On Jerry…

What can possibly said about Jerry Garcia that hasn’t been said before? Garcia and the Grateful Dead are the most well documented band in history so there’s an abundance of personal stories, bad acid trip recollections, good acid trip euphoric recalls and thousands of opinions on what the best version of “Eyes of the World” is (for me it’s 3-29-90).

16 years post Grateful Dead activity my version of Jerry’s meaning was that he was a Yogi and his practice was firmly rooted in a world that transcended definition and categorization. It’s often said that as a human being he struggled. But it’s also said that when he was deep in his version of samadhi, by pure association you could be transported to the heavens where magic, God, sound and celebration could meet. No one did it better.

Jai Sri Jerry! Happy Birthday to you.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzxsI-S2Ujk]

Tears Dry On Their Own. Godspeed Amy.

When she on, she was pitch perfect. Like Frank Sinatra, she had an uncanny ability to push the beat with her phrasing. With simple and sly changes in the lyric she could move the band at her control. A real talent.

We lost her too soon. This is my favorite Amy Winehouse song.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kg3BcNI7fE]

Let Us Begin Again

The good thing about life is that you can always begin again. I had a friend once tell me “it’s never too late to have a happy childhood.” That’s not really where I’m going but I love the sentiment.

I’m firmly committed to keeping this blog current even if it broadcasts to audience of one. I feel grateful to have been granted some form of what I feel to be a clear perspective in what’s going on in the world that’s surrounding me. Why not share it? Or at least rif on it if it’s feels right. It’s never too late to begin again.

Wait…um…who?

Hey, don’t get me wrong. I love music discovery as much as the next rock snob museo. But why does Pitchfork only review bands that a) no one has ever heard of b) no one cares about c) and no one will ever care about?

To the best of my knowledge Pitchfork has never broken a single act. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

Sorry to rant and bash these guys, but I just don’t get how they stay in business and have the CPMs they do.

Listen to bad music here

Touching my way to freedom

Funny that I waited so long to get an iPad. I’m not sure why I did. I think it had something to do with its rather nebulous category in which it resides. It’s not a laptop replacement and its not a phone, still I’m finding that there is some usefulness to it.

It’s not so much the actual functions rather its the utopian technocrat future its represents. I’m sure this device is what Philip K Dick had in mind when writing Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep…it’s an all in one portal into a sexy on the go dimension.t

Hate that I cant save documents from my Mail though. I’m sure theres an app for that…

(typed somewhat quickly in landscape mode)

Kids and God

Because dogmatic religions are so vocal and present in todays hyper charged media climate, it’s hard to imagine that young people have went off and formed their own views on what spirituality means to them.

Posted on physorg.com

While the study does show that “people have a hard time separating spirituality from religion” it goes on to show that “the differences are important to understanding behavior and development.”

So the differences result in thoughts that are both enlightened and evolved. To have purpose, to have connections, to have an impetus for virtue are all common notions expressed by the panel of teen agers questioned.

It’s nice to know that through it all, simple sentiments of what it means to be spiritual and not religious is finding it’s way into todays youth culture.

(Thanks to Edward Craig for posting the Physorg.com link on Facebook)

Sacred Cows

Me, A Cow, Kainchi

Freshly returned from Kainchi. I’m not sure where to even begin. For such a short trip (10 days) we packed in so much of India’s delightful and chaotic mystic love. Being in the Neem Karoli Baba Ashram with Siddhi Ma had a sublime dance to it. It helped me to understand the power and significance of Ram Dass’s original 1967 journey even more.

This picture was taken right outside of the temple with a new friend. More soon…

Virtual living rooms, turn it up man!

Of all the random ideas aimed at creating new music business models on the web this feels like it makes the most sense. Take two already embraced consumer water holes, Facebook and Pandora, and tie them together. Duh.

Reprinted from DMM:

Remember when people used to sit around and listen to music together?  Of course, those moments still exist, but the digital music experience is often a private pleasure.

So how to reconnect?  Pandora is addressing that question by integrating itself into Facebook, a huge move towards networked listening.  At a top level, the integration allows friends to quickly share stations with their Facebook friends, part of a much broader “Open Graph” build-out for Facebook.  Pandora is a major component of that expansion, and was discussed prominently by Mark Zuckerberg during a keynote at the F8 Developer Conference on Wednesday.

The idea is delightfully simple and connected.  Pandora users can easily link their Facebook profiles and friends into their stations, or, opt-out to remain private.  But why not hold hands on this new discovery commune?  “I’ve been testing out the service while we were developing it and I have to say it really brings a wonderful new human dimension to the listening experience,” Pandora founder Tim Westergren relayed.

Read the post here