There have been a lot of inspirational words spoken by our relatively still new commander and chief over the past couple of years since he began his campaign, words that have affected almost all of us in one way or another, despite what you think of the job he is doing or agree with his governing philosophy. For me, however, a little slice from this one quote from his inaugural address “and nonbelievers” is the single thing that has most significance for me. I am an atheist, and quite proud of it. I have known it pretty much my whole life but could almost refer to myself as a “born again atheist” being that there have been a few times in my life where my faith in lack of “faith” has been re-affirmed, much like an American Evangelical is re-baptized despite the fact that they were already raised as Christians. I have issues with the concept that a child can be considered of a particular faith before they have the maturity to decide for themselves but that is another matter.

By calling myself an atheist, I simply mean that I don’t buy the existence of a god as we primitive humans understand it. It doesn’t mean that I dislike those who do not think as I do. Nor does it mean that I am immovable in my own beliefs, just that the only things I have “faith” in are reason, life experience, and the general tendency toward decency of most people, especially in times of crisis. I saw this first-hand living blocks away from the World Trade Center on 9/11. This tendency of decency towards one another I believe is an instinctual trait that has allowed us to survive throughout the millennia of our existence on this Earth.

The logic of religious theory simply has never added up for me. One of the most confusing aspects of the faith community is their claim that religion is a necessity in teaching us morals. To me there is no more helpful a tool for understanding morals and basic human decency then a good understanding of reason. Most of those I know who are atheist live their lives according to moral codes that are completely consistent and decent, even without the promise of being saved or absolved of our sins through repenting. We have to live with them and learn from the mistakes and successes in our lives using logic to help provide some navigation through a confusing and often difficult world.

Being a self proclaimed atheist can be a lonely experience, not because of a lack one feels by not having a belief in a helping hand of faith or in a higher power like everyone else appears to, but by the isolation one feels by being portrayed as part of the “far left fringe” of belief in modern America, as well as not reaping the benefits of being affiliated with a publicly recognized community of “like-minded” people. We are considered almost non-existent and are almost never mentioned in the vast dialogue on faith in America. So when Obama just threw in those two words (after loads of religious based language which I think he uses primarily as a tool to communicate to this perceived highly religious country) it moved me, and still does nine months later.

The fact is, according a study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public life as well as a recent USA today poll there are more “nonbelievers” in this country then there are Jews, Muslims and Hindus combined, all of which are groups with voices in the public sphere. Self-proclaimed atheists do not encompass all of those in the “nonbelievers” group, but this I believe has a lot to do with the stigma associated with merely stating that one is an atheist as opposed to saying something more vague like “oh well, I’m just not religious”.

I am completely comfortable with my beliefs and don’t feel that they are meant as a threat to any of my friends and family who are “of faith”. My mother happens to be a Unitarian Universalist Minister who preaches every Sunday, and I was brought up in the UU church. For those who aren’t familiar, being a UU is about as close as you can get to being an agnostic while still being able to call yourself Christian, it is basically up to the member to find one’s own relationship with God, and Jesus is not believed to be the literal son of god as is the case in all other Christian based faiths. Still, even after growing up as a part of this community, for which I have respect, I found it was not for me.

For all this talk about how religious our nation is supposed to be, consider the facts:
- The Pew study found that “people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith today (16.1%) is more then double the number who say they were not affiliated with any particular religion as children. That means that approximately 8% of Americans drop their childhood religious affiliations when coming of age.
- Among Americans ages 18-29, 25% say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion…That contrasts with those age 70 and older who say they are not affiliated with any particular religion (8%). This means as this time passes the faith-less are sure to become and even larger portion of the public.

This is leaving out the untold story of the scores of people who go to church every week but don’t really “believe” what is being preached to them 100%, as faith in nearly all religions is required to be considered “moral” or “truly religious”. Most of these people find comfort in the community, and enjoy re-connecting with their peers weekly and value having time set aside to reflect on things of “higher meaning”. However, if you ask many of these people privately and press them on the certainty of everything that was said in their respective religious ceremony, you will find that a vast amount of them aren’t as “faithful” as they might let on at first.

My point in saying all of this is that atheists are far from alone in this country, and do not occupy some “far-left fringe” space in this culture. It is hypocritical and self-incriminating of the general populace to not recognize this sizable group that makes up a significant portion of the population and to not confer to it the same sort of legitimacy and respect Christians, for example, have the luxury of “deserving”. I blame atheists as much as anyone else for allowing this status-quo to go unchallenged and to continue this denial of public recognition. If we apologize for our beliefs, and willingly hide who we are, we are surrendering rights everyone else in this country is given, all the while giving more power and influence to those who do not employ reason in approaching understanding existence, especially the intolerant religious fanatics who can only accept things the way they are being preached to to see them. If atheists do not have a voice, there will be no one out there saying what the premise of atheism is. It doesn’t simply mean “I don’t believe in god”, it means I am pretty solidly grounded in my belief that no one can claim to know with absolute certainty anything about the nature of existence.

Interesting references:

A USA Today interactive graph of the religious demographics broken down state by state

A link to the Pew Study

It has been a little over a year now since I picked everything up and moved my family 3000 miles away from our familiar east coast roots to chase after the California dream that so many before us have sought after. When we arrived, we had really no idea where we were, just that it would be warm all the time, some of our extended family would be a little bit closer, and that our vague idea of the California “vibe” was the antidote we needed to alleviate some of the stresses and problems that had come with our new life as a family. Since then so much has been a blur of hard work, parenting, and for me a little break from the artistic bug that had always been pushing at my soul to create…something.

Before I knew it last spring, life was blowing up around me and nothing of which I had recently become accustomed to was as concrete as I had been blindly assuming. Major life upheaval soon ensued and what followed was some of the most eye opening and life changing self reflections I had had since early adulthood/adolescence (the line between these 2 seem to be blurred for most people I know these days). The result, although scary has been amazing. I had found myself paralyzed by the weight of my “responsibilities” and no longer had the ability to see these for what they were, and how much of myself had been sacrificed out of the fear of doing everything that needed to be done. This wasn’t good for anyone around me, especially those most important to me.

Rather rapidly however something clicked and my old self came back to me at the beginning of the summer. I was more present in every way and I had suddenly found my artistic drive again as though it had been lost under the couch and I found it one day while cleaning. As a lot of you have seen I have been pouring most of my creative energy into solo music and making mini music films. The one thing missing in the transformation however was our place or residence. We had been living in Huntington Beach, basically the first town south of Los Angeles, since our arrival and although parts of it are great, it was clear from the beginning that this was not the town for us. So the decision was made, we needed to move…again.

Since 1998 I have now lived in 10 different apartments. You’d think that after moving that many times it would get easier every time and in certain ways it has. Samantha and I have gotten the packing, apartment hunt, utility transfers, and moving arrangements down to a science at this point. This move was different for me then any of the others though. I feel like it was the final step in ending a difficult emotional chapter of my life, finally starting completely fresh. That being said there was a weird sadness to closing the door on the old place for the last time. The feeling of moving all of our stuff to a new location one day, then coming back to the skeleton of where I used to spend so many of my hours the next to clean it out is a profoundly disturbing experience for some reason. I guess even tough times are difficult to let go of, that is why so many of us get caught in our ruts and never get out of them.

I am completely and utterly exhausted at this point and don’t know what to think. The new place is filled with boxes and I have no idea where I can find any matching pairs of socks. My new studio however is set up (as you can see in the picture) and when I wake up from this haze a lot of new stuff is ready to pour out of me. I can’t wait to show it to all of you.

Thank you to everyone who has remained close to me for all your support. I am eternally grateful.

When I graduated from the New School, I was 24, and suddenly for the first time without any sort of coverage. At the time I was young and had so many other concerns (getting gigs, paying my brand new cell phone bill (that phone was a tank by today’s standards), and dealing with an intolerable roommate. As time went on however, the gravity of this situation kept growing on me as I always knew in the back of my mind I was one bad fall, sickness, or car accident away from financial disaster. In those days I was constantly in the car driving back from gigs 4 hours away in the middle of the night half asleep because we couldn’t afford to get a hotel room for the night and still make money from the gig. With that being the situation, how could I possibly come up with $500 a month for basic coverage I hardly ever would even use?

Now I have a family and walking that tightrope is a risk I can’t take anymore and I am fortunate enough to have healthcare through my “day job” (that thing that provides me with so much joy and fulfillment and keeps me from my music, family, and most other things I love while providing me with a modest compensation for my efforts.) I do keep hearing that the basic cost to the company for employee based health coverage for a family of 4 like mine is around $12,000 a year, therefore it can be seen that my actual salary is my base plus this amount as this is what I get out of my 8-5 drudgery. The fact is this reliance on my day job is most solely based on the need for health coverage, despite the fact that any salary is important. With that being the case how can I create anything meaningful to my fullest potential? Here is the conundrum: work a day job to get adequate healthcare and sacrifice almost all musical freedom and flexibility (while giving a little piece of my soul away every day) or fly by the seat of my pants and hope nothing even minor happens to me, my wife, or my 2 kids…EVER.

For those of you not in the arts, and who have had the privilege of never having to live without the risk of no coverage, please keep this in mind: Everyone in this country trying to add to the cultural landscape by creating art or music is providing a valuable resource to what makes this country great and influential. This issue has a major impact on why all the music we hear through traditional means sucks so much because anyone with any kind of talent is wasting most of their lives away at some day gig which sucks all of their energy. And the reason they have this day gig is not just to provide the measly $10 an hour they are usually making, but also to give them the thing that most of you still take for granted.

Basically, if you have coverage, step back for a minute and think about what a privilege It is to not have that as a constant worry in your life. These anti-healthcare reform people are so insane most of the time. Rep Joe Wilson last night, from the most enlightened state of South Carolina, yelling at the President in the middle of an important speech that he is “lying” about how we are not proposing to give illegal immigrants coverage. What is he even talking about? What does he think we are doing now? Immigrants are the people flooding our emergency rooms everyday and not paying the bill so all the other health care costs go up.

Half of my family is from France and have never had to even think about any of this for their entire lives. My Uncle had a stroke a decade ago and recently passed away and although it was an almost impossible situation for his wife and immediate family, at least they aren’t bankrupt. Here in the great old USA, even with the foreclosure crisis, health related costs are still the highest cause of bankruptcy.

Starving artist are important to the culture and spirit of this country and we do not need this extra pressure!

To be honest it felt like it had been longer then the year that had transpired as I hadn’t felt the fire for quite some time, maybe years. There are many reasons I had come up with to rationalize why I wasn’t playing: The business had gotten me down, I was tired of playing for no money and thus feeling disrespected in my craft in a society that only recognizes success monetarily, I wasn’t feeling inspired by what I was hearing other people do anymore, I had kids, etc. etc. Really I have slowly come to realize that the fire had just gone out of me for a bit and I was just rationalizing my lack of enthusiasm for performing and music in general by all of the external factors and ignoring what was going on inwardly.

Life events, and a few much needed jolts to my system have seemed to re-boot me in the past month however and thus this L Maestro show couldn’t have come at a better time. I was, for the first time in years, totally engaged in the moment and even though the show itself wasn’t the smoothest or tightest performance, and my chops could use a little time in the shed, I feel like it marked an official return to Music.

Years of sedentary introspection have left me with a mind full of ideas of things I need to do/make and it is difficult to know where to even start. Currently I am putting most of my energy in solo music videos which is a totally new medium for me. I have posted a couple of videos on YouTube over the last couple of months mostly performing little solo’s on my digital drums. The new material is much more involved however. I’ve been sampling myself playing odd time breaks, re-cutting and arraigning them using Ableton Live, and making music around them to use as a soundtrack for some abstract videos. I’ve also been trying to hit as many Jazz jam sessions as I can find in the Southern California area as I am a jazz musician after all even if I forgot about that for a while.

It has been a weird few years and I guess sometimes you have to step back to see where to go next. Don’t get me wrong, I am still TOTALLY BITTER at the state of modern music, especially pop music. I know what you are thinking – oh Nigel that just means you are getting older. Everyone has that feeling when the music of their youth becomes “retro”. However I cry foul! The music of this past, yet to even be named decade (2000-2009) has been the worst in recorded music history as far as the songs the world has all experienced together. There will always be great underground talent, and that is certainly the case now as ever, but quality popular music is also important because it introduces the non-musically inclined listener (i.e. most of the listening population) to the possibilities that lie within music. The stuff that has been churned out to the general public for the past ten years has positively been un-inspiring at its best and downright offensive at its worst. It’s no wonder no-one wants to spend money on Music anymore. But more on that rant later.

For now I am BACK. Stay tuned….

The thing about this group is that they are not un-talented. In fact, to be honest the first BEP album is kind of good, like a watered down Tribe called quest record released a few years late. This was before they figured out the modern formula to make money. Just look the part (this is a must now days), and annoy people enough until they think they like you. Take a quick look back at all of the “artists” of the past decade who have made it big and you’ll find that is the thing they all have in common. Think of how annoying these people are: Brittney, Pink, Kanye, Lil’ Jon (or pretty much any rapper with the prename Lil’) Lady Gaga, Timberlake (secret, I kind of like that guy a bit). Even Emenem basically mastered being as annoying as possible. So much so he had to take half of the decade off just to have a break from himself, and I consider him good.

Anyway what came out of this conversation on NPR is that there isn’t a “summer jam” from this summer despite this record breaking achievement from BEP. In fact the last “summer jam” they could come up with was “Umbrella” by Ryanna which was from 2007, 2 years ago! I actually feel you have to go back another year for a true banging “summer jam” with Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”. That, I admit was a good track. In actuality, the “summer jam’s” from this summer have pretty much all been Michael Jackson songs which have been out selling anything else once again. I consider his death, the end of the true vurtuoso music star. But more on that later…