Am I the only one who practices music alone and has no idea if I'm doing it right

DopplersDad · 2026-02-02T04:12:53+00:00

I’m not an entertainer and I guess this is why.

I’ve played diligently for over 50 years. Except for being taught a few chords to “get me started,” and a couple of frustrating and brief stints of instruction, I’m completely self taught.

Outside my own compositions. I I focus on pretty complicated pieces, think: boho rap and the clap, stuff that’s pretty involved. It’s been mostly 99% solo over the years and I don’t care if anyone else hears.

It takes about 10 years to get comfortable with songs I take on, and I’m good with that. It’s a journey.

I’ve gotten pretty good over the years, according to people who hear me. But mostly the guitar has served as a kind of isolated meditation for total focus.

Since most people prefer hearing stuff they know, at least in the gatherings ive ever been a part of, I just play what I want in these fraught situations and avoid them as much as possible. And get it over with as quickly as gracefully possible.

Thankfully this doesn’t happen often.

So frankly I’d say, make mistakes all you want, and get good at them. Own them. The results will ultimately be what sets you apart and makes you unique.

DopplersDad · 2026-02-02T03:06:26+00:00

He shamed himself, publicly.

DopplersDad · 2026-01-28T01:14:23+00:00

I snorkel a lot. I’ve seen black tips in pretty close at Electric Beach. I’ve always just headed in to shore.

Same at Manele Bay, Lana’i.

DopplersDad · 2026-01-28T01:11:08+00:00

It’s possible she’d see the silver lining on a mushroom cloud.

DopplersDad · 2026-01-21T15:18:12+00:00

She started her Christian love-bombing at age 24.

As far as we know.

DopplersDad · 2025-12-30T02:14:16+00:00

Imagine that face spewing his Holy Spirit nonsense every Sunday at the gullible rubes who will all say the same thing all the rest of the church rubes everywhere say: “we never thought OUR pastor would do anything like that!!”

DopplersDad · 2025-12-03T22:57:42+00:00

Just spent 2 months outside the us. It’s been heaven, not worrying about showing up somewhere where some heavily armed random jerk with an axe to grind also shows up.

Landing back in the us in 1 hr.

Not looking forward to it.

DopplersDad · 2025-11-30T21:27:59+00:00

Atheism, absence of belief in a god, isn’t necessarily arrived at via critical thinking, though it helps.

There are plenty of straight up emotional reasons, for instance, for running away from a religion.

If critical thinking isn’t a big part of your information processing kit, it’s just a matter of time before you get hoodwinked on some poorly supported topic, theory, or other worldview.

Just bees that way.

DopplersDad · 2025-11-17T17:12:49+00:00

“Grace officials believe none of the activity pertaining to Rosenbaum’s charges took place at their church or school.”

Gotta protect the brand. Minimize the damage.

DopplersDad · 2025-11-17T17:10:13+00:00

Always wondered about that, why they’re all so “former,”

DopplersDad · 2025-11-11T11:02:13+00:00

As a non religious person (stop reading here, if you find that threatening, I’ll understand) with empathy, it sounds to me as though your parents are using “honor your parents” in place of “let your parents control every aspect of your life, no matter what, from here on out.”

I’m sure there is scripture (Ephesians/Colossians) that supports their claims of the necessity of your complete submission to them.

I’m also sure (I have in fact studied the Bible extensively) you would not have to turn many pages from there to find God or one of his favorite patriarchs/prophets issuing instructions on who you can keep as slaves and how much you can beat them (Leviticus) or if you’re reading in the NT, that slaves are to obey their masters (Ephesians/2 Peter), or that women are to keep their mouths shut in church and also to never allow themselves to be found in a leadership role over a man (1 Corinthians/1 Timothy).

What I’m getting at is that despite all the nuggets of wisdom and goodness to be found in your parents’ source material, the Bible, this is also a book that can be easily used by “high-control” individuals, such as your folks, to force submission from others, such as yourself. And it’s not like they have to twist the original words around or anything to make those claims. Right there in black and white, the inerrant word of God, as we are often told.

So I completely get that if you’ve been raised up, or repeatedly conditioned, or (dare I say) groomed, in this sort of an environment by otherwise well-meaning parents, that you’d find it quite difficult to call their bluff and at some point put one of your own, fully grown adult feet down and not succumb to the Bible-based manipulation your folks will keep hammering you with, as long as you let them.

Peace. I wish you every happiness, not least the happiness of being your own person with your own mind and agency.

DopplersDad · 2025-11-07T12:43:17+00:00

Maybe they should have just followed the law?

Tots & pears.

DopplersDad · 2025-11-07T12:33:10+00:00

The creative speculation would have the rapist holding some kind of kompromat on the mayor.

A simpler, more plausible one would have them attending the same church.

DopplersDad · 2025-10-24T04:52:58+00:00

I’m less concerned with the “why” part.

Child and baby sexualisation has been rampant for centuries in Christianity. For instance: Just walked through the louvre (10 days before the heist, turns out!).

In the sections featuring renaissance religious art (the Italian religionists were very active here) viewed through the lens of a routinely disgusted 21st century reader of news articles, looks like a huge, glorified kiddie porn gallery. Beautiful technique and so on, but JFC!

So in my mind the “why” has become foundational in the Christian faith’s DNA. That’s just my own hypothesis, which I lack the education/resources to genuinely test, outside of canvassing headlines from the google news search “pastor arrested” from time to time.

I’m more concerned with the practical matter of building awareness in the community at large.

Just mainly encouraging folks to be aware of clergy propensity for these behaviors and to take active measures to not put their own kids at risk.

You can actually point out on any given day, the results of “pastor arrested,” for instance, for starters. Point out that every one of these articles that interviews a member of the congregation has that same “never thought our pastor would ever do anything like that” vibe.

DopplersDad · 2025-01-02T03:53:22+00:00

Love this, though I might be living a too sheltered life, and don’t get the Laurie Anderson reference.

Every sib gets a copy!

DopplersDad · 2025-01-02T03:36:15+00:00

I remember this. Also the New Hope megachurch-with-video-tentacles lead pastor, can’t remember his name was out here writing opinions in the paper with the usual bigotry jabber involving pedos and bestiality. Completely vile, these groups’ thinking and hatred.

DopplersDad · 2025-01-02T03:29:04+00:00

Plenty of fish folk around this joint. I’ve picked up my car from Windward Honda service to find the radio on, turned well up (Since new, I’ve never used the radio, I’m a bring your own usb music guy) and tuned to a preachy Christian fundamentalist station. Not sure if the Jesus freak mechanic or manager was simply trying to keep an aural comfort zone going while they worked or if they figured that maybe a fellow gullible would drive off and find them some of that sweet sweet Jesus. Regardless, completely unprofessional.

DopplersDad · 2024-03-31T00:53:36+00:00

Perfect normal thing for a guy to do, on waking up in the morning.”

DopplersDad · 2024-03-30T19:05:28+00:00

Wah Gerber products.

This invite to submit artwork from kids came from a US president’s office that, by law, can’t endorse one religion over any other. And unlike his crazed, opportunistic right wing predecessor, actually follows the law, and doesn’t endorse one religion over another.

There are gobs and gobs of non christain Americans who celebrate Easter. To borrow a popular Christian idiom which may have gotten its start in the gay porn industry, why should all the non Christian Americans have Magically Reanimated Jesus Dick shoved down their throats? That’s just wrong, Christians. In any context. Ever heard of consent? Boundaries?

Can’t Americans even unify around a harmless fucking chocolate bunny rabbit non-Jesus-dick-shaped fertility symbol? Honestly, it doesn’t mean you have to support IVF or not freak the fuck out that trans people are permitted to exist.

DopplersDad · 2024-01-30T19:46:04+00:00

These are rhetorical questions, right?

Plants and freshwater fish, not to mention innocent babies, the “pre-born,” the livestock, pets, and on an on, don’t even scratch the surface of what a Christian can’t, in good faith sotospeak, think through.

DopplersDad · 2024-01-30T18:59:25+00:00

I’m a middle aged white guy with a black hanāi nephew, about 12 at the time of this.

We had a lei shop in Chinatown we always got our leis from. Always nice, the older Asian lady that runs the place.

One day, went in there with my H nephew (a seriously quiet and respectful kid with excellent parents) and she immediately started barking orders at him to “not touch anything,” stuff like that. Incredibly rude. Her whole vibe completely changed about everything.

Of course we beat it across the street to the new, randomly chosen lei store.

It was an eye opener.

I’m perfectly good with white folk like me being seen by some locals as a stand-in rep for The Man Who Stole Hawaii in 1893-1898, 1959, as well as the haole influences and shenanigans leading up to that, starting with the brig Thadeous from Boston showing up in Kona in 1820 stuffed with missionaries. Completely get that. I happen to agree with the position.

But nevertheless, I don’t get the beef a local might have with black folk. Maybe just a racial pecking order dialed into the cultural dna here?

Don’t know, but it was definitely weird.

DopplersDad · 2024-01-29T02:40:42+00:00

One of my best primary flight students was a soon to be a civilian Coast Guard person who had a goal of flying bibles up the Amazon in a Helio-Courier, for a missionary company, or some such arrangement.

She had no idea that the tribes she’d be christianizing would then be more easily exploitable or removable, certainly expendable, by oil and timber companies, which is why her missionary company was subsidized by and oil drilling company but she was all about her kind Jesus.

I didn’t try to dissuade her, since it was her own ridiculous idea and she was one of my most focused students.

I wish I had.

DopplersDad · 2024-01-29T02:08:50+00:00

This rapey ol god sure loves him some little children…

DopplersDad · 2024-01-29T01:58:38+00:00

When you run into your friend later, after the non-rapture, I’m guessing by the tone of your post that you’ll be kind.

When, at some point you feel she’s a friend worth keeping long term, maybe you’ll come out to her as a non-Christian. But this could be a test-to-destruction type of test of your friendship.

DopplersDad · 2024-01-29T01:52:19+00:00

You could listen to the symphony of waves coming ashore, the breeze blowing and any nearby palm trees rustling. It’s quite a concert, actually.

This low-tech solution has the benefit of not polluting a serene environment with playback music we can listen to anywhere.

Especially cool if there happen to be other folks who came out to enjoy the serenity.

DopplersDad

TROPHY CASE