Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs is dead. I’d like to thank him for thinking about the artist. As a musician and writer he has improved my life considerably. He included free musical software with each Apple computer and single handily destroyed the antiquated business practices of record companies with the advent of iTunes.

            When I worked as an assistant editor for television commercials, no assistant wanted to work on the Apple jobs that came in because of Steve. He asked for things that nobody wanted to give him. He was demanding and pushed the technology as far as it would go. He insisted that we use Final Cut Pro to edit his commercials and in turn we assistants told Apple about the software's deficiencies. Apple made improvements and Final Cut became what it is today.

            Thanks Steve. Thanks for thinking about the artist. Thanks for understanding that an art driven society is a society that is always growing, always creating, not stagnant, but

dreaming about the world and a better future.  

Dialysis

It was my job to take my dying cousin to dialysis today but for some reason I had trouble remembering it. You’d think with something so important it would be easy to remember, but it wasn’t. I’m starting to wonder if I have feelings, or if I’m being affected by one of those brain diseases. I kept telling myself don’t let him die on your watch, but it didn’t seem to help. I asked a lady friend to remind me to take my cousin to dialysis, she just looked at me in disbelief.

“Are you serious?”

“For some reason it keeps slipping my mind.”

“He could die if he doesn’t go.”

“I know.”

I got him there. I showed up to his house early, as I’m prone to do. He didn’t look so good, but oddly he looked worse when I went back to pick him up. He was weak. It looked like he had the life sucked out of him and in some strange way he had.

Festival

I went to the Eagle Rock Music Festival yesterday. I found myself smiling and laughing a lot. Music has that effect on me. The lead singers had me going the most. They were great. They had personality, no false pretense. They were pure of heart and I appreciated their honesty.

            It was interesting to walk from stage to stage. The crowd was diverse. The age range was from minus one to a thousand. 
            At one point the crowd was biggest near the DJ stage. Live music was taking a beating, but at the end of the night live music had made a come back and reigned supreme. I was happy it turned out that way. Live music is much more interesting to me. It's instant talent and pretty amazing when you think about it. But then again, so is the binary world of digital.