Stability is manufactured calm.
Saturday, June 6, 2026
Bifurcated Absurdity
Earlier this week, pretty much all of Portugal went on strike because the government was considering bad new labor regulations. The president had already promised to veto if it ever reached his desk, but the unions went on strike anyway just because the whole thing upset them terribly.
The country, which is poor and struggling, lost tons of commerce and tax income, and the people, who are just trying to hang on, were severely stressed. But the president cheered the action, saying it was essential for unions to “strongly express themselves.”
Conservative kooks make me want to start a vegan commune, but Liberal kooks make me want to don (no pun intended) a red hat. It's no wonder things are becoming so bifurcated; everyone is radicalizing in reaction to the "other" side's absurdity, which is actually quite symmetrical.
We don't have a "them" problem, we have an "us" problem seen through two distorted lenses.
The country, which is poor and struggling, lost tons of commerce and tax income, and the people, who are just trying to hang on, were severely stressed. But the president cheered the action, saying it was essential for unions to “strongly express themselves.”
Conservative kooks make me want to start a vegan commune, but Liberal kooks make me want to don (no pun intended) a red hat. It's no wonder things are becoming so bifurcated; everyone is radicalizing in reaction to the "other" side's absurdity, which is actually quite symmetrical.
We don't have a "them" problem, we have an "us" problem seen through two distorted lenses.
Friday, June 5, 2026
Pretending You're Not Enlightened
Every one of us is enlightened, though most of us are remarkably committed to pretending not to be.
Throw it on the pile along with these.
Spirituality is a subtractive process. It's not about attainment, accomplishment or enhancement. Quite the contrary, it's about dropping vast useless weight — posing, contriving, dramatizing, self-centering, and rote striving.
Once you've released your obsession with such exhausting ridiculousness, it feels great, but it's hard to take pride in the relief. Consider this, the very first joke I learned as a child:
Q: Why are you hitting yourself in the head with a hammer?
A: Because it feels so good when I stop!
Throw it on the pile along with these.
Spirituality is a subtractive process. It's not about attainment, accomplishment or enhancement. Quite the contrary, it's about dropping vast useless weight — posing, contriving, dramatizing, self-centering, and rote striving.
Once you've released your obsession with such exhausting ridiculousness, it feels great, but it's hard to take pride in the relief. Consider this, the very first joke I learned as a child:
Q: Why are you hitting yourself in the head with a hammer?
A: Because it feels so good when I stop!
Thursday, June 4, 2026
Zeno's Jazzy Xerox
First: NICE! Like, yeah, that's the feeling! That's the craft! No bullshit, just proper thickly-spread jazz tenor saxophone butter. Nice!
But then, as he kept going, it grew uncanny. I knew everything he was going to do. It was jazz butter, yes, but the pre-portioned Hotel Bar butter we've all experienced umpteen times with not one iota of surprisingness or spontaneity. Like taking the standard postcard shot of Mt. Rushmore, shamelessly gratifying expectations. Not really personal.
I mean, it sounds incredibly personal, though, because the first guy who first played like this was full of personality. But Hamilton's imitating that guy (Prez, or maybe more Ben Webster). Imitating uniqueness and simulating spontaneity.
Yet it feels great to me. Like a breath of fresh air.
Finally, I've figured out my ambivalence.
Hamilton is playing like a xerox copy. And in a world with few if any originals left, and also few Xerox copies, and where the xeroxes-of-xeroxes are leading lights and the xeroxes-of-xeroxes-of-xeroxes are acclaimed, and there is no shortage of xeroxes-of-xeroxes-of-xeroxes-of-xeroxes, a first generation Xerox copy feels like the *real thing*. Sweet authenticity!
Note that the problem is not just imitation, per se. It's framing.
See also my Open Letter to Jazz Musicians
Sunday, May 31, 2026
The Cotton Candy Machine
Paul Krugman recently wrote
that the never-die MAGA kernel appears to be 19%. That's the number still insisting, despite mounds of evidence, that the economy is terrific.
It's an interesting number, because political scientists have long estimated the MAGA base at 31-33%. These are the full-throated supporters — the rally attendees, etc. Many of them believed that Trump would improve the economy, reveal and prosecute Epstein participants, and avoid forever wars, so they are peeling off at a decent clip...revealing the white-hot inner core of 19% who'll stick faithfully forever.
Regarding the 19% kernel, John Gruber of Daring Fireball notes that 13% of Americans believe in Bigfoot as a real, living creature. This is not much less than the 19% MAGA inner core, and while I'm not claiming it's precisely the same cohort, the scales support my view that Trump is best conceived as the cocky, deluded lunatic at the end of the bar:
The lunatics sometimes manage to organize (as is their right in a democracy). As momentum is built, they pull others into the gravity well. An additional 14% was pulled in early in the process to forge the MAGA base enjoying the spectacle and tribal inertia (the term "conservative" was being used as a banner — though nothing about this movement was conservative — and, hey, that's a word for me!). Then, like a wand accumulating cotton candy, another 16% glommed on loosely for the presidential election.
That outer 16% peeled back off early, unhappy with masked, badgeless goons committing summary executions, kamikaze trade wars, and a gaseous administration full of unserious buffoons.
The 14% "mantle" are awakening after a very loud party to discover themselves, to their horror, on Team Pedophile hellbent on forever wars.
And the remaining 19% white-hot core will, decades from now, occasionally whip out their nostalgic MAGA hats long after this demon has been thoroughly reviled and repudiated.
The latter are troubling. But a similarly-sized slice believes any bullshit one can imagine. Even without Murdoch, Bannon, et al, they'd have been riled up by some other nonsense. They've always been here. It's not that yahoos were created; it's that they were organized.
And God bless them. Democracy is not about you aways getting your favorite result. That's the other thing.
It's an interesting number, because political scientists have long estimated the MAGA base at 31-33%. These are the full-throated supporters — the rally attendees, etc. Many of them believed that Trump would improve the economy, reveal and prosecute Epstein participants, and avoid forever wars, so they are peeling off at a decent clip...revealing the white-hot inner core of 19% who'll stick faithfully forever.
I played a jazz gig in Galicia, Spain on Francisco Franco's birthday in 1990. The guy (native to Galicia) had been dead 15 years, and it seemed to be the unanimous consensus that Franco's reign had been a nightmare. Evidence was glaring; while Spanish youth were tall, well-fed, and sophisticated, a great many older people looked like pygmies, stunted by malnutrition, and were nearly as provincial as their great-great-great-grandparents.In 2024, 49% voted for Trump, including many of whom didn't like Trump much, and/or were largely apolitical, but preferred to vote for a madman rather than pull a lever for the dreaded Other Side.
As we drove to the Friday night gig, we passed crowds of elderly, tiny Spaniards in the streets, dressed in their Sunday best in silent celebration of the long-gone tyrant. This was not some subversive column readying to mount a coup. Many had embraced the subsequent changes with varying reluctance. But they couldn't entirely let go of the cult.
Regarding the 19% kernel, John Gruber of Daring Fireball notes that 13% of Americans believe in Bigfoot as a real, living creature. This is not much less than the 19% MAGA inner core, and while I'm not claiming it's precisely the same cohort, the scales support my view that Trump is best conceived as the cocky, deluded lunatic at the end of the bar:
Let me share an image I've been returning to since Trump was first elected. It explains his presidency pretty well. Not perfectly, but quite effectively:Maybe it was 1/5 of the country, and the rest were just hanging on — and, now, peeling off.
You're sitting at a bar. Some stupid gin mill. And Frank, at the end of the bar, is a mouthy know it all shitbrain old dude who dominates conversations, so most people ignore him, which bothers him not one bit. Frank brashly spouts (to whoever will listen, or even to empty space) conspiracy theories, racist poppycock, and bitter criticism of those asshole politicians, knowing with all his heart that he could do a far better job than any of them.
From Frank's perch at the end of the bar, and 6 drinks into his late afternoon tear, that last part seems completely reasonable. Even though he's stupid and feckless and childish and undisciplined and ultimately just two balls and a mouth. Just because he's, y'know, Frank.
Say, through a series of screw-ups and accidents and lucky breaks and Frank's feral refusal to ever quit or acknowledge any limitation of any sort (plus loads of money from his Dad—or at least whatever's leftover that he hasn't squandered—plus a superpower of absolutely zero shamelessness or empathy), Frank gets elected president.
1/3 of the country looks at Frank’s climb, and says “He’s just like me!”, and for them, it’s a glorious shattering of the glass ceiling. They’re in love.
The lunatics sometimes manage to organize (as is their right in a democracy). As momentum is built, they pull others into the gravity well. An additional 14% was pulled in early in the process to forge the MAGA base enjoying the spectacle and tribal inertia (the term "conservative" was being used as a banner — though nothing about this movement was conservative — and, hey, that's a word for me!). Then, like a wand accumulating cotton candy, another 16% glommed on loosely for the presidential election.
That outer 16% peeled back off early, unhappy with masked, badgeless goons committing summary executions, kamikaze trade wars, and a gaseous administration full of unserious buffoons.
The 14% "mantle" are awakening after a very loud party to discover themselves, to their horror, on Team Pedophile hellbent on forever wars.
And the remaining 19% white-hot core will, decades from now, occasionally whip out their nostalgic MAGA hats long after this demon has been thoroughly reviled and repudiated.
The latter are troubling. But a similarly-sized slice believes any bullshit one can imagine. Even without Murdoch, Bannon, et al, they'd have been riled up by some other nonsense. They've always been here. It's not that yahoos were created; it's that they were organized.
And God bless them. Democracy is not about you aways getting your favorite result. That's the other thing.
Friday, May 29, 2026
Abraham Lincoln in Portugal
I was recently asked why I don't hang around with American expats in Portugal. And for once I came up with an apt reply:
Something clicks and hordes are transformed into Disney princesses seeking — with dilated pupils — their FORRRRREVER HOMES, and they require constant affirmation. You did it, Thelma! (more on this here).
In my teens I played music to entertain the residents of an insane asylum. And while there were a few I got to know a bit, I discovered that friendship is impossible with a person who thinks he's Abraham Lincoln. Not because I find it deviantly distasteful, but because it's insufficient to merely tolerate their view. To be friends, you need to agree. To buy in.
And I have way too much Bill Murray/Bugs Bunny DNA. On a good day, I can politely suppress my wince, my gurgle, my aggravated sigh. But only as a one-time thing, not as an ongoing service.
"I can't be friends with people who talk about their 'Forever Home'."This is a standard conceit among Americans in Portugal. Like children in the Pashtun border zones radicalized by jihadi madrases, they've had their brains warped by cursed, infernal YouTube videos — in this case, videos produced by comely middle-aged couples brimming with wellness, inviting everyone to come live your best life in Portugal!.
Something clicks and hordes are transformed into Disney princesses seeking — with dilated pupils — their FORRRRREVER HOMES, and they require constant affirmation. You did it, Thelma! (more on this here).
In my teens I played music to entertain the residents of an insane asylum. And while there were a few I got to know a bit, I discovered that friendship is impossible with a person who thinks he's Abraham Lincoln. Not because I find it deviantly distasteful, but because it's insufficient to merely tolerate their view. To be friends, you need to agree. To buy in.
And I have way too much Bill Murray/Bugs Bunny DNA. On a good day, I can politely suppress my wince, my gurgle, my aggravated sigh. But only as a one-time thing, not as an ongoing service.
Tuesday, May 26, 2026
Scramjets and Gratitude
Japan's New Hypersonic Engine Could Make 2-Hour Flights To The US A Reality )
But I lived through rise of the Internet — which everyone, at the time, thought sucked because there was spam, and dial-up was slow — which I still deeply value, though the rest of the world never made their apology as loud as their disrespect.
...and the revolution of digital media — which everyone, at the time, thought sucked because paper and vinyl were beloved and synth tracks circa 1985 were super-cheezy — which I still deeply value, though the rest of the world never really acknowledged the vast perqs.
...and the arrival of artificial intelligence — which I deeply value, though everyone thinks it sucks because idiots use it poorly and post their slop everywhere.
So I do feel a pang for scramjets. But it's ok. I got an awful lot.
A team of engineers from Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and several Japanese universities has completed a successful ground combustion trial of a ramjet engine designed for a Mach-5 hypersonic aircraft. The test simulated a flight at five times the speed of sound. It was focused on validating the aircraft's heat-shielding, control surfaces, and engine performance under extreme conditions. The project's goal is commercial hypersonic passenger service by the 2040s.It won't come online until the 2040's, so I will, alas, miss this. And it's been a life-long preoccupation.
But I lived through rise of the Internet — which everyone, at the time, thought sucked because there was spam, and dial-up was slow — which I still deeply value, though the rest of the world never made their apology as loud as their disrespect.
...and the revolution of digital media — which everyone, at the time, thought sucked because paper and vinyl were beloved and synth tracks circa 1985 were super-cheezy — which I still deeply value, though the rest of the world never really acknowledged the vast perqs.
...and the arrival of artificial intelligence — which I deeply value, though everyone thinks it sucks because idiots use it poorly and post their slop everywhere.
So I do feel a pang for scramjets. But it's ok. I got an awful lot.
Saturday, May 23, 2026
Ken Peplowski
Ken Peplowski, widely considered the best jazz clarinetist of his generation, passed away this year, far too young.
I didn't know him as a clarinetist. He was originally a great tenor saxophonist, and gravitated to clarinet later because that's where the gigs were. Musicians don't really make career decisions. They don't have the control or power to choose a course. Their careers are decided for them, however they might deny it.
I knew Ken from Mr. Hick's Place, the tough organ blues joint in Roosevelt, Long Island where Eddie Murphy, who grew up around the corner, had done his first standup (there was an autographed glossy in the manager's office, signed "To Mr. Hick's Place, where I lost my comedy virginity, love, Eddie"), and where I had that unfortunate incident with drum legend Roy Haynes.
Ken was a wonderful jazz and blues sax player, but he started getting more work playing swing, and then more work on clarinet. Soon he locked in there, and hardly anyone knew how much more he could do. When Ken and I occasionally crossed paths in subsequent years and I told him about the bebop, free jazz, klezmer, salsa, and other wide-ranging styles I was playing, he'd seem a little wistful. He could have excelled in any of those scenes. He had similarly free-wheeling DNA, but success can lock you firmly into a narrow space. Me, I had the great good fortune to be starving to death, and playing anything I wanted.
Another player our age back in the day at Mr. Hick's Place was modern jazz saxophonist Ellery Eskelin, also wailing the blues at the time. We never shared a stage; Ellery and Ken played weekly like me, but we each had our own night. Ellery was also versatile, and might have wound up a swing guy like Ken, or a miscellany guy like me, but we all took such extremely different tacks that today it's almost impossible to believe we all converged so early on doing that.
Come to think of it, it's probably weirder still that I became a food critic and Internet entrepreneur. We didn't diverge, we careened.
Fast forward a decade from the Mr. Hicks years, and I'm playing with the Lionel Hampton big band. One night the great Benny Golson is substituting for Hamp. Golson is a sophisticate, a glass of fine cognac, very harmonically advanced but he played with a velvety ease that made it easy to forget how modern he actually was. The band, which had been Clockwork Oranged by Hamp and his manager to play with an intensity that could best be described as desperate/frantic, goaded Golson into uncharacteristic bluesiness that turned rambunctious and, finally, screamingly rambunctious. I almost couldn't believe my eyes and ears. Imagine Tony Bennett yelping like Sid Vicious. Of course, Benny sounded great.
While I was waiting on the bus to be driven back to town, Benny boarded and settled into the seat across from mine. “Will a recording of this evening’s performance be issued in Japan as 'Benny Golson, Hootin’ and Hollerin’?” I asked with a grin.
Benny cackled smoothly, his cool very much regained. After staring dreamily into the distance for a moment, he focused his eyes and turned his head back toward mine.
I didn't know him as a clarinetist. He was originally a great tenor saxophonist, and gravitated to clarinet later because that's where the gigs were. Musicians don't really make career decisions. They don't have the control or power to choose a course. Their careers are decided for them, however they might deny it.
I knew Ken from Mr. Hick's Place, the tough organ blues joint in Roosevelt, Long Island where Eddie Murphy, who grew up around the corner, had done his first standup (there was an autographed glossy in the manager's office, signed "To Mr. Hick's Place, where I lost my comedy virginity, love, Eddie"), and where I had that unfortunate incident with drum legend Roy Haynes.
Ken was a wonderful jazz and blues sax player, but he started getting more work playing swing, and then more work on clarinet. Soon he locked in there, and hardly anyone knew how much more he could do. When Ken and I occasionally crossed paths in subsequent years and I told him about the bebop, free jazz, klezmer, salsa, and other wide-ranging styles I was playing, he'd seem a little wistful. He could have excelled in any of those scenes. He had similarly free-wheeling DNA, but success can lock you firmly into a narrow space. Me, I had the great good fortune to be starving to death, and playing anything I wanted.
Another player our age back in the day at Mr. Hick's Place was modern jazz saxophonist Ellery Eskelin, also wailing the blues at the time. We never shared a stage; Ellery and Ken played weekly like me, but we each had our own night. Ellery was also versatile, and might have wound up a swing guy like Ken, or a miscellany guy like me, but we all took such extremely different tacks that today it's almost impossible to believe we all converged so early on doing that.
Come to think of it, it's probably weirder still that I became a food critic and Internet entrepreneur. We didn't diverge, we careened.
Fast forward a decade from the Mr. Hicks years, and I'm playing with the Lionel Hampton big band. One night the great Benny Golson is substituting for Hamp. Golson is a sophisticate, a glass of fine cognac, very harmonically advanced but he played with a velvety ease that made it easy to forget how modern he actually was. The band, which had been Clockwork Oranged by Hamp and his manager to play with an intensity that could best be described as desperate/frantic, goaded Golson into uncharacteristic bluesiness that turned rambunctious and, finally, screamingly rambunctious. I almost couldn't believe my eyes and ears. Imagine Tony Bennett yelping like Sid Vicious. Of course, Benny sounded great.
While I was waiting on the bus to be driven back to town, Benny boarded and settled into the seat across from mine. “Will a recording of this evening’s performance be issued in Japan as 'Benny Golson, Hootin’ and Hollerin’?” I asked with a grin.
Benny cackled smoothly, his cool very much regained. After staring dreamily into the distance for a moment, he focused his eyes and turned his head back toward mine.
"You know, we all got our start doing that. Playing that music. Walking the bar. Any musician from my time who claims he didn't is a liar.""Same," I replied, amiably.
How Posing Tourists Wreck Everything From Scones to Government
A reader unwilling to click the "further reading" link below my previous posting, "The Posing Tourist, Revealed", graciously and politely requested that I flesh out my point more fully. Here you go.
What I’m criticizing here is not people adhering to tradition, convention, discipline, or even rote repetition. A great baker may bake familiar bread. A great singer may sing within a familiar form. A great speaker may use ancient rhetorical tools. None of that is the problem I'm describing.
The problem is framing.
We've all been to bakeries offering perfectly competent pastries assembled from all the standard shortcuts. Their goal is to seem like a bakery; signal as a bakery; do bakery things. Not one bite delights, because it's 100% presentational. "Look at my bakery! I'm the guy running a bakery!" not "Taste my scone into which I've poured my heart and soul."
There are fewer devastating heartfelt scones today than previously, and more role-filling bakeries, not because people are greedy, expedient, or talentless, but because they're scarcely thinking of baking. They just want to run bakeries.
The issue is framing.
Music can affect and inspire when musicians show up to PLAY, rather than act like musicians doing musician things. Sing a legitimately soulful note without trying to hammily seem like The Soulful Singer.
This is not a plea for originality. Artists who frantically reject discipline and tradition to come off as innovators are the worst tourists of all. “Look! Now it’s me breaking the rules!” is still posing in a plywood cutout. Originality is just another image.
Sing, play, paint, or write something because you actually have something to say, and do so with heartfelt talent and care, and it will seem original — or, at least, personal — in a deep way even if you're working firmly within tradition.
This is also not an objection to inhabiting social roles in everyday life. Human beings naturally adopt recognizable styles and identities. That’s fine. The problem begins when this mentality invades matters of substance: leadership, thought, communication, art. The role-playing has leaked into those areas until there's blessed little reality left. We have leaders who speak entirely in the prefab language of leadership; weak, unserious men snarling about strength and seriousness.
People doing substantial or creative work should aspire to more than merely occupying an image of a person who does the thing. But people lacking any such aspiration have flooded into the spotlight purely to seem like thing-doers. The result is a world drowning in their canned fodder.
Yet reality still leaks through. Sometimes the bakery is awesome. Sometimes the singer truly moves you. Sometimes someone says something in a way that cuts through all the prefab cadence and reaches you directly. If this became a broader norm (even just an enduring 5% slice of the pie), we'd live in a fabulous world.
People do know the difference. Yet society is headed the other way.
My previous posting explained how this happens. How it goes off the rails. I don't see anyone else out there who's spotted what's happening, and why. And it's slippery to try to explain because 1. it's subtle, and 2. a world of poseurs is ill-equipped to discuss reality (it's like explaining the atmosphere to a fish).
What I’m criticizing here is not people adhering to tradition, convention, discipline, or even rote repetition. A great baker may bake familiar bread. A great singer may sing within a familiar form. A great speaker may use ancient rhetorical tools. None of that is the problem I'm describing.
The problem is framing.
We've all been to bakeries offering perfectly competent pastries assembled from all the standard shortcuts. Their goal is to seem like a bakery; signal as a bakery; do bakery things. Not one bite delights, because it's 100% presentational. "Look at my bakery! I'm the guy running a bakery!" not "Taste my scone into which I've poured my heart and soul."
There are fewer devastating heartfelt scones today than previously, and more role-filling bakeries, not because people are greedy, expedient, or talentless, but because they're scarcely thinking of baking. They just want to run bakeries.
The issue is framing.
Music can affect and inspire when musicians show up to PLAY, rather than act like musicians doing musician things. Sing a legitimately soulful note without trying to hammily seem like The Soulful Singer.
This is not a plea for originality. Artists who frantically reject discipline and tradition to come off as innovators are the worst tourists of all. “Look! Now it’s me breaking the rules!” is still posing in a plywood cutout. Originality is just another image.
Sing, play, paint, or write something because you actually have something to say, and do so with heartfelt talent and care, and it will seem original — or, at least, personal — in a deep way even if you're working firmly within tradition.
This is also not an objection to inhabiting social roles in everyday life. Human beings naturally adopt recognizable styles and identities. That’s fine. The problem begins when this mentality invades matters of substance: leadership, thought, communication, art. The role-playing has leaked into those areas until there's blessed little reality left. We have leaders who speak entirely in the prefab language of leadership; weak, unserious men snarling about strength and seriousness.
People doing substantial or creative work should aspire to more than merely occupying an image of a person who does the thing. But people lacking any such aspiration have flooded into the spotlight purely to seem like thing-doers. The result is a world drowning in their canned fodder.
Yet reality still leaks through. Sometimes the bakery is awesome. Sometimes the singer truly moves you. Sometimes someone says something in a way that cuts through all the prefab cadence and reaches you directly. If this became a broader norm (even just an enduring 5% slice of the pie), we'd live in a fabulous world.
People do know the difference. Yet society is headed the other way.
My previous posting explained how this happens. How it goes off the rails. I don't see anyone else out there who's spotted what's happening, and why. And it's slippery to try to explain because 1. it's subtle, and 2. a world of poseurs is ill-equipped to discuss reality (it's like explaining the atmosphere to a fish).
Friday, May 22, 2026
The Posing Tourist, Revealed
Virtually every so-called creative artist in the world at this juncture does the equivalent of thrusting their eager grinning face into a cut-out hole in a plywood tourist tableau and saying "Look! It's me! I'm doing the thing!"
Whenever you hear the nth singer sing that bluesy note singers always sing to signal bluesiness, it's precisely that same impulse. "Look! Now it's me doing it! I'm the soulful bluesy singer!"
It's most flagrant with political speeches. Every politician gives the same speech. The words scarcely matter, because the politician has nothing particularly important to say. He's there just to be That Guy with the haircut at the podium giving The Speech. "Now it's me! I'm giving the speech!" At rare moments where the words actually matter, they can't rise to the occasion because shallow preening is all they've got. The posing tourist, revealed.
I've often noted that most singers become singers because they want to be singers, not because they want to sing.
But this is not really about singers.
Also, I'm getting ready to nix "most".
Further reading: "The Crux of Creativity"
Followup posting: "How Posing Tourists Wreck Everything From Scones to Government"
Whenever you hear the nth singer sing that bluesy note singers always sing to signal bluesiness, it's precisely that same impulse. "Look! Now it's me doing it! I'm the soulful bluesy singer!"
It's most flagrant with political speeches. Every politician gives the same speech. The words scarcely matter, because the politician has nothing particularly important to say. He's there just to be That Guy with the haircut at the podium giving The Speech. "Now it's me! I'm giving the speech!" At rare moments where the words actually matter, they can't rise to the occasion because shallow preening is all they've got. The posing tourist, revealed.
I've often noted that most singers become singers because they want to be singers, not because they want to sing.
But this is not really about singers.
Also, I'm getting ready to nix "most".
Further reading: "The Crux of Creativity"
Followup posting: "How Posing Tourists Wreck Everything From Scones to Government"
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