Brian "Ani" Berge

I'm surprised but not shocked to hear your situation has been making you sick. I can only recommend to cut people that are bad for you out of your life. These people sound like more harm than good to you. I think in your shoes it would be to me a question of the inheritance, but no amount of money is worth health or happiness. When health & happiness are gone, a million dollars can never buy them back. Weigh things out & figure out what you're giving up to receive in each of your options, & which option best honors your own life. Each of us has a duty to our own life first. Have you seen the movie "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon"? It's theme is "Be true to your self". If you're not, you will get to the end & be willing to give everything away wishing that you had been. The falsely virtuous man will give all his rewards away to go back for the chance of true love. The dishonest, trouble-causing girl will throw herself off the mountain for the chance of one wish being granted. Be true to yourself or lose all. If you do this with strength, your worthless enemies will fear you & your enemies with some worth will come around to your side.

An interview I did with Ray Barbee in 1989 & published in my skate 'zine Crumbly Cookie was quoted in the first sentence of an article on his music in the latest issue of O.C. Weekly:

O.C. Weekly article on Ray Barbee's music (by Chris Zeigler)

Crumbly Cookie interview with Ray Barbee (by me)

I've invented the Spring-Tethered Flat-Pick.

I read your blog "happiness". I think the "true love" you mean to say doesn't exist is the one that our culture describes as having a subject, that is "true love" of a particular thing or person. It's not really "true" by nature of its limitation, & the necessity of its limited subject to change. In other words, if you direct love to a thing or person, it must change (hopefully grow) as your experience of that thing changes (hopefully grows). Unconditional love of a person is described as a very high form of love, but true unconditional love would not be dependent on even the condition of subject, i.e. it should be applicable to any & all things/people. You described it as an emotion that you should feel for yourself because in the long run you're the only person that won't "fuck you over". I propose that we can call love more than an emotion, but really extend its definition to be any experience that is without fear. Conversely, I think we could describe being "fucked over" as being any experience that we do fear! Sometimes we do fuck ourselves over! And there are many experiences of things thought to be outside of our "human self" that we should be able to have without fear. Speaking of the long run, however, I think it is useful to entertain the theory that all things in the universe are parts of our Self. I think we're all learning to love ourselves, & not fuck ourselves over, & that this must include growing to include all things of the universe as equal but different conditions of our Self, & loving all experiences of the universe. We fear to do so entirely, but by this fear we fuck ourselves over!

I hope you don't mind my ramble but this is one of my favorite subjects! :P

I bleed into my heart:
It's empty as a death's head.
Thusly it echoes a beat.

I breath into my lungs:
They're empty as a dead reed.
So do they echo a song.

I peer into my head:
It's full of looking for "Who uttered That Word?"
Thusly does it veil the music.

I've driven to & taught 36 guitar students in the last 5 days, while recently sleeping in a park, in my car, on a beach, on a couch & in a hotel. I guess I like it. :D I really need to find time to find a place to rent, though! :/ (Anyone have a room to rent me?)

"This...is rock & roll."

In the last couple weeks, I've spent several days happily holed up in a room of a mostly-abandoned house for which the lease was about to come up. For most of those days I programmed non-stop & finished a new Palm software release. Man, with every other possible distraction (except eating & sleeping) out of the way & all attention focused, it was actually fun how a momentum got going & just carried me through. I guess professional programmers must know all about that. It just wasn't efficient trying to juggle that kind of project w/ a handful of others at once.

"Ear Trainer will drill you in the skill of recognizing musical pitch intervals, a vital foundation of musicianship. A random interval will be sounded, and you must identify and indicate it correctly by name to proceed.

"(You can educate yourself regarding the intervals and their relationships, names and symbols from Ear Trainer's Menu option 'Theory', or on my website."

I'm hoping I'll be able to repeat this situation & bust out Fretboard Trainer soon.

Alright, haven't update in a while....

I'm taking off to New York. I had a really delicious Italian dinner with my 2 sisters & an amazing woman from L.A. I've been seeing, then spent the night w/ the latter. She's been such a great supportive & balancing influence. So intelligent & sweet. :) Then we said our goodbyes & I moved everything out of my bedroom & painted it in the last 48 hours of my residency. Painting took me thrice as long as it should've 'cause I kept stopping & leaning against a wall to contemplate my situation: The room was totally empty & newly bright white (after being burgundy for a couple years), & no1 could tell I'd ever been there. I thought of how I'd like to dispose of my things & myself when I knew I was going to die. I just stopped talking to my parents. They're great in everything except that we just can't get along. I considered how my family is a safety net, & how beautiful the full range of possibilities are that can happen w/out a safety net, including failure, poverty, criminal victimization, death.... Regarding communicating w/ my parents, I just can't get myself to overlook personal offenses & keep adding to my suppressed anger no matter how much material support is there. It's just not worth it. Wealth is internal: I'd rather live in my car & still have my identity if it came down to that...& it might:

I've discontinued all my lessons w/ my guitar students (w/ a member of Fu Manchu filling in for me). My friend & I thought we'd be on our way to N.Y. by now, but the schedule keeps shifting. I offered my car to a brother in our Order, 'cause my friend was gonna drive, but now it looks like we both will: me in my Civic wagon & he on his motorcycle. I feel a little better about having a car there, though--better security that I'll have a means to move my things when/if necessary. I think I need to talk my friend into sticking around here another month. He has business to wrap up, & a court appointment at the end of the month, & also hopefully N.Y. won't be quite as freezing at that time. Such bumps as these that keep coming up in plans seem to have positive sides to them if I'm just willing to look for them & take advantage of what is there being offered. For example, in this case, I'm sitting around w/out a home or work, but I've always wanted to try a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat. Now's the perfect chance so I've applied to do so. (It's free--they get by on voluntary donations from previous "retreaters".)

Lenny Breau's daughter contacted me. It was a pleasure & honor to meet her over the phone, because Lenny's been such a supreme inspiration to me, & her documentary on him, "The Genius of Lenny Breau", has been as well. She's looking for some1 she spoke w/ in the U.S. previously, but long enough ago that she's lost his phone # & forgotten his exact name. She thinks his name or surname began w/ a "B". I think the point of her interest is that he owned 1 of Lenny's guitars, & seemed to be considering parting w/ it. If you happen to have a lead on this, please let me know so I can pass it on.

I've dropped the price to register Qabalah Trainer by a third--from $24.95 to $16.95!

It's still gonna be several months before I release a new version (with more columns & a View Mode). When I do, upgrade prices will be available to previous owners. So if you've been thinkin' about registering, go for it. :)

(If you haven't seen Qabalah Trainer, check it out.)