So I went to a Master Guitar Class featuring Steve Vai. After his thank yous, the first thing he said was “I don’t want to talk about theory, or technic. You can find that on the internet. I want to talk about the stuff no one will tell you.”

So what the hell is Steve gonna talk about for 3 hours? It starts with thought. “To be successful in anything, it starts with the thought.” To find what we are really good at, and exploit it to the fullest. Using music as the example, how when what you’re looking at something and it just makes sense, that is your “thing”. If it makes you excited and you can’t stop thinking about it, it is you. From our thoughts, it turn into a belief, and from a belief, to who we are, to our reality.

Ok so what does this have to do with music? Well it all rotates back to a karma like thought process. If you put out a positive thought, you will attract like minded thoughts. So positive thought breeds positive thought.

So Steve Vai put on this class for guitar player so the are positive? Well, yeah. He claims his whole career was based on it. Even when his bus was on fire and he lost G3 tour master tapes, a custom jacket, and a guitar that turned into a new design. He stayed positive even when stuff went bad and he felt it made the hard stuff easy.

So let’s talk about the three songs he played. He opened up with “the crying machine”. A stripped down version with him a backing track on an iPad, 5 pedals ranging from distortion to his volume pedal. A great opening song. High energy, passionate.

The second song was “Building the Church”. This song starts with a tough technic that was never discussed. I recorded 11 seconds and posted it in Facebook. After this song, it was discussed on breaking down a songs to learn practice and make perfect.

The best part of the event was the laid back vibe with it all. It was like sitting in your friends house. It was very free form. Ask what you want on topic, off topic, around topic. It didn’t matter. He tried to get every one’s question. Most of the questions were about overcoming fear to make it happen.

All in all it was a great experience. Imagine meeting your idol, and he invites you over for coffee. That is the feel of this class.

11 seconds of building the church by Steve Vai.

buttpee:

“Style is the answer to everything.
A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing
To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it
To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art

Bullfighting can be an art
Boxing can be an art
Loving can be an art

Homeless man kicked out of ‘Today’ host Ann Curry’s vacant $2.9 million townhouse
By Joe Pompeo | The Cutline - 5 hrs ago

It’s not every day a vagrant gets to shack up in a $2.9 million townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. But one such domicile, owned by “Today” show co-host Ann Curry, has in fact been housing a homeless man.

The unidentified lodger apparently first stumbled into the brownstone on West 71st Street about a year ago, after contractors working on the home left the front door unlocked, according to the New York Post, which has the scoop on the surreptitious squatter.

Curry and her husband, Brian Ross, (not that Brian Ross), had long been renovating the four-story row-house—which they purchased in 2003—but were forced to halt construction because of building violations and complaints from litigious neighbors, who were none-too-pleased to discover a hobo living there Sunday morning, the Post reports. They called the cops to escort him off the premises, marking the second such eviction to occur on the property. (Cops reportedly kicked out a different homeless man earlier this year.)

Curry, along with fellow NBC News anchor Brian Williams and—wait for it—“Sesame Street“‘s Big Bird, just helped a children’s television network kick off a new campaign about “kindness” on Monday. Could it be that Curry, who currently lives in a doorman building in Gramercy Park, had quietly been extending some kindness to the down-and-out New Yorker who has been dwelling in her unfinished abode for 12 months?

Doubtful.

“Ann Curry means crap to me!” the man told the Post, explaining: “The reason I lived there was because they chased me out of Central Park. … I’m not a drug addict; I just don’t have a place to sleep.”

Curry is on assignment at the moment covering the famine in Somalia so could not be reached for comment. She left for the Horn of Africa on Aug. 11 and will be reporting from Mogadishu through Tuesday, starting with coverage that will air this evening on “NBC Nightly News” and tomorrow on the “Today” show.

“Ann has an exclusive look into a munitions factory where she and her team found homemade hand grenades, mortars and bombs that could be set off with cell phones—all the hallmarks of Al Qaeda,” an NBC News spokeswoman told The Cutline. “She also has a report from the front lines of battle where they found militants who have been preventing humanitarian aid from reaching famine victims.”

Curry was promoted from newsreader on “Today” in May, when Meredith Vieira announced she would be leaving the top-rated morning show. Since Curry first sat down in the anchor chair in June, the show’s audience among the 25- to 54-year-old demographic favored by advertisers has increased 7.6-percent to an average of around 2.24 million viewers.

Those ratings have not dampened the speculation around the possible exit of veteran co-host Matt Lauer from “Today.”

Mediaite reports today that “not only is Lauer serious about leaving, but that NBC executives are reasonably (and quite seriously) considering possible replacements,” and that “the top choice of certain key Comcast and NBC execs is ‘American Idol’ host Ryan Seacrest.”

According to Mediaite’s Colby Hall: “The issue with Seacrest, according to insiders, is not whether he could get the gig, but whether he would take it. The full time hosting job would mean that Seacrest would have to leave his beloved Los Angeles and move to New York, which he is apparently loathe to do. Furthermore, hosting a morning show is a grueling job, and with his production company and various hosting jobs, something would have to give.”

The NBC spokeswoman declined to comment on whether Curry will have a new co-anchor after Lauer’s contract expires at the end of 2012.
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New Libertarian Manifesto
Samuel Edward Konkin III

This is Konkin’s agorist manifesto.

Agorism is perhaps best defined as the ideology that holds that the marketplace is the best, most practical, and only ethical means by which to bring about social or political change. It is, therefore, a revolutionary form of libertarianism, whose goal is not merely the diminution of the state, but its abolition. The method of agorist revolution is radical in the sense that it aims to fight the system from without, rather than employing the liberal means of fighting or merely reforming the system from within. Agorism tends thus to eschew any association with institutions or organisations that, like the Libertarian Party, aim to employ the aforementioned liberal means; in the view of agorists, this approach is either impractical or even unethical.

“New Libertarianism,” always found capitalised, is the term Konkin uses to describe his own particular agorist take. In a manner of speaking, “New Libertarianism” is the strategy of promoting agorism through the organisation of entrepreneurs for Liberty.

All page numbers refer to New Libertarian Manifesto 4th ed. (Huntington Beach, CA: KoPubCo, 2006).

WHY I AM AN ANARCHIST.

BY BENJAMIN R. TUCKER
WIA.3 Why am I an Anarchist? That is the question which the editor of the Twentieth Century has requested me to answer for his readers. I comply; but, to be frank, I find it a difficult task. If the editor or one of his contributors had only suggested a reason why I should be anything other than an Anarchist, I am sure I should have no difficulty in disputing the argument. And does not this very fact, after all, furnish in itself the best of all reasons why I should be an Anarchist – namely, the impossibility of discovering any good reason for being anything else? To show the invalidity of the claims of State Socialism, Nationalism, Communism, Single-taxism, the prevailing capitalism, and all the numerous forms of Archism existing or proposed, is at the same blow to show the validity of the claims of Anarchism. Archism once denied, only Anarchism can be affirmed. That is a matter of logic.
WIA.4 But evidently the present demand upon me is not to be met satisfactorily in this way. The error and puerility of State Socialism and all the despotisms to which it is akin have been repeatedly and effectively shown in many ways and in many places. There is no reason why I should traverse this ground with the readers of the Twentieth Century, even though it is all sufficient for proof of Anarchism. Something positive is wanted, I suppose.
WIA.5 Well, then, to start with the broadest generalization. I am an Anarchist because Anarchism and the philosophy of Anarchism are conducive to my own happiness. “Oh, yes, if that were the case, of course we should all be Anarchists,” the Archists will shout with one voice – at least all that are emancipated from religious and ethical superstitions – “but you beg the question; we deny that Anarchism is conducive to our happiness.”
WIA.6 Do you, my friends? Really, I don’t believe you when you say so; or, to put it more courteously, I don’t believe you will say so when you once understand Anarchism.
WIA.7 For what are the conditions of happiness? Of perfect happiness, many. But the primal and main conditions are few and simple. Are they not liberty and material prosperity? Is it not essential to the happiness of every developed being that he and those around him should be free, and that he and those around him should know no anxiety regarding the satisfaction of their material needs? It seems idle to deny it, and, in the event of denial, it would seem equally idle to argue it. No amount of evidence that human happiness has increased with human liberty would convince a man incapable of appreciating the value of liberty without reinforcement by induction. And to all but such a man it is also self-evident that of these two conditions – liberty and wealth – the former takes precedence as a factor in the production of happiness. It would be but a poor apology for happiness that either factor alone could give, if it could not produce nor be accompanied by the other; but, on the whole, much liberty and little wealth would be preferable to much wealth and little liberty. The complaint of Archistic Socialists that the Anarchists are bourgeois is true to this extent and no further – that, great as is their detestation for a bourgeois society, they prefer its partial liberty to the complete slavery of State Socialism. For one, I certainly can look with more pleasure – no, les pain – upon the present seething, surging struggle, in which some are up and some are down, some falling and some rising, some rich and many poor, but none completely fettered or altogether hopeless of as better future, than I could upon Mr. Thaddeus Wakeman’s ideal, uniform, and miserable community of teamy, placid, and slavish oxen. [Online editor’s note: Thaddeus Burr Wakeman (1834-1913), leading American Positivist. – RTL]
WIA.8 To repeat, then, I do not believe that many of the Archists can be brought to say in so many words that liberty is not the prime condition of happiness, and in that case they cannot deny that Anarchism, which is but another name for liberty, is conducive to happiness. This being true, I have not begged the question and I have already established my case. Nothing is more needed to justify my Anarchistic creed. Even if some form of Archism could be devised that would create infinite wealth, and distribute it with perfect equity (pardon the absurd hypothesis of a distribution of the infinite), still the fact that in itself it is a denial of the prime condition of happiness, would compel its rejection and the acceptance of its sole alternative, Anarchism.
WIA.9 But, though this is enough, it is not all. It is enough for justification, but not enough for inspiration. The happiness possible in any society that does not improve upon the present in the matter of the distribution of wealth, can hardly be described as beatific. No prospect can be positively alluring that does not promise both requisites of happiness – liberty and wealth. Now, Anarchism does promise both. In fact, it promises the second as the result of the first, and happiness as the result of both.
WIA.10 This brings us into the sphere of economics. Will liberty abundantly produce and equitably distribute wealth? That is the remaining question to consider. And certainly it cannot be adequately treated in a single article in the Twentieth Century. A few generalizations are permissable [sic] at most.
WIA.11 What causes the inequitable distribution of wealth? “Competition,” cry the State Socialists. And if they are right, then, indeed, we are in a bad box, for we shall, in that case, never be able to get wealth without sacrificing liberty, and liberty we must have, whether or no. But, luckily, they are not right. It is not competition, but monopoly, that deprives labor of its product. Wages, inheritance, gifts, and gambling aside, every process by which me acquire wealth, rests upon a monopoly, a prohibition, a denial of liberty. Interest and rent of buildings rest on the banking monopoly, the prohibition of competition in finance, the denial of the liberty to issue currency; ground rent rests on the land monopoly, the denial of the liberty to use vacant land; profits in excess of wages rest upon the tariff and patent monopolies, the prohibition or limitation of competition in the industries and arts. There is but one exception, and that a comparatively trivial one; I refer to economic rent as distinguished from monopolistic rent. This does not rest upon a denial of liberty; it is one of nature’s inequalities. It probably will remain with us always. Complete liberty will very much lessen it; of that I have no doubt. But I do not ever expect it to ever reach the vanishing point to which Mr. M’Cready looks forward so confidently. At the worst, however, it will be a small matter, no more worth consideration in comparison with liberty than the slight disparity that will always exist in consequence of inequalities of skill.
WIA.12 If, then, all these methods of extortion from labor rest upon denials of liberty, plainly the remedy consists in the realization of liberty. Destroy the banking monopoly, establish freedom in finance, and down will go interest on money through the beneficent influence of competition. Capital will be set free, business will flourish, new enterprises will start, labor will be in demand, and gradually the wages of labor will rise to a level with its product. And it is the same with the other monopolies. Abolish the tariffs, issue no patents[,] take down the bars from unoccupied land, and labor will straightway rush in and take possession of its own. Then mankind will live in freedom and in comfort.
WIA.13 That is what I want to see; that is what I love to think of. And because anarchism will give this state of things, I am an Anarchist. To assert that it will is not to prove it; that I know. But neither can it be disproved by mere denial. I am waiting for some one to show me by history, fact, or logic that men have social wants superior to liberty and wealth or that any form of Archism will secure them these wants. Until then the foundations of my political and economic creed will remain as I have outlined them in this brief article.

I love how people think they are so cool because they can be witty. I can be witty too. The difference between me and those people is the fact that I am not afraid to get my hands dirty.

I am truly looking for the answer to a question that needs to be answered. “what can I do to better the state I live in?” This harken back to JFK and his speech “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” I ask this because so many just take from the state or complain and don’t do anything about it.

And it’s the complainer that have me up in arms this morning.

“I’ll tell you how we need to fix blah blah blah”
” really because people with better education, and years of experience, can’t figure it out”
“well they don’t know what I know”
“really, so your who again? The last person that claimed himself god got crucified.”

This is how I finish off these suto intellectuals. Just because you participated in a protest once, doesn’t make you a revolutionary. So what if you were cuffed for a protest. You didn’t do time. Maybe an overnighter, so what? That is your big claim to fame? I did all that too, then I grew up and learned the system I want to change. Then I started making contacts to work those changes. Change is a long process that will take a life time to do. But the work is not blowing up a building, or protesting an event. It’s working with people that see your vision and you all change the system the right and legal way.

Ok I hear a lot about a revelution that needs to happen. That we need to take our country back. Ok how? “well we need to blah blah blah blah. And blah blah blah blah.” “So this is what you are doing and it’s working for you?” “Well no.”
This is typical of people. Talk hard and do nothing. So when do we hold people to a standard?

I try my damnedest to live by what I say. It’s not easy. In fact it’s down right hard. But you can’t say I’m full of shit. I don’t want my word to be shit. That way when the world monitary system collapses, I can still get by with a handshake.

But most people are full of shit. They don’t want to walk the walk because that would mean doing what is right.

I watched Christopher Titus’s Neverlution. And that’s what propted this post. We live in a Neverlution. It will never happen because people don’t believe in what they say.

So in pennsylvania they pass an amendment to the castle doctrine that allows you defend yourself no matter where your at. The thing that seems to get by the people that oppose this act is that it also negates the ability for the criminal to sue you if you shoot them. That is huge.

And for you think it will breed more violence, maybe that’s what we need. If I think you have a gun I will not try to rob you. You could be a better shot or have a bigger gun. In that case I would be fucked.

Second off it might just bring back civility to our world. One guy on a bad day would make you think twice about cutting him off in traffic. Caring about the other guy has been lost in this world. That is a sad state we are in.

Third and my personal favorite, So you are happy just lying on the ground being beaten to death. This law allows you to fight back with deadly force. It does not state that it has to be a gun. And you mean to tell me you can predict what you will do when your life is in danger? True heroes step out when a life or lives are in danger. Let us not forget a plane crash in Somerset pa because some people stood for something right in there lives.

Let’s wake up and smell the maple nut crunch. The world is not a nice place anymore. And even though I would like to think people are good in nature, I am not an idiot.

So many states are talking budget along with the federal government. And surprise, surprise, surprise no one can agree on any of it. But the people of California got one thing right. They voted on a prop 25 that basically says “get it together so we can start paying you again.” They are no longer paying there representatives till they get a budget. The only sad part is it hasn’t sped up the process. I think we should do this in all states. I live in Pennsylvania, and our state floor looks more like English parliament then civilized people. So stop paying them and see how quick they start working.