Burning Riff

My first hard rock album was Deep Purple's Made in Europe. I was about 13-14 years old and it was a pirated cassette which was freely (legally?)  distributed in Indonesia. The price was IDR 1000 or about USD 50 cents. I remember I was amazed seeing the drum kit shown on the cover of the album. I was in a band at that time. Our church has a set of musical equipment (including a sax which no one know to play it). I played keyboard. Our drum kit is an ordinary one. Nothing compared to Ian Paice's kit.

I love all the songs in the album but my favorite song was Burn. I thought the riff was fantastic. I did not know this 'riff' term at that time but  to me the sound was fantastic. It was imprinted rather deeply in my head that I was using it as the standard for other hard rock song. I would be disappointed not hearing that sound in any hard rock song. I would not think that a song deserves to be called hard rock without that riff.

At that time I was learning to play guitar. To my delight I was able to mimic that riff rather easily. To be honest I did not expect that. I did not know the term 'power chord' at that time but I observe that the riff was based on two notes of the chords progression. I quickly realized that this two notes appeared very frequently in many hard rock songs. 

Have listened to this album I wanted to hear more Deep Purple's songs. I adored Ritchie Blackmore guitar playing. I thought he was my first guitar god. Soon I discovered that David Coverdale was not Deep Purple only singer. There was another singer called Ian Gillan. Later I found in another cassette Gillan singing the life version of Lazy Gillan scream was great. I think both singers were great in their own ways. I would not think Deep Purple would be who they were if they only had one singer.

In the 80s I met some of my elementary school mates in a church youth gathering. We had a chance to play Deep Purple song called Black Night on stage. The song has great bassline and I really loved it as I played bass at that time. We did not rehearse before the show. But all of us knew the song so well that I remember the gig went OK.

I listened to many bands later on but Deep Purple had built the foundation of my love of hard rock. 

 

The superpower you would not want to have

A podcast suggests that the super power that you would not want to have is the ability to listen what people were thinking. Why so ? Because people might look supportive, all smiling, all encouraging but in their heads that might wishing all the bad things happen to us. 

I would be heart crushing if your friends are not really what you think they are. That all the friendships are all fake. Yes same fake friends could easily be identified, but some might not. Or what if our spouse is thinking something contrary what we would expect ?

Many books covers the art of reading body language, the authorities might use lie detector to check people's confession. But I guess to some extent there are things that buried so deep only we would know. Psychology might even suggest that we might some aspects that we ourselves do not even aware about.

If God were omniscience then I would bet that He would be disappointed or even disgusted to hear our prayers as He would know what we really think deep inside. We might praise Him in front of public etc. but of  course there is no way to hide from Him. Yet we believe that God do love us no matter what we do/think. Such would not sit well with people. If we had such superpower we would certainly react, make judgement, take action etc. Of course our limited sight made us taking wrong action as we would not now the total consequences of our actions. 

Guess such superpower would be better off to be left with God 

  

it is easy to marry the one you love

During the wedding mass of my niece the Priest said that it would be easy to marry the one you love but it ain't easy to love the one you marry. What a clever play of words. Obviously when one marries one's lover the world was filled with honey and roses  and the birds were singing and the sky was blue. Love was in the air. But after a while it takes commitment to love this person day in day out. With time we know that he/she is not perfect, has quirks, limited, etc. So loving this person that we marry is a different thing.

We all knew that after a while the honey moon - all honey moon- would be over. Now the real challenge arrived. Now the vows have to really mean something. Not mere words that we uttered when we were intoxicated by romantic love.

Having been married for more than a quarter of century I know that in time our love and commitment would have to be matured. Life would throw many things to couples and they would have to deal with those and depending on how they deal with those eventually their love and commitment would also be matured and would strengthen their bond as husband and wife. 

So yes, to love the one you married is not easy but working as a team husband and wife would grow together. Their commitment to be a couple would give the strength needed to sail together and deal with what life throw at them. 

death do us part

In this country there is no "mixed" cemetary. Typically people of different religions are not buried in the same place/area.. For sure death people are not buried next to each other. Husband and wife of different religion would not buried next to each other. Hence in that case death do them part. 

I could not understand the logic behind this custom. Of course there would be a good explanation somewhere but still the logic would sound strange to me. Why do we have to separate dead people based on their religion ? They are no longer living so it doesn't really mater for them. 

Looks like the living care so much about this separation. Why so ? One explanation that came to my mind is that cemetary could be seen as place of worship. Or at least place where God exists. In our place of worship God would present and for sure the faithful would be convinced that this God is THE GOD that they believe, worship and pray to. Other God -if exist- is not invited or even would be driven away. 

Following this logic would be understandable that the living would want to have THEIR GOD to be present in their cemetary for the reason that they want to have the dead be accepted by their God to be ushered to their heaven. It would horrified if the dead met the wrong God on the other side and were judged wrongly and went to hell simply by mistaken ruling. One might wonder if such Omniscience God would make such fundamental error judgement simply by forgetting to check the religion of the soul.  

I guess such argument wouldn't be applicable for the cemetary of Atheists.  

Memento Mori

This morning five people died and numerous injured in a deadly traffic accident when a lorry ran over six cars and ten motor cyclers. No one of them woken up knowing that today would their last day on earth. All life has its end and yet no one would not a minute thinking that today might be the day. 

The philosopher Democritus trained himself by going into solitude and frequenting tombs. Indeed visiting cemeteries would  remind me of the inevitability of death. Someday I would not exist in this earth and eventually people who knew me would also perished and hence my existence would ceased completely if not for some obscure record somewhere which no one would even bother to find out.

Strange that such importance escapes our attention almost completely. We live as if  we are immortal. In Catholicism people would mention their dead when reciting Hail Mary prayer  

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

In the spirit of Memento Mori, I try to always recite that part slowly and mindfully. I pray that Mother Mary would remember me always, now and at that hour

Amen

 

  

The shifting 'soul' of a city

Recently I went to the place where my junior high school was. The city looks different. The house that my parents rented is now a Bank. On the street where we lived there are many restaurants, stores, etc (there were none back then). The city has a new big shiny malls. However this new mall sucks out the life out of the stores in downtown area. The downtown is now look like ghost town. Old and rusty. The streets are cleanly sweep daily but it has lost its vigor. As if the city has one soul only. That soul now resides on this new mall at the (then) edge of the city.

Looks like this shifting 'soul' is not unique to this city. In the city that I am living now, the capital of province, the old downtown is also relegated to dusty old place, not even able to shadow its long gone glory. Newer generations or new comers wouldn't be able to guess that this place used to be the main magnet of the city.

Not sure if the 'soul' of the city would remain in this new centrum, only time could tell if a new centrum would emerge. I might not be around to see that, but at least I have seen in my life time the old magnet dimmed to be replaced by a new one. I guess I wouldn't be far off to guess that in the future a new magnet would pop up elsewhere. 

The cliché that change is the only constant is really a cliché, nihil novi sub sole, there is nothing new under the sun. Generation come and go, new centrum rises and abandoned. Only the sun would witness this silently until it too had to go. By that time this place would be very cold drifting aimlessly through space. 

 

The 8th wonder

It is said that Einstein once said “Compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world” It implies that your money would always grow more - ad infinitum. Now this quote does not say anything about the not haves. What would happen to the not haves when the haves getting richer?  Is the size of the pie limited ? 

The pandemic has made the world's wealthiest far richer but has led to more people living in poverty, according to the charity Oxfam. 

The above news implies that the size of the pie is limited. Hence the more some get, the poorer others would become. This reminds me of the social critics of Rhoma Irama, the Indonesian King of Dang Dut in his song 'Indonesia'  

Yang kaya makin kaya (The rich gets richer)

Yang miskin makin miskin (the poor gets poorer)

Rhoma sang that the root of this economical gap is corruption 

Selama korupsi semakin menjadi-jadi (as long as corruption is rampant) 

Jangan diharapkan adanya pemerataan (do not expect for economic equality) 

I guess no one would deny the impact of corruption to the problem of wealth distribution in one country. But is it applicable in global scale? I am no economist but I sensed that the economic system is could have some loopholes and flaw that would eventually support this inequality. 

It is possible that the rich people have found loopholes in the tax regime so that they did not pay enough. etc. In any case I sensed that the pie is limited and the recent pandemic has made the slices for the poor people got smaller and smaller. And once the money was redistributed to the rich  it would what Einstein once said : the 8th wonder of the world