New blog adventure 

LAX tarmac headed to Munich and admiring the closed widow shades, relaxed demeanor of the flight staff and am not being treated like a misbehaving school child.

It must be my 12th transatlantic flight this year and I never cease to be annoyed when airlines scold the passengers as if they are idiots for expecting the plane could possibly navigate a takeoff with even one closed window shade. Yes we already know a seat back tilted makes a plane unflyable.

Probably more importantly I am just being sensitive and annoyed at leaving behind my wife and daughters and little four legged pals all gathering for a Halloween party without me.

Fly away to make invisible sounds and immerse in the energy of giant rock shows. Over 25 years of my life spent traveling the world with so many friends I truly love and respect, torn from one world to the next. 

Going to take a shot at ramping back up on some blog posts as I adventure about. Really looking to consolidate the info I post into a single feed rather than a splattering of disconnected Facebook and Twitter posts. Historically I have had a positive response to my blogs but I have never been fully happy with the format. 

I really need to be able to post from my phone rather than laptop, just cause I move around so much so fast. Also the comments on Facebook posts have always been more active and dynamic than comments on the blogs, so now it should work where comments on the blog are done through Facebook. So, thanks to Dave Knepper at Rat, going to give this a shot.

And arriving in London now and

Let the games begin.  Oh, fun Halloween show at the Fonda Theater on Friday. Finally got a chance to mix on and did a visit of a tuneup on the V-Dosc/Rat Sub rig in there and it was awesome fun.

Forgot to take a PA pic but here are a few other pics from the show

Okey dokey, let’s see how this works and if all goes well, we will have an interactive flow of info where I can post and also answer questions or tailor a bit to requests 

Cool cool,

DR

Why is this so satisfying to watch?

Seems so perfectly deserved and so unfortunately just a created illusion. Perhaps we will be fortunate enough to witness a similar outcome for Trump in the election. And we can watch mister ‘hit them hard’ melt down into a whine and cry tantrum. Yes, let’s hit him hard and vote him out of the political game with authority.
from Facebook

Seven element political lens

Seven element political lens As this shit sling fest of the election ramps up to the final stretch and the majority of Americans have staked their claim for, against or just apathetic toward whatever candidate least offends them, I put some thought into the path leading us here. What makes someone a Democrat, Republican or neither? What is the fundamental belief structure that would inspire someone to lean one way or the other? Is it just cultural exposure or rebellion against one? What are the common threads that hold these seemingly disparate political parties together and apart? Lower taxes, de-regulating everything except freedom of the bedroom, guns for all, and razor thin definitions of what is truly an American versus endless social programs paid by heavy taxation supporting a nanny state saving an owl and off limits patches of land while letting babies perish. To unravel, simplify and understand more clearly I tried applying the same concepts I use in designing loudspeaker systems to the political parties and opinions. For sound system design my list is: Size Weight Max output Fidelity Aesthetics And cost How these factors are prioritized will define the final product and how well it performs for the desired applications. Each item somehow weighs against the rest in such a way as it is impossible to optimize all simultaneously. One must make sacrifices of one or more to realizes gains in others. For example, to make something loud it will get heavy, expensive and tend not to sound as good. To make it small sacrifices volume, cost, output and fidelity. Can political parties be defined purely by how they prioritize a simple list of priorities wherein each party strives for an optimization? How about the list: Shelter and Possessions Self Family Community Country Humanity Planet And now let’s put those in the opposite order as well: Planet Humanity Country Community Family Self Shelter and possessions Now of course all the things listed have importance and we are constantly faced with devoting energy, finances and concerns to these and often need to make decisions about which is more important. If you put the health of the planet high on the list and feel that making a sacrifice for humanity as a whole is important even if it diminishes your personal and family life and possibly increases dangers to yourself, perhaps that is a tendency is toward Democrat. From what I can tell, if you put possessions, self and family first and minimize sacrifice for the betterment of humanity as a whole and are dismissive of pollution impacting the health of the planet, the tendency is toward Republican. Following these concepts further out to their extremes, putting planet first crushes potentially huge profits to save seemingly useless critters. Putting humanity first requires taxing sacrifices of time and money to try and reduce the endless poverty disease and hunger. Putting ones own self and family first and foremost with planet and humanity down list, may inspire one to give little and instead focus on acquiring as much as possible along with methods to defend the stockpile. And it seems that what we see from both sides of our two main political parties are accusations and fears. Fear of big government taxing away hard earned monet to spend elsewhere and outlawing the guns needed to defend against enemies abound. While the other side fears a plummet into a dog eat dog world of ruthlessness lacking compassion for the planet and humanity as a whole. There are people that put an extreme amount of importance on a few items and disregard the remainder. Someone willing to risk a life to save a tree, someone who is willing to poison a river to increase profits, or to take their own and lives of others to attempt to empower a religious belief they believe with benefit their community of like minded people. Not unlike how one can look at a speaker system and analyze the priorities used in the design, one can look at a person or political party and analyze the priorities by their votes and positions A rotation of the list can offer some insight into other political belief systems as well: Country Community Family Self Shelter and possessions Planet Humanity In this prioritization with county first and humanity last the tendency would be towards world domination at the expense of the environment and outside individuals. That order can be mixed in differing ways: Country Humanity Planet Shelter and possessions Community Family Self And you end up with more of a socialist angle with a country dedicated towards improving humanity as a whole, looking after the planet, perhaps focusing on non wasteful shelter and possessions It is by knowing one’s own prioritization and using this or other list of priorities as a lens to view others that we are able to help guide wise decisions and understand others.
by Dave Rat

October 15, 2016 at 11:44AM
from Facebook

Are the masses stupid?

Are the masses stupid? I think a significant percentage of the masses regularly base decisions on emotion, hatred, bias and beliefs that continuously have results that are the opposite of beneficial to healthy, happy, compassionate and the betterment of the world we live in. To want more and chose a path resulting in less while there are thousands of years of history available showing the outcome prior to the endeavor, that to me is stupid. To ignore the fact that when you oppress and unfairly treat a group of peoples they will forever battle to undermine the oppressors, that is stupid. To turn a blind eye to the fact that inflicting hate breeds hate and an action of aggression resonates for years or centuries into the future. That problems are not solved by building walls around the symptoms. Look at China, Berlin, Palestine, and N Korea to see past, present and future versions of walls that have and will fail. To overlook that the feudal system is a natural tendency of the masses and government structures are an attempt to prevent a privileged few assholes from taking all the wealth and enslaving the rest. Our government is an attempt to diversify power and guide the country with wisdom and balance yet the masses ignore wisdom and balance and flock directly toward dishonesty, greed and those most power hungry. The masses don’t think, they switch blindly to mob-mentality seeking a leader to guide them into a bloody clash if all is peaceful and out of the ashes once all is destroyed. The masses want to be led, as the concept of cooperative individuality is beyond comprehension. The masses are stupid. Predictable, but stupid. Intelligence, wisdom and compassion are traits that tend to radiate from individuals and if enough individuals embrace these traits, cooperation towards common positive productive goals becomes the future.
by Dave Rat

October 05, 2016 at 01:48AM
from Facebook

Ok, this can’t be right, or can it?

Ok, this can’t be right, or can it? The article states Trump lost nearly a billion dollars in 2005, fair enough, so he lost more money in 2005 than the total GDP of Los Angeles, long Beach and Santa Ana combined earned for 2014 https://goo.gl/OeZiZA

But it also says the total net business losses claimed for the entire country were 49 billion in 2005. Am I reading that Trump single handedly claimed 2% of all the business losses of the entire country in 2005? There is a link in the article to the IRS data that the facts were derived from, I tried to read it but it’s 3 am in Barcelona right now and the document is too lengthy to decipher on on a cell phone screen. 2% of all business loses by the corporations controlled by one human? The magnitude of this if true is beyond comprehension. Well, we all have a few little whoopsies in our lives but he does claim to be real good at winning, More! Something tells me these tax returns are going to be fascinating if we ever get to read them. http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/what-irs-data-shows-about-how-far-trump-pushed-tax-n658291#pt0-631096
by Dave Rat

October 02, 2016 at 06:58PM
from Facebook