We’ll be spinning the wheel today for tomorrow’s winner!  A signed View From 3rd St. Vinyl LP from 1990 and original Start The Car CD in long box from 1992.  Stay tuned and Happy Thanksgiving!

Let’s face it, it’s an eyesore.  Not to mention, it represents a lazy, ‘Wall-E’ kind of society and should come with it’s very own sleep pod so you can nestle in, watch your binge-worthy streams and eat a half pound of potato chips and dip.

Flat screen TV’s were once the rage.  They sold mounts that connected to studs and got larger and heavier and larger and more vivid, to the point now where it’s like… what do you want a drive-in?  Get a VR headset for cryin’ out loud!

Much like digital synthesis and recording, we were so proud of ourselves that it was even possible that we abandoned all that was glorious about the greatness of analog music.

Then the bit-rate wars began, and what started with analog 5 and 8 bit samples eventually got to a place where it’s so digitally good it’s actually kind of not good…or should I say so good that now everyone prefers 8 bit analog samples again, or a dithered simulation of this.  The highest quality digital sample available today is 3072, and the only thing I can imagine using that kind of sampling for is if you’re trying to duplicate an old analog recording, hoping to capture the essence of a better era for sound!

Mostly, we don’t need to hear a laboratory clean record.  We don’t need every bit of noise removed from music.  There’s generally so much racket going on in a live or studio performance from the drum kit shaking, drummer grunting to time, amp hisses & hums and a plethora of other things… it makes a nice kind of soup our ears understand.  We’re not cyborgs.

A Helmet Newton photo is so much more pleasing on the eyes from his innate skill and 35mm camera than one of the mega-pixel images that come in every phone that show the close-up pores of your skin, nose hair, even magnifying parts of your face and body you didn’t know was a problem.

After visiting many open houses and spending at least a half hour each evening on sites like realtor.com and zillow, that ominous black rectangle hanging on the wall not only ruins the picture, but represents a lazy, spoiled society of large, overweight children.

A few years ago when I had a Jeep I stumbled onto something that really cheered up my drive.  It was an AM station that played 60’s and 70’s music in LA called K-Surf.  Turning down the bass a bit, turning the fade up to front-only speakers, and listening to The Beatles in mono was magnificent, and the way it was intended.  It’s the appropriate amount of volume for that small a space.  It even got to where I looked forward to my drives just to experience music this way again.  Then of course they turned the station into an all classical format and like… well of course LA, because you must destroy everything I like!

I think TV’s are the same.  We had it right in the 60’s and 70’s.  It should take up a proper amount of space in your room, like a bread basket.  It should be a device we use, not one we live for.  Personally I watch shows on my laptop now and that screen suits me to the point where I don’t have TV’s in any of the bedrooms anymore.

Furthermore, my son talked me into buying an 85″ Samsung smart TV.  I bought it, had them place it in my living room, got the sound bar to enjoy a more cinema-type experience, and was set.  For the next year I’d walk into the living room and curse the ugliness of that albatross against the wall.

Last week I got rid of it and have replaced it with a very portable 32″ model that can be set on a stand and rolled around for viewing convenience.  It feels 1000 percent better in this room now.  There’s something more serene about the room as well.  A certain peace.

This is just an opinion/observation based on my own taste… but I believe a backtracking in the arena of brainwashing is necessary!
Cheers- Jude

Experiencing enough turbulence in my personal life, I started a search for help.  I’m an emotional songwriter what did you expect?

After years of loose monitoring, I became more aware and in touch with the emotional and physical standing of each passing day.  To be human is to admit every day is different.  And why is that?

As Nicola Tesla taught us, it’s frequency.  We’re made up of frequencies that resonate with the frequencies around us, including the planet.  What hippies used to call good vibes/bad vibes was just a street way of saying ‘frequency’.  Harmony vs. dissonance.  In music when you take a note and duplicate that note but detune it, or play the half step above or below at the same time it’s called a ‘rub’.  Horror films use this often.  Think Bernard Herrmann’s ‘Psycho’.

But there is help to tune ourselves, just like an instrument.  I recently turned a friend on to this and wanted to share it here.

Take a guitar that’s perfectly in tune and detune the G string by 20 cents, and suddenly the inspiration is gone.  The dissonance makes us either stick to the strings that resonate together, or put the guitar down and do something else.  The same can be said for our own personal tuning in conjunction to our surroundings, and the ‘aura’ that emanates from our bodies.

If you’re not familiar, let me introduce you to the Solfeggio and Planetary Tuning Forks.  These come in aluminum for aura, and steel for tactile resonance to each chakra.

We can have good days or bad based on the following:  Illness or injury, emotional distress or stress of any kind, not enough sleep or even too much sleep, bad dreams, and finally conflicts in our personal relationships.

Any one of the above can affect our state of mind, thus our experiences for the coming day.  It’s a closer look at ‘waking up on the wrong side of the bed’.

To wake and identify this can be a monumental change to what ordinarily feels like a fateful and helpless experience.  Ever wake up in a bad state only to get on the freeway and find yourself in a minor road-rage scenario?  Or you wake up feeling like your smaller self from a dream where betrayal was as real as real life… insecure, broken, whatever the case… then have an upsetting argument with the checkout person at the supermarket?  Millions of possibilities, but negativity is always a bad time.

By using the forks in the morning, you can literally tune your body like a guitar.  And while it may seem like new age bullshit to some, if you devote the time to focus and put the work in I think you’ll become a believer.  Even to the point where you can feel people leaving your house saying ‘wow such a great vibe’.

I have both the aluminum and steel sets cuz i’m super f’d up.  Jk, sorta.  I enjoy learning about old world techniques for self healing, and this ancient practice from India goes back to 1500 BC.

Personally I use the steel set more because I prefer the vibration going directly in through the skin, resonating through the skeleton of bones and having a result in alignment to the earth’s frequencies.  It feels like this automatically adjusts the aura frequencies as well, but I’m no guru and could learn more about both.

Below is an Amazon link to both sets of forks, and a list of chakras I put together to enable more focus on that part of the body.  You can copy and paste this list while you do it should you ever choose to try.  If anyone here DOES dare to try it, please share your experience once you’ve gotten the hang of it.  I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

Jude

Planetary Set

Aluminum Solfeggio

Hockey Puck for striking

The SOLAR PLEXUS CHAKRA, also known as the MANIPURA CHAKRA, is the third chakra in the body’s energy system. It is located in the upper abdomen, around the area of the diaphragm and just below the rib cage. This chakra is associated with the color yellow and is linked to personal power, self-esteem, confidence, and willpower. It governs our ability to assert ourselves, make decisions, and take control of our lives. Balancing the solar plexus chakra is believed to enhance self-confidence, inner strength, and the ability to take purposeful action.