New Moon Edition October 2024
I don’t know about you, but in this raging blizzard of information and the clickbait that attends it, my mind tends to wander. There’s all this stuff yelling at us, proclaiming its importance with a lot of volume if not much matter, but mostly it just seems like noise. A cacophony that blurs the edges and makes my thoughts drift away. Far away.
Do you ever wonder, for instance, where consciousness resides? Our capacity for attention that is so assiduously sought in this Age of the Screaming Ethers must have a home, right? We suppose it’s in our brain, but where does it come from? What is the source of consciousness and how do we get it? No one is certain, but current thinking suggests there may be quantum mechanics in play.
It’s said by some that perception is reality. What we see is what we get. The study of consciousness and the brain suggests not only is that true, but in perceiving it we capture and condense reality into a measurable state from a field of consciousness that exists everywhere simultaneously. Like a cosmic pizzeria, we choose slices that feed our need. (HERE on Apple News but a paywall may constrain your perception).
Being a boy becoming a man was always a challenge, but what boys face today in trying to find their place is particularly so because little attention is given their predicament. Identity awareness is generating consideration for every subset of society, many of which were certainly ignored far too long. Vast amounts of effort are given to recognizing the individuals who comprise them and what their needs may be. Typical cis-gendered boys are cared for not so much these days, if at all.
Boys hear the horrors of Toxic Masculinity described in all its ugliness and not often the alternatives for manifesting their maleness. Testosterone has acquired the stench of a dirty word in conversation. What does it mean to be a man? What is acceptable and what isn’t? Is what is wrong with masculinity intrinsic in its chemistry? How does a boy know what to aim for in the process of becoming an adult? (HERE)
Those of us with male children and grandchildren do our best to offer guidance, but we watch with concern as they try to navigate what often seems to be innate hostility not to who they are but rather what they are: male. We note and fear the attraction that the apostles of hypermasculinity exert in exploiting their frustrations (HERE). Society long has favored the traditional male of the species. Correcting the inequities that favor has harbored is overdue, but inflicting shame on the sons for the sins of the fathers is a poor solution that lessens the prospect for progress. Boys need help. too.
We had a great Zoom interview (HERE) with Sam Kopper last week about his long career in broadcasting, both as an on-air personality and as the producer of live-cast concerts by many of the biggest names in the music business. Sam was in the first wave of deejays when Boston Concert Network went freeform and began a thirty year reign as WBCN-FM, the city’s best rock station. After a few years, though, he moved on to other stations in other climes, rocking all the while.
Sam and I had never met, but we crossed paths in Denver in 1972. The staff at KFML-FM had created a quintessential freeform station. It was very successful and also a great concern to ownership, which was freaked out by the degree of anarchy in play. The owner, Joe McGoey, hired a well-regarded program director named Les Carter and the recently fired staff of KPPC-FM in Pasadena to replace the KFML team.
They did – for a couple of weeks. The public outcry was so intense, McGoey had to rehire the original staff and send the L.A. replacements packing. I was among the former, Sam the latter. He told me he thought it was karma that it turned out that way. They got what they deserved. So did the audience. Playing the same music wasn’t enough to get it done. The people who played it were a big part of the mojo, too.