Author Archives: grnarrow

Robert “Bob” Nesta Marley OM (February 6, 1945 – May 11, 1981) was a Jamaican singer, songwriter, guitarist, and activist. He is the most widely known performer of reggae music. Marley is regarded by many as a prophet of the Rastafari movement.

Raise up your Choice and be Blessed for Mr. Bob Marley

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a guru to the Beatles who introduced the West to transcendental meditation, has died at his home in the Dutch town of Vlodrop, a spokesman said Tuesday. He was thought to be 91 years old. “He died peacefully at about 7 p.m.,” said Bob Roth, a spokesman for the Transcendental Meditation movement that the Maharishi founded. He said his death appeared to be due to “natural causes, his age.” Once dismissed as hippie mysticism, the Hindu practice of mind control that Maharishi taught, called transcendental meditation, gradually gained medical respectability. He began teaching transcendental meditation in 1955 and brought the technique to the United States in 1959. But the movement really took off after the Beatles visited his ashram in India in 1968, although he had a famous falling out with the rock stars when he discovered them using drugs at his Himalayan retreat. With the help of celebrity endorsements, Maharishi — a Hindi-language title for Great Seer — parlayed his interpretations of ancient scripture into a multi-million-dollar global empire.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of the International Meditation Society and “The City of Nations” in Kashmir, is seen in London, England, in this Aug. 24, 1967 file photo.

I am hoping to set up a brief conversation with Gab sometime in the near future…This is seriously bona-fide freestyle.

The city that popularized the fast food drive-thru has a new innovation: 24-hour medical marijuana vending machines. Patients suffering from chronic pain, loss of appetite & other ailments that marijuana is said to alleviate can get their pot with a dose of convenience at the Herbal Nutrition Center, where a large machine will dole out the drug around the clock. “Convenient access, lower prices, safety, anonymity,” inventor & owner Vincent Mehdizadeh said, extolling the benefits of the machine. Here’s a surprise: But federal drug agents say the invention may need unplugging. “Somebody owns (it), it’s on a property and somebody fills it,” said DEA Special Agent Jose Martinez. “Once we find out where it’s at, we’ll look into it and see if they’re violating laws.” At least three dispensaries in the city, including two belonging to Mehdizadeh, have installed vending machines to distribute the drug to people who carry cards authorizing marijuana use. Mehdizadeh said he spent seven months to develop & patent the black, armored box, which he calls the “PVM,” or prescription vending machine. The computerized machine requires fingerprint identification & a prepaid card with a magnetic stripe. Once the card & fingerprint are verified, a bright green envelope with the pot drops down a slot. POT DOWN A SLOT. Mehdizadeh also says any user approved for medical marijuana & registered in a computer database at his dispensaries can pre-purchase the drug & use the machine to pick up. At the Timothy Leary Medical Dispensary in the San Fernando Valley, the vending machine is accessible only during business hours. An employee there said the machine was introduced about five months ago, and provides speedy service. Mehdizadeh said he sought the advice of doctors, and decided to limit the amount of marijuana per user to an ounce per week. Each purchase from the machine yields 1/8th or 2/8th of an ounce. By eliminating a vendor behind the counter, he said, the machine offers users lower drug prices. The 1/8th ounce packet would cost about $40 — $20 lower than the average price at other dispensaries. Kris Hermes, a spokesman for advocacy group Americans for Safe Access, said the machine might benefit those who already know how much & what strain of marijuana they’re looking for. But he said others will want to see & smell the drug before they buy it.

What a great country California is!

A new species of beetle that appears as if wearing a tuxedo has been named in honor of the late rock ‘n’ roll legend Roy Orbison and his widow Barbara.

The painting shows a new species of beetle that appears as if it’s wearing a tuxedo. Scientists named the creature Orectochilus orbisonorum after the late rock ‘n’ roll legend Roy Orbison and his widow Barbara. The beetles have “divided” eyes that can see both above and below the water. Entomologist Quentin Wheeler of Arizona State University announced the discovery and naming of the beetle, now dubbed Orectochilus orbisonorum, during a Roy Orbison Tribute Concert on Jan. 25. The ending of the species name, “orum,” denotes it was named after a couple. If the beetle were just named after Roy it would end in “i,” and for just Barbara, the name would end in “ae. Barbara Orbison, who attended the concert along with Orbison’s sons Wesley and Roy Kelton Orbison Jr., remarked on her appreciation for the new species name. “I have never seen an honor like that,” she said. To mark the occasion, Wheeler presented Barbara with an original work of art titled “Whirligig.” Completed by ASU scientist and artist Charles J. Kazilek, the painting included nine images of a whirligig beetle on cotton watercolor paper. “The style of the print is [Andy] Warhol meets Carl Linnaeus,” Wheeler said, referring to the pop art icon and the father of taxonomy (the method of classifying living things). Less than a quarter-inch long (five millimeters), O. orbisonorum belongs to the Gyrinidae family, a group of beetles that typically live on the surface of the water. Unlike other members of the Indian Gyrinidae, however, this one has a white underbelly due to a clear cuticle through which the white internal tissues are easily visible. Its top surface is shiny black with dull patches covered with dense, tiny hairs. “The contrast between the two areas is visually very stunning,” Wheeler said. In 2005, Wheeler and his colleague Kelly Miller of the University of New Mexico discovered 65 new species of slime-mold beetle in the genus Agathidium. They named one of the beetles after Darth Vader and others for President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

It is not always easy to play everything that I find interesting. Just not enough time in a day…but I wanted to throw out there some of the albums/artists I have been fancying recently, just to give you an EARS up:

Mid Air by Dive Index
Level Live Wires by Odd Nosdam
Delog by Jetsunma
Transymphonic EP by Dream/Clone
Hop in by Reality Serum
AfreeCANOS by Omar Sosa
Folk Music by Deep Blue Organ Trio
Daxaar by Steve Reid Ensemble
Death Comedy Jams by Hate Camels
Made in the Dark by Hot Chip
Long Way From Home by Lovespirals
the DEVIANTS OF REALITY and COSMIC FUNK ALLSTARS
the Callen Sisters-self Titled
Nuclear Lipstick by Crazy Mary
The Prelude EP by the Mighty Underdogs
Live at Lavazone- Can Kickers
all time GREATEST HITS by the Jerky Boys
Welcome to Jamrock by Damien “JR GONG” Marley
Light your Light by Toots & the Maytals
the Scene of the Crime by Bettye LaVette
Interstellar Space revisited by Nels Cline/Gregg Bendian
Hot ‘N’ Heavy by the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble
Dua by Rob Wasserman/Ustad Sultan Khan
Lila by Joel Zoss
Hula Girls SNDTRK by Jake Shimabukuro

On Monday, January 28, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) begins the hearing that will determine mechanical rates for every songwriter and music publisher in America. It will be the most important rate hearing in the history of the music industry because in addition to setting rates for physical products, rates will be set for the first time ever for digital products such as digital downloads, subscription services and ringtones.The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) will be representing the interests of songwriters and music publishers and will be fighting vigorously to protect those interests to ensure that musical compositions are compensated fairly.On the other side of this fight stands the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Digital Music Association (DiMA). Both the RIAA and DiMA have proposed significant reductions in mechanical royalty rates that would be disastrous for songwriters and music publishers. This is literally a fight for the survival of our industry. To give you an example of what is at stake, the current rate for physical phonorecords is 9.1 cents. The NMPA is proposing an increase to 12.5 cents per song. The RIAA, however, has proposed slashing the rate to approximately 6 cents a song – a cut of more than one-third the current rate!For permanent digital downloads, NMPA is proposing a rate of 15 cents per track because the costs involved are much less than for physical products. The RIAA has proposed the outrageous rate of approximately 5 – 5.5 cents per track, and DiMA is proposing even less. If you find that troubling, it gets worse. For interactive streaming services, which some analysts believe will be the future of the music industry, NMPA is proposing a rate of the greater of 12.5% of revenue, 27.5% of content costs, or a micro-penny calculation based on usage. The RIAA actually proposed that songwriters and music publishers should get the equivalent of .58% of revenue. This isn’t a typo – less than 1%. And DiMA is taking the shocking and offensive position that songwriters’ and music publishers’ mechanical rights should be zero, because DiMA does not believe we have any such rights! The initial hearing will last four weeks, with the three permanent Copyright Royalty Judges hearing arguments Mondays through Thursdays from 9:30 am – 4:30 pm each day. At the conclusion of the initial hearing, there will be more discovery, followed by a rebuttal hearing in May, and a final decision expected on October 2. The NMPA will be spending millions dollars in this proceeding to protect the interests of songwriters and music publishers against the much larger record labels and digital media companies. And although we face such an enormous fight, we have an incredible advantage – we represent songwriters, without whom the record labels and digital music services could not exist.Please forward this to anyone who is involved in the songwriting and music publishing industry. We will be sending out regular updates as the CRB progresses to keep you informed. Through your networks, we hope to reach the vast majority of the industry. If you did not receive this directly, and would like to be added to the master NMPA communications list, please send your contact information to Jamie Marotta at jmarotta@nmpa.org.

As always, we appreciate your support of the NMPA which allows us to wage this fight on your behalf.

David M. Israelite
President & CEO
National Music Publishers’ Association

PAY ATTENTION!!!
-G