fired me that next weekend.

I happened to be next door and the Records manager asked what I was doing in his store rather than next door at work. He was being nice, just wondering why I was standing around by the register, talking to the guys there, looking dejected. I told him what happened. He immediately got angry and said, "Want a job?" I said, "YEAH!" He said, "You're hired." I said, "I don't think the jerk next door will like that." He said, "Oh yeah, well, send him back to me. I'll talk to him."  And he walked away pissed off.

"The Floor" at Tower Records Tacoma circa 1980? - photo by Bill Hansen

The next day I was working on the register. I was assigned to the tape section, working under the guy who would become my future Video Store manager, friend, and eventual roommate when we moved to Seattle to run the Tower Video store there. I didn't want the tape section, I wanted a vinyl section, not the silicon section. But that was okay, I was working at a record store. I was working at, Tower Records.

The jerk walked in and angrily said, "What are you doing here?" I said, "I work here." He said, "WHAT?" I said, "Kevin said if you want to talk to him about it, he's in the back." He stormed back there. Three minutes later, he stormed back out, past me, without looking, and out the double doors.

We all three at the register, started cracking up. I thought my new manager, Kevin, was God at that point. What a nice guy.

Eventually, I graduated from my two year college and got my AA degree. Now what? My girlfriend and I both graduated. She had started at Wazzu (Washington State University in Pullman, WA). But finished with me at WWU.

Washington State University logo

She got in so much trouble at Wazzu (read that as, DUIs), mostly drinking (a big problem there back then as people would cross the border to Idaho a few miles away and could drink at a younger age than Washington's 21). So she came back to live with me, stay sane and semi sober and did her second year at my Ft. Steilacoom Community College (now Pierce College). She didn't have a lot of money in her family either, but had scholarships I think. So she was thinking a BA degree. Luckily, it was rated the best Community College in the state at the time and has since gotten its accreditation as a full College.

We were both into Psychology as a major. Actually, I never expected to do college at all. I graduated High School saying "NEVER, I will NEVER go to school again." Bad experience, you see. But after four years of Hell in the Air Force (authority issues), I figured and had proved, that I could do almost anything. Surviving the mental duress of being stuck somewhere you hated (Spokane and the military) for four years, I proved to myself I could do pretty much anything. So I thought, "Maybe I'll get a four year degree; might as well, go where she's going." So I did. Big mistake. Best mistake I could have made, however.

My older brother (older by seven years) had talked me into college ("Look, girls, parties, a degree, better money when you graduate, it's all paid for by the government, where's the downside?"). I was also the first in my nuclear family to get a college degree of any kind, and so, I applied to all the state colleges and visited all their campuses. I liked WWU best in Bellingham. Beautiful campus and not just "rat counters" like the UW and others (strangely, though the UW turned down my app for education, I ended up working there for seven and a half years later on). They accepted me, happily, to my surprise.

WWU Miller Hall, Psychology Department Home

I got my degree, had a tempestuous relationship with that girlfriend, graduated, moved back to Tacoma (to my dismay, as I felt I was somehow going backward) and couldn't find a job. I was looking for a Psych job, but they all paid the same or less than my Tower job had ($5/hr or so). My friend and supervisor at Records said if I wanted a job, they were starting a new business, Tower Video, since Tower Posters had gone out of business. The thought was, it was just a bunch of stoners working at the posters stores (Head Shops) and they were robbing the stores blind. So I said okay, and after all, it was a movie store. Score!

I ended up a supervisor there, became Media buyer (blank tapes, cables, etc.) and developed a very good statistical analysis formula I learned in Psychology Statistics (the hardest most miserable class I ever had, and it was a requirement, and a two semester, year long class and the second semester had the Professor from Hell). So at least in my failed effort to avoid math like the plague, I had learned something.

Supervising one Thursday night, about 10:30pm. Female Emp. comes into the back to say there are two shoplifters, 1 tall, 1 short, both black. I went out front, they had just run out the door, I chased them down the store block, around, onto the street, I'm running down the street, nothing, no one. I'm standing there in the dark, two male employees still in the store. No backup. Me alone on a dark street after two guys. Uh huh. Okay....

I went back to the store, thinking how I could have been lying in the street dying about then. Over the next week I stewed over the fact that two guys stole from the store on my watch. Busting shoplifters was a stable at Tower. Not so much at Posters as they store was so cluttered it was nearly impossible to catch someone, but Video and Records got to be very expert in it.

The somewhat humorous end to that story is in the next week following. All employees showed up for an all night inventory at both Video and Records. Those two guys showed up again. Same night, Thursday, same hour. The employee came back and told the manager and I. He had me lock the font door, he went through the back door to the Record store and came around the front of the store with about twelve male employees. Record store employees were very professional in their apprehending shoplifters as it happened a lot.

So I nonchalantly breezed to the front of the store, passed the two guys and locked the front door, which, well, spooked them a little. I just said, "Sorry for the inconvenience, it's just for a couple of minutes." There was a tall black guy and a shorter one. As I had walked by, the tall one was doing a lousy job as lookout as he was watching the shorter guy (as was I) stuffing VHS video tapes down the back of his pants. After I spoke to them, he set the videos down on the rack again. I immediately picked them up and walked them to another employee as evidence.

Needless to say, we caught the guys this time. Once the manager showed up with the guys from next door, he unlocked the door. It was then that the small squirmy one tried to get out the door but one of our video employees, kind of a young, muscular Tom Cruz look a like, grabbed the metal framed bullet proof glass door (someone threw a crow bar through the door so we had recently fixed that issue), and slammed the door shut on the guy, repeatedly (we thought he was trying to cut the guy in half) until the guy had to back off and myself and another guy, got him into the back room.

He almost got away from us but I had just started Aikido as a college gym class and got a twisted arm, thumg grip on him and he had to give up. The guy's arm popped twice and he groaned and said, "Hey don't break my arm." I said, "I'm not moving, you are, stop struggling or you WILL break your arm."

They had chosen a night to rip off a Tower store when two Tower stores had all their employees working that night. Talk about losers. A little while later the police came and took the guy away. The other guy got off because he hadn't taken anything, which really annoyed me. But I had caught the guy that burned me the week before and got away with it; and I had caught the first shoplifter at Tower Video Tacoma.

Eventually my manager and I got an apartment on Seattle's Queen Anne Hill on the Magnolia side and moved to run the Tower Video store on Mercer Street. That was some interesting times. There were times when my dinner was an apple from the nearby CircleK store. Talk about poor. I got my supervisor keys though I was supposed to be an assistant Manger, but the Manager in Tacoma wouldn't let me go, she really screwed me on that, but she knew she had an employee that could run the store.

One night I was working during Christmas time and the place was packed. I was on break and when I got back the District Manger, Wayne, who had an office in the single brick building that contained Tower Records, then Video, then Classics with a long office way in the back, came up to me, very proud. He said, I just stopped two guys carrying a case of video tapes out the front door. I said, "Cool, good job. Where are they?" I was all innocent like not expecting his response.

He said, "I let them go." Incredulous and being from Tacoma where we dealt on a daily basis with thieves from the projects across the street from the shopping mall, and the Army training base Ft. Lewis, and local High and Junior High schools. Honestly, most our shoplifters were black, military, or kids, and no one was racist that I met at the stores, we dealt in demographics and those were the demographics). So my point being, in Tacoma, we had some tough customers.

Wayne got all defensive and angry and I got angry right back. But he won (District Manager, remember). He said, "This isn't TACOMA, this is SEATTLE. You don't take on two guys alone. I did good getting the product back." True. But, lame. Whimpy, cowardly even. From our Tacoma standards. In my book.

I told the manager/roommate. His comment was laughter. He said, "What?! He let them go!? He has no concept what it's like in Tacoma. Don't let it bother you." And so, I didn't.

Jeff Ament

At some point Jeff Ament (bass player, Pearl Jam, back then Green River) was our media buyer, the job I had in Tacoma.

Jeff (right) looking more as I was used to him back when

 Not sure if that's a "Mother Love Bone" or "Green River" (above) band photo.

When he decided to go get serious about playing music, he passed his job to me and I replaced him (as if that were possible). Using that formula I had made in Tacoma, I hit top sales one media and accessories one month, world wide. Not bad.

Eventually, I got a job at the UW working on computers. That lead to writing and IT work. And the rest is history.

Colin Hanks

Colin Hanks, Tom's son, is now doing a documentary on Tower Records and it's founder, Russ Soloman. I've met him, nice guy. When I met him, gold chain medallion, open shirt, bare chest but that was the 80s. It's called, "All things must pass, the Rise and Fall of Tower Records". Check it out. Maybe donate a couple of bucks. Tower was an icon, portrayed in film and now documentary. It gave its customers a music home away from home. It had its downside, especially if you worked there, but we made the best of it we could. I have fond memories of it now that life is far, far better.

And I'm never going to forgot those Tower days, or the people I met and worked with there. I'm still in contact with some of them on Facebook and some were friends all these years. That Video manager I worked for and lived with was eventually the best man at my wedding (one of them, the one my brother married us at and some Tower employees attended in Issaquah, WA) and I was best man at his wedding (one of them). 

Some of those people are gone now and I miss them, some I miss greatly. But most of us are still here and have some very fond memories of our years with Russ' stores. Some very fond memories, indeed.

If, you find any of this interesting, or especially perhaps if you don't, one of my dear friends who was one of those Tower people who has passed on, was Rose (ironically and unrelated, her ex husband, Ray, is also gone now; seems from what I hear, he left "Skinheads" a bar on the Tacoma waterfront with a couple of guys, and was found the next morning on the beach).

Rose was a very special person. Liz, was another, funny, sharp wit, attractive, who was lost to us too soon. They were friends, they were friends of mine. At times friends of mine together and at times when they were annoyed with one another, friends of mine separately. But I was very close to both of them. As close as I've ever been to anyone. I was pleased to be included in their inner circle of friends.

Rose

They had a falling out, the two of them, after I moved on from Tacoma. I know why, I understand it, and it saddens me, but that's really not relevant here. I found a page online about Rose and so I'll share that with you here and now. The guy that put that page up, came on the scene just after I left it. What he says is so true for me also.

What he doesn't know is Rose refused to bow to life, to her Diabetes. I told her time and again to stop partying along with us, she couldn't do it, but she would anyway. I told her it will kill her, and she looked up at me and said, "I don't care, I will live my life how I want to live it and if it kills me, so be it. But I will live life on MY terms!" I choke up writing this. But there it is. Nothing he could do would ever have changed that indomitable spirit.

Liz

If you hate feeling emotions, just move on and don't read this. But if you decide to, you will come to understand the side of Rose I knew. And everything this guy says on his page, from my own experience, was true. Rose had some hard times, especially later on before she passed on. But she will always be a very special person in my memories.

There were others lost to us over the years, like Leo in Seattle who was lost to AIDS, and other unnamed Tower friends,

But first and foremost, Rose and Liz, you are on my mind, forever.

Art, learn from the masters or just learn?

I have always thought that learning to play songs someone else wrote, was stupid. Less than (or more than) stupid, insipid. Degenerative.

In my writings, I've entered contests for prose fiction and screenwriting and seen success. But at this point in my life, I feel I never want to enter another contest, ever.

Why is that? I am not sure I know, really.

But is that bad?

I have been thinking all this time, kind of in the back of my mind, that it was bad. But then I really started to think about it recently. I was watching the HBO show, "Treme" the other day, a show about New Orleans. I love that show, I love the character's passion for their town, for the music, for their History. One of the musician characters made a comment to high school kids, about how you listen until you can simply feel it. He was saying, to paraphrase, that these beloved Jazz musicians are simply spilling poetry from their instruments and you simply need to close your eyes and "listen" to understand what they are saying.

And that clicked with me. That was what I was saying. NOT to play other's music, but to learn your own, to play your own. You can never only play your own, if you've heard music before. But now I think maybe my stupid, my own insipid way, is slower (it's taken years that way) but there is a kind of logic to it.

As for Treme (brief aside here) I have to say the carryovers from the show The Wire, have continued to be brilliant and entertain: Wendell Pierce, Clarke Peters. Not sure if there are more. And not to mention all the real professionals included in this show, peppered here and there.

As for newcomers, Lucia Micarelli, what's to say? I'm in love? What a talent!

More seasoned actors Steve Zahn, I've never liked him more. I like his exuberance, even his blind foolishness at times. But his passion for music wins me over every time. As do all the characters, those on the side of art and music, except for the criminals, drug addicts and sleazes of which there are a few anyway.

OK, okay, now back to our regularly scheduled show....

My heroes of music have never inspired me to mimic their rifts, but to listen to them talk, to try to understand how they view their Art. Eric Clapton, Adrian Belew, Robert Fripp and others. You could argue, "Well, you're not a professional guitar player are you?" No, you're right. I liked keyboards too and I'm not a professional pianist or keyboardist either. To become a pro, you do need to move quickly, learning the masters is the way, I'm sure. But I think I'm trying to get at something else here.

The same goes for my writing, in a different way. I started reading young, because no one would read me the comics in the newspaper until they were done reading the entire stupid newspaper on Sundays. I read voraciously (mostly because I was grounded so much as a kid). I always found writing fairly easy. I was probably a writer from birth, predisposed to it and only needed to be taught the mechanics of my particular language.

Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA

I got a B.A. in Psychology from a PNW University, Western Washington University. A great campus, my favorite in Washington state. Someone asked my while in college, why a Psych degree? I said, because I want to be a writer. She said, "me too, but I'm getting a Fine Arts degree." I said, "Will that works too, but it's heavy on the mechanics of writing and I wanted to learn the mechanics of Human Beings.

She thought for a moment and said, "Wow, that really makes sense to me, maybe I should switch my major?" I freaked as I didn't want her parents coming after me with shotguns and said, "No, we need all kinds, so I would stay with your major, that may be what you need. I just have different concerns. And we can still both be good, well read, successful writers." She went off happy.

Later, as I was graduating, someone asked if I was going to go for a Masters Degree. I said no. I felt that at that point, I could either become a writer, and artist, or I never would.

Twenty-five years later, I'm still hacking away at it. I'm not saying you shouldn't follow the Masters, that is a good way to go. I'm saying that for me, for some reason, I couldn't so much do that, as find my own path. My son was much like that also, frustrating when you are trying to teach him math in grade school but he has to plot out things that were settled a hundred or thousand years ago. It was slow for him, but now he is so far beyond me in math and physics I will never catch up to him. So there is some value, but for people with brains and minds that work in a certain way. Maybe.

Two years ago, I got really serious about my writing again; mostly because my kids are grown and now out  of the house. And I find that I have gotten much better over the years, without working full time on it. I'm sure I would have been far better now had I been actively working at it, but it gives hope to those who thought they could never make it. If you only at some point, stop, shift gears and go for it. Hope, is good. But it's nothing like focus, determination and doing it your own way. Listen to those who know, don't waste time you don't have to, find short cuts when you need to. But get there. You can do it. I can do it.

And, since now I have the luxury to do what I will....

I am.

The Carousel, think you know what it is?

History of Jousting - The Carousel

This was something I had always wondered about. When my daughter was young, we could never walk by a carousel without stopping to let her ride it. Even years before that, as a kid, I wondered, how did this ever come to be a circular ride with horses on it. The benches to sit on were obvious, parents wanted to sit in dignity while their kids rode amazingly fabulous rides. Typically horses, I've seen all kinds of fantastic beings as themes, Unicorns, Bunnies, sea animals, just about anything you can think of. 

Then there are the models of carousels. My ex wife, being a horse trainer and riding instructor, a rider since she was four, loved collecting San Francisco Music Box Company carousels. I would buy her these for Christmas, including one that was a full Carousel and a bit expensive. I can't find a picture of that online anywhere now, maybe that is a good thing, for her, collectable-wise.

Then I started giving them to our daughter, starting her out with the snow globes with a single horse in them. That way she couldn't easily break them. As she got older, she got the external kind.

Then she moved up to a single carousel horse. They are quite fantastical looking things. They were always a bit more than I could understand, but the girls loved them. But still, where did they originate? I finally found out kind of inadvertently.

But these are just toys. The originals were a bit more, aggressive in their existence, use and purpose.

Many thanks to Middle-Ages .org for the following information:

The decline of jousting in England occurred at a faster rate than the rest of Europe - due to the development of the new entertainment offered in the theatre. In France the notions of Chivalry continued tournaments and jousting into the seventeenth century - these were also referred to as Carrousels. The word Carousel is derived from the words "garosello" (Italian) and "carosella" (Spanish), both of which mean "little war". 

The origins dated back to the time of the crusades when a carousel was a horseman's game in which cavaliers pelted each other with balls. The "carrousel" was a ring-spearing tournament in which expert riders used their lances to spear small rings suspended between two posts at full gallop. Young French princes trained for this type of tournament by sitting on wooden horses which were attached to a center pole. The young nobles would attempt to spear small rings dangled along the outer edge of the device. 

To make this more difficult the device was powered round and round by a horse or a servant. The device was soon referred to as a carousel. This history of Jousting remains with us today at fairgrounds in the form of the Carousels!

Many thanks to Middle-Ages .org for this information.