A Frank Zappa Sampler: Meet My Favorite Musical Genius

For me, listening to most jazz/rock/blues music is like riding a fairly smooth roller coaster. You close your eyes and travel along with the musicians: up, down and around. In contrast, listening to Frank Zappa's stuff is like riding on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland: You're frequently surprised by quick turns, sharp and steep drops and gentle climbs to peaks with breathtaking views. It's definitely not laid-back, easy listening... but it can be an exciting, rewarding trip! 

Wikipedia summarizes: 

"In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works; he also produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist... His work is characterized by nonconformity, improvisation sound experimentation, musical virtuosity and satire of American culture..."

But what good is it to talk about music? To know Zappa's stuff you have to pop in your earbuds, get comfortable, close your eyes and just enjoy the ride. Here's my curated playlist to get you started. (Watch the videos if you must, but I think it's better to just close your eyes and listen.)

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Disclaimer: 

Zappa's music is undeniably brilliant! However, his lyrics sometimes (though not often) express opinions that I do not personally endorse. So I encourage you to do as I do and disregard any offense that might bubble up within you in response to his more challenging lyrical witticisms. For me, the genius of his music always outweighs any minor feelings of being offended by his social satire. (Often, however, the lyrics are funny as hell!! So let yourself enjoy them.)

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Individual Works

Step into Zappa's world with his unique take on the Allman Brothers' favorite, Whipping Post.

Then move on to the gentle beauty and intensity of Zappa's own Blessed Relief (Outtake Version).

Next, engage the high intensity jazz/rock composition, The Purple Lagoon, from one of my favorite albums, Zappa In New York 

Finally, travel back in time to hear one of Zappa's earlier, less approachable, but brave and engaging pieces, Inca Roads. 

 

Albums 

The samples above are just the tip of a HUGE Zappa iceberg of music! Below is a list of some albums that, together, demonstrate Zappa's range and sheer genius. Check them out and explore his legacy for yourself. 

• The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life

• Zappa '88: The Last U.S. Show (Live At Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY 3/25/88

• Over-Nite Sensation 50th Anniversary Edition  

• Frank Zappa - Waka/Wazoo

Frank Zappa Official YouTube Channel 

Zappa's official YouTube Channel is an incredible compendium of stuff assembled for Zappa super fans. Here you'll find videos with rare concert footage, playlists, music videos and much more. I hope you spend some time there exploring the full power of Zappa's genius. Enjoy!

Go to the Frank Zappa YouTube Channel

See also:

• Music to Get Lost In: A Brief Introduction to Jam Bands
• Replacing Google Play Music: How I Store & Stream 22 GB of My Own Music (MP3s) for a One-Time Cost of $7.99

Summer Reruns: A Few Entertaining Diversions & Inspirations

Whether you're hanging out on your front porch or inside in front of an air conditioner, long, warm summer days can be a good time to kick back, put your feet up and relax with a few media diversions. Or, if you're more ambitious, it can also be a good time to wax philosophical by reviewing some nuggets of wisdom handed down by the great philosophers and teachers.

Whichever your inclination, you'll find some useful resources below. I culled these from many years of my published articles, each of which took substantial effort to create. So that these don't disappear completely into our shadowy past, I hereby resurrect them as summer reruns. Enjoy!

The Media Diversions 

An intro to the long form music of jam bands
with links to nine classic performances

Travel by video to cities, villages & rural areas of
 the UK, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, Canada & More

Free media w/no ads from your local library

Beyond his fiction... Explore the world of the late
1800s with Robert Louis Stevenson's travel writing.

Sex & drugs & rock & roll: A wild ride
through one young man's 1960s

Some Nuggets of Wisdom & Inspiration 

A collection of 30 podcasts to enlighten & inspire

Not happy? Take charge & change your mood!

Confused & frustrated by current events?
Go deeper, challenge yourself, learn more.

Why you ought to be creating something...
and how to get started

More Good Stuff from the Archives

• The Science of Happiness: Part 1, A Little Theory

• The Science of Happiness: Part 2, Some Fun Stuff

• The Science of Happiness: Part 3, Train Yourself to Be Happier

• In Case You Missed Them: My Best Articles of 2022

• In Case You Missed Them: Some Ideas “Worth Sharing” from the Past Couple of Years

• My Website Migration: And Then There Were Three

• Got downtime? Teach yourself project management with these free videos and tools!

• Some New Graffitti on the Wall of the Universe: All My Stuff at Internet Archive

Become an armchair expatriate with these 55 video series that'll take you out of the U.S. & around the world!

These video series shown above will take you on regular trips to South Africa, Australia, England, Greek island of Corfu and India!

Armchair Expats

My wife and I have spent nearly every evening for the past decade or so as armchair expatriates, leaving America behind and spending hours in other parts of the English-speaking world. We travel by video streaming services to cities, villages and rural areas of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, India, Canada and pretty much anywhere that English speaking folks have established themselves. We leave behind the bulletproof vests, serial killers, SWAT teams, predator-driven, high-intensity thrillers and cheesy "reality" shows that make up a typical evening of American television. 

Our Viewing Criteria

We have this test question for any new TV series: "Would we want to have dinner with these characters?" If so, we watch a few episodes and ask another question: "Do I feel better after spending time in this series?" As long as we can answer both of these questions in the affirmative, we keep watching the series. But if the episodes start going dark, nasty or generally emulating the "edgy" dreck served up by most American media we instantly drop them and move on.

Looking back over our nightly travels "abroad," we see that the series we spend the most time with share many of these qualities: 

• There are no commercials or ads breaking up the flow (at least there are none after each episode begins).

• The characters are generally good people with reasonably good intentions.

• The characters are pursuing laudable goals and encountering plausible obstacles that they eventually overcome.

• There is little or no violence or gore.

• There is beautiful scenery.

• Our characters are not constantly battling a life-threatening evil or slogging through a dark, dystopian world.

• When the series is over we feel better, rather than worse, at having spent time with these characters. In particular, we don't feel ashamed or voyeuristic at having been sucked into something that was mostly negative or merely sensationalistic.

Our Recommended Series

Below is a list of 55 fictional series we have seen and recommend, categorized by the part of the world to which they will take you. The majority of these are from two low-cost sources: Acorn TV ($5.99/month) and PBS Passport ($5/month). A few are from Hulu and Netflix. 

[Dec 6, '22 Update: We're currently exploring & enjoying Britbox (from BBC & ITV). So far we can recommend these full original series set in England: Cold Feet, As Time Goes By and All Creatures Great & Small (1978 version, 90 episodes!). But you'll find many more contemporary series from BBC and ITV there as well.]

Replacing Google Play Music: How I Store & Stream 22 GB of My Own Music (MP3s) for a One-Time Cost of $7.99

 

Ah, Google Play Music... How I miss you!

Once upon a time, I was a loyal and satisfied Google Play Music customer. I used it to:

• Upload and store thousands of my own MP3 music files (many pulled from my own CDs) in the cloud.
• Search for and purchase new music as MP3 files.
• Stream music to my Android tablet and phone.
• Save and play my custom playlists offline.
• Cast music to any combination of my eight Google Home speakers.
• Stream music from my phone to my Android Auto screen and control playback hands-free while driving.

And all this was free of any monthly costs and free of advertising. The only cost was a one-time purchase fee for new songs or albums from the Google Play store.

And then Google killed Google Play Music and replaced it with YouTube Music, which requires that I pay a monthly fee for doing many of the things that Play Music did for free. Worse, they insert ads where there had been none before!

The bottom line: I decided to figure out how to replicate the old Google Play Music experience using free alternatives. And I'm pleased to say that my new music streaming system works great!

My New Cloud Storage & Streaming System

Here are the key components of my Google Play Music replacement:

• CloudPlayer Platinum app: $7.99 one-time purchase
• 15 GB Google Drive cloud storage account: Free
• 5 GB Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage account: Free
• 2 GB Dropbox cloud storage account: Free
• [for buying new music] Mp3Caprice.com account: $0.12 - 0.22 (Yes, that's 12 - 22 cents!!) per MP3 song, one-time purchase fee

Using the components above, I am able to do pretty much everything I was able to do with Google Play Music, including casting music to any cast-enabled device. The only thing missing is the ability to initiate music playing by saying, "Okay Google, play [playlist]..." Instead, I use my phone or tablet as a remote control to begin casting a particular playlist via CloudPlayer. Then, once the playlist has started playing on my Google Home or Nest smart speakers, I can use "Okay Google..." voice commands to stop, pause, rewind, tell me the name of the song that's playing, etc. So for a one-time cost of just $7.99 I get pretty much everything I need from my personal, custom-made, ad-free streaming service. **

(NOTE: If I had a TON of my own music and needed more than 22 GB I could buy 100 GB of storage for just $20/year from Google Drive. But, for now at least, I have plenty of cloud capacity so I'm going to stick with my free 22 GB storage strategy.)

So how can you set up your own service like this? It's easy! Below are the steps.

How to Build Your Own 22GB Cloud Streaming Service for One-Time Fee of $7.99

In Case You Missed Them: Some Ideas “Worth Sharing” from the Past Couple of Years

My strategy for getting through the pandemic:
Research, create, share, repeat... & relax!  😁

Introduction

These past couple of years have been difficult for us all, to say the least. [Insert your own pandemic-related miseries here as evidence.] If you’re like me, you’ve had to make a real effort to stay positive. And if we can’t always achieve the positive, then we can at least achieve a measure of sanity by doing the little things, and maybe a few big things, that keep us grounded. As a former trainer/consultant and author, I find that the act of creating and sharing something which has potential value for someone else provides meaning and a much-needed sense of purpose. Whether these creations are actually used and valued by anyone I can’t be sure. But I do know that the act of creating them puts me in touch with my muse or Source or whatever. And I felt much better as a result of making and releasing them.

Below are links to some items Worth Sharing that might have escaped your attention as you endured the last couple of years. Here you’ll find: 

• Practical tools and info you can immediately use.

• Mental health tools and encouragement (including a few audio podcasts) that can help you acquire perspective and get through these tough times.

• Some moral and ethical challenges. 

• Some links to the creations that I’d like to share as my legacy. (Almost all of these are absolutely free.)

I hope you find something valuable here. 

Is your video streaming tap leaking money? Here's a 4-step strategy for taking control.

It's money down the drain!

A leaky faucet can be insidious thing. A barely noticeable drip, drip, drip easily falls below our awareness. Yet running hour after hour, day after day, it can siphon away a huge amount of water and lead to a massive surprise water bill. And worse, the water is pointlessly gone without ever being used!

Monthly payments can be like that dripping faucet. Seemingly insignificant expenses can easily fall below the radar as we automatically pay them and go about our busy lives. And when these expenses are for stuff we don't really use, well... that's just a stupid waste!

In this article I'm going to challenge you to think about one category of monthly expenses that can easily get out of control if you don't consciously manage it. I'm talking about streaming services. And like the water from that dripping faucet, the dollars spent on that unused (or underused) streaming service is gone forever, leaving you with nothing to show for having spent them! Consider this from Lifewire.com:

"The average person who uses streaming services subscribes to between five and seven services. You know the ones: Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Discovery+, Paramount+, Peacock, HBO Max, and others."

So let's say you are limiting yourself to five of these. The basic, ad-free versions of five of the services above could get you a monthly bill of around $65. Subscribe to all nine of the services listed and you'll be paying well over $100/month with fees. Add this to your cable bill (Why are you still buying cable!?! Can't you use an antenna?? That's a topic for another day...) and your internet bill and WOW -- that can add up to some very big bucks spent on content!  

Seriously: Step back and ask yourself: Do you actually use every one of your streaming services every day? ... every week? Do your payments stop when you're not using a service? Have you really "dug deep" into the catalogs of any of your services to see what shows you're paying for, but not watching?  If any of these questions make you uncomfortable, then you're ready for a more disciplined, strategic approach to your streaming. 

A Four-Step Strategy for Taking Control of Your Media Streaming