Thanks to El Supremo for the proto-mugshots.

I've been enrolled at The University of YouTube for a couple of years - hooked on Egyptian-Greco-Roman and "modern" historical gossip. YouTube has been the answer to the main grievance against my previous 30 years of being tied down to satellite packages (hundreds of UNwatched channels) - CARTE BLANCHE, free from networks. Freedom to SKIP PAST anything unwanted and complete availability of WANTED things.

Not only at YouTube, but here at DU and with cable/internet commentators, fantastic to be able to SKIP PAST things and persons that are unsuitable for whatever reasons - unreliability, quarrelsomeness, pandering, lack of originality, saying what we all know, lack of liveliness/humor, whatever - and readily find things that are the opposite, not having to squabble.

Sometimes, there is CLICK BAIT, occasionally the radar failing by an enticing title, and the fellow below has been a prime example - daily posting scandalous titles, everything in the anti-Drumpf and anti-MAGA category (fine), but after the first few times sitting/waiting to the end of the 15 minutes with *NOTHING* of the enticing Subject showing up, his videos fell to the wayside. Even so, a technique for trying to find the Subject in his videos was to fast forward past his PADDINGs of clips from cable yak shows, only still not finding the scandalous Subject.

Some of his paraphrased enticing Titles: (Drumpf) Suffers a Major Seizure. Jared KUSHNER in Major Legal Trouble. Kevin McCARTHY *Arrested* Last Night.

The one about Drumpf's "seizure" turned out to be mainly about his usual verbal bluster (yes, including threatening "retribution" ) - but was that a SEIZURE? And McCARTHY's "arrest" turned out to be not taking legal actions against SANTOS thereby potentially exposing himself to Legal consequences.

And when I tried to find background on this fellow, even two YouTubes titled "Christo Aivalis EXPOSED" turned out to be wildly *favorable* and sycophantic, all about his fantastic PhD and Left credentials, married and with a cat, Canadian, and worth high millions.

Even if the clickbaiting is just exaggerated, figurative language for the purpose of calling attention to the inner "real" content, it ends up being a turnoff.

********QUOTE*******

https://www.youtube.com/@ChristoAivalisNews/featured

Description
Commentator, writer, and PhD in History Christo Aivalis discussing all matters that interest him in regards to left politics, history, and culture. There will be a focus on Canadian content, but not to an extent that ignores events happening around the globe, especially in places like the United States and United Kingdom

*******UNQUOTE********

But who cares.

Was it/whatever, "love"? (As "prince" Charles said, "Whatever 'love' is" )

Whome my tawking to?

M i too old to find "love" (whatever "love" is)?

When all that "shared" thing is done,

we're supposed to find ourselves who we really are.

By ourselves.

I don't like it.

PREFACE: Did you ever have a childhood relative or friend that was so special and gone adulthood, but sticking?!


Cousin, from infancy –
Yeah, we were close
Not in that way,
In some other intimate way

And we went through the
Generational and the times,
Our elders judging what was
Just the crap we didn’t know either.

So, ugly and separate life things happened
Living our lives, everybody,
And I judged you rightly so,
While hating mine, not so bad as yours.

Yet here and there we kept in touch
Until you accused and called me liar
Which you didn’t know the severity of,
And I’ll never forgive.

But it was too much your wingnut ways,
And when you anti-vaxxed to a hospital
And refused treatment, I broke down
And called and said: I love you, do it.

And I said, I/your sister/our cousins love you,
And you said, “Yeah, and all of you
Are driving me crazy.”
Fine. So you recovered your wingnut way.

So you recovered and our childhood is over.

And whenever somebody asks me what genre or performer I like they assume that everybody is *immersed* in the whole catalog of the genre or artist. I don't analyze influences - intellectualize - am a generalist, on the surface, superficial as some will say. I don't seek out, I let the various levels of filters and happenstance block things out and when (in the case of music) something seeps through all the layers and filters and finds its way to my level - and I *like* it - all good.

So I like one song (in this case) by TayTay, but know nothing about her other stuff, and am not boxed into whatever her genre is (she dips into Country, too, no?). Probably I like 3 or 4 Willie NELSON songs, but am not "Country." Etc. Although I'm stronger in what I *don't* like - detest Jazz and most Alternative stuff.

I don't expect anybody to know, but I repeatedly say that *MELODY* is absolutely PRIMARY, that lyrics are way next to nothing for me. Music is IT. After a piece has grabbed me with the melody and have heard it hundreds of times I might make the effort to see what the lyrics say, but for many of the songs I like I have ZERO idea what the lyrics are or are about.

As Lenny BERSTEIN demonstrated in one of the Young People's Concerts, you can take any lyrics off a song and substitute lyrics saying the opposite or just plain nonsense words or grunts. The Ave Maria can be divested of its religious lyrics and be inserted with obscenities and the MUSIC/MELODY is what counts. One time here I admired "Chandelier" by Sia, which had pierced through my filters via a (Dior?) commercial, and I was told here that what made the song fantastic was that it was about drugs and suicide. Nope, not for me. I had ZERO idea what the lyrics said and ZERO idea about Sia beyond that she inexplicably draped her face with hair (wig?). It was the MELODY/MUSIC that grabbed me. Same said about "Imagine". While I appreciate the sentiments of the lyrics, THOSE (like the Ave Maria) can be ditched and have whatever substituted.

That said, after a song has gotten past my jumping-through-hoops and I've allowed the lyrics to be checked out, I'm willing to play along and let the piece be mine in its totality. Obviously, whenever there's a great melody, the makers of it would usually want lyrics that would do it justice.

This is one of the few times I quote a Republican, when EISENHOWER was asked what music he liked, he said TCHAIKOVSKY, "because it's *TUNEFUL." And Lenny said that (in Lenny's vast expertise), Pyotr is unmatched in his melodic genius.

What I like has to be "tuneful" of the showstopper stripe. I can appreciate a soulful, stripped down performance like TayTay at this piano, would not seek out a whole big production in a video. I'm bracing for the Oscars because, in this vein, I've looked at brief descriptions of the nominees and all I see are explosions and extraterrestrials and "superheroes." Nope, nup, nada. Would way prefer a couple of characters interacting, like TayTay at the piano.

*** ON EDIT: A *perfect* example of my primacy of melody/music over lyrics, the glorious Queen of the Night aria, besides that it's in a language I am ignorant of making the meaning of the words that much more incomprehensible:: When I looked up the lyrics, I was floored at the BIZARRE NUTCASE content. Yet, it's a glorious piece, both in composition and in performance, and perhaps the incomprehensible (to me) words make it that much more so.

So on Liberty in Japan - like, 50 years ago - was instantly attracted to the souvenir of this figurine of an old man reading a book with a load on his back, snapped it up, and at home my mother said it fit me perfectly - aspiration (the book) with a load on the back. So years later a cousin told me she was attracted to Japan and wanted to learn Japanese, and I gave it to her. Regretted it ever since and sporadically looked for it on eBay and Etsy, no luck for 50 years.

The other is a voodoo priestess from my second ship and a stop in Haiti. We went to a brandy factory, free samples, and to a demonstration of 7 young males and 7 young females, all dressed in white with red sashes, procession single file leading a goat on a leash, at the end of which they mimed sacrificing the goat. It was explained that whatever negative vibes had been transferred to the goat and expunged by the slaughter.

*** This week *FOUND* the man/book!