Whoa, hang on there ...

First of all, this is not an argument, this is the beginning of a hopefully mature, thoughtful, articulate and critical discussion about a major artist and performer in our "scene" ... Why you would want to intervene here and try to stop that from happening is totally beyond me.

Second of all, people discuss the relative genius and the occasiopnal shortcomings of various painters, writers, poets, singers, rappers, scuptors, playwrights, photographers, actors, comedians, film directors, et cetera ... When did Middle Eastern percussionists become sacrosanct, off-limits and above critique?

Third of all ... "Who am I to judge, who are you to judge, who is he to judge?" That reasoning makes NO sense at all and never has. I am not a film director or a blues-rock guitar icon, but I am also not an absolute incoherent moron incapable of developing a well-formed and articuilate opinion ... I can make a pretty good case about why I don't like the works of Quentin Tarantino or Eric Clapton, and even make a good stand on why I prefer Atom Egoyan and Thurston Moore. Hell, we actually learn things from these comparisons! The X Versus Y style of analysis is a very handy tool that teaches us how to prioritize our values, identify and remove the unwanted things and focus on the good stuff.

Lastly, there is a time to worry about what goes on your tombstone, and there is a time to focus on the here and now, while we are actually LIVING. Whay is it more important to have "Loving husband and Father" written on your tombstone, after you're just one big maggot-slurpee, than it is to actually BE those things NOW. Forget all of this babble about cemeteries and tombstones.

Honestly, I don't want to live in a world where everybody is special, where we all have "gifts" with which to "make things better" (whatever that means), we all pretend that we're all equal at everything, nobody wants to risk hurting someone else's feelings, and we all start squirming when we start to disagree about something. No, thanks.

Ellisa, I just had to laugh! I have looked wistfully at Mendocino camp but it always runs the same time as Ya Halla. It is like...girls with curly hair wish their's was straight and those with straight want to try curly LOL

But I would pick classes with Issam over Mendocino everytime.

BTW, I have played and really like the Soloist. It is like the best of both worlds. I have not tried a SkynDeep on my GEFs or Souhail's Sumbati but that is in the works.

Ah yes, the 3 'P's of drumming: Practice, Practice, Practice ;-)