bill berry

Still #workingonit!!!

What’s so much better than #GettingAllYourDucksInARow?

This is a great day for a project. Good luck! #getyourducksinastarformation – Sandy Boynton

🐥🐣🦆🐤

I’m up early, hoping for a good sunrise. Alas, I’ll have to settle for yesterday…

On the other hand, today…

We often ask, “how are you?” without hearing the answer. If we don’t care, why do we ask? And when asked that question, why do we respond, “okay” or “fine” when our body is screaming, “I’m having an awful day, can’t you tell?”

hmmm…

“If we can’t agree on what’s true, how can we possibly agree on what’s most important?”
– Bill E. Bob

New documentary featuring many of my bass heroes! I invested early and look forward to watching the whole thing! I love hearing musicians talk about music, their lives, and the creative process. #winning!!!

Walking the Changes | Legends of Double Bass in Jazz from Nick Wells on Vimeo.

Where or When? #song4today! 2/26/2018

I start my journal entries the name of song reverberating in my head that morning. On this particular day, Where or When was cued up, and led to the following entry:

What song do I want to sing?
And when do I want to sing it?
Where or When?

Which pan do I use?
Which door do I choose?
If I snooze, I lose,
And I’m losing.

The love of my life IS
The love of my life.
I’ve now sent it twice,
And I mean it.

No worries for work.
No dance while I Twerk.
Blah blah blah blah blah!

Don’t press too hard,
Stay outta my yard,
Make Carnitas with lard
I beseech you!
– Bill E. Bob

Oh well, can’t blame a creative spirit for trying. Maybe I can redeem myself by suggesting you listen to Sonny Rollin’s version of Where or When which is also my #song4today!:

“Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it.”
– Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

Chapter 38, “Thinking about life”, page 402

Daring Fireball: Google’s Outsized Share of Advertising Money

John Gruber’s astute observations about Google and Facebook:

“Privacy-invasive user tracking is to Google and Facebook what carbon emissions are to fossil fuel companies — a form of highly profitable pollution that for a very long time few people in the mainstream cared about, but now, seemingly suddenly, very many care about quite a bit.”

More Liz and Mollie! Very cool cartoons that illustrate important philosophical points about life and work!

I love Liz and Mollie! Very cool cartoons that illustrate important philosophical points about life and work!

Keep On Pushing That Rock

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
– Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

this is comic number 456, i started in September, and i still wake up every day filled with dread that i won’t be able to write any more.
– @dinoman_j

no. words.

Livestream Replay

Playlist

#jazzchurch 44 – Sunday, February 28, 2021 – featured music by Chick Corea, Sunú, Omar Sosa, The Wynton Marsalis Septet, Carmen McRae & Betty Carter, and Charlie Haden, among others shown below:

1. New Waltse (Chick Corea Akoustic Band)
2. Diddy-Wa-Diddy (Bebop and Beyond feat. DIzzy Gillespie)
3. Memories Of Tomorrow (Sunú – Cross Currents)
4. Só Danço Samba (Sunú – Cross Currents)
5. Samba De Uma Nota So (Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd)
6. Harriet Tubman (Wynton Marsalis Septet)
7. Nomali (Hugh Masekela)
8. Reza (Elvin Jones)
9. Ternura (Omar Sosa)
10. Night Sprite (Chick Corea)
11. Sometimes I’m Happy (Carmen McRae and Betty Carter)
12. For All We Know (Donny Hathaway)
13. Eighteen Sixty-Three (Gerald Veasley)
14. Work to Do (The Isley Brothers)
15. Silence (Charlie Haden)
16. Visa (Charlie Haden)
17. Listen Here (Eddie Harris)
18. Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho (Eddie Harris Quartet)
19. Slinky (Chick Corea)
20. Soft And Gentle (Chick Corea)
21. Antidote (Chick Corea feat. Rubén Blades and The Spanish Heart Band)

Apple Music Playlist

Here’s an Apple Music Playlist containing songs from this episode of #JazzChurch:

Next week’s #jazzchurch livestream can be found at postbop.com/jazzchurch Streaming live from 1-4ish PM PDT. Past episodes are available here as well.

Where else can I find #JazzChurch?

• Postbop.com: Livestream plus audio archives and information for all past shows
• Twitch Livestream: 1-3pm-ish PST on Sundays plus audio/video of recent shows
• Soundcloud: Listen to past shows and subscribe to receive notifications and listen to future shows

@LizandMollie explain why I’m not much of a history buff…

Not even #workingonit…

Today’s vaccination event was right across the street from Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley, one of my favorite music venues, and a place I haven’t visited in over a year! I’m looking forward to COVID-19’s demise and being able to experience live music once again.

Today I went to Seattle for only the second time since the pandemic began in earnest almost a year ago. This visit had a little hope because we visited to get my wife her first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. The day seemed almost normal. After the exceptionally well-organized and efficient vax event, we went to the U-District Farmers Market (getting lost on the way), had lunch at our favorite BBQ joint (arrived early and ate-in all by ourselves), and went shopping at Rainshadow Meats (there be meatballs in my near future!).

Looking forward to more good days like this!

Frank Figliuzzi: Senate asked all the wrong questions about the pro-Trump attack on the Capitol

Frank Figliuzzi joins Lawrence O’Donnell to discuss the questions lawmakers should ask after the first hearing about security failures that led to the Capitol riot failed to address key issues, including how racial bias impacted the police response to the threat: “We seem to collectively have a problem in this country… with seeing people who look like us as threats even when the threat and the intelligence is staring us in the face.”

2/24/2016:

Stepping out on a limb here. HRC will be the Democratic Party’s nominee. The Bern won’t be felt by enough people. It’s over. Sorry about that!

Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee. Natural, almost inevitable, consequence of the last nine years. Sorry about that too!

Happy to explain my reasoning. Discuss if you must. I’m moving on to stuff that’s still in doubt.

#thereIsaidit!

I later provided more context in the comments:

One of the things I loved about my Williams experience was empirical political science. At the time, the Roper Center was located on campus, and I got to use all their polling data to test theories from a statistical point of view. It made it more “real” and less theoretical for me. It also had me using computers which I loved then and now. In this case, I’m just reading the tea leaves, looking at delegates won, upcoming polls, how the delegates get apportioned, etc. and I don’t see how Bernie can win.

In 2008, I closely followed certain reporters, including Chuck Todd and Nate Silver, and came to understand sometime in March that Obama had the nomination locked up. Even though Hillary was contesting, etc. Despite all the talk about the “super delegates,” there was just no way Obama could lose the nomination at a certain point without totally destroying the Democratic Party.

It’s different this year. I just don’t see how either Hillary or Trump can be beaten.

I should also say that in 1992 I drove home from work to vote for Bill Bradley in the Democratic primary even though the polls had already closed in much of the country, and I knew Bill Clinton was going to be the nominee. So definitely don’t mean to suggest we shouldn’t vote for who we think is best. I do wish we had better choices. And I hope the right decision gets made in November, or heaven help us all!

In some other 2016 Facebook post, I wished aloud that Joe Biden was running, proving I was both ahead of – and behind – the curve.

”To have a great idea, have lots of them.“ – Thomas Edison

I’ve now hosted #JazzChurch 43 Sundays in a row. What started as a silly idea keeps chugging right along. I once mused that I might run out of music to play, but that sure ain’t happening!

This image features just a few of the album covers containing songs I have played. Please join us 1-4 pm PST Sundays.

https://postbop.com/jazzchurch

500,000 lives lost

Deep data visualization!

Every now and then, something grabs my attention, i.e., catches my eye. I have to stop and take it in. Then I have to pull out my camera, do some quick calculations, visualize the final product, and snap a few pictures.

In the old days, I’d be using a bulky SLR. I’d develop the film and head to the darkroom to make prints.

Nowadays, I whip out my iPhone! Everything else is pretty much the same, save the smell of chemicals. I now do my visualizing in color instead of black and white.

This morning I noticed some flowers on the dining room table. Really nice flowers!!

#StillWorkingOnIt!

Livestream Replay

Playlist

#jazzchurch 43 – Sunday, February 21, 2021 – featured music by Abdullah Ibrahim, Charles Mingus, Bennie Maupin, Miles Davis, Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson, and Michael Brecker, among others shown below:

1. Sister Cheryl (Tony Williams)
2. Good Morning (Robert Glasper)
3. African Market Place (Abdullah Ibrahim)
4. Humpty Dumpty (Akio Sasajima feat. Joe Henderson)
5. From the Lonely Afternoons (Wayne Shorter)
6. All Blues (Herbie Hancock)
7. Goodbye Pork Pie Hat (Charles Mingus)
8. Rhythm Man (Do Not Disturb) (Bebop & Beyond)
9. Little Sunflower (Phil Ranelin)
10. Vildgolia (Deaf, Dumb & Blind) (Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson)
11. Waltzin’ In (Freddie Redd)
12. The Jewel In the Lotus (The Bennie Maupin Quartet)
13. Early Reflections (The Bennie Maupin Quartet)
14. Inner Sky (The Bennie Maupin Quartet)
15. The Glide (Oregon)
16. Seven Steps To Heaven (Miles Davis)
17. The Nearness of You (Michael Brecker)
18. Aisha (Sfjazz Collective)
19. Easy Now (Orrin Evans)
20. Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight (Michael Brecker)
21. So Near, So Far (Miles Davis)
22. Tuskeegee #626 (Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson)
23. Racetrack in France (Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson)
24. Joshua (Miles Davis)

Apple Music Playlist

Here’s an Apple Music Playlist containing songs from this episode of #JazzChurch:

Next week’s #jazzchurch livestream can be found at postbop.com/jazzchurch Streaming live from 1-3ish PM PDT. Past episodes are available here as well.

Where else can I find #JazzChurch?

• Postbop.com: Livestream plus audio archives and information for all past shows
• Twitch Livestream: 1-3pm-ish PST on Sundays plus audio/video of recent shows
• Soundcloud: Listen to past shows and subscribe to receive notifications and listen to future shows

They say the first draft is shit, so just put a whole lot of whatevers out there because you’re going to rewrite it anyway.

Not that I believe what “they” say, right?

I make mistakes. Sometimes they’re doozies! Which contradicts the idea there are no mistakes. I mean, if you learn something, was it a mistake?

Blah. Blah. Blah.

So here’s the deal. I post a lot of links to articles I read. Sometimes I even write a post myself. [I do love to write, you know.] Most of the time, if I post something, it’s because what I read or saw resonated with me in some way.

So what I learned recently was (besides the fact I start way, waay too many sentences with the word, “so.”)

So what I learned recently was some people (on my team? colleagues?) feel I’m hypocritical. They seem to think I post ideas that I don’t do myself. I don’t live up to what I post.

Seriously, people? I mean, “REALLY?”

When this criticism first danced across my brainwaves, I was like…

So I have this rule. Never, under any frakkin’ circumstances, never, ever be defensive. About anything! It just makes things worse. Including making other people defensive too.

So I hear the criticism, and I’m like, ARE YOU SERIOUS??? Apparently, yes, serious!

Here’s the thing. If I post something, it’s because it resonated with me. It made me think. Usually, it made me think about myself and what I don’t do. Or what I need to do more of. How I need to learn how to do exactly THAT thing described in the article or thoughts in sharing! Ya dig?

Man, I can hardly fathom the idea that I can’t share a thought unless I’m a perfect representative of that idea? That’s like, don’t you ever, in your whole life, ever. post. anything!

The good news? You know there’s gotta be some good news, right?

The good news is the feedback came with the suggestion, “I think you should keep posting, keep sharing.” Yeah, right, don’t let this little bit of whatever seep into your tiny pea-brain. Keep posting. Just know that some people think you are a total, complete, 100 percent, YEAH, PHONY!!! That is all.

Which right about now, 393 words into this rough draft, has me feeling like, “maybe I should rewrite before letting an editor look at this?” Because, they’re going to think this is shit and, by all the evidence presented herein, I’m shit and can’t write. Which is not what I want them – not to mention YOU – to think.

Still, I have this goal of writing 500 words a day, and I’m already up to 465. And, just so you know, the number “465” is considered a word. And now I’m all the way up to, well not exactly, but almost up to just about, let’s see, yes, 493 words. [It was 500 words, but, you know, editing!]

The end!

Note: I originally shared this three years ago (2/21/2018). It still feels right. I’ve since decided the title is where I’m at. I write as part of the process of figuring out what I think about things or what makes sense to me. That’s always been true. It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: your mileage may vary!

I invite you to disagree with me. Hell, I may not even agree with me and I just wrote it! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Thanks!