¶ 11:36 AM 0 comments

  Kiwi and I So, I went home for thanksgiving. It was great. It's been a long time since all three Bachman children have been home with momma and pappa. Grandma D came down for the day and Grandma and Grandpa B came down with Aunt Theresa for desserts. It was a lot of fun. Mom was amazed with the goofy picture taking of my new iMac, as you can see above. It was set up in my room and we spent a lot of time just making funny faces at the computer. Ben got in the action too.

The whole weekend really reminded me of how lucky I am to have an amazing family. It's becoming more and more rare to have a father and a mother who love you completely genuinely and I can proudly say that I do. And, I'm finally getting to the age that I feel like I'm not being looked down on by my grandparents. Not that they have ever been condescending, I'm just not being treated like a child. It's nice.

On a side note, Josh and I found the coolest little bar last night in Philadelphia. It's on the second floor of this Ethiopian restaurant right around the corner from us. The whole place couldn't have been bigger than our Kitchen! And they have live music almost every night. And they stock tons of good local, Philly beers. It was so much fun. There was a really edgy blues band there last night and Wednesday night is a jazz night. Should be fun. I'm definitely going back soon.

OK. We're going to watch an episode of Seinfeld and then it's off to bed. By the way, I got a promotion at work and I'll be changing to week mornings from (get this) 5am-1pm! That's crazy. But it's more money, it's regular hours, it's not weekends, and I'm in a shift manager position. Fun. Ok. Night friends.
  ¶ 12:55 AM 0 comments

  New Computer Well, I got this new computer because my old one died. Yeah. I'm in the middle of an audio editing job and it couldn't really wait. Plus I've been pricing these and thinking about getting a new one for some time. If it holds out like my last one I can expect 5 years out of it, which in computer years is a lot.

Life's good. I live in Philadelphia now for those of you who don't follow me too closely or just don't know what I'm doing but feel you're too close to ask that embarrassing question. I know that feeling. I live with Josh Hall, my friend from high school. He's been my friend, my bandmate, and so much more and now we live together again in the city of brotherly love. We lived here last summer to complete our internships. We lived only a few blocks from our current location so we know the area pretty well. So, friends, if you're ever in Philly and want to hang out please do not hesitate to call my cell.

I'm not happy with my job situation so I've been looking for other ones, thus I haven't been able to put a lot of time into my freelance work. Hopefully that'll pick up. That's really what I want to be doing with my life. I realize it's a hard industry to break and all of that crap that everyone keeps feeding to me. But I want to do it and I'll work shitty side jobs if I have to to get there. Meanwhile I make more and more music.

Well, I'm off to bed. We watched American History X tonight so it's kind of heavy here. Thoughts and thoughts to sleep on. Night all.
  ¶ 1:53 AM 1 comments

  I recently had a drunken conversation with a good friend about the woes of capitalism. He's studying economics so I felt quite inept in the discussion. He is much more qualified to discuss economic theory than I am but I have been reading some socialist stuff lately so I am firmly convinced of the failure and inadequacy of capitalism in the world today. I see it as both morally wrong and economically inefficient to provide for the population of a nation. I do not disagree that it has made many people rich. My qualm is that it has made many more people poor than it has made rich. The conversation just kind of ended awkwardly with my friend insisting that I had a misconception of what capitalism truly was. He suggested that I was substituting what I saw a capitalism for the actual basic truth of what capitalism was. We both agreed that capitalism as it now stands is not working but he contested (and I disagreed) that capitalism is fundamentally sound as an economic system.

I decided to do some homework because I realize that since I've been reading socialist literature lately, I'm probably biased in my view of capitalism. So I set out to try to see it from the other side. What follows is basically from wikipedia, the online free encyclopedia. Wikipedia has been very thorough in all of my studies thus far and I have no reason to doubt what it says. As I did my research for this blog I learned a lot from its thorough coverage of the concept of capitalism in an economic, literary, and historic context. I start with the basic definition of capitalism since I've been charged with not knowing what capitalism truly is and only knowing capitalism as what I see it as.

Oxford English Dictionary: "The condition of possessing capital; the position of a capitalist; a system which favors the existence of capitalists."

Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary 11th Edition: "An economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market."

Cambridge Dictionary of American English: "an economic system based on private ownership of property and business, with the goal of making the greatest possible profits for the owners"

Scott-Foresman Intermediate Dictionary: "an economic system in which private individuals and groups of individuals own land, factories, and other means of production. They compete with one another, using the hired labor of other persons, to produce goods and services for profit."

Wikipedia: "The etymology of the word capital has roots in the trade and ownership of animals. The Latin root of the word capital is capitalis, from the proto-Indo-European kaput, which means "head," this being how wealth was measured." (Another example of this is stock. We think of stock as an investment on Wall Street. This term came for livestock.)

So basically, capitalism is an economic system
a. Based on the private ownership of capital goods (property, means of production)
b. Based on a freedom of bargaining between the buyer and seller
c. Based on the system being controlled/regulated by a free market
d. An economic theory where looking out for one's own common good benefits everyone

My friend defined capitalism as "If you work hard you make more money." I could not fundamentally argue with that fact. Say there are two people. Person A works 20 hours a week at a certain job. Person B works 40 hours at that same job. Person B will get more money because he worked harder. That is true. However, that is not capitalism. Even under other economic schemes (socialism, for instance) this is true. This definition is really the American dream. The idea of rags to riches. I had a big problem with this contention as there are many people unable to escape poverty who work harder than others who do little work and make tons from it. Regardless, that's all beside the point. Capitalism isn't "If you work harder, you make more money." That's just fair. I wouldn't stand behind any system that wouldn't reward hard work with more compensation. Compensation for hard work isn't the issue here because that's not what capitalism is. Using the 4 points above I will now outline my issues with capitalism. Understand that I've been reading a good bit of Marx lately. I'd like to say I'm being unbiased in my writing but obviously no one is ever unbiased. Just be aware of the position from which I write these criticisms of capitalism.

a. Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of capital goods.

I have no fundamental problem with the concept of ownership. If one owns the money to buy something, one can own it. Without the concept of ownership any economic system would fall apart I think. One must own a piece of bread to eat it or anyone could just come up and take that bread away from the person. I could be wrong though. Perhaps there are societies without the concept of ownership but I feel that: a. that concept is so ingrained into our heads that to think outside of it would be impossible and b. I don't think we have to dismiss the idea of ownership to have a fair society. What I do have a problem with is the exploitation of ownership.

For example, I own a business. I make straws. I buy all of the machines to make straws and I buy the land and build a factory to make the straws. I hire labor to run my machines to make the straws. I start making money as a business owner. Eventually, the income pays off my initial investment to buy the machinery and factory. Fine. After that I have a problem though. I continue to make money; more money than the amount of labor I put into the process. This is unfair. I'm not doing much work. Perhaps a little management here and there. Perhaps some worrying about making my money. However, as far as making straws goes (the thing that I'm selling, straws that is) I'm not putting in as much labor as I'm getting paid for. There is an imbalance. I'm working less than the pay is worth. This must mean that someone's getting short changed. Who? The workers. If I'm selling my straws for the actual value that they are worth and I'm making money while not putting labor into it, someone's getting short changed and the only people left in the equation are the workers. This is referred to by Marx as capitalist gain. Why is this ok in our society? The exploitation seems obvious to me. It seems unfair. Why is it ok? Because I own the machines. We as a society have agreed that because I own the machines (the means of production) I should receive capitalist gain from my products and exploit my workers and that's ok.

b. Capitalism is an economic system based on a freedom of bargaining between the buyer and seller.

The problem I have with this is that the finished price after bargaining has nothing to do with the actual value of the product itself. It has to do with how much the buyer is willing to pay for it. This is such a prevalent idea that the phrase "Something's only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it." is accepted in our society. Something should be worth the amount of labor and materials that are put into it. Rare gems are worth a lot because they are hard to find and require a lot of labor to discover the rare places in which they are found. Cars are worth a lot because of the many parts that are involved in their construction and the massive amount of labor required to assemble the car. However, this really has nothing to do with the selling price of the product. The product is sold for the minimum price that people are willing to pay for it, not for it's actual production value.

For example. When the disc-man (portable CD players) first came out, it cost a lot more do than it does now. This is true with most products. When they are first released they are sold for much higher costs and then as time goes on the price comes down. Why is this? One could argue the theory of supply and demand; either that upon a product's release the supply is low or the demand is really high (both having the same economic effect of higher price). However, I don't think this is true. I don't think the supply is low. I've seen shelves full of new computers, TVs, technology in general, that isn't being bought because people are "waiting for the price to come down." I've heard this all of the time. While initial productions runs of products are often small, that is not always the case. Also there is the issue here of which is causing which. Are there small initial production runs because the manufacturers know that few product will be sold because of the high price or do the small production runs cause a high price? Maybe a little of both? Regardless, I've seen lots of newly released products sitting unpurchased on a shelf on a broad scale so I don't believe the concept of limited supply. Also, in a market where most products are not needs but rather desires I refuse to believe in the concept of demand. People don't need an iPod, they want it. However, they won't buy it until it comes into their price range. The person's "need" for the product and the sale value of the product have nothing to do with the actual value of the product but rather the price range of the buyer. Simply put, the seller will sell it at the highest price possible at which the buyer will buy (likewise, the buyer will buy it at the lowest price possible at which the seller will still sell it). This sounds like sound economic negotiating but I hope you can see how the final price of the item is completely removed from the actual value of the product, thus being irrational. Imagine a world where things actually cost what they were worth.

c. Capitalism is an economic system based on the system being controlled/regulated by a free market.

This one really bugs me. The concept of a free market is glorified to such a high position these days. People think a free market can solve any problem. Libertarianism and anarchy bank on this concept and capitalism is just a dressed up version of either of those. Free market, is once again, just a system of exploitation. First of all it replaces the actual value of a product with the price a buyer is willing to pay for it, as discussed above. This always ends up being as high as possible while keeping the customer. One may argue that the customer is also pushing for the highest price possible. However, the seller has other customers to go to. The seller has no personal need to sell to one individual customer. One could argue though that the customer can just go to another seller. Competition right? I'll attack that in my next point but let me just say that the number of choices of customers that a seller has will always outweigh the number of choices of sellers that a customer has.

Secondly, competition and a free market not only drive down prices, they drive the quality of work down. Laborers are forced to work harder and faster, with fewer breaks, for longer hours, to stay competitive on the free market. I work as a security guard at an extended care facility. One night I got a call that a call light was out in one of the nursing wards. If the patient had an emergency, she would have had no way of efficiently calling a nurse into her room. I tried my best to fix it but after replacing the cord it was still not fixed. I asked the head nurse if this was enough of an emergency to call in the maintenance worker on call. She informed me that it was because there was a law that said that all call lights in medical facilities had to be operational at all times. It makes sense. If we wouldn't have called the maintenance worker in to fix the call light, the patient could have suffered from some emergency and, in a worse case scenario, died without the nurses knowing anything. It was not competition and a free market that made me call the maintenance worker in that night, it was a law. It wasn't competition, it was federal regulation. My point is that many libertarians and hard core capitalists would argue that these safety issues would be solved due to the free market. I think that's wrong. To stay competitive the head nurse would have told me to have someone fix it in the morning. That's what competitiveness gets you. However, because there was a federal safety regulation (state planning and regulation is the opposite of a free market) we possibly saved that patient's life. There are many behind the scene things like this that aren't at all effected by the free market and that wouldn't be regulated by competition. The head nurse's motivation for calling the maintenance worker in that night was not because she wanted to have a safer, more competitive, service to sell where we could brag about how we are more safe than the competition, her motivation was not getting fired when the facility possibly sued her for the possible death or injury of the patient without a call light. This is a great example of why the free market cause the lowering of workers conditions and quality in product.

Also, the free market is self destructive. The guise of competition cannot sustain itself. The very nature of competition is to defeat one's opponent. In capitalism there are winners and losers (to be more correct, there are a few winners and many losers). One company will posses the management to make the product faster and for lower wages than the other and they will eventually drive the competition out of business. As the company picks up the market share of its recently defeated foe it becomes strong and pushes all competitors out of business. Eventually, there are no competitors and all of the "advantages" of the free market are gone. Then the company is free to release bad products at extremely high prices and pay its workers next to nothing.

This is the equivalent of a baseball season where a team would have to close down if it lost a game. That's fine for a little while as the winner just moves to the next team and beats it, putting it out of business. Eventually though, the team will run out of teams to beat as all of the others would be out of business. Then the victor isn't much of anything. There's no one to play against. There's no game. The free market is the same way except that the final monopoly exploits the people. Consider Microsoft.

d. Capitalism is an economic system where looking out for one's own common good benefits everyone

This just simply isn't true in the short run and in the long run. This is my least favorite point I think because it just confirms that capitalism is institutionalized greed. Not only that, but it implies that greed is what's best for us all. We all do what's best for ourselves and in the end everyone will be taken care of. This is morally repulsive to me. I believe that humans are naturally social beings and that they take great pleasure in caring for others and helping others out. I think the best way to heal from a traumatic experience is by helping others out. The most beautiful moments of human history are when people have helped other people. There is actually economic theory behind this.

On a more practical level I believe that when competition is invoked, a lose-lose outcome is inevitable. Imagine that two employees are trying for the same position at a company. The company needs to hire someone and these are the only two qualified candidates. They could both try to offer the lowest price for themselves to the employee thus devaluing their own labor and themselves to a point where they aren't getting paid anywhere near the value of the work they will contribute (this is what happens most of the time and is happily labeled competition and celebrated as a joy of capitalism). Also the company loses out in this situation because an employee who isn't paid well and doesn't have health insurance will be more absent from work due to illnesses as a small example. On the other hand the two workers could team together, choose a value for their labor and tell the company that either both of them are hired or neither of them will work. By cooperating, the employees both win. This isn't a perfect example but I'm just trying to show that cooperative solutions and economic planning are the way to go instead of competition and institutionalized greed.

I feel like all of America are those employees having to price themselves down in their value to the elite few who own the true means to make money. If we would all cooperate and do what's best for each other instead of doing what's best for ourselves, I truly believe that we would all benefit mutually. This of course takes a lot of education and planning.

Thus concludes my criticism of capitalism. Capitalism isn't the American Dream (American Myth) where working hard rewards you. While that theory is flawed in itself, it's just not capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system that thrives on the destructive exploitation of the working class at the hands of an elite few who own the means of production. It is institutionalized greed and morally repulsive to me. I refuse to be happy with this system that sets us all up for failure. I refuse to believe that the only way people will innovate and be inspired to work is through exploitation and greed. There is a better way and that way deserves our attention, study, and focus. As my friend, Sara, says, let's replace capitalism with something nicer.  ¶ 3:09 AM 1 comments

 

So, I like folding laundry. I like it a lot. I like it more than I probably should. My friend Rachel and I joke around about simple things that are extremely pleasurable to do. For me it's folding laundry. That's one of them anyway. It's joined by other such things as washing my hands, stretching my back, having my hair played with, having my face touched and the list goes on. I'm a weird guy, what can I say? I guess it started out when I read Thich Nhat Hahn's book, Peace Is Every Step. In it, he talks about bells of mindfulness. In the Zen monastery they would have bells that would ring throughout the day and wherever the monks were at the time, the bell would ring and they would hear it and be reminded to breath deeply, enjoy this moment of life completely, and be totally aware of everything around them. This was a bell of mindfulness. He suggests that simple things throughout the day can function as bells of mindfulness if we choose to make them so. Washing your hands, folding laundry, or the ringing of the telephone can be a bell of mindfulness if you think to yourself, "Every time the telephone rings, I will stop, breath deeply, and appreciate life fully." This can even work for negative things like being cut off in traffic. If we could stop and breath deeply every time someone cut us off in traffic we'd live a lot less stressful lives. The first thing I thought of was folding laundry.
When I read the book, I was living in Philadelphia and was home alone so I thought that I'd fold some laundry just then (since then I've tragically lost the book to the disastrous morning following Josh's 21st birthday but that's a whole other story). So I opened my clean but unfolded laundry bag and went to work. This ended up being a truly life changing event. I discovered that not only did I slow down and enjoy life a little more, I actually enjoyed folding laundry a lot. It wasn't just a time-out from life, it was a luxurious vacation. I enjoyed making all of the wrinkles disappear as I slowly pressed each irregularity from the fabric. I'm quite the tactile person so I especially enjoyed all of the different textures of my clothing. I could feel the quality of some of the clothes and the lack there of in others. I enjoyed creating order out of chaos and yet the cruelty of the fact that I would have to do this again once I wore and washed the article did not escape me. I enjoyed the cyclical nature of it and saw the whole thing as a deeper metaphor for life. Chaos and order until one day the garment would be too tattered to be worn anymore and I'd through it away or give it away.
Many of my clothes, especially my T-shirts have stories behind them. My sister enjoys feeding my hobby for random T-shirts from salvation army. You know what I mean. Shirts with softball teams on them that you never played for, or a church you've never attended. Construction company's you never worked for or a band you've never even heard of. The less I know about the shirt the better. I suppose that's kind of a trendy thing right now but I find deeper meaning in it. I like wearing a shirt that has nothing to do with me because it has everything to do with me. If I can learn to see the deep connection between myself and every stranger I walk past every day then I think I'd be better off. Wearing these random shirts makes me think about that. I hate when stores manufacture shirts that try to seem random. It has to truly have been someone's bowling team at some point in time, not just one that the gap made up for a T-shirt line. So, I think of the story behind each shirt as I fold it and make sure the hem at the bottom isn't flipped over. As I perfectly line up the two sleeves I think about some of my favorite memories I've lived in the shirt. My one maroon shirt has become my choice when it comes to Wasting Revolution gigs along with a particular pair of jeans. I laugh as I fold the ever thinning fabric of my "As I Got Older, I Got Better" shirt. A classic in the Jason Bachman wardrobe. I laugh as I fold my PJ's as they always take me back to Philadelphia and the first teat brushing experience. All of these stories and memories come flooding back to me as I lean back a little using my stomach and thigh as a temporary surface to fold on.
I'll be honest, I get lost in it. I actually am kind of sad when I get done a pile and there are no more clothes to finesse. It feels like I've made order of my life and there's nothing else to fix, but I know that that's not true. A few more days and there will be plenty more to fix, more seams to line up, more creases to press out, and more of the wonderful smell of fabric softener to relish.
Well, I just heard the dryer buzz so I'm off for fifteen minutes of heaven. What is it that you love to do? What's a simple pleasure in your life? Leave a comment. I'd love to hear from you.  ¶ 6:16 AM 0 comments

 

This is the picture for the sound below. It's the ocean. Josh and I recently went down there and spent the whole night out on the beach. It's a wonderful thing to witness the entire experience a sunrise on the beach from the first galls coming in, to the morning dolphins playing in the waves, to the beach filling up with early walkers and surfers. It was the best of times for me.

  ¶ 5:12 AM 0 comments

 

Tonight I was in musical heaven. Andy Roberts, LVC’s jazz piano instructor, is responsible for putting together a monthly jazz evening together at MJ’s coffeehouse here in Annville. This month it featured our sax professor, Thomas Strohman. He was joined by Westchester’s Peter Paulsen on bass and John Peifer on drums. John plays in Strohman’s jazz group, Third Stream. The night was amazing. It was just two hours of perfection. I saw one mistake happen in the whole night. The drummer missed the swing feel in A Night in Tunisia. Even then, he exploited his mistake and made a musical idea out of it creating something more beautiful than if he had never made the mistake in the first place. This struck me especially because it’s kind of reflective of how I feel we should deal with mistakes in life. That’s me being all philosophical when listening to jazz. Reading some existentialist literature lately is prodding me on in that area.

Any way. Tommy Stroh was just amazing. He pushes us on in our own jazz study so much and I’ve heard him talk about musical concepts so much. But it’s nice to know he can actually do it. And not just do it, he excels at it. He’s just perfectly musical. It’s so difficult to describe anything musical in writing but I believe that listening to a jazz musician who’s unencumbered by technical inhibitions (or any musician for that matter) is like seeing a door straight into them. And if that’s so then Mr. Strohman is alive and wild with a deep playfulness and a passion for those around him. Just listening to him playing off the other guys is so amazing. And yet there is still that reserved character that those who truly know him can appreciate any time he sees you and shoots you a big smile in greeting. It all comes through in his playing. I felt like tonight was his going away present for us seniors and I am so thankful for that.

Peter Paulsen played bass. He is the bass instructor at Westchester University. He was amazing. Almost as impressive as his playing abilities was his tone. It was both clear and bassy. This is rare in bass tone. Normally you get one or the other. You get to hear the individual notes or you get to feel the bass effect. I can’t even describe how creamy and smooth his tone was. I wish I had a recording so that before any gig I ever played I could listen to it and try to emulate it. It was the best bass tone I’ve ever heard live. My favorite moment of the concert was his solo in What Is This Thing Called Love. He bowed the solo; which was amazing. I’ve heard tons of bowed solos before and it never really did it for me like it did tonight. What really amazed me was his scooping into the notes that he placed every once in a while so perfectly. Don’t get me wrong. Scooping does not = expressiveness by any means. It can be overdone, a concept that Kenny G doesn’t understand. However, bass is so often intonationally challenged that to hear it move and express like a horn was gorgeous. He just did it so well. Definitely one of the best bass solos I’ve ever heard.

John Peifer was the drummer. He plays drums for Strohman’s group, Third Stream. They do mostly jazz but also pop covers and what not. So Strohman is very used to playing with him. All of the people who played there have probably played together before in some aspect. Jazz is such and incestuous art. The community involved is a beautiful thing. Anyway, John was a lot of fun to watch. He showed so many different faces throughout the evening. Surprise, joy, confusion. You could see that the music he was playing was coming from his feelings. He wasn’t an overtly busy drummer. I normally enjoy really busy drummers for some reason. His solos were very good. They never stood alone; they were always communicating with those around him; playing off of Strohman’s ideas or what not. My favorite groove he laid down was during What is This Thing Called Love. It was an extremely simple ride beat. It just felt like once he got into it he had started this perpetual motion that if he had gotten too busy with, would have totally thrown off everything. Sometimes that’s the joy of good jazz drumming; accenting the steady groove with variation. But this was different. Throwing this off would have been like taking earth out of orbit just to see what would’ve happened. Not a good thing. He just rode on and the band grew over top of it. It was hot.

Then Andy Roberts. What to say of this man! He was the M.C. of the night so it was fun to take on that role. This, sadly, is only the second jazz night at MJ’s I’ve been to. But I can imagine he is a quite endearing host throughout the entire season. To his playing: I have a friend who I asked about going to the show tonight and he declined. He said that he’s seen Andy play before and he said that while he was technically amazing, he didn’t really move him. While this is quite a matter of personal tastes, I respect my friend’s musical opinions most of the time. However, after hearing Andy play tonight I’m greatly confused by his observation. I personally feel that Andy is so technically proficient at his craft that any needless virtuosity or simple imitation of licks gives way to pure personal expression. He truly spoke truths to me through his playing that no language can convey. There is something deeply universal and human about music that I find in few other experiences. Different levels of players can reach that true pure expression on different levels of playing and some people are to skilled for there own good but that is far from where I experienced Andy to be tonight. He was deeply passionate in his playing and fed my desire for expressive beauty that I knew would be fulfilled this evening. It was so good. So, next month I hope Stief and I can come up from York to check it out again. It’ll be a new band and a new featured musician with Andy. It’ll be fun.

The whole experience just made my night come alive. Courtney came over and smoked and chilled with Stief and I and then Jordan and Rachel came over and chilled for a little bit. I just sat out on the front step smoking my cigar, talking to my friends, and listening to the traffic go by in this wonderful environment that I will miss so much in 2 weeks. It was all so gorgeous. Just a wonderful night.

Beyond the musical experience of the night, I just have to give a big thank you to some of my friends who I’ve hurt recently. I’m really a fickle person. Those of you who know me know this to be true. And that’s really painful to those who care about me. So I have to thank some individuals around me for their patience in recent matters. As I’ve told Stief recently, I’ve come to believe that amongst other things, friends are an inconvenience (not that they are just inconveniences that’s just one thing they are) and it is how we deal with these inconveniences that shapes our relationships and truly shows who we are. One can be gracious in our actions or one can be fare in our actions. Even worse we can be selfish in our actions. Lately I’ve been being selfish in my actions and I wait with hope and faith to see how graciously those around me will deal with me.  ¶ 3:01 AM 5 comments