Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

1. I was six years old when the concept of Heaven was fully explained to me in St. Julia's First Grade Class at St. Agatha School. I don't remember her exact words, but it left me with the impression that Heaven was a scary place, where everyone sat around on clouds, and there was this toneless sound that just went on and on and on. That was forever. No Bosco cartoons, no Mickey Mouse Club, no plastic soldiers. It scared me. It still does. I got a flashback on those moments listening to ULTIMATE OM.

2. The middle of my second year of law school I bought an album by Robert Fripp and Brian Eno titled NO PUSSYFOOTING which had been described to me by one of my hippy friends as "Deep, man." It was a drone, sounding like Fripp had fallen asleep at the keyboard with his hand depressing a couple of keys, while Eno snored "umm...umm...umm...umm..." Deep. My hippy friend would love ULTIMATE OM. I think I saw him at the end of the I-71 Exit 100 ramp, with a sign that said "Will work for food." I may drop ULTIMATE OM off to him when I get done writing this review. Merry Christmas, Craig.

3. My sons are 24 and 21, now. When they were six and nine and used to get into fights I would separate them, make them kneel down facing away from each other, and make them listen to a CD of Gregorian chants. A couple of times through and they started getting along.  If I had done that with ULTIMATE OM they would have willingly laid down their lives for each other within 20 minutes.

4. My wife just came into my office to try, again unsuccessfully, to catch me downloading porn off of the internet. In an attempt to make conversation, she asked me "Is that CD broken?" She was referring to ULTIMATE OM. If she had heard it when I first met her, when she was going to the Unitarian Universalist Church, she would have asked to borrow it. My work is done.

5. I put ULTIMATE OM on "pause" while I went to get my own coffee refill (maybe my work with the wife isn't quite done yet). I was afraid I might miss something, like in between the ommmmm....droning, and the harmonics or whatever. I could have left it on and driven to New Orleans, caught two sets of Devin Phillips at the Funky Butt, and come back. I wouldn't have missed a thing.

6. People keep bitching about the economy. If people have enough disposable scratch to buy ULTIMATE OM, there's nothing to worry about. All is well. Gee, maybe this meditative music works after all.

7. 71:10, real time. 111:10, digital time. Three days, two hours, seems like time.